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.

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.