Hutch

Prompted by something someone said regarding finding their feet on this, the busiest section (by far) of this busy forum - I thought I'd write up a little rough guide.

The Sections
Not sure where to post your question? Okay - let's break it down.

1. Australia. The clue is in the name - ask about anything related to Australia (from an expats point of view). You tend to get 'straighter' questions about living down under in this section. Such as - where to live, how much lettuce costs, why Queensland doesn't have daylight savings, where to find Bisto, will your telly work, best schools, etc.
2. The Barbie. Think of it as a pub for oz-based expats - the place folks tend to 'hang out' and engage in mindless (but often entertaining) chit-chat. Posts in here can be as jokey as you like, but they don't have to be - some of the most serious stuff of all has been posted in the Barbie. Contentious stuff about the relative merits of Perth is usually better suited to this section too.
3. Immigration. Anything related to the long visa process should be posted in here. You'll find people going through exactly the same things as you, collecting all the same paperwork as you, struggling with the same questions as you. You'll also find some very knowledgeable immigration agents in here, who offer excellent (and free) advice.
4. Updates. Pretty simple - fill us in on your adventures so far. Upbeat, downbeat - it doesn't matter - the odds are it'll help someone.
5. Meet-ups. If, having moved 12,000 miles from the place you were born and raised, you suddenly have a hankering to quote Monty Python lines to someone, or discuss the latest goings-on in the Premiership (or Eastenders) then have a look here. Some meet-ups happen on a regular weekly or monthly basis - others are ad-hoc.
6. The Wiki. The Wiki is BE's own hand-crafted encyclopedia. Since it's made by BE members in their spare time there are more gaps than info, but it does have some useful stuff in there. http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Category:Australia
7. Friends helping friends. You can't post here, but it's worth mentioning. Some kind folks on the forum have offered their services to people who'd like information about an area. Some of 'em will even show you around personally. Find the list here - http://britishexpats.com/articles/au...lping-friends/.
8. Articles. You can't post in here either unless invited. However, there are some excellent articles about Australia mainly covering people's experiences in this country. http://britishexpats.com/articles/australia/
9. Moving Back to the UK. Australia being the most popular destination for the British, this forum is also dominated by people returning to the UK from Oz. If you have any questions regarding heading back to blighty, be they practical or emotional - this is the place to do it.
10. The Lounge. This is the international version of the Barbie. Expats from all over the world post in there, indeed some Oz expats only post in there. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but have a read and see if you like it.

Posting

1. Try and be specific. Australia, as Douglas Adams might have said if he hadn't been cruelly taken from us, is a big place (you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to Australia). So if you're asking about the quality of schools, please try and narrow it down to a specific town. If you can't be specific, because you simply don't know where you're going, at least try and point us in the right direction (like you prefer warmth all year round, to seasonal weather, in which case Tasmania is *not* for you!).
2. Threads have a habit of wandering off-topic - please don't take it personally when this happens - it's part and parcel of using a busy forum. Just respond to those people who are answering your question in order to keep the thread heading the way you want.
3. There's a sizeable time difference between Australia and the UK - and a smaller, but noticeable time difference between east and west coast Oz. So if you're in the UK and you have a question for us aussies, bear in mind that you may not get many replies until we've actually woken up.
4. Don't take like/dislike responses personally. You've got your heart set on moving to Cairns, but someone's slagged the place off - it doesn't mean you won't like it. Everyone's different, has different aims in life, different requirements from the place they live, like different kinds of weather, are into different kinds of socialising. The response may have been from someone who's young and single, but you're moving with your family with children. In other words, take everything with a pinch of salt.
5. Don't directly post your email address in a reply - you'll just end up getting even more spam in your inbox when the forum is trawled by the web's spambots. Instead, invite people to contact you via Personal Message (PM).
6. People like hearing good news too. Yes, the forum's about problem solving (amongst many other things) but if things are going your way, let us know. This holds particularly true for after you've arrived in Australia, since people tend to drop off the radar once they've established themselves.

The Lingo

• Bogan - aussie equivalent of trailer trash or chav. See also: feral.
• Hoon - young 'uns (nearly always lads) doing what young lads do (drive too fast, get too drunk, do both together, wrap their utes around a tree).
• Ute - (short for 'utility') - basically a pickup truck. Some have more bling than others - they all have a cabin up front and a tray at the back for dogs, surfboards, tool-belts, fishing rods and drunken mates.
• Centrelink - your aussie equivalent of the DHS.
• Troll - someone who posts on a forum with the intent of winding up and/or pissing off as many people as possible.
• Rock up - to arrive. Probably best not to try using this one until you've lived here for at least 20 years or you'll come across like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins; same goes for drongo (an idiot), arvo (afternoon), beaut (excellent) and grog (booze).
• Footie - can mean soccer, rugby league or aussie rules - does not mean the part of your leg below the ankle.
• OH/DH/BIL/SIL/the outlaws/relies - your relatives - husband, partner, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, in-laws in general.
• Mods. No, not Paul Weller (or Sting in a parka), but moderators - the BE Police. They're here to keep the forum on-track, friendly and spam free. Mods are plucked from the posting masses but for some reason, are usually female. We try not to hold that against them. So to speak.
• Getting pizza/popcorn. People usually say this when someone posts something contentious that they're convinced will turn into a slagging match.
• PMSL/ROFL/LOL/LMAO. You've made someone chuckle. No, not 'chuck' grandad, chuckle. Someone get him his hearing aid.
• Bashed. Beaten-up, thrashed, kicked in, knobbled.
• Ping-pong-pom. Someone who emigrates to Oz, then moves back to the UK, then moves back to Oz again. Can also be used as a verb, as in - to ping-pong. Yes, it's perfectly okay to question their sanity.
• Block - the land a house is built on. Plots are what you get buried in.

Etiquette

1. First thing is - you do not talk about fight club. No wait. The first thing is that your question has, almost certainly, been asked and answered many times. That does not mean that you shouldn't ask it, just that you should try using the site's excellent Search function first. You can find the Search button in that, ermm, peach strip at the top of the page in-between 'Todays Posts' and 'Shortcuts'.
2. It's easy to get the wrong end of the stick from written replies. Some people have a drier sense of humour than others - some have none. So before you take offence at a reply, consider carefully whether there's an alternative way of reading it - and if in doubt, ask the person who said it to clarify. This beats telling someone they're a ****ing moron, when the poster inadvertently left a smiley face emoticon off the end of their post.
3. Yes, some of us have been kicking around this site for a while, but that does not mean we operate as some sort of members-only clique. The fact is that over the years, we've come to 'know' our fellow posters pretty well. So yes, there's often the odd in-joke shared. Don't feel intimidated by this - just get stuck in - we're a friendly bunch (apart from Amazulu).
4. We're not all English, don't assume we are. Some of us are Welsh, Scottish, Irish, South African and yes! even Australian. People tend to get a lot more nationalistic when they emigrate, so calling a Scot English probably won't go over very well. But then, that's the Scots for you.
5. Please don't type in uppercase, IT'S THE ONLINE EQUIVALENT OF SHOUTING.
6. To avoid confusion when replying to a specific post, please use the 'Quote' facility. To do this, click on the little Quote button at the bottom-right of the post in question and then type in your response below theirs.
7. Don't expect everyone to feel the same way as you. What's that saying about opinions and arseholes? You think Perth sucks, that's fine - it's your opinion - but if someone responds by saying they think Perth's utopia, bear in mind that they're as entitled to think that as you are that it's a shithole.
8. If you're new, say hello, introduce yourself. Give us a bit of background about yourself, where you're from, where you're moving to, who's coming with you.
9. Smileys or emoticons (the little faces) are your friends. Employ them whenever you think your post might get taken the wrong way.
10. Hutch is always right.
11. Please don't ask a question and then, when people offer you their answers, tell them they're wrong. If you know it all already, then you don't need this forum.

Common Threads/Questions

1. Where should I live? This should be determined by the availability of work first and foremost and your particular taste in weather second - not the other way around. Never believe someone who tells you you'll be able to 'walk into' a job in a certain place. If you can line up work before you arrive, great - but experience shows you'll probably be hard pressed to achieve this. Also remember that there's much, much more to Oz than Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
2. The cost of living. A thorny subject that comes up often. Remember to stop thinking in terms of the pound/dollar conversion rate when you land, because you're earning dollars now, not quids. Generally speaking, the cost of living is roughly equivalent to the UK - you might save a few bucks on petrol and council tax, but you'll end up paying more for things like health care.
3. Availability of Marmite/Persil/Hellmanns/Bisto etc. There are relatively few things you can't get here and for every product there is an aussie equivalent. If your quality of life is coloured by the fact that you can't find good gravy granules then emigration is probably not for you.
4. Which is better - Oz or the UK? Otherwise known as the 'Is the grass greener' thread. An unanswerable question on a wide scale. Ask this and you'll just get loads of people saying things like, I prefer the UK because it has Tescos or I prefer Australia because it doesn't have Tescos. Ultimately - each place floats different people's boats and you won't know which side of the fence you fall until you try it on for size, if you'll permit me to mix my metaphors.
5. Will my TV work in Oz. Probably, yes. Older tube-based tellies might need to be routed through a set-top box to get sound, but anything less than 10 years old will probably work fine. We have the same electricity (220/240) but different shaped plugs.
6. How did you ship your dildo? Comes up amazingly often (ermm, so to speak). Just pack it with your stuff in your container, but do take the batteries out before you ship it, or you might get more than a writhing climax out of it the next time you take it for a spin.
7. Perth is crap. Very few people seem to sit on the fence with regards Perth - you'll probably either love it or hate it. Just bear in mind that it's a long way from anything other than the Antarctic, that houses cost a hell of a lot there and that the only people making serious wonga are either in mining or real estate.
8. Can I get Sky? No - Sky's 'footprint' points at northern Europe. You can, however, get Austar/Foxtel which is owned by the same bloke, carries pretty much the same channels (shy of the BBC and ITV) and shows much the same programmes. And yes, it's every bit as shit.
9. What should we bring? Simple answer - everything. Slightly longer answer - if you've already hired a container to ship your stuff, bung it all in there. Yes, it's tempting to 'start all over again', but you'll spend the first year in kitchen shops buying all those little gadgets you took 30 years to collect. You can always flog the bits and pieces you don't want when you get here - aussies genuinely love second-hand stuff.
10. Can I survive on $10,000,000 a year? Who knows? Do you drink Krug champagne every evening or prefer a chilled alcopop?
11. I'm leaving the UK because it's full of immigrants. Everyone has their reasons, but consider the fact that you're about to become an immigrant yourself. Yes, you've probably had to pay through the nose for the honour, but that doesn't detract from the fact that you'll be living in another country and dealing with much the same shit that the Poles have to put up with in the UK.
12. Crime in Oz. Bad things happen everywhere - Oz is pretty similar to the UK in crime levels. It is, of course, worse in built-up areas like large towns and cities. So if you're leaving Little Netherwallop (population 12) and moving to Sydney (population 4,297,100) expect to find some differences.
13. The exchange rate. It goes up, it goes down - nobody can tell you which way it's going to go. If you need to transfer your cash into dollars, just bite the bullet and exchange it, because you probably won't have to do it again. Oh and never look at the currency rates again. Unless you work as a currency trader on the floor of a large merchant bank that is.
14. How do I open a bank account. It is possible (HSBC and ANZ will let you do it), but really, why can't all this stuff wait until you're here? You might sign up with ANZ and end up living somewhere where the nearest branch is 60km away.
15. Should we move? It's the shoulder-shrugg of questions. As BE poster Dorothy once said (nailing it on the head): Worse still are the "what have you got to lose?" replies. The reality is what you have to lose is: Life's savings, Family, Friends and Career.

Some Cool Things You May Not Know You Can Do On This Site

• Karma. Think of this as a post-it note that you've just stuck on a specific poster's screen. If you just want to say something short and sweet, which you don't want to air in public, or to cheer someone up, or simply to agree with them without everyone else on the forum knowing that you do, use it. Karma used to be anonymous (which meant it was used for very nasty 'digs') but now the person you're sending it to will know who you are.
• Search. It's very sophisticated. Click on the 'Search' button and then on 'Advanced Search' and you can really narrow things down. You can enter a specific poster's name, restrict the search to specific sections of the site and restrict your search to a timeframe.
• Who Quoted Me. To see if someone's responded to something you've said, click on 'My Profile' at the top of the screen and then the 'Who Quoted Me' link at the bottom left of the page.
• Thread subscription. If there's an old thread that you don't want to miss a post on, subscribe to it. To do this, reply as normal and then, before you click 'Submit Reply', scroll down a bit and select a notification type from the Thread Subscription section. Alternatively, just click on 'Subscribe to this thread' from the 'Thread Tools' menu you'll find in every thread and reply.
• Want to embed a movie, or image directly into your post? It's easy. For videos (such as YouTube), copy the url of the movie in question, click on the little Film Reel icon in the message reply window and paste the url in. For images, go to the image you wish to embed and get its url (like http://www.google.com/bigboobies.jpg) then click on the little picture icon next to the film reel and paste the address in.
• Wondering what the most discussed topics are? From one of the main sections (Barbie, Australia etc), click on the word 'Replies' or 'Views' in the peach bar beneath 'Threads in Forum: The Barbie' and the site will order them according to page views or replies.
• Wondering how long it's been since someone was last online? Just click on their username (anywhere it appears) and you'll be take to their profile page. On the right you'll see 'Last Activity:' and the date of their last appearance.
• There's a special version of BE for mobile phones. Just point your mobile's web browser at http://britishexpats.com/be-on-the-go/
• Once you've mastered quoting, try multi-quoting. To do this, just click on the little icon to the right of the Quote button, on any posts that take your fancy. When you eventually hit the 'New Reply' button, all the posts you selected will appear one after another, enabling you to respond to them individually.
• Offended? Shocked? Upset? Click the little exclamation mark icon next to the Karma button to report a post to the BE police.

Sheff_Sparky

Very Good!!

Hope that Amazulu, doesnt read this

yes, Hutch is always right, but only because of the fact that no-one else can be bothered to argue with him.

Dorothy

Probably one of the most informative posts ever. I feel honoured to have been mentioned!

username 34

I was happy to see the Dildo question included

Racht70

Great thread!

TheDangerousQuietOne

Brilliant, I've been using this forum for a few weeks now and that has just answered an awful lot of questions!

:th umbsup:

Kapri

[QUOTE=Hutch;[*]Mods. No, not Paul Weller (or Sting in a parka), but moderators - the BE Police. They're here to keep the forum on-track, friendly and spam free. Mods are plucked from the posting masses but for some reason, are usually female. We try not to hold that against them.



Hee Hee
Buzzy and Cresta are going to love you

Sheff_Sparky

[QUOTE=Kapri;6148427] not to mention JDR and BOB

ausi dream

I agree, thank you.

LouiseR

Absolutely fantastic post. I feel like a a idiot because I've done so many of the "Do not do's!!" Ah well live and learn! Thanks for giving up your time to do that - very informative

minibelle

Thanks spending your time writing this Hutch, excellent for the newbie's

minibelle

Buzzy--Bee

[QUOTE=Kapri;6148427]

Hmmmmm.......

Excellent, thanks for that Hutch, very very useful and I hope members study it carefully.

Buzzy

gillysm

Excellent post Hutch, thanks for taking the time to post that, very informative even when you've been on here a little while.

renth

Good stuff, let's hope the newbies read it.

Nerine

What a great idea, thanks for taking the time Hutch. Every forum on here should have something similar.

Buzzy & Cresta......anything you'd like to share with us?