Entertainment For Lively Minds
The trials of being an Australian member of the Massive
While there are many obvious advantages to living in Australia (the weather, open spaces, endless beaches, sporting prowess, political intrigue, likely survival of a nuclear apocalypse, the weather again) I sometimes feel slightly estranged from and jealous of my UK brethren.
Here are some of my main gripes:
- Even as a subscriber, I receive my copy of the Word a fortnight after you lot. By this stage a lot of the articles have already been discussed and exhausted here. Sort of like soggy seconds.
- There is a 10 hour time difference between Eastern Australia and the UK, therefore I rarely get to participate in a live flurry of posts on the Blog. I post something, go to bed, then check the next day to see if someone responded etc etc
- I can't participate in the Massive piss-ups. I doubt there are enough of us here in Brisbane to fill a phone box (although please let me know if I'm wrong).
- Even as a cultural Anglophile I often have no idea half the time who the hell you lot are talking about. I'd like to think that we have a rich seam of similar sparkling cultural identities here in Oz, but I'd be wrong.
- There are some bands that you guys hold in inexplicably high regard (Prefab Sprout, the Blue Nile). Maybe these bands require grey drizzly days to fully appreciate.
- WTF is Spotify, and why can't I get it?
- The range of events (concerts, exhibitions etc) you guys have access to is staggering. In the next month, the only internationally-known act appearing in Brisbane is Pat Benatar.
- You guys have Fopp. We have something a bit similar called JB HiFi but it doesn't sound quite as wonderful
Anyway, I look forward to reading your replies when I get up tomorrow.
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Typical whinging Aussie
:-)
Can't argue with most of those
except we don't all have Fopp. There are less than 10 in the whole of the UK (I think) and I can't get to one in less than an hour.
Loved JB HiFi in Perth
on the two occasions I've visited downunder - handwritten dividers for Cds just like old fashioned record shops. Contributed (along with books) to a cA$400 excess luggage charge between Perth and Singapore.
Perth was beautiful but strange - full of Brits,South Africans and Asians but seemingly few Aussies.
On another note I found the price of books to be very high compared to the UK even the second hand shops were expensive! Looking forward to going back to Guildford in a couple of years where we found a great second hand bookshop.
Take me back 20 years and I would really consider living in Perth although temperatures of 40 degrees + are a bit too much and sorry but the beer is p**s.
I also liked the Aussie country music scene which I would never have discovered without visiting.
Nail on the head
In Australia books for some reason are way too expensive. It's actully much cheaper for me to import books all the way from the USA by Airmail from Amazon rather than purchase them here. It's not far from half price.
The thing I truly envied on past trips to the UK were all the newspapers. You may scoff but I'd walk into a newsagency and practically drool. I used to buy them all and take them back to my hotel room and gorge.
Cds and dvds are reasonably priced here but the range is much greater in the U.K and I'm not just talking about British artists.
Even better than Amazon
is bookdepository.co.uk
Imagine Amazon with free shipping to Australia via first-class mail. I have not walked into a bookshop here and bought something for several years.
The same with guitar gear. I just imported another guitar from the States for about 1/3 what it would cost me to buy here, despite our free trade agreement with the US.
Heartily agree;
bookdepository is a great find, although I do still enjoy hanging around in bookshops (there's a rather good one near work).
Those 40c temps
of which you speak....
They happen maybe 4 or 5 days a year on average and some years not at all.
For 9 months of the year Perth has possibly the perfect climate. It's the tail-end of winter here now and by our standards it's bloody cold (min 5c - max 18c).
But that's positively balmy by UK standards. ;-)
Accepted.
I asked my friend who lives in Perth "didn't he get fed up of working in the hot weather?" he replied "Yes, but not as fed up as I got working in the cold in the UK".
I believe
most branches of Fopp went bust a couple of years ago and only a few now survive under the new ownership?
Australia's JB HiFi resembles Fopp only in the aggressive pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap aspect. But CDs/DVDs are only a small part of their (JBs) business and it's shrinking all the time. They now specialise in TVs, computers and other consumer durables and the music is tucked away almost apologetically in a corner of the store.
As for the mag*, I'll sometimes treat myself to the air mail issue of Word at an airport (at almost £10 a time it's the price of a slim novel, thank you very much!) otherwise it's the sea mail issue for me. Just this week my newsagent gave me issue 80 (July) and it's funny to read about stuff I've already heard discussed a lifetime ago on the podcasts.
Bands that are/were huge in the UK, but mean less than zero in Australia: Manic Street Preachers, Paul Weller, Muse etc
And not only are we denied Spotify, but BBC iPlayer is permanently "not available in your area".
* sorry Dave, I know how much you hate that contraction (I heard it on a Podcast) ;-)
BBC iPlayer
If you want BBC iPlayer from overseas, try this.....
https://my-private-network.co.uk/home
It'll cost you GBP5.00 a month (can pay via PayPal) but I think its more than worth it.
It also allows you to use Spotify.
Rocking Horse
Rocking Horse is a good record shop in Bris off Queen Street Mall as is Egg Records - loads of good vinyl. There's also 2 JB HiFis within a few hundred yards of each other. HMV has now closed and Sanity (part of the same group) is rubbish....I never fail to be disappointed when I go in there......inSanity
The Blue Nile
Well I'm in Australia, and I like the Blue Nile. But, then again, I'm in Melbourne rather than BrisVegas, so I suppose I might as well be in Glasgee...
On the other hand...
...even if we do have Fopp (150 miles away in my case) we just don't live in Brisbane. My wife comes from that great city, and I'd happily live there. And I assume Spotify will arrive eventually.
yeah but
You do indeed have the weather. And the outdoor spaces. And the beaches. And, one presumes (I've not yet managed to visit Oz) a good Quality Of Life. Hold on to that if you find it - it's a rare thing indeed.
But wait there's more
The other obvious drawback is seldom getting a chance to see many of the bands/artists mentioned in The Word perform live. Except perhaps in some Big Day Out-type festival, which doesn't really do it for me..
On the other hand (2)...
...Rickie Lee Jones, Wilco, Vampire Weekend, Ruthie Foster, Jeff Beck, Goldfrapp, Massive Attack, Pavement, Marianne Faithfull, Joanna Newsom, Tim Finn, Steeleye Span, Elbow, Eric Bibb, Gary Numan, Streets, Stray Cats, Primal Scream and Ryan Adams have all played the Tivoli in Brisbane in the past 18 months or so. Oh, and Crazy Penis. And that's just one of at least 4 good music venues. Agreed, they've all reached the World Tour stage of their careers (except possibly Crazy Penis), but enough there to keep your average Massive member happy, I'd have thought.
Think that's bad, you should try Hong Kong
Although admittedly HK gets more bands than my last abode Singapore. Would be better if I could bear to listen to Cantopop, the local dreadfulness.
Love the Blue Nile though. I suppose that's due to my dreich Scottish childhood.
Nasties
What about all the nasty creatures though? As per Bill Bryson's Down Under:
Australia boasts the most venomous spider (funnel web), octopus (blue-ringed), jellyfish (box), fish (stone-), and tick (paralysis...yeesh), in addition to the murdering crocodiles, sharks, and cassowaries (although the last recorded fatal cassowary slashing was in 1926...doesn't that mean they're due?)
And those are just the real baddies in each category.
Don't forget ...
Ricky Ponting
There's also those nasty horrible squatty gargoyley thingies..
What're they called? Oh yeah..
Gilchrists.
jug eared he may be
but I think Gilchrist embodied all that was good in cricket.
Was he not the player that individually adopted a policy of "walking" much to the concern of other players and to the applause of cricket lovers.
Is he not the batsmen with next to his name some of the fastest most exhilirating innings in memory?
so what's to sledge?
Hmmm
14 of the top 15 poisonous snakes in the world, but I've never seen one and the spiders are worse (source "Last Chance To See", Douglas Adams). And my house is ringed by redbacks, but I still haven't seen one (spotted by neighbours and webs).
Most dangerous Australian thing I know of is Bundaberg rum - worst taste ever. Or maybe Coopers Sparkling Ale - guaranteed migraine-quality hangovers.
Atchually
The weather is bloody lovely in the UK right now AND I have just bought a copy of the first Gorillaz CD for one shiny British pound in a local charity shop. FOPP is owned by HMV, who have themselves been having a ridiculous sale with CDs at £2 & £3.
Spotify -
Hopefully you can check this link out - hope it helps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
Another Australian drawback
You can only buy Australian-grown bananas in Australia, whereas here in New Zealand, big yellow bendy bananas are freely available from all corners of the world.
I was over there in 2006 and at that time, there was a crisis over that year's domestic banana harvest. The resulting produce was pitifully small and manky, yet they were being sold at astronomic prices. I was at a market just outside Sydney and a small shipment of these pathetic and overpriced bananas arrived. The locals flocked to the stall because bananas were so hard to come by.
Let's not forget that
when poor CPI figures were released a little while after that, the overall increase in prices was declared by our P.M. to be due to the swelling prices of bananas.
Even my limited economic knowledge had problems with the idea that the price of one consumable item getting blown out would result in a substantial increase across the board. Lies, damn lies and all that.
A glass is half-full perspective from the shaky isles (NZ)
You don't have to navigate your day around Jeremy Kyle, Richard Littlejohn, Esther Rantzen, Vanessa Feltz, Chris Moyles, Jordan or Eammon Holmes.
You can post on this blog in the dead of night - which gives you a gothic, sinister, vampire-like cyber-persona. Good eeeevening...(see?).
With less live music/theatre, you spend more time outside looking at volcanoes, fjords and geysers - as well as actually seeing the stars in the night sky (outside of Auckland). You can also enjoy the occasional proper earthquake. W - - -o - o - ah! There goes another one.
In New Zealand
is it true that the number of the beast is sex, sex, sex? ;-)
The beast with two backs, maybe ;-)
I wouldn't dare have a pop at you, mojoworking, what follows is more of a general comment:
I contest that New Zealanders don't say "sex", instead of "six". They say "six". Further, kiwis do not say "fush and chups". They say "fish and chips".
I suspect that this perception comes from the many Australians who routinely say things like "siiiiix" and "fiiiish and chiiiips".
So when those Australians mock the kiwi accent in this way, essentially they are drawing attention to their own propensity to say words in a funny way.
AN accent it would seem
is how other people speak
Speaking as an Englishman
adrift in Australia, please be my guest and feel free to mock the Aussie accent to your heart's content ;-)
No but
No Jeremy Kyle, but Kyle Sandilands
No Richard Littlejohn, but Alan Jones, Piers Akerman etc
I could go on ...
Brisbane Massive
The queue for a Brisbane Word Massive has started.
Where are you?
I live in the western suburbs, work in Eight Mile Plains, and am often in the CBD / South Bank / West End at weekends.
(I'll be at the Zen Zen Zo show (Emma Dean) at The Old Museum on Saturday night.)
I'm in Highvale
out past Samford and work from home, but I'm frequently in the Western Suburbs.
Well that's three then
Can I recommend Egg Records in Queen Street mall, they even had the famous Electrif Lycanthrope on Vinyl a couple of months back.
I'm on The Sunshine Coast
At Sippy Downs so if you fancy a pint in the Ettamogah boozer