Bring Your Own Boos

Ex-PM John Howard had a fright this Halloween week, dodging the shoes of angry protestor Peter Gray who hurled his footwear during a live broadcast of the ABC’s ‘Q&A’ TV show, shouting “this is for the Iraqi dead”. It was interesting to see the former Liberal-National Coalition leader face such a physical and literal dressing down while he sat high on his book-promoting pedestal, even if the studio unease only lasted a minute or two. Mind you, Gray hardly put much venom into it, unlike the George Bush attack of 2008. Bush had to physically duck to dodge those missiles: Gray’s first is high and wide, the second awfully limp. Here’s the original clip, where Howard still remains remarkably self-assured; it's the sort of poise which suggests he has become accustomed to people throwing things at him. And if you didn't know, John Howard’s political memoir, Lazarus Rising, detailing his 11-year stint as Aussie Prime Minister, is out now.

I managed to get some temp work as a copywriter for a government office in Brisbane, compiling newsletters on subjects that I didn’t fully understand. Copywriter is such a derogatory term, and succinctly diminishes any hint of creativity that may be involved in the role. I’ve done public sector work before and, if it’s taught me anything, it’s to avoid using one word when you can use at least four or five. For example: why write ‘university’ when you can call it a ‘registered state funded tertiary education provider’? Jobs like this remind me of that scene in ‘The Day Today’ where an angry Steve Coogan takes a swipe at the Americanised business speak of a workplace training rep: “When you go to the toilet, do have an ‘Armitage Shanks interface defecation scenario’ or do you just have a shit?”

Anyway, look at the view: 19 floors up and surveying the entire south side of the city, including the 49 acre Botanic Gardens, the Southeast Freeway which crosses the Brisbane River and into the district of Woolloongabba. I would spend about 20 minutes of every day just staring out at this, at the rooftop hot tubs, the ferries cruising up the river and the miniature bodies rushing to and from work. On Thursday there was a thunder storm, not untypical for Brisbane: ten minutes of oppressive tropical whirlwind and rain. I saw the darkness descend from one corner of the window while the sun shone blue and radiant on the other. It certainly beats the view from my last public sector job: a dilapidated industrial estate overlooking the A629.

Bizarrely, I did manage to find something interesting in Council Leader magazine (“a bi-monthly magazine featuring up-to-date information on local government news and relevant issues affecting councils throughout Queensland”), for which I had been asked to write an article. The following are genuine exam answers from 16 year olds in the UK and can be found in the 'Time Out' section of the magazine. It’s enough to make you positively homesick…

Q: Name the four seasons?
A: Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

Q: What are steroids?
A: Things for keeping the carpets still on the stairs

Q: What happens to your body as you age?
A: When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental

Q: What is the most common form of birth control?
A: Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium

Q: Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink?
A: Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.

Q: Give the meaning of the term 'Caesarean section'?
A: The caesarean section is a district in Rome



AU Tube - Understanding Australian TV
‘Top Gear Australia’ (Channel Nine)

There are over 900,000km of road in Australia, including some real humdingers: the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Great Ocean Road, the Nullarbor desert highway and the alluring expanse of the outback. We travel everywhere in my girlfriend’s automatic Holden Commodore, a reliable, hulking fridge of a car which is notoriously difficult to find in a supermarket car park for being the exact shape and size of just about every other car in Australia. That’s an exaggeration, obviously, because even a pom can tell you that the most identifiable Australian automobile is the coupe utility, or ‘utes’ to you and me, mate. The ute was supposedly invented in Australia by Ford as a response to a farmer in Victoria who wanted “a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays”. They’re a bit redundant in the cities so the new pimped out Holden utes are more of a status thing, seeing about as much dirt as an agoraphobic farmer. But they’re everywhere in rural Queensland, used functionally by hard-working tradies (possibly my favourite Strine word of them all): you’ll find fishing rods and dogs clawing onto the open back tray of a truck doing 70ks for fear of being turned into instant road kill. For the practical, hands-on, four-wheeling bush tucker Aussie, the ute is your best friend.

And then we have the RVs and those ‘Old Farts in Caravan Parks’, as John Williamson would sing: silver surfing nomads who pack their lives into collapsible motor homes and jolly around the country. It’s a retirement rights of passage, of sorts, as the masses of Aussies who hit their 60s realise that they should probably see Uluru before they clock out. There are dedicated web sites comparing campervan journeys: Sydney to Sydney in 42 days; wine tours of South Australia, Cairns to Cairns with a two year old. There seems to be an intrinsic link between this vast, open country and the motor vehicle. And for those of you who doubt me, just try walking somewhere.

So, for a rev-head country like this one, their own copycat version of the BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ should be a triumph. Britain’s original, flagship, popular-beyond-all-proportion car show hosted by Dopey, Sleepy and Grumpy is already very popular here - it's on after the Australian version on Channel Nine. This flat-packed self-assembled rendition comes complete with the same studio set up, the same seating arrangement, the same Stig character, the same ‘Jessica’ remix, the same reticent male midlife cry for help. And, crickey, if you think the UK version is blokey, can you imagine what it’s like here in Australia? It makes the UK show look like ‘Loose Women’. Burly main host Shane Jacobson is all mates and handshakes like a pub landlord. Aside from a few neat cultural tweaks - the ‘reasonably priced car’ is a ute, of course - it’s mostly a shaky start.

But none of that matters really when you look at the crux of the problem, that a show like ‘Top Gear’ wouldn't work on a commercial network station. Take the US version, which has finally been given the green light despite numerous false starts, like main Jeremy Clarkson saying that “they just don’t get it” in response to a flopped re-edited version of the UK show supposedly tailored to American tastes. At one point, car nut Jay Leno was rumoured to be the host, before slamming the whole concept. “My great fear in America is that, for instance, if Kia was our sponsor this week, we’d have to say the car was fantastic,” Leno said in a 2008 interview with the Times. “In my mind I can just see Jeremy lambasting Americans for what they did to his show.”

But, evidently, it is not the integrity of the BBC that the corporation are holding in such high regard when selling their TV concepts to the highest bidder. The Nine Network is known for shows like ‘Australia’s Funniest Home Videos’, ‘Two and a Half Men’ and the ‘CSI’ franchise - all commercially durable products - and ‘Top Gear’ is no exception, with this week’s episode featuring marketing slots for Audi, Shannons car insurance and the Volkswagen Golf. This safeguarding seeps into the program, so you don’t really get an opinion on anything. On Tuesday’s episode, I discovered that some cars can go very fast, that the V8 Supercars aren’t really designed to be driven around the main streets of Sydney, and that they work much better on a race track where they can also be very loud and go very fast.

And on that bombshell…

Fowl Play

The thought crossed my mind that I have been talking about our resident bush turkey for weeks and not once shown you a picture of it. We’ve seen this creature more than the landlord, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this turkey actually runs the gaff, storing cheques in the 4ft mounds he’s busy building from garden debris in the back yard. As you can see, they roam quite freely in these parts, waddling right up to your front door and, if you’re not paying attention, they’ll knick your sandwiches off the picnic table. I’ve also recently learnt that buried deep within these mounds of leaves and dirt could be up to 24 eggs, that’s if the goannas don’t get to them first. Both of these creatures are native to Australia, so although the locals may get used to the sight of a turkey v. goanna bush brawl, I’m still utterly captivated by the pair of them. So remember, kids, a turkey’s not just for Christmas.

Another quick Altiyan Childs update, who has become a bit of a Toxic Math favourite and is now finally being recognised as the nation’s favourite TV nutcase. According to this, ‘The X Factor’ singer missed midweek rehearsals with his mentor Ronan Keating after falling asleep in a cave. “I fell asleep at sunrise and my phone died,” said Childs, a 35 year old forklift truck driver from New South Wales. “I rushed back to civilisation and I realised it was 1pm… I had commitments at 8am and I wasn't there.” The singer went to the cave at 2am on Tuesday morning to “reconnect” with the “beautiful sadness” of Sydney's northern beaches. His “sadness”, according to the singer, is “my secret power… what drives me through the song.” It must have been that same ‘beautiful sadness’ that really helped last week, when he so passionately belted out ‘Living on a Prayer’ by Bon Jovi.

This will only help his cause, what with being the only rewarding aspect of a relatively dry competition. Altiyan’s problem is that he’s actually quite good, in a guilty, pub singer, no-hoper kind of way. Given how he’s in a perpetual state of anguish, it’s hard to tell whether he’s actually enjoying all the hype. He’s got a face that, even if he was offering you a compliment, it would still look like he’s breaking up with you. The slightly troubling news regarding ‘Cavegate’ (just go with it) is when you read the bit about the cave being a special place for him and his ex-fiancé, with whom he has been separated for eight years. Eight years! Who else is bargaining on a reunion photo shoot of the couple on the cover of New Idea when the show’s over? Get the hankies ready.

Ever ready to credit a good gag, my girlfriend’s explanation of a Roman Catholic canonisation process being one where you are “fired out of a canon” certainly deserves acknowledgement, although maybe a little gunpowder might have helped to spice up the extended live coverage of Mary MacKillop’s ceremony to become Australia’s very first saint. Some 8,000 Aussies made the long haul to Vatican City for the show. I’ve been there before when the Pope is in residence and it’s like a U2 concert, only a little less reserved. You can now relive the magic with the Blessed Mary DVD: a day of huge international significance for Australia, whether you believe in miracles or not, recognising a woman who was, by all accounts, highly regarded even in her own lifetime, founding schools in regional Australia with an emphasis on educating the poor.

She died in 1909, which is quite important to the whole canonisation process, alongside the evidence of miracles, which caused most of the cynical press to open up the ‘science versus religion’ cupboard and rattle a few skeletons, something that tends to happen during big religious celebrations. “These things betray a false thinking that is not limited to Mary MacKillop or religion,” says Professor Chris Del Mar from Bond University to the Brisbane Times, questioning the testimony of Kathleen Evans, 66, who seemingly recovered from lung cancer in 1993 after praying to MacKillop. Del Mar believes miracles are part of a “wider problem of people not understanding scientific and mathematical methods”, which the article claims has been “exemplified by newspapers printing horoscopes and people using alternative medicines that had little evidentiary support.” When asked why she felt she had been chosen for the miracle cure at a press conference in January, Evans said, “When I finally do get upstairs [to heaven] that'll be the first question I'll ask.”

Anyway, my girlfriend’s joke reminded me of that old one about the two nuns who are driving at night when they encounter Dracula in the middle of the road. “Quick,” says one of the nuns, “show him your cross.” The second nun agrees, winds her window down and shouts, “Oi! Dracula, get out of the bloody road!”

The Australia Games

Australia’s dominance at the Commonwealth Games shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given such stiff sporting competition as Guernsey, Nauru (population 14,000, about the average match attendance at Hull City football club) and Wales. They’ve won so many medals that surely most of the world would stand a chance of reciting the opening lines to ‘Advance Australia Fair’. They’ve won gold in gymnastics, archery, swimming, cycling, tennis, diving, shooting, weightlifting and wrestling, not to mention all the track and field events: hurdles, walking, men’s relay, discus, javelin, long jump and pole vault, plus a whole heap of para sport medals. In Nauru’s defence, they did manage to pick up two medals, both in weightlifting. Must be a lot of heavy things in Nauru.

Outside of the Commonwealth Games, let’s not underestimate Australia’s proficiency in just about everything else, and the home grown heroes they adore: Greg Norman’s dominance at golf, Jack Brabham at motor racing, Lleyton Hewitt at tennis and Dawn Fraser in the pool. There’s the annual Melbourne Cup, skiing in the Snowy Mountains and hotly contested State of Origin rugby games, not to mention their own incomprehensible Aussie Rules. The Ashes never fails to divide the English and the Australians on social grounds, while in recent years the Socceroos have developed into something much more resembling a football team, playing well despite exiting this year’s World Cup finals in the group stages. And I haven’t even bothered to go into watersports: all those windsurfers, boogie boarders and rowers. No wonder sport is referred to as ‘Australia’s national religion’. So the real question is how can any of this be possible when Australia’s population is somewhere over the 20 million mark? Using a Commonwealth comparison, England’s population is 51 million. India’s is 1.1 billion, nearly 60 times as much.

I don’t have an answer to this, by the way, in case any Delhi officials are looking into this as some kind of Commonwealth conspiracy, but it would probably have something to do with the good weather, funding for sports lessons in just about any discipline from an early age and a whole heap of space. It’s very difficult to learn the shot putt in, say, Willesden. Probably not impossible, of course, which might be why all those English hoodies learn with shopping trolleys first. And I would imagine that having an ocean on your doorstep is quite encouraging, too. When Jessica Watson (pictured) became the youngest girl to sail non-stop around the world aged 16, the rest of us weren’t too shocked to discover that she originally hails from the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

But then we haven’t factored in just how inherently enthusiastic Aussies are about their sport. Nine out of the 10 highest rated shows in 2005 were all sports programmes: the year Hewitt reached the final of the Australian Open, Australia’s Makybe Diva won it’s third consecutive Melbourne Cup and Sydney played Perth in the AFL final. Heck, even Australia versus Uruguay in the football got nearly 2.5 million viewers. (As a sidenote, I should point out that the one program in the top ten that wasn’t a sports show was ‘Desperate Housewives’, and in Australia’s defence, the show was at least semi-bearable back then).

Not that the English aren’t fiercely proud about their sports stars, but Down Under, the sense of ownership is much more prominent. Even your average Joe Plummer will be able to list Aussie test cricketers from decades gone (and English ones, for that matter), and if you turn on your TV, you’ll find Aboriginal sprinter Cathy Freeman advertising the Coles supermarket's Sports for Schools campaign (pictured), or Olympic medallist Emma Snowsill plugging the Natural Confectionary Company. Can you name a British pole vaulter? I didn’t think so, but here you’ll find the golden hair of Steve Hooker pushing the sporting coverage on Channel Ten. “It’s not only who we are,” the voiceover on the ad' says, “It’s who we aspire to be.”

No one could have accused Channel Ten of impartiality during their live coverage of the games. You could read the signs early on, even before the competition had started. “Our arch rivals the English…” a deep voice was saying over a slow motion montage of athletes draped in the flag of St. George, “they’re cashed up and cocky…” But it was gymnastics commentator Daniel Ryan who stands the best chance of a knighthood for contributions to bias reporting with his gloriously one-sided devotion. “The gold rush continues!” he says, very elated at this point. “They ooze quality!” Ergh. “Lauren Mitchell, you are a superstar!” For the record, Mitchell did leave Delhi with four gold medals and one silver, but still, control yourself man.

It somewhat proves just how proudly Australian sporting achievements are received, even more so when things don't go their way. It was quite telling how the English football squad were fiercely reprimanded and their manager harangued upon their return from the World Cup finals earlier in the year despite progressing further than Australia, who returned to a heroes welcome. There might be something more deep rooted in the Australian psyche that could explain this better, perhaps something about the underdog spirit of a relatively young nation which still permeates most competitions despite the fact that they actually end up winning everything. Maybe that’s it. All I know is that Aussie sporting dominance leads to some interesting late night TV decisions, like netball and mixed squash doubles, which may be fun to play, but on television, just looks like four sweaty people going mental in a box.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘At the Movies’ (ABC1)

The ABC movie show is a bit of an institution, comparable to ‘Countdown’ in it’s heyday, being as it has lasted in some form since 1986 with the same two presenters, Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton. The appeal, of course, is their on-screen marriage, complete with constant squabbling and a subliminal questioning of each other’s judgement. It’s basically your parents arguing at the dinner table. I like to think of them watching the movies together and then erupting into argument over what popcorn to buy.

Stratton, a lecturer in film history at the University of Sydney, has an air of Barry Norman in his presentation style only with the added hesitancy of having to choose his words carefully for the fear of another Pomeranz-fuelled domestic. In her defence, she doesn’t vehemently disagree with everything Stratton offers, and she can at least see the virtues in gun-happy zombie yarns like Resident Evil: Afterlife before then giving every film “three and a half stars”.

Here’s a not untypical if heavily paraphrased example from Wednesday’s episode regarding Ben Affleck’s new movie The Town, and should go some way to explaining why the show works on nearly every possible level:

MARGARET: Do you know, I enjoyed it but I felt I had seen this film a zillion times before and I felt that every step of the way I knew what was going to happen and it pretty much did…
DAVID: Look, I know what you’re saying about the familiar material, but I’m fond of a good thriller and, sure, we...
MARGARET: But you’ve got to be thrilled by a thriller. You’ve got to go...
DAVID: No, I was… If I may say, I was thrilled by this… You’re right, the basic material is familiar.
MARGARET: Yes.
DAVID: But he brings a freshness to it which I think is...
MARGARET: Well, I don’t know that he does, but...
DAVID: Well, I think he does.
MARGARET: What I thought was interesting, it’s the first time I’ve seen John Hamm in a significant role after his success in ‘Mad Men’… surely we’re going to see him in bigger roles in the future.
DAVID: Probably.
MARGARET: And… I don’t think this has got anywhere near the subtext that Gone Baby Gone had. [Ben Affleck’s first film as director].
DAVID: Different kind of story. It’s not the same...
MARGARET: I think Gone Baby Gone is a much, much better film.
DAVID: It’s probably a better film and it’s a more interesting story.
MARGARET: And it’s most probably got a better actor in the central role, too.
DAVID: I don’t know that you can say that.
MARGARET: But he’s a - look, he’s a director.
DAVID: But it’s different. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re different kinds of stories.
MARGARET: Well, I don’t know. You can say one film from a director is better than the other and I think his first one was definitely better than this one.
DAVID: I think this is just as well directed as Gone Baby Gone.
MARGARET: It’s just not as interesting a film.
DAVID: You think…
MARGARET: Look, three and a half stars from me.
DAVID: I’m giving it four.

Hello Possum

A crafty little scavenger, the urban possum, with their revving motor call, bushy tails, bulging eyes and ratty face. I’m inclined to compare them to a fat grey squirrel if only they didn’t boast a connection to both the koala and the kangaroo within their marsupial make up. Despite their native credentials, the Aussies can still spot a pest in these cute-ish bundles. At our previous address, possums were discouraged daily from devouring the paw paw trees. Where a bush turkey will build dirty embankments in your back yard (just for laughs, by the looks of things), the perilous possum will have the audacity to nest inside your actual house. The attic, mainly. Now that is crafty.

The noise becomes problematic, you see, not to mention the associated safety hazards, best encapsulated by the vitriolic Brisbane Times writer John Birmingham in one of his blog entries. “I have given no cause for aggression,” he fumes, “save a few muttered curses at four in the morning, some two days ago as the thunderous shenanigans of these wretched lice-infested, rat bastard vermin dislodged a line of track lighting in my kitchen.” No sympathy there, then. The Hardtuned.net forum offer a more hands-on approach under their thread ‘Rat or Possum in Attic: How to Catch the Bastard’. User KNG-515 suggests “put a snake in your roof”, which might work, but may also incur some bizarre animal-related Russian doll situation.

But I quite hate the thought of a taipan getting it’s poisonous jaws around this inquisitive joey which we have caught, quite brazenly, on our doorstep and now - with a little coaxing - on camera. We have watched this little possum develop since our initial meeting some months ago, when it was still digging it’s baby claws into its mother’s back. So close, in fact, that we’ve even given it a name: Paw Paw. I’ll be sure to update you on her developments in later entries. Now, as for the geckos, that’s a whole other story.

Australia’s most easterly point is Cape Byron, at Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, which, if nothing else, should make it quite easy to locate on a map. Here you’ll find a turn of the century lighthouse 100 metres above sea level and pristine views over the Byron coast. We needn’t have taken a tour of the lighthouse as I end up in deep conversation with the curator in the vestibule who tells me more than I needed to know about the physics involved in light refraction, pointing at the original kerosene burner and telling me, with some considerable enthusiasm, how the original optical lens (made by a Frenchman, Henry Lepante, and containing 760 pieces of prismatic glass) would help to navigate wayward ships from a range of over 20 kilometres. Weighing eight tons, it’s transportation alone must have been a frightfully careful process. I carefully sneak out when the curator is trying to locate a pen for the guestbook.

From here, we follow the well worn tourist trail passed schools of mostly English backpackers to the tip of the cliff where you will find a sign indicating your arrival at Australia’s fingertips. Not quite knowing what you’re supposed to do when you reach such a landmark, I take to admiring the scenery, which is much wilder and unkempt than the concrete jungle of the Gold Coast further north. We stand there for some time, windswept, hypnotised by crashing waves and rip tides, and trying to make out the movements of tiny people as they battle against the all-conquering ocean. The image I remember now is one of complete uninterrupted blueness, from both the sea and the sky.

We eat lunch at Twisted Sista, one of Byron’s many deli bars serving healthy yet hearty alternatives and monster portions of homemade cake that could easily double as a bookend. Alongside herbal high shops, vintage emporiums dealing in bohemian chic and quirky surf attire, the small township seems to have been developed in the eccentric spirit of entrepreneurial hippy escapism which understandably helps to make this one of Australia’s favourite beach towns. There’s an easy loveliness to the place, and I certainly had a great if brief time exploring it’s quaint high streets and mini roundabouts. The idea of some 20,000 revellers camping here for the Splendour music festival seems almost unfathomable to me, which may be part of the reason why it has now moved further north and into Queensland, in respect for both the local community and it’s environs. I don't balme them. Music festivals do have a tendancy to make even the most beautiful areas look like the fallout from Vietnam.

And, because Toxic Math seems to be brimming with inane Byron Bay facts at the moment, I feel obligated to tell you that the name is not in recognition of the poet Lord Byron but actually his grandfather, Royal Navy officer John Byron. Captain Cook must have found a kindred spirit in old ‘foul-weather Jack’, being as he was also a colonial explorer of some distinction, possessing the Falkland Islands for the British in 1765 and causing his fair share of conflict along the way. Also, Byron was no stranger to rotten luck: after his vessel, HMS Wager, was shipwrecked in Patagonia and a mutiny divided the crew, it took him six years to get home again.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Stephen Fry Live at the Sydney Opera House’ (ABC1)

I once saw Stephen Fry while punting in Cambridge. That, of course, makes me sound like a twat, but nonetheless it’s the god’s honest truth: there he was, reclining, like Norfolk royalty, being punted down the Cam. But even a rather redundant anecdote like that proves how everyone in England somehow feels connected to the 'National Treasure', whether through his incessant Tweeting, column inches, publications, TV or live appearances. Even for a class-conscious nation, he’s still the toff we’re proud to call our own: witty, self-deprecating and an unrivalled force of knowledge. Along with fish and chips, he is probably our finest and proudest export. So I won’t spend this column banging on about how brilliant Stephen Fry is, because it is clearly a notion that both the Aussies and the Brits can completely agree on.

This 90 minute talk fest proves his worth as an unbridled motor mouth, talking openly to an Opera House audience with no script or theme - apart from a very loose one, the letter W. So we’re drawn into Fry’s world of Wodehouse, Waugh and Wilde, the world wide web, and his episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ which has the raconteur trawling through Cambridge memories, his first graduate job (a teacher in Yorkshire) and meeting fellow Footlights Thompson and Laurie where hilarity ensues. The real revelations come out during his Q&A session with smiley Aussie talk queen Jennifer Byrne, where all the disturbing stuff from Fry’s past is expanded upon (his bipolar, cocaine abuse and time in prison). But all the while he remains his erudite self without once being aloof or patronising: a skill, of course, and his most endearing trait, something which is not common in every scholar.

So, in hindsight, I may have banged on a bit there, but watching Fry at the Opera House was like witnessing the meeting of two country's most iconic institutions. His growing adoration here makes me think that we should quickly draw up some form of rota system so that we can feasibly share him with the rest of the world.