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.