First Family Portrait - LIttle Miss Nixon has arrived

At 12:57am weighing at a reasonably hefty 3754 grams our first child, a girl [insert her name here], was born by caesarean at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Considering it was an emergency c-section after a long and fairly difficult labour and still only half way through being stitched up mum looks pretty comfortable and happy with herself doesn't she. And she should be. The little one is beautiful. I would say that though, being her dad and all.
There should be a word for the joy of being a parent for the first time. Nothing I have ever done has pulled the hearts strings from so many directions. You go from grinning with overwhelming joy to bawling like a baby. The effects are contradictory but the feelings seem to come from same place.
You know, there might be a word in English that describes this after all. Love.



More pictures here and here.

How To Assemble A Cot In Less Than 2 Minutes

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas.


The rest of the Nixons are over in Austria celebrating a white Christmas in the snow with the German family while we're here sweltering in the muggy Sydney humidity. Gerard and Jasmine have put on a pretty good Christmas spread of lobster, prawns, spatchcock and pork. Mmmmm.

Moira and Michelle. Poor Michelle and her swollen ankles.

Adam, Jasmine and Gerard.

Gerard and the parcel from Germany.

Me and my new Christmas Schnapps Belt. Beat that Batman.

Michelle modelling my Schnapps Belt - ready for hospital.

Merry Christmas - The Hives & Cyndi Lauper In A Christmas Duel

Merry Christma. Twisted Sister - Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas from Copernicus.

Chirp chirp... Christmas visitors

It never ceases to amaze me the wildlife we can get in inner city Sydney, and I don't mean Copernicus and Michelle. These little buggers below are occasional visitors and are probably Rainbow Lorikeets. Pretty aren't they (click on the photos to emparrotinate).


Copernicus is always excited to see the birdies. He'll watch them for a while and realise he has no chance of getting through the window to "play" with them so he loses interest pretty quickly.


Michelle is almost 39 weeks pregnant now.

10 things I've done you probably haven't

John Scalzi has a list of thing he has done that we probably haven't over on his blog. He invited his readers to participate in the comments of his blog. I couldn't resist.

Note for the smarties: You may have done one or some but I've doubt you've done them all.

1. Had a group of people sing "Happy Birthday" to me outside of Mawson's Hut, Commonwealth Bay, ANTARCTICA.

2. A baby gorilla grabbed my leg as he ambled past in the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. He looked up at me and tentatively reached out to touch the hairless ape.

3. Swam with Humpback whales, Tonga.

4. Swam with whale sharks off Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.

5. Ate a guinea pig in Peru.

6. Took a beating on more than one occasion (stitches involved) when I was a night club doorman.

7. Drove half way around Australia (14000km) in 23 days.

8. Was DJ in an inner city night club for a number of years.

9. Was a contestant on a TV game show, Sale Of The Century.

10. Broke up a fight on the street and disarmed the guy who pulled a knife (easy, he wasn't interested in sticking me with it but I probably shouldn't do that again).

Universal Restaurant for my birthday

We've come to Christine Mansfield's Universal Restaurant in Darlinghurst for my birthday. Universal offers a number of dishes inspired by Christine's travels around the world. It is a sort of build your own degustation from a selection of smallish dishes that are each intensely flavoured and yet still build to a crescendo that really wallops you in the mouth.

Geisha Girl - a cocktail of sake, plum wine, elderberry flower and cucumber.

Spice quail, roasted rice, pomelo and mint.

Hiramasa kingfish cerviche, pickled seaweed, heirloom tomato and green chilli salsa.
08 Naia Verdejo

Steamed whiting, squid and clams, seared sea scallop, black beans, ginger soy broth.

Tea smoke aoraki salmon and pacific oysters, morcilla and green apple salad.
Mukai 'Ine Mukai' Hiire Genshu Sake.

Seared venison, spiced beetroot, pearl barley and parsley walnut salsa.

Sichuan pepper spiced duck, asparagus, lychee and watercress salad.
07 Lost Valley Cortese.

Slow braised wagyu beef shin and bone marrow vol au vent, chestnut mushroom tempura, spinach.
08 Domaine Singla 'La Crinyane' Carignan.

Beautiful pregnant lady - 38 weeks.

Beautiful pregnant lady and birthday boy.

Gaytime goes nuts.
Honeycomb ice cream, caramel parfait, chocolate crunch, salted hazelnut caramel.
It looks a little messy because Michelle couldn't wait to get stuck into it. It was delicious after all. A quick rebuild and it was okay to photograph.

Piccolo latte and blueberry friands.


Universal has been awarded 2 Good Food Guide Hats and is at Republic 2 Courtyard Palmer Street Darlinghurst.

The Gorillaz

It was a long time coming but it was certainly worth the wait. The Gorillaz were, to use an overused word, awesome. Definitely up there with some of the best gigs I've seen. Ever.

This is the first time The Gorillaz have performed in Australia and the first time front man Damon Albarn has been here since 1996 with Blur.

I didn't really know what to expect as far as the live show goes. I'd heard years ago the band performed behind a screen while their animated alter egos were projected on the screen. True there was a big screen where some fantastic videos were played but it was behind where Damon and the other performers strutted their stuff.

Guest performers on stage included De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Rosie Wilson, Yukimi Nagano and the Syrian National Orchestra. On video only we had Shaun Ryder and Snoop Dogg.

Setlist here.
Sydney Morning Herald review of the gig here.
Gorillaz wiki here.
Gorillaz website here. According to an interview with Damon on Triple J The Gorillaz will be giving away their latest album on their website on Christmas Day.

The Gorillaz played at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.