Driving in Queensland

At our latest informal curry club venture, we were reminiscing about our experiences driving around Queensland. Incidentally, don't bother with the new Indian restaurant on Hastings Street, Noosa. I don't know what part of the sub continent they think they're from, but someone should tell them that a madras is different from a korma. Distinctly pants.

When I finally got round to registering my NSW plated car in Queensland, I had to register myself too, as a 'new customer', as I hadn't owned a car in QLD before. The lady behind the counter was, like most aussies, friendly and chatty. She humoured me by letting me have a quick whinge about Jim, my automotive ebay purchase. So named after Jim Morrison because, within the first 2 weeks of owning him, all the bloody doors were f***ed. "Bit of a limon is he?" she asked sympathetically. Yep. Why, only this week I've forked out another $200 on lubricants, spanners and windscreen wipers.

Which accounts for why all the speeding tickets I have accrued have been in Bertha - Dave's enormous Fordamundo. A big 4 litre beast of a car known fondly by this nickname because that's what you do when you drive her into a parking space. This 1992 Ford Fairlane also goes like stink, surprisingly. But with her missing trim and forlorn looking bonnet ornament (which Dave would like everyone to believe is really a James Bond-esque gun sight), she is a little embarrassing to be seen in, particularly in the cold light of a speed camera photo.

If you are usually a speedy driver then things you need to be aware of in Queensland are that (a) Queensland police never let you off (they have a quota to fulfill) (b) they always lie in wait at obscure junctions, the side of the Bruce highway and school traffic zones. In fact my last ticket was issued in a school zone (40 km/h during school drop off and collection times), which is ironic considering I am in fact a school teacher. And I was racing an equally battered old Holden. Holden and Ford have an age old rivalry in oz - mainly because of the V8 Supercars racing here. The Holden triumphed briefly down the main road through Nambour, only to be caught first by the lurking copper with the speed gun. I was second.

The lady behind the Queensland Transport counter started to 'create' me as a new customer. She looked puzzled at her computer screen for a while before realising my criminal history. "Ah yes, Miss Leeson, we already have you on file". Oops.

In search of a decent curry on the Sunshine Coast

It's time to exact my revenge on all those revolting bowls of gravy I've been served in the 'curry' houses of Queensland. For all the soft poppadoms, raw meat starters and insipid spices, I'm going to get my own back... or a libel suit maybe.

Firstly, let me start by saying that most restaurant experiences in South East Queensland are really good. Whatever restaurant you choose will offer well cooked, interesting food and plenty of it, served by friendly staff. Now try going to an Indian restaurant.

If, as a pom, you wanted to be able recreate those exuberent Friday nights out in the local balti hut, forget it. For a start, they're usually all shut by 10pm, having been trying to waft you out of the door since 9pm. And secondly, the dining experience itself is grim to say the least.

Coming from a nation whose favourite national dish is chicken tikka masala (ok, I know it was invented in Glasgow with a tin of tomato soup), whose Indian and Bangladeshi populations provide the most competitively yummy curry and balti houses in the world and whose favourite Friday night activity is to go down the local and order a madras with half and half, it's all a bit disappointing. Having spent my formative years frequenting the curry houses of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Rusholme in Manchester and the Wellingborough Road in Northampton (yes, Northampton - go and see for yourselves!), I feel suitably qualified to judge.

Indulge me for a minute while I have a full blown whinge right now: WHY OH WHY DO INDIAN RESTAURANT OWNERS IN SE QUEENSLAND THINK THAT AUSTRALIANS DESERVE SUB STANDARD FOOD? AND WHY OH WHY DO AUSTRALIANS LIKE IT???!!!!

The situation is so dire on the Sunshine Coast that a group of us -all poms - have got together an informal curry club to seek out the best curry house in the area. Every couple of weeks we meet up in a local restaurant to see what we all think. And fair dos, we always give it a second chance in case they were having an off night. So here are the results so far, in no particular order:

(1) Magic of India, Thomas Street, Noosaville - good service, reasonable food, bit salty, provided minced chilli on the side to make the dish hotter (!), would go back with moderate enthusiasm. Winner of an award, apparently. Maybe the best Indian restaurant in Thomas Street award? It wouldn't be difficult because the other restaurant there is... (cue dastardly music)...

(2) Chutney Mary's, Thomas Street, Noosaville - DO NOT repeat DO NOT GO HERE! The poppadoms were microwaved, the kebab starter wasn't cooked properly, the vindaloo tasted like bad bisto, in fact the food was so bad I had to pop my head round the kitchen door to make sure there were Indian/Bangladeshi people 'cooking it'. And there were. The only saving grace was the service, provided by a team of young girls who all seemed to know what they were doing. This place is packed out on weekends - we can't understand it. It was truly vile.

(3) India Today, Aerodrome Road, Maroochydore - looks amazing with all the saris, ornaments and dangly bits everywhere. But the service was not brilliant and food pretty average - again with the bowl of minced chilli to make it hotter! The second time we went we had the courage to question the service and some of the food (question mind, not complain), and a very unpleasant woman (the owner?) appeared from nowhere to confront us about it and more or less told us it was our own fault we hadn't got the service we were looking for. Not just that, but she then clearly forced a poor unfortunate member of staff come out to apologise for the service which she had just told us had been our fault. We resolved never to go back.

(4) Hathi, Aerodrome Road, Maroochydore - best one so far but don't go for the all you can eat buffet. It's not good. And don't bother ordering poppadoms - they're disgusting. On our second visit we chose off the menu and it was all pretty good. Hot seemed to mean hot (although not British Indian hot!) and no additional chilli was required.

To be fair on the restaurant chefs here, they aren't helped by the average aussie's aversion to spicy food. A mild korma would cause an Australian to flap his hand frantically in front of his open mouth and drink a ton of 'warda'. But, equally, it's no excuse for rubbish food. Especially when you consider how many poms are moving over here. So restaurant owners need to sharpen up their act.

Based on this report, here are my recommendations:
(1) All curry house owners in SE Queensland need to know that poppadoms should be deep fried in ghee to make them crispy and buttery. In fact,
(2) All curry house owners in SE Queensland need to go to Bradford for a residential cookery course.
(3) Try eating Thai on a Friday night instead - there are lots of them and they're usually very good.
(4) Eat your last good curry in Southall before you catch the plane to oz from Heathrow.
(5) Forget all that foreign muck and get an excellent, wholesome, organic, aussie feed at Modern Primitive in Eumundi.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to tell them I keep mentioning them in ma blog. Maybe I'll get a free pud!

9.10.2008 - And I did get a free pud - what a great place!! AND they've just won best newcomer restaurant award for the Sunshine Coast. What can I get for mentioning that do you think?

Flushing the loo in a power cut

... is not funny.

Neither is my neglect of this blog for the entire month of August, for which I apologise - to it, and its reader (hello mum!). My excuses are:

(1) I was in Blighty for 3 weeks so couldn't really write about being in oz because I wasn't there.

(2) Since being back in oz I've been snowed under with coursework for the final semester of my masters and have barely set foot out of the house, so subsequently...

(3)...I've had nothing to write about.

But something exciting did happen to us this morning out here in the sticks and it manifested itself when Diver Dave went to have his morning shower. After over a month without rain, with Dave worrying himself alternately about the state of our water tanks (got no mains water) and his new seedlings in the veggie patch (apparently we're growing watermelons now), his prayers have been answered. And once again we are almost cut off from the outside world by rising flood waters triggered by the incessant torrential rain we have had all night.

...Which led to some power lines falling down somewhere, which led to us running out of electricity. Normally this is an incovenience, but in our house, and in most other houses around here, it's a total nightmare. Everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - in the house needs electricity. It's not just the lights, the 'keddle', the toaster, the cooker and all the other appliances. It's the internet modem (which I need for my coursework), the shower (which I need to keep Dave clean) and the water pump (which we need for getting water out of the tap). Consequently, the bog doesn't work either (which I need for ..etc, etc...).

Still, Dave's happy. It means he can dust off his camping stove and get back to nature, etc..grrr, and other manly stuff. Although watching him drinking cafetiere coffee and eating Mcvities chocolate biscuits (got em from Coles!), he didn't look terribly Ray Mears. It also means he can stop worrying about his precious seedlings now we've got the deluge he's been asking for.

Cheers Dave.

The cost of living in Australia- HOW MUCH??

"OK, so you want to go back to university - that's fine. But why Australia?" my Dad was asking, nearly two years ago. Inexplicably, the theme from Family Fortunes ran through my head as background music while I considered my choice of quick fire answers. Was it:

(a) "why not?" - the enigmatic reply

(b) "it's got better weather" - the chav answer

(c) "the laid back lifstyle" - largely based on the holiday I'd just come back from

(d) "the cost of living's cheaper" - the uninformed response

(e) "I need a change and I wanna spend more time with Dave" - the truth.

I opted for a combination of (c) and (d), and steered clear of (e) for more credibility. At that point a big Family Fortune "EH URR" (not there) warning noise should have gone off in my head: Like a lot of poms, I really did think living in oz for two years was going to be cheaper than blighty. Doh!

So it was with growing dismay that after arriving, all excited and optimistic, I soon found out the truth: Which is that with only a population of 21 million, Australia's consumer market is small so there aren't many companies competing for your attention. So they don't feel the need to bring their prices down. Ever.

The first rip off I encountered was shelling out $300 for a second hand bed. Back then this amounted to about £120. At my first opportunity of seeing it in proper daylight (after I'd paid for it of course), this bed revealed some very dodgy looking stains on the mattress. Ugghh! As soon as possible, this mattress was booted out into the street for the annual big rubbish collection so we could replace it with a new one. Which cost $1000 - approx £500. Interestingly, within half an hour of putting the old mattress out in the street, it was snapped up. Presumably by someone in a knackered old ute. Clearly we weren't the only ones feeling the pain of buying household essentials in Australia.

Books and DVDs are outrageously priced down in this part of the world, which hurts if you're a student trying to buy textbooks. On average I have had to pay about $120 (£60) per new book, which I have to buy three of for each of my four semesters. It's cheaper to buy them from Amazon UK and have them sent here. Recently, I have been using textbookexchange.com.au for buying and selling used books. This has saved me a lot of money but the prices of second hand books are still astronomical. It is possible to buy and sell the same book for the same price using this website however, so I guess it amounts to a free book.

And don't even get me started on banks. For the equivalent of a current account, you have to pay for the privilege (about $5 a month), you don't earn any interest, you will be charged for using another bank's ATM and charged for ordering a cheque book. There are one or two international banks, such as HSBC, who are now dipping their toe in the Australian market, hopefully about to bring some sanity into this financial world of con artists.

Other unexpected expensive surprises include broadband (ADSL2 only really available in the cities), healthcare (no NHS AND no paid maternity leave!), used cars (in Queensland where they last forever), shoes (unless you go to a shop smelling unnervingly of rubber), household furniture (unless you can get to one of five Ikeas in the whole of Australia - one in each state except NT and Tas) and ALL, and I mean ALL, appliances (see blog entry for Nov 2007).

It's not all bad though. Reasonable prices can be found in high street clothes shops. This is because the clothes are made in China and will shrink or fall apart in a wash temperature warmer than a penguin's arse (Australia has those too).

So, after all this whinging, I suppose the burning question is: Would I have abandoned going to Australia if I'd have been warned about all this beforehand? Would I have stayed in Blighty to attempt a change in career and life experiences??

"EH URR".

Late for coffee in beeyoodiful Noosa

Standing on the headland and looking at my watch, I knew I had to tear myself away from this idyllic spot. Just a couple more minutes, I told myself. Just enough time to see another couple of water spouts above the humpback whales who were languishing in the middle distance and didn't seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere. Unlike me right now.

It was a wrench but I knew that if I didn't get a move on I would be keeping Dave waiting at our favourite cafe along the Noosa River. We can never remember the name of it; we just call it the Elvis cafe because they have a statue of 'Him' outside on Gympie Terrace. From any table there's a great view of where the river meets the sea. At this time of year the sun has set by 5.30pm. I wanted to get there before sundown. It's the middle of winter now but I've just been standing on the edge of an ocean cliff wearing a T-shirt and sunglasses.

I took up a brisk pace, returning smiles or hellos to people I passed along the track through the National Park. It was quiet and peaceful. The koalas would be starting to wake up and venture down to the lower branches. I had already spotted one high up in a huge eucalyptus, looking down at me. Where else in the world could you see koalas, kangaroos and whales all in one day?

I rounded a corner into Tea Tree Bay to witness a magical Noosa moment. Shafts of golden sunlight broke through the clouds, bathing everything before me in a warm, honey glow. The beauty of my surroundings was intensified in that moment, serving to remind me yet again how lucky we are to live here. I marvelled at the cathedral of ancient white gum trees, the perfect sandy shore, the reflected sunlight in the molten water, the gentle warm breeze playing with my hair, the smell of sea, tea tree and eucalyptus all mixed in together.

I turned to go.

And was promptly knocked down by a long distance runner.

Cheers geezer.

Rally Queensland: A cr*p day out

If, like me, you are a frustrated petrol head whose only chance of being the next Colin (-ette?) Macrae (RIP) is if the DVLA gave out free lessons in rally driving as a condition of owning a car, then the next best thing might be to mosey on down to your nearest rally event. If your nearest rally is in a UK forest then, so long as the weather holds off and you don't mind a bit of a walk, it should be an interesting few hours. If your nearest event happens to be the Queensland round of the Australian Rally Championship, forget it; I've seen more sideways action on our ride-on lawn mower.

The day started badly: Pottering up the highway on Dave's 1953 Matchless motorbike, we were nearly side swiped into the afterlife by a tosser towing a caravan, clearly revelling in the glory of actually being able to overtake something. Shortly afterwards, Dave was stopped at a junction by traffic cops lying in wait for people not stopping at an unnoticeable stop sign. Having been too busy negotiating the highly dangerous and confusing road markings to see any stop sign, poor Dave was slapped with a $225 fine and three more points on his licence. Judging by the number of other rally spectators unfamiliar with the area who were also being stopped, Queensland Transport must have raked in a fortune in revenue today. Much like on the M4 in Wales during Rally GB, Queensland also has its own highway men. We can only assume they were working on commission.

At the rally stage we were greeted by friendly marshals, lots of parking and a short walk in the sunshine to the spectators' area. This made a nice change from tramping mile after mile through muddy fields and forests in the freezing rain in Blighty. The abundance of parking should have been our first warning sign however. That, and the high concentration of competitors' friends and family who were spectating around us. They were the only other people IN THE WORLD who could possibly be interested in what turned out to be a mind numbingly boring event.

The other clue lay in the fact that there were only 66 competitors in the combined Australian Rally Championship and Other People categories, pinged off the start in two minute intervals, allegedly. Seemed more like ten to us. On a recent British Rally Championship round there were 307 competitors plus reserves, most of whom were competing in championships, thereby showing some commitment, unlike the free wheeling grannies at Imbil this weekend.

I had been excited at the prospect of watching powerful, turbo charged beasts careering down a steep hill into a hairpin right with the possibility of an 'off' on the left hand side if they didn't throttle hard enough out of the bend. But after standing through a couple of hours of Datsun Cherries and things called Geminis with drivers seemingly having the time to wave at their proud mums and dads in the 'crowd', we'd had enough.

Off we tootled on the Matchless, avoiding the highway this time, taking the beautiful scenic route to Kenilworth and its lovely cafés. Where I was charged $17 for half a plate of lettuce. What a great way to round off a rubbish day.

Teaching in Queensland - or trying to

"I don't believe in ANZAC day so I'm not doing this, " said the eight year old, who then waited to see what I would do next. This was my first day of teaching in Australia, after enjoying 18 months of not doing it, and, as a supply teacher, I needed to weigh up my confrontation options quickly. Fortunately, I had brought with me the world's most boring Harry Potter word search so I sent him off to a corner and we were both happy.

Let me start by saying that having your qualified teacher status recognised in Queensland is no easy task. It involves reams of paper, endless queueing up to see a JP and a disturbing trip down memory lane. I will attempt to demonstrate how frustrating this ridiculous, pompous and bureaucratic process is.

Round 1 involved tracking down academic transcripts I didn't even know I had. Not content with seeing my degree and post graduate qualifications for teaching, Queensland College of Teachers wanted to see documentation of the grades I obtained for each module of my courses. In the case of my PGCE, this was a pointless exercise since either a pass or a fail was awarded. In the case of my degree, it was just plain embarrassing having to revisit that infinite list of Cs and Ds.

Qualifications weren't the only things I had to track down. I personally had to obtain references from former head teachers. This is a humiliating experience if, like me, you have left the country in a blaze of smugness vowing never to be a teacher again. But $270 a day is a hard prospect to ignore, so I made contact. Only to find out that one head had retired and the other one was on her way. Thankfully, a lovely ex colleague stepped in to write a reference in place of the first head teacher and to jog the memory of the stubborn second.

Next thing I had to do was to get copies of my passport, birth certificate, degree and post grad certificates, degree and post grad transcripts and first aid certificate all certified by a JP. This is such a common ludicrous practice that there are usually JP 'clinics' at a local shopping centre or magistrates court, staffed by volunteers, at certain times of the week. To date, I have gone through this process four times just to be able to teach. I had to be registered with Queensland College of Teachers, Education Queensland and two supply registers.

So, now that I have a foot in the door, how different is it from teaching in the UK? With all my uni commitments, so far my aussie teaching experiences are only based on one school. And it's not so different. Except for the silly christian names on the class register (eg.Saxon..??), the lack of assemblies and the fact that yesterday I had to send a boy home who had a tick embedded in the back of his head. Classroom areas can quite often be open plan with the classroom next door, which can quite often be very annoying. There are no interactive whiteboards in the classrooms. In fact it has been the first time in 7 years that I have had to use a blackboard. Support assistants are few and far between as the children get older. However, they do have specialist teachers who come in to teach PE, music and ICT, leaving you with the ever precious non contact time. Hooray!

Curriculum wise the subject areas are broken down into English, Maths, Science, the Arts (dance, drama, media, music, visual arts), Languages Other Than English (LOTE), Health and Physical Education (HPE), Studies Of Society and Environment (SOSE: History, Geography, Culture!) and Technology (DT and ICT). So there.

The Early Years have their own curriculum which is uncannily similar to the UK Early Learning Goals, except more streamlined (ie. bits missing), with less bloody paperwork. The 'Prep' year is relatively new in Queensland and is not mandatory. So it's quite common for the usual suspects to be missing off the daily roll call, which presumably only creates more hassles for the Year One teachers when they are expected to attend. In the prep class I taught, the support assistant was only present in the mornings -although the afternoons are only and hour and 20 minutes long anyway - there was no free flow outdoor area (isn't in the curriculum) and no sand or water trays. There were two snack times in the mornings and get this: The class teacher invited the children to suggest what they should learn about next. There was no actual planning!!!!!

So sod the IT masters degree I'm trying to pass, I'm going to be a prep teacher when I grow up.

PS Just seen the ads at the top of this page.

Roof monsters in the night

Midnight. A furtive knock on my bedroom door. A trembling, teenage voice calls out, "Becky..? Are you awake? What's all that noise?"

The teenager is my 17 year old brother who's staying for his holiday. The noise he's so worried about has been going on for the last 20 minutes. It can only be described as an all out assault on our tin roof. It sounds like somebody escaping from the police several times over. Whatever it is is romping, yes romping, up and down, and generally showing off. So that rules out Burglar Bill. It can only be one thing: possums.

Traditionally, homes down this part of the world have corrugated tin roofs. Which sounds a bit ramshackled, but they really work. Australians and Kiwis often reminisce about the soothing sound of rain on a tin roof. They neglect to mention the scourge of tin roofed attics and soundly sleeping home owners as possums clatter home after a hard night out; peeling back the roof panels and having a huge domestic in the loft before settling down to sleep, leaving the legitimate residents wide awake, wondering how to evict those upstairs.

And that's the tricky part - getting rid of them. Because Dame Edna's favourite marsupials are pretty cute looking and protected. Hence the proliferation in the Yellow Pages of small businesses named Possum Pete and suchlike, who can dispatch them humanely. They will hang around for the family unit upstairs to saunter out for the night - and it can be a long line of mums, dads, aunties and kids - and quickly block up the entry before they get back and find they're locked out. And then all hell really does break out.

Kiwis don't have this problem as possums are not a protected species in New Zealand. In fact they are an introduced, non native species who chew up tons of vegetation each night and who the NZ government actively try to eliminate. Their souvenir shops are full of socks, hats and handbags, all made out of possum.

We however found an alternative solution: As our own particular roof monster was making it's routine, early evening trip up one of the palm trees outside, we shone Dave's ten squibillion mega watt dive torch at it. It looked at us somewhat blindly with surprise, and we've never had a sleepless night since.

Being British

OK, OK, I appreciate I may have upset one or two Brits with my last post, suggesting that Cool Britannia was turning into chav central. As I was trying to spot kangaroos while driving down the road the other day, it occurred to me that I may have violated one of the rules of British humour: self deprecation. After all, if you're poking fun at the Motherland from a safe distance overseas, then the bottom line is you're just taking the p*ss. To a Brit, it's only really acceptable to do this if you're resident in the country and suffering like everyone else.

So let me say that I am proud to be British. I am even proud to say I'm from Blackpool... sometimes. Living abroad seems to focus the mind on what your nationality means to you. This might be due to the impression it makes on people you meet, or it could just be down to the everyday things you miss about home.

Whilst studying at an international campus, it has been interesting to observe the reactions of lecturers and fellow students on finding out I'm a pom. Instantly, they have a frame of reference; something they can talk to you about. Usually, the lecturers have spent time in the UK and in lectures they like to invite me to comment on issues from a UK perspective. But students will ask anything: From wanting to know if everywhere in Britain is like it is on Shameless, to asking if my parents live in a castle. Recently, a Japanese student asked me if the English really were proud of their well known hero, William Wallace (Braveheart)! My usual effort to make a connection with the other students is along the lines of, "So...er.. where exactly is Taiwan then?" Yes folks, it's good to be a Brit abroad.

One of the things I have missed while living overseas is the cultural references you have in common when chatting to other poms. Being British means different things to different people depending on their circumstances. But here's a not very definitive list from a thirty something, occasionally homesick pom - ette (?):

Terry Wogan in the mornings, Chris Evans on the way home, Jonathan Ross on Friday nights, frosty mornings, autumn trees, winter evenings next to a coal fire, being offered endless cups of tea, Sunday lunch in the local village pub, dinners in the curry house, sarcasm, good music, the Lake District, not having enough traffic police around to spoil my racing other cars down the A43 at Silverstone...oh, the list goes on....

It is of course a highly romanticised view which does not take into account rude shop assistants, horrid town centres, huge traffic jams and painfully overpriced petrol. But no doubt I'll be whinging happily about all that when I next visit Blighty in July. Bring on the bad weather and mediocre food (excepting curry of course) - I can't wait!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564834&in_page_id=1770

Trisha for PM?

At the risk of venturing into politics, of which I know nothing, there are many reasons why I'm in Australia, not the least of which is an Alf Garnett pessimism about the mother country going to the dawgs or some such gloom and doom. And the news this week from a poll of under 25s conducted by Sky is that Britain's 'yoof' have voted Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty as their top role models. Need I say more? Ugh.

It's the same reason why I have joined the many pointless thousands on the facebook group known as 'Jeremy Clarkson should be Prime Minister'. There were a few Clarkson for PM facebook groups to choose from; I avoided the one entitled 'Jeremy Clarkson should not be PM because he is a b*nder'!

I felt compelled to join up after reading some of the thousands of comments made on Clarkson's articles that have been published on the Times website. After ten years of teaching in 'deprived' areas I was prepared to believe my view of Britain was tainted to say the least, but it was on this website that I realised I'm not alone in feeling this way about dear old Blighty.

Clarkson is not afraid to speak truth and common sense. As a born and bred leftie, it's unnerving to find myself agreeing with someone whose views seem to be more right wing than Attila the Hun. Obviously I don't agree with everything he rages on about. For example, if JC really did become PM I would immediately set up a boot camp in the UK for the nation's foxes to be trained in self defence and the use of automatic machine guns. But he is the perfect antidote to all the namby pamby, politically correct, pussy footing shuffling about in Britain's political and judiciary systems. Because this has allowed the Great Unwashed to emerge as a thick, gobby, compensation-and-every-possible-kind-of-benefits claiming, me-tooist force to be reckoned with.

And you all know who I mean; Britain's scarily expanding population of chavs. The interminable council house fodder who have slowly evolved out of the shell suit and into fake Burberry. The sort of tv viewers whose heroes and role models are reality tv 'stars' who have no sense of decorum and who are also chavs. The sort of person that appears to sprog ad infinitum with any member of the opposite sex who stumbles into view. They can do that comfortably in the knowledge that they'll get their own council house and some free money for the upkeep of all the kiddiewinks and satellite dishes. Failing that, they'll do something awful in order to get social services to take the kids off their hands, although these days it might take several attempts, more's the pity.

In discussing Britain's excessive chav-ness with the lovely Diver Dave, his attitude was typical of the politeness and liberal outlook on life of so many nice, middle class Brits; the wish to see both sides of the coin and to give everyone a chance. But chav Britain does not share this view, is only looking after number one and would like to mug anyone that earns their own money and owns their own house.

Dave suggested that newspapers such as The Sun might be responsible for influencing a large proportion of chav Britain at the next election. I pointed out that most of chav Britain doesn't read a newspaper because they're too busy watching their flat screen tellies or playing on their Playstations. They might be watching Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear, like me, but only so that they can weigh up the spec of the car they are going to steal in order to help them get away with their next drug deal/off licence raid/murder. They aren't interested in anything he actually says about the ridiculousness and pettiness of some aspects of life in Britain, not to mention the disparity in rights and legal judgements.

So if we take it as a given that nobody wants to vote for any real politicians since they are painfully out of touch with modern society and only give a monkeys about their fat perks and keeping the mistress maintained, which media phenomenon would influence the apathetic political views of chav Britain and show them all the error of their greedy ways? Which cringingly popular media experience arguably exploits Britain's underclass, whilst trying to teach them how to interact half sensibly with the rest of society? If all of chav Britain exercised their right to vote, Clarkson wouldn't stand a chance of getting in as PM. No, Trisha would win by a landslide.

Whilst it may seem very smug of me to spout off from the other side of the world about how chav-tastic Britain is becoming, let me finish with a few facts: In 2004 and 2005 (most recent figures available) 71000 poms left Blighty to make a new life in Australia. One part of Perth has so many poms living there it's known as Little Britain. As a consequence, instances of graffiti and pasty faced kids hanging around street corners wearing hoodies are on the increase there, according to expat forums. The culture of 'Shameless' is alive and growing in Western Australia. But, more worryingly (and God only know what Australians make of this when they aren't outside enjoying the sunshine and life in 3D), Trisha is shown twice a day on UKTV. Aaarrgghhh!!!!

Public Transport: Aussies whinge too

Picture the scene. You're on a long, late night train ride out of the city back to the sticks. You've been shifting about in your seat for ages trying to find a comfy snoozing position. You're now on your third seat because this one doesn't involve you having to pull your head back onto your shoulders after it's lolled off. You're just drifting off nicely when suddenly, a gruff aussie voice shocks you back into consciousness by shouting, "Which station are you getting off at?" before moving off to the next carriage to repeat the question.

This is the standard procedure practised by Queensland Rail (QR) conductors every evening on the Brisbane to Nambour service. They go along the whole train, writing down everybody's destinations. They do it so they don't have to stop at all the stations and can practice breaking their own rail speed record in getting to the other end. God help you if you're unfortunate enough to be waiting to get on at any of these optional-ised stations. But it suits me.

Getting the train between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane two or three times a week clearly qualifies me as an expert on all things rail in Queensland. So let me start by saying that my experiences on QR have been fine in comparison to others commuters, judging by all the complaining that goes on in the letters page of Brisbane's free MX newspaper. And they say that poms whinge!

Using my student id card I get half price travel (wouldn't get that in New South Wales) everywhere in Queensland. These days I use a student Go card - a bit like the Smart card in London -so that I don't have to stand in a queue to buy a ticket. I can load money onto it at a machine or online and use it to touch on and touch off on any train, bus or city cat service.

My train is pretty much on time every day. The only time it might be delayed is if it has to shunt backwards and forwards on the line a few times to let another train pass by on the single track. But I can live with that; it's quirky. I can live with listening to the same old 50% of a phone call: "Hello?...Hello?...Can you hear me?... Yes....I'm on a train.....ON A TRAIN......oh....tunnel.....", etc,etc.... I can put up with the tss..tss..tss.. of an ipod whose earphones are clearly too small for its owner. I have even learnt to put my snorkelling experience to good use and breath through my mouth when sitting next to somebody who's forgotten the value of personal hygiene (EVERY journey) - although I do wonder if they would get the hint if I actually did put my mask and snorkel on. Maybe even my fins for good measure. But it seems some aussie passengers are not so forgiving.

To be fair, there appears to have been an explosion in Queensland, or more specifically, Brisbane. A people explosion. Where so many people have arrived to live in the city that some of the infrastructure's beginning not to cope. The peak traffic times around Brisbane seems to be getting longer and in the CBD (central business district) at lunchtimes, simply walking around can be hazardous too. The city is full to bursting. It's no wonder they're running out of warda.

So it's common practice for stressed out city dwellers to watch their bus service go sailing straight past their stop, crammed with commuters. It's also quite common to have to stand nose to armpit on the commuter trains. Frequent aussie moans include the loud mobile conversation, minging b.o. and annoying ipod favourites. They also include the injustice of the overweight passenger taking up more than their fair share of seats, ie. yours. Also, the rudeness of pushy passengers trying to get on the train/bus first (common courtesy and good manners are still usually practised in Australia, I'm pleased to say). But the most common whinge is about QR's slackness. Elsewhere on the QR network apparently, they aren't very good at anouncing when trains are delayed or simply not going to appear. The trains can even set off too early - an unheard of concept in the UK!

But let me conclude this onewhingingpom post with a proper full on whinge. And I think it has to be the most valid and outraged one: WHY OH WHY, on a two hour rail trip, are there absoloutely no toilets on the train whatsoever? And WHY are the toilets at some stations locked up after a certain time? QR, your passengers have plumbing needs and, if you don't address them, you deserve to have to clean up the consequences.

There now. That's better.

Queensland's Most Famous Zoo - Crikey!

Owing to the vast amounts of litigation this zoo's management now seems to leap into, almost with the same amount of enthusiasm its former boss had for annoying deadly creatures, I'm loath to name it.

Suffice to say, the last boss pissed off one creature too many, whilst making a TV programme on how dangerous they were, and was well and truly stingray-ed to death as a consequence. This zoo is most famous for catching and irritating crocodiles, and is now in the hands of the late boss's allegedly warring family. Know which one I mean?

Well I went there last week for the first time and I thought it was great. However, this blog didn't get its name for nothing, so let me elaborate.

I went with my family who were visiting from the UK. My 17 year old brother had been a big fan of the TV shows, loves animals and was desperate to go. The sight of him shaking, literally, with excitement as we bought our tickets was one of the day's highlights. And the first thing he was dying to look at in Queensland's most famous zoo? The shop.

So my first impressions of the zoo were the exceedingly friendly Stepfordesque staff at the entrance and the mind boggling range of clothing on offer in the shop(s), courtesy of the late boss's wife and the late boss's increasingly famous little girl. This cherub's latest album appeared to be playing in some parts of the zoo and her DVD was being advertised on the big screen in the animal baiting arena.

Despite my English cynicism however, I enjoyed the experience. The zoo's angle on zoo keeping is on the conservation of Australian wildlife. Indeed, some of the profits do go back into conservation projects, although nobody's saying how much. So it was great for my family to see some of the aussie creatures they hadn't yet managed to see in the real world. To my dismay, the koalas and kangaroos of Noosa had done a Blue Peter during my family's stay and were nowhere to be seen. So this zoo trip made up for it. Where else can you stroke a koala and feed kangaroos? At Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane? Well, yes.

But there were lots of other weird and wonderfuls, such as the cassowary; a highly dangerous emu sized bird with an evil glint in its eye that eats its own poo just to show how hard it is. There's a lovely aviary where the birds have a lot of freedom to fly around, although obviously not above or beyond the nets. Again, more poo there -sometimes on your head. And the kangaroos were clearly used to having visitors pat and prod them and shove handfuls of food in their mouths, judging by the relaxed reclining position many of them were lounging around in. Unsurprisingly, the larger, standing up kangaroos with the big fists were left well alone.

The zoo also highlighted the problems of introduced non-native species in Australia's fragile ecology. They had a rather fed up, solitary fox in what appeared to be the Naughty Corner and a few guilty looking cane toads on a domestic garden stage set in a glass tank.

My family's main cynical vitriol was directed towards the American-ness of the zoo staff, specifically the ones making animal presentations to an audience. It must be remembered that these talks are aimed at children as they are viewed by the zoo as being the next hope for saving the planet's animals. This accounts for the vaguely patronising tone but not for all the grating Americanisms in their speech, especially when these people are only from Beerwah. Ugh.

The legacy of the former boss is never forgotten. In fact, there's an eerie feeling that he hasn't quite gone. His picture is still all over the marketing and his videos are still playing on the big screen. How long this remains the case will be interesting to observe.

For now though, I can certainly recommend a visit there. Just save up first (3 concessions and a 'normal' cost $175 and you'll need extra if you want to actually hold something furry), remember to take your het and a boddle of warda, and a pair of earplugs to cut out all the background singing and Americanese.

Keeping in touch - electronic stylee

This week I've discovered the pros and cons of the internet revolution, starting with an email from an ex-boyfriend's wife in the UK demanding to know what unspeakable things had been going on between her husband and me behind her back! I classed this as a big fat con.

Fortunately, in this case I was not guilty of anything more than a few friendly catch up emails over the last couple of years. In any case, it's a bit difficult doing anything more than that when you live on the other side of the world - my arms aren't long enough. HE - we shall call him Mr S - on the other hand, had apparently abandoned her and their two children, early on in our email exchanges, and had shacked up with someone called Vicky 200 miles away from the marital home. Chav-tastic! His 'love' life always was on a par with the News of the World and, quite frankly, Vicky could be short for Victoria OR Victor.

Uncharacteristically for him, Mr S had not deleted some of the incriminating emails from his account and so after breaking into it, Mrs S was able to read them, putting two and two together and making an understandably odd number. Fair play, she has clearly developed some finely honed hacking skills over the years. I quite enjoy looking over past emails, they act as a sort of diary. But in Mr S's case his methods of covering his tracks would usually impress even the finest SAS member - although not in this instance, ha ha!

But this highlights another con with emailing: Mr S had clearly lied through his lying monkey teeth - or keyboard here - to me about his domestic situation, giving the impression that he had stopped his outrageous sexploits and settled down contentedly. Why? Was it the desire to appear successful in life à la Friends Reunited? Or was it a case of exacting revenge for my binning him at the time for an actual rally driver, rather than staying with a pretend one?! The problem with being on the receiving end of lying emails is that you can't see if the sender's keeping a straight face or not.

So what about Friends Reunited then? It's great to find long lost school mates but does this mean that a lot of those smug married entries on there are only a pale shadow of the truth? Are point two of the children really in juvenile detention while the husband's out and about with his boyfriend Roger and wife's best frock? Well it would certainly make the website more interesting to read if that sort of information was on a few profiles.

Of course with Friends Reunited you have to pay a fiver to find out more. With Facebook it's all for free - a definite pro. You can search for long lost people and then bombard them with silly videos and pointless applications for ever more. It's fun. But the emergence of Facebook throws up a few socially sensitive questions: Isn't it nosey to look on other people's pages? What about if you spot a long lost bod you've been tracking down for years on someone else's page? If you contact them you have to fess up that you've been looking at that someone else's Fb page. It also begs the question, why didn't they contact you first? In fact, what IS the correct etiquette for contacting someone? Should you add them as a friend straight away, even though you haven't seen them in 20 years? Or should you send them a polite message first to test the water?

Also, what if an(other) ex or their new partner suddenly appears as one of your friends' friends and they or their pikey girlfriend is a known arch enemy, to be totally shunned and reviled at all costs??!! Do you then never look at your friend's page or forward them ridiculous messages again? Or do you just remove them from your list altogether and hope they don't notice? Maybe that's too extreme.

After receiving the afore mentioned email from the afore mentioned wife, I looked on Fb to see if she was on it. She was. From the limited information I was allowed access to, I could see that she was still in Manchester and she had one friend. Facebook made me feel sorry for my ex-boyfriend's wife and I almost added her as a friend.

Of course one brilliant pro the world wide interweb has brought us is Skype. For the cost of a headset you can make free skype to skype video calls all over the world via broadband. You can also make calls to landlines at amazingly cheap rates. It costs 1.2p per min for me to call my Mum's phone in the UK from Australia. The technology for video calls is still developing and it is quite common to see an image of someone else's face with a few million pixels less than they have in real life. Although getting them to move around quickly on the screen can be an interesting arty experience with all those vapour trails. Still, after a video call it feels as though you've just been for a coffee and caught up properly, especially if you are actually both drinking coffee at each end of the call. Unfortunately, with the time difference between the UK and Australia, it's a bit more tricky to share a beer on Skype, unless you like to wake up with a cold one!

Always remember though, when you're Skyping someone, to tidy yourself up a bit first, covering up any spots or cleavage. Then tidy up the room behind you!

So yes the internet's great for keeping in touch with loved ones, but when it comes to certain other people, sometimes Australia just isn't far enough. And Mr S? If you're out there, consider yourself lucky I never used tinternet to exact my revenge and publish embarrassing photos of you across the universe.

Cane Toads

At this current moment there are about 30 corpses of varying squidgy sizes littered about our acre property. They are mostly flat with a large dent down the middle. This then is the apocalyptic scene that Dave has left behind in the wake of his scourge on cane toads with a large lump of wood this evening.

It is every Australian's duty (so I'm told) to go about murdering these ridiculous creatures as they are a known pest which threatens to wipe out several native Australian species. Which begs the question: What on earth are they doing here then?

It's all to do with sugar cane. It appears that way back in the 1930s, some dork, or possibly a group of dorks, decided that in order to rid Queensland's sugar cane of the cane beetle it would be great if they could introduce a species that would eat the beetles, thereby saving all the cane. Enter the cane toad.

Now, these animals aren't exactly lively. They are sluggish, lazy and totally stupid. They can be identified by the fact that they stumble into view at exactly the wrong moment and have a permanent puzzled frown on their face. Since they are not particularly afraid of humans, they will sit there as death hurtles toward them in the form of a rake handle, golf club or lawn mower - whichever happens to be attached to the human at the time. So it comes as no surprise to learn that once this new force was unleashed against the weapons of mass beetlage, it merely took one look up the sugar cane and decided it couldn't be bothered to climb up. There were tastier treats at ground level.

Even worse, the cane toad is poisonous and sometimes the size of a dinner plate. Any other animal that would normally try to eat it tends to drop dead. So, having no known (successful) predators and needing at least a couple of attempts to club it to death, it is practically indestructable. And breeding like each day is it's last. Which, in our garden, would be correct. Since being intruduced in Northern Queensland, these toads can now be found in New South Wales and the Northern Territory. It's estimated that there are over 200 million of these marching onward toward other states at a rate of 40km per year.

Dave assures me that he will be collecting all the bodies in a bin bag tomorrow morning before I have to clap my delicate lady's eyes on such a bloodbath. That's fine. Just as long as he doesn't try to put them in the kitchen bin like last time. Eeuuww!

And anyway, what IS the collective noun for dorks?

16.3.08 Body count update: This morning Dave went hunting for corpses to put in his bin bag. Out of potentially 30 victims, only 2 were found!!! We can only surmise that something bigger (and now sicker or deader) has come along and eaten the rest of them or they were only pretending to be brown bread - which is quite likely.

Transport Woes: If only everything in life was as reliable as a...yeah right.

It's lucky I bought that car before Christmas, so that we weren't totally dependent on a 1992 Fordamundo and a 1954 Matchless motorbike, isn't it? So that Diver Dave and I could go off in our opposite directions. You know - the VW I bought off ebay. The 1998 Polo with air conditioning, Mitsubishi wheels, Holden stereo and a gear knob from Super Cheap Auto. The car that Dave christened Jim, after Jim Morrison, because, within two weeks of owning it, all the bloody doors were f***ed.

The same car that last week gave up the ghost in spectacular fashion on a right turn at some traffic lights in the middle of Nambour. It decided it didn't want to turn right, or left, or anywhere else for that matter. It certainly wasn't taking me to the railway station so I could catch the 7.03 to Brisbane and it seemed quite happy to sit there as I got redder and redder in the face whilst trying to restart it at the head of an increasingly large queue of traffic: A long line of vehicles that seemingly had no idea what the hazard lights on the back of my car might imply, ie. that I wasn't going anywhere because I had no choice and I couldn't move it out of the way because I am only one weak and feeble female. Fortunately, a nice man came along and pushed me to the side of the road and I sat there waiting for the RACQ while watching my train go past.

Unbeknown to me, and the RACQ bloke that repeatedly told me to try starting it, the timing belt had snapped causing untold damage to all the valves each time I tried turning it over. $1800 worth of damage to be more precise. That's nearly 900 quid. That's about half what the car's actually worth. It's about what I'd hoped to pay for a plane ticket back to Blighty for my best mate's wedding in July.

Jim has now been at the garage for the last week as they appear to be having trouble getting new valves for it. Meanwhile, our hopes for a solution to our transport problems were raised when Dave managed to get his 50 year old motorbike working again for the first time since before xmas. Hoorah! We were a two vehicle family once again. He spent a manly weekend bonding with it all over Noosa. He used it to go between work and home. For all of three days. Then it conked out again.

So we are now wholly dependent on the 16 year old humungous sized Ford Fairlane known as Bertha - because that's what you have to do with it when you park it. And you all have to keep your fingers crossed, hold your breath, say some prayers - whatever it takes to keep her going - because her ABS brake warning light is permanently on and yesterday the petrol indicator expired.

All this when there's a perfectly perfect VW Lupo GTi in a garage in Windermere, raring to go, desperate for me to collect it from the kennels and let it off the lead, and waiting for me to show it some car love.

A Medical Procedure on the Wallet

This last couple of weeks has seen a succession of blows to our bank accounts and transportation arrangements, starting with Diver Dave's leg.

Or more specifically, his ankle which received a thorough drubbing when he fell down a mountain. He was running down it on purpose at the time, as a form of recreation, so adjust your sympathy levels accordingly. He is in training for a local event known as King of the (afore mentioned) Mountain. While the incident occurred a few weeks ago, it's only in the last couple of weeks, where it's resolutely stayed the same tree trunk size since it first happened, that we concluded Something Had To Be Done.

To begin with, Dave manfully subjected himself to two sessions of rigorous torture at the hands of the physio lady at around $70 a groan. Whilst she was able to treat his right ankle (yes, he injured both of em), she eventually realised she was inflicting too much eye popping pain on the other, now elephantine, foot for him not to go to the doctor's ($50). Luckily, the doctor is in the same building as the physio and Dave's workplace so it took a matter of minutes for dave to nip out of work and be told he needed both an x-ray ($70) AND an ultra sound ($140).

At this stage of the arterial bleed in Dave's wallet, he could have considered that getting up again immediately after the fall and continuing to run back down the mountain may not have been such a good idea after all. Nor indeed were the attempts to maintain his fitness levels by going swimming three times a week. And the chances of him actually being crowned King of the Mountain in July were now looking considerably bleak. As was the chance of him going away on a much anticipated diving weekend this weekend - not with a cast on anyway. Aww.

All this medical stuff has brought home how much we take the NHS for granted in the UK. If you don't mind waiting a bit it's all free, although you might come home with some hideous wasting disease you'd never heard of before, but I think that's a small price to pay. I suppose Dave did get his appointments very quickly but, with money being on the tight side at the moment, he was loath to fork out so much wonga. The system here is that everyone pays for private medical insurance. When you need treatment you have to shell out for it first and they reimburse you MOST of it at a later stage. Most people go to a doctor which deals with bulk billing. Now I'm not totally sure what this involves but to the patient it basically means you don't pay - just your insurance company does. Unfortunately, none of Dave's practitioners were offering this so he has to wait three days - allegedly - to be reimbursed with two thirds of what it cost.

As it turned out, there was no fracture and, whilst the doctor recommended no diving WHATSOEVER, Dave chose to ignore this in favour of the physio's advice that it would probably be ok. Her way's more fun - spending a whole weekend out on the freezing cold high seas, getting mashed about by the dive boat's landing board and all the sharks. Woo hoo!

Flying to the other side of the world

Don't do it - would be my advice. But since it's probably the only realistic way for you to get to see the Sydney Opera House/London Eye/Granny-who-still-thinks-you-teach-in-a-village-in-Northamptonshire-cos-everyone's-too-scared-to-tell-her-the-truth (delete as applicable), and you probably don't want to spend $10,000 and 51 days at sea (one way), then read on.

My most recent experience was with Etihad, a newish airline who are the official airline of the UAE, which is, as you ALL know, next door to Saudi Arabia and across the Arabian Gulf from Iran. And the capital of the UAE is...?....Come on, come on....... Abu Dhabi, of course. Duh. Knowing all this geography though, having googled it first, had the exact opposite effect of inspiring me with confidence before I travelled. So did the photo I found online of a crumped up Etihad Airbus A340. Apparently it parked itself into a wall during testing at Airbus HQ. I booked Etihad cause it was cheap. Funny that.

As it turned out, my flights (all four of them) were fine and certainly comparable with Singapore and Emirates Airlines. The service was good, the cabin was nice, possibly even a couple of extra centimetres of leg room in cattle class, and 10" tvs, apparently, with a reasonable selection of movies and programmes. The food was OK too considering its parameters, ie. the need to be flat. However, in terms of route I prefer the Singapore way: 12 hours from Manchester to Singapore, change planes at Changi airport, play with the funky free internet, have a shower, maybe even a swim if you're really quick, then another 6 hours to Brisbane. Job done. Etihad's version seemed more convoluted: 7 hours from Manchester to Abu Dhabi, change planes,wander round and round the floor to ceiling blue and green tiled donut that is Abu Dhabi airport, 7 hours to Singapore, kill about an hour, go through 3rd lot of screening to get back on same plane to Brisbane.

Landing at Manchester at six in the morning was an eye opener. It was deserted. I sailed straight through passport control and customs, smirking at the non European passport holders, and straight into the arrivals lounge where my backpack instantly fell off my trolley before I could run in slow motion to my waiting Mum, having not seen her in 3D for a year. Mum - who had got up at three in the morning to drive down from the Lakes to get me and who drove me back at frighteningly break neck speed whilst listening to Wogan and had me back at home by 8am. Unfortunately, this early morning arrival meant that I had to try and stay awake all day until bedtime in order to synch myself with UK time. I gave up at around 3 o'clock.

On the way back to oz I was a bit unnerved by the fact that the ground support crew at Abu Dhabi had forgotten to load on a few of the freebies, eg. pillow, flight socks, etc. It left me wondering what else they might have forgotten: The rehydrated dinner à la tray? Wheels? Pilot? Well anyway, I got there in one piece although my eyes were totally shot and possibly standing on stalks after 24 hours of goggling at 10" of 'big-screen excitement', 4" away from my face. Diver Dave was very pleased to see me and whisked me off to breakfast at one of our old haunts in Brisbane's West End.

I believe that after flying a round trip of 22,000 miles I now have enough Etihad air miles to get me from Jeddah to Muscat. Whoopee! Now, where's that tea towel.....?

The visa process - booo...

A Serious Post.

In reply to Ms. FoxyRoxy's question (see comments), this is just my experience of the dreaded immigration process:

Applying for a visa for me was dead easy as I just needed a student visa. Once I had an offer from the university in mid September, it was just a matter of applying to the immigration website. The decision was made 3 weeks after my medicals. Visa was granted end of November. In fact, if I had applied nearer to the start of the semester, the process would have been much quicker. There was a limit to how far in advance I could apply for the visa. In the end, it was granted 3 months in advance which gave me plenty of time to get settled and have a bit of a holiday.

Diver Dave had a different experience but he was applying for permanent residency. He started in 1999 and didn't leave England until 2001! This was partly due to reorganisation at the immigration office and his immigration agent's incompetence but apparently it can usually take about a year. The general consensus from expats seems to be that using an experienced agent is the best approach, although this obviously involves extra expense on top of what you are already forking out for the visa. Diver Dave is now an aussie citizen but still supports the Motherland in rugby and cricket! Sshh - don't tell the authorities!

If you're applying for a working holiday visa, if youre under 30, I think it's reasonably straight forward and you can do it yourself online. But I'm no expert and it's worth checking out some of the expat forums for other people's experiences.

Whilst you can ask the same question on these forums, it's worth doing a search on the subject first as there will already be TONS of entries about it - usually expressing their deep misery and woe! Good luck!

DVD regions and Aldi!

Woo hoo folks - Aldi has finally arrived in Queensland and appears to be the Next Big Thing as far as aussie supermarket shoppers are concerned, bless em. The fact that it's pretty difficult to get a parking space at the new Noosa store should act as a warning shot to the comfortably established chains. However, the Aldi at Logan never seems very busy. Perhaps there are too many poms in the locality who have memories of Aldi back home with their inferior brands and infinite stacks of cardboard boxes.

I too have steered clear of this blue and orange mecca - until yesterday. Fed up with trying to play region 2 and region 4 DVDs on the same PC and only succeeding with about 50% of his collection, Diver Dave threw a strop and announced he was going to buy a new DVD player. Having succumbed to the advertising appeal of the flyer put through our mail box, we flounced off to Noosa's Aldi and bought an all singing all dancing DVD player for $34.99!!! That's about 16 quid. Since it's only supposed to play region 4 DVDs we set about researching the internet for a code to unlock this. Now obviously, since I'm writing this on the world wide interweb, I absolutely do not condone this type of practice. But hey - screw the big DVD distribution monopolies! It took less than a minute to find.

For 35 bucks we now have a DVD player that seems to play DVDs from around the world. And since it's still cheaper to buy most current DVDs from Amazon UK and have them sent over than it is to buy anywhere in oz, that's what we'll carry on doing. So there.

Predictably, the new wonder face cream for 1.89GBP (got no pound signs on this puter!) from Aldi that everyone's been raving about in the UK isn't available Down Under. So you can all stop raving about it until it is - or send me some!

First trip back to Blighty: more weather

Blimey! UK public transport's no better then. And what a waste of chocolate biscuits. My love of PLAIN chocolate McVitie's digestives is documented in my blog banner and I have searched high and low for them in Queensland. So far I have located two somewhat unreliable sources but I'm always on the lookout for more.

So this was the scene that greeted me on my first trip back to the Motherland after a year of being in oz. More specifically, this was what the tide left behind in my home town of Blackpool, along with one lorry's entire cargo of choccie biccies. Shortly after this photo was taken, the local authorities realised an exclusion zone needed to be put up to stop scavengers being squashed by falling lorries - duh!

I went back to England hoping for some better weather than we'd had here in Queensland but, alas, the weather troll had other ideas. While I was in the Lake District we were subjected to regular mini power cuts due to the conditions and the fact that United Utilities are 'responsible' for the electricity. However, it was great to be back and it was nice to have some cold for a change rather than the relentless warm or hot I've put up with for the last year. ;-P

My first priority after I'd arrived (after the shopping of course) was to go eat a stonking good ruby. Unfortunately, curry such as we know it in the UK just doesn't exist in Queensland, (although I do hear tell of a mystical place near Redcliffe....). Believe me, I've looked and, in most instances, tried with very unsatisfactory results. To put it another way, one so called Indian meal we had at Chutney Mary's in Noosaville included microwaved poppadums, partially cooked kebabs and vindaloo that tasted like gravy. Being English though, we didn't complain and slunk out vowing never to go back. But this restaurant is packed out on weekends and we can't understand it. It merely serves to prove that aussies don't like spicy food and have never experienced the phenomena of English Indian food - if you see what I mean. Otherwise they wouldn't go near the place. Bleugh! Anyway, my mission was accomplished twice in the first week. First in the Lakes with my Mum, then in Northamptonshire with some lovely friends.

Back to the weather. Needless to say, while I was away in the damp depths of an English winter, the weather in Eumundi was glorious. The house started to dry out and Dave started winning the battle against the mould. Of course, 24 hours after I left Blighty the sun reappeared there. Right now, back down under, I'm looking out of the window at a monsoon. A weather report has just flashed up on my screen to say the Low will be passing over the Sunshine Coast late tonight and everyone has to secure outdoor items and not go out. We haven't even HAD the Low yet - AAARRGGHHHH!!!

I will be back here soon, assuming I make it.....

Controversy on ma blog

Oo er ..well it seems my whaling remark has touched a nerve somewhere (probably in Japan). In the interest of free speech - which the 'commentator' said Australia doesn't have - I have republished the original snotty comment for your consideration:

From "Hoge": How do you feel japanese whaling?Japanese whale fishing is completely lawful. And is completely scientific. In addition, it is a Japanese gastronomic culture to eat whales. You should refrain from the act of denying the culture of another country. watch this video.To the person who wants to know why Japan hunts whales http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=xWYOJYEOvSk[DragonBall] Freezer VS Japanese whalinghttp://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=HdUPHXNPVR4Why is there NO Freedom of media in australia?if doubt me? Post my comment this URL. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23155612-5007146,00.html
February 5, 2008 12:42 AM

mmm - why is it that the theme from Bridge Over the River Kwai is humming round my head right now? Anyway...

My reply:

I'm not disputing the Japanese right to whale as part of their culture, although I don't like it. I DO dispute the "scientific" aspect of it though - what a load of rubbish. It's also very rude of the Japanese to hunt whales in Australian waters, especially when Australians are so against it. If Japanese people want to catch whales - they can do it in their own waters. And if they haven't got any, then tough nuggies.

If you agree or disagree with "Hoge", please post your thoughts accordingly by clicking on comments.

A year in Australia

Yes - that's me snorkelling, having a whale of a time. Which is pretty appropriate given that I appear to have put on about a stone in weight since I've been in oz.

Today is the anniversary of my arrival in oz and somebody asked me to sum up my experience so far. Erm... it's a bit hard but the photo speaks volumes.

I was asked if the experience had lived up to my expectations. In truth, I didn't have any. I just hoped that going off for an adventure would open up some opportunities and make life a bit happier.

Having Diver Dave as my personal escort helped of course! No jokes about his welcome package, please. But life in Brisbane, where we started off, was fairly easy to settle into. Pleasant, tropical city with some fabulous restaurants. Apart from having a slight weeping malfunction after my first programming class, my course turned out to be fairly straight forward. Although I do have my suspicions about how my 'boat race' managed to get on the university's 'star' board for achieving top marks in one class, after having been a distinctly average student on previous university courses.

The opportunity to move to beautiful Noosa was too good to turn down and, although it meant me commuting back to Bris 3 days a week, I thought it was worth it - and it was. Life in Noosa is great; it's easier to get to know people and most people are pretty friendly and laid back. It's just a shame about the death defying roundabouts!

In lots of ways Australia is a few years behind the UK in terms of services, bureaucracy, technology and some aspects of education, for example. But that's not always such a bad thing. On the flip side of that there is courteousness and helpfulness in shops and restaurants which in the UK was probably easier to find 50 years ago.

In discussing this with other poms, the general opinion was that day to day life here isn't so much different from the UK, apart from the weather. Culturally, it's bound to be similar with all the poms settling here week after week. One area of Perth is even known as Little Britain. Australia isn't necessarily any more beautiful than the Motherland but the weather makes all the difference and it also enables more outdoor activites. So rather than being cooped up next to a fire, trying to keep warm in the UK (although I know climate change is making it warmer), everyone down under is in the sea trying to keep cool. And in Queensland, the daytime temperature rarely dips below 20 degrees in the winter. But, having said that, I would enjoy a few changes in seasons since it is always either hot or DANG hot.

What have I missed about Blighty? The important people know who they are but here's a definitive list of other stuff:
Hellman's mayonnaise, a bloody good curry, history, bisto, British telly, frosty mornings, autumn, British telly, cheap broadband, British telly and, most of all, my beloved little car.

Early last year I remember trying to describe to my bezzie mate back in the UK the notion of popping down to the beach to do a spot of snorkelling: I used to be a primary school teacher in Northampton. A good weekend might involve going out with friends or going shopping. Most of the time I was working or watching TV. Now I can go swimming with turtles and leopard sharks in the Pacific Ocean - it's 20 mins away.
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So that, as they say round here, is bonza.

Places to stay: Noosa

Ah, Noosa Main Beach. This is where you'd like me describe a beautiful, deserted white sandy shore, fringed with palm trees and a gently lapping turquoise sea. Wouldn't ya? Eh?

Well it's nearly all those things, except right this minute.... except right this minute we're experiencing the tail end of Cyclone Helen..so.... Well, during the Christmas holidays anyway, it's more like Benidorm only with better food and less beer bellies. Every possible square centimetre of formerly stunning beach is crammed with semi clad, oiled up Aussies all lying prostrate before the god of skin cancer. When they aren't all squeezed together on the beach like a human tetris game, they're provoking surf rage amongst each other in the sea. Heaven help you if should just want to go swimming. Chances are you'll come out with a fin burn across the top of your head.

There is an alternative to this madness though. If you can be bothered to walk just a bit further along the boardwalk, up towards the national park, it's like stepping into another world. For some reason, the Great Unwashed seem to steer clear of this bit and yet this is the best part; it's what Noosa is all about. This is where the rainforest meets the sea. Here the beaches are less crowded because they require a bit more effort to get to. Well worn tracks will take you through the forest and along the coast where, on any given day, you might spot koalas, dolphins or even migrating whales. The other day I came face to face with a kangaroo on the path. After months of visiting the park, I hadn't known there were any in residence. One thing to remember though, always remember to look where you're going when you're trying to spot koalas up in the trees or else you might end up in the Pacific Ocean.

Behind Main Beach is Hastings Street, apparently one of the highest concentrations of restaurants in the country. Only eat there if you don't mind about quality and price. It's a right royal rip off. Go to Noosaville or Tewantin, or anywhere else that's not right next to the beach. There are some interesting shops down this street but not for nothing is it known as Fleece St by locals.

Another unique thing about Noosa is that there are only two sets of traffic lights in the whole area. Noosa Shire council has adopted the Milton Keynes approach to traffic control and constructed a squibillion roundabouts. Unfortunately, nobody knows how to use them. Aussies are great but, since they don't have to drive around roundabouts as part of their driving test, each of them is an accident waiting to happen.

The Noosa tourism area continues along down the Noosa river into Noosaville. Here restaurants, a bike path, park and public barbecues are all along the water's edge. It's pretty chilled out but can get busy at weekends and is beginning to suffer from 'hooning' late at night.
[From the Urban dictionary:
Hoon. to travel at a high velocity, preferably in a car, eg."Did you see that bloody hoon last night hooning about in his Holden?"]

If you really want to get back to nature then the Noosa Everglades make for a stunning kayak trip. Also Noosa North Shore, accessed via car ferry across the river, is a good excuse for a hoon up to Fraser Island in a 4x4 along the sand. But if you decide to camp there, remember - so has everyone else. And there are no toilets so it can get a bit whiffy. Yuk.

So my advice for visiting Noosa: Come when it's not a major public holiday, if you must go camping, do it where there are some proper dunnies, and for god's sake, beware of the bloody roundabouts.