Australia

[hobbes]

Australia

Too many things that kill you and there's no way in the world I'm sitting on a plane for 24 hours. I'd go postal.

I'd possibly go to New Zealand - by boat of course. Or if you sedated me for the entire flight. But it seems an awfully long way to go for stuff I can basically get in Europe.
I like a comparable number of the Australians I've met to the number of other nationalities and I'm sure it's a lovely place. But still, spiders.

I've no desire to go to the far east either, if that's any consolation.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

Some friends of mine are there at present and keep sending me pictures, in which they look like they're having a whale of a time.

To them, I say thus: BASTARDS.

But yeah, those spiders. I wouldn't be able to relax.

[trimster]

Australia

Why does everyone keep going on about spiders? I've never been bitten by one and I've lived here most of my life..

[hobbes]

Australia

Have you seen any? That would be equally fatal to me.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

All those stories Sits relates about walking into webs over the door, finding spiders under the dustbin lid......fuck that for a lark.

It's bad enough when those things happen to me here; if there was a chance that one of those bastards was poisonous I'd spend my life hyperventilating.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

Oh, and before anyone does it, no pictures.

[hobbes]

Australia

Seconded. Seriously. No pictures.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Australia

Duncan Gardner wrote: My mate was interviewed by an immigration officer at Mascot Airport.

"Excuse me Sir, do you have a criminal record?"

"Sorry, I didn't realise it was still compulsory..."

Yes, then there is that. If anything ever was ironic...
I've watched that reality show a few times, the one about an airport in Australia and how customs there work. Christ I've wanted to run a bulldozer through it. People travel for 20 hours and upon arrival they're (some) interrogated for a couple of hours.
- What is the purpose of your visit?
- Just see the country
- What are you here to see?
- I don't know, just visit the country
- Hmm... that's a bit odd
No it's not you moron, not all people travel there to take a bloody selfie in front of your crazy shaped opera house!

I do see the point with some of it and they probably do catch a few here and there but the level of intimidation. You want to shout at them: How the fuck did your ancestors arrive here?

There was one about a black guy from England who visited to see his newborn child whom he'd never seen. He was held for hours because he was a musician. They were "worried" he would stay and work. Well, Australia, you could do with a few more good singers. It's not like they're filling the charts.

Actually, I don't know that many so you can fill me in. There's Kylie, Donovan, the strangle-wanker from INXS, AC/DC or course, who else?

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

Erm......Nick Cave, as a remarkably obvious and straightforward one straight off the top of my head.

Men at Work?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Australia

What about gifs?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Australia

ad hoc wrote:

20-30 years ago it was where everyone dreamt to go. It was Eldorado, Utopia, Samarkand, Paradise, Jerusalem and Klondike of the soul all wrapped into one.

I can only imagine this was a Croat thing.

Very much so. When my father fled Yugoslavia he did so with three mates. They split up in Paris. One stayed in France, one took off to Australia, my father and a mate headed for Sweden. Leaving Paris he regretted, Australia was what exited him the most. 20 years after they split up he managed to find his mates phone number and called him up. He would do so every six months, just to hear about the country and the Croatian community. They phone bill was massive.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: What about gifs?

I liked their early stuff.

[via vicaria]

Australia

hobbes wrote: But it seems an awfully long way to go for stuff I can basically get in Europe.

I've been a few times (I have a sister, a nephew & a niece there) and this is still my issue. When I sit on two or three planes over a course of 24 hours or so, like Bill Bryson said in his book: I expect to see something deliriously exotic at the end. Instead it's like a more friendly version of England. Everyone drives on the correct side of the road though, so that's good.

Having said that I really like it there, and had I been able to convince my partner, I'd have probably gone myself (I should say my view is based mostly on Victoria). Although the heat is trying; was there for the Aussie Open last Jan, and temps in the mid-40s centigrade really weren't fun

ed: also, just on PPV's point: the only two times I've caught a cab in Oz, the drivers were Croats. One really did not like Montenegrins.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Australia

trimster wrote: Why does everyone keep going on about spiders? I've never been bitten by one and I've lived here most of my life..

It's one thing becoming used to it over years, another to enter as a tourist. People who have lived in Australia for years are like people in Syria or North Korea. For us to be thrown into that life, we would go mad. The ones who live there, they have found a way to mentally cope with it by not thinking about it constantly, or they would go mad out of depression.

I wouldn't be able to put on a pair of shoes in Australia without beating the top against the floor as to shake out anything in there. And then when I have done so I'd think:
- Now I only made the huge fucker sleeping in there wake up and be mad with rage, out on a vengance.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Australia

Toby Gymshorts wrote: Oh, and before anyone does it, no pictures.

I know which Frank Marshall DVD to buy you for next Christmas.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Australia

via vicaria wrote:
ed: also, just on PPV's point: the only two times I've caught a cab in Oz, the drivers were Croats. One really did not like Montenegrins.

Croats in Australia seem especially crazy. As if we're not crazy enough overall they add a notch. If I've met looney nationalistic get-real-idiot-it's-not-world war 2-anymore-morons here, they seem nationalistic in a "special" way. Like some inferiority complex because they're so far away from the old country. What with the Croatian football fans getting into fight with Serbian, in Australia, playing a huge part in Australian FA banning national names attached to football clubs.

They have, however, done a great deal to develop football in Australia. Or am I wrong? Loads of "croatian" players in the national side throughout the years.

(Berba, you can bring up Bosnich now)

[hobbes]

Australia

Although the heat is trying; was there for the Aussie Open last Jan, and temps in the mid-40s centigrade really weren't fun

See the weather is the thing I could cope with most. I fucking hate 6 out of 12 months in the UK. Cold, wet, grey and miserable.
If I had a facility for languages I'd definitely go and live somewhere more temperate. Unfortunately, the only English speaking countries are either colder than here (Canada, the good bits of the US, Scotland, Ireland) full of killer monster death spiders (Australia) too tiny and far away from our families (New Zealand) or have batshit politics (the rest of the US, Australia etc.)
I'd love to live in Seville or Granada or somewhere like that.

[Uncle Ethan]

Australia

Basildon with sun was the way a mate of a mate described Perth many years ago and he wasn't too far off.

Good people, bad people, same as anywhere else. More good people need to step up and start opposing the bad ones though.

Manic right wing government full of failed priests vs manic right wing government full of Old Etonians. Our PM is probably more of a monarchist than yours though.

As for music I'd recommend Paul Kelly, John Schumann/ Red Gum, Hoodoo Gurus, Silverchair, Midnight Oil, Crowded House (NZ might grab them though), Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, The Church, Powderfinger and Missy Higgins.

Convict jokes are still good for a laugh though - like the ones about Poms keeping their valuables hidden under the soap.

Did plenty of snorkelling at Coral Bay a few weeks back and managed not to get eaten.

[Uncle Ethan]

Australia

Sorry, just saw PPV query about football. Yes, Croatian clubs did massive amounts to develop the game in Australia.

Sadly, many have been marginalised by the decision to ban ethnic names and flags as part of the process of taking the game to the "mainstream".

[treibeis]

Australia

Toby Gymshorts wrote:

So, no, like Toby Gymshorts, I won't be going. I'm too scared.

Erm......what? I mean, you're right, but it was TonTon who mentioned it. Or is this from my references to spiders on threads passim?

Ah, apologies to both of you for not being able to read properly.

[trimster]

Australia

hobbes wrote: Have you seen any? That would be equally fatal to me.

If you know where the nasty ones hang out, you will never see any. Just don't go poking around in small holes at the bottom of the garden, or brush aside cobwebs in a remote corner of the toolshed...

I actually thought small blood sucking leaches called "ticks" were more of a menace than spiders on the North Shore of Sydney.

[trimster]

Australia

Uncle Ethan wrote: Sorry, just saw PPV query about football. Yes, Croatian clubs did massive amounts to develop the game in Australia.

Sadly, many have been marginalised by the decision to ban ethnic names and flags as part of the process of taking the game to the "mainstream".

Trouble with Croatian-Australians, they think they introduced football to Australia...

[Sits]

Australia

Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:

ed: also, just on PPV's point: the only two times I've caught a cab in Oz, the drivers were Croats. One really did not like Montenegrins.

Croats in Australia seem especially crazy. As if we're not crazy enough overall they add a notch. If I've met looney nationalistic get-real-idiot-it's-not-world war 2-anymore-morons here, they seem nationalistic in a "special" way. Like some inferiority complex because they're so far away from the old country. What with the Croatian football fans getting into fight with Serbian, in Australia, playing a huge part in Australian FA banning national names attached to football clubs.

They have, however, done a great deal to develop football in Australia. Or am I wrong? Loads of "croatian" players in the national side throughout the years.

(Berba, you can bring up Bosnich now)

All of the above. I used to play in a "social" over 35s comp on Sunday mornings in the Manly Warringah district (northern Sydney beaches area). There were two Serb teams and a Croat team.

Serb team (a): Narraweena - the originals
Serb team (b): Swans, who broke away from Narraweena after some sort of bust-up
Croat team: Dee Why United - there is a big Croat community in Dee Why.

I don't remember playing against Narraweena, apparently they were scary. I remember Swans being nicer. Now, Dee Why, my God that was something else. There were fights, spitting, swearing, massive disputes over ref calls (refs were players taking a rest, usually). There was a guy called Argo who was as mad as a cut snake. An absolutely unbelievable player, ex pro of some sort in his mid 50s but was seriously dangerous on the field.

Almost all of them were lovely guys off the pitch, including Argo. He hugged me once when I scored against them.

Actually I miss them

[Sits]

Australia

Toby Gymshorts wrote: All those stories Sits relates about walking into webs over the door, finding spiders under the dustbin lid......fuck that for a lark.

It's bad enough when those things happen to me here; if there was a chance that one of those bastards was poisonous I'd spend my life hyperventilating.

Now, let's see.

Walking into webs over the door
I know I've described blundering into webs across the front door in the morning, or across the pavement early in the morning sometimes. But those are just a pain in the arse, none of the dangerous spiders build webs like that.

Funnel_webs can't actually get off the ground, being "primitive" spiders. Redbacks are "nook and cranny" spiders. White-Tailed spiders like old clothes left lying around for too long - just don't leave clothes etc. lying around for too long. And the big Bird-Eating spiders are up in the Tropics, and I don't think any of those are actually dangerous.

The webs strung across paths and doorways are usually Garden Spiders, very similar to ones you get in Europe, and harmless.

Spiders under the dustbin lid
Have I actually said that? Maybe one Redback, somewhere in the mists of time. But to be honest the only times I have seen Redbacks, they haven't moved, have appeared more stunned than me, and have been very easy to dispatch.

And finally, for the record, no spider bite deaths in Australia since 1979.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Australia

'In 1979, no-one died...'

I realise my fear is irrational, but that's phobias for you. I don't like clowns or masks either, but there's nothing like the exquisite panic of coming face-to-eight-eyed-face with a spider. Particularly the bloody garden ones.

I also don't like oversized buttons, but I'm not sure that counts as a phobia. They just creep me out.