can be this awful. We’re currently paying over fifty dollars a month for a mobile broadband service that’d cost me less than half that at home. And it drops out all the time (twice since I started typing this). If somebody so much as sneezes anywhere near the Wi-Fi router, it refuses to work for twenty minutes.
TV. Woeful. We have free digital TV here, but it’s not like it is back home, where there are fifty channels to choose from, plus radio. Australian Freeview consists of sixteen stations, which are all the major mainstream broadcasters and no music channels at all. Fawlty Towers is still broadcast here, believe it or not. If you missed any UK dramas or comedies from about three years ago, no worries—just come to Australia because they’re all still on in prime-time slots. When you do find something half-decent to watch, the thirty-four commercial breaks an hour ruin it somewhat (Australia has the most unrestricted and worst advertising controls in the world, it seems). Australia has followed the USA in terms of its TV, rather than the UK. That’s the clinching indictment you need on the dubious standards here. I miss the BBC.
Prices. Everything here is bloody expensive. This is partly due to the pound being weaker than an asthmatic vegetarian mountain climber against the Aussie dollar—but, even so, things here are a lot pricier than they are back home. A takeout meal is double what it would be in the UK, cars are astronomically priced, groceries vary from mildly expensive to frickin’ ridiculous, and you have to carefully pick and choose what entertainment you want to indulge in if you don’t want to bankrupt yourself. As far as I can see, this is all due to some of the dumbest competition and commercial rules I’ve ever seen in Western civilisation. There are just two supermarket chains here (as opposed to our eight or more): Coles and Woolworths. Nobody else seems allowed to get into the game. There’s no real competition so prices stay high. The banks (there are actually four or five of these) operate like UK banking institutions did fifteen years ago. You can’t draw cash out of a competitor’s ATM without being charged, for instance.
Australia is a lovely place, but if they think I’m paying ten bucks for a small bag of M&M’s, they’ve got another think coming.
Bugger. I forgot one last thing that’s bad about this place: mosquitoes.
Utter bastards of the highest order. Like small multi-limbed insect ninjas, they sneak up on you unawares and bite you where you least expect it. To prevent the little sods from having a go at you, you need to spray yourself with so much insect repellent that you end up smelling like a malfunctioning chemical plant. And even then a few of the hardier ones slip through the net and find the one place on your body you didn’t smother in the cancerous gas. I know Australia is supposed to be full of murderous creatures poised to rip your face off as soon as you debark from a plane, but I’ve not seen any of them yet, and most of the wildlife has actually seemed pretty friendly. The mosquitoes, though, they’re evil buggers with no remorse, and I want them all dead. My back looks like the surface of Mars right now and Poppy’s forehead still shows evidence of the golf ball–sized bite she was subjected to back at Grant and Ellie’s.
Anyway, that’s quite enough of all that. It’s been at least half an hour since I last stared forlornly at the clouds trying their best to squeeze out every drop of rain they can. If I’m not there to watch them, they may start to think all their hard work is being underappreciated.
I’ll just make myself a peanut butter sandwich and get back to it.
LAURA’S DIARY
Friday, March 3
Dear Mum,
I could get used to being an Australian.
I’ll never like watching cricket and will never idol-worship Ned Kelly, take up surfing, or end every sentence with a question mark, but by gum I could get used to
TV. Woeful. We have free digital TV here, but it’s not like it is back home, where there are fifty channels to choose from, plus radio. Australian Freeview consists of sixteen stations, which are all the major mainstream broadcasters and no music channels at all. Fawlty Towers is still broadcast here, believe it or not. If you missed any UK dramas or comedies from about three years ago, no worries—just come to Australia because they’re all still on in prime-time slots. When you do find something half-decent to watch, the thirty-four commercial breaks an hour ruin it somewhat (Australia has the most unrestricted and worst advertising controls in the world, it seems). Australia has followed the USA in terms of its TV, rather than the UK. That’s the clinching indictment you need on the dubious standards here. I miss the BBC.
Prices. Everything here is bloody expensive. This is partly due to the pound being weaker than an asthmatic vegetarian mountain climber against the Aussie dollar—but, even so, things here are a lot pricier than they are back home. A takeout meal is double what it would be in the UK, cars are astronomically priced, groceries vary from mildly expensive to frickin’ ridiculous, and you have to carefully pick and choose what entertainment you want to indulge in if you don’t want to bankrupt yourself. As far as I can see, this is all due to some of the dumbest competition and commercial rules I’ve ever seen in Western civilisation. There are just two supermarket chains here (as opposed to our eight or more): Coles and Woolworths. Nobody else seems allowed to get into the game. There’s no real competition so prices stay high. The banks (there are actually four or five of these) operate like UK banking institutions did fifteen years ago. You can’t draw cash out of a competitor’s ATM without being charged, for instance.
Australia is a lovely place, but if they think I’m paying ten bucks for a small bag of M&M’s, they’ve got another think coming.
Bugger. I forgot one last thing that’s bad about this place: mosquitoes.
Utter bastards of the highest order. Like small multi-limbed insect ninjas, they sneak up on you unawares and bite you where you least expect it. To prevent the little sods from having a go at you, you need to spray yourself with so much insect repellent that you end up smelling like a malfunctioning chemical plant. And even then a few of the hardier ones slip through the net and find the one place on your body you didn’t smother in the cancerous gas. I know Australia is supposed to be full of murderous creatures poised to rip your face off as soon as you debark from a plane, but I’ve not seen any of them yet, and most of the wildlife has actually seemed pretty friendly. The mosquitoes, though, they’re evil buggers with no remorse, and I want them all dead. My back looks like the surface of Mars right now and Poppy’s forehead still shows evidence of the golf ball–sized bite she was subjected to back at Grant and Ellie’s.
Anyway, that’s quite enough of all that. It’s been at least half an hour since I last stared forlornly at the clouds trying their best to squeeze out every drop of rain they can. If I’m not there to watch them, they may start to think all their hard work is being underappreciated.
I’ll just make myself a peanut butter sandwich and get back to it.
LAURA’S DIARY
Friday, March 3
Dear Mum,
I could get used to being an Australian.
I’ll never like watching cricket and will never idol-worship Ned Kelly, take up surfing, or end every sentence with a question mark, but by gum I could get used to
Similar Books
