Am home!

[blamebrampton]

The problem, the really enormous and hard to get past problem, with Australia is that it is just too far from everything and everyone.

I have long travel diary posts coming, with photos, now that I am back on the Macbook (it is the size of a house after the teeny netbook!) and can type with fewer disastrously bad typos. I was going to be religious about getting things up in a timely fashion, but was thwarted by the need to write some stories for work, write for Glompfest so ladydeth12  could know that her marvellousness is appreciated, and actually travel about the place having adventures that could be written up into amusing anecdotes as I went. 

Tragically, I ran out of London time so spectacularly that I wasn't able to catch up with melusinahp  or see if vashtan  was up for a beverage, and despite passing through Wilts twice, could not stop to track down the estimable wemyss , though I am about to embark on some very interesting reading thanks to same and I did wave out the window in an all-encompassing Queen Mother Approved fashion (which may explain the two bottles of gin I found myself impelled to buy at the duty free). oddishly , feralcheryl  and quatrefoil ,  I have postcards for all of you, but failed to actually write down your new addresses because I am an idiot. Several postcards were sent to people – who, I have no idea, and yes, I did carry most of them across half of Europe and post them at the airport, need you even ask?

I caught up with some of my very fave people, and met the wonderful thisgirlis  and theodoraleft  -- more of which in the travel diary posts coming, but I am constantly amazed at the loveliness of people on my flist.

And now to sleep erratically for a few days to make up for the flight home and the whopping great sleep debt I managed to build up while I was away!

Quick question: to monster someone, as in 'I liked the fact that Dudley could see the good in Harry, but he did monster him appallingly in the first few books' – is that an Australianism? I have no idea where I picked it up – at this point my English is as deranged as my Italian, though with more vocabulary.

As a side note, do you have any idea how hard it is to explain an Australian customs form to a non-English-speaking Romanian using only Italian and mime? Are you carrying any meat or meat products, indeed! 

Finally, thank you so much to everyone who has been posting the Dan Radcliffe clip today, it made me laugh so much! Here it is at the lovely rubytuesday5681 's.

I ... I really miss England. For all that I am looking out on a sunshine-filled patch of green garden here with cats bathing in the pools of light. I really miss it. 

Comments

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Hah, you pass through here all the time. :) Next time?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Never heard "to monster" before (and I once even resided in your country).

Would have thought pretending to chew on ones own arm would adequately describe meat products ... erm, maybe I'm wrong. *g*

[being-here.livejournal.com]

Alas that I missed you again! I would travel the length of the country to buy you booze you know ;p

[alisanne.livejournal.com]

Welcome home! :)

[treacle-tartlet.livejournal.com]

*rejoices*

Of course, one great advantage of living in Australia is that YOU ARE CLOSE TO MEEEEE! \o/

Random Welcome Home Anecdote: Following Chicken II, daughter of the late lamented, is henceforth to be known as Chip-stealing Chicken With Overdeveloped Sense Of Entitlement (or Get Away You Thieving Bastard for short), having strolled up and stolen a hot chip out of Small Girl's bowl as we sat under the oak tree eating dinner yesterday.

Good to have you back, darling!

[quatrefoil.livejournal.com]

Yep, the verb to monster is 'chiefly Aust.', and will be in the forthcoming edition of the Australian National Dictionary. (I popped into the Australian National Dictionary Centre at lunchtime to check with my former colleagues.)

[nursedarry.livejournal.com]

You completely missed me, as well :( I'm crammed in between Oxon, Wilts and Berks - about 45 minutes from London.

Maybe next time. Glad you're back safe and sound, though!

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

Sorry to have missed you, lovely. It wouldn't have worked out anyway with my Boy ill. Sounds like you are having a wonderful time, though. :D

[mama-pyjama.livejournal.com]

[feels envy of Sidney winter] Hard frost in Cambridge this morning and everything is grey and drear. Swap? I will wave as you pass through next visit.

[true-masquerade.livejournal.com]

Welcome home!

I use "monstered", so it's not just a Brammerism ;-)... but I am Australian, and so I can't tell you if it's an Australianism :-S I would normally use it in a sporting context though - like one team monstered the other one :-)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

According to dictionary.com, when monster is used as a verb, it means:
5. informal (Austral), (NZ) to criticize (a person or group) severely
6. (Austral), (NZ) sport to use intimidating tactics against (an opponent)

[creme-bun.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading all about your traveling adventures as I am no longer able to have any more myself. I have to live vicariously though my flist.

Sadly, I'll never be able to 'cross the pond', as it were. However, at night before I sleep, I think of England. :)

[sorrel-forbes.livejournal.com]

Welcome back and thank you for sharing your travel adventures.

Questions of language and usage never fail to interest me, so I was fascinated to pursue the matter of “monstering”, which is not something I’d heard of before. (Apparently so interested as to write a prohibitively long comment: sorry about that!)

The OED does not mention the word as a verb at all. The Macquarie (Australian) offers: “to rebuke or attack ... esp. in politics”, but doesn’t note the usage as being peculiar to Australia. Wiktionary and dictionary.com (US American) give definitions closer to your example, and note usage as being chiefly Australian, or from Australia/New Zealand respectively.

Because I’d never heard the word used in this sense, I thought it might have been an Eastern States phenomenon, but an informal survey at a family dinner last night suggested otherwise: people from Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Australia had heard of the word, but only Baby Boomers – nobody older was present, and nobody younger had heard of the term. One relative said that she associated the word with journalism, possibly The Age (Melbourne broadsheet), but younger readers of the paper were not familiar with it. Interestingly, the illustrative quote supplied in Wiktionary comes from the Herald Sun (Melbourne tabloid), and is quite recent (2009). Have you heard younger people using the term?