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.