bloody foreigners
I always told my wife that one day they would come.
Even though I lived here for almost 18 months without any of them, I knew it would happen.
She had thought that because none had turned up at all, she might be ok.
Then they all turned up at once.
1, then a pause, then 2, then a pause, then the same 2, and then a pause till the next 1.
Australians, all of them.
Staying in our spare room.
I feel sorry for my wife, she never truly believed they would turn up, and when they did they were everywhere.
Infesting my office like the ladybugs that also infest my office.
Partners of people from the Colonies should be aware of this, from here on in, my wife is going to have to get used to them all turning up and being in her lounge.
When my friends stop crashing with me, I am sure their kids will start. The cycle will never end.
That is just how it works.
My wife always said she couldn’t wait to meet my friends from back home, she stopped staying that when the second lot turned up.
smelling old friends
Recently my house has become the halfway house of Melbournians who want to move to London.
And for one of them I had to go and pick them up from Victoria station after their trip seemed to involve trains, buses, ferries, and everything else because of the ash cloud.
The first thing I noticed when meeting him was his odour.
He smelt like shit.
Lots of shit.
Fresh stinky shit.
But, as I had lived with this man in a small apartment with no air conditioning in Melbourne for about 2 years, it was a smell I knew well.
I could pick this man’s stinky odour out in a tip. It was just that familiar to me. So even if he turned up with his face covered in tattoos and a bald head, the smell would have been enough for me to be transported back.
It brought back old nights of pizza and whisky while staying up till well into the night to watch Boston Legal or Entourage.
It reminded me of shitty film shoots where we were so bored we would freak out the students by taking about digit ass play.
I couldn’t help but reminisce about the time I threw up naked on his bedroom door. And he, like the perfect housemate, decided to not come out and see if I was ok knowing that he could see me naked covered in vomit and falling over on the bathroom floor.
That smell, as disgusting as it is, was our friendship, and one whiff is all it took and I was back there.
It should be mentioned that he doesn’t always smell bad, just after long trips or when he used to decide not to wash for days at a time in our flat.
aussies at lord’s
No, this isn’t about me getting stared down by Steve Waugh, but it was part of that trip.
This was being at Lord’s and watching the Australian tour groups go through the ground.
It was not a pretty sight.
50-year-old men with ample frames wearing replica Australia shirts (made for more athletic frames) tucked in, baseball caps with large corporate logos sitting badly on their heads, massive bum bags, and their shorts around their nipples.
They were waddling through the great ground like American tourists in Graceland, carrying all sorts of tacky lord’s merchandise.
It was enough to make you sick.
They weren’t all like that, but when you see a group of 20 people 15 or so in the same shirt, the well dressed ones less tacky ones don’t stick out in your mind.
One guy walked straight past Shaun Pollock because he was looking at his Lord’s T-shirt. Shaun Pollock had a giant Disney bag with him. But I wouldn’t like to delve any deeper into that.
I don’t think I have ever seen a bunch of Aussies look so American.
But that’s a tour group isn’t it.
They make you get up early, they rush you through every possible sight seeing place, you eat with everyone else, you have to befriend people you don’t like, and at the end you turn into an American.
Although I’ve never been on one.
For that very reason. If someone tries to get me up early on holiday I turn into an American alright, I go all Timothy McVeigh on their ass.
They weren’t the only Aussies there; also present was the Australian press paddle pool for the ashes (5 people hardly makes a proper pool).
After the press conference they all huddled up on their own outside.
It was like a mini shepherd’s bush, except without violence. I stood by them too, perhaps out of an Australian allegiance, or because I knew one of them.
But one thing this is for sure, none of the Australian journalists had bum bags on. Of that you can be sure.
seeing the great man
hello ladies
I had to venture into London the other day, Regent St to be exact, which has two parts, one of which is extremely small and doesn’t seem to really link to the main bit.
So after getting off the bus at the lower Regent St I had to walk up, after several minutes of confusion to the proper regent street, and that is when I walked past an Australian Icon.
Not to me, or to most Australians, but to the 40-65 year old travellers from Victoria he is.
He is Coxy.
Don’t say you don’t know who Coxy is, how could have never seen ‘Coxy’s big break’, do you not watch Victoria’s Channel 7 weekend early evening programming?
Coxy is a hirsute rounded chap who was once a drummer for the little river band and Cliff Richard.
Now he runs a show telling people about all the best places in Victoria to travel too, sponsored by RACV.
You know he is special by the fact his name is in the title. It isn’t big break adventures, or travelling around Victoria, it is simply Coxy’s Big Break.
Think of the celebrity status the man must have to get his name into the show, after all it isn’t Simon Cowell’s American Idol now is it.
This show is like hard-core porn for people like my parents. You can’t speak in their house while Coxy is on.
They all but take notes.
And I saw him in London, their were no middle aged groupies throwing their stained knickers at him, he was just one of the common people waling around Piccadilly Circus.
He was with his lady friend, and he looked exactly like he does on the show (board shorts, sandals, and casual shirt). I even looked around for Cameras.
I was going to talk to him, but what do you say to such a special man.
He beat the skins for Cliff Richard for fucks sake.
So I walked past the great man leaving him to enjoy England on his big break.
aussie as
Having had my pimm’s in the park, I needed to get a bit more Aussie again.
What better than an Australia Vs New Zealand world twenty20 practice match.
It was antipodean as, mate.
There were times I felt like I was back at the G.
Crap over priced beer..
People getting throw out.
Aussies & Kiwis bagging each other, and then laughing about it.
People yelling out throughout the whole game.
Lots of swearing.
General drunken loudness.
An aussie guy giving random people the finger.
Mexican waves.
Beige shirts & green and gold shirts (there was also a teal one).
Jandals/thongs/flipflops as far as the eye can see.
And to finish the night I saw a guy pissing into a sink, niceeeeeeeeee.
Unfortunately there was no “you’re going home in the back of a divvie van”, no one threw golf balls, not one streaker or beer wench, and no one got thrown out before the match.
But it was probably the most Aussie I have felt since I came over.
I even abused Shane Watson a bit.
What a good night.
I found em
Lots of em.
Aussies, Kiwis and Saffas.
Probably a Zimbo or two as well.
They are all hanging out at the only indoor cricket centre in London, in the oddly named Canary Wharf.
Apparently owned by a South African, and certainly inhabited by enough antipodes to run half the bars in London, this is like an antipodean oasis.
Indoor cricket is a fairly well played sport in those countries, but over here, with only one place to play in London, it’s hard to play a game with more than a handful of English accents involved.
I have been adopted by one of the few English teams, but also have had overtures from Kiwis and Saffas.
Allrounders are always popular in Indoor cricket.
The place is like a big back packers place, where people play sport.
The downstairs bar couldn’t be the bar in any hostel in the world.
There is some sort of bus you can drink on.
And most importantly enough crappy sports memorabilia to have you staring at crap for hours.
I have played in 3 indoor cricket places in Melbourne, all run by Mike Haysman’s Action indoor sports, all life less, boring, bland places.
This is the opposite.
This place has personality, it feels beer stained, and the courts are all slightly different from each other.
Sure you get a lot of yobbo fuckwits there, but put a lot of men together playing sport with a bar included and fuckwits will flock.
The other day a fucktard (kiwi) almost spilled half a jug of beer on me, as he walked barefoot and bare chested around the centre.
It felt like home.
Ofcourse at a indoor centre in Melbourne you can’t take the beer an inch outside the bar, and no one would be allowed to walk around barefoot.
It took London to encourage that.
That is a rarity ofcourse, most of the guys I have played with are pretty good blokes, and the Poms are funny, everytime i mention that we have dozens of indoor centres back home they always say the same thing.
No wonder we aren’t any good.
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