In Paddington

Since living in London, I've developed the opinion that copying famous place names for new areas is a pretty dumb idea. Apart from being unoriginal and lame, it's just plain confusing; me saying "I've moved into a place in Paddington" could mean London, or Sydney, or even Brisbane. No-one says "Oh, I thought you meant Indooroopilly in New York" and this is good, in my humble opinion.

So I've moved into a place in Paddington Brisbane. The house itself is an old Queenslander, furnished in the baroque student style, with battered couches, festy bathroom and a family of mice behind the dishwasher. It lacks a washing machine, but has that magical Queenslander wind tunnel through the house from the front door to the back, which hopefully will make the coming summer more bearable.

I'm sharing with another programmer, which means the house instantly has a big TV, Foxtel cable, a DVD player and a nice fat Optus broadband connection. It's not quite the nerdboy den we had in St Lucia (that's St Lucia Brisbane, dammit) but it's getting there. The guy is a friend of my girlfriend, which means if she and I break up, I'll have to kill him and find another flatmate. Maybe he'll have the sense to just leave the country.