Vuvuzelas - some friendly advice

Hurrah, rejoice, Allah be praised – the World Cup is with us once more. The global carnival, the cirque du monde, “football’s big party”. One month and sixty-four matches of top-class international football. The greatest players in the game taking each other on under the banners of nationality.

Here in Australia, thanks to SBS every single game is being shown live and free-to-air. SBS is a curious old thing - normally it's a broadcaster of lesser-known jewels of world cinema with titles such as Steamboat to Kyrgyzstan. But now the World Cup dominates its schedules.

Due to blanket wall-to-wall promotion in the media the normally soccer-cynical Australian populace is suddenly embracing the beautiful game. And thanks to advertising we get to watch Cristiano Ronaldo, a man with more wealth than most Pacific island nations, attempt to sell us engine oil with all the charisma of a mechanoid, six f**king times a match.

So far I have watched South Africa-Mexico, Argentina-Nigeria and England-USA. A lot of the games are on in the middle of the night due to the time difference. To watch them requires heroic feats of power-napping and the cessation of normal night-time activities. We’ve already seen a lot of great football, and it’s great that Africa is finally playing host to a World Cup… but do we really need the vuvuzelas?

Vuvuzelas? Surely you know what they are. I’m assuming you are familiar with the atonal honking sounds accompanying every single match on TV made by the long flute-like plastic trumpets in the crowd. The subject has already generated a lot of ire so it would be far from an original sentiment if I were to say they’re a bit bloody annoying.

The typical pro-vuvuzela argument is that they are part of South Africa’s cultural heritage, generating as they do a raucous celebratory atmosphere amongst the country’s gleaming new stadia. And therefore by extension, to want to deny the fans their vuvuzelas (or vuvuzelae?) is apparently to be a bigoted colonialist or a snobbish football purist.

I’m not saying get rid of vuvuzelas – I’m saying change them. Make them more musical. I know a fair bit about musical pitch and what strikes me is that when vuvuzelas sound together en masse, they don’t produce a clear note. It is a horrid dissonant mix of B and B flat. In musical terms it’s like a badly-tuned-in TV picture. That’s because no two vuvuzelas are alike – they are manufactured using crude plastic moulds - and they all produce a slightly different pitch when blown into.

With a bit of precision engineering these instruments could all be developed to strike exactly the same pitch at once, like instruments in an orchestra. Hey presto – the horrible drone would be replaced by a clear note, ringing out throughout the stadium.

To take this further, the companies making these things could manufacture different varieties, each playing a certain note in the musical scale. Some would play a C, some would play E and others would play a G, and together, through collectively blowing the three notes, the crowd would sound the chord of C major.

Imagine 50,000 vuvuzelas playing the chord of C major in a football stadium. It would marry art and beauty on a vast scale; it would a fitting musical accompaniment to the colourful and exuberant crowds. The World Cup is an event like no other - and as it only comes around once every four years, South Africa 2010 requires a grand vision to make the occasion uniquely memorable.

I propose that the tournament organisers work together with the fans in choosing different chords for different matches. France-Uruguay could have worked well with an A major (vuvuzelas in A, C sharp and E). England-USA could have been a D major (D, F sharp and A).

For teams of countries with oppressive regimes, such as North Korea, perhaps a more mournful minor chord, such as A flat minor (A flat, B and E flat). That would poetically convey the fact that the poor buggers on the pitch may be sent to a gulag if they fail to qualify from the group.

And for Argentina, a more complex diminished seventh chord, to reflect their players’ technical prowess, and in the case of Maradona, a fragile mental state teetering towards full-on psychosis.

All of this is esoteric waffle and if put into place would drive up the cost of these plastic trumpets. Then again, surely it would be a good thing to price the vuvuzelas out of the fans’ range? The world would be free to enjoy the tournament without the noise of frigging trumpets.

Take note FIFA: with my vision, you could have created not so much a tournament as a UFO ride into outer space.

I expect a call.

Eleventh hour reprieve

There’s never a dull moment in my life at the minute.

So far this year I’ve booked a holiday to India, cancelled it, bought a car, driven it into a Mercedes, taken my parents on a road trip around Western Australia and nearly been deported. And it’s still only April.

Apart from the road trip (more on which later) I’ve mainly been preoccupied with the struggles of getting a new Aussie visa. For the last two years I’ve been on a working holiday visa and it was due to end this month. Once your second year as a backpacker is finished, it's all over, the eternal goon cask has run dry, and you have to go home. But the adventure can't finish. I won't let it.

After checking out all avenues, such as returning as an international student (hideously expensive) or applying for permanent residency (only open to certain skill types and takes years to be approved) I was advised to try a 487 regional migrant visa. This would allow me not only to stay, but to eventually be eligible for permanent residency. It sounded like a win-win.

First there was the little matter of passing the skills assessment. Sending off the Vetassess paperwork was one of the most complicated things I’ve ever had to do. I had to gather copies of my passport, degree certificate, contracts of employment, old payslips from the early 2000s, a photo of me holding today's newspaper, proof I owned at least three stubby holders… not an easy task considering most of this stuff had to be extracted from my old bedroom and posted to me by my folks in the UK.

It cost $555 just to send off for the assessment. If I passed, I would then have to pay $265 for a medical, $200 for state sponsorship and a whopping $2,525 for the 487 visa itself. This means the total costs would exceed $3,500 (£2,100) and I still wouldn’t be guaranteed a ‘yes’ from immigration at the end. It’s no lie to say that the buggers charge an arm and a leg, and I was taking one hell of a gamble throwing myself with gusto into this, using what money I had.

I finally got the paperwork together and sent off for my skills assessment in early February. It was then subject to a lengthy delay after the perpetually useless shower of bastards known as "Australia Post" managed to take a whole week to deliver my overnight express delivery parcel to Melbourne.

Once it got there I had to sit and wait patiently for 6 to 8 weeks while my assessment was considered. I was still confident of getting the results before my visa expired on 15th April. Even a few days' leeway would give me enough time to apply to immigration and be granted a bridging visa to stay.

By Easter I was getting a bit worried that I’d not heard anything back from Vetassess. Repeated phone calls to them yielded me the same solitary sentence of information: “it’s with the assessors and they’re looking at it now.” Had I missed out paperwork? Did they want to see my A-level certificates? No-one was telling me anything.

I’d already made big commitments on the assumption I’d get this visa – I bought the car and signed a new contract with work stretching till the end of June. The immigration laws are really strict and you face strict penalties for overstaying. I'd have to leave on the 15th without that bridging visa, even if I subsequently passed my skills assessment, regardless of my employment. Not knowing what hemisphere I’d be living in in a couple of weeks started to feel strangely liberating.

I finally got the skills assessment back last Thursday, on 8th April, and as I impatiently scrolled down the fax I saw the telltale words, “ASSESSMENT OUTCOME: NEGATIVE”. Oh shit. How had I failed?

Apparently my work history wasn’t up to scratch – I’d done too much IT work to be considered as a business information professional, but not enough to be classed as an IT professional. Bullshit. They could have told me that earlier! I had no time left to lodge an appeal, which would cost another $330 anyway. There was now no way I could apply for the visa.

My dream of staying in Australia was in ruins. I was left to break the news to my work and to my friends that I'd have to leave very soon. Then I had to think about selling my car, guitars and computer, packing my bags and booking a plane ticket home. All in less than a week. I tried to keep calm, but wondered what the hell would I do back in England?

On Thursday evening I switched on my computer to start arranging all this, and hit yet another stumbling block. After months of working fine, Windows suddenly deactivated itself and was refusing to start up. Now I had no access to a computer and couldn’t do a thing. Really all I wanted was to pour myself a cold beer and chat to my mates on Skype. It seemed like God was not only laughing at me but sodomising me with a ginormous comedy dildo.

The next morning I turned up at work, after a miserable evening stewing in my own company, and talked through the situation with my boss. He was gutted I had to leave so suddenly. His issue was that they hadn’t been able to recruit somebody else with my computer skills after my first spell working there. Luckily, we suddenly realised, there was a way out of our problem.

The 457 long-stay business visa is often seen as the holy grail of backpackers; you're allowed to stay for a long time, with few of the attendant costs or hassles of applying for your own visa. Often this can lead to permanent residency. I phoned the immigration department and they confirmed that, yes, I would be eligible to apply for a 457, and yes, there was still time for us to lodge the sponsorship paperwork. Sponsorship would allow me to stay until at least the end of my contract in July and give me time to plan my next move.

Before the day was out we had completed all three stages of the application and submitted them on the immigration website. Cost to my work: $415, cost to me: a quite palatable $260. And with one last click of the mouse, the application was lodged, and I was legally able to stay in the country on a bridging visa. I made sure I reached profound levels of drunkenness that evening to celebrate.

With six days left to go, it was not so much an 11th hour reprieve as an 11th hour and 59th minute reprieve! Some people say computers are the future... maybe mine had known I was staying all along when it refused to start up.

Raw food diet

Today I am listless and lethargic with all the energy of a dead dog. I have lines under my eyes and I shuffle round the house with a lumbering, unsteady gait, trying distractedly to find something to do.

It's not flu. It's not a hangover. The reason for this is that I have just begun something known as a 'raw food diet', which I will be on continuously for the next three weeks. I can eat only fruit, salad and nuts, plus certain specific meat and dairy produce. Caffeine and alcohol are both horrifyingly off-limits.

I have to eat specific foods, in a specific order, at specific times throughout the day. The life of monk-like asceticism and self-denial is mine. All I need now is a robe, a manky length of rope to flagellate myself with and a religion that makes absolutely no sense.

It’s extraordinary how much you can come to rely on food. Food is there to prop you up when you feel low; to console you when all is wrong with the world; to replenish you when you are tired and weary; to waste your time when you've nothing better to do but exquisitely stimulate your taste buds with some wondrous foodstuff. Eating defines so much about our lives. Remove this comfort and you are left staring at the bare bones of your own existence.

And what is it that has sent me on this solitary outwards path into the nether regions of the soul? Why could I possibly do something so stupid? Well, over the next few weeks I am participating in a ground-breaking personal development course here in Perth that requires a heightened level of mental clarity and focus for a sustained period of time. A level of brain performance that would not be possible eating normally. A heavenly parabola of thought that will breed fresh and astonishing insights into my life, or so I'm led to believe.

As the old adage goes, you are what you eat. We all know caffeine gives you a boost in the mornings then takes it back with interest later in the day (‘first it giveth, then it taketh away,’ as the Queens of the Stone Age sang, though they were talking about drugs). Well other foodstuffs have this effect on the brain, in subtle, far-reaching and incalculable ways. Processed foods serve to muddy the waters of the mind and distract its focus away from the path it wishes to follow.

As such the course requires I must shun them, and the only things that can pass my lips from now on are the Lord’s own vegetables, grown in his holy nourishing Soil; and the feta cheese, skinless chicken breasts and boiled eggs that are his children. We are all one, connected and hard-wired into the universe, humans, animals and vegetables all. By eating life you regurgitate life through your thoughts and deeds, or so the theory goes.

It's taken a hell of a lot of self-discipline to get this far, but a whole lot more is needed to see this through. Once the detritus of everyday living and everyday eating has cleared itself out, my mind will be clear to soar and swoop like the mighty hummingbird. Many folk never dare to tread that far, and I won’t be practicing the elimination diet for any longer than the prescribed three weeks. If you eat this way for too long there comes a point where malnourishment kicks in and you get sick.

My mouth salivates at the prospect of the finish. As a doughnut-loving sugar fiend, I plan to be back among my everyday thoughts, happily gorging on my everyday crappy, over-processed, mind-numbingly delicious foods once the period is over. And through doing the course I will hopefully take home some enlightenment in a doggy-bag, to remind me of the strange and hallowed spiritual turf on which I once trod.

I’ve already lost a prodigious amount of weight over the last few months, through tons of exercise and cutting out a lot of the crap I used to eat (compulsive cheese sandwich-eating being the main and surprising culprit). My previously rotund frame is now much more thinner; but this diet will take it a step further and give me protruding ribs that could double up as a mid-range xylophone. I plan to continue going to the gym in the midst of this - I figure the exercise won't swallow up too much of my meagre energy and will burn off more fat.

And yet there are two more gaping holes newly rendered in my life; with caffeine and alcohol off the list, I find my general enjoyment of things massively restricted. I’ve lost all appetite for going to the pub and socialising - it just isn't the same when all you can drink is tapwater. Soft drinks can no longer be purchased and consumed, depriving me of the associated cool that aligning my thirst aims with these quality brands would provide. How can I cut it with the cool kids now!

Wisely I chose to quit tea and coffee several weeks ago, so that's one battle less to face. But it's still not a pleasant task to write this as the delicious smells of toasting bread and fresh coffee waft up from my housemates' unencumbered breakfasting orgy in the kitchen. The bloody bastards.

I don’t even have a job now the Christian fee-paying school I was temping at (oh yes) no longer requires my services for proof-reading school reports. I've got nothing to occupy me until the course starts in earnest next weekend.

I can only sit at home, listening to the sounds of nature and the street; absolutely certain in the knowledge that somewhere, someone is having more fun than me.

Melbourne Cup day

Today it was the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race held in Melbourne, hence the name Melbourne Cup. It features about 20-25 racehorses and all the requisite jockeys, in a traditional horse race on a big field. I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s a horse race, but a flipping big one. And all of Australia stops to watch it.

Obviously with Australia being something of a ‘young’ country its customs and traditions are still developing. You don’t get the zealous religious festivals of Asia, or some of the weird folk ceremonies that exist in parts of Europe, which have evolved from medieval or even pagan times. There are only three big ones to remember: Australia Day (where everybody gets pissed), ANZAC Day (like Remembrance Sunday, but everyone gets pissed) and Melbourne Cup day (horse-racing and, yep, everyone gets pissed).

That’s about as deep and meaningful as it gets, but there is the occasional unwritten rule to remember. One tradition of Cup day is that the women, all over the country, get glammed up and go to work wearing fancy hats. So you get a lot of eye-candy, which suits us men just fine. We’re not required to do anything. The ship of political correctness is but a glimmer on the horizon in this country.

All the offices grind to a halt around midday to screen the race, and they put on vast quantities of food for the workers. There is a flurry of last-minute bets and sweepstakes. All pressing business is quickly forgotten for that brief half-hour.

This year, like the last, I was in Perth, plodding along in a temp job; observing the Melbourne cultural circus from afar on a TV screen. I had an inspired bet last year and won about $80 when my horse came in third. This time round I didn’t have the luxury of sneaking out to the bookies, as my work is marooned in a big industrial estate out near the airport. So I just sat there demolishing the buffet and watching the race. It was a pretty decent contest and a horse named Shocking won.

My journey home after work turned out to be strange. With summer newly in bloom, the afternoon sun was stifling. The bus became very crowded as it threaded its way down the highway towards the city, full of people leaving work early. Clearly a lot of workplaces had downed tools for the day and thrown a full-scale party. A crowd of revellers clambered aboard and one of the young guys plonked himself down in the seat next to me.

He was about 18, stank of booze, and wanted a chat. He wanted to be my friend. Nothing wrong with that, but suddenly I realized his hands were caked in blood! Surprised, I asked him what happened, and apparently he had got into a drunken bust-up with his girlfriend at the work party, then she ‘attacked’ him with a bottle. “She’s a f**kin’ psycho mate, ay,” he confirmed. “That’s why I’m going home!”

I reckoned the girl's angle to this tale would be quite different. Who knows what chaos he had left behind. He seemed a bit remorseful and was heading off home to stay out of bother. The bleeding had stopped but his hands were covered in blood. I considered giving sage advice about seeing a doctor then thought better of it; the school of hard knocks would look after this guy. He’d probably wake up the next morning, blood all over his sheets, and wonder what the hell had happened.

I meanwhile was stone-cold sober, still in my work gear and had a book in my hand. He was determined to have a chat, and was asking me where I was from and where I was heading to now. He wasn’t an aggressive drunk, just aggressively friendly, in the manner of one whose drinking habits are yet to be impinged by frequent hangovers. I was stuck in the seat next to him and had no alternative but to take part in a conversation with the guy. Ignoring him wasn't going to work.

He sensed my agitation, and gave me a friendly poke on the leg, unwittingly smearing a postage stamp of blood on my work trousers. I was not happy and told him so. He attempted to touch my shirt in apology. I halted him again. He was like a bull in a china shop. He asked me where I went out at weekends, I told him Fremantle. I was not in control of this conversation.

“You go to Metro’s, ay?”

“Nah, not my scene.” I replied. Metropolis is a nightmare, a massive club where there is trouble every week.

“Yeah, full of dickheads, ay!”

“Yeah that’s right.” He reminded me remarkably of one of said dickheads. “I usually go to Little Creatures.”

“Yeah, it’s good, ay. Full of good people!” Clearly he saw himself in this sub-strata.

He got off a few stops after, looking for a McDonalds. And like that, this crazy drunk man stumbled out of my life.

“Don’t worry mate, I’ve not got the Aids!” he added, touching my fist with his in parting.

"Take care, mate," I answered.

What a weird afternoon! The Melbourne Cup might not have been that interesting but it’s not every day you get to have somebody bleed on you on the bus. I just hope the little bastard's blood comes out in the wash!

May 09 – present: This is Perth

And since my time in Melbourne things have settled down and become rather predictable, almost boring.

I returned to Perth on 5^th May and within a few weeks had found a job in the east of the city doing admin work for a big electrical company. I stayed with my friends Shannon and Troy in Kardinya initially, but soon I found a good house-share near Fremantle, where I’ve been living ever since. My social life has been a bit quiet but I’ve met a lot of new people and have kept myself busy with fitness training, writing and music recording. It's been a productive time.

Everything’s so easy in Perth. The city is big and spread-out, the pace of life is relaxed and thanks to the massive booms in industry there’s usually a decent amount of work knocking about. It’s like life back home but with all the rain, frustration and misery taken out; and with shitloads of beaches, sun and happy contented people thrown in.

Clearly I’m not the only one who felt this way – it has grown astronomically in size over the years, and the city is swollen with expats from the UK and all over Europe and Asia. Amazingly 1 in 10 people living here were born in Britain. You can’t move for bumping into Londoners. Strangely I've not encountered as many northerners.

Some days I love Perth and some days I hate it. It’s too quiet. It is one of the most isolated state capitals in the world. The big cities like Sydney and Melbourne are thousands of miles away in another time zone. Singapore is actually closer than the likes of Bondi Beach and St. Kilda. The city shuts down at 5pm every day and the shops don’t open on Sundays. Some of the pubs even close as early as 7pm! It’s a strange place, modern and clean with futuristic-looking buildings and transport systems, yet trapped in a draconian 1950s trading philosophy.

It was recently voted the fifth most liveable city in the world, but getting round without a car is hard work. The suburbs stretch on endlessly for miles and miles. Even the college students drive cars here. I found it hard to get to know the city and its people as to a large degree it lacks the culture, regional identity and social history we might take for granted in England. And the nightlife is bloody expensive - it costs up to $9 (£4.50) a beer in a pub! Drinking at home suddenly becomes a much more appealing option.

This brilliant clip, which local film-makers Vincenzo Perrella & Dan Osborn made, sums it up perfectly:

Yes! It really is that f**king boring!

On the flipside I’ve totally sorted my life out again and got back on track money-wise. I’m not complaining about how things have turned out, I know I’m fortunate to still be out here in this beautiful country. And so it is now October and summer is drawing near once again. I think I shall remain here for many months to come, completely hooked on Western Australia’s ample charms as I am.

The generosity of my family back home and friends locally has really helped me when things have looked bleak. I’ve been through a hell of a lot of adventure in the last twelve months, which I wanted to narrate via this blog; a task which took me many months. This story is now completed and up to date, but the tale is far from over.

Now, to use a bit of bland corporate jargon, I’m moving ‘onwards and upwards’ into the future; to get whatever is coming to me, be it good or bad. As the saying goes, ‘in life, plan to be surprised’!

Melbourne, Apr/May 09 – Home at Fitzroy

The journey out to Australia was much more tiring than coming home. As Alex Garland once observed in The Beach, the jetlag is far worse if you fly from west to east than the other way round. Piling up the hours, in effect you’re saving them up in the piggy bank for the future return home. A long gruelling flight to Kuala Lumpur was followed by a similarly gruelling eight-hour stopover.

I dozed on my brand new suitcase, wary of dropping my guard in the crowded terminal, and wary of falling over as the suitcase had wheels. The flight to Melbourne lasted another eight hours and I slept like a baby. It was midnight on Wednesday by the time we landed in the city. I had all sorts of paranoid fantasies about my electronic visa being declined as I stood bleary-eyed at the passport desk, but the security guard waved me on through without a second glance. Good to have ya back mate, what’s crankin’?

I caught the shuttle bus into the city and stayed for a few days in Elizabeth Street Backpackers, a huge and chaotic hostel just down the road from Flinders Street Station. I wasn’t in the mood to party – I was very low on cash so my priorities were to find a permanent place to stay and, more importantly, a job! I was excited about living in Melbourne for the next few months though, as it is regarded as the cultural epicentre of Australia. First I needed to find a comfortable, cheap and conveniently-placed base to explore the city.

Unfortunately, Melbourne being full of travellers, all the hostels were full and vacant rooms in house-shares were scarce. I was naïve to think rent would be cheap. The metropolitan area is huge, stretching away for miles in all directions, into dozens of suburbs I didn’t even know the names of. I think one of the hardest parts of moving to a new city is getting to know all the place names, so you don’t look like a gormless twunt when you have to ask somebody for directions. I had little time to work with, and I would soon have to surrender my precious $65/night double room at the hostel.

I did find somewhere, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. ‘Home at Fitzroy’ was its name. A small suburban house twenty minutes’ walk from the city centre, it wasn’t in any of the backpacker guides or Lonely Planet. It billed itself as Melbourne’s greenest hostel and a relaxing place for long-term backpacker stay. Essentially it was a very large house-share, featuring an ever-changing cast of twenty or so inhabitants, some uninhibited partying, and as one internet review memorably stated, “bong-stained retro furniture”. It seemed to survive solely on word-of-mouth recommendations, and was one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever stayed in.

The suburb of Fitzroy is one of the highlights of the city – a melting pot of bohemian culture teeming with life at all hours. The main strip of Brunswick Street is packed with restaurants, cafes, bars and live music venues. There are big events and gigs every night of the week. Down the other end of the street sits the CBD, an easy walk away. A few streets across is Lygon Street and Carlton, another bustling area. There was always something happening. When I had no money (which happened to be always) I used to just wander through the noisy streets, floating between the crowds and soaking up the night-time atmosphere.

The hostel itself was established at the end of the 90s by a good-natured Aussie couple, who seemed just to want to rent out their property and meet some travellers. They extended the house out into the back yard, built an extra storey of bedrooms and created a courtyard for people to mingle and play table-tennis. Solar panels on the roof powered the hot water. On the house fridge was pinned a grand ‘manifesto’ in grubby laminated plastic, spelling out its aims as an exercise in sustainable communal living. As time wore on it appears they tired of the labour and delegated a series of travellers to manage the hostel and collect rent etc. When I arrived there it was descending into chaos.

It was the sort of thing I would have loved to be part of back in my uni days. There were so many people coming and going. Ex-housemates who knew the door code came back to visit all the time. The whole house was painted in psychedelic colours and furnished with a cluttered retro-futuristic theme. There was a sunken circular pit in the lounge where people would lie on bean-bags and read by the fire. People would plug their music players into the battered house stereo and blast out dance music, ambient stuff, rock or hip-hop depending on the mood, time of day, and their level of inebriation. The tea and coffee were free, and there was an internet room where you could surf for free, and some giant bookcases stuffed with thousands of volumes of eclectic reading in numerous languages, left by an endless succession of travellers from around the globe.

The owners had just appointed Linda, a new full-time manager, to steady the ship and get the place running smoothly again. There were lots of complaints about the noise from the neighbours and the place constantly teetered on a knife-edge of being shut down. In a way it was one of the city’s best-kept secrets, a whole world away from the cattle-market chaos of the big backpacker hostels. But in fairness it was the kind of place that needed constant vigilant attention and should not be left to run itself.

As with most hostels there were cliques and counter-cliques, and a few nutters that made it difficult for the rest. There was a group of Kiwis and Brits who took it on themselves to get pilled up and stay up partying for three days most weekends. There was not much point sticking around in the house when their sleep-defying chemical frenzy was at its peak. It took me a while to make friends purely because there were so many names to learn. Each day would bring a tide of new faces barging through the front door. I was just one man and it felt like a lunatic asylum.

Some of the long-termers were pissed off with Linda for spoiling their fun and trying to change things too quickly. She got her friend in to help decorate and the friend promptly painted over the messy Uluru mural in the computer room, which actually brought one of the long-termer girls to tears. I was glad of somebody trying to bring order to the place and I helped where I could with the tidying up. We went through all the books in the book-cases and threw a lot out; there were some really old ones there. I shared a quiet dorm room right at the back of the yard with a Swedish guy, Olof, and we cleaned that room out. Olof even jerry-rigged a clever pulley system with string and a water bottle to stop the door from swinging open and bringing in the cold. If Linda ultimately succeeded in her purge I do not know.



One of my favourite places was the posh cinema down the road that showed independent films. I often went to the discounted screenings on Mondays, a cheap hit of culture for the hard-up amidst a bountiful well of sophistication. I’m not proud about it but one week we paid for one movie then sneaked into another film for free at the end. I got caught out by a keen-eyed usher when I tried it again the next week and was effectively barred from coming back; all to save paying $6 for another ticket! I felt like such a cheap wanker and I couldn’t even look him in the eye as I left. But all I can say is the longer the economic crisis goes on, the more will try to follow in my footsteps.

The parties came thick and fast. A girl who was leaving held a fancy dress party, where people came dressed as superheroes and movie characters and danced away in the lounge in the middle of the afternoon. You can’t really potter about making yourself a cup of tea when that’s going on. Another time the house-share across the road invited the entire hostel to their ‘tight and bright’ party. The idea of ‘tight and bright’ is pretty simple, guys wear something tight, and girls wear something bright. The small house was bursting to the seams with revellers by the time we all got in, but it was a very well-organised party, where you could help yourself to unlimited booze by paying a $10 cover charge. It was the sort of thing that would have been really good if there’d been half as many people there and we could properly mingle. I sort of hung around at both events, neither present nor absent, not really getting in the mood.

Meanwhile there was always a lot going on in the city. A guy I knew, James, kindly gave me a spare ticket to see the show Suitcase Royale at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It was alright, a bit zany and surreal like the Mighty Boosh, but lacking that show’s fantastic absurdity and clever musical routines. I was very glad to sample one of the events though. I couldn’t help thinking how great it would be to live in Melbourne if I had money.

Due to the recession, backpacker jobs were suddenly very scarce indeed. I searched endlessly for work without success and had to borrow money from my parents. I’d envisioned myself bagging a high-flying IT job in some fantastic city skyscraper and living the life of a prince on my super-high wages. But I was in dreamland, living in denial of the stark economic wasteland, where all that might be available was a bit of miserly-paid bar or restaurant work. If I was lucky the hours I worked in such a job might cover my rent at the hostel, then in a few months I might work my way up to a call centre position and find a room in a house-share. Sod that. After a long time of scratching and saving I was done working in crap jobs.

After a few weeks in Melbourne I got tired of the rut I was in and realised I was probably barking up the wrong tree. Either I was looking in the wrong places or looking for the wrong thing entirely, and this vast city of money and culture would yield no treasure for me.

Once again I was out of options and out of cash, so I returned to the comforting bosom of the strange, prosperous land that is Western Australia. Surely I could find a job there!

Mar/Apr 09: the return home

Time to make a confession: much as I worry about the environment and mankind's future and all that, over the last couple of years I've built up a heinous 'carbon footprint' from all the flying I've done. Every time I take a flight, I think guiltily about the clouds of noxious jet exhausts burning up the ozone layer, and the little baby dolphins down below who cry confused tears at mankind’s wanton destruction of their beautiful environment. Yet I prefer not to confront the dilemma, as I could not have done the things I have done without this invention.

If, for instance, I’d wanted to come home from Australia in the olden times, I’d have had to splurge all my life savings on a sea ticket and then sit on a ferry for months on end, among the rats and disease, reading poorly-bound books of Victorian pornography. Now it took little over £200 and a single day of flying. And that's the problem really - it's just too convenient for people to ever do without, especially skint backpackers!

There had been rumours for months that an airline was set to introduce cheap flights between Perth and London. Doing some research at a Manjimup internet café I found not only was the rumour true, but that a return trip to the UK and back was just within my means. I’d got my second working visa, a couple of paycheques in the bank, and enough money that I could borrow to make the trip a reality. There was no reason not to do it!

I departed the hostel at Manjimup in much the same way as I had arrived; anonymously and with little fanfare. It had been a weird solitary experience out there in the countryside, and getting my visa had become not only a struggle against time but against homesickness and my waning enthusiasm for the whole adventure. Nevertheless I had worked hard and been rewarded, in hindsight, with a string of memorable experiences. After a few weeks’ break to catch up with my family and friends I would return to Australia to continue the journey.

The flights were with Air Asia X, a budget Malaysian airline who had very recently opened up a long-distance route to London. My total round trip (a flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur, a return from Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted and a separate outwards flight from KL to Melbourne) cost just £550 – half what you’d pay for an economy seat with one of the big airlines. You had to fork out a little extra for meals and heavy baggage, but they thoughtfully included things like toilets, seats and windows for free, so it was a steal.

The long-awaited day finally arrived – Sunday 22^nd March. I was coming home. Early in the morning I checked in at Perth’s international airport and got the final black passport stamp confirming I was leaving Australia. And soon the plane was up and away into the sunrise, circling the Perth city skyscrapers as it gained height. Five hours later, we landed in Kuala Lumpur, the bleak airport buildings surrounded by palm trees and dripping in tropical heat. After a short break, and some authentic Malaysian KFC, it was time to check in again and begin the journey to London. I got two Malaysia passport stamps even though I’d only been in the country three hours!

The flight to London took fourteen hours and I battled in vain to stay awake, trying to beat the jetlag. The spadeful of caffeine they put in the airport coffee helped. Though the seats and legroom were reasonably generous it was obvious this was a budget flight, as all food and drinks were extra, and you had to pay for a handheld flatscreen thing if you wanted to watch movies. There was no map showing us our position either. Hopefully the pilots had one!

I saw a brilliant (if terrifying) thunderstorm out of the window at one point, the clouds towering up into the sky, firing huge bolts of lightning earthwards. I wouldn't like to have been stuck under that. Other than that it was a smooth flight. The night seemed to last forever as we followed the earth’s shadow around the globe.

The plane touched down at Stansted late on Sunday evening, back in good old Greenwich Mean Time and back in the bitter cold. As the throngs of passengers exited the plane we found the automatic bridge was broken, the airport toilets were flooded and there were huge queues at the passport desk. Yes, this felt like Britain alright! Clutching my Home Office immigration card, I advanced through security and met up with my good buddy Rick, here to collect me. It was fantastic to see him after all this time.

After more than 24 hours of travelling I was suddenly wide awake again and ready for a beer. Unfortunately we’d missed all the pubs shutting by about half an hour! Thankfully when we got to the Travellodge the guy on reception agreed to open up the bar and sell us a few bottles so we could drink in the room. I don’t know if that’s officially endorsed in the Travellodge rules and regulations but we were bloody grateful for this act of kindness!

And the next day I returned home, to my family in Yorkshire and to the old life I had almost forgotten. I'd seen my mum and dad quite recently in Melbourne but it was good to be reunited with them so soon. The next three weeks were a comforting blur of cups of tea, family dinners and trips to Blackpool to catch up with mates. Most of the people and places I’d missed were just as I remembered them. I began to regret the return plane ticket with my name on it, calling me back across the globe. I was seriously thinking of delaying my flight out so I could go over to a festival in Belgium with my mates. Yet I knew that whatever I sought from travelling was still out there and I had to go find it, sooner rather than later.

This was an ending of sorts – it marked my transition from a backpacker to a ‘suitcaser’. Things would have to change; I left behind my travel guitar, roll-mat, sleeping bag and trusty 65L rucksack and switched to a suitcase big enough to transport a midget in comfort. I threw out the faded rags I’d been wearing constantly for the past year and bought new clothes. I doubled the size of my wardrobe.

I stocked up on anything and everything I might need, mindful of the sky-high prices in Aussie shops. I got an international driving permit, a travel insurance extension, a new YHA card and sorted out various other jobs that had been mounting up. I put several gigabytes of songs on to my music player, found some books to take, then played a special ‘comeback gig’ in Blackpool (supporting the Blue Pig Orchestra) and said farewell to my friends. They seemed more used to me not being there now, and so did my family! This travel lark was nearly becoming routine for me.

And so I flew out from the UK on 14th April, back to Kuala Lumpur, and then on to Melbourne. And so ended a magical three weeks; an expensive folly that rejuvenated my soul. Now I had to get back out there and discover how to live again.