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.