‘STRAYA

“ASIANS!!!”

This was one the first words uttered to me in Australia; the most racist country in the world.

An Antipodean asked where I was headed, when I told him eventually Sydney he volunteered that the city was “full of them”

Thanks for that.

The most racist country in the world. Even that nice Mr. Kellogg is at it…

I’ve been told by an aborigine friend that you drop the A and the U at the beginning and that the “L” in Australia is silent. Hence ‘Straya

Like the silent “F” at the beginning of “Will”

I can’t believe you said that out loud.

I amuse myself sometimes.

Despite the year-long bus ride through Thailand and Malaysia with less than two hours sleep and the same on the surprisingly short trip from Singapura to Brisbane by having all three seats of the middle aisle to myself, (must remember that trick) I was really very happy to have landed in Australia. I arrived at the crack of Dawn, the sun was beating me off and a good beating off felt good.

Transit through immigration and customs; to, by and from the overpriced train ride to the centre of Brisbane, I walked the nine a.m. streets as the office day began. It’s a nice town, with some handsome buildings amongst the erect edifices that scrape the sky. I think they’re called Queenslanders; wooden-fronted, hotel-like structures usually painted cyan or burgundy. The CBD as we used to say in geography class but is common phrase here looked like any other, a smaller Sydney in fact. Louis Vuiton and Bally stores standing out from the McDonalds and Gloria Jeans cafés.

One thing I love about ‘Straya is the fact that the man I bought my SIM card from, proprietor of a news stand seemed far too well-educated to be a news-stand vendor. He spoke politely and eloquently but had no sense of being below his station. There’s much less class-structure here and in my book that’s cool.

When it suits me, that is. All the rest of them are inbred, knuckle-scraping oiks. I was just lucky to stumble across the one nice local man in this country. I hate Australians. Why had I come here again? Where else on the planet is the volume of piss on a metal trough a measure of manliness? I guess they are still Anglo-Saxons at heart despite the distance.

Carrying my 28kg backpack for more than six minutes at once is death-defying. Why I brought so much stuff I’ll never know. In Fisherman’s village I had a base, our home and rarely used the backpack; I must have a clear out when I can. I only need one bigger daypack. That said some of the things I carry with me are indispensable and most of my rucksack is full with first aid and useful outdoorsy type things that always come in handy. I like being the person to go “will this help?” in sticky situations, whether it be tiger balm, plasters, tissues or electric razors to offer pretty girls as dildos. You know, those kind of daily sticky situations.

Speaking of which there’s millions of them; pretty girls, not dildos. I haven’t seen many of those save for the 27kg of them I carry round in my backpack, just in case…

Walking the streets I forgot how gorgeous Aussie girls can be. Of course there are huge munters as well as “Bogens” (what we’d call chavs) but Britain is made up from four in five chavs for every fit girl while here is it vice versa. That said, I just saw one of those girls that looks like Wayne Rooney and should not be from this century, instead a farmer’s wife about to take up pitchforks as arms against the Cavaliers or Roundheads in Cromwell’s English Civil War.

I’m mostly against war, but I think I could fight a civil war…

“Hello, my name is Will. I’m a soldier from the British Army and I’ll be your killer today. Would you like a sherry before I run you through with a bayonet, rape your wife and children and burn down your home? How d you feel about that?… Good well, lets get the show on the road, would you like my entire battalion to violently sodomise your wife before or after you die?… Good choice sir. That‘s what I would have opted for… Something to remember her by…”

You know, let’s bring a little decorum back to warfare in Basra, Afghanistan and no doubt soon Pakistan; I mean… Manners don’t cost anything.

Conversely, and brilliantly, I forgot just how ugleee Aussie males can be. Yeah, the surf-types are hot but on the whole they are a one in ten with the other ninety percent ending up a more gormless Mr. Bean. I just need not hang out in any surf-towns.

So after walking what felt like a the 26 miles 385 yards of marathon staring at girls and carrying a giraffe, I dropped it on the ground to hear the cry of

“Oi you can’t leave that lyin’ there”

“It’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe”

Spinning round it was my friend Elizabeth Baulch; “Bink” for short. It could be worse; she has a sister called Moo! It was ace to see someone I knew as I was so tired from my seven hours sleep in the last four days that the duldrums were setting in. Oh and I was pissed that this place was so expensive. Seven bucks or three quid for a can of coke and a picnic chocolate bar. The long-haired leftie galaahs.

Bink and her gay friend Seamus (she’s such a fag hag) picked me up in the first car I’ve been in for an age (taxis don’t count) and we went for food. Well I was too tired to eat so I shared Bink’s and had her leftover tarka dahl - I didn’t tell her it was my favourite as I couldn’t afford one of my own.

Another thing I love is the fact that security guards, postmen, train drivers, traffic wardens and maybe even the police wear shorts. I couldn’t take a shorts-wearing traffic warden giving me a ticket seriously, and from a policeman it’s just a licence to snigger. With their knee-high white socks and trainers they all look like boy scouts. I’d not be surprised if all bare-legged senior police chiefs play conkers on their lunch breaks. In the opposite way, all train and airport announcements are delivered with formal English accents, as if this land of convicts would not respond to anything but their overseer’s commands.

One day I got psyched out and stared down by an Aussie male walking towards me. Nothing unusual there aside from the fact he was a schoolboy complete with grey shorts and knee-high socks. He was bigger than me too!

Old people here dress differently to English geriatrics. Shorts, sandals, baseball caps and Marilyn Manson T-Shirts make senior citizens less worn by the effects of age… but not the sun. I mean, I want a tan but I don’t want to look like a fossilized crocodile handbag in my autumn years. (Will I have to call them fall years in America?)

Speaking of crocs, aren’t those plastic shoes just best prophylactic - the greatest form of contraception? No matter how good looking someone is, if they’re wearing crocs they cease to be sexually attractive.

Like wearing condoms on your feet.

Two of ‘em.

Fluorescent green condoms.

With holes in.

Sitting in the park by the river in West End I was bitten by ants while we smoked cigarettes and chatted with Bink’s brother, his wife, their nine month old but Hulk sized baby Levi. Very cool baby. It was cool to see Binky after so long, it must have been when she stayed at mine in London about three years ago that I last saw her. She was the same as ever, I didn’t enquire but I am probably not quite the same… I was too tired and, just like on the bus and in Raffles, I was nodding off every few minutes like an aforementioned geriatric.