Yes ‘Sidney’ that’s what president Bush called our city last week in his US press statement.
It was all down to APEC, if your outside the Asia Pacific area you probably haven’t heard of it but its the equivalent of the UN in a lot of ways just for our side of the planet. APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic Community.
It’s a week where all the Asia Pacific area world leaders come to one conference to talk about economic issues and to form deals between the countries. This year 21 world leaders were in attendance with the 3 biggest being the US president , the Chinese president and the Russian president.
To say there was extra security in place in the city was an understatement, for days the city has been in LOCKDOWN. As you can imagine Mr Bush brought 1000 support staff with him, that’s an actual figure, 250 of those were CIA security specialists, even his own snipers were brought inot the country. The Americans were the only allowed country to bring their OWN weapons into the country. The Russian’s asked for permission but were denied.
A photo of Police blocking off main streets into the CBD with riot ready police buses

Police buses filled with police ready to go if riots started up, this is taken on Park st right next to Town Hall.

All Bins were taped up for a week leaving people to put rubbish on top of or by the side of the bins.

A look into the restricted zone in the citys CBD.

A sign showing the seriousness of trying to enter the restricted zone

The Opera house in lockdown as 21 of the world’s leaders are inside discussing their issues between countries. All the tourists that come to see the famous landmark were just greeted by 3 meter tall steel fences and armed police.

Some of the peaceful protesters, a group of Chinese protestors and a police sergeant discussing with their leader what there plans were to do and urging them not to block the entry/exit of any APEC delegates.

I knew they were around but it took me an hour to find a sniper. This one I spotted was on the roof of the InterContinental Hotel, the Hotel US president bush was staying in, could of quite possibly been a US brought in sniper.

Lockdown central, all the fences keeping us the public away from anywhere near any APEC officials and goings on.

A helicopter hovering over head with a sniper sitting on the door ledge. A helicopter was in the air all day and all night for the entire duration of APEC, that’s a lot of tax paid fuel to keep it in the air.

Australian Army members manning the security checkpoints scanning cars on ramps for bombs and other devices as they drove around the city.

Me Troyski and Damien aka ‘Super Frenchie’ went for a bush walk South of Sydney a long way from anybody on Sunday. We went to a part of the trails were it seems there were really not any other walkers. We walked for 7 hours and only saw about 4 people in total on the bush trails.
Near the beginning we found a huge pipe that seemed to lead on for a long distance so Troy suggested we carry out part of his family tradition of what him and his dad used to do of ‘Pipeing’ the Rose way!
Basically you find a pipe somewhere in the countryside and walk along it and follow it for Km’s. So a bushwalk turned into a pipeing adventure. Damien wasn’t impressed with walking along the pipe for km’s with his half metal leg so he stuck to the bush track. The pipe went forever, eventually ending at a dam.
Bush wacking super frenchie posing with the pipe

Ninja Troyski on the pipe

We ended up at a dam and this impressive bit of human construction or should I say digging was the emergency water runoff for the dam, this thing was cut SO deep into the ground, must of taken a hell of a lot of explosive to make.

We found a big mirror at the dam so had some fun 🙂

and some more fun

and some more fun

its amazing how much fun you can have with a mirror 🙂

at the end it got very dark QUICKLY and we got lost BADLY, in the very end we staggered up a hill and onto a road, we were saved, back to humanity!
We found the nearest train station and sat down and waited for out train, very tired after 8 hours out in the bush in the winter time.

Sannas moving on from Nestle after 3 and a half years to her new postion with World Kitchen Australia and to celebrate she had a leaving party at the London hotel in Paddington.
The theme was super heroes and Action heroes, here was the invitation:

Batgirl and Super Frenchie!

Huw the Dirty lifeguard on the deck!

Lara Croft, Mick Dundee and Super Geek in the background tryign to get in a photo to show he has friends.

‘Ask a Ninja’ and Batgirl and Spiderman

2 characters from Xmen

Catwomen and Cathy and Kevin

Clark Kent and Spiderman and Batgirl

Super geek on the decks!

Super Frenchie playing pool with his baguette, which he then ate.

Super heros ready for action!

Girl power!

Sanna and I went to the Gold Coast at the weekend for the Gold coast marathon. We both trained very hard for it but I over trained I think and my right knee injury came back. I went to a physio for a few visits and he recommended I didn’t do the marathon so I stopped training and did the half marathon instead.
Here’s the lovely Gold coast

Sanna after I find her in the recovery area afterwards, she managed to complete all 42Km’s and did it in 3:50 VERY very well done, I’m really proud of her to have completed it. I completed the half marathon in 1:55, not bad considering I stopped all training 3-4 weeks before the event due to my injury.

and a few minutes later, not feeling too great by this stage of the recovery

us being proud with our finisher t-shirts and our finishers medals

Still in the official recovery process with steak sandwich and chips in bed 🙂

The following day we hired a car to explore the Gold Coast a bit more and we drove away from the tourist area and into the countryside and found Lamington National Park. Unfortunately for Sanna Lamingtons did not grow on the tree’s there.

My good old mates Richard Earnshaw and Dan Jones of Duffnote Records suggested I put together a DJ mix and they might be able to air it on their weekly radio show in the UK. I dug out a mix I recorded about 9 months ago and I remember after recording had finished it was one of my proudest mix sessions I’d ever done, every mix was pretty much perfect and it all flowed so well. It even had my remix edit of Richards own track Joyride, which I re-labed ‘Franky Joyrides’ lookout for it 3/4 the way though. The original mix was an hour and a half long but I sent the first hour over to the boys in the UK. They both really liked it and have featured it as their classic guest mix for this week’s show.

They asked for an email for any ‘plugs’ or anything I want to say. Here’s the email I sent them:

Thanks for using my mix from your old mate Beddy guys.

Please call me Marky B on the guest mix, please plug the SHE monthly residency on the Last Saturday on the month at the luxurious inner city Sydney club Industrie. Please plug the newly re-launched brand and our newly re-launched website at www.shesydney.com bla bla

Mention we’ve bagged all the best Soulful House DJ’s in Australasia as residents, Graham Cordery, Liam Sampras, Dave54, Nick Vidal, Yogi & Ibiza’s Timmy Trumpet.

Do a shout out to Graham Cordery 🙂

Beddys got big balls e.t.c

Cheers.

Mark Bedford

Now they obviously printed this out and referred to it on the desk in front of the microphones in the studio when they were doing their broadcast as they kept referring to it all the time and taking the piss outta me in their own unique, as friends do way 🙂

When you have a listen to the show, bear the above email and what I said in mind and you’ll see how they kept referring to parts, including the ‘big balls’ comment I put at the end which was referring to a certain famous photo of have of Richard Earnshaws manhood =)

This will be auctioned off to the highest bidder in the future one day to raise money for gingeritis disease which Richard has a bad case off, bless him 🙂

Listen live with the links below.

Part 1:
Marky B mix on Sugar Soul Radio show 18-05-07 Part1 (128bit mp3)

Part 2:
Marky B mix on Sugar Soul Radio show 18-05-07 Part 2 (128bit mp3)

Hi yah all,
This weekend we whisked ourselves away to the capital Canberra to do the half marathon there.
We drove there in the new toy (first time out of the city) driving via Wollongong to Pick up Sanna. Just about managed to cram in a weekends worth of clothes, our running gear and the roof of the little Lotus into the back.
Here’s a photo taken just after a spirited drive through the Royal National Park. I left at 7am so to get the cool crisp winter air on my morning run, the roads were deserted apart from a few bikers who enjoyed keeping up to my rear as I winded though the twisty national park roads.
I took this photo and it was lovely and quiet, all you could hear was he tinging of the engine cooling down and the waves down below against the cliffs.
Mum you will remember it here as this is where we got out for a short walk to the top of the cliff and dad was too scared to get out the car in fear of snakes 🙂
Have to say, rubbish on the left, that’s not normal Australia, it’s a very clean place usually.

A Nice shot of the rump of the Loti 🙂

Canberra, the capital of Australia and probably the most un-interesting place ever after you’ve visited it once.

The biggest dead kangaroo I’ve ever seen! It was as big as a person! it must of really damaged the car or whatever hit it!

Driving a sports car with the roof off REALLY messes up one’s hair 🙂

One of my favourite views of the car, the rear rump around the back of the window, this is the view from the rear mirrors all the time and I love it 🙂

No there are no photos of me a Sanna doing the Canberra half marathon, we would look far too tired and ugly for photo proof. We did a really good time though, approx 1:45 which is beats my previous personal best I set in the South England New Forest marathon of 1:56 by memory.

Well it’s been about 4 years of travels and experiences I have been through with my trusty laptop lovingly nicknamed the mothership by my friends.
I remember I think it was Rich Earnshaw seeing it first and saying “Christ that’s so big it’s like a mothership” and it just stuck with my friends from there. The Mothership has been on travels though round the world trips, DJ’ing at masive night clubs and parties, travelling on tiny ‘tinny’ boats to remote beaches for beach house parties and generally all over the place with me. Its helped me find a place to live, make new fiends, find new jobs and make me money so it was the best present I’ve ever received for that, thanks mum and dad x x
So 4 years along and it was time to move on. I decided on a Sony as I continue to expand my Sony purchases and their equipment seems to just be so well built in all area’s hi-fi’s TV, mp3 players, speakers e.t.c. Their laptop range was suitably impressive too and I was attracted to their flagship model offering the world’s first 1080 High Definition screen and the world’s first ever Blu-ray high definition player/burner in a laptop.
So it only seems right to pass the flagship status onto the new mothership and name it HMS mothership too!
Some photo’s:- the old Mothership next to the New Mothership, its a lot wider with its HD screen and a lot of glossy back metal/plastic on show.

The new mothership close up

Here I am VERY upset to be letting the old mothership go but I must say goodbye alas, it is going to a new home in Western Australia as I sold it on eBay to a happy new owner

Well this was the last SHE party of the Australian summer of 2007. We had run 6 special parties over the summer of 2007, 3 of them on boats on the harbour and all being a great success with numbers. This final party was on the Sunday 25th March and was from 12 lunchtime to 5pm with the after party at the famous Darling Harbour Cargo bar. We were very lucky with the weather, we seem to always be with our boat parties always being really hot and as usual we had lots of comments of everyone having a good time 🙂
Here’s our poster for the event, our graphics artist girl is putting together some excellent posters for our events lately, and this one was as usual a great example.

Here we are setting up the DJ equipment on the top deck of the boat. There were as usual 3 floors of live music, that’s 11 DJ’s, 4 musicians and 1 vocalist singer to setup and organise.

Graham and I just before we arrive at the wharf to pick up the customers. We were goig to both wear the sailors uniforms but I couldnt arrange mine in time unforntalty, maybe next time.

We arrive at the warf at the Opera House to pick up the 400 ticket holders to fill up the boat and start the party

The boat is starting to fill up just before we leave to stqart crusing aroudn the famous Sydney harbour.

Me with my friends, Claire and Stef and her boyfriend on the far left and AC on the right and my silly French flatmate in the background

The top deck in full swing

Two of my DJ freinds I met in the clubs around Sydney and now there my best DJ’s we always ahve play at SHE, Liam Sampras at the top and Dave 54 on the bottom.

Our sax player ‘Scotty on Sax’, I met him when I was DJ’ing for a year at the Peppermint Lounge and he was my sax player every week. I relaly enjoyed DJ’ing with him he’s a great live sax player.

A lovely old ship that usually makes it way slowly aroudn Sydney harbour most weekends

I think Damien looked like he was enjoying himself, loks like he dosent get out very often 🙂

Group of friends again, from left to right, Troy, Alison, Damien, Me, Claire and AC

The lovely Eleni, she does the ticket collections on the door most times we run SHE as she does it relaly well, and she’s always smileing and happy 🙂

Alison and Troy, they have been going out for nearly a month now, long time for the Troyski 🙂

Onto Cargo bar in Darling harbour aterwards for the after party and we were all a little drunk by then. Here’s Stef me and AC. Oh and it REALLY started p!ss!ng it down like a storm about 15 minutes after we got off the boat very lucky!

Last photo, this was taken of me on the walk home by Damien. I can’t remer it being takne I was so drunk, I havent a clue why i had my shorts undone in the middle of a buy street on a Saturday night?!? Haha

Last Sunday the weather was great, really hot and bright and lovely. I invited friend Mat and his new German girlfriend that’s just come over from Germany to live here for a year and my flat mate Damien to go Kayaking. We went up to manly Photo of Manly here which is a good kayaking sport near the main ocean but protected from the large waves and surf on the ocean side.
It was a great fun morning and we kayaked over to the old disused Sydney Quarantine station some photos here and didn’t get too sun burned 🙂 Here are some photos of me a Sanna and Mat and Maren, Damien took the photos so he didnt get in them unfortunately.

Me and Sanna as we arrived for a rest on Quarantine Beach

Mat and Maren as we arrived for a rest on Quarantine Beach

Me looking like a idot with my paddle

Sanna doing a silly grin

Yes it was me that was blessed enough to receive the famous ‘Borat double kiss’ at his Sydney film premiere ands been doing the rounds up on YouTube.com hehe

(Click to play)
P.S Yes It’s sad, it was Che’s idea to to slap on some shorts and thongs and run down to the premeier on George St.