Tuesday, April 25, 2006
When good neighbours become good friends
Melbourne; home of this year's Commonwealth Games, location of the Australian Grand Prix and Australian Open. To superficial old me however, Melbourne means only one thing....home of 'Neighbours'! Having visited Ramsay Street on our last visit to Melbourne we had only one more thing left on the die-hard Neighbours fan list of must-dos - Neighbours Night! Every week, 400 excitable backpackers (mostly English) pile into the Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub in St Kilda to meet and have photos taken with 3 Neighbours stars. I'd not seen Neighbours in a while so I had been religiously watching for 4 days in Adelaide to catch up. Unfortunately, rumours had been spreading that Harold Bishop, Paul Robinson and Lynne Scully were going to be there. We were therefore disappointed to learn that only Toadie, Boyd and Katya (we are not even sure if Katya has made an appearance in the UK yet) were attending that night. But nevermind. They are celebrities nonetheless.
Once in the pub the organisers keep you waiting (and drinking) for about 1 and a half hours before they unleash the stars. The atmosphere was incredible and not too dissimilar to a Take That concert (in the good old days, that is.) After some banter on the stage, the 3 of them split up around the room, closely followed by minders, to meet the hoards of sweaty drunken tourists. We got our pictures taken with all of them but there was little time for chit-chat as they get moved on pretty quickly. Toadie has been raised to new heights - you would have thought that you were in the presence of Robbie Williams the way that he was being hailed.
So good neighbours do indeed become good friends...at least they do for the minute they are with you.
# posted by Rhodri @ 1:32 am 
