Mistletoe and Strine

TM would like to wish everybody a merry Christmas, regardless of hemispheres, and regardless of snow storms. I’ll be in Bundaberg on Christmas Day where the temperature will allegedly reach 28 degrees. To build up anticipation, we’ve been listening to A Bush Christmas at work, a dubious collection of Christmas music done in an Aussie country style. The irony of singing ‘White Christmas’ is not lost on the Australians, so over the decades, a glut of sensitive, romantic, colloquial but mostly funny seasonal songs have been created to better suit the temperament (and temperature) of the people. Here are some of TM’s favourites.

Rolf Harris - ‘Six White Boomers’
A zoo-bound joey spots Santa on his Christmas run being led by six old kangaroos (‘white boomers’), and because ol’ Nick is in a particularly giving mood, he decides to extend his stay Down Under an extra day to help reunite the baby with its mother. “The last they saw was Santa heading northwards from the sun/the only year the boomers worked a double run.”

John Williamson - ‘Christmas Photo’
Williamson’s Christmas Day revolves around the pressure of getting everybody to pay attention long enough to take the family photo. The grandkids are surprised to see Santa’s big black boots “in the back of Jacko’s ute”, the ladies do the cooking while the men play cricket. Then a goanna runs up a gum tree (this happens a lot in Williamson songs), feeding on leftover chook and cake. And if you were wondering, yes, they do take the photo in the end. But, “hang on Dad, where did Sam go?”

Paul Kelly - ‘How to Make Gravy’
I went to a Paul Kelly Q&A recently where the singer-songwriter discussed his autobiography and explained in detail this particular Christmas commission. “I’ve got one,” he said to the producers, “but it doesn’t have a chorus and it’s set in prison.” The lamenting story of a prisoner writing to his brother about missing his family at Christmas time would go on to become Kelly’s biggest hit. “I guess the brothers are driving down from Queensland and Stella’s flying in from the coast,“ he sings, “They say it’s gonna be a hundred degrees, even more maybe, but that won't stop the roast.” The pressing concern is who will make the gravy in his absence? “I bet it won’t taste the same.”

John Wheeler - ‘The Three Drovers’
A bush poem from 1948, here’s a not untypical romantic verse regarding three Aussie drovers, who herd sheep and cattle at Christmas time through “dry summer heat” with “smoke on the yellow moon”, when they spot a “starry lustre blazed on high/Still echoed on the heavenly strain,” and recognising religious iconography when they see it, start up a chorus of ‘Noel’ as they continue their amble. It’s the Wise Men parable ascribed to Australia’s most cherished and inspiring image of the brave, pioneering stockman in a vast and insurmountable wilderness, a vision which was channelled by a number of poets during the age like the equivalent of Wordsworth’s daffodil.

Bucko & Champs - ‘Aussie Jingle Bells’
A staple summer Christmas to the tune of Jingle Bells: “Kelpie by my side/Singing Christmas songs/It's summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts & thongs.” You might need your Strine dictionary to work out what on earth Bucko & Champs are going on about, particularly with talk of swaggy climbs and kelpies. But you get the idea. All together, then: “Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut’/Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden ute.”

I see that Channel 4 are showing Carrie in the early hours of Boxing Day. That's like putting The Exorcist on Good Friday. Carrie's blood curdling tale of bitter retribution succeeds a seemingly unremarkable folly of programming, the best of which seems to be a new ‘Poirot’, a new ‘Doctor Who’ and the obligatory ‘Eastenders’ special. To be fair, that’s the only episode of the show I’ll actually watch. Let’s hope the producers have taken Channel 4’s lead in turning bullied Billy Mitchell into some possessed Carrie-like devil child, exacting his bitter vengeance against all of Walford by spewing his guts in the Queen Vic. More potatoes, Gran?

Australia’s 7Two have been showing a run of Christmas Specials. I was quite excited to see a ‘Jonathan Creek’ special featuring Bill Bailey until it quickly became apparent that it was made in 2001. The mobile phones were a dead giveaway. Continuing the bygone theme, this Christmas Day they’re showing ‘One Foot in the Grave’, ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ and - I’m not making this up - ‘Love Thy Neighbour’. The popularity in this country for dead 70s Britcoms is quite baffling. The still resonating appreciation for ‘The Goodies’, in particular, is quite perplexing.

But the big clinchers on Christmas Day will be a ‘Spicks and Specks’ Christmas special, a TV movie of ’Anne of Green Gables’ and ‘The Graham Norton Show’, which may not all be riveting, but are at least from this current millennia. And we get the Queen’s speech in the evening over here, which is just in time for the ‘Extras’ Christmas special. From 2007.

Congratulations to Kim Fredericks of 253 Formosa Road, Gumdale, who has been crowned the Brisbane East division winner of the 2010 4KQ Christmas Lights Competition, pictured above. Incorporating more than 70,000 lights, Mr Fredericks orders new bulbs in July and spends over 280 hours (nearly two weeks) preparing the display. The cost of the lights is around $30,000, while December’s electricity bill is $500. No doubt the prize money of $1000 will come in handy.

Henry and Mary Cichowski, of Kuringal Drive in Ferny Hills, have been building on their light display for seven years. “It takes me four and a half weeks to put it up,” said Mr Cichowski. But the real Christmas crackers are 70-somethings Walter and Beverley Wood of Kenmore (pictured below), who were crowned Brisbane West division champions for the 20th year in a row. Attendances at their suburban display reach upwards of 3000 people a night, with visitors travelling from as far flung locations as Lismore and Rockhampton. To put that into perspective: according to Google Maps, Rockhampton to Kenmore will take you 7 hours and 49 minutes in a car. One way.

“Every year people tell us that we can't possibly ever do better - but every year we manage to come up with something new,” said Mr Wood, who also won Best Lighting Display at the awards. The full winners list is here, if you care, and is considerably more extensive than you would ever have thought possible, with geographical distinctions and categories like Best Use of Recycled Materials, Best Logo Display, and the enticing achievement of entering the Bill Stratton Hall of Fame. While Michael and Jessica Sallaway of 2 Childs Street, Rochedale South, winners of the Best Synchronized Music & Lights Display, should seek inspiration from this for next year’s competition - perhaps the single greatest combination of the spirit of Christmas and the music of Slayer.


Which thankfully leaves enough room for my favourite Christmas joke. Santa Claus goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, I think I have a mince pie stuck up my bottom.” The doctor quickly investigates and says, “Yes, indeed you do Mr Claus, but don’t worry, I’ve got some cream for that.”

Merry Christmas.

Listful Thinking

We probably shouldn’t read too much into the fact that a video featuring a talking orange made it into Australia’s most viewed YouTube clips of 2010. After all, that Old Spice advert made it in, and you can’t even buy Old Spice in Australia.

The most viewed video is an auto-tuned remix of a rape story from local American news. At last count, the video had been watched by nearly 50 million people, and we can only hope that in the future all of our news is presented in this way. (If by some fluke you don’t know what I’m talking about, the footage works better in context, so watch this first before you watch this). I mention all this only as a way of highlighting how the media fill their pages as we prepare for the Christmas lull and all of their advertisers go on holiday.

But if you’re looking for a good list, then can I push you in the direction of journalist David Dale’s stocking filler The Little Book of Australia, which is a fully updated stat attack painting a picture of where Australia is in 2010. As a dissection of modern Australia, it’s actually quite handy, particularly if you’re in the process of blogging about the country, but especially at a time when the nation’s politics continually purport the notion of ‘Australian values’. “It seemed to me that most of their generalisations were based on guesswork, prejudice or wishful thinking, and hardly ever on facts,” Dale writes.

As a reference guide, I’ll probably be dipping into this book quite a bit, and not just for little gems like Australia’s Top Selling DVDs of All Time (Finding Nemo) or Most Liked People (Hugh Jackman), or factoids like Queensland currently holding both the highest marriage and divorce rates in the country, but it is also indispensable for lists of things that a pom, particularly, should really know about. Like what the hell a Lamington is, what politicians mean when they refer to the ‘Magic Pudding’ metaphor, and why people here laugh when they say, “a dingo ate my baby”. There’s also a section on Self Deprecating Humour which, in my experience, always seems to involve a rude joke. To assist in our understanding, Dale provides the following example:

Q: What's an Aussie man's idea of foreplay?
A: Are you awake, love?

My girlfriend can do a rather hilarious Oprah Winfrey impression, usually in that broken, football mom voice that Oprah does when she’s really excited, like when she's introducing a special guest, for example, “Tooom - Cruooooosssssseee!” Her two Sydney shows won’t be broadcast until January, and although Channel Ten didn’t want to “give too much away”, they still displayed about as much restraint as a US embassy diplomat with their non-stop obsessing, from live feeds of Australia's Most Liked Person Hugh Jackman cascading down a rip wire to dramatically blacken his eye before even being interviewed, to the sickly culmination where Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Olivia Newton-John, Keith Urban and Jackman sing ‘I Still Call Australia Home’.

I don’t want to talk too much more on this, but there is actually something quite un-Australian about that clip, for a nation prone to laughing at itself and retaining a sense of the stiff upper lip. Both Britain and Australia aren’t quite as prone to psycho-analysis in the same way that the Americans are, and general consensus seems to confirm that the Oprah schtick doesn’t quite wash over here. Not that the tourist board will be complaining: broadcast in over 145 countries, there may now be considerably more people considering a trip to - in Oprah’s words - “Aus - traa - leeee - aaaaarrrrrrr!”


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Schools Spectacular 2010’ (ABC1)

Imagine if Leni Riefenstahl had directed your school play, then chances are it might end up looking a bit like this - minus all the swastikas, obviously. A parading, epic and relentless naff end-of-year assembly that is never once understated, this is two hours of glorious television that lurches - good naturedly, I should add - from the completely sublime to the completely ridiculous.

Filmed at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (the sort of auditorium that wouldn’t look out of place on ‘Gladiators’) and now in its 27th year, this is sort of thing the UK would still do if we could persuade our kids to stub out their spliff and turn off the Xbox.

But even if we could, would we want to tune in to watch school kids perform really earnest excerpts from Aida, or belting out Billy Joel’s ‘River of Dreams’ with over a hundred 10 year olds dressed as fairies and dancing around a farm of giant mushrooms? Probably not, unless you’re suffering some pining hangover from the last time you tuned in to the ‘Junior Eurovision Song Contest’. Which is why I feel this bit needs repeating: this show has been running, without fail, without irony, for 27 years.

And what a wonderful thing that is. Frankly, I could have done with less of “ABC3’s Kayne and Amberley”, a gaffawing pair of yoof TV goons who provide a running commentary on the “crazy” backstage antics. “Mate,” Kayne says, “it’s going off like a frog in a sock back there.” And perhaps re-addressing the running order may have been helpful, even if just for diversity’s sake. We probably didn’t need two particularly long and nonsensical circus numbers from the same token doe-eyed dweeb performing an Elton John skit far too accurately, and could have done with more than a mere minute of indigenous hip-hop from kids who had travelled more than 750km from the most inland corner of New South Wales to be there. In between break dancing, the kids rap “we’re talking about harmony/we’re showing you how,” and contemplate creating a “culture of trust”. It’s all very sweet, but I reckon teacher helped with the lyrics.

The most shocking aspect is that all of the kids are startlingly talented, with one section in particular - a mesmerising interpretative dance sequence marrying ballet to a cabaret versions of ‘Cry Me a River’, sung with great sass by an Aboriginal singer whose name I shamefully failed to note. But if she’s not singing a James Bond theme in a few years time then there’s simply no justice in the world. Then it’s quickly back to clowns on stilts, juggling acts and a sea of jazz hands like some unforgiving high school flashback, and you can almost hear all of their parents welling up with pride.

Match of the Day

Let’s start with a good visual gag: a special, limited-edition packet of Redheads matches, suitably changed with true Australian gumption…

To further the footballing headline, the Weekend Australian went from moral outrage to slight petulance at this week’s “embarrassing” dismissal from the 2022 World Cup bid, “outshone even by South Korea”. The comments on winners Qatar are quite bitter: “the world’s most watched sports tournament would be held in a desert outpost with just 1.5 million people and a climate that makes outdoor sport potentially lethal.” Sour grapes, anyone?

Their main concern is for 80-year old Frank Lowy, head of the Football Federation Australia and chairman of Westfield shopping centres who fronted the bid. “From his childhood in wartime Hungary to his spells as a refugee in detention camps in Cyprus and Palestine, it was playing football that gave him a sense of belonging.” And if you’re not welling up yet, here’s the clincher: “…helping to win the 2022 World Cup would be a wonderful legacy, even though he admitted that he did not expect to be alive to see it.” I hope you're proud of yourself, Qatar…

Here’s a hunch, but I reckon investing $45 million Australian taxpayers money on a pitch which included a video of a cartoon kangaroo on a surfboard probably wasn’t quite what FIFA had in mind. Much better to side with an oil-rich emirate nation with bottomless funds and high concept ideas. Not only will all of the stadiums have airconditioning, but Qatar have promised to donate them to other nations in the Middle East once the tournament has finished; what better way to help unify such a rapidly modernising part of the world. And given Qatar’s support for the latest technologies, imagine what wonders they will have in place by 2022. They might even have something that will work on English goalkeepers.

As Johnny Mathis once said, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Although, in Australia, it’s actually beginning to look a lot like Spring break. For me, hearing Bing Crosby sing ‘White Christmas’ in a hot climate is causing a strange sort of metaphysical imbalance. We’re approaching the height of a Queensland summer, where Christmas consists of paddling pools, seafood and barbecue. Somewhat different to 'Morecombe & Wise', turkey roast and logs on the fire.

There’s a lot of wallowing at Christmas time, where the whole family come together for the first and last time of the year to feel horribly nostalgic. The same underlying sentiment seems to be shared between both nations, but the lead up isn’t quite so oppressive here, unlike in the UK, where most campaigns start around October, with geese a-laying and maids a-milking for much longer than their allotted 12 days. There still seems to be a creeping, imminent sense of occasion, but for the pom abroad, it’s not quite looking like Christmas. Not yet anyway, Johnny.

It’s been a while since TM shared a terrifying spider story, but look at what greeted us after work today. Amazing creatures, really, to have poised unashamedly all afternoon as the centrepiece of a sprawling, sinister web stretching maybe three feet wide, hovering over our outside table like a spindly gargoyle. My flatmate believes this is the very same arachnid spotted doing reconnaissance work near the deathly hallows of our patio furniture several days ago, a little too close to the relative safety of our interiors for my liking. I’m sure with further probing we will soon locate his building plans for the house, and grand schemes to populate the laundry room following his domination of the terrace.

Re: spiders; a general rule of thumb in Australia seems to suggest that the larger the spider, the less harm it will cause. So whereas an agitated nip from the tiny redback might quite convincingly send you into an infinite snooze, a larger blighter like this one - which we think is probably a tree spider - will only harmlessly jump at you or, say, land on your face in a last chance bid for recompense. So if you can help it, try not to kill them: consider the huntsman spider, which may look like the embodiment of pure evil, but would much rather make light work of your cockroaches than your kin. While some house spiders are incredibly territorial, and ending one from bothering your skirting boards will only encourage more to take their place. Knowing this probably won't alter your instincts, of course, which is to fetch the nearest boot and start walloping, Norman Bates style, until the once nimble creature starts to resemble a stubborn food stain; a death which is, by anyone's standards, a sorry way to go.