Shock and Ocker
The terrifying return to Australia
Sunday, 4 March 2012
The Wonderful World of Brisneyland
So, where was I? Right, sold. The house was sold and we moved into a rental, then in December 2011 we moved out of the rental and basically exploded all over the globe. I stayed in London to work while my family moved to Brisbane to stay with the mother-in-law. All our belongings are wedged in a storage container somewhere in industrial outer-London, awaiting instructions as to their destination. Now the decision has been made: destination, Brisbane!
Nicole looked at Sydney. She confirmed her love of the Eastern Suburbs remained, but we could as easily move our family into that neighbourhood as we could effect a hostile takeover of Google. So she looked around the north side, the Upper North Shore. Then she kept going a bit further. Then a bit further. Further still.
We've decided to settle on the Upper Upper Upper Upper Far North Shore of Sydney (AKA Brisbane).
I realised I could keep slogging away in London getting effectively nowhere, while separated from my family; or I could slog away in Australia with my family. To quote an Amanda Palmer song, I thought: fuck it, I'm gonna go to Australia. I now have a month to get my shit together and say goodbye to twelve years of London life.
I spoke to a friend in Brisbane the other day to get some information on the job market. He told me I could buy him a XXXX when I got there. I told him to piss off. I'm not buying anyone a XXXX, not ever. I'll find my own job.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Sold!
Or: sorry, but it turns out your electrical system is essentially a large paperclip chain run on magic and radioactive energy which is seeping out from the fault line under your house.
Or: sorry, apparently this is Crown land, and the Queen wants you out by Friday.
The only news which came back from the surveys were small, trifling, niggling bits, which we duly ignored. And now we've sold it.
We're now going to train ourselves for the Sydney rental market by undertaking a trial reaming in the London market. Sales might be low over here right now, but rentals are taking up the equal-and-opposite position. How much worse can Sydney be than London? Close your eyes and imagine passing a moderately-sized kidney stone; now, replace the kidney stone with a lump of red-hot coal. Why do you think Aussies are always depicted squinting? It's not the glare of the sun doing it.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Chavs, CUBs and the Chant of Despair
Germans have the good sense and global sensitivity to avoid the use of the swastika, of the Nazi salute and the sieg heil. You won’t see many Germans goose-stepping with one arm held up and out in front and the other rubbing at their top lip. They know how people can feel about those things. If they can do that, surely
You know the one. It starts, ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’, and goes downhill fast from there.
You think I’m exaggerating? It’s in my list of Top 5 Repatriation Deterrents. Here’s the list:
Top 5 Australian Repatriation Deterrents
- The Australian dollar
- House prices
- CUBs
- The Chant of Despair
- Ugly cars
I’ll explain CUBs in a minute.
There’s only one thing worse than hearing the Chant, which is hearing the Chant in another country. Picture it:
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea.
The English crowd don’t hear the rest of it, they’re too busy trying to translate girt by sea. If you’re watching the game on TV, you’re praying the boom operator stays away from the Aussie players, because no-one wants to hear sportsmen punishing an already unfortunate tune. The score looks like this:
Imagine a front-rower with the build and features of a short gorilla belting that out. It’s not a good thing.
The crowd is then given a reprieve with God Save the Queen. It’s a simple tune, easy enough for the most tin-eared of rugby players to belt out, and even if we could hear them the crowd effectively drowns them out.
The game kicks off, there is excitement and physical challenge, and as
‘Aussie Aussie Aussie …’
No, no, NO! Our best hope was a stirring Waltzing Matilda, and you go and pull that shit out? It’s the kind of chant you picture Lleyton Hewitt belching out after a few too many Bacardi Breezers at the pub.
If I ever launch a political campaign in
A bogan, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the Australian equivalent of the English chav, or the American redneck. And with bogans, I’m back to #3 on my Top 5 Repatriation Deterrents list: CUBs.
CUB stands for Cashed-Up Bogan. I’d never heard this phrase until recently, when my cousin’s wife was complaining about all the CUBs pushing up the prices of everything in
No, she explained, the CUBs are all the bogans who have suckled to bursting from the massive, swinging tits of the mining industry, and for much of the mining industry,
A quick contrast of how displays of wealth might be seen in the
Of course these are exaggerations … Australian miners are more likely to be driving Porsche Cayennes, or Lear jets.
How must the English equivalent of the bogan feel about this? Where’s all the cash for the chavs? Put a chav in a lorry, he’ll either earn twenty-grand a year hauling groceries for ASDA, or slightly more ferrying stolen cars to
This is something truly scaring me about returning to
It’s just a song.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
It begins
- We'll no longer have to rely on occasional trips to Spain and Egypt to tone down the reflective glare of our skin
- The kids will be able to play outside without four layers of clothing, raincoats, boots, and warnings ringing in their ears to stay the hell away from those muddy puddles
- The economy is strong, having skipped the worst of the recession by virtue of being able to sell to China the shit it digs up from the vacant plot of land out in the middle
- Our families live there
- With all our natural melanin supplies depleted, walking around outside shirtless will be like taking a nap in a pizza oven
- The kids will be able to play outside bare-arse naked, and will no doubt take every opportunity to do so (see con #1 re naps in pizza ovens), with warnings ringing in their ears to stay the hell away from everything, because anything you're thinking about touching will probably do its best to kill you
- The economy is only strong for as long as they keep digging up desirable shit. What happens when the shit runs dry (not an intentional poo-pun)? What happens when China figures out it has its own shit?
- Our families live there