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.

Rugby Smugby

We were 18-12 down with five minutes to play and on the attack. A converted try would put us ahead and better still leave Australia little time to come back at us. I was on the edge of my seat and so were the thousands of Irish fans around me.

Aine and Sinead sat directly behind and I had the pleasure of listening to the dull tones of their midland accent for most of the game. My accent recognition software has taken a bit of a battering since I came here, but I'd still put these girls within 12 miles of Clara, County Offaly. This was despite the fact that Sinead was wearing a fetching badge attached to her figure hugging Ireland Rugby Jersey (when did theystart making Rugby Shirts for women by the way) that said "I'm notIrish, but kiss me anyway".

Like me, Aine and Sinead were perched on the edge of their seats asBrian O'Driscoll intercepted a stray Australian pass and took off forthe corner. "It's coming, it's coming" Aine screamed and she edged forward on her seat. Then she was up and whooping. Unfortunately, it was not to celebrate a try but to take part in the Mexican wave that was just tsumaning it's way past our section of the Telstra Dome.

As the wave passed, Aine and Sinead sat back and followed its progress around the stadium. "It's dying" one of them whispered with a voice so sad you'd think she was talking about family members. Ireland were camped on the Australian try line at the time but Aine and Sinead didn't seem to notice. They were there for the occasion, an opportunity to take some pictures to add to their face book profile and the on-line album that would record their backpacking year out. Or maybe they heard that a Mexican wave contest was in town.

The reasons people go to Rugby matches are multitude, although watching Rugby seems well down the list. By the length of the queue at the bar, I'd say drinking is important and fancy dress is also becoming an important part of Irish days out, if the amount of leprechaun outfits is anything to go by.

I come to this issue with the missionary zeal of a recent convert. I came to Rugby late. The first game I went to was on November 2nd, 1991 at Twickenham. England were playing Australia for the William Webb Ellis trophy, or the World Cup as the Tabloids liked to call it.

I like to think that I started at the top, although my memories of the day aren't so noble. The rugby was pretty awful and the weather wasn't much better. I also felt guilty about the seven empty seats to my left, particularly when there wasn't another empty seat in the house. My ex-girlfriend had procured eleven tickets from her power broking father.We trawled through our friends and acquaintances and could only find two other people who were interested in going.

It's hard to believe now, but in the days before pay per view satellite TV, Rugby wasn't that popular. I worked in the Finance Department of a large Insurance Company and despite the fact that we had 42 thoroughly middle class Accountants, none of them wanted to go. Although the fact that we decided not to offer tickets to English people may have accounted for some of that number. And that's what I feel guilty about.

It would have been so much better to have seven English people sitting in those seats, if only so that I could take piss out of them when Australia won.

Like all new converts, I threw myself into the game with the enthusiasm of a ten year old. I schooled myself on the rules and personalities of Rugby, followed the annual parlour game of regulation changes and read all the analysis the media had to offer. And what does all this knowledge do for me? It allows me to be a smug bastard at Rugby matches and to sit in a minority of one.

Nobody understands Rugby. They don't know how forwards are supposed to bind in scrums, what constitutes a forward pass or how many points you get for a successful penalty goal. The scoreboard operator inMelbourne had this problem, which just goes to prove what an alien sport Rugby is in this City.

So I find myself in perfect isolation, screaming at the injustice of refereeing decisions or imploring our front row forwards to get off their backsides and push. This means that Rugby is a totally unhappy experience for me because Ireland aren't very good. I've watched them twice in eight days in two different countries, which almost qualifies me to be middle class. I just have to perfect my accent and develop a loathing for people on social welfare and I'm in. The highlight of both matches was a burger I got before the game in Wellington which put fastfood to shame and the halftime entertainment in Melbourne which consisted of two men racing each other around cones in what looked like12 feet tall inflated condoms.

The Rugby itself was a battle of eager amateurism against bored professionalism and on both weekends the boredom won. So I tucked away my Ireland Jersey on Sunday morning, resigned to the fact that sport is a cruel mistress. But like all good mistresses, sport teases you and then tempts you back with the promise of future redemption. So I settled down in front of the TV on Sunday to watch Carlton take on Collingwood in the AFL in a mood of hope rather than expectation.

Beating Collingwood is up there in my sporting priorities with Dundalk beating Drogheda, Wexford beating Kilkenny, Arsenal beating Man United and Ireland beating anyone in the top eight in Rugby. Carlton won by 30 points and my hero Setanta O’Hailpin had a fantastic match. The mistress of sport has once more tempted me into her bed. How long before I die between the jaws of lust again?

The Surly Dub and The Happy Culchie

I don’t know when it started. I guess it was the first Friday after one of my regular sojourns through the Southern Hemisphere. I would have met up with a few friends for some of Dublin’s finest Guinness in the small snug in the Palace Bar.

Their objective would have been to prove to the Department of Health that it wasn’t only pubescent teens that binge drank, but 30ish bankers as well. My intentions would have been to bore them with tales of sailing under crimson Tasman skies.

I don’t know when it started, but on one of those nights I’m sure that the exit strategy was hatched. The seed of my desire to move to the Antipathies was planted and it germinated in the nourishing nectar of Arthur Guinness’ finest.

My mate Baz was in on the plan early. He also felt the gravitational pull south and he also knew we needed a plan. As all of our discussions were held in pubs, I guess it’s not unusual that our plans centred on those sort of establishments.

Despite the fact that neither of us knew the first thing about it, our plan was to open a pub, Irish in character and physically situated somewhere between Sydney and Santiago.

I guess we figured that a pub was our ticket to financial security and an easy life. The fact that it would mean working till 4am most nights and would provide all the temptation we needed to become fully blown alcoholics seemed inconsequential to us. In our missionary zeal we felt it was our destiny as Irishmen abroad to run pubs and considered it a challenge to our personal pride that it would be the best damned Irish pub in the Southern Hemisphere.

We had both travelled extensively over the years and one of the things that troubled us as roving Irish ambassadors was the appalling state of Irish pubs around the world. We gave the gift of sociability to the people of the earth and seem to have forgotten that some gifts need to keep on giving.

We handed over the upkeep of Irish pubs to the corporate multinationals and get rich quick merchants and they turned them into a homogenised blob of shallowness. We Irish have long figured out that Irish pubs abroad are a double bogey. They steal from you the pleasure of enjoying a foreign experience while not quite making you feel at home either.

So Baz and I decided that we would head South and create an Irish pub that would be true to the traditions and glory of our heritage. A pub that would be simple and austere. A pub that concentrates on product and not presentation. On ambiance and not piped Pogues music. In short we wanted to do something that had never been done before. Run an Irish pub abroad that was just like an Irish pub back home.

Baz and I had pure thoughts. Each week after a few pints had loosened our imagination, we would perfect our plan. We worked through menus, music, signage, staff and all the other things required to a make a perfect public house. After a year or so, we could picture the pub in our heads. It would be called “The Surly Dub” in honour of Baz’s lineage and his pessimistic demeanour. When we did the cash-flows, we realised we needed extra revenue. So we updated our plans to include a nightclub down the back. I got the naming rights and being a cheerful country boy, I thought “The Happy Culchie” was appropriate.

Music would be banned unless it was live and we wouldn’t do food apart from toasted sandwiches and specially imported Tayto crisps and pink snacks. No Guinness posters would adorn our walls. We would have pictures of the Dowdallshill under 16 championship team of 1981 and perhaps a set list from the Lisdoonvarna festival of 1975.

There would be no road signs saying that it was 2 miles to Killarney along an unapproved B road, if for no other reason than it patently isn’t (are there any signposts left in Kerry by the way?). No copper kettles hanging from the wooden beamed rafters. No dark and pokey corners lit only by a small candle upon an empty whiskey barrel.

Corporate fascism seems to think that Irish pubs should look like sheebeens in kitchens of 19th Century peasant houses. Except for the food of course. Garlic bread and chicken nuggets weren’t common in the famine ravished kitchens of 19th Century Irish houses.

In fact Irish pubs look like the front room of a middle class family in the 1950’s on an evening when they’ve invited the neighbours around for a few drinks. Pubs should be bright and designed for conversation and not shouting. They should have Formica topped tables and odd sized stools and you should look at the walls because they are novel and not because they are covered with colourful animals being chased by Guinness workmen.

In the end, I took the easy option of a safe job in Australia and Baz wimped out. But every now and again when the smell of porter is caressing the air, my mind will wander to thoughts of the “The Surly Dub” and how much we would have charged for a pint of Harp Export. Imagine my disappointment then when I stumbled upon “The Drunken Poet” in Melbourne. It was as though its owner Siobhan had been eavesdropping on Baz and me all those years ago. Because God Damn it, she’s gone and designed exactly the pub we’d imagined. Right down to the pink snacks.

She has stolen my dream but I’m not bitter. Because I’ve finally found an Irish pub here that I’d be happy to frequent. The Guinness isn’t too bad either, which is not something I thought I’d find myself saying in this country. And maybe she has some room out the back and might be interested in a joint venture. The Happy Culchie might have a future yet.

The Kalgoolie Liberation Front

Succession plans are in the air this week. Will Tibet manage to sneak away from China while everyone is concentrating on the Olympics? Will
Burma succeed from the Alice in Wonderland existence it currently lives in and join the civilised world? And most importantly of all, will
Carlton's plans to dominate AFL over the next 10 years come to fruition.

Some plans have to be spoken of in more careful tones. The world is listening you know. Some computer buried deep inside a mountain in
Colorado is about to be triggered because I've used the words military takeover in a blog. You ask me why I'd do this if I know it's been monitored. I'd like to say that I'm pushing the boundaries of liberty. But the truth is, I'm
just desperate for more readers and the CIA will do. How's it going
guys? Have you found Osama yet?

Actually, if the CIA are reading this, I'd like to ask them a question.
When did conspiracy become a crime? When did two people just thinking
about something, become worthy of ten years in Federal Prison? A friend
of mine and myself use to plan the overthrow of the Irish Government and
the establishment of a 32 County Marxist Republic whenever we got drunk.
Little did we know that we were breaking several laws in countries that make
up the coalition of righteousness in the global war on terror.

But risk be damned, I'm going to launch a conspiracy anyway. There is
one great separation movement yet to be born. I call out to all free men
(and free women if they can take a break from running the world) to join
me in this great struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of material
gain. Together we can strike at the imperial heart of colonialism and
raise the flag of freedom above this parched and tortured land.

I present to you the Kalgoolie Liberation Front (Maoist wing). Join this
week and you get a free beret.

Let me try to explain the indignity and injustice that the good people
of Kalgoolie have had to ensure. There are 150 seats in the Australian
lower house. 149 of these are split between two thirds of the country.
The other one third of the land mass only gets one MP. You might think
this a little unfair until you realise that Kalgoolie only has 80,000
residents, despite covering 2.3m square kms.

It's basically Western Australia minus Perth. Stretching from the
Southern Ocean to the Indonesian straits with the Indian Ocean nestling
to the West. A land of desert and baking all year round sun. You'd
wonder how it can attract even 80,000 souls until you realise that what
lies below the desert is what counts.

Kalgoolie sits on a treasure chest of natural resources that are
the envy of the Industrial World. There is more gold than you could fit
on a rappers chest. More Iron Ore than you'd need to fill Shane
McGowan's teeth, more diamonds than would fit in Victoria Beckham's
belly button and more Uranium than Iran would ever need if was doing
what the yanks claim it is doing.

But the Kalgoolie Liberation Front won't mention any of this. We won't
mention the fact that succession will result in us becoming the third
richest country in the world by capita, or that cleaners can earn the
salaries of Wall Street Accountants in the mines of our fair land. Like
all good liberation movements, we'll play on the softer, more altruistic
reasons for our struggle. We don't want the world to turn against us when
we're fighting against the tyrants in Canberra (although the offer of
cheap Uranium should keep most of the world happy). We'll play on our
concerns for the local indigenous people whose lands we will continue
raping after we take over. We'll play on the lack of democracy and that
our one representative in Canberra is finding it difficult to arrange
parish hall clinics each weekend, given that his constituency is about
the size of Europe.

We do of course have the problem of Perth. This leeching excuse for a
City will become even more isolated once we obtain our independence. It
is already pretty isolated to be honest, perched as it is on the West
Coast of Australia. Once you leave the City boundaries, you'll drive
2,000 miles before you come to the next Krispy Kreme donut shop and
that's just not civilised.

The City appears to exist purely to profit from the resource boom of our
fair land of Kalgoolie. Which is why it is the favorite destination for
English and White South African settlers. They have a long history of
profiting from the labour of others. They will of course want to join us
in our independence struggle but we must fight this at all cost. That would
reduce our share of the pie substantially and would risk them wanting
to run things in the future. Democracy has failed Kalgoolie up till now.
Why would want to risk it in the future?

So our first task must be to build a strong border around the perimeter
of Perth and guard it with our lives. Or at least the lives of the
Kalgoolians we will conscript into our army. With a bit of luck, most of
them will be killed and we'll be left with just enough people to run the
mines and ourselves. We'll run the country from our embassy in
Melbourne, because it gets a bit hot in the homeland to be honest.

So come join the fight. As George Bush would say, you're either with us or
against us. Although it's fair to say that in this context there is also
the chance that you've never heard of us. We plan to strike during the
Olympics when the eyes of the world are on separatism in Tibet. And if
the CIA are listening, can we buy all our guns from you like Al Qaeda
did?

We won't make a crisis out of a drama

I studied "The Merchant of Venice" for me Intercourse. That was what we called the exams that you did at 15 in Ireland. It was the only intercourse I was getting at the time but that’s another story. I used to know that play off from beginning to end. I knew that Antonia fancied the arse off Bassanio (literally) and Portia was an early Kd Lang fan. At 15, the gay references in literature were very important to us for reasons that only Freud could decipher. However, I don't think I ever really analysed it the way I have "The Memory of Water". I've now seen MOW so many times, I'm having dreams about it and unfortunately they all involve coffins rather than the snogging scene.

I directed this play in Ireland in 2006 as a tribute to my dear old mum. I was very jealous of the cast back then as they get to burn brightly under the stage lights while the poor director bites his nails in the darkness of the auditorium.

It’s been my dream therefore to act in this play even though the male parts are the equivalent of the reproduction process. We’re there at the start, full of enthusiasm and energy and we turn up at the end for support. But we don’t really contribute much in between.

We've now finished our marathon 14 night run and I'm more exhausted than Warren Beatty's index finger. I really don't know how people act and hold down full time jobs here.

Drama has been a large part of my life since I first played a love hungry young farmer in 1993. I’ve performed with four different groups in three different countries but the most interesting thing I’ve found is the ability to compare this latest production to our humble production back in 2006.

Rehearsals were much more intense. I kind of wonder how my old group in Dublin can pull off such wonderful productions based on two nights a week for 9 weeks. They start at 8.15pm when everyone stops talking about the Hermes Bag they picked up in the Brown Thomas sale. Break at 9pm for tea and Jaffa cakes and a chat about Charles' dogs or the latest gay cowboy movie showing in the Multiplex. Start again at 9.30pm and finish at 10pm when Paul locks the doors.

In Melbourne, we did 7.30pm to 10.30pm twice a week with no break and then 2pm to 7pm every Sunday. In Dublin, the idea of warm ups was to lift four chairs and make a phony set. In Melbourne, vocal and physical warm up was obligatory. I can now say "I want a proper cup of coffee in a proper cup of coffee cup" while standing on one leg and turning my knee clockwise.

The lighting was fantastic and benefited from a fixed gantry and the lighting manager from the Melbourne Opera house doing some freelance work. There were 97 light and sound effects during the play which is about 95 more than we had. The overall effect was to have a floating bedroom slide into the sea. We had side curtains and a back screen that could take light changes and projection. I hate to say it but flats are very 1980's. My recommendation to Dublin would be to invest in some side curtains and a back canvas. Takes away all that painting fun but means that future Me’s don't have to climb ladders.

The acting was excellent as was the direction. It was a bit over the top though. The director came in at the interval and end of each production to give us notes. I also struggled with some of the voice direction. She wanted me to project from the stomach but with an inflection from the top of my head, as though I was smiling behind my eyes! I took this to mean shouting which came in handy when the air conditioning machines were turned on and the cockatoos started dancing on the tin roof. Not a problem we had to face in Dublin, it should be noted.

As with all groups, there are nice people that I would like to work with again and not so ni nice people. You meet a lot of pre-Madonnas in amateur drama. I was in a play in Dublin years ago, where I had to walk on at the end and execute the lead character. That’s all I did. I used to joke that "Lonely Hearts" was a tale about an executioner with some flash backs, but one of the girls in this play took “Me, me, me” to new levels. She told me the other night that I should take two steps back because she couldn't see Frank when he was speaking and she needed to see him to reply. I said "Have you tried acting?" and she hasn't spoken to me since.

The party was a damp squib, but then I am cursed to remember the Northbrook Hotel in the early years of the 21st Century and compare everything to it. John "Darcey" Glynn reciting "The Planters Daughter" to a trembling female audience, Charles and myself re-enacting act 2 of "Round and Round the Garden" while helping ourselves to beer from behind the bar. And stumbling out at 8.30am into a Dublin Sunday morning having drank ourselves sober. We’ll never see those days again.

We had the cast and crew party in the foyer. There were some nice presents, particularly for me. Nobody told me, but the tradition is for the cast to buy each other a present. So I got 5 presents and didn’t have to buy anything! Bonus. I was driving as we were out in the sticks. So I had one glass of wine and made my way home. No murdering of Leonard Cohen songs, no Waltzing Matilda with footnotes. No mad hooves galloping in the sky. But the weak, washy way of true tragedy.

At least I didn’t have to help with taking the stage down. I think I was supposed to, but I didn’t anyway. That’s one tradition I am taking from Dublin.

The audience loved the play. Said it’s the best piece of theatre they’ve seen etc. And it is. I hope the DVD will be out in time for Christmas!

The Great Ocean Road

Surely there is no greater contrast between safety and danger than that represented by the border of land and sea. On one side you can sip cocktails and enjoy the magnificent vista. Two meters away the sea can rage in God made fury and yet offer no threat unless you cross the threshold from terra firma to water.

The Great Ocean Road provides this contrast better than anywhere else on earth. The might of the Southern Ocean has been battering the land for millions of years and has created cliffs and coves that pockmark the coast like a broken saw.

And yet you can stand at the many well maintained viewing points and review in comfort the raging torrents below. It’s like standing on the edge of the world, but the world has you safely tucked in its arms.

There are many places in the world that have had the arrogance to place the word “Great” before their title. I think you should only be allowed to call yourself “Great Something” if a smaller version of yourself is close at hand. Such as Great Snufflebottom and Little Snufflebottom. But throwing a “Great” in just because you feel a bit up yourself is a different matter. Who decided that Britain was great for example? Great at invading other countries perhaps. I suspect it derives from a state of national insecurity, brought on from trying to convince the Scots and the Welsh that they weren’t really being annexed by England.

Australia seems to revel in the “Great” prefix. You have the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Dividing Range and the aforementioned Ocean Road. Their titles no doubt derive from the Australian requirement to be the best in the world at everything but I prefer to think that the names arose because Australia’s large Irish community would have been the first to witness these places.

I can picture a freckly red head with a pig under his arm. He’s just cut through the uncleared bush land of Western Victoria to reach the wild and untamed shore. As he stood upon the cliff top and admired the twelve limestone stacks that stood imperiously against the on-coming tide his face broke into a toothy grin and he exclaimed “Ah, sure that’s just Great”.

My other theory is that Australians like adding Great before place names because of their shocking lack of imagination when it comes to naming things. The Snowy Mountains, Snowy River, Blue Mountains and Mount Beauty suggest that poets were not included in the naming process. It seems more likely that it was left up to sheep farmers to do the business. Bruce would have turned to Dougy and said, “What’ll we call them Dougy? To which Dougy replied “Well it’s got lots of snow on it. We could call them the Incandescent Peaks of Celestial Majesty, but I can’t spell that, so bugger it, why don’t we just call them The Snowy Mountains”.

The Ocean Road would sound a little weak without its prefix though. Great gives it an importance befitting its wonder. There are few comparable drives in the world where each corner turned elicits a gasp of astonishment from the viewer. There are bigger cliffs elsewhere, stronger waves, more beautiful hamlets tucked in sleepy bays. But none of these come together in such natural serendipity as on the Great Ocean Road.

The weather plays an important role in the magnificence of this and other Australian attractions. The sun shines most days here and this means that the tourist is almost guaranteed a view of the coastline at its finest. The light catches the limestone stacks of the Twelve Apostles and provides a brilliant contrast to the bluey green of the surrounding ocean.
The day we got there was overcast but the light still danced along the coastline like a proud shopkeeper displaying its wares. The wind was calm and yet the waves still crashed against the shore as though an angry ocean was screaming for attention. A few brave souls had taken to surfboards but the rest of us just stood and admired the fury of the open sea and the quiet resistance of the land to the ceaseless pounding. At night we camped by the beach and fell asleep to the comforting rhythm of the waves as they caressed the shore.

I compare this to Ireland which has comparable sights of natural wonder. But on the three occasions when I’ve visited the Cliffs of Moher you couldn’t see the ocean for all the mist and rain and the wind blew you back every time you went within 100 meters of the edge. They’ve built a large interpretive centre there now. This is to allow visitors the chance to enjoy the beauty of the cliffs without having to brave the elements. For those unwilling to pay the ridiculously high admission charge to see a computer generated cliff, there is always the well appointed car park in which to huddle from the Atlantic rains.

Rain is a problem in Victoria too. Except here it is the lack of it that causes people to worry. Drought reigns (if you’ll excuse the pun) and the occasional shower is enough to make people run into the street and stand with hands outstretched and face pointed skywards. The dry and parched earth of the countryside seems incongruous beside the expanse of the Southern Ocean. But that just adds to the colour and beauty of the drive.

I’m slowly ticking off the places I want to see in Victoria (the rest of Australia and New Zealand are a different matter). But as we drove back along the Great Ocean Road I wondered about those other things I wanted to see here. Wildlife. The search for the first Kangaroo goes on. It’s been 10 months guys, when are you going to say hello? I’m beginning to think it’s all a myth and that Kangaroos, Koalas and Emus are only a tourist ploy. I blame Skippy. He set an expectation that the Australia countryside is sadly failing to live up to. What will I do if I’m ever stuck down a well?