Sydney Oprah House

Details are spilling out thick and fast concerning Oprah Winfrey’s decision to launch the final 25th season of her talk show here in Australia. Judging by the audience reaction to the news (delirious doesn’t quite cover it), you wonder how on earth such a thing was kept a secret, not just from the audience and crew (who will also be going with her, all 300 of them), but also the whole country of Australia. During confidential negotiations which lasted a whole year, the planning was referred to as ‘Project O’ by the New South Wales government.

Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure takes in eight days of filming at some of Australia’s most iconic sites, from the Great Barrier Reef to the Sydney Opera House as well as the chance for the audience to “sample shiraz in Aussie wine country and shop ‘til they drop in trendy Melbourne,” says Winfrey, as if quoting directly from the press release. Of course, Oprah don’t come for free: details concering the costs involved show that Tourism Australia have shelled out $1.5 million for her visit, while the NSW state government have chipped in somewhere nearer the $2 million mark. But it’s small fry, really, when you consider that Oprah is practically a messiah to millions (40 million US viewers, to be precise), and that her show is broadcast in 145 countries. The opportunity to sell Australia as a prime tourism hot spot looks set to do much more than both Crocodile Dundee films combined.

But here’s the detail I love: in truly extravagant style, the audience will enjoy an all-expenses paid trip as well as their very own Motorola smartphone, and they will be flown to Australia by none other than celebrity guest pilot John Travolta. I don’t quite see the connection myself, unless maybe Travolta gets to pocket the Qantas plane once he’s done with it.

It may sound clichéd to you, but anyone looking for a cataclysmic difference in good manners between the English and the Australian should maybe try riding with one of Brisbane’s city bus drivers. “How long has the Red Rooster been shut?” says one driver, and not to me, either, but to another clueless passenger, who does luckily know more about the fried chicken franchisee situation in the western suburb of Ashgrove than I do, enough to at least manage a response of, “err, about four months, I think.”

“Did it just chip off somewhere or has it closed for good?” At this point I figured that maybe the driver was demanding a little too much information from his baby faced bystander, but he continues anyway. “Because you don’t often hear of Red Rooster shutting down.” This may well be true, although the residents of Brisbane are hardly underserved when it comes to drive-thru options. But that’s not the point. All I could think about during this whole exchange was, “What the hell is the bus driving doing talking to people?”

Naturally, as an English person who is yet to meet a nice bus driver, you’d have to put this down to an anomaly, a freak mix up of forms at Queensland Transport, perhaps, resulting in a mild-mannered lollipop man suddenly finding himself driving the City Glider. But then this happened: not only did I flag down the wrong bus, but upon telling the driver so, he then proceeded to pick me up anyway only to deliver me to the correct stop, without once asking for payment.

Now that’s weird. What’s even more strange is that this has actually happened to me on more than one occasion (Brisbane can be a complicated place). So, while exulting in the delights of friendly bus drivers though still suspecting the whole thing to be some kind of Jeremy Beadle style ruse, imagine my sheer delight when I stepped on board the 380 earlier today, and was greeted by this: “Hello mate and welcome to the happy bus! Welcome aboard the three eighty!” And no, I’m not making this up.

The driver beamed this quite loudly so that every seat should know their astounding luck to have purchased a seat on the happiest bus in Brisbane. He then proceeds to yell this information at all incoming and outgoing occupants. Given such enthusiasm, he had to rush his farewell words as people disembarked, similarly bemused, so his goodbye gesture sounded more like, “thankyouthankyoufortravelingwithustodayandhaveagreatrestofyourweek!”

Still, it’s the extra effort to be jolly which counts. As for whose benefit (his or ours) it barely matters; after all, such uncustomary theatrics are especially welcomed during one of the most mundane things you can ever do in life: the act of riding on a bus. The only thing more mundane is having to wait for it in the first place.

Of course, if a British bus driver performed a similar escapade, we’d probably all internally accuse him of some form of deep-seated sarcasm or at least a hint of self-loathing, both for his job and his passengers, either that or as someone so unhinged that they probably shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery. I thought the same thing myself for a while, that maybe I had caught the bus driver in a Howard Beale mad-as-hell style meltdown, a la Network, half expecting him to yell “I’m not gonna take this anymore!” and slam the bus into the river. Anyway, I was still thankful for occupying the happy bus. It may have been a somewhat self-conscious happiness, but that is still better than no happiness at all.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Four Weddings’ (Channel 7)

I’ve found myself watching far too much of this show, which is essentially a catty, reality-based bitch fest where four Aussie brides are welcomed to each other’s weddings in order to rate them on a list of criteria, including the dress, the ceremony, the food and the reception. The bride with the most votes wins a Luxury Five Star Top Secret Honeymoon!

Clearly two things need to be mentioned. Firstly, that the grooms have no involvement in this, barely referenced it seems, and are completely sidelined in favour of virile brides looking to rain on their own parades. Which brings up the second issue: just where do we intend to draw the line with this whole bear-baiting process, where reality concepts are created just for the sake of conflict? This show has more in common with the voyeuristic, gossipy columns of Hello! magazine and carries just about as much weight. It’s so absurd that I would like to propose an antithesis to this show, ‘Four Funerals’, where we would follow four grieving widows as they give ratings out of ten for how sad the ceremony is, the quality of the buffet back at the house afterwards and, if it’s an open casket, the state of the corpse. I can almost hear Channel 7 sharpening their pencils.

Anyway, we were still delighted to see the Glengariff Estate on this week’s show, a mid-19th century building and grounds located in the plush Brisbane Hinterland, not just because it’s a lovely venue, but mainly because this is the very same location that we all went to for a wedding just the other week.

On the show this is Lucy’s Big Day. She tells them it’s a ‘bush wedding’, which was clearly misleading, so immediately the grumpy girls are disappointed. “I was expecting some cows,” says one of them. From here on in, Lucy’s ceremony is utterly scrutinised, even if she does appear to be having a wonderful time. “You could actually see the petticoat under the dress,” says one. “Everywhere you looked there were fake flowers,” says another. And the food? “There’s too much potato.” Lucy actually ends up coming last in the competition with 59 out of 130, although having watched this show more than once I can personally confirm that it is particularly hard to get a high score. The girls - as you can imagine for somewhat tactless women with free entry to one of the most important days in anyone’s life - are seemingly not chosen for their generosity.