Bitey things

I have been in Australia for just over four weeks now (not crossing off the days or anything, you understand), and I have not been bitten, stung, sucked, nipped or pecked by anything, whether insect, reptile, mammal, bird or human. Now this would be a quite banal piece of information in most parts of the world, and indeed the norm in much of the northern hemisphere, but, here in Australia, it could be considered something of an achievement. For without a shadow of a doubt this country is home to more of the world’s biters and stingers than practically anywhere else on earth.  It is, at least potentially, the bitiest place in the world.

 

Aussie salute
In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, native Australians have a remarkably tolerant approach to their sometimes aggressive wildlife.  The assault of flying insects is often met with nothing more deadly than the Aussie salute: a gentle wafting of the hand in front of the face to bid the flies depart.  Indeed the salute is so ingrained in some, that they do it almost automatically, even when no mozzies are to be seen; on occasion, it is almost a royal wave. As a second line of defence, I am told, the famous cork strung hat, itself,  is not infrequently deployed at such events as summer race meetings, where, even when worn in irony, it is as efficient as ever in deterring attack.  Chemical sprays and lotions have of course been adopted by some, but Australians still seem to have a much higher threshold of tolerance to the insect blitz than many of their foreign visitors ; although not, it would seem, when it comes to the entrances to their houses. The springs on their anti-fly doors can snap shut with a  startling vengeance as soon as released, and you wouldn’t be the first unsuspecting tourist to survive the flies, only to be bitten by the house.

Fair go for sharks

Aussie tolerance of their native biters even extends to sharks.  In response to the danger of shark attacks ( around 10 to 12 a year) the government of Western Australia has introduced a catch and kill policy, whereby sharks are caught using baited drum lines and then shot.  Strange as it may seem, this provoked mass protests by thousands of Australians.  The protests were essentially on environmental and scientific grounds, but also related to one of the key principles underpinning the Australian character: the concept of the “fair go”.  It was clear from broadcast interviews with demonstrators that many simply thought that the sharks were not getting a “fair go”.  It was the sharks' environment that was being invaded and they had been there first, so deserved a “fair go” (think possibly, on reflection, that this aspect of the Australian character didn’t  reach full maturity until quite some time after 1788).   It is an appreciation of the entitlement of the shark to a “fair go” with which I think I might be inclined to agree…………well, right up until the moment I could see the fin approaching anyway..

 

Spiders

I have been assured that the world famous Australian dunny spider is not a problem anymore, since most Australians no longer have outside dunnies. However, these assurances have often been accompanied by a wry smile, followed  by advice to check my shoes in the morning, and that the newly favoured hiding place of the redback  spider was behind the sun visor of the car.   They were, of course, just engaging in the national sport of pulling the pommie’s leg.  However, I must admit, I do now, jokingly of course, check my shoes in the morning, and  have a quick glance behind the sun visor before I set off.  After all, this is Australia. 
Yeah
As an addendum to last week's brief consideration of Australian speech,  I have since noticed  a tendency to add   a somewhat drawn out "yeah" to the end of any statement or series of statements.  It is almost as if they are promoting agreement by agreeing with themselves.  And, oddly enough, it seems to work. Yeahhhhhh.

Coming the raw prawn

Now let us be quite clear about this from the outset: Australians speak English. Standard Australian English is practically indistinguishable from the standard form spoken in England.  However, there is also a variation in the colloquial dialect, similar to variations that can be found throughout the UK, and, indeed, in some respects less marked than might be found in some British regions.  Strangely, it is both highly distinctive and at the same time, in some ways, very familiar.  Quite often, it really does sound like “a kind of fossilized Cockney of the Dickensian era”, as Anthony Burgess once suggested.  Why not try “G’day, mate!” in your best cockney accent, if you doubt the hypothesis, and see if you can distinguish it from Australian.  Careful though, it’s catching. 

OK, you need some essential vocabulary.  The very basics with which to get by; let’s start with some opening pleasantries:

Good day (g’die or g’diemite)

The Australian equivalent  to “hello”, “good morning” or “good afternoon”.  Often accompanied by the general purpose endearment “mate”, which, these days, is non-gender specific and sometimes blended with the original greeting to make “G’daymate!” (although, come to think of it, I don't believe I have heard "G'day!" used by a woman). The appropriate response, of course, is a repetition of the original greeting. If you were to respond with “hello” or “good morning”, it might be thought that you were either a “pommy” , a “wowser” or “have tickets on yourself”.

                       G'day

How’s it going? (owzitgoin)

Strangely enough the English equivalent to this is not “How are you?” or “How do you do?” but much more like “Alright?”  It is not so much a question as to how you are, although it is that as well, but a question which offers the respondent the option to begin a discussion.  Appropriate responses can be a simple “good”, “not bad”, or similar, but with the possibility of taking the conversation further.  In fact, it was the British version of this conversation opener (“Alright?”) which caused most consternation amongst Australian students visiting the University of Chester.  At first, it seems, they imagined that it was an enquiry related to their physical and/or mental well-being, and were somewhat affronted to find that this was constantly in question, and that they might be thought to have a few “kangaroos loose in the top paddock”.

                                                   Round the bend?

No worries

The Australian equivalent of “You’re welcome” in response to any expression of gratitude. Endearingly reassuring, don’t you think?

It’s your shout 

 It’s your turn to buy the next round of beers/ coffees/cakes/ etc.   Do not under any circumstances ignore this invocation; the consequences could be dire.  In fact, preferably, never get into a situation where somebody might even contemplate saying this to you.  It is a social clanger on a par with stealing sweeties from toddlers (“lollies from ankle-biters”).  Under no circumstances should you attempt to “come the raw prawn”, and suggest any reason as to why you should not be getting  the “tinnies”, “stubbies” or “longies” in.    If you do, somebody is likely to get “ropeable” or “spit the dummy” and you will find yourself  “drinking with the flies”. You have been warned!

The bush

Refers to anywhere other than the town. It doesn’t  have to be in the outback,  “back of Bourke” or “beyond the black stump”; if it’s not in town, it’s in the bush.

                    The bush 

Tucker

Food is tucker.  It may start with brekkie which could include an egg from a chook, or some Vegemite on toast (sod all these quotation marks).  Following that, you might expect to take a cut lunch to work in your tucker bag  ( you’ll not need an esky for one lunch, but might need one for a picnic).  The typical cut lunch could include sangers or a sav, with bikkies and a Lamington ( chocolate/treacle sponge cake covered with coconut) with which to finish.  Your tucker can be bought at the milk bar or Woollies (yes, alive and well and living in Australia), or in one of the excellent restaurants.

However, you should not worry if you have not mastered the local language when you arrive, as all variations of UK English are  well understood, and visitors' attempts to get their tongues round the local phraseology is a constant source of amusement to the locals. The dialect is, nonetheless, an essential element in Australian identity, and I suspect that they are, rightly, very proud of its  assertive, and humorous, irreverence.

An esky

Australian kit

A few days after my arrival, my colleagues presented me with an “Australian starter kit”.  It included a fly swatter, sunscreen, insect repellent, wraparound sunglasses, a straw hat (I was told that I would have to supply my own corks for the brim), stick-on tattoos and a pair of thongs.  Now, before you get completely the wrong idea, I must explain that “thongs” is Australian for those cheap and cheerful sandals known in England as “flip-flops”.  A preference for skimpy G-string type underwear is not (as far as I know at this early stage in my research) part of the Australian national character.   However, each of the items in my presentation package does, I think, tell one something about what it is like to live in Australia, and, therefore what it might be like to be an Australian.

“Every stereotype in the book,” commented one onlooker. And, indeed, there was more than a nod in the direction of the caricature Australian with whom we are so familiar.  But that nod in itself, I suspect, tells us something about Australian self-confidence and sense of identity.  They are able to laugh at themselves and at others.  In Australia, you don’t take yourself too seriously or have too high an opinion of yourself, unless, of course it is a matter of life and death, or, even more importantly, sport.  There can’t be any other country in the world where sport is given quite such attention as in Australia.  All sports are played, and all taken very seriously.  If there were to be a secular church of Australia, I suspect that it would be the Church of Sport, and its icons would be Australian sporting heroes.  However, they might be inclined to retain the wine ......... and, perhaps, add some beer.

 

Of course all stereotypes contain an element of truth; the danger lies in imagining that they are the truth.   I have been wearing the straw hat, and been grateful for it, and, having never given it much thought previously, begun to appreciate why a set of corks dangling on strings from the brim, might actually be quite a good idea. Australians are a practical people, who care little for keeping up appearances, in the face of their, at times extreme, environmental conditions.  On arriving for my first day at work, for example,  in my beige linen suit and Panama hat (general issue, tropical gear, Englishman, for the use of), I was immediately advised to “ditch the coat” , and asked did I not have any shorts and sandals, which, upon closer inspection, I realised were being worn by most of my workmates.  After a day in which they so feared I might expire, they requisitioned the largest fan I have ever seen in my life to be placed in my office, I began to see the logic.

Unfortunately, I have, so far, found little use for the stick-on tattoos. Although, it is true that tattoos are very popular with many Australians, male and female, and wearing them might indeed help one to blend-in, when moving in certain circles, I am not entirely convinced that the stick-on variety would work.  They are often, as in the UK, acquired as an assertion of strength, and a rejection of authority and conventional values, as much as for the purpose of aesthetic enhancement.   And I am not quite sure how much of my masculine power and hedonistic rejection of social norms ,I might  succeed in conveying, by sporting my temporary stick-on anchor.

 

 

Ballarat

The city of Ballarat is, for the most part, a well-groomed city of suburbs. Broad, intersecting checkerboard streets stretch from north to south, and east to west.  The older thoroughfares distinguished by weatherboard bungalows with ornate Victorian tracery over their verandas.  The lawns as manicured as any to be seen in Surbiton or Wilmslow.   Its heart is  a large lake surrounded by beautiful parkland, that is a focus for much summer activity, or, quite often, inactivity.  It is called Lake Wendouree and owes its name, as it would seem does much else in this  contradictory country, to an almost total failure on the part of its early settlers to understand, or care for, its original inhabitants.  As the story goes, a Scottish squatter, asked an aboriginal woman the name of the swamp that later became the lake.  She is said to have replied, wendaaree , which I am told may be politely translated as "go away".  He didn't.

 

Helpful road signs

seen all around Ballarat

But, strangely enough, it is the most seemingly neglected area of Ballarat that is the most interesting.I say seemingly neglected, because there is no doubting the city's pride in the Victorian treasures of its Gold Rush city centre. There are plaques everywhere, proclaiming the origins of the many palatial Victorian buildings built during a period of golden prosperity from the late 1850s through to the 1890s.  However, in some ways,  it reminds me of the rural Irish towns of the 1960s, which often gave the impression of more town than people to fill it; as though the tide of population and prosperity that had once surged through the area, had long since ebbed.  Not a ghost town exactly, but, perhaps, a town of ghosts.  The train station, for example, is a remarkable piece of exuberant nineteenth century architecture, with a vast echoing, and beautifully preserved, Victorian booking hall and a  magnificent waiting room, quite capable of catering for many more passengers than now pass through.  However, the waiting room, waits, as it seems, in perpetual anticipation of an era that is past.

Almost the whole city centre area is a time capsule of  Victorian Australia, from the colonial shop and business frontages of Lydiard and Sturt streets, to the magnificent town hall, and hugely evocative reading rooms of the Mechanics Institute.  It takes little imagination to hear the ghosts of the Jersey Lily or Dame Nellie Melba singing on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre. However, the ghosts are, perhaps, best imagined in the wonderful Craig's Royal Hotel. Taking afternoon tea in its foyer, admiring the Minton tiled floor, or sipping a cold beer in its bar, it is all too easy to see the top hatted mining speculators discussing their latest finds.  In fact, after two or three beers, I'm rather inclined to join in.

                                         

       

                                                                           Craig's foyer

Australia?

 So, finally, following the Australian immigration service's less than eager granting of a visa, and an extremely uncomfortable series of flights lasting two days, but mysteriously consuming three (what happens to the lost day, by the way? Can I claim it back when I leave?), I have landed in Australia.  Staggering from the plane at the end of the final leg of the journey, the first thing that hits, is the light.  Australia is a land where the big light has, very definitely, been switched on. After the grey gloom of the north west of England, it is quite astounding. The brightness and contrast have been adjusted; everything is clearly and crisply visible, in a way that it seldom is in England.  It is almost a different world.

And, in mid-summer, a very hot world. Forty degrees of dry heat, like walking into an oven.  Your mouth dries out, almost immediately, and the sun on your head seems to have both weight and heat.  This is not an English summer's day.   Although, much that surrounds one is unmistakably English; there is much, also, that is strange. There are four seasons, but they are reversed.  There are trees and fields, but the fields are brown and many of the trees are unfamiliar, rather alien, native species, which perfume the air:  There is the aroma of gum trees everywhere ( or, perhaps just in the part of Australia in which I landed, or at that time of the year).  There are birds and animals, but they, too, although in some respects familiar, are disconcertingly strange to the new arrival from the planet North.  A stray kangaroo suddenly bounds across a suburban street that otherwise would not look out of place in Surrey.  Cockatoos screech from the telephone wires, and sometimes speak (escaped pets, or intelligent eavesdroppers?), while kookaburras laugh mockingly as you pass by. English is spoken,by people as well as birds, but yet seems a different language.  England through the looking glass?  The world as seen from the other direction? Or, just jet-lag?