Category Archives: Living In Australia

The Big Galah

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Another dispatch from The Mothership as she continues her caravan trek into Australia's centre. She's just been to Kimba, located halfway across Australia apparently:

Kimba is famous for its Big Galah, lovely sandstone buildings and as the birthplace of “Cats” midfielder, Corey Enright. Can’t ask much more of a town of around 800 people. Oh, did I mention that you can buy a pair of jeans for $2, a collarless shirt for $1, a paperback mystery novel for 10c, home-grown lemons for 5c each or a like-new dressing gown (Giovanni) for $2? You can get all this and more from the Uniting Church Op Shop.

We left Kimba on Tuesday morning and on the way out of town, we visited the Big Galah. I’m not sure what it is about us Aussies that creates ‘Big Things’ around the country… maybe our Big Skies, Big Spaces, Big Coastlines etc have something to do with it.

galah

Things I miss about Australia

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 Happy Australia Day! I nicked this idea from the lovely Kathryn in Japan.

  1. Friends and family, derr.
  2. Hamburgers with the lot
  3. Mint Slice biscuits
  4. Proper thunderstorms
  5. Cafés that have great breakfasts* and open late**
  6. Dogs on the back of utes (especially brown kelpies with golden eyebrows)
  7. Chocolate thickshakes
  8. Sprawling starry skies, best viewed from a flat country town
  9. Top Deck, Cherry Ripes and Violet Crumbles
  10. Garages that cars actually can fit in to
  11. Scribbly gums
  12. Chicken salad rolls from small town bakeries, assembled while you wait!
  13. Apple turnovers with cream, from aforementioned small town bakeries (ooh yeah)
  14. Galahs and white cockatoos strolling along the median strip (what do you call that green grassy bit up the middle of a road that you get in a place like Canberra!? where is my brain? thank you Stella for the reminder!)
  15. Rage
  16. The smell of rain hitting the dirt when it hasn't rained for ages
  17. Mango Weiss bars
  18. Mount Panorama
  19. Bread tags
  20. Driving in a straight line for a very long time.

6a00d83451c20669e2011168a1f95f970c-piHow sad that the majority of this list is FOOD.

* There are plenty of great cafés in Edinburgh that have nice brekkies but you don't get quite the same variety of ideas and ingredients. Out here in Dunfermline a bacon roll from Gregg's is about the extent of your choices ;) Breakfast is SO good in Australia. I love an American brunch or a British cooked breakfast but the Aussie cafés take bits of those with influences from other places and make morning time MAGIC, I tells ya!

** Specifically I miss going out for coffee and cake after weeknight movie like we used to do in Canberra at somewhere like Gus' or Cafe Essen. Here in Scotland we have some great cafés but not many open late. If you go to a movie, you go to the pub afterwards. I don't want to do that on a school night! I've told my Scottish pals about these mystical late night cafés and they say, "What's wrong with the pub? You should like that, you're Australian!".

Yeah yeah. I always wonder if I got a consortium of expats together to open such a café, would it die on its arse? Or could we persuade that there's an alternative to the pub and kebab combo?

SHAME JOB!

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I highly recommend shacking up with a foreigner, as cultural differences help keep the magic alive. Today is my and Dr G's fifth wedding anniversary and we still manage to surprise each other. At least when it comes to words. Just when I think I've heard all his wacky phrases, he dredges up another doozy. Like STARVE.

I first fell victim to Starve when he was eating a Mars bar and I was staring longingly at it.

"Do you want a bite?"

"What do YOU think?" I said, moving in for the kill.

Just as I was about to take a bite, he yoinked the chocolate out reach and cackled, "STARVE!"

Apparently this originated at his primary school, when little kids would tease other little kids with promises of bites of lunches, only to cruelly withdraw their offers. You can just picture them in the playground all full of glee, "Hey, want a crisp?.... STARVE!"

I'm not sure if the phrase extended beyond his school but nevertheless it's brilliant, albeit incredibly frustrating when you're on the receiving end of it.

Its usefulness extends beyond food - it makes a concise substitute for the likes of "get stuffed" or "over my dead body". Examples:

  • If the boss thinks I am working overtime this weekend, he can starve.
  • If you think I am going to wash your filthy socks you can starve.
  • If they're going to charge £50 for that shithouse t-shirt they can starve!

Etc etc etc.

Gareth's favourite Australian phrase is SHAME JOB. Again I've not heard it used beyond the borders of my rural New South Wales home town - if anyone out there is familiar with it I'd love to hear from you!

Shame Job is a cry of mockery and scorn. In a school full of pimply teenagers there were plenty of opportunities to use it. The basic procedure is:

Hapless kid does something embarassing ==> Nearest gaggle of students point and shriek in unison: SHAME JOB!

  • Kid trips over a rock and goes flying... SHAME JOB!
  • Kid makes a failed chat-up attempt at the school disco... SHAME JOB!
  • Kid wears their jumper inside out or gets dacked* in the playground... SHAME JOB!

* dacked is the act of some cruel bastard sneaking up behind you and pulling down your tracky dacks (sweatpants/tracksuit bottoms) so the general public gets a look at your unfortunate undies.

Shame Job works best with a broad Australian accent. You must bellow it loud and pack as many vowels as possible into the shame bit, so it becomes: SHAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYUM JOB!

Shame Job is now our default phrase for when one us does something stupid or if someone on the telly is doing something stupid. Try it on your friends next time they cock something up - I guarantee you it's fantastic fun.

Wombat Walking Round The Old Billabong

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Rory sums up the Men At Work/Kookaburra case:

Men at Work have just lost a case brought by Larrikin Music, a song publisher who bought the copyright of Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree from the Australian Girl Guides in 1990 and in July 2009 claimed that the flute riff in Down Under plagiarised it. Colin Hay and Ron Strykert are now facing a payout of up to sixty percent of their writers’ earnings from the song, depending on the judge's final ruling.

If a court has deemed that Men at Work ripped off the Kookaburra song, then by that precedent surely Noel Gallagher should be executed for crimes against The Beatles?

I'm no Men At Work fan but look upon them fondly as they make me think of my friend Peita. We once had an assignment in journalism class to write an obituary for a person who wasn't actually dead yet and she chose Colin Hay. She wasn't a fan either and I wish I could remember why she chose him… deadline panic? Ever since when I heard Down Under on the radio I'd think isn't it a shame about Colin Hay for a few seconds, before remembering he wasn't actually dead. But if he WAS he would be spinning in his grave right now over this Kookaburra shit.

"Do you think the lawyers will go after all your other music legends now?" asked Dr G, renowned Australian cultural commentator, "Will Midnight Oil get sued for plagarising Wombat Walking Round The Old Billabong? Or Galah Flying Round The Old Wagga Wagga Train Track?"

Downunder

Australia Says Sorry

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"Wherever you were this morning I hope you managed to hear and see the government's apology to the stolen generations. The message was loud and clear. Australia is sorry. There will be no more lies and evasions; the government of Australia apologises for what it did. The first business of the new Parliament was the making of a long overdue forceful and formal acknowledgement of dreadful wrongs and a sincere expression of sorrow for the pain and grief these wrongs caused. It is not incongruous or wrong to feel joyfulness and optimism because the joy is for what might come of what was done so well today."
– Lucy Tartan on an incredible day.

Gone Thredbo

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Gareth thinks it's a hoot how in Australia we call the shop at which you purchase alcohol, "the bottle-o".

I don't this is any less ridiculous than the way Brits call their equivalent Off-Licence, "the offie", but then again the fella is generally a big fan of Australian lingo. He picked up the word sook (crybaby) from MotoGP rider Casey Stoner and he recently learned bogan (think Aussie Chav) from Momo's blog, although he quaintly mispronounced it boogan.

Most of all he enjoys how we abbreviate words and stick an O at the end of them. Like rego for car registration, metho for methylated spirits, milko for milkman, and the perennial favourite, ambo for an ambulance driver.

It's getting to the point where he thinks we do this for every single word in existence. I was chatting to The Mothership on the phone recently and debriefed Gareth afterward, telling him that she'd just been in Thredbo.

"In Thredbo? What's a thredbo?"

"Thredbo! The town. In the Snowy Mountains."

"Thredbo," he snorted. "That's not a real place."

"It is. It's Australia's premier alpine resort!"

"Sure!"

"I'm telling you, it's true!"

"Ohhh. I thought that's what you'd say if your clothes were all old and threadbare. CRIKEY mate, me pants've gone thredbo!"

Feeling So Much Older

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Ten years ago this week Crowded House had their Farewell To The World concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Last night I watched the new 10th Anniversary DVD and it's still bloody magnificent. I was so devastated the day after that concert, back in Bathurst and getting ready for my shift at the fish and chip shop. I couldn't bear to listen to the Crowdies for about six months; I was just so overcome by the loss. Woe! But somehow I managed to struggle on. A decade later I peered at our spot on the stairs, surprised I couldn't pick us out in the massive crowd. I thought I'd be visible even in the moonlight, either from the violently sunburned face or the enormous angst-ridden frown because I'd just finished my first year of university and was worried I wouldn't pass all my subjects. Don't fret petal, I'd say to 1996 Shauna, You end up becoming a secretary so you won't even need that degree! I wonder if a concert of that scale could happen today? Can you imagine allowing over 100,000 random bodies to just wander on down to the Opera House for free entertainment? A massive public gathering at a major landmark? Holy security alert, Batman. I remember marvelling at how generally well-behaved and civilised the punters were back then, but I don't know if we'd be trusted these days. There'd have to be metal detectors and cavity searches and riot police. I remember a guy climbed up one of the sails of the Opera House and the cops asked him sternly but nicely to please come down. Today they'd have a vicious Alsatian posted on the point of each sail. An Alsatian, brandishing a semi-automatic weapon.

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Photo nicked from The Age (Rick Stevens)

Don’t Go Anywhere

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Australia 1 and Australia 2 are working now, and there's no internet access there, so this getting online thing affordably has become a little more dicey. So this is to let you know I'm alive and well with heaps written that I hope to post very soonly. Hopefully tomorrow. Watch this space. Unless of course I become incapacitated from almost falling down the stairs again due to lack of coordination when it comes to disembarking from double decker buses.