I am converted. I started last night feeling that I had yet to tap into a Sydney version of the messy, edgy, damn fine music mayhem that London delivers pretty much every night of the week. I’ve been to festivals here and haven’t had my fill, I’ve been to pubs and have left empty and I’ve had all-nighters without hitting that glad-to-be-alive button.

But Leftfield at the Enmore Theatre has changed everything. Partly, I admit, because my mate Jess Mills is their female vocalist and it was such a proud, good-clean-fun moment for me, seeing her up there during Original with dance music heroes, totally at home, or as John her manager said to me “a natural.” She’s just signed her first record contract and her latest tune with Breakage hit the UK charts at number 34. Bloop!

But it’s her partnership with aging dance music aficionados, Leftfield, that gave us all a chance to see her shine last night. They delivered a consummately polished performance – it had that self-assured magnitude and big, dirty story telling that I think can only come with twenty-one years of worldwide touring. There were peaks and troughs, amazing visuals, the whole crew of (mostly teddy-bear like) dub and reggae vocalists and a massive, bang-up-for-it audience. The Enmore is like the Brixton Academy – the roof feels it’ll blow off with pounding bass as the sound system punches way above its height to delicious effect. And the crowd went wild.

90s UK electronica in Newtown, March 2011: I’ve seen Australia’s hedonistic light. Hats off to the Enmore and to the whole of lovely Leftfield who fed me beer and pizza and reinvigorated my Sydney enthusiasm last night.

Not for nothing do they call it the land of the long white cloud.

A picture-perfect blue day will see puffy white clouds niftily perched above New Zealand’s skinny islands, leaving clear skies directly above the ocean, or the Waitemata (sparkling water) as the Harbour’s so aptly known.

I have just returned from 5 days in Aetearoa’s the North Island and I am stunned by what I found there. A country so uncluttered, filled with air so clean and a landscape that can only be described as a cross between the Alps, the Caribbean and the Dorset hills. I stayed in Pataua, framed by sea to the east, steep, tree-clad hills to the south and far west, a huge, blue, slow-moving lagoon-esque river to the west and surfing beaches to the north. Tree ferns, fruit trees, wild grass, sea trout, dolphins, you name it. Check.

I can’t do it justice here but a picture or two may help set the scene. Suffice to say I’ll be heading back to have a little dabble in the South Island, walking trails, hot springs and ski hills in the not-too-distant future.