Rip Off Britain vs Australia

Whenever I call my dad we only ever talk about two things. One: United. Two: the cost of living in England. ‘Just another example of rip-off Britain’ he’ll say.

‘Got my car taxed. Rip-off’ ‘Renewed my TV license. Rip-off’ ‘Cigarettes have gone up. Petrol has gone up’ etcetera etcetera ad nauseum. ‘At least United are doing well’, I’ll say to change the subject. ‘Yeah and have you seen the price of the tickets? Rip-off’ I give up.

Now though I think I may have something that will finally make him change his tune, or at least stop whinging about ‘rip-off Britain’.

I’ve recently moved to Melbourne, Australia.

I can already hear the knowing laughs from all the ex-pats who have tried their luck down under reading this. You already know what I’m going to say.

I had been preparing myself mentally and financially for the general cost of living in this country for a long time; asking people who have either been here before or are still here, what the lay of the land is. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be expensive in Australia?’ I asked and I’d get comments like: ‘Yeah but it’s a very liveable place, especially Melbourne’ and ‘the food might be expensive but it is good food’ and ‘as long as you’re prepared you should be alright’.

Luckily I am prepared, financially I mean, because if I wasn’t it would prove to be a very short stay indeed. Here’re a couple of examples of what I mean.

I go to a restaurant on Bridge Road near to Melbourne’s CBD a few days after arriving and to my delight find Bulmer’s Original cider on the menu for a very reasonable $7.50 (£4.87). Ha, I think, all those worrymongers making out like you can’t get a reasonably priced drink anywhere and here I am paying roughly the same as in England for a pint bottle of Bulmer’s.

And then the waiter brings it out.

It isn’t a pint bottle. It’s a tiny 330ml bottle, barely enough for three large swigs from a glass. Oh, I think, maybe they were right. But all isn’t lost. Then I consult the menu about something to eat. Fancy a garden salad? Not for $22 (£14.30) I don’t. How about a risotto? $24 (£15.60) okay? I quickly realise I’m not going to do any better so just order this. For interest’s sake I check out the price of a steak. Cheapest one? $55 (£35.78).

I finish my Bulmer’s way ahead of my meal coming out so I go to order another one. ‘Yes sir?’ the waiter dressed in flannel shirt and torn jeans says, ‘Can we have some water for the table please?’ ‘Certainly sir’ he says. I think I see a smirk at the corner of his mouth. He knew. That waiter knew it wasn’t ‘for the table’.

I go into a mobile phone store to get a SIM and some credit to get me started a couple of days after this. I ask for $30 (£19.51) credit. ‘That will last you 30 days’ the girl says to me. ‘I think I can make it last longer than that. I don’t really call anyone,’ I say with a smile. She looks puzzled. ‘This is a 30 day recharge,’ she explains. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘It means that the credit you don’t use within 30 days expires.’ ‘And then what happens?’ ‘Then you have to recharge again.’ We stare at each other for a few seconds. ‘As in another $30?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So that’s basically a contract isn’t it?’ ‘No because you’re not locked-in.’ ‘Oh I see.’ I leave the store.

What she meant was that I have two options. One: I pay $30 a month. Two: I don’t use a phone.

In the UK we can get handsets for free if we sign up for a phone contract. And we get unlimited this that and the other on top. In Australia? Pah. No chance. True enough you can get a decent contract at around $30-50 per month but you want an iPhone with that? That’s another $40 a month on top sir.

Fair enough. I’m in another new country, they may speak the same language but things are still done differently. It’s all part of adapting. That’s what I’m telling myself.

My dad thinks petrol is expensive in England? He ought to see the prices here. Actually maybe he shouldn’t, he’s already had one cardiac arrest.

To use the freeways here, and to get anywhere fast in Melbourne outside of the CBD and inner suburbs it is almost essential to, Breeze (a private company that won a government tender to build the Eastlink Freeway) charges you 54c per section of the road that you travel on via a little gadget placed on your dashboard that bleeps when you go under a sensor.

Cinema tickets for an adult: $18.50 (£12) more for a big screen or 3D films. Sweets and a small drink: $11.30 (£7.35).

The list goes on. Generally speaking it’s more than in England.

But…

There is of course the other side to the coin. That being that wages here are good. Very good in fact.

According to Average Salary Survey the average annual income for a professional in Melbourne in 2011 was $78 720 which is over £50 000. The same site has the average salary for a person living in Manchester in 2011 at just £30 996 per year.

Immediately a stark contrast emerges. It is easy to see why, when people here are forking out $50-70 for a nice, but certainly not fine dining standard, Saturday night meal they can do it nonchalantly with a smile on their face.

The British economy is in a stalemate situation with consumer spending power at a permanent low ebb and the cost of living ever rising. The Australian economy on the other hand, whilst to a certain extent relying on its fruitful mining industry, is certainly ticking over in a much healthier fashion.

A columnist in Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper said last week that it is a source of national pride that Australian workers are paid well and that spending power is good. Unfortunately in England we cannot say the same.

It is telling that the backlash currently circulating the media around Melbourne and Australia as a whole against the retail sector for being uncompetitive, is not one borne out of financial necessity, (these people can afford to shop on the high street, they are just choosing not to – instead going online for massive savings) it is simply borne out of a sense of frustration that retailers are being greedy.

Of course when I next speak to my dad on the phone I won’t mention any of the part about the wages here being higher, the point is not to have a balanced argument to present to him, the point is to stop him whining about ‘rip-off Britain’ for a few minutes.

Whether I think he has a valid point or not is not the point either.

At least United are doing well.

Unrest In Suburbia – Is it the ASBOs or the OAPs?

As a young person living in England, perhaps I am not qualified to give an objective view on the apparent ill feeling from the elderly towards the youth of this country; so if the following two accounts don’t present much of a balanced argument for both parties, just assume I’m in the camp of the youngsters.

As far back as I can remember old people have given young people hassle. This might be because of the generally accepted elderly view of youngsters in England being that they all go marauding around in large groups, clad in loose fitting trousers hanging below their waistlines, and swearing sporadically at road signs and shopkeepers. This is generally speaking not true, but I suppose reading the Daily Express every day, filled with imposing words like ‘ASBO’ and ‘Knife Crime’ will eventually influence your opinion.

I suppose the lines could get blurred between what you believe to be a crime and merely a nuisance, I can accept that. Living in perpetual fear of ‘youths’ must be a tiring existence, especially for the oh so righteous pensioners of England. One day you’re sitting at home sucking on a Werther’s Original tutting at the latest spate of stabbings in the ‘streets’ on the news, the next you’re face to face with one of the remorseless bastards yourself whilst walking your dog peacefully en route to meet your wife. That was the stark reality faced by such an elderly man; we shall call Jeff, yesterday afternoon.

I was riding my bike home from work, enjoying the sunshine when I saw Jeff on the horizon of the hill I was headed up. Now I had encountered Jeff once before on the very same stretch of path about a month and a half before and he had yelled some obscenity in my direction then for not riding my bike on the road. Whilst I accept that he was indeed right, I should have been riding on the road, its not like I am the only person in England to do it and how did it give him the right to launch his tirade at me, a person he had never met before in his life?

I had felt angry that time but rode along home, putting the incident down to the prejudice I knew was so rife amongst his age group. But yesterday I encountered him again and this time, rather than simply shouting at me, he actually jumped in front of my bike. Luckily for Jeff and I (and his border collie) I was toiling up a hill and not careering down one, giving me ample time to avoid him and swerve onto the grassy bank running alongside the pavement.

“Bloody criminal!” He bellowed at me, once I was safely out of his area of course. This made me pretty irate as you can imagine, so I did a quick about-turn and rolled up alongside him as he plodded on down the hill. The surprise and fear in his eyes was tangible as I quietly asked:

“What did you just call me?” I folded my arms as I sat on my saddle, expectant.

“I called you a criminal.” He said.

“And why would you do that?” I asked.

“Because you are. A woman was killed by a cyclist three years ago.” He trembled on the spot and gripped his dog’s lead tightly to hide it.

“Well, whilst that is a regrettable story, I have yet to maim or indeed kill anybody whilst riding my bike.” His eyes widened as the realisation dawned on him that I was not a brain dead McDonald’s employee.

“But it’s dangerous! Don’t you even care?” I spotted my chance.

“Of course I care but don’t you think it’s more dangerous to go leaping in front of cyclists? I think anyone would stand less chance of survival if they kept doing that.”

“That’s not the point. You need telling.” The way he said you implied a group of people rather than just me. At the same moment I spotted an elderly woman riding her bike on the footpath across the road.

“Shall we go and stop her too?” I make like I’m about to whistle for her attention.

“Now you’re just being silly.” He shifted his weight onto his other leg to stop it trembling.

“I’m being silly? Don’t you think it was pretty silly calling me a criminal?”

“You are a criminal.” By this time Jeff’s stupidity was annoying me, so I proposed a dare. I knew I needed to make a grand gesture to win this particular argument.

“In that case you’d better call the police, if you really believe me to be a criminal that is.” I regretted my rash words instantly but I had to follow through, I was certain he had only stopped me in particular because I was a ‘youth’ (or so he believed) and I wanted desperately to make him feel a fool.

“I will you know.” He threatened.

“And what do you think will happen? They’ll put the phone down and think ‘What a stupid old codger if he thinks we’ll send a car because a boy is riding on the pavement’” My firm tone seemed to make him tremble more vigorously.

“Ok I’m calling them.” And he did. I heard him describe me as ‘young’ and ‘shaven headed’. When he put his mobile away in his pocket, he turned to me and said, “They’re on their way now.”

“Ok. I’ll wait. I don’t mind seeing you make yourself a criminal too when you waste police time.”

So we waited. Twenty minutes. No sirens. No vans. No cars. No luminous yellow jackets. He fidgeted as we waited. Eventually I broke the silence.

“It doesn’t look promising for you.”

“Well they said they’d send a car.”

His cause was empty and he looked desolate, my humanitarian side kicked in. I explained to him that if he believed so vehemently that cyclists posed a threat to the people of England, he ought to pursue instigating change through the appropriate channels.

“You can’t go on leaping in front of cyclists like some crazed vigilante.” I said. I was mocking him, but he deserved it. I was certain he had picked on me because of my age and he was wrong to do that. “You need to look after yourself a bit more, what if I had been one of those ‘hoodies’ you hear so much about.” I threw a condescending look of faux concern at him. He was defeated. His crusade against the young people of England for that day was over.

The other account I mentioned was similar. I was walking home, listening to music one day when I spotted an elderly man stooping down in front of a couple of young boys. His finger was wagging and his head was jolting sharply up and down as though he was yelling. As I got closer to him I saw that he actually had hold of them both by the scruff of their necks and was issuing them with a royal dressing down for something or other. I grew agitated at the scene and took out my earphones. I drew level with them and offered,

“Is everything alright?” The old man was clearly shocked and straightened his back to stand upright to face me. As soon as his grip on the boys relented, they bolted for safety and I immediately suspected they weren’t his grandchildren.

“Yes. Yes of course.”

“Were they your grandchildren?” I asked.

“No.” His tone was puzzled.

“What happened?”

“They threw stones at my window. I see kids throwing stuff around all the time on this street and I’m sick of it.” He too trembled as he blurted out his defence.

“Ok. But why did you grab them like that?” I folded my arms as I awaited his response.

“I didn’t.” His denial was pitiful.

“Look, I was standing right there. You had them by the scruff of their necks.”

“I didn’t. I only told them they shouldn’t throw stones.” His assumption that I would be taken in by his story irked me into pressing him further.

“I agree that throwing stones isn’t acceptable, but even less acceptable is grabbing someone else’s children and pushing them against a wall.” His eyes were livid.

“But I didn’t grab them. I just did this.” He sidled up to me and grabbed my jacket. I looked down disgustedly at his hands on my chest and he immediately let go.

“You really ought to stop touching people you don’t know.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But these kids need some fear putting in them.”

“And you’re the man to do it?”

“Eh?” My sarcasm was lost on him.

“Look. I’d recommend in future not grabbing any more people, young or otherwise by the scruff of the neck. It’s not your place.” I walked away, the valiant defender of youth and he slinked off in the opposite direction, visibly shaken by the confrontation.

You’ll probably notice in both of these accounts that the old men were both seemingly motivated by a sense of dubious civic duty, to protect their territory and walkways. You’ll also notice that the only physical acts in both stories were actually carried out by them. Does that mean the ‘youths’ reading this post should begin to consider elderly men a menace to society? Should they start crossing the road to avoid them, start writing to their local MP’s to report elderly ‘anti-social behaviour’? Or should they continue to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about them? As a young person living in England I know that answer is most likely to be the latter, but I’m not so sure that the same honour will ever be afforded to us.

BBQs and the BNP

We Brits love the sun don’t we? The first sign of it and were whipping off our pants and caking ourselves in coconut oil. One minute you’re strolling through the vegetable section in Morrisons, dreamily whistling along to a cover version of Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’, the next there’s a break in the clouds and you’re knocked to the ground by a marauding posse of topless, tattooed skinheads desperate to ransack the meat and booze aisles. To be honest I can’t blame them, we didn’t get a summer last year (rain) or the year before (lots of rain) so it’s only natural that they greet the advent of a true heat wave with such unbridled joy, but the sun seemed to bring out more than their love of barbeques this weekend.

Whilst British people choose to enjoy the sun in different ways, most of them migrate to their nearest seaside town and this weekend I was no different. On Saturday afternoon strolling along Cleveleys’ sweltering promenade I encountered a vibrant and colourful beach scene crowded with a wide variety of people. Dog walkers, wheelchair users collecting for charity, young couples, old couples, elderly women with sagging breasts, elderly men with sagging breasts, rambunctious children, kite flying middle aged men and the sum of those motley images, I thought combined to paint a delightful portrait of what can make England such a great place to be in the summertime. I happened to be with a South African girl at the time and was giving her a brief outline of what sort of place Cleveleys was and had become, and it had pretty much lived up to its billing thus far. We sat atop the steps leading down to the sea with our ice creams and for once I actually felt quite proud of where I came from. She snapped away with her camera and seemed genuinely enamoured with the place and in that moment it would have been difficult not to be.

However one thing rankled with me. There may very well have been a plethora of weird and wonderful people out there that day but none of them were black or Asian; just white. Literally there were no other races represented in my entire field of vision whatsoever. I said as much to my friend and she said she had noticed too which launched us into a conversation about race and inevitably apartheid. She explained the whole unfortunate episode to me in a nutshell, about how it affected people she knew and how the country was still a tense place and as we walked along the top of the steps I felt a genuine regretful wistfulness coming from her. I gave her my world-view; that I thought the concept of nation states was archaic and that passports should be abolished allowing free travel between countries and she agreed it would be a nicer world to live in then we dropped the topic to concentrate on the dogs in the distance.

There are lots of British people who believe that such a thing as apartheid couldn’t happen here, that we are too modern, too integrated a people for such a blatant segregation to take effect, but I believe that to be an extremely slippery slope and what I saw next on Cleveleys beach gave that belief conviction.

The beach has these thick wooden panels that help control the tide at regular intervals, which act as a barrier between areas of sand. One side of this particular barrier (the side closest to the hustle and bustle) was choc-a-bloc with white people all throwing Frisbees, playing with dogs, sunbathing, paddling in the tide, swilling down alcohol and generally doing what one would accurately describe as ‘merry making’. On the other side of the barrier all huddled together in the middle of the vast plain of sand stood a single Asian family literally segregated from everyone else. All dressed in traditional black, they had come to share in the great British party but it seemed sadly that they weren’t invited. The view from the top of the steps provided me with a microcosmic snapshot of exactly what is wrong with the country and why we may well be headed for our very own regretful incident in the near future. If I had been down on the sand level with them, I would not have played witness to the gigantic ‘BNP’ logo scraped deep into the beach’s flesh. Flanked by an even bigger, more dreadful ‘VOTE BNP’ I felt embarrassed of the perpetrators. It was obvious why no other races were represented back towards where we had eaten our ice cream. The poor Asian family must have felt frightened and outcast and all of a sudden, those images that had moments earlier painted such a quaint playful picture of England, morphed into something else, something terrible. Now I only noticed the St.George’s flags flaming forth from the proud bared chests of the skin-headed men, now I only saw the intense hatred behind the knock-off sunglasses and felt utterly ashamed of my countrymen. This is exactly why I am not proud to say I am English.

These people need to realise that England, Britain, Europe, the world is changing. Countries are no longer inhabited by only one race or one nationality. Diversity in our personal lives and our social lives is the key to remaining young, to remaining relevant. The BNP cannot seriously lay claim to having any semblance of a connection with young people in this country, but unfortunately they obviously do strike a chord with a past generation. A generation consisting of narrow minded, ill informed, prejudiced white people and if the BNP get their votes, that prejudice borders on outright fascism because they are actively exercising their right as an elector to oust that which holds the key to Britain’s future; diversity.

Disgusted by the display, my South African and I walked back towards a pub and started talking about other things.

Christmas in England – Not what Sir Cliff has in mind anyway.

Christmas seems by common conception to be the time of year when people are most friendly. Boundaries are broken down, conversation is struck between the unlikeliest of participants, smiles are exchanged where glances of alert disdain would otherwise have been traded, generosity pervades our everyday lives, this is a good thing.

Waiting for a friend to buy me a drink in a crowded pub in Poulton-le-Fylde last weekend, I found out first hand why all this festive spirit is a bad idea. I stood awkwardly a few metres from the bar, nervously being eyed up by a swaying middle aged woman when a youngish looking couple approach me from the dirge of grey-skinned revellers, ‘Excuse me, I know this is a really bad question to ask you but do have coke?’ The girl says. No, I say. ‘Erm, can you get coke?’ No. ‘Well, do you know anyone who can get coke?’ No. Then the orange face retreats behind her boyfriend who bends his almost 7 foot frame down towards my ear and shouts, ‘Sorry mate, she’s already done 4 grams tonight and is off her trolley!’ Through the misery I managed to force a smile, as much for its pacifying effects on him as it was for my own safety. For the life of me I had no clue whether 4 grams was a lot of coke or not. The pair faded away back into the crowd, jigging along to the version of Barry White’s ‘My first, my last, my everything’ being howled by a 5 foot 2 man who was presumably the landlord.

The balding queen stood atop a table and had whipped the airheads into a positive frenzy with his gyrating and pointing. Every so often he’d let out an ‘Aaaaaaaaalright!’ he was like the shrivelled reanimated corpse of Jim Morrison or something, most unsettling. My friend still hadn’t been served at the bar, whether that had anything to do with the fact that the barmaid moved as quickly as though suffering from cerebral palsy I’m not sure but nevertheless I had to endure another few moments standing alone in the wilderness of the council estate mob.

The drunken middle aged woman was still eyeing me up so I turned around 180 degrees to avoid her gaze whereupon my eyes fell on the unfortunate sight of a man’s buttocks. In the spirit of Christmas (presumably, hopefully) a solitary man had seen fit to come to the pub dressed as a Spartan warrior and a pack of frenzied women were devouring the already regrettably sparse material that made up his costume like hyenas feasting on caribou, revealing almost his entire body.

Soon enough the middle aged woman approaches me from behind anyway and after  pinching my arse by means of an introduction, proceeded to shout directly into my ear some incoherent babble about her son being ‘about your age’ and how I had ‘lovely dimples’. My friend could not arrive soon enough, I prayed for some kind of intervention, a fire alarm, a fight to break out, a biological weapon attack; anything to halt my slide into oblivion at the mercy of this wrinkle faced predator.

Ironically the balding karaoke queen came to my rescue by launching into a rendition of what I assumed, on account of her reaction, was her favourite song. She scuttled away to embark on a surreal dance routine consisting of bending over and receiving a feigned spank from the giant sausage fingers of her obese friend. I shudder to think what the consequences might be for some unfortunate lad a little weaker willed and younger than myself.

My head was spinning and I could barely hear myself think, it was all I could do to maintain my breathing pattern and stay alive. The singing seemed to grow louder, the dancing grew weirder, the temperature rose and I was enveloped in a film of sweat underneath my jacket. I observed a man, must have been in his fifties at least, slide up behind a girl, in her twenties at most, his shirt out and forehead glowing red, and place his hands around her waist and hoist her onto his crotch. He began grinding up against her derriere during the latest song; I think it might have been Mustang Sally. The queen growled his way through the number that was being interpreted by the dim-witted patrons in the pub as some kind of mating call, not least the fifty-year-old man who pouted with aggressive anticipation of something and the ribbon of a girl seemingly attached to his belt. They stooped and swayed in unison in a sensual dance that somehow managed to make me feel nauseous and captivated simultaneously. I can only presume that the girl had no clue as to the age of her dancing partner, either that or she was only as discerning as my suitor from a few moments earlier when it comes to age.

My friend arrived with my drink but by this point I had already taken too much festive nonsense and pined for the usual air of stand-offish disdain that prevails during the rest of the year in England and said I was leaving. I love Christmas as much as the next man, but last weekend in that pub was truly a harrowing experience. The thing is, your choices in Poulton-le-Fylde are limited. You either have to brave the pubs of the derelict idiots, such as the one in the account above or you stand around and pose in the bars of the wannabe-nouveau-riche and allow your spirit to be crushed. Tonight being Christmas Eve I think I’ll go for a mixture of the two, at least then I might have something to write about.