Bad Things Australia has given the World - Part 1

Baby Talk
Australia is a young country, at least in so far as it’s structured now. I’m not as read up on techronics as I used to be, so maybe the physical island has been around as long as the rest of the world. And I know that the indigenous people have been around since the beginning of time (although I like to think that they turned up 10 minutes before Captain Cook and then did all those cave paintings to piss off the white people).

But the modern culture of Australia has only been around for 150 years or so. So in world terms it’s only a child, at least in the minds of smug Europeans like me. So it’s not surprising that Australia’s slant on the English language should have junior overtones.

I think the last time I heard “ie” at the end of so many words, was when I leaned into my then two year old sister’s cot and asked “would you like your dollie or your teddie?”. I thought of this today when I sat in a meeting of senior bankers and one of them said “I was talking to a bankie over at Statestreet and he said they had so many tinnies last Friday that they got messy and caused a fire in a binnie that meant that they had to call the firies”.

I’ve never been called a bankie before and to me at least it conjured up images of four year olds sitting round a board table in pinstripe suits, discussing the global credit crunch while playing with lego. But firies sums up the problem best. I don’t like to preach (well actually I do have a desire to frock up and talk about hell and damnation) but reducing language to baby talk means that people take what you say less seriously. Which probably explains why Australian diplomats (or dippies as I’m sure they are called) don’t get much of a look in at the United Nations.

Sometimes I feel that Ireland and Australia are two countries separated by a common language, although as I was once a four year old, I find it easy enough to keep up with the local brogue. I’m still struggling to understand what “fair dinkum” actually means though. And you’d be amazed how often I hear it.

Drive in Bottle Shops

Beer is a large and welcome part of Australian culture. It’s been a large part of my culture too as my belly would testify and I’m happy to say that it’s easily accessible. The State Government recently brought in a by-law that says that if you’re in a bar at 2am and want to carry on drinking, you’ll be locked in, because you won’t be able to get into another bar after that time. This led to howls of protest and in what is becoming a Melbourne tradition, a sit down demonstration at Fed Square. Now if you suggested to my mates back home that they’d be locked into a pub at 2am if they wanted to keep drinking, then they would have called their children after the State Premier and not damned him.

Drink driving is frowned upon in Australia as it is in most of the civilised world (Luxembourg being a dishonourable exception in my experience). Nevertheless when you escape the City limits and get into the countryside (or bush as the Australians like to call it in their reductive baby tongue) you will occasionally pass a Utility Vehicle (or Ute as they are universally called here) driven by a deep tanned farmer clutching a stubbie of Victorian Bitter. A stubbie is a bottle by the way. See I’m starting to get caught up in the “ie” mania now.

But what really surprises me about beer accessibility here is the number of drive through bottle shops. Call me old fashioned if you like, but the less connection between alcohol and driving there is the better. It places too much temptation in the hearts of drivers when a six pack is placed on the passenger seat beside them to accompany them on the trip home.

Even if I’m not going to drink the beer immediately, I still feel uncomfortable driving into one of these places. Buying alcohol should be shrouded in guilt and secrecy, which is why it is generally provided in a non-descript brown paper bag. Driving into a bottle shop, popping the boot and telling the attendant to drop a slab in there just doesn’t seem right. It’s too casual for what should be a serious business and too easy for that matter. Beer should be something you have to work for.

The other problem these shrines to sloth present is that they kind of require you to have a car. I have a drive through 50 metres from my front door, so if I’m thirsty it’s difficult to justify nipping down to the garage to pick up the Golf. So I turned up last week on foot, only to find myself third in the queue behind a Volvo 70 and a BMW. Soon a Ford Focus turned up and stopped just behind me. It’s strange how exposed you feel when you’re 3rd in a line of 4 cars, but you’re missing the protective metal exterior. I felt inferior and vulnerable but at the same time unable to come up with an embarrassment free means of jumping the queue. This place belongs to cars and I was an interloper. I meekly asked for a six pack of Coopers Pale Ale and slouched out. Fifty meters or not, the Golf is coming out of the garage next time I have to make that trip.

I’ve been here for over a year now and though I’ve racked my brains, I can only think of these two things that have annoyed me. Mostly it’s sunshine and avocado on Turkish bread toast. Mind you if Cadel Evans had won the Tour de France this week, it may have unleashed another element of Australian culture that annoys me. Their reaction when Australian sports people win on the world stage. Thankfully it didn’t happen but something tells me that I’ll be writing about the Olympics in a few weeks.

The Pope in Australia

You gotta love the Pope. And not just because God tells you to. What
other 81 year old man would lecture the world on climate change while
flying in his personal Boeing 777 at 40,000 feet?

He told Catholics it was their spiritual duty to save the planet. He did this while speaking to 500,000 young people that he had asked to fly half way round the world. But Popes are like that. Hypocrisy is not mentioned in the 10 Commandants or the seven deadly sins for that matter. So it's ok for them to talk about poverty while living in a palace in Rome. Or to ban woman from spiritual positions within the
church and then make all the priests and bishops wear dresses.

But despite his hypocrisy, I kind of like this Pope. And I don't say
that about many ex members of Hitler Youth. I first took an interest in
him when he managed to offend the Muslim world by suggesting that
Islam was a war hungry religion. I didn't agree with everything he
said,but I had to admire the man for having the nerve to say it.
And he threw in a few historical facts which always tickles me.

I've followed his musings since. His style tends to mimic this blog in
that he seems to write about whatever comes into his head, from the
environment to the impact of sport on modern life. He tends to use
bigger words however and he's a little bit too fond of using Latin for
my liking.

He does get condemned for being too conservative of course. But
then again, he is the Pope. So what do people expect? I've never
understood this criticism. It's a bit like attacking Santa
because he's too fond of Christmas, the Chairman of IBM for being
too capitalist or Fidel Castro for being too socialist. Does anyone
really expect the Pope to don a Palestinian scarf and whistle and
parade through the streets demanding abortion rights or contraception?

I'm as liberal as the guru in a hippy campsite, but even I would
want the Pope to be conservative. We need some permanency in a
world of change. A reference point in these conscience addling times.

Catholicism is an inspirational religion after all. We are born sinners
and can reach redemption through improving on that position. We are
not supposed to be perfect and while we suffer from Catholic guilt
in other respects, being a sinner doesn't keep us awake at night.
The Pope sets down a moral roadmap but we don't have to follow it.

That's why even devout Catholics can use contraception or get
divorced.Christ died for our sins after all, so if we didn't sin,
the poor man would have died for nothing.

And I wonder why the poor old Pope always gets stick for his
moral positions, whereas no other religious leader gets the same
hard time? Nobody ever asks the Dali Lama why all Buddhist monks
are men. I've never seen the Chief Rabbi asked to justify cutting
off bits of baby's willies, or the Archbishop of Canterbury asked
to explain the inclusion of Anglican Bishops in the upper house
of the British parliament.

But the media, most of whom one presumes are non-Catholics,
delight in penning opinion pieces on everything they think the Pope
should say or do, from the Venezuelan political situation to female
circumcision in Africa. Perhaps they think the Pope still has some
influence in these matters. That he just has to click his fingers
and the Kings and Princes of the world will fall into line, as
though we still lived in pre-Lutheran times.

The truth is that the Pope has very little influence, even amongst
devout Catholics. Back when Ireland had 95% mass attendance, we
still had enough sins to justify pitching up at confession every
fortnight to pour out our indiscretions to an unshaven, whiskey
breathing paedophile on the other side of the grill.

B16, as the latest Holy Emperor of Rome is called among the yoof,
is in Australia this week for World Youth Day. Youth is a bit of
a misnomer as at 81, the Pope won't even be the oldest there.
And it's running for a week which makes one wonder where the word
"day" comes from.

Needless to say this has brought out the rent a mob protest groups,
including one called "No to the Pope" which plans to hand out
condoms outside the papal events. If anything demonstrates the
media's exaggeration of the Pope's influence in the world, it is
this issue. The protestors believe that B16's position on condoms
is helping spread Aids in Africa because he's encouraging people
to engage in unprotected sex with strangers. When the truth is that
the only Africans who would listen to the Pope's message are the
sort of people who don't engage in sex with strangers in the first
place.

The church's position should be to promote morality, even if this
flies in the face of reality. It's similar to the position the
Health Service is in regarding healthy lifestyle. It's clearly
better if people don't smoke. But reality tells us that people will.
In this case, it's better if people smoke low tar cigarettes,
but you don't see the Health Minister handing these out to party
goers.

If you don’t agree with the Church’s message, the easiest thing to do
of course is to ignore it. I took this route years ago when I stopped
going to mass and found myself engaging in many acts that the
mother church would consider to be sinful (but the less said about
that the better). So perhaps I’m following the Pope’s lead in
wallowing in hypocrisy. Maybe I’ll get to chat to him about it
when he’s next in Australia.

In the meantime I’ll search for God in all the small places. I looked for
him today in the closing moments of the Carlton v Sydney game.
Unfortunately, it’s clear that the devil controls football matches.

Adventures in the South Pacific - Part 2

James Michener wrote the book upon which "South Pacific' was based while living in Vanuatu (or New Hebrides as it was known when the English ruled and were shockingly bad at coming up with original names for places). It's not hard to see how his imagination was fueled. The country still has the feel of a 1950's Hollywood epic, bathed in glorious Technicolor and full of characters from central casting.

I'm not sure if Michener ever made it to Tanna, but the world of grass skirts and smiling children that he created still lives there. Tanna means "Earth" in Melanesian and it's easy to see how they came up with that name. For it contains all the primal characteristics of God's original creation before it became tainted by the hand of man. Dense jungle opens up to expansive plains upon which wild horses roam. Coral reefs gave way to the might of the Pacific and best of all; Volcanoes erupt every minute to create scenes straight out of Dante's Inferno.

Tanna really is as authentic as Island life gets. People still live in houses made of materials gathered from the nearest banana tree and when it rains they find a wild Pandanas plant and pluck one of its massive leaves. They then use this as an umbrella, like some character out of middle earth.

Everyone who comes here has one common objective and that is to see the Mount Yasur volcano. And having seen it, I'd recommend that everyone does before they die. I'm a cynical old traveler and I'm rarely in awe of new sights. I think the last time I stood open mouthed before a new location was back in April 1998, when I came around a corner on the freeway into New York and saw the skyscrapers of Manhattan for the first time.

Mount Yasur had a similar affect on me, jaw dropping amazement at one of the earth's truly great wonders. They call it the most accessible volcano in the world and its only after you've been there and back that you realise they are talking about how close you can get to the plasma spewing vents and not the trip. Because accessible is a word I'd use for that trip like I'd use the word enjoyable for reading the death notices in the paper.

I guess they'd call it an off-road safari, but that suggests that Tanna has roads for you to be off. It has a collection of mud paths which in rain (as happened on our trip) turn into a lottery of potholes and furrows that would scare the suspension of a Sherman tank.

We embarked on the open back of a four by four truck. Sami, our driver seemed to using the occasion to practice for the World Rally Championships as we set off at mad pace into the mountains. Initially the road was just bumpy as we sped past villages of smiling children that ran alongside our truck like exuberant Catholics chasing the Pope mobile. But gradually the path disintegrated into a mass of mud and rocks and we were flung around the back like bingo balls. As we climbed into the hills the rain came and the patched up tarpaulin above us started to give way. Water started to pour in so that instead of bingo balls, we started to resemble rag dolls in a washing machine.

The jungle grew thicker around us as our truck fishtailed its way along the muddy paths. I began to wonder if we were part of the set for the next Indiana Jones movie and Harrison Ford was about to swing into the back of the truck from a secret diamond mine inside an ancient Aztec tomb behind the tree line.

He didn't turn up, so Sami the driver had to take the part of the action hero. Rivers appear like rainbows here when the rains come and Sami had to navigate a few on the way up. I figured we were wet enough already do I wasn't too concerned. But Sami seemed to enjoy it and I figured that's all that matters.

Once we made it to the top, the ride up suddenly seemed irrelevant. We walked the last 100 meters to the lip of the volcano and the roar from the centre of the earth told us that Yasur was home. For the next hour we were treated to a cocktail of sound and light that was like the 1812 overture as written by Thor.

Every ten minutes or so, the mountain would rumble in preparation for the big event. Then the fissure would glow even brighter before exploding tons of molten rock hundreds of meters into the air. Sami told us not to worry because most of them would fall short of where we were standing. The word "most" concerned me. It was like standing before a firing squad and being told not to worry because most of the bullets would miss.

I passed on my concerns to Sami and he explained that if a five ton rock was heading in our direction we shouldn't run. It was dark and the ground was covered in debris from previous rocks that had fallen in that area (a fact in itself that did not inspire confidence) and we would break our necks in the process. He suggested that we merely take a step or two to the right. I got the feeling Sami was a little fed up being asked that question. So I decided not to worry and to just enjoy the show.

The trip back was almost as much fun. The river we had struggled across on the way up was now twice as high and Sami hooked up with another driver to get both trucks across. Then, for reasons known only to themselves, they decided to race each other down the mountain in the pitch dark. I guess they get bored doing the same drive every day.

But do it once and boredom will be the last thing on your mind.

Adventures in The South Pacific -Part 1

What would happen if an Englishman married a French woman? Well, there would be a few arguments over which language to speak so they’d probably settle for a phonetic compromise of the two. The food would obviously be cooked by the French as the English have a short and non illustrious history in the cuisine department.

The Administration of the house would however be left to the Pom as the French would be too emotional to organise anything.

That’s pretty much how Vanuatu has ended up. A marriage of compromise between the English and French that led to the original natives trying to make their own way in the world while taking the best from their colonial ancestors.

There aren’t many examples of the English and French working well together (two world wars notwithstanding) but they tried it in Vanuatu. From 1906 to 1980, the country was run as a joint French and English administration. But like a moody couple, they rarely talked and the result was chaos. There were two Police forces who ended up arresting each other on occasion, two jails and two education systems (the dual school system survives to this day). But Ni-Vans (as the locals are known) are a happy lot and they learned to adapt. They’d steal in the French part of town because if they were caught they’d be guaranteed better food in the French jail. But if they got sick, they’d be wheeled over to the English side of town where the hospital was better.

In 1980, the French and English realised what a stupid idea this was and they handed the keys back to the locals. And the locals seem to be having a party ever since.

It’s hard to describe how happy Vanuatu is. The only time they stop smiling is when they’re laughing. It’s infectious and you end up smiling too. You end up walking around like a lunatic on Prozac saying hello to everyone you meet. It’s like they’ve been let in on God’s big joke. He set the world up so that billions of us would live in a rat race chasing material wealth and Plasma TVs. We depress ourselves in the process and live lives of quiet desperation with our heads bowed to the outside world.

Ni-Vans on the other hand, only want a few pigs and some decent coconuts. And luckily both are in abundance. It’s easy to be patronising about an indigenous culture but I challenge anyone to come to Vanuatu and not have your heart lifted by the sheer joy of the locals.

For example, I went on a mountain bike expedition last Wednesday. It was a vain attempt to show my ageing body that there was life in the old dog yet. I did OK, until I faced a rocky climb with a 1 in 3 inclination and treacherous mud to boot. I dropped the bike into its lowest gear and inched forward with every turn of the wheel an agonising challenge. Suddenly from behind I heard laughter. I looked over my shoulder and saw that an open backed four wheel drive truck was following me up the hill. It seemed to be acting as a makeshift school bus because twelve kids stood in the back in pristine uniforms.

The truck slowed behind me as the kids ran to the front to see a red faced panting Irishman struggle to haul himself up the hill. In unison they howled with laughter and fell around the truck holding their sides and bending over with pain. For a moment I was hurt, my fragile pride dented by a group of nine year olds. Then I saw the joke, a representative of the race that had lorded over them for centuries struggling to make it up a hill, while they sailed by in their Toyota Hilux. I laughed too, happy that I had at least brought some joy to their afternoon.

I’m tempted to say that Ni-Vans have everything they want in coconuts, bananas and bounty from the sea, but of course the Western world has dangled its temptations before them and not surprisingly even the Ni-Vans are taking a nibble. Mobile phones are the most obvious sign of encroachment. Our visit coincided with the launch of Digicel, the first independent mobile phone provider in these islands.

Digicel is of course owned by Irishman Denis O’Brien, a philanthropist and tax dodger who was very low in my estimation until he agreed to pay the salary of the Ireland Football manager. His business model appears to be based on targeting the smaller markets that Vodafone and the 3 Network don’t bother with. He seems to have most of the Caribbean islands wrapped up, so he’s dipping his toes in the warm waters of the South Pacific.

To launch the service on Wednesday, Digicel planned a day of free music and fireworks. The music was reggae which surprised me. Perhaps Denis had a few tapes left over from his Jamaica launch or maybe it’s just the global choice of island people throughout the world. The fireworks were magnificent and exuberant and seemed to fit perfectly with the mood of the island.

But more importantly they had an attractive mobile phone offer. They sold phones for 1,500 Vatu (about $18) on launch day which is about one tenth of the cost of the previous provider. Ni-Vans queued for hours to get their first slice of western consumerism. The police were on hand to ensure that Capitalism’s grubby charade passed off safely.

They came out smiling even more than they normally do, clutching their electronic umbilical cord to the mother ship that is the outside world.

We did a tour of the island of Efate and it doesn’t take long before the outside world disappears. The sealed road finishes at the edge of Port Villa, the island’s only real town and dirt roads lead you to a land of grass skirts and naked children running excitedly to wave to your passing vehicle. Women in Mother Hubbard dresses stand at the roadside selling vegetables that are mud encrusted with lush volcanic soil.

These villages are electricity free, most don’t have running water and the locals are so indigenous they don’t even wear counterfeit premiership football shirts. Yet in every village one grass hut would be designated as a shop by virtue of a red and white sign that said “Top up Digicel Here”. In a country with so little electricity you wondered what they’d do when they first had to recharge their new phone. I’m sure Denis O’Brien has a money making scheme in mind for that too.

This is no Country for Young Men

Grant was fed up with Wellington and he was leaving. He just hadn’t figured out where to yet. Maybe Sydney because a mate of his had a sofa that he could borrow for a couple of weeks or perhaps Melbourne because he heard that the climate there was a lot like home.

He wanted to get to London eventually to lose himself in the Kiwi Diaspora on Earls Court Road and to drink Steinlager every Friday night in Soho’s Downunder Bar. He wasn’t great on specifics but he knew he wanted out. He had just quit his job in ANZ that afternoon and I stumbled drunkenly into his leaving party.

It was in the Malthouse on Wellington’s desperately trying to be trendy Courtney Place. My sister and I had gone there because the beers were exotic but more importantly because the pub shared it’s name with our Dad’s local back in Ireland. And when you are many miles from home, little moments of serendipity like that can heal the torment of an exile’s soul.

Grant seemed to be leaving a damned good job, but was also turning his back on the country that I long considered to be paradise on earth. What followed was a strange conversation. He, the young Kiwi, slagging off his country as a land of babies and old men and me the occasional visitor, extolling it’s virtues like some sad presenter on a TV Travel show.

“But you live in paradise” I pleaded as I desperately clung to validation of my life long obsession with the land of the long white cloud. “It has peeks as glorious as the Alps, raging torrents that thunder into the sea and all the beauty of the world crammed into one small country like God’s show room.

“And over here we have our new range of Fjords. Also available in Norwegian Blue.”

I ranted on for twenty minutes or so until I found myself remembering an Uncle from Boston. He visited Ireland every couple of years in the 70’s and 80’s and never tired of telling us what a wonderful country we lived in, with it’s thatched cottages and slow burning green melting down to the sea. As a ten year old I always thought he was describing somewhere else. My world was grey streets coated with a daily downpour and jam sandwiches for tea every night for years.

I wondered why he didn’t move back to Ireland if he thought it was so wonderful. I soon realised that he was only interested in a holiday destination. A childlike bolt hole that he could disappear to every couple of years when the rat race of American life became too much for him. He wanted Ireland to be frozen in time, so that like Narnia, he could step through a wardrobe and find himself back in his childhood. But in the end, he would always go back to the real world.

In the 1990’s Ireland embraced the Celtic Tiger, as we silently signed up to be the 51st State of the USA. The thatched cottages disappeared, to be replaced by drive thru McDonalds and Krispy Kreme donut stores. My uncle no longer visited. Narnia no longer existed.

I wandered if I was becoming like my uncle and New Zealand was becoming my Narnia. Great to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. So I wanted to hear Grant’s story.

“It’s a great place to grow up” he said. “You’ve got all this nature around you and it doesn’t bite you and burn you like some places do.” Kiwis can’t resist a dig at Australia every chance they get. “We have a Scottish Presbyterian work ethic mixed with a South Pacific joy of life, which means we work hard at getting what we want but when we do, we know how to enjoy it. The problems come when you get older. Maps of the world don’t help. They show New Zealand in the bottom right hand corner like the runt of the litter desperately chasing its mother’s tit. We feel cut off and isolated from the party the rest of the world seems to be having.

People seem to forget that our grandfathers were brave explorers who fearlessly set out to discover the other side of the world. Why should people be surprised when we feel the same?

And if you’re ambitious at work, you have to do a stint overseas. It’s like being an apprentice. I’m jacked off with going for promotions at work, only to lose out to some guy who did ten years in London but wants to move home so that he can send his kids to a Kiwi school.”

“So what’s your solution?” I said. “You can’t have a country with nobody between the age of twenty and thirty. That’s the decade of adventure and romance”.

“We could sell ourselves to the global market, use our time zone advantage to offer global financial services. We could offer tax incentives to create a world beating pharmaceutical industry and target high value electronic goods. We’re an English speaking, well educated country with easy access to the Asian Markets.

We need to open up to migration and increase our population to six million to create a viable internal market.”

I thought of my uncle and his biannual search for Narnia and how I see New Zealand as that perfect unspoilt paradise. I felt guilty that I wanted to keep it that way, even if it meant that the likes of Grant had to do a ten year sabbatical in a foreign country.

But I’m a Catholic and guilt is something I learned to ignore years ago.

“Go to London” I said. “You’ll have a great time and come back a better person. I can even let you know about a pub in Earls Court that Irish nurses go to every Friday night.” His eyes lit up and he said he’d give it a try for a few years anyway. I relaxed and ordered another round of Monteiths. My Narnia was safe, for another few chapters at least.