Sunshine And Silence...

Just last week I was sitting in a cafe eating banana bread, drinking coffee, getting down with the sunshine sitting on a table adjoining two men – over-gymed, gay, 30s, gossiping in the soft palate’d haughty middle class Sydney accent that pounds out of Sydney's Inner East. I was pondering writing blogs about Australia, and they were talking about all kinds of random - it became clear they were catching up after several years of not having seen each other. Their discussion kept meandering back to how when one returns to Sydney from Europe, Japan, the US there was a general shift in the quality of chat. Besides being loud enough for a six table radius to hear of their pomp and circumstance they did strike a chord with my blog contemplations; namely, is there any good chat in Aus? Well, it would be libellous to presume in any country there is NO good chat. Even within regimes where certain conversation is banned - either topics, or restrictions on whom you can converse with - there are people banging out great chat - infact, maybe more so. Take Dada, a cultural movement spurred on by the fact everyone else was getting busy with war chat* (it's not quite that simple but you catch my drift.)

In Australia the sun is shining, the morning comes before the rest of the world goes to bed and there are platypuses - the weirdest creature ever invented. There is sea everywhere (round the edge) and the current Prime Minister was the first ever to apologise to the Aborigines for the horrendous treatment at the hands of the settling population; specifically the events surrounding lost and the stolen generations. So leaving that as another discussion for the well informed it’s fair to say there is plenty of fodder for great chat down under. Then again, is it too easy to just talk about shrimps and sun? The British have a name in the rest of the world for moaning and tearing anything apart. The fact that more people should know David Cameron's clearly a twat is discussed and even though the Mori Polls would try and convince you otherwise, and although many may not arse going out and voting in elections any more (except X Factor) there will always be some chat rattling around about current affairs. But spend 24 hours getting yourself to the other side of the world and people seem continually surprised that you would want to talk about politics, or anything, besides the sun. This fine country (and Manly** no less) has produced the easiest to caricature opposition leader I've ever had the pleasure to read about. He's a dream, harbouring many a crazy confused left wing view, but, Tony Abbott*** is better known for budgie smugglers and swearing in interviews as he is for being an actual politician.

I am not ungrateful it's sunny, but I don't see why just because the weather is more conducive to 'thongs' and 'bbqs' there should be any less discussion of what's going on, is it not worth taking an interest? Then again, (I am aware there is some fierce generalisation going down here) if people generally choose to live anywhere like Manly (besides if their job's primary action is surfing which makes it a reasonable place for settlement) then they can stay here. And they can talk about buying girlfriends, drinking corona for $8 as long as they make sure they don't talk too loudly about how their great friend Mrs Abbott husband's*** new position at work is going very well.

*DADA is an artistic movement formed in Zurich during WW1. It was a wee bit bonkers.
**The shit hole where I work, you have to get a ferry from central Sydney.
***Take a look www.crikey.com.au/topic/tony-abbott/

A kookaburra tried to nick some roo from my barbie then a dingo stole my baby

Having now spent a rocking and rolling two months in Sydney town and a little longer down under all in, I feel I am now in the right place to comment on the Queen's only continent. This may also be the right time to apologise to my readers (myself and Alan) for the self indulgent shizzle I rambled out in 'Humiliation' and 'Sickies' (although my sick day ponderings were more of a public service announcement) and I promise to follow them up with a burst of incisive, no holds barred, razor-sharp commentary on the land of Oz*.

So pour yourself another gin and settle in for some Holy Moly level bitchin', some Guardian style typos and perhaps a little tabloid enthused creative license. This is Australia, but not as Mark Anthony “Baz” Luhrmann would have you believe...

*Cliché Camel represents y’all.