Hello! It's been a long time since I wrote a blog. Indeed one could well opine there has been an unnerving pause in the narrative. If one has just swallowed a frigging dictionary that is. As a matter of fact I have settled down in Perth and got a job. I'm working in an office doing data entry (read: tedious computer monkey work) for an agribusiness firm.
'Agribusiness?' you say. 'What the hell's angrybusiness?'
Well, it's an agricultural investment company who let rich people invest money in farming and get even richer. You see, unlike the UK where most farmers have either gone bankrupt or shot themselves, farming is big business over here in Western Australia.
Farming and mining are booming industries in this mineral-rich land, huge areas of which are still largely untapped. Everybody you meet seems to be either raking it in running their own business, or coining it in working out on the mines. It seems like there's possibilities and opportunities ghosting round everywhere in this vast tundra.
I'm living in a suburb of Perth called Murdoch. This may or may not have been christened after Rupert Murdoch. I'm staying in a house with my mate Josh, an Aussie I met in India, and his housemates Maria, Dave and Bruce, who are Aussies too. Well, this is Australia isn't it!
We're out in the vast urban sprawl, in a rented house 10km south of the city centre. All the streets are wide and spread out, lined with palm trees and roomy-looking single storey houses. It's like the streets you see on Neighbours!
Getting to work in the morning takes me an hour, on a bus, then a train, then another bus. Going down the shops for a bottle of milk involves a 20 minute hike along a main road. Walking anywhere takes a mammoth effort. Conurbations like this weren't built with the pedestrian in mind!
It all makes me what kind of sinister influence car manufacturers exert on city planners. They want us all to need a car. I dare say I'll get kidnapped by men in suits one of these days and whisked away for brain re-programming for daring to use my legs. So if my next blog is titled 'why cars are utterly brilliant and we should all buy as much petrol as we can', you'll know what's happened.
I'm feeling pretty cynical on the subject after seeing Who Killed The Electric Car?, a film about a hugely-promising electric car prototype released in America back in the 90s. It was fast, cheap and the motorists who test-drove it loved it. It was even poised to enter mass production, but suddenly the project got mysteriously shelved.
As the film reveals, the whole thing was scuppered by major car companies and oil conglomerates fearful of a loss in trade. I don't mean to get all deep and preachy in a light-hearted travel blog, but my god, has anyone else noticed how humanity is utterly doomed thanks to its own stupidity!?
When not ruminating cheerful subjects like the end of the world and the downfall of civilisation as we know it, I have been doing my best to escape the drudgery of life in the suburbs. So far I've visited the nearby coastal town of Fremantle, headed out to the vast forests east of Perth to enjoy a pub lunch in Parkerville, and gone to the Subiaco Oval to watch an Aussie rules football game.
Aussie rules (confusingly called 'football' by the Aussies) is a bit similar to Gaelic football. The players all wear vests, and kick an egg-shaped ball through rows of posts on an oval-shaped pitch. Crazy! (I don't know much about Gaelic football other than it's a bit like rugby, and the games probably involve violent thugs on Cork housing estates stamping on each others' heads - but I was told Aussie rules is similar to it. So if that makes any sense to you then I genuflect in all my humble literary magnificence!)
My housemate Dave (who like 90% of all Daves in the world is nicknamed Dangerous Dave) got some free tickets, and so on 14th June we witnessed Fremantle Dockers end their chronic losing streak with an emphatic 120-67 victory over North Melbourne, who come from Melbourne. Similarly to normal sports, the big number shows which team won the match.
As a sport it has a lot going for it: it's a game of speed and skill played in front of passionate crowds in noisy arenas. But I doubt after one game it will replace my lifelong love of the working man's game, an honest sport played all over the globe, bigger than any other. I'm talking about Risk obviously.
I've been getting to meet plenty of Aussies and they are a friendly and quick-witted bunch. Getting the hang of the Aussie lingo is a bit challenging though. I have deciphered a few of their linguistic heiroglyphics, shown here in the following chart:
Sunnies = sunglasses
Stubbies, longnecks = bottles of beer
Doccos = documentaries
C**t = an affectionate term for a loved one
Hey/eh = standard exclamation at the end of a sentence (see Canadian English)
Servo = petrol station
Salvos = the Salvation Army
The Chuck and Di story = the marriage and subsequent heart-rending divorce of our future monarch and England's tragic rose
Pom(mie bastard) = English person, usually found on the Gold Coast eating kangaroo and chips.
90% of backpackers from the UK end up hanging out in the tourist haunts on the east coast. If you know anything about me at all you will know I am a colossal snob and loathe to rub shoulders with the great unwashed in the discotheques of Marbella. I followed my instincts and headed west, intent on exploring Australia's lesser-known delights. Besides which, Marbella is in Spain.
What has struck me is the number of Aussies I've met who have spent some time living in the UK. If you lived somewhere hot and sunny would you bother heading up into the northern hemisphere to shiver in the piss rain for a few months? I doubt I would. Maybe our sceptred isle is not such a shit tip at all in the grand scheme of things. That's probably the homesickness talking, it's sending me daft.
Far from starting a new life 'down under', I find myself settling into a familiar pattern: I work in an office every day, which I hate, then I come home and while away my precious free time drinking beer and watching the Simpsons. Am I really so irrevocably set in my ways?
I was expecting a bit more of Perth - there isn't much to do. Though they do put on a lot of big gigs here, thanks to international touring artists making an obligatory stop in WA. Daft Punk, Elton John and Sting all played here recently. In fact I know a guy who worked as a roadie at the Sting gig, and not only did he get to keep his plectrum, but he got to have his picture taken with him! That Sting seems like a nice generous man.
I got to work as a roadie the other weekend with Dave, my housemate. I didn't meet any rock stars or anything, but it wasn't that sort of event. But I got to pack up equipment, carry boxes and f**k my back in - all part and parcel of the roadie existence. It's also worth noting the amount of band memorabilia the good roadies get their hands on - tour T-shirts, setlists, drum-skins... you could make a tidy sum flogging this stuff on Ebay.
So thus far money is something I have mostly been only dreaming of, though by the time my temp job finishes in late July I should be quids (or Aussie dollars) in and ready to start fresh adventures. Until next time, I remain your friend, wannabe roadie and spinner of exquisite bollocks extraordinaire.
PS - Don't forget to check out my India photos on Fakebook!
Dharamasala/McLeod Ganj photos here:
Rajasthan photos here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
I am without internet at my house for the forseeable future but I hope to whack some more on as soon as I can. Sorry!
