Darren Rowse at Problogger has started a new ‘Group Writing’ contest - you have to write a new post about a ‘Top 5′. I found out about it on Tuesday night, and there are already hundreds of entries here and here. Have a browse - you’re bound to find something you like.

I thought I should get my camera out and think of 5 photos that really show you a Brisbane flavour, so here they are, all taken on Wednesday, May 9th (in my lunch hour, in fact).

This is one of the River Queen paddle steamers, seen from the big picture windows of the building I work in. The Brisbane River is a huge part of city life - you are either ‘Northside’ or ‘Southside’, and if a bridge over the river gets blocked or closed, it affects traffic all over the inner city.

This is the Milton Brewery, where the famous XXXX (Four-ex) beer is brewed. (Wikipedia) This photo is from the walkway connecting Milton train station to the Lang Park football stadium - which you’ll see in a just a second.

You can see Mr Fourex raising his glass to the people driving south along Milton Road.

Here you can see Christ Church, Milton, snuggled underneath the Lang Park football stadium. Lang Park is the home of 3 football teams - the Brisbane Broncos (rugby league), the Queensland Reds (rugby union) and the Queensland Roar (soccer).

Each year Lang Park hosts at least one of the State of Origin rugby league matches between Queensland and New South Wales - it’s a huge event here, and people get very depressed if Queensland loses. The first match this year is coming up on Wednesday, May 23rd.

This is one of Brisbane’s painted Traffic Signal Boxes, on the corner of Herschel St and North Quay in the city. You can find out about how you can paint a box here, and there is a group on flickr devoted to the TSBs - just click here to visit it.

And this is a photo from 75 metres high - the observation deck of the Brisbane City Hall clock tower. You can see the massive roadworks that are going on in the middle of the city - the Queen Street bus station is being linked to the Roma St train station by a tunnel. This will be a very important link in the public transport system, but you can see a bit about how much is being ripped up.

On the right hand side of the photo you can see the Albert St Uniting Church (previously a Methodist church before the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches of Australia united in 1977).

I hope you like my Top 5 photos. Don’t forget to have a look at all the other entries in the competition - there are hundreds of Top 5s to choose from.

Sukkafish P Jones gig starting soon@Rics

Originally uploaded by Brisbane Is Home.

I am at Rics bar in the Brunswick Street Mall in Fortitude Valley and as you can see, the show is being set up right now.

So what are you waiting for? Head on down to the valley for a night of strange electronic sounds…And check out the previous post for a link to the myspace page for a taste of what’s playing.

After work tonight (Wednesday May 9th) I’ll be heading into Rics Bar in the Brunswick St Mall in Fortitude Valley (Click here to see a Google Map) to hear Suckafish P Jones play for free - it’s the launch of the ‘Orinoko Flow’ tour to Melbourne, 1800 km away.

According to the myspace link above, Suckafish P Jones sounds like:

Spit-heavy beautiful nonsense yelping from a blender of scizophrenic sampledelica and slap-dash-boom-bap.

But you can head over to the Suckafish P Jones Myspace page to check for yourself - the track “Teutonic Riddims” and two others are there for you to listen to.

Powered by ScribeFire.