OK this is freaky...

Australians really do have garage sales (“1 asbestos garage, free to a good home...” Unfortunately none that I walked past seemed to be selling the car when I needed it), the skirts on school dresses really are that short, and I’ve been called a Good Neighbour. And I’m not even living in a suburb of Melbourne.

Actually it’s funny how coming from outside you can see how daft things really are. Apparently here, instead of being “Registered Blind”, you are “Legally Blind”. So does that mean that you can be illegally blind too??

And so amny things have different names. Particularly vegetables. What’s “witlof” mean? Answers on a postcard to...

And then bank accounts. I have a Current account, with a Cheque book and a Debit card. So what do I have to tell people that it is to get the EFTPOS transaction to go through. Not a current account (they don’t have those), not a cheque account or a debit card. No, it’s a Credit card. That just does not make sense – and it was a while before I could get any money out of the hole in the wall because they just used to spit my card back.

Anyway, so far I can report that we really do have the cream of Aussie TV back home. Weekday TV is dependant on the Simpsons / Futurama and all the channel 5 American stuff. And the weekends are music vids, films “to be arranged” and the AFL. And er... that’s it.

In the mornings, all channels show news and then Richard and Judy equivalents. Well, when I say “News”, it’s just Local. It’s so parochial that I can find out more about what’s happening in Adelaide on the national news than I can find out whats happening in Peterborough by watching Look East. I’m so hungry for international news, which entirely seems to be served by recordings of news programmes from France, Greece, Russia and the Philippines. My Russian is just not good enough.

Then there are the commercial. Either the ad breaks – and they manage to fit 4 (yes, four) into the half hour that Neighbours is being shown. Or there’s the Infomercials (as opposed to Advertainment) when two talking heads sit round for quarter of an hour discussing exactly why you should go to St Elsewhere’s if you have a heart attack instead of just calling 000 and going to the public hospital because there are it doesn’t have private rooms, and they don’t REALLY care about you. And just how good Standard Commercial property insurance is because you can talk to them on the phone in an emergency.

Well, talking of Neighbours (which I wasn’t), I’ve jumped forward 6 months and, you know what, IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER. So, no spoilers here, except that they still don’t have any medical advisors on the staff, and that the music has got even worse. Oh, and apparently if you are a private patient, you can pay for your GP to look after you in hospital, so maybe having Karl being the only doc in Erinsborough isn’t so far fetched. (Or maybe it is).

Anyway, time for another piccie.



BTW, I've now found some vaguely intelligent TV. It just entails running backwards and forwards to adjust the aerial every 5 minutes. I thought rabbit's ears aerials were only seen in 1960s American cartoons