MikeStanton

And I thought some undetected BSE in Oz explained your grasp of the English language...

MikeStanton

Badge, nobody is ever going to accuse you of being deep

RichS

I'll get involved though I'm English, and please lets make it clear I'm very happy where I am, but some things are missed:

1. London - restaurants. Massive variety and top chefs. Admittedly pricey, but...
2. My wages were at least double. I don't miss this per se, but the fact is in a global sense I'm much poorer living in aus.
3. Political media - more varieties of daily paper (about 13 I think) and hence more opinion, and better writing in the broadsheets generally.
4. There's no Alan Jones in England. God I dislike that man.
5. Sport - the English love football in a way that just does not exist in Aus. I'm missing that.
6. Being European and being close to Europe.
7. Humour - just the fact that the English have one. I get so many blank stares here.
8. TV - I'm not a great watcher of TV, but the quality is lacking here. I guess its the lack of incentive to produce good domestic product that me be mostly to blame, but they seem to bulk up entire schedules with american pap. I'll except SBS and the ABC at times from this. I'm still a firm believer that the BBC has a lot to be proud of in terms of it's general standard of output.
9. Summer - 9:30 outside a country pub and its still warm and light. Nothing better.
10. Winter - more of a hangover from seasonless Singapore really. I quite like getting rugged up on a cold day and going for a walk when the fields are all frosty. (There's crap bits to winter too, but I feel entitled to ignore them at my leisure).

kong

OK, my wife is Australian and has lived in England four years.

We find the social life in the UK is far superior to Australia. The medium sized town we live in has 15 or so pubs, the Sydney suburb we lived in had 2 crap excuses for a pub.

Town centres that have character, not just a USA style shopping mall attached to a multi story car park.

Supermarkets, loads of choice of good food and so many Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Morrison not just overpriced badly laid out Coles and Wollies.

Decent vegetarian food and loads of choice in the shops, restaurants, cafes etc.

A people who can accept our countries faults and laugh at ourselves!!

No national obssesion with sports, especailly swimming (yawn)

We can travel to Europe on a whim, cheaply relative to wages.

Decent wages, good working conditions 25 days holiday, sick pay etc, not "casual" work with bugger all work rights.

Decent curry, proper chip shops, no Maccas/chicken treat/hungry jacks wherever you look.

No need to drive everywhere, can walk to shops etc.

The quality of TV/Radio/Newspapers is far far superior in UK.

Better stop now, I could go on and on with this one.

Peter

You lost me right there. Either present your argument in a logical fashion or GFY.

Bix

Sorry Ulujain, but this will just not cut the ice.
Mike will not understand straight talking.
You have to wrap it up in statistics or ratios.

Something like 3 out of every 4 Australians tell him to GFY

Badge

I don't know...

(thought you'd like that one).

BM

HiddenPaw

What a load of utter BS. From someone who continually moans about generalisations being made about Australia, you've done exactly what you despise others for doing.

Peter

It was more one in the eye to people here who bitch about Australia's lack of British curry joints.

Now let me ask you; who's curry?

Quinkana

Green fields UK style:



Green paddocks Aus style:



And when it becomes to hedged in:

MikeStanton

I didn't think it would take much...

MikeStanton

Fair comment. Alan Jones, like many of his radio compatriots (eg John Laws) seem to be sponsored by big business; helps to provide a commercial edge to their bigotry.

wombat42

[QUOTE=RichS]I'll get involved though I'm English, and please lets make it clear I'm very happy where I am, but some things are missed:

7. Humour - just the fact that the English have one. I get so many blank stares here.

__________________________________________________ _______________


Maybe Australians give you blank stares not because they don't have a sense
of humour but because your not funny.

Badge

I think all nationalities have a sense of humour. I was watching a Pommie program last night and the sense of humour was great. So I thought about this.

I think Australians have less of the scarcasm and self-effacing of the Poms, but they do laugh at situations, have a black sense of hunour - which fortunately is very much my sense of humour. Whilst many Poms complain about Australian humour, I find Australians laugh all the time, you can't say they haven't got one. But it's a kind of " shared experiences - 'roll eyes - 'that would be right', 'bloody hell', 'see what you mean about that' humour" not a "god I'm so scarcy, witty, (well, at least I think I am) humour".

The only time Australians direct humour personally is for a bit of banter and they wouldn't bother if they didn't like you, or didn't think you could give it back. Unless they hate you in which case you should catch on quick ;-)

I think I have it about right, actually.

I laugh all the time with my mates at work and I don't see any blank stares. One bloke is very funny - bit of a clown.

If I had to give any advice to someone who is finding it hard connecting with Aussies I would say "relax - slow down" (its a kind of mindset) then the humour and banter will come. As the user Centurix said once, Australians 'can smell fear' (!), defensiveness, a mile away and will round on it.

BM

jad n rich

Sorry Diddy the whole 2 posts were just mucking about, wondered if anyone in the UK would pick up all the clues like BLUE sky in the evening (dark at 7 in summer), beach with dolphins at backyard (would cost around 7 million ) I was just having a laugh before the thread turned into a yours is bigger than mine debate as usual.

Work, I am a builder I work from 6 am to 6 pm 6 days a week, with about 25 hours in the office alone just trying to comply with the mountain of laws here. Wife works 8 am to 5 pm most days and son age 19 works 8am to 6pm 6 days a week. So the 20 hours was certainly a joke, sorry but when you live here its quite bizzare reading some of the odd stuff people write from the UK.

We have lived for several years in the UK up till 4 years ago. Things I would prefer there are health and education systems, so many things cheaper, travel, food, new cars, books, in particular and the general quality of stuff there. I actually like the climate (lock me up ) but I have worked outside in the australian climate most of my life and it kills blokes they AGE well before there time I can show you mates who look 60 they are men in their 40's. I prefer the variety of opportunites education and jobwise that would be available to my sons, for me the working conditions were a world away from here fantastic paid holidays what are they here. Earning more too. Generally a more stimulating atmosphere, people have more choices/options/variety in just about everything, and the competition in the price of it.

We have a very nice life here, but its quite sterile really, bland, week in work, weekend limited by huge distances, you can only do the things within reach so many times. Think it would be OK if I was an old fart, ready to retire or someone who likes slow and steady, we just prefer the variety in the UK thats all. Plenty of others might prefer ozs pace.