Lothianlad

You are right....it is CAERNARFON.....the actual letter V does not exist in the Welsh language but their letter "F" is pronouced as a "V". A Welsh person would also strongly stress both of the "Rs", as do we Scots, unlike the English who glide over their Rs as if they didn't exist. The Welsh for Anglesey is "Sir Fon" - pronounced as "Sear Vaughan" - the Fon bit coming from the old Roman word for the island of Anglesey - Mona. There should be a circumflex ^ above the "O" in Fon making it a long vowel. The Welsh language has this feature which has the initial letter of many words (including placenames) altering depending on the vowel contained in a preceding word...quite complicated and difficult to learners to come to terms with.

It's actually PORTMEIRION. It was here that Noel Coward wrote "Blithe Spirit" while spending a weekend at Portmeirion in May 1941, mostly to gain inspiration, and also to seek relief from the trauma of the London blitz.

As a Brit I am fascinated by all your posts, and it really brings home to me that we Brits are, by and large, not a bad lot at all! In fact, I quite like us now after reading all you have to say about us on our own home ground! Thank you very much. Welcome back, btw.

ezzie

That is so interesting...thanks for that. The Welsh language certainly has a lot of ppphwwwww sounds to it! We were listening to a Welsh radio channel on the way there - it was either that or Radio One and the Welsh station made more sense!

Not back yet...need jobs!

jackuk

Hi Ezzie, I have noticed on your posts you mention , how amazed you are a strangers in the uk ,being friendly, helpful , banter, etc, however, I see you are living in Sydney, a big city, I am yet to find strangers from a big city being helpful (ok maybe Liverpool )BUT London UKs biggest city is a pretty unfriendly place....oz must be different in the smaller towns /suburbs ?

Elaine B.

I was in London recently for a long weekend (took my 5 year old with me) and I found it very friendly. For example we had to get the tube from Heathrow to the Hotel in Kensington and I was helped on several occasion to carry my suitcase up stairs and people held doors open for me etc..

The most unfriendly city I've lived is is Montreal and oddly enough some of the rudest people were the senior citizens who would push in front of you in queues and let door slam in your face After living there even Toronto seemed friendly

jackuk

You may be right about London too, its all relevant to where you are from,I was only there a day , I have been to Toronto for two weeks and had the door shut in my face several times , I once tried to ask for directions and was completely ignored, not even a NO !!!!!

nik04

Lothianlad i take it you have never been to gloucestershire they love R's in fact everone you know has one in front of their name e.g R mum

ezzie

An interesting day today...first took half the day to motivate and organise kids into getting up, dressed and ready to go out. Went to Merry Hill (massive shopping centre which we refer to more appropriately as Merry Hell). Dropped the girls with their friends at the cinema and immediately noticed an odd bloke with eyes too close together (I swear they really were) moved from the front of the queue round behind them. I reckoned he looked a bit pervy and warned the girls whilst fixing him with a few 'evils'. My son refused to join in and moved away in embarrassment....apparently I was taking the protective mother thing just too far. But...I was right! We found out later that he'd followed them in (it was a chick flick!), sat behind them, then in front, then next to them, having a good letch all the time. Yes, they were scared and yes, I'd told them to get cinema staff to move him if he did anything dodgy, but they didn't because teens think they can handle situations, but the fact is that quite often, they can't. They left for a trip to the loo and he'd moved on by the time they got back.

Meanwhile I was out with ds looking for a replacement sat nav (btw - don't buy a TomTom!). Popped into one shop to look for something else and ds mentioned he was surprised how expensive they were compared to Oz. This lad serving us then said 'oh, Australia, yeah I've read all about how discriminatory they are against Muslims'. I said that Aussies are amongst some of the least discriminatory and multi-cultural people that I've come across. He then started ranting at me, picking a fight about how Muslims were a pure people, totally without crime etc and how the only reason they had a higher level of criminal activity recorded compared to other people was that the police in Australia picked on them for 'stop and search' I said that I didn't think we had an awful lot of stop and search in Oz and that I was off to do my shopping. The silly sod then stood in front of me wanting to continue his fight....I sodded off el prompto.

Next door in Comet, they had notices up everywhere telling customers to stop being so abusive to staff!

The shops were packed - absolutely packed! I was surprised how un-Christmassy everything was. School kids don't do mistletoe anymore and no one yet (apart from at the village do last night) has wished me Happy Christmas. I remember that this used to be significant a couple of weeks out of Christmas - so there's me longing for a 'real Christmas' only to find it's all slipped a bit here.

Now, to be terribly judgmental, but this is how I see it, looking around at who was at the shops today, my golly, a lot of girls looked very chavvy - tiny skirts, chewing gum and smoking (yes, simultaneously!) and pregnant. Women in their 20 & 30's looked 'hard' - I can't really describe the look, but I'm sure you'd recognise it. Looking older than their years, a hard scowl on their lips and dressed, as my mum would say 'like mutton dressed as lamb'. Then the older people seemed to be a completely different sort having mellowed into M & S raincoats and kindly looks. There were a few lads roaming around looking, or trying to look, tough..generally pushing through people, not around people. Also lots of young girls 'on the prowl'. There was three incidences where groups of coloured lads paced behind the 4 girls but lost interest when it was obvious the girls weren't interested...in fact hadn't even noticed them!

Other than this, the staff at shops were lovely and even came across one who was desperate to move to Geelong...due to the friendliness and warmth of the people there....which just shows how personal our experiences and intepretation of situations can be. Even in this crowded, overheated frantic shopping centre, it was nice to get personal interactions from people no matter how tired we all were. Even the chap selling fake snow remembered us from a week ago!

The other thing that amazed me was the queuing. Queues for food, the tills, drinks...everything! I can't see Aussies being so patient...I think they'd vote with their feet. Again, the personal contact in UK shops is great but the level of general organisation and service seems below the standard of Sydney stores....very generalised I know, but certainly our experiences so far.

Which brings us to tonight...decided to go to chippy. Stood there having a right old laugh with everyone. Strangers said 'hello' and drew us into conversations. The lady in there amazed my son by remembering him from two weeks ago, where he was from and the conversation they had back then. This is such a lovely village...it has some odd ways, but it really is a smashing place (I still think Hot Fuzz was modelled on it!).

Tomorrow, we visit rellies!

Mummy in the foothills

Sounds like you are having a nice time Ezzie, you were in my old stomping grounds in North Wales. Gotta say I'd love to be back there for Christmas. I can't imagine even trying to go up Snowdon in the winter, you are braver than I.
We did visit Portmeirion on Christmas I think we were the only ones there, everything was covered in a layer of Ice.

So what happens now. Do you have to return to OZ now the filming is all done or do you get to find jobs and stay in UK?

Lothianlad

Obviously all part of the GBU......the Great British Underclass....easily the largest such group in the whole of Europe....no other European country can display anything to equal the British variety of White Trash, examples of which can be seen any weekday from 09:25hrs to 10:30hrs on ITV1 with repeats later the same day on ITV2....all courtesy of a sink estate trawler by the name of Jeremy Vyle...oops, sorry.....Kyle. There;s absolutely nothing wrong being judgmental when it is completely warranted. With Britain easily topping all the European tables in negative social issues it truly is fine to be judgmental. Karen Matthews is but one of very many, with male equivalents besides.

As ever, a highly interesting read from Ezzie and oh so very perceptive!

Grayling

Do you have any statitics to support such a sweeping generalisation?

....or is this simply your opinion?

Notts_bloke

Yeah the Aussies love Muslim people especially the ones in Cronulla, oh and the ones who would love an Islamic school in Camden.

Grayling

....and don't forget how welcoming they are, at the moment, to a Muslim school on the Gold coast

Jules Europe

As always an interesting read of your diary but I`ve gotta say you have some very strange daily incidents and some strange conversations with people as well To be fair the guy was right muslims are pretty crime free, it seems they don`t view blowing up people as something of a criminal act..........I guess God approves of their actions and it seems they believe this as well.

If your going to be walking around a shopping centre on a Saturday afternoon, you are definately going to be rubbing shoulders with the underclasses.............Hard looking women in their 20`s and 30`s are very much the norm and being pregnant is very much the order of the day. The loutish yobs have got to go somewhere, so I suppose a shopping centre is as good as anywhere else.

Remember queuing is a very much an English thing, something that the world looks on in wonder..........I`ve no patience for such things, so just go off to another shop

I would also agree with Lothian Lad that the white trash underclass in the UK is pretty unique, probably only equalled in % by the white trash than you can find in the USA.

Grayling

The Australians do a pretty good version as well.

Jules Europe

I imagine they do, given the fact that a lot of the original white settlers where shipped over convicts. I imagine their genes have passed from generation to generation.