Still in Melbourne....

Friday 7th January 2011 – Sat 22nd January 2011

Well, not having much fun at The Corkman. Stacey the general manager finally came back and reliveved small one of his 72 hour weeks which he only gets paid for 45. Sat for 5 hours with her in the bar going through everything that has and has not happened. Including the bonus tall one was promised by the owner and has not been mentioned. When he approached him about it he said he was just about to bring it up himself, after pre-emptying tall one asking for the last few weeks by droning on about the business' debt.

Still sorting canada visas, moscow visas. Vietnam one came back in 2 days. Moscow one has a weird delay as tall one filled in wrong form. They need to know a lot more if you are UK or USA. Strange Russian woman phone call told him which form, he e-mailed it only to be told wrong one need double one? E-mailed back, but it is a 2 page form and it is the exact same form you told me to do?? Still nothing, so filled in again and re-e-mailed three times and posted... bloody ruskies... not worth the hassle for two poxy nights in moscow. Canada visa's opened 18th January, took small on 12 hours to fill out application, getting parents date of births, letters from banks, irish and aussie police certs, copy of cv, copy of passport, passport photos, copy of aus working visa.... sent it for $45 to Paris, as obviously being Irish, living in Australia, applying for a Canadian visa he must send the application to France?? Then he realzied he'd fille din something wrong and was not sure if they'd just decline it. They may be better than the russians at least??

Went to see 2001 at the Astor theatre. Small one sat through very very long sequences of models put to classical music and fell asleep, waking up to find he'd missed nothing at all. Also went to the Chill On Ice Bar in the week. A bar which is basically just a walk in freezer with a couple of ice sculptures, and a small bar. Cost $30 for the coats and gloves and a cocktail with a shot. Drunk through ice made glasses, they were quit enice drinks, but after 10 minutes they left as could see no point waiting the full 30 minutes in a fridge. They were in shorts as well which did not help, and then the girl took half an hour to print off their out of focus photo for $15.

Some excitement in the hostel, which has been non stop busy, with people phoning and e-mailing the pub and hostel 5-6 times a day. An english girl arrived and was throwing up violently all day. The next mornign she felt better and at 8am was on the PC outside reception. She got up to leave and walked smakc into the door post. Fell on her back dazed by reception. Tall one and the whiney German girl went to her, and she staretd bleeding from her eyebrow badly. There was no first aid kit of course.... She felt better and went to hospital. Thankfuly she had food poisoning but not from the pub. It was fun watching the secuirty video back at least. Now preparing for tall and small's 2 week vacation to Tasmania and Canberra, in a few days time. The owner and Stacey have sorted no cover at all. Rohan is supposed to be doing hostel, but can't even cover it properly on tall one's two usual days off a week without chatting to guests for half an hour and missing hte door bell. Stacey also came out with if she or Rohan needed ot stay over, of course they'd need to use OUR flat?? Tall one pointed out that he does pay for that and has tenants rights to know hwo is going in it and when. Spent the day trying to find all the spare keys and hide them. Still, owner is in today, and sure he will not agree to that, there is nor eason why anyone should need to sleep in OUR bed??

Later on the friday took all day for Kieran to give Tall one his bonus and even a small one for Small one. Both were shocked that it actually happened. Rohan had training for the hostel, but after so many screw ups this week covering for tall one's days off, not sure how he'll cope 7 days a week for 2 weeks... Stacey, Conor and Kieran all chewed him out of it, he must be terrified form the pressure having been told if you screw this up your gone. Two poot swedish lads turned up at 1am wanting to check in after reception closes at 11pm. Small one felt sorry for them sat on the street there and checked them in anyway as they were almost in tears. Whilst small one working behind the bar had a shock when Irish runner Sonia O'Sullivan came in. He let her pour her own Guinness behind the bar and got a photo with her. Holiday next week....!??

Thursday 30th December 2010 - Thursday 6th January 2011



New check ins at The Corkman for New Years Eve. Most of the weirdos here for the Ashes had left...

A little fella from Brussells turned up called either Agent Laurent or Laurent Agent... He'd been e-mailing 6-7 times for the last month about absoloutley nothing, even the day he was due to turn up he e-mailed and said "i'll be there in 40 minutes". He turned up very small with glasses and with a 1kg box of chocolates to give Tall one, only to find it was his day off and had to give them to Small one. Small one's friend Louise also showed up. New Years Eve was downstairs in the Pub. After telling the hostel crowds that they can't bring their own, the German couple who broke their bed asked if they could bring their wine. Small one said yes as long as it's just you.... so they turned up with four friends who all brought their own drink. Small one ordered $100 worth of pizza for everyone and asked for $5 each, he ended up paying $50 himself as most people didn't bother paying. Though they were pleased with the Jingle Cats music being played, which was Christmas and New Year songs sung by cats.... Irish Ian was now behind over a week in rent and after a very sociable Christmas Party with him he sulked and did not speak to Tall or Small for days. Finalyl he was told pay up or move out friend or no friend rather than avoiding now 2 weeks rent. So finalyl turned up with his mothers credit card details to pay... New Years turned out to be 40 degrees, and walked down to Federations quare to watch the firworks over the Yarra River and the ones released from the tops of the sky scrapers. It was packed with people walking very very slowly shoulder to shoulder. Police struggled to move people off the bridge which had signs saying no stopping on the bridge. After 5 minutes they just gave up trying.

On the sunday went to see The Good the Bad and The Ugly at the Astor Theatre with Liam and his girlfriend. On the tram down a strange man in a hawian shirt and a huge sombereo got on, we were convined that's where he was going to, but he got off well before. Stopped on Lygon Street for a Curry at an Indian Restaurant a few days later. Small and Tall were the only other customers after one table inside. They sat their for 15 minutes till they got their beer, after another half an hour they got free pomadoms, by now the place was full and people were being told it was an hours wait on food. Then it became an hour after they had ordered themselves, even though they had been the second table there... So they walked out. The staff were bemused why they were upset. Stopped at the dvd rental place were renting the movie 'Chaplin' they put the wrong DVD disc inside, and at the flat Tall one opened it to see 'Poirot'. He took it back and suggested that perhaps the cashier got confused when they saw two men with small moustaches. Amongst other things, with Small one running pub on his own and the hostel on his day off, they have been trying to sort out visas for Moscow, Vietnam and Canada, as wlel as book flights and buses for Tasmania and Canberra, trying to plan trip round Laos, Cambodia and Thailand and their time in London and Dublin. Eight countries to plan for is quite tiring, plus they never took that insane bus driver to court.

Monday 20th - Wednesday 29th December 2010

Christmas Dinner at the hostel turned out alright. Thirty guests paid their $20 each and tall and small traisped down to Aldi several times to get supplies. Christmas Day morning cooked 70 bits of chicken, 40 burgers, 40 sausages, 24 pies, 24 sausage rolls, 5kg of chips, 30 pizza slices, cheese and crackers, 40 bits of christmas cake, 40 mince pies, pretzels and crisps, two bowls of salad, four vegetable lasagne, 40 garlic bread slices, 72 bottles of VB Beer and a christmas cracker each. Turned out an overcast but warm day in the park, which was deserted. A good crowd and only about a quarter of the food was eaten, the rest went to the flies. Small one spent the afternoon putting a variety of small instruments up his nose, from cheesy balls, to mini santas, to small clapping hands from the crackers... whole Lutz from the kitchen, and hostel resident/casual barman Ian dressed up as super heros using paper serviettes, make shift eye holes in their paper hats and some ketchup. At one point it looked like a tramp would join them but he moved on. Had spent the Christmas Eve night before in the pub where Small One gave the regulars and a group of 5 irish boys here for the Cricket / Ashes two crates of VB and some pizzas to eat. So a pretty good Christmas. Pub was open for limited hours by the monday, but nobody turned up except the furniture at the bar, Max, Dublin John, Keith and little Tommy. Keiran made an appearnac eot grab the money and run again not stopping to make any chit chat or even give us a christmas card. Stacey was long gone in Ireland, and was expected back in 2-3 weeks. Small and Tall did their best tpo ignroe the Ashes and some of the annoying enw residents who kept talking about it. The weather turne dout very ncie all week at 25-30 degrees for a change. Went to the old Astor Cinema near St Kilda to see a double bill of silent movies, Chaplins Modern Times and Buster Keaton's The General. Small one was not too sure it was for him, but glad he had gone. Except for the weird middle aged man who sat behind them and said to his friend it was a good job he was not sat at the front as he'll be laughing so hard he'll no doubt fall over the edge??! Tall and Small moved seats, but it wasn';t far enough. All through the movie the man laughed like an ass at the most random of sequences ont he screen, which were not even meant as jokes. Well that's that. Other than Tall one having to keep a group of 4 girl's key deposits as they snuck in some random bloke to sleep for free in their room all night. Trying to sneak past reception at 8.15am they did not realize Tall one was sat there watching it all on his CCTV screen. So charged them for one night's accomodation out their key deposit.

Tuesday 7th December - Sunday 19th December 2010

A very very strange week full of nothing but complaints and complaining....

Starting with a responce form the SuperTaxRefund company, who Tall one had e-mailed all 30-40 other hostels around Melbourne using the hostel e-mail ring they are part of, and had warned them about the company and stated what had happened. The rep for SuperTaxRefunds had said he'd gone around all the hostels the last week to find all the manager's had torn down his posters and told him they'd heard bad things about him. He phoned up small one (Not tall one) and said he'd come in to apologise to tall one with a present. He turned up with a bottle of champagne and some shortbread. He told us about the responce of the other hostels and said how he'd got a full time job from Dirk out of this, to sort out their damaged rep. He confirmed Dirk was lazy and did nothing for my refund and apologised more sincerely than Dirk had. It was a bizarre apology which included him awkwardly talking about his Grandfather working as a spy in the war and about how he use to sell surf boards on the sunshine coast??? Right.

On the tuesday day off it was due nice weather so tall and small headed down to Mornington Peninsula for the day, it was an hour on a train and then a bus journey. On their way out they bumped into the perverse cleaner with the boys haircut, who was in tears saying she was leaving as Kieran is not paying her bills... Oh right sorry, we have a train to catch. Caught the train down to Frankston and then waited for the bus to Portsea, but was assaulted by this big, shaven headed, moustache aussie thug of a bus driver. This was the complaint letter written that evening:

To Whom it May Concern,

I wish to make a complaint about one of your drivers after an incident today in which myself and a friend were threatened and treated extremely inappropriately.

This took place in Frankston (14th Dec 2010), involving the driver of the 10:55am Bus on Route 788 to Portsea. The bus number was 484 and the drivers name was 'Davee'.

The bus arrived ten minutes early and my friend and I got on to the bus as the front doors were opened. We swiped our metcards and as we were walking on the driver was barking quite loudly the word "OFF! OFF! OFF! OFF! OFF!" Neither my friend or I could see who he was directing this at or why and continued to walk onto the bus. To which the driver aggressively grabbed hold of the back of my friends top and pulled him back to the door and said very loudly "GET OfF THE BUS!". My friend complained that the driver should keep his hands off of him and had no right to touch anybody as it was assault. The driver kept repeating GET OFF THE BUS GET OFF THE BUS. Two other passengers getting on behind us looked as bewildered as us. We got off the bus and sat down on the step outside the station. The driver got off the bus and locked the bus up to go and get some food. Before he went off he marched over to us and stood with his face right up to ours and said very aggressively "That was not assault mate, if I wanted to assault you i'd have fucking hit you in the face".... We said he should not being grabbing hold of anybody on the bus, to which he said we should not have got on the bus until everybody had got off. At the time there were a few people left on the bus who were exiting through the middle door anyway. He then told us we were not getting on his fucking bus, to which we said we did not want to anymore. Later he came back and sat in the drivers seat and kept staring at us aggressively until the bus left. The other two passengers who had over heard the whole thing were as shocked as we were saying that he clearly wasn't having a very good day.

Neither myself or my friend are school kids, we are 29 and 28 years old and were down to the coast for a day trip. He completely upset our whole day, leaving us both quite shaken. How a man like this with so little people skills and such a short fuse is aloud to work with the public I do not know. If he had not wanted us to get on the bus all he had to say was "guys don't get on the bus yet....", not "OFF OFF OFF??" and start grabbing clothing and making threats. The manner in which he behave and spoke to us we really felt like he was ready to take a swing at us, and so changed our plans for the day to avoid any return bus which may have him driving.

We noticed later how some of the buses had security cameras and audio recording by the driver (and also outside the station where we sat), I hope that this bus had these devices so that somebody at Grenda can view this man's actions which are completely inappropriate.

We would like to receive an update on what action will be taken against this man, as presently we are considering reporting the incident to the police.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The inccident did ruin the supposed relaxing day at the beach and we just went to Mornington itself instead of Portsea so we wouldn't find ourselves facing the same driver on a return bus. Mornington was very nice. The water was crystal clear and turqoise like up in Coral Bay and Whitsundays, much much ncier than the St Kilda and Brighton Beaches. Had an enormous chicken meal in town and then an enormous pancake meal on the jetty. Did not swim and then came back on the train to write the complaint letter. On the return bus to Frankston THAT bus driver went mental as well, at least not with us. A car cut him up to cut across to the next lane. The bus driver then slowed the bus right down to drive alongside the car to shout and stare abuse at him despite the fact our lane was clear ahead. Must be something in the water down here that all the bus drivers drink?

That same Tuesday night sat downstairs in pub and ate our meal. The pub quiz was dead, so did not join in, but got every one of the James Bond theme tunes he played, not sure if I was proud or not? One of the furniture Margie was there who would NOT shut up talking. Tall, Small and Stacey all left early because of the rubbish she spoke about her theories on this and that in that droll, condescending voice. She said she'd lend tall one sopme magazines which he didn't want and also some James Bond books? Which of course she confirmed 'I would want them back of course'.... Sure enought he next day she turned up with a bag of car magazines and Diamonds are Forever??

The week went on and not sure what was happening with this staff night out on Saturday which everyone had boycotted the night out in the pub cooking and serving ourselves and Kieran's family? To which he wasn't oo happy about. Th ebus company responded very coldly to our complaint that they had reviewed and saved the footage and the driver did act inappropriatley which they apologize for, however there were some contributing factors like us claiming it was assault and how we refused his legatimate request to leave the bus. To which we responded, firstly how was us claiming assault a contributing factor when we only claimed it after the assault, and also pointed out that despite the drivers claim that assault was a hit in the face that assualt was any means of intimidation by force. We also pointed out there was no reason for us to refuse a request to leave the bus, and that the driver had not made a coherent request for us to leave... They said we could take it further with an obudsman or the police, and that we could not get a copy of the footage ourselves or know what legal action was taken with the driver,

The staff do came around on the saturday. Had decided to just og up Brunswick street. Small, Tall and Ian & Jack from the Hostel went up to the Drunken Poet at 3pm for a few drinks first, but everyone just ended up staying there. They were looking forward to barmaid Erin coming but found out she was bringing her boyfriend. They thought they would be able to compete easily and then she turned up with this ridicously stunning, surfer looking guy, who even Ian and Jack said "was better looking than Erin" and he got more attentiion from the guys than her that night, the poor bastard, it was all very bizarre. Stacey turned up and she and Small one had an argument in front of everyone about how he passes on all this confidential stuff she tells him, about how they are stringing the other staff along... she looked like she was ready to cry. Then more or less was accused of keeping some of the money Kieran gave her and the tip money for herself when she said th ebar tab was finished. She disappeared for an hour and we thought she had gone home sulking, but hten she turned up with 13 boxes of pizzas?? It was all very bizarre and awkward. Never the less she turned up monday mornignf or work all perky and chatty as if nothing had happened. Still it'll be Christmas soon. Missing a white christmas back in the UK and Ireland. Half the people in the hostel might be stuck here as the airports are closed...