I have booked my flights back to England for my brothers wedding in November. I have somehow ended up using three airlines. Emirates, British Airways and Cathay Pacific, I am hoping the Cathay Pacific business class seat is a lot better this time. Unfortunately I will not be able to see any football whilst I am there and I am missing the derby by only a few weeks. So close but so far.

Two trips back to England within 4 months means I am not planning on another trip in the foreseeable future as I am hoping in the next year or so I will be watching Manchester City Football Club play in a final, any final will do :)

I have just voted in my first ever Australian election and as I had never voted before in England I have nothing to compare it against but after reading what happened in England last election I am happy to say it look me less than 15 minutes.

Australia really know how to process large queues, in my time here I have had to queue for visas, airport immigration, immigration health checks and now voting and the speed at which they work is amazing.

The old couple you see leaving the building , the lady with the red coat on was let into the queue by a lovely lady as she walking so slow. You can gauge how slow she was by the fact she was 10 in front of me and I've already voted and gone outside to take a few photos. I am not so sure voters in England would let the elderly push in without some complaining but I imagine those selfish types would not show up as voting in England is not compulsory whereas here it is or you get fined.

It reminded me when I came back from England and I had hurt my foot so I was hobbling around the airport. In England nobody stopped to let me pass and I had to work around people whizzing trolleys past me but as soon as I was Melbourne Airport people kept stopping to let me hobble past. It is that attitude which is why this place is the best in the world and now I have just contributed to the future political direction of this great country.

This Saturday is my first Australian Election as an Australian citizen and as voting here is compulsory, this will be the first time I have ever voted in my life.

I have located the nearest place I can place my vote but I still have no idea who I am going to vote for. Coverage is very poor here and neither main party has bothered to use any social networking to inform us of what they plan to do. It seems to be a straight choice between a woman who I can not understand or some crazy right-wing chauvinist who is a man, surprise surprise.

After such a short trip back to England and with hardly any sleep all week my economy return flight was not looking very appealing. I had used some air miles to upgrade to business on my flight from Australia so now was the time to see about an upgrade to get back home.

I called Emirates and discovered that there were no available seats and I was not on the 7hour and then 14hour flight but three 7hour flights nicknamed, smokers route.

Thankfully my dad stepped in and a quick search under his BA air miles account revealed a stunner. 1st Class with Cathy Pacific via Hong Kong which is why I am dressed like a china man. Every airline should offer a doona (duvet) instead of those stupid blankets and when we landed I actually just wanted to stay in bed lol.

My conclusion, this bed knocked Emirates 1st Class out of the park but I have to admit I have not tried Emirates 1st Class Private room but unless it comes with a mattress and a doona then Cathy Pacific is the one for me. An additional bonus is that the airport at Hong Kong is so much nicer than Dubai. The smoking room is even opposite the lounge and next to the gate I arrived at whereas at Dubai you are stuck on a bus for 15mins and then you have to walk for miles as the airport is so big.

Some sad news, last week I had to go back to England for the funeral of my grandma, Jeanette Donn. She was a character who lived a good life and enjoyed playing cards, watching Manchester City and smoking, we had two out of three things in common :) She had many more interests but these were the ones I will always remember her for.

This was one of the last photos we had taken together at a Manchester city game a few years ago when I came back from Australia for a holiday.

I was fortunate that I was able to spend some quality time with her when I came back before she passed away at the age of 88. I recall at my sisters wedding she kept coming over to me to see if I would come outside for a smoke with her and when she got locked out of her bedroom, she came looking for me. I like to think it was because I was her smoking partner but it may have more down to the fact her room was on my credit card.

Always Remembered
Never Forgotten
You will be missed xxx

A new shopping centre has opened up around the corner from me so I do not have to walk 20 minutes to the nearest shop. I only discovered it on Saturday and I have already been twice. I treated myself to the Dettol No-Touch Hand Wash System which is really good and should hopefully stop me from having to replace them every other week. I now need to have one for my shampoo and conditioner.

The worlds largest Manchester City football shirt is on display at Khalidiyah Mall in Abu Dhabi. The shirt is 22 metres long and 18 metres wide and had to be folded several times to fit in a room. Who said we were not massive :)

Hopefully Manchester City will get us some better pictures soon. Read the full story at The National UAE News

A man from the United Kingdom is trying to break the record for the most number of seeders on a torrent and you can be a part of it. The current record is apparently 124,000 which I think is very low so I am sure we can blow this out of the water and get the biggest swarm known to man.

The torrent can be obtained from both the piratebay, and EZTV, or by using these magnet links for utorrent and Vuze.

I downloaded a great app for my iPhone to analyze my sleep patterns.  I am not sure that this month is the best to use as my benchmark due to the World Cup being played through the night and being totally stressed out at work.

I had another crazy week at work preparing for a big change on a high profile system and it went live without any problems, the public response seemed positive looking at the real time stats but the real test will be when the media are informed.

It is a long weekend in Australia as Monday is a public holiday for the Queens birthday and it is the start of the World Cup. We are moving offices so my office computer is locked in a box being transported and installed in the new premises this weekend so I can not do any work this weekend and can sit back, enjoy the football and for the first time in six weeks I can relax.

Opening night of the World Cup was very positive, you can not complain when you get two goals in the first game and tonight, well 4am tomorrow England play and then Australia the night after :)

I have printed my colour world cup chart with Australian times so I do not get confused half way through and miss a game or even worse agree to an early meeting which clashes with a 4am game and that is nicely attached to my wall. FYI if my agent reads this, do not worry I have used blu-tack.

Adam Santarossa has won a competition called the Man in the Ball and he gets to spend the next 31 days of the World Cup living inside this 6ft football which is placed on Southbank outside Crown. As it is a very busy area of the city he spent his first night being woken up as people kept tapping on his window and staring in. He does not even have curtains lol