The strange incident of the drunken Aussie in the night

It was the Garden of the Golden Apples
A half-way house where we had stopped a day
Before we took the west road to Australia
Where the sun was always setting on our play.

(with apologies to Patrick Kavanagh)

Singapore is a half-way house. It sets itself up as a transit point and an introduction to Asia. Some people call it "Asia Light" but I think this is unfair. It doesn't have open sewers running through the streets or emaciated waifs tugging at your Billabong T-Shirt and fumbling for your poorly concealed money-belt. But if that is "Real Asia", I'll take the curry of Little India and the Tiger Beer of Boat Quay anytime.

Singapore has also set itself up as a microcosm of what the globalised world will look like when Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates finally complete their evil plan. In a Chinese restaurant on Orchard Road, you can find an Indian guy gazing into the eyes of an Indonesian girl while sipping Australian Chardonnay and ordering their Irish coffees.

Yes, we Irish have also sold our soul to the whore of globalisation in the drive to turn the world into one big homogenised village. Walk into any bordello or speakeasy on this lonely planet and they'll offer you Baileys Irish cream poured over bacteria infested ice or Guinness mixed with a local sweetener to sooth the bitterness of the River Liffey to local palettes. And all the while, the dulcet tones of Enya will fill the background so that if you close your eyes, you won't know if you're in Dundalk, Dubrovnik or Delhi. Only the outside temperature will give you a clue as to where you are. And big business is doing it's best to control that as well.

I've always liked Singapore, mainly because of the food you can get there (which can neatly be described as any food you like) and the shameless pursuit of materialism which allows you to have any new gadget within 24 hours of it being pushed off the assembly line by an 8 year old in Cambodia. But mostly I like it because fat blokes like me are held in high esteem. Extra weight is considered a sign of wealth and nobility in Asia. You never see a skinny statue of Buddha for example. My resemblance to Buddha perhaps explains why so many Asian girls come up to me and rub my stomach (and there was me thinking I was attractive!). So I can stroll around in my baggy shorts, milk-white legs and beetroot head exposed to the elements and not receive the looks of derision that may arise on say Grafton Street.

I'd hoped to have a day and half in Singapore, but Singapore Airlines stole most of that. So I was left with 10 hours to kill. Luckily, Singapore Airport is perfectly geared up for this of thing. They offer showers and a quick massage (if you're that way inclined) and a shuttle into the City. I met a few mates for a couple of seriously expensive beers and a seriously cheap Indian. The Ying-yang of life as they say in Asia or the commingling of roundabouts and swings as they say in Ireland.

Then it was back to the Airport and a night flight to Sydney. My flight from London was packed with middle aged Kiwis. They had finished their 4 week tour of 17 European countries and used the 14 hour flight to relive memories of rain in Venice, food poisoning in Spain and the time they lost their wallet and dignity to a 12 year old Algerian under the Eiffel Tower. I felt like Saddam’s ambassador to the United Nations as I fruitlessly attempted to defend an entire continent. One that I too had decided to abandon.

Keen as I am to reduce entire nations to cultural stereo-types, can I say that all Kiwis are thoroughly decent and friendly people. And Aussies aren’t. It’s a bit unfair maybe and it may have something to do with the lateness of the flight. But the Singapore to Sydney leg was full of middle aged Australians determined to re-enforce stereo-types I had about their country. I sat beside a couple from Sydney. They didn’t bother to ask my name and I returned the compliment. So let’s call them Doug and Sheila. When I mentioned that I was from Ireland, Sheila’s friendly response was that the Irish were piss-heads who liked only one thing more than drinking and that was fighting with each other when they were drunk. She noticed a slightly hurt look on my face so in an effort to placate me she said “I suppose the Scottish are just as bad”. I nodded sagely and said we’d have a lot of work to do to catch up the Aussies. She was shocked, so I said “Well you know in the rest of World, the Aussies are considered massive beer vultures. Anyone who has seen them at the Munich beer festival would deduce that they are only race on earth who considers beer to be more important than oxegen”. Doug nodded and said “I suppose you’re right” and I couldn’t help but notice a glint of National Pride in his eye.

During the six and half hour flight to Sydney (which most of us slept through) Doug and Shelia got through 12 beers each. I just hate it when my dearly held stereo-types are destroyed before my eyes.

And so to Sydney, the City that God would have designed if he’d gone into Architecture and not theology. The man who killed my mojo wasn’t waiting for me at the airport but my sister was. And that’s the next best thing.