Anglo/Aussie relations

On balance, I have been made to feel very welcome since I've been in Australia.

The cultural similarities between 'home' and places like Sydney and Melbourne still never cease to amaze me. At times, you have to pinch yourself and look at a map of the world to remember where you actually are - particularly now the weather is turning distinctly 'British' here.

Consider this. You can travel less than 30 miles from England to France and be in a totally alien country with a different language - and an utterly alien culture and set of values. Or you can travel 11,000 miles to the other side of the World and find people scaringly similar with the same language, identical mannerisms and outlook on life.

Last weekend I had five Aussie friends round to my flat. No, it wasn't for sex - it was so they could devour my collection of British comedy DVDs. Their suggestion, not mine, I should point out. Little Britain is huge over here - and now they're latching on to Catherine Tait, Peep Show and other such stuff. They absolutely love it and - this is the important point - they get it.

Alongside all the warmness, however, I have still been 'subjected' to the usual piss taking. I ordered beans on toast in a cafe the other day and was asked by a friend if I was homesick. When I told people from work I had been on the Neighbours tour in Melbourne, one described me as a "filthy, dirty Pommie bastard".

Australia is a fantastic country, but it is still completely without its own sense of identity. It may like to wind up 'poms', but that is largely sport related. They love to take the piss, but take a look at their flag. Ours still flutters in the top left hand corner, and - for all the bluster - they actually quite like that.

Just don't ask them to admit it.

half way house

Well it's nearly three months since I left blighty to help civilise the convicts - and that means I'm half way through my trip.

It feels like I've been away for much, much longer. I suppose that is to be expected. It has been without doubt the most eventful time of my entire life, given that I have settled in a different country, found work, lived in two homes and developed a new set of friends.

At times it has been daunting, perhaps even difficult, but overall it has been an adventure that I know I will never forget.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the possibility of coming back here later in the year after I return to London in July. Not going back home at all is impractical for boring reasons (work related) and because I have scheduled stop overs in San Francisco and New York. There is no way I'm missing out on those trips.

Any decision about whether or not I end up coming back to Australia I'm putting on hold for now. I'm frequently asked about my intentions, particularly by a lesbian friend of mine – who wants us to get married. Not only does it give me permanent residency rights, we also get tax breaks and she gets unlimited studying rights in the UK. It seems a bit odd to me that one of the consequences of getting married is the right to live on the other side of the world to your partner, but this is a country where some people eat tortoises (no, I'm not joking) and so I suppose nothing should really come as much of a surprise.

Anyway, all of this is off my radar for now. Reaching the half way point of my trip has really brought home to me how much has happened so quickly, and therefore how much more there is to experience. My attitude could have changed completely to everything in a few months.

I can't see me ever disliking life out here, though. The Aussies just have such a relaxed attitude towards everything. Back home, we have an image of them being loud, abrasive and occasionally obnoxious. The sight of so many of them puking and bawling their way through West London seems to confirm this.

I think this must be behaviour typical of young travellers, because it is not my experience of Australians. Everyone always asks how you are on the phone, nobody wants any 'dramas' and all the staff in bars, restaurants and shops always seem to have a smile on their face.

An experience I had at work today summed this up very nicely. I needed to get somebody from a rural part of New South Wales to clear a press release I had written, so I rang his home and asked to speak to him.

"Sorry mate, he's gone fishing," came the reply.

"Oh, right. Any idea when he'll be back? I've got a press release I need to him to clear," I said.

"You'll be lucky, mate. He's taken off for about three days with a load of beer, and he's switched his phone off. And you know what? I say good on him!"

I mumbled something, put the phone down, thought about it all for a while and then came to the same conclusion. Good on him.

same same

After I got back to Sydney from Melbourne last week, it was with a bit of a proverbial bump.

The weekend had been extremely expensive, for which I take full responsibility. I would like to blame the Tories or George Bush, but even I can't really pin this one on them - and so for the remainder of the week it was a case of going to work and staying in during the evening. It goes without saying this is not the kind of activity that lends itself to blog writing - I don't want to write about it every day, and I'm quite sure you don't want to read it.

I fell into that soul destroying trap last week of being bored at work because there wasn't much to do, whilst simultaneously trying to avoid doing very much. Clock watching kicks in. I actually wouldn't mind being challenged in my work, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Every day I am served up a diet of very basic tasks to complete, and I am starting to wonder if I can stick this for the remainder of my time in Sydney, although quite what else I'm going to do is a moot point.

Anyway, enough of this talk. One thing I am determined to do when I get back to the UK is approach being there in the same way I have being in Australia. By that I mean making the effort to explore more of the country and find out more about its history. Whilst in a book shop the other day, I glanced through the Lonely Planet guide to England. Within a few minutes I discovered that there used to be a bridge connecting the Isle of Wight to the mainland, and that people from Norfolk are described as "having one foot in the water and one on the land". That's two things that I was either blissfully unaware of - or are actually complete and utter bollocks. Either way, my point is I'm sure there is more to discover at home than I have previously.

The sheer vastness of Australia also opens your eyes to how there is so much to discover in Europe so easily. I've been to a lot of places in Europe, but it has been a bit embarrassing to find Aussies who saw more during a travelling break than I have in 29 years of my life. They rightly point out how easy it is with budget airlines offering such absurdly low prices. It's weird, I didn't think twice about going to Melbourne on my own last weekend, but it has never occurred to me that there is nothing to stop me doing precisely the same in Europe if I wanted to.

Back home Norwich mathematically avoided relegation at the weekend with a 2-1 win at Leicester, now managed by our ex-boss Nigel Worthington. It is really weird getting these results in the middle of the night, and I suspect even weirder for Australians in nightclubs listening to me drunkenly talk about it and how much I hope we beat the Scum next weekend...