Go West.

For a long time now I have been convinced that I would one day retire in the South of France. Since stepping off a flight at Aéroport Nice in 2003 on the first of six annual pilgrimages, a love and appreciation for everything about the region has grown unhindered in my heart. In the Côte d’Azur grace meets kitsch, beauty meets brutality, history meets modernity, the Mediterranean meets the Alps, and your wallet meets its hasty death. You don’t really care about the latter, for the heady scents of a French summer, the golden tans of the wine-swilling locals, and the taste of celebrity in the air are all you need to induce a coma of blissful ignorance. Having said all that, the six collective months I have spent in Cannes have been largely under the expense of an employer. From what I hear, living there under your own steam is not all about filet de boeuf overlooking Boulevard de la Croisette. Life there does not revolve around mirror-ceilinged bedrooms and weather-beaten French windows. The days are not endlessly sunny and hot, and the traffic can be excruciating. Particularly if you venture over a pedestrian crossing on foot and forget to give way to speeding Clios and Piaggios.

Cannes’ famous Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, home of the Festival de Cannes, is a glorious display of retro patchwork architecture that draws in hordes of tourists for clichéd red carpet photographs. Ironically, however, the Palais’ basement areas (rarely seen by the general public, but in which numerous events are held) appear tired and in desperate need of repair. In times of high rain and heat it is not uncommon for cascades of leaking water to fall from any given ceiling, and only an unlucky few can claim to have smelled the blocked drains down on Level 01. It could be said that the Palais is a true reflection of the region in which it sits; outwardly impressive, famous, photogenic, and lavish, but inwardly old, exhausted, and verging on spent. As far as my retirement plans go, it is therefore just as well that I recently discovered Denmark.

I’m not talking about the Scandinavian land of butter and bacon – although I can’t deny that does sound like my own personal nirvana – I am talking about Denmark, Western Australia. If you’ve never heard of Denmark before you will hear about it soon. The Lonely Planet, a bible in the eyes of most of the world’s intrepid travellers, is listing the South West of Australia (in the heart of which Denmark sits) as one of the world’s top ten destinations for 2010. Like a lot of small towns in the South West, you stumble into the very centre of Denmark town before you notice where you are. The beautiful winding road that leads into the town takes you on a rollercoaster tour of some amazing coastal regions. Mandalay Beach can’t claim to belong to Denmark, as it’s probably more the property of Walpole, but if you are coming in from the west you will have a chance to stop here. It’s easily overlooked, but is worth a visit. I was lucky enough to be exploring the area in early December before local school holidays, and when I tell you I had a two-kilometre stretch of white sand and blue sea all to myself, I am not kidding. I even managed a brief stint of nude sunbathing, which didn’t help to scare off the formidable flies. Be prepared to put up with them, they are incessant. Some even bite. And they like tender spots.

Pushing on towards Denmark you will come across another extraordinary beach known as Greens Pool. I have been lucky enough to see Mauritius’ world-famous Ile aux Cerfs, apparently one of the greatest beaches in the world. It lacks the subtlety, class, and quietness of Greens Pool. Be sure to take a walk to the left over the big granite outcrop. Follow the sign for Elephant Rocks and you will stumble upon a lagoon surrounded by boulders the size and shape of woolly mammoths. It’s quite breathtaking and virtually impossible to describe in writing. The stone is a bright reddish orange in the right light, and the gentle lapping sea is turquoise. The sand? What else, but the colour of crème brûlée?

Eventually you will come to the sleepy hollow of Denmark itself. My first drive into town came to an abrupt halt when I encountered a road block manned by a smiling orange-vested gentleman. My initial frustration at not being allowed into the town centre abated rapidly at the realisation that the main streets had been cordoned off for the annual Denmark Christmas pageant. What a delightful mix of the bizarre, the old and the young. Each street corner had a peculiar musical performance in full swing. There was a cover band made up entirely of female pensioners who sounded as if they had just taken up rock ‘n’ roll as part of their very own bucket list. There is no stranger site than an elderly lady brandishing drumsticks as if they were knitting needles. Moving on down past the public library and award-wining pie shop (regretfully unaffected by a visit from my stomach) I came to the main junction, on the edge of which was a group of youngsters bashing away at recycled drums, cans, tins, and bottles. Their offering of rap-rock was surprisingly rhythmic and catchy, inducing some very peculiar jigs from several male onlookers who clearly were more used to wielding axes and herding sheep.

I looked around me at the selection of residents (are they Danish or Denmarkers?) and realised this was a land for hippies. Everything was organic and handmade. There were barefooted ladies with strings of flowers in their hair, and hessian sacks for skirts. There were men willingly wearing man bags and puffy shirts. I felt as if I had stumbled into another dimension, where the character of Camden, the coast of KwaZulu-Natal, and the hills of Nyanga had collided to create a microcosmic world of peculiarity that resembled a scene from Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

I shouldn’t get carried away with Denmark, because it would be a crime to forget about the simply stunning Pemberton, the historical Albany, the ghostly and downright Australian Gnowangerup, and the delectable Margaret River. The latter is made for surfers and wine lovers. The two might strike you as being at completely different ends of the cultural spectrum, but you’d be surprised just how serious both camps are about their hobbies, and just how often they cross over. For a look at a classic and charming surfing town right off the pages of a Tim Winton book, pop into Gracetown. In Pemberton you will see some of the truly great forest areas of the world. Karri trees stretching as high as the eye can see seem to be taking over the road in some parts. Years ago, before helicopters and satellites, karris were used as fire lookouts. You can still climb some today. I have jumped four times into the gorge below Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, and once out of a plane in Pinjarra, but the most sweat I have ever had on my palms was at 70 metres above the ground at the top of the Bicentennial Tree. The platform you reach at the top is surrounded by a wire cage and has solid wooden planks on which you can stroll around and take in the panoramic view, but it’s the climb up there that gets the breath shortening. It’s a testament to the nature of the South West that all they have in the way of safety is a simple sign at the bottom warning you of the dangers of climbing. There is no supervision, there is no safety cable, there is no emergency phone, or catching net. There is just a spiral of sturdy pegs from the ground up, with flimsy wire mesh around the outside. It’s great! And particularly fun when you are 40 metres up and there is a group of excitable, shrieking girls making their way down. I gave way to the descending party by standing on the outer edge of a peg resting against the mesh. This is what activities are like before tourist numbers increase and the predictable safety measures fall into place. The South West is, as yet, virtually untouched by commercialism. There are no massive hotel chains and resorts. There are no theme parks, no major airports. There’s barely even a phone signal.

Pause for a moment here and consider the size of Australia. Many people around the world can only dream of visiting. Most of those who manage to venture ‘down under’ invariably end up going east, resulting in holiday photo albums of opera houses, trams, surfing lessons, and cuddly koalas. It’s not that visitors don’t want to go west; it’s just that nobody wants to miss the east. And when you consider Western Australia is five times the size of Texas, not to mention a four or five hour flight from the east coast, you realise that most travellers end up having to make a choice: Sydney, or Yallingup? I’m not suggesting Western Australia is undiscovered, but I am suggesting it is unfamiliar, and bloody enormous. This translates to it being largely uncrowded and unspoiled by crowds of camera-happy tourists.

Bunbury, Western Australia’s second city after Perth, was listed in 2007 as the country’s fastest growing town. With a new and pristine freeway leading directly to it from Perth (meaning you can skirt round the surprisingly overrated Mandurah), it is easily accessible. Two hours in a car and you are suddenly trundling down Ocean Drive overlooking Back Beach, the home of the Bunbury Surf Lifesaving Club. Don’t let their name or presence scare you, for much of the time during summer the sea is inviting, calm, and free of the throng of tourists that blight Perth’s Scarborough and Cottesloe beaches. If you have worked up an appetite, why not resolve the crisis by tucking into a big breakfast at Café 140 at the Southern end of the charming and dainty Victoria Street. If you’re in the area during the winter months, do not pass go without indulging in the seafood chowder at Nicola’s, a friendly Italian restaurant using the best of local produce. Wild dolphins (not on the menu) visit Bunbury daily at the Koombana Bay Dolphin Discovery Centre, where you can wade in up to your knees to greet them. Bunbury is a great way to start a journey to the South West, and despite being close to Perth the slightly lower average temperature is often welcome during summer.

Head on down the coast towards Busselton, where you can walk along the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere. At 143 years old be careful where you step! Be sure to push on down to Bunker Bay and Cape Naturaliste, for a quite exquisite display of limestone cliffs, crystal-clear rock pools, and vivid blue seas. Venture further southeast and you will come across Ngilgi Cave, one of many such remarkable features in the region. Choirs have recorded songs in its depths. On a more serious note, the cave is an integral and interesting part of local Aboriginal culture and history. The quaint surfing town of Yallingup is not far from the cave and means ‘place of love’ in the local Aboriginal dialect.

The South West of Australia is just that; a place of love, and a place to love. It might not be for everyone, but give it a chance and it won’t take long for its subtle, unassuming lines and curves, its mild caressing breeze, its sultry ocean movements, and its pure beaches to sweep you off your feet and have you coming back for more. If I am honest, and I had to choose between a Western Australian beachside picnic of seafood and wine, or lunch at Saint Paul de Vence’s La Colombe d’Or, I know which I’d prefer to be doing every weekend, and which I could only afford to do once a year. I guess that's why I live here now. Western Australia’s South West region is a very well kept secret. Please don’t spread the word.

Relative Envy

There’s an old saying, and I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how it goes, but it’s something along the lines of envy being bad for you. Is it one of the Ten Commandments, or is that my imagination? They were definitely the product of someone’s imagination, grossly outdated as they are. Anyway, this envy concept feels like it might have been drilled into me by a red-faced schoolmaster when I was young and impressionable, along with the idea that I should ‘dream big dreams’. I lapped all that stuff up back then, but cynicism is taking a firm hold as the years go by.

I find myself feeling envious every other day, and on the days I’m not I’m truly thankful for the life I lead. It’s a strange predicament in which to find myself. I wake up one morning brimful of confidence, rearing to go. I charge out the door and take on the day with not a care in the world. Then there are the days when I get out the wrong side of bed. I’ve considered sliding it up against the window so that I can only exit in one direction, and given there has been an abundance of space in my bed for the last few years, I’m unlikely to annoy anyone with such a furniture shuffle, but it leaves me with just a fifty percent chance of blocking off the correct side.

My envy is generally aimed at one target: coolness. Neurotic and overly analytical as I am, I often find myself at once dazzled and nauseated by coolness. I find it impressive and loathsome. I catch myself admiring someone, wanting to be ‘that cool’ but I always end up reassuring myself that it’s just as appealing being ‘different’. I have been described as ‘different’ many times. The fact that it’s usually in the same sentence as ‘strange’ and ‘curious’ is beside the point. I will cling onto anything that sets me apart from the masses.

It seems only yesterday I was a moody teenager, slouched in a musty old cinema seat at the famous 7 Arts in Harare, watching Four Weddings and a Funeral with a date whose name and face escape me, but who became the first person to ever utter the words that haunt me to this day; “You know who you remind me of? Hugh Grant!” I swear to you I have heard variations of this comparison four or five times a year, every year, to the present day. In fact only a few days ago, as I described a personal anecdote, did a colleague dub the story a ‘classic Hugh Grant moment’. I want to relate the tale to you, as it demonstrates just how capable I am of being stunningly uncool. You’d think I would be grateful to have celebrity comparisons drawn against me, but I have no desire to be caught re-enacting the famous Titanic scene in the back of an old white hatchback with a mystery hooker, Divine or not.

The story goes like this: I had popped out to buy some lunch and upon my return the heavens opened and an almighty deluge descended from the skies. As I made my way to the office I noticed a young lady scrambling for cover. She held a soaked notebook aloft above her head in a feeble attempt to protect her blonde hair. I marched over and asked if she’d like to share my expansive golf umbrella (identifying it as such was probably the first step in the direction of uncool). She gratefully accepted, at which point the umbrella caught a gust of wind and inverted. I have had this umbrella for nearly ten years and never once has it behaved in such a manner. I apologised profusely as now not only was she once again exposed to the elements, but the umbrella was flailing about wildly in the wind bashing her on the head and depositing sheets of its collected rainwater all over her back and bag. I eventually managed to rectify the situation, and we trudged on towards a path of flattened woodchips that was a shortcut through a flowerbed to the nearest shelter. I told her how sorry I was and how hard it was to be ‘chivalrous in cyclonic conditions’. This brought a brief flash of a smile to her mascara-smudged face. I felt I had gained some ground lost in the umbrella debacle.

Halfway down the narrow path we came across an ocean of a puddle. No, I didn’t throw down my jacket. Worse. We assumed single file, me brandishing the umbrella ahead like a burning torch, she nearly breaking into a sprint to get to dry land. As I rushed to keep up my oversized boot caught the back of her left foot. Why was she foolishly wearing sandals in this Godforsaken weather? After the toe of my boot had raked the back of her Achilles tendon, it made its way down to the now exposed heel of the sandal, for she was midstride and her foot was at that precise moment where it had left the ground to push off but the sluggish sandal had yet to follow suit and snap dutifully up to her heel. Her foot left the sodden ground. The sandal did not. Instead my shoe pinned it to the dirt and slipped halfway into its straps. I proceeded to scoop it up as I took my next step, and the momentum of my leg caused it to fling with force and accuracy directly towards the deepest section of the gargantuan puddle. At this exact moment her now barren foot, positioned at one end of her imbalanced body, came crashing down into the murky, cold puddle. A splash of water erupted up her trouser leg, taking with it a large serving of mud, twigs and leaves. The foliage clung to her, the water streamed down to her dripping foot. I scurried after the sandal as it floated gleefully away down the length of the puddle. I eventually retrieved it and, after shaking off what water I could, replaced it on the naked foot. I was down practically on one soaked knee. I realised at that precise moment that I was in a scene exactly opposite to Cinderella and her famous slipper.

It has taken me a few days to recover from this traumatic experience. I sit now in an airport on my way to Mauritius, which is where I go to bury my face in the sand and hide away from the shame of such experiences. Just kidding - it's a work trip. The point of this tale is that if, single as I am, I am to be ‘on the market’ and available, do I have to decide whether it’s best to be cool or best to be different? Is it possible to be both? Is it best to just be yourself, regardless of which way that ends up making you seem? Surely coolness is determined by popularity, i.e. conformity to that which is popular? To be truly different in this increasingly demanding singles market, you have to stand out in all ways. And if you can do that, you are surely the essence of cool. Further, the only way possible to stand out is to just be yourself. Being yourself and believing in yourself is the first and only step to being cool and different, because we are all individuals. And once you accept the individual you are, you forget all the individuals you’re trying to be. What a load of old Grade 1 crapola.

My father’s cousin is a pilot. I’m not talking a weekend Cessna driver, I’m talking Virgin Atlantic’s top pilot; a man who recently flew a Boeing 747 in formation with the famous Red Arrows aerobatic team at The Biggin Hill Airshow, and shortly after landing, made his way to a Bruce Springsteen concert in Hyde Park. It was his 60th birthday after all. My own cousin lives in New York and has just had his first book published. He is already a highly regarded travel writer who told me once (although it was the millennium New Year and I may have imagined it in my drunken haze) that he once went out with Fidel Castro’s daughter. My sister has put on hold a wonderful career in British television to have my gorgeous nephew, but still finds time to do the odd bit of freelance for the likes of Rowan Atkinson. I have to ask; is envy relative, or relatives? You can choose your friends, etc?

Whatever the case may be, I am learning very quickly to just be me. If that means I have to be strange and curious at the same time as being different, then I am sure there is someone out there willing to accept that for what it is. This post was meant to be a little more humorous than it has turned out to be; sorry for that. I better dash as my plane is now boarding. A pilot has just walked past with a moustache. Now there’s a thought … and how about a mullet too?

Michael Who?

I recently had dinner with my 68-year-old uncle. It was a vision into the future. A future not far off for me I hope. A future where, finally, my current resistance to popular culture will pay dividends in the shape of blissful ignorance to all that is going on around me; on TV, radio, internet, and mobile (or whatever forms they will have taken by the time I'm 68). I am already at a point in my life where I make a conscious effort to blot out the gossip, the charts, the reviews, and the trends.

I was laughed at recently when I asked who on Earth Rihanna was, and what this chap Chris Brown, her husband, had ever done. Annoyingly their story had sneaked into my regular main news bulletin on a TV channel more accustomed to reporting the state of sheep farming and fishing quotas. These things interest me. The state of the world interests me. Iran interests me. I am not interested, nor will I ever be, in what is under Rihanna’s umbrella, unless it is the latest copy of Newsweek magazine, or a summary of the latest algae levels in The Swan River, which are dangerously high for those of you who are interested.

The amazement of those around me when I asked about Mr and Mrs Brown’s story is nothing compared to the utter shock and stunned silence that followed my uncle’s response to my comment about the recent death of a global pop icon. He spoke two words that defied logic and elevated my uncle to hero status, in my eyes anyway. He confirmed his place amongst the elite group to which I aspire to belong. That group of people who use a computer only to email passages of news to relatives abroad without paragraphs, commas, or even spaces, and almost entirely in cAPS LOcK. That group of people who have a mobile phone for emergencies only. Who listen to classical music. On the wireless. Who add up their groceries as they peruse the aisles, who still post the odd letter, who enjoy the sight of a pelican sifting in the shallows of a lagoon, but not the sight of the pelican being disturbed by a passing jet ski. I am talking about the elderly. Or as I prefer to call them, the wise. What groundbreaking words did my uncle proffer when I mentioned the sad death of said pop icon? What inspiring point of view did he expose that made me want to, unlike most people, speed up the ageing process so that I could finally fulfil my destiny of being an old timer? Without flinching or slowing the movement of his beer glass to his lips, he quite simply said, “Michael who?”

Ironically, when we discussed the matter further and I mentioned that Michael Who had been discovered by Diana Ross, he erupted with, “Diana Ross! Now she was a great singer, whatever happened to her?” It made me realise that when I am 68 I will be engaging with my nephew attempting to enlighten him on the impact Michael Who had on the world of entertainment. In turn my nephew will be aware of Michael Who as I am aware of Bob Dylan, but will find himself in a transition phase, preoccupied by the constant nagging of his daughter begging him to buy her the new Billy-Joe-Mylie-Ray Cyrus Junior album, whilst he tries to find the following day’s UV index on his watch-mobile. Watchile? Mobatch? Who knows what it will be called. One thing is for sure, my nephew will be taught how to use it by his daughter whilst he looks upon me enviously as I pay for the bill with antique cash.

Poor Michael Who. Despite all his best efforts to make the world hate him, or not recognise him, whichever came first, he has died a hero for the simple genius he delivered in his music and dance. Many say things started to go pear-shaped when he burst into flames on a Pepsi commercial shoot. I’m not sure. I’ve burst into flames twice in my life and I am still normal. Just. Once when I was trying to impress fellow diners at the age of about 8 by running my finger slowly back and forth across a candle flame, “It doesn’t hurt, see? It doesn’t hurt.” My finger emerged after the fourth pass with a neat little flame coming off the end of it like a cigarette lighter. I stared in bewilderment before plunging it into a nearby glass of South African plonk. The second time was when I swore never to buy nylon or polyester again. I leant over a gas stove to shift a pot and needless to say got a little hot under the collar.

Fire is not to be played with. I am sure Michael Who didn’t mean to ignite his hair extensions. Despite the dangers of fire and fireworks I have noticed an increase in the number and quality of effigies being burned around the world at the moment. Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was reduced to cinders in India recently. I am sure I caught a glimpse of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad going up in smoke too last week (although that might actually happen). Who is supplying all these effigies? Is it the Guy Fawkes industry being pushed by the economic climate to find an alternative income for the rest of the year? It’s high time effigy burning stepped out of the news and became mainstream TV. Think of the great entertainment, let alone the marketing opportunities:

Madoff. He Madoff with your money. Now he’s Madoff firelighters. Burn baby burn. The Madoff Effigy Burn, live from Wall Street, Tuesday, 7pm. Brought to you by Zippo Lighters.

Welcome back to Old Trafford, it’s halftime and Liverpool lead three goals to nil. Let’s go pitch side for the halftime entertainment sponsored by British Gas. One lucky United fan has been chosen to ignite the coals sitting underneath a giant Ronaldo figurine.

Good evening, the headlines tonight: non-smokers across the world have made a final stand against smokers by burning giant effigies of cowboys and camels in cities around the globe. Smokers groups have complained about the smoke. The irony.

Speaking of great entertainment. Still at dinner with my uncle, we were in a Thai restaurant; “I’ll have the number 69 please,” he bellowed to the shy waitress. Turning to me he whispered, “Do you know what 69 is?” I replied in the negative, a little too innocently. “It’s soixante-neuf in French.” Amused, I asked, “What do you know about soixante-neuf?” With a smirk he replied, “All I know is that it’s the sixty-ninth position the French use and I’m still working on the third!”

Ah, the old, the wise, and the burned. I can’t wait.

Perthect, But Not London

As time ticks by in Perth I find myself increasingly reflective of my eight years in London. I no longer miss it the way I did when I was jobless upon arrival in Australia, but it is starting to occur to me just how important a period of my life it was. To have spent nearly a decade in arguably the world’s greatest city is to have exposed yourself to a smorgasbord of humanity, cultural diversity and history. If London is quite simply an exotic buffet of life, with titbits from all corners of the globe served splendidly on a platter of ancient history, tradition and modernity, then Perth, I am sorry to say, is more like a paltry selection of salads and sauces you might find in a Subway.

This is, I’ll admit, a harsh way to surmise my new and delightful home, but it is less through Perth’s failings, which are limited to be fair, and more through London’s infinite successes that I feel compelled to draw such a conclusion. In short, nothing compares to London, and nothing should try and compare to London. Perth has its place in this world. It is a demonstration of logical town planning, harmonious living, and an appreciation for the outdoors. It doesn’t pretend to be one of the world’s greatest cities, but it may lay claim to host the world’s greatest lifestyle. London is the complete opposite. In exchange for life immersed in such social splendour, you sacrifice the simple things; a tan, a trim waistline, and an unblocked nose, to name a few. The more I think about London the more I realise it is a city of complete contrasts. Perth is full of benign functionality and happy, smiley people, proud of their ability to do what they want with their days while the city exists in predictable fashion behind them. London, however, is bittersweet in every way; full of contrasts and quirks.

I think one of the greatest pleasures in Britain’s capital – and many may disagree – is the seemingly unwavering availability of black cabs wherever you go. It can be pouring with rain and you can be fiddling clumsily with one of those hopelessly inadequate collapsible umbrellas, designed to fit perfectly in a bag or briefcase but to collapse in a crumpled heap at the slightest sign of precipitation, and lo and behold out of the gloom comes that heart-warming sound of the diesel engine, the hiss of tyres spraying through the puddles, the welcoming orange glow of the vacant light atop the roof – you’re saved. You clamber in, soaked, and desperately gasp your destination to the driver. Off he chugs as you snuggle back into the warm, oddly-scented upholstery. But not long after you pull away from the pavement you grind to a shuddering halt in what appears, through the rain-splattered window, to be a jumbled and blinding mass of traffic lights, indicators, pedestrians, glowing shopfronts, huge red Les Misérables-clad buses, and camera flashes. Is it Piccadilly Circus? Leicester Square? No, Knightsbridge? It could be anywhere. The meter ticks over, and over ... in Pounds Sterling ... and you resign yourself to the fact that you’re dry, albeit stationary. What is the alternative? Get wet and mobile? At least you have a genuine Londoner to keep you company. The driver looks up into the mirror, complete with a miniature Chelsea FC football shirt hanging from it, and starts up a conversation. It doesn’t take you long to realise that the driver is full of a wealth of London knowledge. It’s almost worth getting in a cab in London just for the insight. Unlike many other major cities in the world London’s cab drivers are almost all Londoners; locals with an infinite awareness of the city pulsing around them. You may not be going anywhere but at least you feel like the meter rolling over mercilessly is a fee in some way for the brilliant tour guide.

The sweet and sour side of London doesn’t end there. Not to go on about the transport on offer, but let me reveal to you one of the greatest ways to get around: your feet. It took me almost my entire time in London to realise I could save a fortune, get a little fitter, and see much more of the city if I just used my head – and used my feet. For a long time I commuted between Wimbledon (Zone 3) and Central London (Zone 1). A Travelcard to cover all these zones, enabling you to use all forms of transport within the zone boundaries, used to set me back £110 per month. I would leave my house at 7.00, and arrive at my desk at 8.05 – on a good day, mind you. Quite often the Tube would be delayed, or would stop short of its destination, or worse would be one of those nasty “terminating at Kennington” hell rides. The latter would mean having to squeeze onto the next one, along with the rest of South London’s population. Crammed tubes are all too familiar in London, and nobody seems to care. For over £100 pounds a month I was immersing myself into this murky, dusty, crowded and hot underworld just to get from A to B. What a rip-off! For £80 a month I could catch the train from Wimbledon to Waterloo and walk the rest of the way to Mornington Crescent. Yes, it took a little longer and I got a little wetter, but what a view across the river! And that money saved helped see me through the months of joblessness here in Perth. London’s Tube is, after all is said and done, a great and relatively efficient service ferrying millions back and forth through a network of complex underground tunnels. So, in true London fashion, you have two options. You can pay to sit back, breathing in the human filth around you, while reading Harry Potter (with the book sleeve removed) waiting for the Tube to deliver you unscathed, and usually in a timely manner, to your destination. Alternatively, you can brave the fluctuations in weather and do what Londoners of old would have had to do: walk. Trust me, it’s the best way to see the city, and you save a buck.

Sights and sounds on the Northern Line between South Wimbledon and Mornington Crescent:
- The greasy patch on the window, where filthy-haired commuters have dozed off
- An influx of high-heeled, Blackberry-wielding blondes at any of the Clapham stops (there’s no signal down here, dahlings)
- The vocal platform supervisor at Stockwell and her curious ability to shepherd the throng of miserable Londoners from the Northern Line to the Victoria Line
- The wily mice at Mornington Crescent, if the platform is quiet enough, flitting from track to platform in search of crumbs (or possibly the way out?)

Sights and sounds on the route from South Wimbledon to Mornington Crescent by train and foot:
- The Old Wimbledon Theatre
- Clapham Junction, Britain’s busiest railway station
- The famous Waterloo Station
- The London Eye
- Big Ben
- Trafalgar Square
- Neal’s Yard
- The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts
- Gordon’s Wine Bar

Walking London reveals its true nature. You can turn down one street, resplendent with bright white Victorian mansions facing an intricate, ornamental, private central garden, walk a few hundred yards and emerge onto a council estate. Don’t get me wrong, council estates have their place in London’s architectural heritage, I’m merely highlighting the contrasts that make London what it is. You can walk a few hundred metres from the tourist hub of Piccadilly Circus, duck into a side alley near Mayfair and Park Lane, and find a truly local and high-quality pub. Then again you can do that in almost any part of London.

It is truly a city for all people. You can spend a week learning what it is to be a Londoner, with no concept at the end of your stay of what it is to be English. Yet if you hopped on a train at Victoria and journeyed south for an hour, you’d be immersed in the quintessentially English countryside of Kent, or Sussex. You can pay £10 for a cocktail, while watching Cuba’s latest musical import, or you can walk a few extra yards for a two quid pint, and a glimpse of a three-piece grunge band from Bristol. You can fight your way down Oxford Street in an attempt to get from one end to the other, or you can take a parallel route behind the shopfronts on an almost deserted street – just don’t be surprised to find the back of a Tesco for once.

I’ve lost my way with this blog. That’s the Londoner in me. I started out trying to get to a point and drifted off along an unpredictable route. Forgive me. Perhaps in five years time, when Perth has bronzed me but dulled my senses, I’ll manage to write a simple, succinct piece about how the sun always shines here and how the pak choy comes nicely packaged in threes with a rubber band around the stems. I never saw pak choy at Borough Market, but I did once see the Lord Mayor of London, in all his bib and tucker, viewing the rows and rows of winners from England’s recent apple growing championships. It was a splendid sight. I’m off for a run down the beachfront, I’m getting depressed.

Chin Up

My father would scoff and refer to me as still being wet behind the ears if he knew I was lodging the following complaint: I am getting old. I know I am only thirty-one (my thirty-second birthday feels like it is racing up from the murky depths of its December lair like a toilet blockage travelling the wrong way) but something sobering dawned on me the other day, as I caught myself staring disapprovingly at a teenager’s garish pair of Nike trainers that had flopped down nonchalantly on the bus seat adjacent to mine – my life is now measurable in decades. Sure, you could look back through a nostalgic selection of childhood photos at your twenty-first birthday and proudly consider your two decades of existence, but who really remembers having life unceremoniously spanked into them by a midwife? Who can honestly recall the joy of massaging mashed pumpkin and sweet potato with chubby fingers to a parent’s dismay? And who can deny that the continuous blur from age five through to fifteen is broken only by beacons of growing up such as your first stitch, bike, kiss, and precious pubic hair? My point is I can now recall two distinct decades of existence and am well into the third. The prime of my life some might say, but I beg to differ. And here’s why.

Firstly, when I shave I am no longer confronted by the challenge of having to navigate the razor around the sharp cliff edge of my chin down to my neck. This was always a problem area, normally resulting in a collection of nicks and cuts as the blade inevitably clashed with the knife-edge angle of my youthful jawbone. Now, I am pleased to say, the blade cruises languidly down my cheek and eases all the way down my neck without encountering disruption, and this is all due to the development of a substantial soft jowl otherwise known as my chin’s double.

Secondly, between the hours of about 10pm and 5am you will normally find me lying in a variety of different angles and positions twisting sheets and duvets into knots around my limbs and neck, searching for that elusive pleasure I once referred to in my youger days as sleep. In my teens it was something I would always look forward to as the day drew to a close, knowing that it would last through to early morning if it was a school day, or through to a time that suited me if it was a weekend. Now, however, it seems the only time I am able to muster up the need for sleep is when I am as far away from my bed as possible, in the middle of the day, in a situation where alertness is essential; commuting, reading, cinema, grocery shopping, haircut, you name it, I’ll sleep through it. I can snore my way through a hurricane, provided its arrives around lunchtime. I can often be found snoring my way through the cereal section in the supermarket, can you imagine how I shut down when I reach the cool of the meat fridges?

Thirdly, I have one word for you: Twitter. I am no expert in the tech world, let alone the social networking environment, but this is one concept that has floated straight over my head. On a serious note I believe Twitter is a major milestone in the virtual, computer, internet and technology age because it has split the population. It’s safe to say that the majority of people in the western world have a computer with internet, or have access to one, but what Twitter has done is drive a clear wedge between those who have 24-hour access, and those who don’t. Those who have, and indeed demand, eternal, mobile, fast, and comprehensive access to the internet are now in a world of their own, separated from those who use a computer once in a while for emails, news, photos and the odd YouTube clip. Where before the defining line was between those who could use a computer and those who couldn’t, it is now between those who connect when they need to and those to whom being connected is part of life. I have a computer with no internet access, and my mobile phone is about three years old. It’s not aged, but it’s not young and vibrant with all the features of the modern-day handsets. In a sense, it’s much like its owner; by no means past it, but by no means with it.

I hope that when the sun does eventually start setting on me in the future I will retain a similar sense of humour to the elderly gentleman I overheard on the train yesterday. He got chatting to a lady opposite him, who had a cowering four-year-old hiding behind her arm. He enquired how old the lad was and suggested that when he was that age himself he was still being breastfed; “If you’re onto a good thing, don’t give it up,” was his rationale.

I’m not sure the poor kangaroo I encountered on the golf course the other day was onto a good thing. I complained about the lack of kangaroos recently, only to come across huge herds of them relaxing on the fairways of Capel Golf Club. They were all going about their business nibbling shoots of grass, nuzzling joeys - all but two of them. I can only describe it as kangaroo rape. It was a horrific sight and not one my cousin and I were happy to see. A huge male had in his grasp a female with a joey in her pouch and was having his way in a most violent and assertive fashion. She was bleating and barking, prompting us to intervene, and when we did she scurried away for the safety of her herd. I’m sure it was nature taking its course and that we probably shouldn’t have disturbed them, but I honestly believe she was grateful. I wish I could blame the quality of my golf on this harrowing experience, but I can’t.

I have received complaints recently about the length of my blogs, so I will make a concerted effort to shorten them. Suits me. I need a snooze anyway.

These Pretzels are Making me Thirsty!

Despite the fact that fair weather prevails and winter seems reluctant to show its hand any time soon I have managed to settle into a little bit of TV watching. Once you peel back the thin layer of Australian-made shows, documentaries and news programmes, you are left with a wealth of hand-me-downs and reruns fresh off the ship from Britain. If you aren’t watching The Graham Norton Show, Antiques Road Show, Ruddy Hell it’s Harry and Paul, Lead Balloon, or The Bill, you are instead watching Australia’s very own interpretations. Much like Marmite has a petulant little sister in (the arguably superior) Vegemite, so the BBC’s Question Time has an acne-riddled brother in ABC’s Q&A. Never Mind the Buzzcocks probably isn’t aware it has a distant cousin in Spicks and Specks, and the influence shows like Pop Idol and X-Factor have had the world over isn’t lost on Australia, with So You Think You Can Dance and Australia’s Got Talent tapping into that failsafe recipe.

Ignoring this residual television and the flood of American favourites like CSI and 24, Australia does actually hold its own and produces some genuinely classy stuff that would thrill British and American audiences. If stars like Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman and Danni Minogue can strike gold overseas, there’s no suggestion Aussie productions couldn’t do the same. Underbelly is a slick and stylish execution depicting the real life story of one of New Zealand’s most notorious drug dealers, who plied his trade in Australia in the seventies and eighties. We already know the success of Kath and Kim in the UK, but I’ve never really been sure just how close to the bone it reaches in certain parts of Australia. I was proud to introduce the word ‘bogan’ into my life in London, and it was likely you would hear it being bandied about liberally at my old workplace, or on a Sussex golf course. It essentially means ‘uncultured buffoon’ and is a word I picked up when I studied here in Perth in the late nineties. Kath and Kim are perhaps Australia’s most famous bogans but I’m thrilled to announce there is a new satirical comedy show running at the moment called Bogan Pride. I’m surprised I haven’t been cast in it. Unfortunately, much like Lou and Andy from Little Britain, who resemble a number of real people in Britain, there is a lot of truth behind the characters and it is for that reason I believe these shows have limited shelf lives.

One thing is for sure though, despite welcoming foreign content with open arms Australia does come up with some outlandish material and ideas that only they could get away with. The Farmer Wants a Wife is perhaps the finest example of just how Aussie TV can get – it’s exactly what it says it is; a reality show of real farmers looking for a partner. The Farmer Wants a Sheep probably wouldn’t make it past the censors. It’s not just programming, it’s the attitude of newscasters and presenters that is also uniquely Australian. The Socceroos (Australia’s national football team) had a World Cup qualifier a couple of weeks back and on one morning news station the sports presenter had donned a Socceroos scarf in support. This would not be allowed on the culturally oversensitive BBC. On another news bulletin the presenter began a story about North Korea launching a missile for what they claimed was a test aimed at perfecting their ability to put satellites in space. The presenter paused momentarily at this point and inserted the sarcastic comment, “Yeah, if you can believe that.”

Australia has perfected the art of taking the best other countries have to offer and improving it – sometimes. The American method of painting words in reverse on highways has always frustrated me. The idea is that when you are driving at speed you read the bottom word first, rather than from the top as you would a book. For example, rather than say BUS LANE, with BUS appearing above LANE in large letters in the centre of the road, it will be painted as LANE BUS, which is just how you read it! You end up double-checking in your rear-view mirror, by which time you’ve realised anyway what it was saying as you park you radiator on the backseat of a 48-seater Mercedes. But then there is the inspired decision by Perth’s Public Transport Authority to allow bus passengers to request a stop anywhere on their route after 9pm. It’s a luxury late at night when you’ve had a few too many drinks.

As a final note on popular culture, there are occasions when one simple idea or occurrence crosses borders and appeals globally to viewers and listeners alike. I am not the world’s biggest fan of talent shows, but the appearance of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent has lit up the souls of all those who enjoy a rags-to-riches story. What a heart-warming and stunning moment. If she never goes on to achieve anything else in her life she will have that moment to remember for the rest of it. Demi Moore apparently had tears in her eyes watching the clip on YouTube so here’s hoping Ms Boyle, who has admitted to having never even kissed another person, can muster up her very own Demi-like mid-forties dream of finding young love with this new found fame and talent.

There are alternative sources of entertainment in abundance in Perth. I spent the Easter weekend in Mandurah with family and during my return train trip I shared an elevator with a young chap clad in a cowboy hat and fluorescent orange jacket shepherding an old bicycle. I enquired whether he had enjoyed his Easter weekend and in a broad Australian drawl he responded, “No mate, I work for a circus.” I’m sure we all as kids had a dream at some point that we would work in a circus, but for this lad that dream has either turned into a nightmare or his dream is the exact opposite; to work in a field that doesn’t involve clowns, tents, cannons and lions. He needed a shower badly, that’s for sure. If circuses aren’t your thing, there are plenty of great Australian authors out there. A very good friend of mine in London introduced me to Tim Winton, author of such tales as Cloudstreet and Breath. I have read several of his books now and find his storytelling enchanting, luxurious and capable of invigorating even the dullest of imaginations. But along came a teacher I met the other day who suggested Mr Winton is incapable of finishing a story and I suddenly realised that it’s actually true. The Riders describes an epic journey taken by a father and daughter in search of their wife and mother who has absconded. I could barely put the book down and turned furiously from page to page until, about three pages from the end, I realised there was no way they would possibly find her. They didn’t. Sorry, have I ruined it for you?

Peter Carey is another Australian author about whom I have heard great things. Unfortunately, however, I have only read one of his books; The True History of the Kelly Gang. It is essentially a collection of Ned Kelly’s autobiographical diaries written in the lead up to his death at the hands of the police. Despite the pages taking you on an undulating ride through an incredible period in Australia’s history, the writing (Kelly’s own with a hint of Carey’s artistic licence) begins to grate after a while and the characters become so plentiful and similar that I found myself willing the end to come quicker. As it happens, much like Kelly’s own life, I ended the story before I finished it. It’s true to say that Australia’s past is full of colourful tales and legends. My cousin has in his possession a collection of some of the most wonderful Australian fishing anecdotes. One such account occurred some decades ago, and it’s safe to assume it served as a lesson for future generations. It’s not uncommon in coastal areas of the country to find long jetties stretching out into deep water with railway tracks running all the way to the end. These constructions played an important part in local history as they allowed ships to pull into town after town to collect such things as sheep wool. Naturally, with the water being too shallow near the shore, it was the deep water found at the end of a jetty that enabled vessels with deep hulls to pull up and drop anchor. Many years ago some locals who had taken to using their jetty as a diving board spotted a tiger shark lurking under the planks around the base of the struts. Not to be deterred, one of them decided to draw on his old war experience and dispose of this predatory fish with a generous serving of dynamite. So, after a few preparatory throws of kangaroo meat, which had been gradually further and further from the jetty, he loaded one up with the explosive and chucked it as far as he could into the sea. The shark swam off to collect his easy meal and, with kangaroo and sparkling fuse, returned casually to his shady retreat beneath the planks. Sure enough the plan worked brilliantly. The shark exploded into bits, as did the section of jetty under which it resided. This left the man and his associates stranded at the end of the jetty, surrounded by water that was now infested with sharks arriving to feast off the bloody mess left behind.

I am pleased to say I had a far more relaxing engagement with some Australian fish the other day. For Easter I joined my cousin and his lovely family on the fringes of a coastal town known as Mandurah. This is a popular area for those who like to flaunt their money, for it has miles and miles of canals and rivers lined with huge houses, private moorings and aptly named luxury boats. My favourite so far has to be Source of Divorce. The canals, my cousin discovered, also house a number of healthy black bream (oddly pronounced ‘brim’ in these parts) and I am proud to say I yanked two of these silvery black fish out of the algae-riddled water. They weren’t as large as my cousin’s effort, but it was all part of the fun. Of course we threw them back. Catch and release is a popular idea here when it comes to certain species, and rightly so.

After Easter, it was back to my humble abode in Scarborough. I am beginning to feel like I live in my own version of The Truman Show. It doesn’t matter what time of day I walk through my suburb, I always seem to see the same people at exactly the same place. There is the bespectacled lady forever coming around the corner with her baby, the dreadlocked man carrying milk across the same curb, and the rabble of ruffians gathering on the same veranda to drink, smoke, and generally look menacing. Having said that, I am worried about my sanity and think perhaps I may be imagining all this. I made fun of David Beckham recently for his quote referring to the number of caps he has achieved for England; “I was pleased to make it to one-o-nine, but now I’ve made it to one-o-ten.” The smile vanished from my face in the kitchen the other day when I realised, during counting for something I was cooking, that I had gone from one-hundred-and-fifty-nine to one-hundred-and-fifty-ten. Perhaps it was the knock I took on the chin while bodysurfing a week ago. I’ve been walking around with a lovely sand burn, a great excuse not to shave. The jokes have been coming in thick mostly along the lines of “keep your chin up, Michael”. My cousin is worse off. He nearly put a tooth through his lip while bodysurfing. I took my first day trip to Margaret River not so long ago. What a wonderful part of the world, full of stunning coastland and vineyards. It is defnitely a place to see again, and for longer, particularly the wine region. I won't be shy next time. Pass me the pretzels!

Love Cricket, Hate Crickets

They say your life flashes before you when your maker has scheduled an appointment, but I can confirm, having recently cheated Mr G. Reaper, that this is not the case. Consider the fact it has been three years since I last rode a bicycle. Now imagine me riding a bicycle off-road. I want to point out at this stage that I spent five minutes reacquainting myself with one of these wheeled contraptions on a nice, smooth, tar road before pointing the wheel at the start of a sandy track and hoping for the best. I was off the bitumen for no more than two yards before being distracted by what I thought was a charging, rabid dog. Needless to say I ground to a sudden ungainly halt in some soft sand and, as the Aussies say, stacked it. I laughed it off (even the dog did I recall) and pressed on after my cousin, who had left me in a cloud of dust and was climbing the steep track to the summit of a limestone dune.

I at last made it to the top, breathless and exhilarated at once. What my cousin had in mind suddenly dawned on me and I barely had time to protest before he charged over the edge and vanished down a rocky, pebbly chute in a spray of sand, yelling and hollering as his rear wheel slid and slipped all over the place. I had no helmet, no gloves, sandals on my feet, and a ladies’ bike between my legs (off which I had fallen only minutes prior). Not to be shown up by my younger, more agile relative, I plucked up the courage and tipped the front wheel over the edge. The steepness I cannot underestimate. I’m talking forty-five or fifty degrees here. All sound disappeared and the rush of wind thundered in my ears. The rear wheel took on a life of its own and it didn’t take me long to realise the fatal error would be to apply the brakes, for whenever I tentatively tickled them the bike would lurch madly, doing its best to disassociate itself from its rider. My arms rattled like strummed rubber bands. God only knows what speed I was doing. It felt like a million miles an hour. Stones kicked up and branches brushed dangerously around my ankles. I had only one thought flash through my mind: stay upright. Eventually the decline began to level out and my speed lessened. At last the bike felt like it was again under my control and not about to spear head-long into some of Australia’s finest undergrowth. If you’re thinking this all sounds a little sedate and nothing you would describe as near-death, you’re right. It wasn’t this thrilling descent of a grainy beach path that nearly killed me. It was the climb back up again. This particular part of the Bunbury coast is replete with miles and miles of pristine coastal bushland, and I was required to power my bike up several thick-sanded trails, the last of which induced blurry vision and a heart beat like a two-stroke engine.

I was last in Bunbury about four years ago and I must confess I didn’t think much of it back then. These days however, I am spending a lot of time visiting family there and whether I have changed or Bunbury has, I don’t know. I just know that I like it. It’s about two hours drive south of Perth (more by train if, like me, you don’t have a car and have to catch the curious Transwa Australind service). Bunbury was ranked by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2007 as the fastest growing city in Australia. That tells you how much it has changed, largely for the better. I suspect I still had the London bug on my earlier visit, but as that wore off and my desire to seek out sunnier climes grew, so places like Bunbury appealed more and more. It has a wonderful, stunning stretch of shoreline and is a gateway to the gorgeous South West, which I have yet to explore. I managed to take a far tamer trip on the bicycle around the main area of town – it’s not that big; about the size of Brighton in the south of England – and on my travels I discovered some incredible real-estate. There’s one hill consisting of immaculate houses overlooking the Indian Ocean and it was in this area that my bicycle’s chain decided to relieve itself of duty, sending me careering uncontrollably down towards the beach (I’m spotting a trend here). Not the smooth image I was trying to give off to the local council gardeners, who on this particular street were tanned, lean, pretty, brown-haired women. Is this Bunbury law?! The city’s most notable features are what the locals refer to as the Milk Carton (a rather ugly office block that resembles an open carton of milk) and the old grain silos, which have been converted into accommodation. My cousin and his wife have been living happily in Bunbury for a number of years, and it’s not hard to see why.

Their daily commute is a thirty minute drive inland to the town of Donnybrook. Much smaller than Bunbury, Donnybrook is largely a farming town. As you enter you are surrounded by immaculate fruit orchards on either side of the road. Rows and rows of perfectly manicured apple and pear trees wherever you look. I have passed through a lot of Australian farmland in the two months I have been here and I constantly marvel at what can be coaxed out of the land when man puts his mind to it. I have visited fruity little Donnybrook a handful of times, largely for golf and cricket. I’m not complaining. My cousin plays for the Donnybrook First XI, which is a wonderful mix of characters hell-bent on achieving one familiar goal: to play cricket as well as they possibly can. It was a joy to sit alongside the picket-fenced field, after wandering down from eighteen holes on the adjacent golf course, and watch some genuinely entertaining limited-overs cricket. They played their Grand Final against a neighbouring town, but this was no gentle weekend knockabout. I’m talking forty-five overs each on the first day, to be repeated the following day, and again the following weekend if the score is one apiece after the first two matches. They take their cricket seriously in Australia. I therefore didn’t feel any shame shouting like a tipsy member of the Barmy Army. I was the only person yelling for my cousin and his teammates; receiving plaudits from them all after they won the match in thrilling fashion. My cousin excels as opening bowler and part-time pitch roller. For a collection of amateurs, they must be pretty fit to play this much cricket over one weekend. I managed about five deliveries in the nets and I was stuffed, so I have huge respect.

Unfortunately, having left London and fulltime employment behind me over three months ago, all this holidaying and gallivanting had to come to an end at some point. So as much as I have been enjoying my trips on weekends down to Bunbury, it was back to Perth a few weeks ago to a new flat and new job. I have taken up residence in a rather dingy little complex in the suburb of Scarborough. The joy of the location is its proximity to the beach, but quite how important that is going to be to me with the onset of winter and the departure of summer daylight saving, I don’t really know. The flat is equipped with one room, a bathroom, and a kitchen-cum-lounge. I have two housemates in the shape of a couple of elusive and monotonous crickets. Many a night I have bounced about starkers trying to locate these pesky creatures, but they continue to mock me with their cocky little chirrups. I don’t mind them too much as the sound reminds me of Zimbabwe. It’s just one thing to hear them in the distant recesses of a tropical garden, and another to have them languishing behind a washing machine, echoing off the tiled walls and floors.

I was determined to enjoy the last of the long summer days last weekend by taking the five minute walk to Brighton Beach (nothing like its British namesake, for it has sand not boulders, and the sea is blue, not the colour of recycled engine oil). I spent most of the day bodysurfing, which prompted me to look into the sport further and discover that there is actually a world championship! It was wonderful to be able to frolic in the waves and be only five minutes from my own shower. Alas, my new place of work is not so easy to reach. In fact, I have been appalled at the standard of Perth’s public transport these past seven days. On two occasions I have had to wait for three trains to pass at Glendalough station before finding room to board. And don’t get me started on the 400 bus to Scarborough! I feel I may have to revisit my penchant for complaint letters shortly, having been made to wait for nearly an hour for a bus earlier this week. It’s going to get a whole lot more interesting shortly, as I have been seconded to another organisation which is twice the distance away from my flat. Still, it’s nice to be earning some money and doing something exciting at the same time. I had to chuckle the other day when I looked back through my diary to the empty pages of January, which had a scattering of appointments like: collect spark plug for generator; Borrowdale Brook – tee off 7.30; find diesel. Space in my diary these days is at a premium, with pages being taken over by acronyms: WIP (work in progress) meeting; CMU (customer management unit) to consider FAQs; DMU (digital media unit) to discuss content.

Wherever you are in the western world, weekends are surely the highlight of any worker’s week. The Aussies sure know how to make the most of them and I was amazed to see, when meeting a friend for a Sunday afternoon drink at my favourite beachside bar, crowds of dressed up people warming up for an all-nighter. Sunday Sessions are huge here, as are Friday Frenzies, which seem to be weekly occurrences in the troubled Perth nightspot of Northbridge. Violence reportedly breaks out there every week, with street brawls, stabbings, and general drunk and disorderly behaviour. I’m thankful that I have neither the budget, nor the desire to accommodate a clubbing lifestyle, which is not to suggest I haven’t enjoyed it in the past, but I don’t recall indulging in Molotov cocktails all those years ago, only expensive ones.

My new workplace is one of Perth’s largest universities, and it was on the bus back home the other day that I realised there are more Zimbabweans and South Africans in Perth than ever before. I am glad to see they are doing things the way they always have; not taking anything too seriously and concentrating on the good stuff. A student climbed on the bus, took her seat and flipped open her mobile. Breaking into a broad southern African accent, she remarked, “I just had chemistry. Not bad, but I left my lab coat at home. Oh, and my protective shoes too. No, I just carried on regardless. Hey, what’s for dinner? Have you made that biltong yet?” I’m sure as long as she doesn’t get her butchery and chemistry mixed up she will have a successful life ahead of her.

Autumn is here, which means slightly cooler mornings and evenings, but the cloudless days and high twenties temperatures live on. What it does mean though is that winter is just around the corner, and that means AFL (Australian Football League) is well underway. To the uninitiated, this sport looks like it is being played by a bunch of deranged prison escapees chasing a bag of money. I can assure you, however, that this is a serious game, for serious athletes, and serious fans. These guys play for two hours, running around endlessly on a field the size of a cricket ground. Skill and stamina is required in bucket loads. Those Rugby Union fans out there will be interested to note that the majority of kicks for touch these days in Union are of the end-over-end type, which has, in recent years, replaced the torpedo kick. This end-over-end technique has been copied from AFL, and enables the kicker to cover up to sixty metres in a relatively straight line. It’s impressive to watch AFL, as it is to watch Australians play any sport. It inspires me to engage in it more and more, which is why I am ever thankful for the invention of the remote control and the new free to air Channel One dedicated sports channel. Come on Liverpool. Pass the kangaroo biltong.

Toads, Vines, Lamb and Whines

It’s extraordinary to think I have been in Australia for a month. The last time I spent that length of time here was my final year of university nine years ago. I have taken a lot less time than I did when I first arrived to acclimatise and settle into an Australian way of life. It’s all about knowing what to expect. Australia is one of those places where things are pretty predictable from one day to the next. I’m not sure my thoughts would be shared by the surfer in Sydney whose leg was on the receiving end of the latest shark nip this week. Someone suggested to me the other day it was high time shark nets, South Africa-style, were installed off popular swimming beaches. I have a simple answer to that ludicrous idea. The sea is their territory – you don’t see them flapping their way up coastal paths to install human nets in beach car parks. If you don’t fancy a one-on-one with the king of the underwater jungle stick to the pavement, it’s that simple. Or you can take heed of the latest advice from lifesavers and shark experts alike: don’t swim at dawn; don’t swim at dusk; don’t swim when it’s overcast. Don’t swim on dog beaches where the animal scent is in the water. Was it a bad idea to watch, for about the tenth time in my life, the original Jaws film the other day? What a classic. The special effects are atrocious, but who can deny its status as a classic? Now, about those shark nets ...

Going back to expectations – in exchange for free accommodation for my first few weeks I was asked to retrieve the daughter of my host from Perth Airport. She was on her way from South Africa via Mauritius and required collection at the ungodly hour of 2.00am. I decided to stay awake on the night in question and make my way there around 1.30am in the expectation that, at that time, it would be the only arrival and that she’d be through customs in a flash. Well blow me down if I didn’t come to the unpleasant realisation that not everyone in Australia is blessed with logic and foresight, as I was convinced they were. Yes, the 2.00am from Mauritius was on time. So was the 2.05am from Dubai. The 1.50am from Singapore was eleven minutes late, and its rival carrier also from Singapore was five minutes early at 2.02am. Not even Heathrow would consider this sort of a crazy pre-dawn schedule, let alone an airport that obviously brings in baggage handlers on work experience from Johannesburg for such graveyard shifts. It took forever for her to come through those gates. I finally lowered my head at 5.00am and my expectations along with it.

When I arrived at the airport myself early in February I glanced at a sign in the arrivals area advertising the Johnnie Walker Classic at a golf course I have played before – The Vines. In my jetlagged state I could have sworn the dates suggested the tournament was in progress and that I would miss it. It turns out the tournament was a couple of weeks later so, along with a friend of the family, I thought it would be rude not to take advantage of the $35 final day ticket price and head out to the foothills of the Darling Range for some sun and great golf. We weren’t disappointed. No, it wasn’t the opportunity to watch Ryder Cup star Anthony Kim close up and listen to him complain to his caddy about the speed with which his sports drink kept shooting out the bottle’s nozzle. Nor was it the chance to see, for about the fourth time in my life, that old stalwart of a player, Colin Montgomerie. With that Wallace and Gromit smile and easy, fading swing he’s a joy to watch, when he’s in a good mood. He jested at one point that the cups on each hole were too small, a problem we all seem to have encountered. It wasn’t even the sight of Lee Westwood, or the shock that Camillo Villegas and Greg Norman had missed the cut that got me going. It was a young Korean-born New Zealander by the name of Danny Lee. Danny, still an amateur and only eighteen, was within touching distance of the leaders throughout the tournament. With six holes to go on the final day he conspired to shoot four birdies to win in thrilling fashion. He became the European Tour’s youngest ever champion, and it was a joy to watch. I have since discovered he broke Tiger Woods’s record last year to become the youngest ever winner of the US Amateur Championship. Danny Lee is playing shortly in one of his last ever tournaments as an amateur. It’s called The Masters. Watch out for him there and beyond. As a footnote to this golfing paragraph also keep an eye out for Brendon de Jonge. A young Zimbabwean I was at school with who finished second on the Nationwide Tour last year and can already boast one top ten and three top 25 finishes this year on the PGA Tour.

I try very hard not to get depressed when I think about my lack of sporting ability. There was a time when I wasn’t a half bad tennis player, golfer, and cricketer. But these days I can’t even toss the ball straight to serve. I struggle to get a golf ball off the ground anywhere from 100 yards in, and the last time I played a proper cricket match I dropped a sitter, which turned out to be off the bat of the match winner. It is therefore with jealousy that I look upon one of my Australian cousins who, despite having inherited the large frame of my grandfather, has the touch of a surgeon, the eye of an eagle, and the balance of a Russian gymnast. There isn’t a sport he isn’t capable of picking up and enjoying. His latest endeavour is surfing. Whilst I have been flailing about like an oil-slicked seagull out in the puny wavelets of City Beach on a lie-down body board, he has been masterfully carving up the breaks at the famous Margaret River. At night, to keep his eye and balance in check, he skates a long-board around the neighbourhood, gracefully swishing from curb to curb, iPod in and with not a care in the world. I can’t even ride a bus gracefully. He was pulled over by the police the other day and immediately apologised for not wearing a helmet. It turned out they weren’t even aware there was a rule about helmets for skateboarders, and instead offered to ride behind him so he could see where he was going in their spotlight.

The Police do have their hands full in Perth, clearing up the odd vagrant and drunkard. But much like London, Perth seems to have established a network of decent enough buskers, some of which have been performing in the city centre since I was here as a teenager. The majority of them are B-grade opera singers, tone-deaf violinists, and magicians performing tricks that can only have come from Christmas crackers. But I came across the most bizarre pair of entertainers the other day, and their gimmick was pure genius. They had erected two old bicycles, wonderfully decorated with flowers and ribbons, with the rear wheels raised off the ground sitting on small rollers connected to motors. These motors were attached to antique Singer sewing machines. Members of the public were being encouraged to bring forward their repairs and alterations which would be mended by hand, powered by the customer’s pedalling. Of course small donations were gratefully accepted, but what a superb bit of creativity.

Back to golf – I have played my first round since arriving. A good friend of mine, formerly off a handicap of one, invited me to play at the crack of dawn at Wembley Park’s Tuart Course. Wembley Park is a superb public facility with one of the best practice greens I have ever putted on. Sadly the greens out on the course weren’t as good, but they were still wonderful to putt on, and were in another world compared to the stuff I have been subjected to in Zimbabwe. But as is always the way on a golf course, it doesn’t matter how short the layout is, or how true the greens are you still have to hit it straight. My sliced drive off the first tee, in front of two four-balls waiting to tee off, was a most inauspicious return to WA golf. The rest of the day failed to improve. I walked off with another mid-nineties round, fewer balls than I started with, and putting a stroke that should be on life-support. On the plus side it was a pleasure being able to remove the umbrella from my bag with no visible of signs of having to replace it any time over the next fifty years.

Golf in the sun is one of those quintessentially Australian activities, as is barbecuing. I have consumed enough lamb to last me a lifetime, but I had to laugh when I was told that my aunt, a teacher here, has a student in her class with the surname Lamb. What’s so funny about that, I hear you ask? His first name is Eyelike.

Yes indeed, Australia has many unique characteristics. In the middle of primetime viewing last night there was an advertisement full of drama and tension. It was advising viewers of the dangers of rubber vine, an apparently menacing plant in these parts. The ad explained how to prevent it and how to identify it, and finished with an emergency number that viewers could call if they had seen this evil vegetable. I can just imagine BBC 1 running an infomercial about the dangers of bluebells in spring. They are very particular about their flora and fauna here, normally with good reason. Australia has an incredibly fragile ecosystem, and when something foreign invades it is action stations for everyone. More often than not the foreign invader is usually quite poisonous or harmful. Perhaps the most visually arresting pest is the cane toad. A news report earlier this week informed the people of the State of Western Australia that for the first time ever cane toads have been spotted just inside the border with Northern Territory. They are a shocking and prolific invader, and I believe the humane way of disposing of them is to catch them and freeze them. For a first world country Australia sure has its quirky little problems. Having said that, I felt like I was right back in third world Zimbabwe yesterday. My cousin’s wife came home from teaching and complained about not being able to teach her art class. Why, I asked, was she prevented from doing this? Because there was no bloody electricity.

At Least It's Sunny

Six months ago, when I finally made my mind up to leave little old London for the heaving metropolis of Perth, things were economically rosy in the Western Australia capital. I had contacted a number of potential employers, all of whom had replied positively about the prospects of a job in early 2009. I quote one such person: “February is ideal; we’re moving into bigger offices and taking on more clients, so definitely contact us when you arrive.” Another replied with: “We’re experiencing somewhat of a boom in Perth and my greatest problem is finding the space for new staff.”

Fast forward to February 2009, and two weeks after arriving in this sun-drenched city I’m wondering where all the positivity has evaporated to. Perth has doubled over in the corner of the economic boxing ring, winded by an unseen left hook from the world-beating heavyweight, D. Pression. What makes it worse is that with an abundance of minerals, and an extraordinary Asian demand for them, Perth surely was the outright favorite in this battle. But who around the world hasn’t been caught napping by the onset of this global dilemma? It was an advertising agency I mentioned above that suggested office space was at a premium six months ago. I learned this very morning that they retrenched ten members of staff, so I’m guessing they have a bit more space now. I think it’s safe to assume hiring me is not at the top of their agenda.

Still, the sun is shining, and like I said over and over in London I’d rather be miserable where it’s sunny than where it’s cold. I didn’t have the best start arriving in Perth. South African Airways, an airline I won’t fly again even if it’s the last plane out of a plague-infested desert island, brought me in from Johannesburg. I spent four hours in Oliver Tambo Airport before my flight to Perth, three quarters of which I wasted remonstrating with the baggage staff about being overweight. For nine kilograms they wanted to charge me US$250. For considerably less than that I bought a large hold all and increased my meagre hand luggage to bring me down to an acceptable weight. I have never had a fondness for that airport, and let me say this now – if they think they have improved it to ‘international standards’ in time for the 2010 World Cup, they need to think again. From certain angles the airport looks the business. But how can you expect ten thousand Brazillian football fans to go through SEVEN security checks before entering the crammed duty-free area? This includes three ticket checks and three luggage scales. It’s an utter shambles. Add to this the fact that the entire airport only boasts one technician tasked with fixing the passenger gangway when it breaks, as it inevitably did at my gate, and you have a recipe for disaster. I promise I am nearly done with the rant. I want to finish by saying that the thieving SAA flight crew stole my most prized clothing possession; a wool overcoat. I had been so eager to get off their aircraft that I left it on board, only to discover within twenty minutes that it had vanished. I must thank the Australian ground services for doing their very best to find it. I am not surprised a bunch of SAA reprobates have been charged with drug smuggling in London. They are incompetent, untrustworthy, unprofessional, and totally devoid of charm. Just ask the passenger in front of me who received a complimentary milk shower halfway through the flight.

It was a pleasure arriving in Perth. It was literally a breath of fresh air after that flight from hell. The passport staff were efficient and friendly, the baggage personnel willing and apologetic. It’s an attitude that carries across Australia. They are a friendly, down-to-earth, straightforward, no nonsense, happy sort of people – with the odd exception. The inferno that engulfed the state of Victoria was a shocking tragedy, but not for the first time it was the result of deliberately lit fires started by arsonists. You get used to people having motives when they commit crimes, no matter how misguided those motives are, but what possible motive can you claim when acting out such an appalling piece of inhumane behaviour?

Bushfires are a real hazard in Australia, usually caused naturally. One of the many perils Australians are faced with in exchange for a life of sun and space. The other, or should I say one of the others, is snake bite. Of the four collective years I have spent in Australia I have never seen one snake, so you can imagine my dismay when the cat belonging to the people putting me up at present died from snake poison. It just goes to show that you can’t be too careful – this happened in a very urban built up area. Another animal too often associated with Australia’s coastal waters is the friendly shark. Until recently I have always imagined my chances of being attacked by one slimmer than my chances of being hit by a car. However attacks are on the up, and I can’t help but wonder how far away the nearest shark is when I’m tumbling through the sunset-tinged breakers on City Beach, as I have been doing every other evening since arriving here. There is nothing like the promise of a cool refreshing ocean to motivate you to jog the four kilometres down to the beach for a dip. And yes, I jog back too.

Perth has not changed much since I was last here. The most amazing addition to the city from my perspective is the insertion of a railway running all the way from the CBD to Mandurah, with a stop at my old university. Oh how that would have changed my commute for those four years! Aside from that only a few new buildings are going up. The streets are still clean, wide, smooth and safe. The buses are precise, and their chilled interiors offer respite from the sweltering verges that line suburb after suburb. When I was living here in the late nineties I heard a startling statistic about takeaways. It was something along the lines of there being more per capita than in any other major city in the world. I’ve never worked out if this is true, but I must say there are hundreds of them. And where there isn’t a cluster of McDonald’s, Hungry Jacks (Burger King), Chicken Treat, KFC, and Red Rooster, you will find a shopping mall equipped with a food hall. Perth to me has always been the city of food halls. I love them. The Carillon Shopping mall in the centre of town boasts Mexican, Indian, Thai, British, Chinese, Japanese, Vegetarian and Italian food, all within a 20 or 30 metre radius of a central communal seating area. It’s really not all that expensive either. Just the sort of sustenance required to fuel a run to the beach and a frolic in the waves. Although it is perhaps not the type of diet to recommend to a swimmer competing in this weekend’s Rottnest Channel Swim. Rottnest Island sits about 20kms off the Perth coast, and each year sees a crazy collection of swimming fanatics racing to its shores from Cottesloe Beach. When I lived in London, I talked a lot about running the marathon there, and I expect to do much of the same here over the years to come – talk a lot about swimming this race. It’s the thought that counts.

Sport plays a big part of life in Perth. Already I have attended a couple of Super XIV rugby matches. Perth team Western Force have lost one and unconvincingly won another. It’s just great to be out there enjoying it live. The Johnnie Walker Classic is also being held at the moment, and I may venture out to the Vines Resort for the final day to see if American Anthony Kim can rustle up some of that Ryder Cup magic.

I am, in truth, struggling to sound energetic and excited, despite all I have said about how wonderful Perth is. The problem with me is that I will only be happy when I find a job. But not just any old job – a career. It’s a testing time in Perth and I am faced with the possibility of having to seek out better options in Sydney, particularly if I am to continue to pursue advertising as my industry of choice. But for the moment I am staying patient and biding my time here. Next week I leave for Bunbury, a small but gorgeous town to the south of Perth, to stay with my cousin and his wife. From there I may end up moving to Carnarvon for a period, and if I was trying to get away from London and all that it has wrong with it, Carnarvon could not be more of an opposite. The sun is shining though, and that’s so important to me. They say Hawaii has a major homeless problem because in a warm healthy climate it’s easier to live that life than in a cold, cramped city. Aloha.

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SOME PICTURES FROM ZIMBABWE - SIGNS OF THE TIMES