Ruddy Hell

“A great day for redheads,” says new Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday’s ‘7.30 Report’, following an exciting 24 hours which saw the doe eyed, silver haired Kevin Rudd on the receiving end of a rather severe political shafting from a fractious Labor Party who said, quite coldly, that enough was enough. He didn’t even bother to call a vote in the end, knowing that his Deputy had enough power to really stick the knife in. And as well as being a proud redhead, she’s a Sheila too, if you haven’t noticed: Australia’s first female leader but, more alarmingly, the country’s third PM in three years. If Opposition Leader Tony Abbott wins this year’s upcoming election, he will become the fourth. How’s that for consistency.

Conjuring up regretful memories of Sarah Palin’s ‘hockey moms’ banter, some critics are concerned with the reaction of Australia’s ‘soccer mums’, who might not support Gillard’s lectures on family values given that she is unmarried and without children. You have to feel a bit sorry for the pressure now bestowed upon Gillard’s partner of five years, Tim Mathieson, who has the unprecedented task of being Australia’s first man - the country’s first first man, if you will. He’s a Melbourne based estate agent and the two met when he was Julia’s hairdresser, which is the sort of boring anecdote that you would probably hear couples recount on a game show. Mathieson will do well to jump into his charity work, already becoming a patron of the Australian Men’s Sheds Association (among many more reputable ones). ‘Sheds’ isn’t an acronym, by the way. This is a group that “encourages men to get together and talk about their problems in a familiar environment.” Sounds great. I’ll get my toolbox.

But debating Australia’s immigration policy may be a conflicting one for Gillard; as Abbott wheels out his ‘turn back the boats’ soundbite at every opportunity, hopefully Julia will maintain Labor’s seemingly more sensible approach, especially considering her background as a Welsh-born immigrant who settled in Australia as part of the country’s ‘£10 Pom’ scheme in the 1960s. I’ve been reading about Julia’s small southern Welsh birthplace of Cwmgwrach, which translates, rather alarmingly, as ‘the Valley of the Witch’. She moved into a terraced house in Barry where, if politics hadn’t beckoned and Julia had stayed put, I like to picture her now as an Aunty Gwen type character from ‘Gavin & Stacey’, enjoying a sip of mint Bailey’s while cooking up an omelette.

Joking aside, this is clearly an issue of image control for Labor and nothing more, with no clear divisions made on Rudd’s policies aside from attempting to form some sense of cohesion within the party in the run up to a big election which sees the opposition vastly ahead in the polls. Kevin Rudd famously ousted long standing right winger John Howard in the general election of 2007, but his unceremonious rejection on Thursday morning proves just how far his favour had fallen - from rejection on sweeping climate change policy to an angry, embittered battle with the mining industry following his failure to budge on a 40% super tax initiative.

Gillard says that she’s willing to reopen discussion on these issues, as well as concentrate on her education reforms which she spearheaded as Deputy, although she is yet to ascertain any major policy shifts. But the coup seems to be paying off in some opinion polls, with ABC Online putting her at 54% to win the next election.

No sooner had I made last week’s quirky Queenslander comments do we meet Lillian, who is as mad as a Russian van. “These are called piss flaps,” she tells us, pointing at the front of a pair of navy uniform trousers. We’ve just moved into her home as house sitters, and Lillian (a fascinating, all-swearing so-called ‘bushie’) is enjoying showing us around. “You won’t need to get a DVD out, we’ve got drawers full of the bastards.” Lillian then randomly picks out a porcelain statuette of a holy man praying with a naked lady between his legs: “look at this shit,” she says, “have you ever seen anything like it?” Heavens no, of course not, but this house is full of such ornamental barminess, like her cuddly kangaroo which sings ‘Down Under‘ by Men at Work. The whole song. Thank goodness the batteries still work.

You’ll be pleased to see that I have attached a picture of the statue just to satisfy your curiosity.

I’ve been reading up on the outback, and some of those early, brave, and downright barking pioneers who first settled and worked on some of the country’s most feral and inhospitable lands. There are still vast swathes of Australia which are relatively untouched by human hand, some areas where the only inhabitants are tribal, and as people continue to get a grip on such an immense continent, the list of people who have endeavoured throughout history to discover more about the place makes for utterly compelling reading. There are many stories to choose from, like the country’s first postmen, who (for the price of a two pence postage stamp), would trapeze through the most life threatening conditions imaginable - floods, fires, bushrangers and dangerous wildlife - just to deliver Her Britannic Majesty’s Mail to the country‘s most far flung regions.

For example, in 1838, John Conway Bourke, the first overland mailman, was lumbered with the job of delivering letters to Yass from Melbourne every fortnight, a 200 mile distance of uncharted terrain, on his lonesome with only his horse, a shotgun, and his mailbag for company, which according to his memoirs, “made a very comfortable pillow.” In one instance, his horse is stranded while crossing the soft clay of the River Hume, and as he swims to safety to seek help from the locals (“almost as naked as when I was born”) he is attacked by a pack of wild dogs and forced to escape up the nearest gum tree. Protesting his credentials to the farmer, who is now aiming a shotgun at Bourke, the man replies, “So you are the mailman then? Well, I don’t think much of your uniform.”

But turn to the story of Frank Birtles for something really barmy and inspiring in equal measure. According to Outback Heroes by Patsy Adam-Smith, by 1911, Birtles (pictured) had “cycled seven times across the continent and twice around it - taking a new route on each trip.” Just ponder that for a moment. Now the next question you’re probably thinking is, understandably, “why?” As well as food and water, he carried with him 300lbs of photography equipment, taking pictures and writing about his discoveries along the way.

In 1909, he peddled over 3,000 miles in 44 days from Freemantle in Western Australia to Sydney. His diary demonstrates just how perilous this particular trip was. Here he is on the quest for fresh water: “Had to choose between ‘stewed rabbit’ water or the evil smelling ‘muss’ that the camels had been wading in. I took the latter.” Birtles suffers niggling issues, like quite severe injuries (“cut my heel badly; sand making it fester”) to a number of rather close shaves, best summarised with great flippancy when describing a 70,000 mile round trip from Sydney and back again in 1911. “Crocodile crawled out onto a sandbank in the middle of the stream,” he writes. “Fired a bullet at him… grilled about eight pounds of it for tea, salted the rest.”

His journey through the Kimberley foothills is equally disturbing: “Run over a small spinifex snake, which bit me on the front of the right leg. Pinched the flesh, cut piece out. Leg black and blue; not hurting much; let blood run freely; feel very thirsty.” Of course, if it wasn’t for people like Birtles and his overwhelming audacity, then we wouldn’t have acquired even a small measure of the knowledge that we now know about such an overwhelming environment. The outback is full of these wondrous stories, ones which I will no doubt divulge freely in the coming months.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Neighbours’ (Channel Ten)

So, during a week of such monumental political change, I’ve been watching ‘Neighbours’, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The more observant amongst you will know that Britain is six months behind in the TV scheduling, so if you don’t want to know what’s going on, feel free to stop reading now and, with the greatest respect, maybe get a life.

Luckily, the soap remains as sugar coated and eccentric as ever and much better than ‘Home & Away’, which is on during the prime ‘Coronation Street’ slot and treated with equal reverence, while ‘Neighbours’ seems to be cruelly sidelined in the early evening. Channel Ten cram three advert breaks into their daily dosage from Ramsay Street, which is tiring, and the show has suffered in the UK since its move to Channel Five, usually the bedrock of morally reprehensible product like bad American TV and sex comedies.

But I have to admit a liking for ‘Neighbours’, ever since Hannah was trapped down a drain for a whole episode, and especially when Harold Bishop turned into a mentalist for a week, and also given the fact that no brewing storyline couldn’t be resolved without a freak plane crash or a fire at Lassiter’s.

Paul Robinson - who is the only remaining character to have depressingly been on the show since it started - now resembles a psychotic Phillip Schofield as he retains his role as being Erinsborough’s number one bastard with his blackmailing of Jared Rebecki, better known as comic moron ‘Toadie’ who has now thinned out and is expecting a child with Steph Skully. I remember when he was at school, for Christ’s sake. He’s been dodgy dealing as Paul’s lawyer but wants out, so as a disproportional response, Paul hires a private detective to tap his phone line. “You can’t expect miracles in a couple of hours,” says the sleuth. “That’s exactly what I expect,” Paul beams with veins pulsing. “I want results now!” He sips from a mug with the words ‘I Like Me’ in bold letters. What a bastard.

Around the corner, Susan Kennedy is being stalked. It’s got to be someone at the school where she teaches, they think, as her work email is plagued with death threats. It’s good to see her and Karl back together with Libby in tow, considering that Libby appeared to change her identity at one point, and especially since Susan so tragically lost her memory, believing that she was living in the 1960s and failing to recognise even her own husband. Mind you, marriage to Karl Kennedy must be about as exciting as shopping for a door wedge, so who can blame her.

Hoons, Chooks and Pashing

There is a great chapter in every guide book which relates to language. My Australian one says that ‘Strine’ (a word used to describe Australian-English) “can sound like a profound Cockney intonation piped through the nose.” They certainly seem to elongate their vowels and substitute t's for d's much like the Cockney accent, but there are some words which just don’t compute, things that I have had to question and, in extreme cases, look up. Here are some of them. I’m sure there will be more.

arvo: afternoon. “I’ll see you in the arvo.” 
chook: chicken. Fast food places like Red Rooster will serve you a whole chook, and delicious it is too. It’s like a fast food version of Nando’s, if you can imagine such a thing. 
daggy: uncool, out of style. “I know it’s a bit daggy, but I collect antique chamber pots/play chess on my own/listen to James Morrison” etc.
dinkum: meaning honest or true. If you heard “is he fair dinkum?” that would mean “is he for real/is he serious?”
hoon: hooligan, generally reserved for shouting at young people on loud motorbikes.
ocker: an unsophisticated country type who is really, really Australian, to the point where you would probably have to squint a little to understand them. I’m not yet sure whether this term is used affectionately or as a bit of an insult.
pash: kissing, full on, with tongues and everything.
pokie: a slot machine, like a one-armed bandit. Some bigger bars seem to have entire rooms dedicated to these, not to mention large numbers of gamblers and their small change.
schooner: the largest beer glass in Queensland, which is the maximum amount that you can be served in a bar and is smaller than an English pint. The glass size below a schooner is called a ‘pot’.
servo: service station. This habit of abbreviating words is popular, which seems to add to the somewhat casual informality of the place. I wasn’t sure whether ‘servo’ was just one of those slang terms which becomes part of the vernacular but is not generally embraced outside of local communities, but thankfully I stand corrected. I have spotted road signs with ‘BP Servo’ written in big letters, which I find completely endearing.
sluggos: small swimming shorts, like Speedo’s. In February, opposition leader Tony Abbott was photographed in sluggos as he competed in a swimming competition (pictured above), causing many to criticise the politican for using the opportunity as a publicity stunt. That may be true, but I don’t think he looks all that bad in what is certainly a difficult look to carry, especially when you consider the David Cameron equivalent.
smoko: break time at work, which used to relate to a cigarette break but now seems to embrace all worktime restbites.
stickybeak: to take a look, as in to ‘stick your beak’ into something. A bank clerk said this while I was opening an account and trying to get my brain around all the different rates of interest and saver deals open to me, so throwing in a word like stickybeak certainly didn’t help.
stubby: a small bottle of beer, a larger bottle is called a ‘tallie’ and a can of beer is a ‘tinnie’.
stubby holder: a fabric or foam case to keep your stubby or tinnie cold, which is an essential outdoor item. The better novelty ones usually have comic, beer-related quips written on the side, things like “if it’s not at your local, then move house,” and so on.
Tim Tam: a chocolate biscuit, like the McVities Penguin bar. There is a really adventurous way to eat these with any hot beverage - simply bite off the corners of opposite ends and slurp your drink through a specially designed air pocket which runs through the chocolatey centre. And yes, people actually do this. It’s mucky business, and takes dunking to a whole new level.

But if you want to get your head around some of the country’s most famous linguistic luxuries, then simply consult their adopted national anthem, Waltzing Matilda, written by the bush poet Banjo Paterson in 1887. It’s full of such rich verse that, even today, it takes a little bit of decoding, particularly for an Englishman. For example, here are the opening lyrics:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolabah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
“You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”

Now, firstly you will need to know what a swag is in order to understand what a swagman would be doing with one. A swag is a waterproof bed, and a swagman was the name given to a traveller living hand to mouth and working from farm to farm. He’s camped by a billabong (a lake), under a coolabah tree (a eucalyptus tree, the like of which are found across Australia), waiting for his billy (a portable kettle) to boil, singing to himself about carrying his matilda (a bag containing all of his belongings).

Similar to the British national anthem, people will struggle to recite all of the verses to this popular folk song, but if you read it all, you'll notice that things don’t turn out too grand for our jolly swagman. He steals and eats a sheep, only for the farmer to alert the authorities and have him arrested, but before the police catch up to him, he commits suicide by drowning himself in the billabong. Paterson concludes his lyrics with the spirit of the swagman haunting the site: And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong, "You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me". Spooky.

I hadn’t realised until reading up on the history of British colonialism in Australia that, throughout the 80 years that they were sending convicts here (160,000 in total), different allocated states and islands were used to separate the various classes of criminal. The first ships would arrive from Portsmouth into New South Wales on 26 January 1788 (now the celebrated Australia Day) after a journey of eight months, which adds a little perspective on the 24 hour flight that it takes today. They docked in Sydney and, over time, the city would form the designated home for solely those charged with petty theft and embezzlement. For really violent sorts who were fond of escaping, these were sent to an island (of course) off the coast of Victoria, which was then called Van Dieman’s Land, named after Anton van Diemen, governor of the Dutch East Indies who sponsored Abel Tasman’s journey to the island in 1642, later to be rechristened Tasmania in his honour. As for the ‘worst kind of felons’ - those who were deemed so bad that any free settlers wishing to live near them were banned from doing so inside a 50 mile radius - well, where do you think they were sent? Yep. That would be Queensland.

What they would have found, of course, were acres of tropical wilderness, enriched soil for vegetation and fine grazing for livestock, and underfoot, an abundance of natural, profitable resources from coal to gold. Compared to the squalor of an overcast, over-populated Britain, you can’t help but feel that these were some of the luckiest prisoners in the world.

A booming economy was waiting to be exploited here, although life was by no means easy, and you wonder whether Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society (pictured) who came up with the whole penal colony idea in the first place, had really thought it through carefully enough. The temperatures during the summer months in Australia would prove far too hot for the prisoners to work, and being city folk, they had little experience on how to cultivate crops or work on the land. As a result, and despite such obvious potential, those first fledgling steps in their new habitat would result in famine and hardship. Then there was the small matter of the natives, but that’s a whole other story, and one that I promise to come back to.

So there seems to have developed a north/south divide along the east coast between Queenslanders and those from New South Wales, who consider some northern folk to be, well - and putting this in the nicest possible way - bonkers. Whether this links to its colonial history, who knows, or maybe its just something about the heat. I couldn’t possibly pass judgement on this, being as I’m yet to spend any time in New South Wales, so I mention all of this merely as an aside to the real story that I wanted to discuss, which concerns the locals at my farm here in Bundaberg. All of them perfectly pleasant, but a select few perhaps meeting this prescribed assumption.

Like Mavis, who on my first day introduces herself as ‘Billy’ - she prefers it, she tells me, which is absolutely fine, although everyone else still calls her Mavis, which certainly puts one at risk of huge social embarrassment. There is a young girl, perhaps a similar age to myself, who has outwardly refused to engage in any form of prolonged conversion, and seems idly happy to spend her lunch breaks staring into a wall. The teenagers, however, are all smiling workhorses and much better at the job than me, like Joel, who didn’t get on too well at school and left in Year 10. There’s a slightly wild eyed look about him, especially when he laughs and tells me “why should I go to school when I’ve got a PS3 at home and a 50 inch plasma screen?” A tough decision for any 16 year old, certainly.

The ever-charming Bill Bryson has looked into other reasons why Queenslanders are allegedly “madder than cut snakes” in his brilliant book, Down Under. “For almost two decades the state was under the control of Joh Bjelke-Peterson, an eccentric, right-wing state premier who at one time seriously entertained the notion of blowing up parts of the Great Barrier Reef with small atomic bombs to create shipping channels.” There are anecdotes denoting the ‘crazy’ behaviour of Queenslanders in most Australian books, like the one Bryson explains, about an American tourist asking for salad to go with his meat and potatoes while staying at a Queensland hotel. The waitress turns to the other guests in disgust and says, “this bastard thinks it’s Christmas.” “In a word,” he concludes, “Queensland has a reputation for being a place apart.”

Now I would like to stress at this point that I am in no way suggesting that these select Queenslanders are indicative of a whole state, and with an area as large as Queensland it would be completely absurdist to suggest so. But they certainly don’t act as an exception to the rule, and that’s all I’m saying.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Santo, Sam & Ed’s Cup Fever’ (SBS)

All of the World Cup games on SBS are preceded by this comedy show, recorded live from Melbourne in front of a studio audience. I’ve caught it a couple of times this week and it is funny, in places, like an extended version of the 2 Good, 2 Bad section at the end of ‘Match of the Day 2’.

Here, a deadpan trio of established comedians (Santo Cilauro, Sam Pang, Ed Kavalee) host a round up of the day’s results with an extended look over the more absurdist moments from the previous day’s games. This includes excerpts of convoluted commentary, officials falling over, plenty of references to the vuvuzelas and a regular gag like Take On My Nuts, featuring the ‘hilarious’ image of a wall of players protecting their groins. The boys are clutching at straws a bit here, so lets hope there is a contingency plan for when the tournament reaches the later stages and the gags, as well as the games, start to dry up.

Better are the pre-recorded skits, like the Socceroo player Mark Bresciano’s Cup Diary, which has the midfielder commenting more on what he had for lunch rather than his training (trust me, it's funnier than it sounds), and then when it stops being silly to talk to special guests, like Dutch legend John van 't Schip who featured on last night’s show. The hosts suddenly prove themselves as not only gag blowers but also, reassuringly, big fans of the game, which certainly helps.

The SBS coverage might not be the slick, revolving, multicoloured stat fest that something like Sky would be rolling out, or the come hither homeliness of the cuddly Beeb, but at least they’re showing all of the games live, even repeating full matches at more sociable hours, as well as putting together a more serious round up of highlights. So this show acts as a nice alternative look at a sport which, we were led to believe, the Australians don’t even particularly like.

But let’s not forget that I am writing all of this as a frustrated England fan, and given our goalless draw with Algeria was so painfully dull that, at one point, the director chose to instead focus on a bird which had rested on one of the goal nets, then perhaps laughter is the best and only medicine.

Ball or Nothing

England’s first game against the United States was broadcast live here at 4.30am, which certainly didn’t deter associated company from opening a few cans of beer. I’m not sure whether I’m happy to not be so bombarded with all the hysteria of this year’s World Cup, which could probably pass in Bundaberg with all the significance of a school fun run. If previous experience is anything to go by, England seem to overestimate the collective talents of their footballers to such a degree that nothing short of complete disappointment will do. So credit must go to Robert Green for maintaining our track record of goalkeepers with hands like Swiss cheese. He must have seen the Sun headlines flash in front of him before the ball had even trickled over the line. Poor bastard. Let’s put it down to nerves and move on.

Tim Cahill is the big name around here for the superbly titled Socceroos, who received a visit from John Travolta this week to offer some imperative strategic advice ahead of their game tonight with big hitters Germany, their toughest challenge of the group. Cahill is the commercial face of Australian soccer, but Mark Schwarzer and Harry Kewell are prominent too, although the effect of their endorsements have, in my eyes, been very slight. These players were all part of the team’s second round success in 2006, but before then Australia hadn’t qualified for the competition since 1974, and their star players will be past their prime before the next competition in four years time. Despite this, a new book called Soccernomics is claiming that Australia is set to become a huge footballing nation, and that “[a] century from now, Aussie rules might exist only at subsidised folk festivals”. An unlikely thought, although their claim that more youngsters are taking up the sport over rugby could suggest otherwise.

So that’s a thought to chew on, particularly if the Socceroos prove successful at this year’s event, and especially if FIFA accept their ongoing bid to host the 2022 event, which sounds to me like a splendid idea.

So, a bit more detail on where I’m currently living. Bundaberg (or ‘Bundy’ to the locals) is a good 240 miles north of the Queensland state capital, Brisbane, and the first thing you notice is how remarkably flat the landscape is. The best way to view the city is from the Hummock, an inactive volcano turned lookout spot which may only be 96 metres above sea level but still offers a wide enough view of the whole area, from the sea as it brushes the shores of Bargara in the east (a lovely holiday resort with dramatic beachside views and regarded as the starting point of the Great Barrier Reef), to views of the region’s crucial Burnett River, where it is said that pioneering aviator Bert Hinkler flew his aircraft underneath the river’s railway bridge. There is even a bust of Hinkler near the site to celebrate the fact.

Hinkler is one of Bundaberg’s most famous residents, and forgive me for a moment while I bore you with why: Bert may have travelled to England to learn his trade, but his hometown would remain a crucial location for many of his most notably records, eventually settling his light aircraft here after being the first pilot to fly solo from England to Australia in 1928, taking only 15 and a half days to do it (beating the former record by nearly two weeks).

He had a superb mathematical intellect, too, and created technologies during the first world war which would go on to be used in the second. He would also be the first to fly solo across the South Atlantic in 1931 - a remarkable feat, given that for part of the journey he was flying with limited to no visibility. Poor Hinkler’s technical abilities would eventually fail him, however, while attempting to beat a new solo flight record of only 8 days from England to Australia, losing contact while flying over the Tuscan Mountains in 1933. The original landing site of his 1928 journey has now been renamed Hinkler Park in his honour, and you can even visit his Southampton home, which was transported from England to Bundaberg brick by brick and is now a museum on the site of the city’s botanical gardens.

Tall, dense sugar cane fields dominate the surrounding landscape which have thrived in the subtropical temperatures since the first sugar mill opened here in 1882, thus providing the city with global trading potential and a burgeoning economy. Sugar is transported from Bundaberg as well as processed here to create the molasses which is used in the city’s most famous export, Bundaberg Rum, which is available across the world as well as other associated products, but more on this later. In certain areas, when the sugar cane is harvested, huge fields are dramatically set alight to burn any dry leaves and to rid the fields of any damaging infestations, most notably from poisonous snakes, with taipans and brown snakes being the most likely to lurk in the undergrowth.

Farming work in Bundaberg attracts a huge number of backpackers to the area, and more than enough converted hostels to accommodate them. This makes a journey to the supermarkets quite interesting, with communities of Japanese, American and European tourists milling along the aisles. The population here is only 70,000, but that’s still enough to make Bundy within the top 30 most populated cities in the whole of Australia. 26th, to be precise. But the area is large, and residents are free to live in plenty of space, in homes that have become synonymous with the state (called ‘Queenslanders’) which are built on stilts to help cool the inside of the house, especially during the humid summer months. The average yearly temperature in Bundaberg is 26 degrees. July is when it gets really cold here, well, in Queensland terms, with an average low of just under 10 degrees in the winter time.

Given such clear days, I would certainly suggest a trip up to the Hummock at nightfall. Given the flat of the land, the skyline seems to stretch for an unimaginable distance, with the most breathtaking sunsets you’re ever likely to see. A glorious mixture of deep orange splits the burning clouds on one side and is replaced by the first signs of stars from behind you, often simultaneously, and you can almost feel the night creep up on you, like a blanket slowly being lifted. And the stars! Following an evening drive, we step outside and arch our heads for a hypnotising spell under the clear night sky. It takes a few moments for your eyes to adjust to such splendour: not only does the moon seem to glow with even more luminance, but you can clearly see the Milky Way with an almost divine potency (no, seriously), and the most famous constellation of the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross, which is so symbolically important to the country that it features prominently on the country’s flag.

When describing the sky to you now, the word ‘vast’ doesn’t seem to be a big enough word, but vast it is, and completely spellbinding: with daily magnificence like this, it quickly becomes apparent what people mean when they describe Australia as a truly magical place. I can’t wait to discover more.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Deal or No Deal’ (Channel 7)

I’m convinced that you can tell a lot from a country just by how they approach the concept of ‘Deal or No Deal’. A Dutch creation, lest we forget, but just look at how the Brits interpret it: eccentric plebs add camaraderie and real-life drama to opening random boxes, while Noel ‘Crinkly Bottom’ Edmunds hosts with his hairy faced faux charm. It’s mostly a self-conscious effort to appear high spirited in the face of inevitable, crushing disappointment, and no one does that better than the Brits.

The Australian version takes it’s cues, seemingly, from both 1980s American game shows and the sort of crazy-ass Japanese delirium that would probably have the word ninja in the title. The ker-razy host is Andrew O’Keefe, who makes Noel Edmunds look like some boring parking attendant, as he poses and pouts like a coke-filled, malfunctioning Brian Conley. In attempts to keep the quick-talking, epileptic nature of the show pumping, his banter is short and reactionary. Today it’s Carol’s game, and she’s a full time carer looking after her 86 year old father who wants to save enough money for a trip to Holland. “You’re not taking your Dad with you, then?” O’Keefe asks from his gurning face. “I don’t think he’d make it,” she replies, still trying to maintain the forced frivolity of the setup, but luckily he’s not really listening. “OK then!” he yells.

And then there are the rules, which seem to have been made up as they go along, with crazy bonus games thrown in just to confound the viewer further. There are 26 suitcases, with numerical values from 50c to a maximum of $200,000 (and a car, for some reason); contestants are chosen at random from the audience and play along with their best friend, with the audience members opening the cases. They can play along too by guessing the contents of their own box, and if correct, they win $500. And there’s none of this ‘lets talk to the banker’ chicanery - the offers flash up on screen like the values on a slot machine. So far, so relatively comprehensible.

Then, about halfway through, the screen goes mad and Carol has to take a ‘Megaguess’, where random monetary amounts appear on screen. She says one of them, then everyone in the audience groans, there’s a brief moment of unexplained despair and then play continues, leaving no clues as to what just happened. Then, at the end, they wheel out the ‘Supercase’, which is like the gamble option at the end of ‘Bruce Forsyth’s Play Your Cards Right’, where you can opt to sabotage your overall winnings in favour of eight possible choices. It doesn’t really matter what the player wants to do, though, because O’Keefe bullies them into gambling anyway. Luckily for Carol, it pays off, and she goes home with $30,000.

But I’m yet to mention the ‘Dealettes’, who work in the ‘Dealadrome’ and deliver the 26 suitcases in a get up of identikit blond bobs and blue, sequined dresses. The girls seem to be a prominent feature in just about every other format of the show across the world except Britain, where perhaps the idea of cookie cutter trolley dollys is, I don’t know, a little bit dated, perhaps. And kind of sexist too, actually. All of this happens in less than 30 minutes, by the way, and the whole thing feels like being trapped in an arcade with the fire alarm going off.

Pommy Bashing

I was accused in last week’s blog of not being very funny, so here’s a joke to kick things off: how do you get a Pom out of a bar? Turn on the tap.

No, I don’t understand it either, but I think it has something to do with the representation over here of the English taking a somewhat relaxed approach to personal hygiene. There’s a similar joke about hiding a stash of money under the one place that a Pommy would never look - the soap dish.

Contrary to the notion of the Brits supposedly possessing the ability to laugh at themselves, there is a committee of 14 ex-pats based in Perth and Melbourne who seem determined to disprove the rule: the British People Against Racial Discrimination (BPARD) complained to the Advertising Standards Board when beer brand Tooheys went with the slogan “cold enough to scare a Pom” on their campaign posters in 2006. (That’s another stereotype, the one about the Brits drinking beer at room temperature). The ASB confirmed that the term Pom was not derogatory and cleared the ads, despite the organisation’s spokesperson David Thomason claiming that the word was comparable to terms like “wog, wop, dink, dago, coon and abo.” He continues: “The worst you hear from the Barmy Army is that Aussies are sheep shaggers and you all live in a penal colony.”

This is all news to me, but clearly these terms are bandied about jovially and without malice, usually during large sporting occasions like, for example, the Ashes, where both sets of fans give as good as they get. Incidentally, when this story broke in Australia, News.com.au went with the glorious headline “Don’t call us Poms, say Poms” which, you have to admit, is really quite funny.

You really can’t be expected to live in Australia if you don’t possess a substantial tolerance for creepy crawlies. Leave remnants of food out for more than five minutes on a kitchen work surface and you’ll return to a trail of ants performing the can-can on your breadcrumbs. Flies appear to taunt and heckle you in huge, buzzing numbers. The other day I saw a cockroach, a big one too, rapidly fleeing from under a hump of dry clothes, but these are mere grazes compared to the plague of destruction wrecked by the likes of the Redback, a spider distinguished by a lightening bolt of bright red across its small underbelly, which can render a human quite helpless with a single nip.

It’s the females who you need to keep an eye on: despite their small size, they can lure lizards into their webs, some up to four times their size, and their inhospitable side makes them quite violent lovers, famed for eating the male after copulation. Conveniently, Redbacks are common around Queensland, and I’m told they like small, dark, damp places like, say, the inside of your shoe. “Just give them a shake before you put them on.” That’s some damn good advice right there.

This stuff is unheard of in England, but Australia is sparsely populated, and creatures are free to roam amongst the relative obscurity. Queensland is still a mostly untouched, tropical landscape with acres of baron desert a mere 30 minute drive into the west. A population of some 4.5 million people (that’s roughly the same number as Liverpool) live in an area the size of Western Europe. And (get this), throughout such a vast expanse of unrelenting land, only three roads will take you west and even then you’d probably be quite mad to consider driving out there, not at least without some heavy duty sunscreen and a shotgun. Anything could be out there in such a large and open wilderness, and what an absorbing thought that is. Entire species have fought and survived without much human interference, building up ingenious natural defences that you can’t help but admire, if only from a rather sizeable distance.

For example, you can’t move for cane toads here, and they can get quite feisty at night time, but even these seemingly innocuous creatures have toxic skin, and many animals have perished after ingesting their tadpoles. (Interestingly, the toad is native to South America and was only introduced to Queensland as a means of pest control to help reduce the numbers of cane beetles, so called for their destruction of the local sugar fields. Only 102 were introduced in the 1930s, but it seems that the toads have had other things on their minds besides killing beetles, as the number is now somewhere in the region of 200 million, with their migration patterns heading ever increasingly south at a rate of 25 miles a year. Such an infestation helps to clarify just why the border police here seem so inherently paranoid).

But if the danger’s not in your back garden, then consider the seaside, where you might feel innocently obliged to pick up a cone shell, largely in part due to its intricate and beautiful design, only to disrupt the sleep of the small sea snail lurking inside, who fire poisonous harpoons in self defence. Some species are called ‘cigarette snails’ because (and how Australian is this) you only have roughly the same amount of time to smoke a cigarette before the venom takes hold and summons you to the big clam in the sky.

Disturbing, yes, but then consider what’s in the sea itself: upon a trip to Coonarr Beach, a stretch of pristine east coast shoreline upon which you could feasible walk for several miles without encountering another human being (and that’s on a busy day), eagles circle the ocean looking for shoals of fish, but no matter how tempting it looks, my girlfriend warns me not to go in. “If there are a lot of fish, that probably means that there are quite a few sharks out there.” Oh, righto.

I’ve had quite a few of you asking about how the quiff is holding up in these sub tropical temperatures. Well, it’s going pretty well, and thank you for asking. Although at a recent encounter with a hairdresser (and I believe that this incident may just about warrant the name ‘quiffgate’), where upon asking for an Elvis Presley look (circa 1956), I instead receive a Ronan Keating look (circa 1994) - razor short sides and spiky, not curled. But thank you for your concern people - I’m sure Quiffwatch will return in due course.

And while we’re readdressing cultural stereotypes, I enjoyed fresh shrimp on the barbie the other day, and delicious they were too, even if the little creatures were still keen to put up a bit a fight right up to the very end. Which goes some way to proving the point that the best way to cook these crustaceans is in boiling water and not on a barbie; pop them straight into brine and the shells are much easier to peel. And the Australians don’t even call them shrimp - they’re prawns. The phrase itself was concocted for a series of commercials presented by Paul Hogan for the Australian Tourist Board in the 1980s aimed at the overseas American market where the notion of barbeque is already quite familiar, not to mention ‘shrimp’.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Good News Week’ (Ten)

Current affairs panel show which, like the BBC’s ‘Mock the Week’, gives a sizeable platform for stand ups to blow gags and banter, as well as accommodating for larger personalities to show their lighter side. Like current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who famously appeared on the sit-down Q&A section of the show earlier in the year. It’s presented by Paul McDermott, a prick-haired former novelty singer with a tendency to laugh at his own jokes.

Regular panel members include Akmal, an Egyptian Uncle Fester, and Tom Gleeson, dressed as an IT technician. Gleeson plays the cheery-faced geek card and is understandably popular here: he’s as much a safe pair of hands as finding Alan Davis on a ‘Q.I.’ line up. Other panellists include Mikey Robins, a version of Tony Blackburn as a platypus, and Fiona O’Loughlin, a Catholic comedian whose steady recovery from alcoholism is, for some rather cruel reason, constantly lampooned. On this week’s episode, she’s also giving up smoking. “If I have to give up one more thing it’ll be my will to live.” She takes the jibes in a self-deprecating manner akin to nearly all Australians that I’ve met, and still manages to be one of the funniest people on the show.

The game is set inside a Rubik’s Cube with intermittent musical asides, most notably from American-born soul singer Marcia Hines, who can be found on the judging panel for ‘Australian Idol’ and delivers two faultlessly rehearsed renditions of ‘You Make Me Feel (Like A Natural Woman)’ during the one show, proclaiming her ageless talents as “black don’t crack.” She’s not particularly funny, rather just happy to be there, as the teams dissect top international news items with a light sprinkling of bad punning (which works) and an undercurrent of Islamophobia (which doesn’t). Of course, you’d have better luck learning about the week’s news if you read the back of a Vegemite lid. And, what with all of Channel Ten’s commercial breaks, it feels like the show goes on for days.

Jungle Fever

What most people know about the koala is that it’s not a bear but a marsupial, like a possum or a kangaroo, characterised by its pouch for housing their joeys. It was the colonialists who spotted a similarity to bears, which surely begs the question as to whether they had ever seen a bear close up or just far, far away. Because koala’s are small, tree dwelling fur-balls who, rather boringly, sleep for up to 18 hours a day. Then they invariably eat eucalyptus leaves for their remaining five to six hours of the day, before falling asleep again. These guys turn sloth into an art form.

You can hold a koala at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, near the beaches on the Gold Coast. The place is a bit like Jurassic Park, shepherding tourists on a miniature train through giant birdcages, animal themed adventure parks and seats fashion from giant plastic crocodiles. Audio guides blurt out information from speakers hidden amongst the bushes. I’m not completely sold on the idea, especially considering the number of, say, lorikeets and parrots you can see just walking down the streets. In fact, head up to North Queensland and you can see most of these animals, albeit outside of their cages and not quite in such a family friendly environment: crocodiles aren’t penned in to makeshift fences but free to devour lagoon-dwelling tourists; tall red kangaroos leap into passing vehicles; a small wallaby, grazing in the bush, might suddenly find itself grappled into the talons of a passing eagle. Yes, Queensland is a wild place. This glorified zoo sanitises danger, like a visitors room at a high security prison, only with better coffee.

Having said that, the Australians are fierce on conservationism, and the sanctuary are currently raising money for their wildlife hospital appeal. It costs $600,000 a year to run the hospital, treating up to 30 animals a day, and they’re planning to build a new one to meet up with the increasing demand of troubled wildlife. The effects of their work can be seen across the park, like their wedge-tailed eagles, who can no longer fly after being rescued from a roadside accident. They’re one of the largest birds of prey in the world with a wingspan of over 7ft, but they would have otherwise been discarded due to their injuries. The sanctuary also provide homes for a number of endangered species which, tragically, will undoubtedly die out during our lifetime. A disheartening thought, especially considering the tree-kangaroo, which is a small, auburn coloured creature with an elongated tail and an astoundingly blasé approach to heights. They can survive a fall of around 60ft, which is quite baffling, but they can’t quite counter the growing effects of habitat loss from deforestation.

They have Tasmanian devils there, too, although being expert scavengers, they’re quite hard to spot. These dog-like, meat-eating animals were considered a pest and hunted into the 1940s, but now face an even larger threat to their existence: the devil facial tumour disease, a form of cancer which only effect these little creatures and, as yet, has no known cure. But the sanctuary are working on this, which is just as well: the disease has allegedly caused a 50% decline in numbers and, since 2009, the Tasmanian devil has been placed on the world’s most endangered species list, something which increases every single day.

From July 2008, it became compulsory for those migrants under the age of 30 who were wishing to extend their work visas to Australia to undergo three months (88 days) of specified regional employment. The initiative, in theory, helps local businesses with an affordable and constant stream of labour to help meet the high demands of peak seasons, especially on farms where, in northern Queensland, everything from cherry tomatoes to figs, grapes, peppers, bananas, macadamia nuts and sugar cane all thrive in lush, abundant fields. Crops are harvested in huge numbers, or intensively farmed inside greenhouses promising fresh produce all year round, and once picked they are then packed and shipped to outlets across the continent. Here, in Bundaberg, the city relies on the land for the majority of its employment: from the many local farms which surround the region and the coastline, to the huge sugar plantations which help to produce the region’s best known export, rum.

But not everyone is in agreement that the new visa scheme works, particularly the backpackers themselves, who often feel exploited and forced to work in somewhat undesirable conditions. I’ve heard stories of terrible living quarters, where suffering employees are too scared to complain unless they lose their minimum wage, to anecdotal evidence of workers dying of dehydration in sheds where, during the sizzling summer months, temperatures can reach over 50 degrees. But the farmers aren’t happy, either, and who can blame them: those under 30 and looking for a second year in Australia are usually university educated or gap year students whose history of manual labour was when they once worked part time on the cash desk at Dixons. They don’t want to be there, which only acts to frustrate the land owners even more. I’ve spent this week working intermittently on the Marcon family plantation, where capsicums and courgettes are picked, priced and packaged for shipment to locations like Sydney and Melbourne, and the motto here seems to be, “however fast you think you’re working, work faster.”

It’s repetitive, draining at times, but the husband and wife who run the farm are adamant that they will not be employing backpackers. The workforce is predominantly made up of locals from the Bundaberg area, both male and female, young and old, creating a communal atmosphere and hard work ethic that I’m sure is lacking on the other farms. Alan, 17, works here full time, along with many of his co-workers, and when he’s not lifting crates of green peppers he’s surfing or riding his BMX. He is following in a family tradition which has forever been a staple of the lives of the people in northern Queensland, steeped in a respect for the land and the fortunes that it brings. So it’s small wonder that when I tell Alan that I’m from England, he replies, “English, eh? Well, we don’t get many backpackers here.” The Marcons have set a precedent in which I’m sure many other local farmers will follow if migration into the country continues to increase.

For further evidence of Australian’s stern conservationism, just look at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to take Japan to the International Court of Justice for their continued whaling in the Antarctic, whose seas have long since been declared as a whale sanctuary. In their defence, the Japanese are allegedly hunting for ‘scientific’ purposes, rather than commercial. Quite what ‘scientific’ reasons these are will be made clear when the countries meet in The Hague, although justifying the deaths of over 2,000 whales a year won’t be easy: unless these scientific reasons extend to building a giant Frankenstein’s sea monster for some kind of covert military operation, reanimated with the head of a dolphin, the tail of a thousand tuna fish and all fashioned out of condemned orca bits.

That’s a disturbing image, but Japan are keen to defend the barbaric practice on traditional hunting lines, while ordinary Australians think that the mammals should just be given a break. The fact that the decision was one of Rudd’s 2007 campaign promises has met with some derision from the local press, who see its fulfilment as a piece of savvy politicising considering that Rudd will be fighting for re-election later in the year. And what if Australia lose the battle in court? It’s unlikely, but embarrassing nonetheless.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘State of Origin: New South Wales v. Queensland’ (Win TV)

Wednesday saw the first of three big ‘football’ (read: rugby) matches between these two giant states of Rugby League, which is disproportionately popular here on the east coast, to the extent where normally placid and well-meaning Australians lose their minds for 80 minutes, screaming at the television and shouting obscenities. I know this to be true after watching the game in a house in Queensland, where every crunching tackle and physical exertion is met with a loud and patriotic yelp. The State of Origin games are a big deal, where every year rugby players forgo their club colours in favour of the state from which they were born, thus creating an almost tribal encounter which seems to garner more national pride (and division in equal measure) than when they play for the national team. So you would think that they could come up with more flattering names for the sides: NSW are the Cockroaches, QLD are called the Cane Toads.

But Queensland are clearly the better team, which helps, winning albeit not particularly comfortably, just like they have done for the previous four years. It was a great game, and I don’t even particularly follow rugby, but it is a shame that commercial station Win TV (or Channel 9) seem so eager to promote Ford’s half year sale that they even show their adverts during the game. Granted, this only happens when play stops after a try, but such trigger happy commercialism reminds me of watching TV in America, which is perhaps the closest equivalent to looking after a hyperactive child.

G’day Tripper

Paying $46 for a latte and a bottle of water at Hong Kong airport seems steep to me. They’re also selling croissants for HK$60. For that much, it had better have some chocolate in it. It seems bizarre to pay these vast numbers for such a necessary item as breakfast. Not that plane food hasn’t improved. Cathay Pacific are the region’s native airline, complete with a soothing panpipe soundtrack and smiling air hostesses with chopsticks in their hair (I may have imagined this. I am very tired). But check this for a menu: orecchiette pasta and hot smoked salmon, pork provencale, sautéed beef. Sounds like a meal fit for the French, and we all know how fussy they can be. Of course, when it arrives, it’s difficult to tell the various components apart, as the beef seems to share the same consistency as the rice, and a yellowish vegetable which (I can only imagine) started life as a swede, but lost its sense of purpose long ago.

Edible, though, which is all you can ask for during such an excruciating long haul flight, although even the fixed pleasantries of the amiable cabin crew did start to fray at one point. Come breakfast time (a formality when you’re tripping through time zones), one young lady explains the menu to me over the buzz of a jet engine which has already been airborne for about nine hours. When I ask her to clarify, her response is prompt: “Look, do you want Chinese or western food?” The façade had crumbled slightly, and I can’t say I blame her.

Before I move on, a word regarding Hong Kong, of which I appear to have gleamed all of my knowledge from watching Jackie Chan films. Upon landing, you observe dozens of junks and ferries traversing through the South China Sea on their way to the various mountainous islands which look spectacular amongst the deep blue of the ocean - this tiny, bustling metropolis seems to be so overcome with activity that the airport (many will tell you) appears to be planted so close to the sea that there is a brief moment of panic as the plane descends and threatens to take the head off one of the boat’s captains, or at least blow their hat off. The terminal is vast even compared to most shopping malls, as the Chinese queue for bowls of congee and fried rice (you probably need to re-mortgage the house to cover that lot). I’ve just spotted the actor Andy Lau on the cover of this month’s Hong Kong Esquire, and I also recognise actresses like Karen Mok and Gigi Leung advertising various brands and charities (Donnie Yen is the current face of Head & Shoulders), which makes me feel a little bit closer to a culture which has long since fascinated me. Spotting the skyscrapers from the Starbucks in the departure lounge, I know that I will need to come back here, and maybe even leave the airport.

And so on to Brisbane, the expansive capital of the so-called Sunshine State of Queensland. Contrary to this, it rains when I arrive; that's the thanks I get for putting up with a flight which by any one’s standards is an extravagant price to pay for torture. The jetlag plays havoc with both sleeping and eating patterns, and because of the time distance, practically half a day vanishes as you cross the breadth of eastern Europe, China, the Philippines and arrive on the other side of the Pacific. Just think what you could do whith that missing half day. You could watch 12 episodes of ‘The Sopranos’ in that time. Just think about that for a moment. Yes, Australia is very, very far away.

In contrast, the chummy immigration staff make it suspiciously pleasant on arrival, and seem more paranoid about a fellow passenger’s packet of Chewits than anything else that may pass as particularly suspicious - in fact, you could probably try your luck with a giant shisha pipe and a travel chemistry set complete with miniature collection of toxic liquids and test tubes only to be refused entry when a member of the border police spot the contents of your back pocket: “wait a minute, mate, is that an apple you got there?”

It may be too early to clock anything other than subtle differences between the two cultures but, at a glance, it seems that everything, from the music to the way people drive to the fashions and tastes in takeaway food are all quintessentially the same. The main task for any Brit staying for a long time here is to find a way to settle in with the locals, which I’m guessing happens more in gradients rather than as at an exponential rate: I’ve clocked the boys in basic three quarter lengths, flip-flops (or ‘thongs’ to the Australians, although some of the more confident boys seem to have abandoned footwear altogether), Ts and sunglasses, just like the English in Ibiza. Shorts have never been a staple of my wardrobe, but we all have to make sacrifices. Plus it was 21 degrees yesterday, and it’s nearly winter over here for Christ’s sake.

A quick word about the wildlife. Australians seem to have developed a particularly cavalier attitude, I believe, as a direct result of the waiting numbers of deadly creatures which seem to sit, quite literally, on their doorstep. Like the tree spider, which cuts a scary image to anyone who has only ever seen something similar in glass boxes. I can see three of their intimidating webs from where I’m typing this, as they loiter ominously between the trees and telegraph polls. I’m told they’ll “give you a nasty nip”, but if you sit and think about these things then you would never leave the house. So the prime learning curve at this juncture is one of resilience.

I loved the sight of the Rainbow Lorikeet (pictured), who cause quite a stir amongst the fruit trees with their rather distinctive chirp. They’re strikingly beautiful parrot-like birds who feed on the honeysuckle and (allegedly) become so intoxicated by the nectar that they lose their flight perception and have been known to collide into the passing traffic. The galah is similar, of the cockatoo family, and just as clueless (hence the phrase "flaming galah" to describe someone of a slightly idiotic persuasion). I’ve not seen this myself, although I like the thought of them as being a slightly rebellious scourge on society, particularly against the Noisy Miner, of which there are many, and not half as exciting.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Spicks and Specks’ (ABC1)

A music quiz panel show with surprisingly straight questions which delivers a light premise of wholesome banter, the like of which you would find on ‘A Question of Sport’. Hosted by comedian Adam Hills, rounds range from quick fire pop knowledge to a singing game where contestants have to guess popular melodies in which the lyrics have been replaced with selected readings from hilariously unrelated literature. I remember seeing a show similar to this in the early 90s, presented by Radio 1’s Mike Smith and called ‘That’s Showbusiness’, until ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ arrived and both saved and ruined the TV music quiz. The panel seem to know their music more than their jokes, although I’m told that one of the team captains, Myf Warhurst, is one of the country’s premier figures in the music press, akin to someone like Jo Whiley, who has done sterling work on the government-funded Triple J alternative music station (which thankfully has no adverts). I’ve listened to it and it’s really quite good, playing Fucked Up, Mos Def and Sarah Blasko all in quick succession, which is anything if not diverse.

Just the Two of Us

It’s been strange living in a Labour stronghold like Leeds since the confirmation of the new order, mainly because you can’t imagine what life must be like outside of your own bubble to realise where the hell all those Tory votes came from, and how we ended up with a PR man running the country. Sorry, make that two PR men.

A week is a long time in politics, and for proof of this, simply look at last week’s blog, when Labour where still (technically) running the country. Now look at them all: you might even clock Gordon Brown in a pub somewhere and think, “don’t I know you from somewhere?” Buy him a drink if you do. He looks like he needs one. But wasn’t his quick resignation speech lovely? His sense of relief was palpable, as if he just couldn’t wait to grab the kids and chart a flight to the furthest beach on the planet.

Despite my bias on this, I think the media have been a bit glib during such a monumental shift in our British political system. It could have been much worse, people: a centre right coalition will wean out the more extreme policies on either side, and although the Lib Dems may have sacrificed a lot in the process, they are still instrumental in putting their key manifesto pledges into action and will finally have a voice on the national stage. The media offence was initially caused by the pally nature of David Cameron and Nick Clegg's first press conference together, in which most left wing newspapers commented on the scene's homoerotic overtones, which was just borderline offensive: would the same have been said if it was Clegg and Brown instead? Yes, their camaraderie was precisely staged and the two seem to already be morphing into the same person, but those on the left shouldn't be too glib: no one who saw those scenes couldn’t have been reminded of the burgeoning years of New Labour with its rolled up sleeves, hearty handshakes and smiles for the cameras. Only now, instead of one Tony Blair, we seem to have two.

Anyway, with the press already stoking the fire of division within the new system (Conrats? Liberatives? Condems? Let's work on a name for next time), I think we should give this whole thing a chance, because given the budget deficit, rising sea levels, mass unemployment, a huge national distrust of politicians following a succession of scandals, division in the eurozone, mammoth environmental catastrophes and a volcano spewing a debilitating ash cloud into our jet engines, they will need all the help they can get, especially while Labour are deciding which half of Jedward to support in order to secure another term in office.

This is my last full week in England, as the next blog will be written from Australia, but that may depend on whether planes are being allowed to leave the ground by then. (Forgive my ignorance here on the intricacies of aviation, but can’t they just fly a little bit below the ash cloud?) This gives me the chance to talk about Swindon again, which is where I’ve just come back from. Obviously putting nostalgia aside, the old streets are just the same as I remember, but there appear to be new toy towns springing up everywhere. The old site of Princess Margaret Hospital (where many of my friends were born) is now a boxy, beige bricked commune called Royal Mead (something we locals like to describe as ‘flats for twats’, which Swindon seems to be full of. Flats, I mean).

Why, when given the opportunity to turn a blank canvas of derelict land into something iconic or even inspiring, do we choose to build these identikit, flat-packed, Ikea saturated, soulless estates with their measured rosebushes and driveways? You think that we would have learnt from our exploits in Milton Keynes, but obviously not. And then these suburban holes have the gall to be provisionally planned on green belt areas, thus encroaching on the surrounding splendour of the landscape. I know people need a place for their Audis and flat screen televisions, but it just doesn’t seem right to me.

Before I move on from this, need I remind you that it’s a big game for Swindon Town tomorrow: a second leg play off encounter with Charlton Athletic, who we beat on Friday thus furthering our chances of promotion into the Championship. I actually prefer to observe the team from a distance now for fear of suffering any inevitable bout of depression following any high profile defeat, a feeling of which is akin to the death of a much loved pet. Detachment like this isn’t desirable, but it can certainly help to reduce the stress levels.

Russell Crowe walked out of an interview with Mark Lawson this week when the prominent critic said he thought the actor’s interpretation of Robin Hood sounded a bit Irish in Ridley Scott’s new, big budget version. The disgruntled Aussie spent a long time trying to get his tongue around a northern accent, apparently, and from the clips I’ve heard, his voice seems quite indistinguishable from any other Russell Crowe voice.

This got me thinking about the worst accents in movies, which is a fun thing to do, if you have a few minutes to spare. Leonardo diCaprio struggled with Irish in Gangs of New York, including his co-star Cameron Diaz, who seemed to give up trying altogether about halfway through the movies. Dick Van Dyke’s ‘mockney’ chimney sweep in Mary Poppins obviously takes some beating, but little is mentioned here about Kevin Costner’s interpretation of a British accent in his attempt at Robin Hood in the early 90s, which seemed to stump the actor so much that he didn’t even bother. It was Nottingham by way of Los Angeles. At least Crowe deserves some credit for even giving it a stab in the first place.


And to add a more personal element to this, I would like to say a hearty thank you to everyone who paid a visit to the last live Wintermute show on Wednesday night. An emotional event, undoubtedly, and not just for us in the band, but there is some solace that can be taken from the knowledge that the people you meet in life, through whatever circumstance or instance, can ultimately and intrinsically become some of your closest and treasured friends, and that bonds like this are truly unbreakable. The music may be over, but I very much look forward to seeing everyone again - the people whose love and support have been a constant throughout my time here in England - and that they will forever remain in my thoughts.

Swing When You’re Winning

Well, for a while there it looked like we might have a result which would contradict the exit poll, but as Friday morning went on (in direct correlation to us running out of beer), things went as predicted. Which has pissed off just about everyone: Tories, for a lack of an overall majority; Labour, for losing such a chasm of seats; and the Lib Dems, whose waning Cleggmania boost over the past few weeks had started to resemble a former ‘X Factor’ winner trying to get a Christmas number one - they had spectacularly failed to capitalise on their initial popularity.

Not even the voters were pleased, particularly those who didn‘t have enough time to vote. There were bizarre scenes in Sheffield where irate voters complained when the doors closed on them at 10pm, which is what they’re legally supposed to do, considering they had been open since 7am that morning. There was confusion with a lack of ballot papers when teams of students turned up without their polling cards. They had probably left them in the union bar to use as coasters.

And then some familiar faces were ousted, like Jacqui Smith, whose expenses claims could rival Greece’s budget deficit, and Lembit Opik, who had been rather wisely sidelined during the campaign, which was probably something to do with his insistence on putting taxpayers money into researching meteorites. Both lost to Conservatives, who took significant gains everywhere, including my home town of Swindon, with both North and South constituencies formerly being Labour strongholds.

I stuck with the BBC coverage throughout, which was mostly first class, particularly the visual effects department who had been working overtime to plonk Jeremy Vine in some form of virtual reality hanger like the holodeck on the Enterprise, walking on the computerised pavement outside Number 10 with constituency names underfoot, and in a particularly stunning if peripheral act of CGI grandiose, he physically appears to topple scandalous expense-claiming MPs with their images fixed to a falling stack of dominoes. Almost as brilliant was the enthusiasm of Emily Maitlis and her giant iPad which, when it worked, seemed the best way to successfully dumb down each passing result into pretty, logical, pictorial sense for dribbling drunken idiots, which is important when you’re doing live television at 3am. She was still pressing buttons the next morning with endearing affection, like someone showing off a new car.

But, god, Andrew Neil was annoying. I was watching the coverage with my Dad who just couldn’t take Neil’s constant harassing any longer (particularly when you’re moored on a boat talking to such political minds as Joan Collins), at one point shouting, “just save Maureen Lipman and sink the bloody thing!” The coarse double act of Dimbelby and Paxo was cynically spot on, and you can’t help but watch and admire how they can continue to discuss detailed constitutional reform after such a long time without sleep. If that was me, I would just end up mumbling into a sock.

And then there was an awful sense of hurry up and wait, which is a common trend on any rolling news broadcast. Token talking heads from Paddy Ashdown, George Osbourne and even some important people were unceremoniously cut to focus on live broadcasts of one of the Big Three doing something, anything, from shaking hands or driving somewhere. These were the worst cut-to’s, as a helicopter tracks the roof of a car across London with commentators not completely sure where they were or, indeed, what car they were supposed to be looking at. Looking down on the scene resembled some form of CCTV tracking system, as if we were checking that the cars didn’t run any red lights or drive in the bus lane.

Following it on Twitter was fun, too, especially getting tweets from people like Armando Iannucci, who complained that the live TV feed wasn’t working on their boat and were therefore probably the only people in the whole country who didn’t know what the hell was going on. That’s the sort of insight that you just wouldn’t have got before, even at the last election. Whether this is a good thing, of course, is debatable. As an aside, why not follow me at @iknowbenjohnson, if you choose to do that sort of thing.

And then came the result, which despite its unprecedented nature, still managed to get quite boring quite quickly. We still don’t technically have a government at the time of writing, until Clegg decides which of his former bullies he wants to bunk up with and therefore alienate just about everybody else. But after the Big Three had spoken on Friday, journalists have just been left to report on a whole lot of hypothetical and speculative nothingness, repeatedly, and usually using the same talking heads that had been on the television for the past 24 hours. After the mammoth live broadcast, the BBC cut rather reluctantly to an episode of ‘Flog It!’ as some form of twisted clemency, before unloading even more speculative nothingness into our ear holes, the like of which is still going on as I type.

Now, perhaps this is just to do with the fact that reality TV is no longer a strand of television but actually television itself, but the whole thing did have an air of ‘The X Factor’ about it; after deliberating for hours and then throwing open to the public vote, we still had to wait until the end of the weekend to get any form of a result. And, just like on ‘The X Factor’, someone else should have won.

Spain for Pleasure

Corvera is a sleepy (and I use this term with complete accuracy) byway in the dusty south eastern tip of Spain which appears to have been largely ignored by just about everybody. There are cars parked on the streets but seemingly no people to drive them, but if they choose to, at least Corvera has a petrol station and a road which will lead them to the bustling university city of Murcia, which is about 10 miles north. Corvera’s only cab driver, Juan, has one arm (I suppose you could call him a ‘Juan-armed-driver’). Demand for his services are slight (probably wise), and we’re told Juan only recently entered the taxi trade to supplement his haulage business, which perhaps prove Spain’s slightly cavalier approach to road safety.

We’re here during the May bank holiday for Mercia’s SOS 4.8 festival, a non-stop two day event which set us back the measly price of €35. A relatively young cultural event combining visual and performance art with live music, SOS 4.8 mixes an odd collection of British artists (Hot Chip, Mystery Jets, Madness) with the sort of Spanish pop which wouldn’t look out of place on ‘The Fast Show’. Listening to this stuff makes you realise just how important the UK music industry really is, and there is great pride to be had in watching a 30,000 strong crowd of Spanish locals singing along, in interpretive English, to the songs of Franz Ferdinand. As a tourist, and as one of the very few English at the festival, one can take solace in the fact that drunk teenagers are pretty much the same all over the continent, no matter what language barrier, with fashions and behaviours reminiscent of just about any other UK festival that I have had the mortally hung over pleasure to have endured.

The festival’s main beer sponsor, Estrella Levante, aren’t particularly prolific outside of Spanish speaking regions, and can’t therefore afford the global marketing costs of something like Heineken’s Benicàssim festival, which attracts British drugheads in their droves. Mind you, SOS 4.8 isn’t by a beach (although it is located on a car park, like the festival in Benicàssim) and can’t quite boast the same expanse of artists, but it does share that unique Spanish sensibility of forcing its visitors to dance until they’re unconscious, or at least until they can’t quite take anymore. Last night, for instance, Fatboy Slim took to the stage at 4.30am. Let me repeat that. 4.30am. This fact alone puts your average English festival to an embarrassing shame.

Given the educated nature of the predominantly student crowd, a basic grasp of English is clearly a prerequisite, and I wish I could say that this is reciprocated. My limited grasp of Spanish mostly includes repeatedly denouncing myself as ‘Anglaise’ and being able to ask for coffee with milk. Yet the attitude towards the English appears to be quite envious. ‘Anglaise?’ a barmen exclaims, ‘Ci, muy buena!’ My politeness extends to the local townsfolk, one of which clocks me near a petrol station and asks me something I don’t understand. When I point out that I’m English, she asks again. “Blow job?” she says. And being as awkwardly English as you could possibly imagine (particularly when being confronted by a prostitute), I thank her for the offer but politely decline.

Back in Covera, we’re told that the region will soon have sufficient financial support from the PGA who plan to build a top international golf course in the region, something which entrepreneurial ex-pats have taken to heart by quickly assembling a new apartment complex, which is where we are having the pleasure of staying. It has been built like a mass-security compound in a deserted, sandy outback and is therefore, I can only imagine, not dissimilar to Guantanamo Bay, only with better parking. This was built back when moving to Spain for most Brits was almost part of your retirement package, the results of which have seen versions of Little Britain dotted up and down the south coast, where Guinness is served on tap and bars have songs like ‘Sweet Caroline’ on their karaoke roster. But since recession-hit Brits have stopped buying up land for their bespoke villas and swimming pools, unemployment has rocketed here. During our stay at the resort, we only see approximately ten other human beings, including staff.

It's bloody luxury, though, although clearly not quite to the high standards of my mother. “Where’s the bidet?” she asks in all sincerity. Sometimes you don’t realise just how horribly middle class you are.

Gordon Brown’s ‘bigotgate’ gaffe reminded me of that scene in The Naked Gun, which in itself is a joke that is almost as old as the hills. At a press conference featuring top international delegates, lieutenant Frank Drebin takes a prolonged moment of anguished relief in the gents toilets only to discover upon his return that all of his extended lavatory behaviour has been beamed out live across a stunned conference thanks to his tie mic. Surely Brown’s mishap displays the sheer amount of exhaustive cross-country badgering that all party leaders are currently going through: after all, I certainly know that if I were in the same position, I wouldn’t just accidentally forget that I was wired up to a Sky News microphone and that every word that I was saying was being recorded by journalists who have been spending every waking hour trying to screw me. So, really, he should have known better.

Still, a priceless moment nonetheless, and one that further confounds those bullying allegation that many found so unpalatable. He looked so infuriated with himself when he was exposed on the Jeremy Vine show (pictured above) that you wondered whether he might just completely flip out, rip off his shirt and start tearing up the studio. But calling the incident a game changer is short sighted: let’s recall Neil Kinnock’s arse-over-tit routine on Brighton beach during the 1992 Labour campaign, which didn’t singularly lose him the election, but did contribute to a mounting catalogue of errors, which made him look more like a clown at a kid’s birthday party than a viable PM contender. Brown committed the ministerial equivalent of sending a text message to the person that you were meant to be discussing with somebody else. It’s not an excuse, of course, but we’ve all done it.


I failed my driving test on Wednesday. No great shame in that, but it would help if driving instructors told you just when the testing officially starts and ends. As a preamble, I merely happened to comment how hot it was inside the car, to which the official questioned how to turn on the air conditioning. Not knowing the answer to this, or whether we were still engaged in some form of gibbering nervous small talk, I continued to drive and completely avoided answering his question. I had been advised that conversing during the test can help with cooling any built up anxiety, but in hindsight, it’s probably best to just shut up and drive.