Lassiters Laneways Tours - Part Deux

Last week on Neighbours we saw Leo and Therese down a deserted alleyway discussing their plans to incorporate Laneway Tours in the Lassiters experience package. As luck would have it I was also back in Melbourne again for a couple of days last week to pick my boyfriend up from the airport.

Obviously in my excitement to see him again and need to impress him with all of my Melbourne knowledge, I took him straight down the laneway which featured in my last blog post, only to find the cute purple pug that was the main feature in the bonding scenes between Leo and Therese had already been sprayed over and the same wall now hosts a rather terrifying bull (or at least I think that's what it is but it may well be some kind of evil horned monster).

Not to be one to wallow in the disappointing reality that graffiti is a non permanent form of art work,   I then dragged my poor boyfriend along to Amphlett Lane, the place where Therese wanted to start the Laneway Tours from and where she suggested hosting a photo shoot with the Sharma-Rebecchis the day before she made the executive decision to drop them as the Face of Lassiters.

Melbourne is absolutely full of graffiti clad laneways so I was a bit disheartened when I got to Amphlett Lane and discovered only one piece of street art and a small plaque in honour of Chrissy Amphlett which is nowhere near as impressive as AC/DC Lane (look it up, it's a real place and it's quite spectacular!) Sadly, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a Right Prescription Lane but I'm sure if enough people campaign for it, the Government of Victoria would be willing to rectify that!

Yes...I have had I Touch Myself permanently in my head since visiting this sight! 

The only other thing Amphlett Lane has to offer is a long line of bins which is where I assume Therese was thinking of holding the photo shoot with Dipi and family. Seeing as they'll obviously want a new person as the Face of Lassiters now that Shane has disgraced the family's good name, I think I'm in with a strong chance. 

Fiona McLean; the new Face of Lassiters???
I offer free dumpster diving for all the Daniel Robinsons of the world!

A bit further down Chinatown, I stumbled across this little street which I also think should definitely be included on the laneways tours, especially as the West Waratah Star readership numbers must be in serious decline as nobody has touched a newspaper since Dipi's football hooligan incident and there haven't been any new journalists taken on since Maddie Robinson was on the street.

West Waratah Place!

Read the original Lassiters Laneways Tours blog post here.

Lassiters Laneways Tours

It's really exciting when I watch Neighbours these days and they use locations that I've actually been to already. Yesterday's episode saw Terese and Leo on a "work date" scouting out laneways for Leo's Laneways Tours package idea that he pulled out of his arse in order to have an excuse to take Terese to a deserted alleyway. I recognised the place instantly due to the rather exciting street art in the background because I've also done my fair share of lurking around Melbourne's laneways.

Image courtesy of Fremantle Media 

I would also like to suggest these other little gems for Lassiters Laneway Tours...also if they're looking for someone to guide these tours I'm available until March 2019!

...is only a footstep away

one of Karl Kennedy's many alter egos!

Edit -  I decided later to follow this bog post up with a part II which you can read here.

Backstage Tour of Nunawading Studios

In the real world, when I'm not being a stereotypical Travel Wanker, I work as a Set Dresser/Art Department type for television and film productions.

The top most item on my life long bucket list has always been to work on Neighbours and a very big reason why I've put my life on hold for a year is to try and finally make this happen. A few weeks after I landed in Melbourne I managed to successfully get in touch with a couple of people who work within the Art Department on Neighbours and they very kindly invited me to their Nunawading Studios for an access all areas tour, which is the main reason why I haven't actually gone on the Official Neighbours Tour yet...although obviously I still might do that because you can never have too many Neighbours related things on your once in a life time trip to Australia!

So off I trundled to Nunawading Studios with my glue stick (it's a reference from the wonderful song my friend wrote for me) and hoped that I wouldn't come across as too much of a fan girl whilst I was there.

Just hanging out at the Neighbours studio with my glue stick...as you do!

Because I was trying to make a good impression infront of the people I desperately hoped would invite me back to work for them in the future, I was trying to play it cool and didn't take any photos as I was being shown around but inside I was more excited than a kid going to Disneyland. I had a pretty extensive tour around all the exterior sets including the backyards and inside the police station and Lassiters and the Community Centre etc. And then they had organised for me to sit in the studio whilst they were filming so I could watch the last four scenes of the day being shot which was super amazing.

I have been sitting on the knowledge that Ned Willis comes back and Toadie gets sprung with a surprise baby as an offshoot from his one night stand with Fake Dee in London and also that Aaron and David have wedding dance lessons from Dipi for three months now and it was extremely exciting to see these scenes being played out on the show last week.

Despite my earlier reluctance to take any photos, I was forced to pose for photos inside the interior of Harold's and also the Brennan household . Also my claims to fame from that day were carrying the plant that lives by the front door of the Brennan house into the studio and also wheeling the buggy of Toadie and Fake Dee's lovechild from the studio back to the Art Department storage room at the end of the day...Baby's watermelon carrying has nothing on me!

I'll have a Fiji water please!

Rearranging the fruit bowl

This couch smells of Brennan

Washing up before Mark's OCD kicks in.

A photo of all three Brennan boys...all fully clothed at the same time!

I had such a wonderful day at the studios and I will be forever grateful to everyone in the Art Department who really looked after me and made a random Pom who is a bit too obsessed with their show feel extremely welcome!

Toad-ally Excited for this Little Find

I was browsing a few shops today in Melbourne when I stumbled across this little beauty of a greetings card in Mag Nation and then got really really excited and bought two of them!

This is the first whiff I've got of Neighboursness in the wilds of Melbourne since I arrived over three months ago...and believe me I have searched very hard (unless you count the minimalistic attempt at merchandise in the Bunyip Tours office that constitutes of just one postcard and one magnet). Needless to say I was over the moon at my small find and it has given me hope that I'll find more Neighbours related goodies elsewhere!

This card is also available to buy online from the AHD Paper Co website.

The Perfect Proposal by Sophie King - A Book Review

I have never read a single Mills and Boon novel in my life but I can imagine they are not too dissimilar in style to this romance novel by Sophie King. 

It has all the classic features of your average, stereotypical, easy read, chick lit novel which is not a genre I find myself gravitating towards that often. The Perfect Proposal however, is chick lit with a very unique selling point and for that reason, I couldn't wait to get stuck into this book as soon as it was available to buy on my Kindle. This particular USP transported me back to the golden era of a Ramsay Street full of mullets...before Jim Robinson had his heart attack, Helen Daniels was still the reining queen of Erinsborough, and her Grandson, Paul had just hired a new Promotions Manager for Lassiters named Gail Lewis. 

The book centres around Paul and Gail hatching a plan to fake a relationship with each other and going through the motions of marrying for convenience in order to seal an elusive deal with Japanese investor, Mr Udagawa, who rates family values above anything else. It sounds completely far fetched but this was a real storyline that happened in Neighbours back in the late 80s and from what I gather, the book stays very true to the 30 year old plot.

The writing itself certainly won't win any literature prizes but I have definitely read worse books in my lifetime and the story flowed extremely easily. As somebody who was far too young to remember this iconic storyline first hand from the show, I really appreciated the opportunity to delve deeper into the origins of Paul and Gail's relationship and to revisit this bygone era of Neighbours history.

The only thing that I felt was lacking somewhat was the sexiness levels. I wouldn't want it to go full Fifty Shades (because that is a terrible book and you'd better off reading literally anything else) and I know the story was plucked from a family show in an era before the Kennedy's moved to the street with all their filthy blue box habits and it was also before the script writers added blatant innuendos into every other episode but I just feel the levels of secret desire between the two main characters could have been amped up a few notches. After all, what's the point of writing Neighbours fan fiction starring Sex God Robinson and not using the excuse to take full advantage of it?

If you love Neighbours (and if you don't, why are you even reading this blog?) or if you love easy chick lit novels then I definitely would recommend reading this book and for me personally, it was the perfect accompaniment to my Aussie adventures. Over on the Amazon page, it says in brackets that this is Neighbours book 1 so I am very much looking forward to reading more Neighbours based romances by Sophie King in the future.