Cockroach Racing is a popular event that occurs every year in Brisbane, Australia.

They occur on Australia Day – the 26th of January each year.  Australia Day is the national holiday which commemorates the day where white settlers first came to Australia, on January 26, 1788.

But Australians couldn’t be bothered with big military parades or any pompous occasion like that!  Instead, we’d rather go to a hot pub, drink a lot of beer and watch some Cockroach Racing instead!

That’s right, those little vermin creatures that would survive a nuclear war, but those members of the insect kingdom we love to exterminate with all sorts of nasty chemicals.

Australians love to collect these beasts, and race them on the National Holiday at the Story Bridge Hotel in Brisbane.  We also like to blow all our money on a bet to see who finishes first.

The alleged story of how these races started is that two two old punters sat in the Story Bridge Hotel bar arguing over which Brisbane suburb had the biggest and fastest roaches.   They decided to race some roaches the next day and now, the races have reached their 29th year!

Here are some stills from the event.

The Cockroach Racing Arena – note that a jar of cockroaches is placed in the middle, and the first cockroach to reach the outer edge of the circle wins!

The Cockroach Race Starting Gate

And the winners..

While it may seem silly to race cockroaches, it’s all for a good reason – proceeds from the day go to charity.

I took some footage of the Cockroach Racing and had a friend of mine do some top notch editing.  You can check out his site at World Window and follow him on Twitter.

You can see more at the official Cockroach Races website.  You can also follow Cocky Races on Twitter!

Here it is!

If you want to learn more about Cockroaches, check out The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (And Least Understood) Creature on Earth.

Where’s Waldo? is a popular cartoon that was created by Pommy illustrator, Martin Hanford.

Where’s Waldo (sometimes known as Where’s Wally as well) originally came out in the 1980’s, and had its heyday in the 1990’s.  Where’s Waldo is used in North America, and Where’s Wally is used everywhere else.

Basically, one has to ‘find’ Waldo/Wally in amongst a busy cartoon image of people doing silly things.  Sometimes, finding Waldo/Wally can take a couple of minutes, or sometimes a few hours.

Waldo is a bit easier to recognise because of his red and white striped shirt, red hat and big glasses.

You can also buy all sorts of Where Waldo merchandise.

Things such as Where’s Waldo books, Video Games, Puzzles and even a Costume.

However, can you imagine finding 150 real life Waldo’s in the crowd of a major sporting event.  Organising such an event takes some effort, and is a major logistical exercise.

Imagine organising all of the Where’s Waldo gear for all of these characters below!

Well, I went to the cricket at the Gabba in Brisbane this year again (you can view my post about going to the International Cricket last year), and I was part of a group of 150 ‘Where’s Waldos‘ sitting together, sometimes watching the cricket.

We even made national (and international) TV this year!

I took a load of (sometimes hilarious) footage and pieced it together into a short video.  You will get idea of what happens in the crowd at the cricket.

Basically, not much cricket watching!  Actually, there’s hardly any cricket action in this vid at all about Where’s Wally!

It’s mostly a lot of silly singing, making friends with the local police force, and practicing one’s Beer Cup recycling skills.

Ironically, it’s fairly easy to find 150 Where’s Waldo’s when they’re all sitting together.

Stands out like dog’s testicles really.

Anyway, enjoy Where’s Waldo at the cricket, and have a laugh!

Eurobeat The Musical is a new play which basically takes the piss out of The Eurovision Song Contest.

That sounds like an oxymoron to me, because the Eurovision Song Contest does a great job of being silly all by itself!

However, making fun of the Eurovision Song Contest can be done!

The contest has been around since the 1970s – the Swedish pop group ABBA got their big break at Eurovision.

But usually, The Eurovision Song Contest involves a heap of wannabe acts making a goose of themselves!  I’m surprised it’s been going for so long.

For example, check out a couple of Eurovision Song Contest acts that are on You Tube – they’re self explanatory:

I’d actually like to go to the Eurovision Song Contest just for the experience.  I think it would be hilarious.

I love watching the Contest each year because of the smart arse comments the English Narrator, Sir Terry Wogan used to insert in the broadcast.

You can read more about Eurovision at ‘THIS IS SWEDEN CALLING: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About The Eurovision Song Contest But Were Laughing Too Hard To Ask!

Anyway, one of the perks of being a Z grade Twitter ‘celebrity’ is that sometimes people are silly enough to invite you to a social event.

The nice people at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (you can follow them on Twitter @QPAC) invited me to the opening night of Eurobeat The Musical.

Basically, Eurobeat The Musical is a play modelled on the Eurovision Song Contest.  It includes are number of ‘acts’ from different countries, and consists of songs that range from listenable to cringe worthy, but in an entertaining sense.

For example imagine a three piece boy band dancing in Mankinis, in conjunction with suggestive lyrics and hand movements.  That was my favourite act from ‘Poland’.

Actually, I couldn’t tell the difference between the acts in Eurobeat The Musical and those featured in the Eurovision Song Contest.  I almost thought the musical directors had especially brought over the original Eurovision Song Contest contestants themselves!

For example, here are some of the striking similarities that I observed when watching the play:

• The two hosts were from a country that involved some sort of Eastern European accent (in this case, Bosnian)

• The Irish entrant was a guy wearing a green suit belting out a sing along ballad

• Boy bands were prevalent – (Poland and Russia).

• The female host changes her dress between every act
• The German act was a bizarre abstract electronic 3 piece that made no sense

• Most of the female acts wore skimpy clothing – no make that probably underwear.

• There was at least one act that wore their traditional country’s dress (Hungary)

• The Swedish Act looked like ABBA

• The United Kingdom act was a couple singing some soppy love song.  They also finished last, which is true to form.

There were also some clever names for the acts.  For example, the Russian entrant was called the KG Boyz.

Votes were cast via SMS to determine the eventual winner – just like the Eurovision Song Contest.

Even the voting stage of Eurobeat The Musical was a complete Doppelganger!  There were ‘live crossovers’ to the different European countries and their mentally insane hosts, detailing how their country had voted.

The audience are even given plastic clappers and flags to cheer on their nominated country, adding to the experience!

Anyway, I enjoyed the play as some light entertainment, and thanks once again to QPAC for inviting me along!

You can check out more of Eurobeat The Musical at the official website.  You can even follow Eurobeat The Musical on Twitter.

Bitter Beer – is more of an English tradition than an Australian one.

It’s not common to drink Bitter Beer in Australia – most beers need to be chilled to ball freezing to be enjoyable, especially during an Australian summer.  Bitter Beer is normally drunk at a higher temperature, and hence, is better to drink during winter.

I was in the local bottle shop recently and a Funny Beer Label (from a Bitter Beer) caught my eye.  Here is an interesting Bitter Beer I could add to my Beer Index.

It’s called My Wife’s Bitter (which could be interpreted as ‘My Wife Is Bitter’…)

It’s brewed by the Burleigh Brewing Company on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.  This is a microbrewery that I’m yet to visit, but since I am somewhat of a Beer aficionado (meaning, Beer Addict), I think I’d better check it out!

There is a joke that English people have to microwave their Bitter Beer to have it reach their preferred temperature!  This is exploited somewhat on the back label of the beer bottle (see line about temperature for English people):

So if you’re coming to South East Queensland, Australia and like beer, then check out the Burleigh Brewing Company.

I love the title and the irony of this Funny Beer Label – My Wife’s Bitter!

Boggo Road Jail is situated in the south Brisbane suburb of Dutton Park.

It was completed in the early 1900s and was a high security prison until it was closed in 1989 – twenty years ago.  The front entrance of Boggo Road Jail is shown below.

The reason I like Boggo Road Jail because it gives a fairly realistic representation of what it must have been like to be locked up in a cage.  Since closure, the prison was left pretty much as is, including the graffiti, which I will talk about more in a moment.

The Boggo Road Jail prison cells were fairly primitive, considering it was only closed 20 years ago – no toilets or sewerage system was ever installed, so the prisoners had to use a metal bucket as their toilet. One of these amazing pieces of plumbing at the Boggo Road Jail is shown below:

What I found fascinating about the Boggo Road Jail was the graffiti that had been left behind and had not been covered over for the sake of political correctness.

The graffiti gives an amazing insight into the mind of a maximum security prisoner – and I can tell you that their artistic impressions on the walls hardly included illustrations of flowers or nice things.  The lyrics to the AC/DC song, ‘Jailbreak’ were almost unanimously written in every jail cell wall.

Especially, ‘Gonna make a jailbreak, And I’m lookin’ towards the sky, I’m gonna make a jailbreak, Oh, how I wish that I could fly’

From perusing the graffiti, I deduced that there wasn’t much rehabilitation going on in that prison – there’s a lot of hate there.  I enjoyed checking out Boggo Road Jail, in my own backyard, more than I did going to Alcatraz in San Francisco. Alcatraz seems pretty sanitised in comparison, as all of the graffiti has been removed, with the biggest attraction is Al Capone’s cell and other stories associated with him.

Anyway, I’ve included a sample of the Boggo Road Jail graffiti below in these photos.

WARNING: Some of these photos contain potentially offensive or explicit content.

For your information: a ‘Screw’ is a Prison Warden.

You can view more information at the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society.

The Boggo Road Jail is closed at the moment, but will probably reopen sometime in the future.  I know previously, there were ghost tours of the jail at night, and if you really wanted to, one could experience being locked up in a cell overnight.

Maybe not for me.

Other things to do in Australia after visiting Boggo Road Jail – visit The Saint or drive the Mitsubishi Pajero.