Spot the difference

Andy, my host in Ballarat and a Brit who escaped long ago but returns a as visitor asked me on my last evening there about cultural differences  I’d observed between Australia and Britain., I had to think long  and hard because it really is like one of those spot the difference picture puzzles – the similarities strike first and it’s only when you concentrate that you begin to spot the differences.  Here’s a few:

Housing – although there are apartments in the city centres, most (white) people, seemingly regardless of social and financial status, aspire to live detached from neighbours on their own plot of land.  Sometimes there’s only a matter of a couple of feet between properties and fences are high and solid to provide privacy. Houses are all single storey, sprawling across the whole of the plot so that there is often little space between building and perimeter fencing.  Depending on the size of the plot, there might be a narrow flower border, some shady trees and plants in pots. Also possibly a small swimming pool or Jacuzzi tub.  But by and large, paving is it. I’ve met some people who are returning paving to garden and if you could grow avocados and melons why wouldn’t you.  Building materials differ too, with corrugated metal roofs on even on the houses of the well-off and extended well beyond the walls to provide shade. Older Victorian and Edwardian era houses often have beautiful metal ‘lacework’ forming part of balconies and porches and overhangs.  Fence material is usually another sort of corrugated metal, solid and square in section and I think sometimes called ‘siding’.  As well as being high enough to keep the neighbours at bay, I’m told that it is often sunk low enough and kept solid enough to keep the snakes out. Snakes might otherwise wander (slither?) in because all this desire for one’s own plot has resulted in big sprawling suburbs encroaching on brushland and therefore snakey’s home.  Suburban sprawl = high car usage = issues about carbon ,,,need I go on?

Anti-social behaviour – exists of course but for one thing you are much less likely to see people stuffing their faces anywhere and everywhere and leaving the resulting litter behind.  For example a quiet cinema without constant chomping and rustling was bliss.  Starving after a long Sunday bike ride I’d bought a pastry to eat on the train home (bikes are made welcome on trains).  The train was packed with young people coming back from the beach and I was the only person eating anything. Made me keep my pastry hidden in its paper bag as best I could while stuffing my face with it. There doesn’t seem to be any rules against it – just not done. Ditto sharing your music on the beach and failing to give up your seat to someone who needs it more. ( I’m 60 and allowed to be an old fart. )

Media – there’s  Kerry Packer of 20/20 cricketing fame as well as the Murdoch dynasty reducing the newspaper and other media business to drivel.  That said, I haven’t really explored newspapers apart from buying whichever one has a telly guide. Hmm if you think Brit TV is crap you’d sing its praises after a few weeks here.  Mainly foreign imports of popular ‘shows’ and spin offs like the inevitable quizzes. On the plus side a few well-worn British comedies are doing the rounds so I saw an episode of ‘Yes Prime Minister’ that I can’t remember seeing   before (the one about rescuing the dog on Salisbury plain).  Internet access is a generation behind the UK. If you think about the issues around universal fast broadband in the UK, then multiply them to how on earth you can expand broadband to tiny communities on this vast continent.  (Nice quote from an Aboriginal artist comes to mind: ‘you call it the desert, we call it where we used to live’.) But even in cities wifi in cafes and hotels is not the norm.  Where it’s good it’s very, very good – so at the University of Western Australia they’ve recognised that students (and me) spend a lot of time working outdoors so the Unifi wifi system is everywhere, four walls or not. It’s a lot less common to be able to book on the internet e.g. trip to Rottnest (more later) when I’ve been able to find out all about the ferry company on their website but have had to phone to make a booking.  My favourite media, books, are incredibly expensive new and about the same price as new in the UK in second hand shops. Today, cycling home, I came across, almost too literally, a man walking on the shared path who ignored my bell and nearly caused an accident not because his ears were full of i-pod,, but because he was reading  on his kindle. I don’t think the weather at home would be conducive to that. Enough media already!

If my ‘differences’ seem a little weighted in favour of the UK, please factor in the obvious positive differences  on the Aussie side – weather and the beaches to go with them; outdoor life well catered for –especially  cycle path heaven in Perth, swimming pool nirvana in Sydney.  Despite stereotype macho culture, more women in high places interviewed as CEOs and  politicians for example. Don’t know how much longer some of the leading women politicians will last though or how many are waiting in the wings with all those burly, budgie-smuggling men (think about male swimwear then move swiftly on).

60th birthday memory lapse

I’ve been told that I have to include two events from my birthday dinner at Mia Cucina. That they weren’t included earlier might be a function of the feverish lurgy, or more likely selective age and alcohol-related memory loss.  Here goes…..both were the result of a very large 21^st party happening at the restaurant the same evening. And both happened late on in the evening  – no surprises there:

Incident the first – my celebration was festooned with one large badge pinned to my frock and announcing that I am 60. The 21^st, on the other hand, was festooned, amongst other trimmings, with a large number of helium balloons. A young man of the party inhaled some helium and sang ‘happy  birthday’ to the young woman turning 21 in the falsetto voice that emerges if one inhales helium.  There are probably some nasty side effects because  apparently companies selling helium pumps require you to sign a declaration that you won’t do this before they sell you the stuff.  Ignoring his health and welfare, my guests dragged this chap to our table and insisted that he do it all again for me. Of course he didn’t know my name so several much deeper voices filled in the gap. I think my reaction might best be summed up as ‘bemused’.

Incident the second – this one was self-inflicted and therefore much more embarrassing in that way that makes you cringe when recalling it. For some reason I took it into my head that I had something important to say to the 21-year old. What it was has escaped, but no doubt it involved the meaning of life.  I do remember accosting her on her way back from the loo and imparting this wisdom.  I think she must have been as pissed as me because an embrace followed with the two of us swaying dangerously close to quite a lot of glassware. The saving grace is that I expect never ever to see any of these people again.

The cockroach

I’m staying for a few weeks in a semi-basement studio in Malcolm Street. I hadn’t realised that this is an exceedingly ‘good’ address’ until people started to comment on it. I had wondered what the rather large, grand building opposite me is – turns out to be the state parliament.

Cockroaches pay no heed to the fanciness of one’s address.  On a particularly bad morning of illness, I got up to find a roach on its back, dead in front of the sink.  It was a couple of days before I could face any clearing up, let alone disposing of my new house chum. When I came to it, somehow the roach had moved to the middle of the studio floor, still on its back.  I might have unknowingly  kicked it across the floor; on the other hand, when I looked closely, a couple of legs waved back at me.  Advice to squeamish – stop reading now.  I know that cockroaches are notoriously difficult to kill. I’m afraid I finished this one off with boiling water on its belly. Worked a treat and I have seen no relatives – yet.

On turning 60

A sub plot to being down under  at this particular time is that I have had my first ever sunshiny birthday on 10 February.  I reckon one in 60 is a must.  With Ray, my good friend from university days (40 years ago – imagine that!) who has been over visiting family, I cruised a drive-through bottle-shop (you can’t buy ‘grog’ in supermarkets – have to go to special places), swam in the ocean, had lunch at the botanic garden in Kings Park and dined on goat at harbour-side Mia Cucina in the evening with assorted other friends from various stages of my life.  They all seemed to get on well even though I was the only person they had in common and had more or less lost my voice. I  was also, as befits my age, able to fit in an afternoon nap.

 I was cheered when the doctor I’ve been seeing for my chest told me that I don’t look 60. This was in the context of needing an ECG to check out my heart on account of my great age  - mind you I am paying her.

Being ill is the same anywhere

For the last 10 days I’ve had the worst chest infection of my life, or at least since I gave up smoking and that was 15 years ago.  I usually get some kind of unpleasant virus in February and will have been heard to say if only I could breathe some warm air and feel the sun on my back I’d be better in no time. Doesn’t work I’m afraid, though I suppose that being ill where I can lie on the beach or in Kings Park with a book does beat duvet-snuggling with the heating on at home.

Another plus, as I seem to be in positive mood, is that I have been able to investigate at first hand the Australian health service, presenting at the UWA medical centre on the second day of my placement. They took one look and told me to lie down rather than sit in the waiting room. Once a nurse had established that there were vital signs and made me a cup of tea, I was seen by a doctor who was not only extremely  thorough but was concerned and caring enough to ring me the next day to check on me.

The antibiotics are starting to kick in and I’m hoping to stop coughing sometime soon – at least in time for my first interviews next week.  And I’m hoping that Oxford University’s travel insurance will cover the costs – makes you appreciate the NHS.

I also learnt that, because stupid parents are not having their children inoculated, whooping cough is back in a big way.  If you’ve never seen a child prevented from breathing by a continuous cough you can probably imagine it. (Not breathing is how they die.) Aged six I was that child and was relieved to be reassured that I was not having a repeat performance aged 60!

What's in a name?

I learnt a while ago, courtesy of a pub quiz f(r)iend, who will know who he is, that people who live in Sydney are called ‘Sydneysiders’. Coming across ‘ Melburnians’  (the name not the people) was boring in comparison but when,  alluding to state not city,  people who were not in fancy dress chose to describe themselves as ‘Victorians’ I was unable to suspend my preconceptions of long frocks and caps coupled with mutton chops and stove pipe hats for long enough not to giggle.

This has led me to enquire about state and city nick names. I have learnt that people in Perth are OK with being called ‘Sandgropers’ – the place is built entirely on sand – and that people from Queensland are not offended by ‘Cane toads’.

A bit off subject, but I have a quiz question of my own:  Is there any other nation which eats its national animals? The Kangaroo and Emu are both national emblems and dishes of choice for Australia.

Come up with another such gourmandising nation and a bottle of Australian red will be yours.

And here, in the small print, I’ll confess that whilst in Ballarat I ate Kanga one night and fed her the next day. Haven’t tried Emu yet.  

Ballarat

Next stop after Melbourne was Ballarat, known as a city and something of a regional hub in this part of Victoria but, honestly now, just a lovely rural town. My main purpose there was visiting friends Sarah and Andy who had moved into their new house just that day. It was good to have a bit of real life after the hostels , unpacking boxes and making breakfast for the workers.  Friends were on hand to help – Sue and Brendan had us all round for take away the first night,  and on day two Sarah and Andy’s vicar from where they used to live turned up with more stuff from their old house.  She was great –came with us on a visit to the wildlife park (complete with Koalas and Kangas) and told tall tails about fishing in a place where the crocs compete for your catch. Two things about Gail:

1.       When she told me she was ‘a keen fisherman’  I imagined for a moment she was after my soul rather than the crocs’ dinner.

2.       She had a very sweet tooth and I missed my opportunity to offer her ‘one lump or two vicar’.

Highlights of Ballarat, other than friends were:

·         Rural rides out to sweet small towns and a local spring with tasty water

·         Feeding wallabies and kangaroos

·         Seeing a koala move. They don’t much on account of having such a poor diet on eucalyptus leaves that they don’t have energy to do anything but sit on their branch.  Sometimes the eucalyptus ferments, causing them to fall off their branch pissed. Didn’t see that.

Michael Shannon exhibition at the Ballarat art gallery. Amazing. We don’t seem to see much Australian art in Europe which is a Very Bad Thing.

Training it

Realise I’ve blethered on about Sydney and Melbourne without connecting them via the 11 hour train journey between the two.  To start with it was strangely familiar – this was what we call an inter city 125 but with different upholstery.  Then the differences began to emerge:

-          Coffee made essential by the 7.45 departure, was real coffee not instant, made with a coffee bag that you could steep for as long and strong as you wanted.

-          Food was incredibly varied – huge choice including hot dinner which you ordered an hour in advance and then collected from the buffet. And so cheap – nothing over $10 dollars which is incredibly chap for here.

-          Baggage – bags were checked in and loaded to a baggage car which trundled along behind us with its two faithful servants just like used  to happen in the UK. Yes folks there was a time when the luggage spaces, aisles and everywhere else was not filled with falling baggage.

While I’m on with nostalgia, this trip was so cheap that I had thought about upgrading to first but decided the company would be better in cattle class. I struck lucky as behind me sat two old boys who didn’t know each other  but chatted happily comparing Aus with life in the UK. In the case of one of them, the passing scenery (and there is a lot of it)brought back memories of his Australian childhood. Wonderful stuff and all for free.

Wagga Wagga, which I’d rather childishly looked forward to seeing, was not much to write home about, not least because I wasn’t allowed to get off the train to take a photo.  Presumably losing a passenger in WW is a sacking offence.