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Hi all
Time then for the final installment of our Perth adventures. Culture wise, we only did one thing. The Western Australian Museum. We had to rush it slightly and as we’re going back there at the end of my time in Aus I’ll leave boring you with the details until then. Although there was a rather disturbing exhibition on the genocide (as laid down by the Geneva Convention) waged against the Aborigines. Kids being ripped from their mothers and forced to grow up ‘white’. They were trying to condition/breed the ‘blackness’ out of them. Right up until the 1970s. ‘Nuff said for now.
So now let’s get on with the drinking. Woo hoo. The first was a night out to celebrate Andy and Kimbers’s anniversary and was a tad unexpected. They went out for the day and somewhere along the way decided (by pulling a number out of a hat) that today was their anniversary. Cool. So me and Mand headed off to meet them in town and, thanks to a couple of sambuccas and some swift drinking we were all mashed within about an hour. Well Kimbers and Andy had been drinking since midday so they were pretty much already there. So much so that Kimbers had to have a short chat on the porcelain telephone after one particularly healthy sambucca. Happy anniversary hun :o) Eventually the inevitable bar closure occurred and we headed off to a bar called Mustang’s for a few more. Now Mustang’s was the bar that everyone at the hostel recommended. Having been there, I have absolutely no idea why. Dive is probably an upmarket term for it. It was seriously grim. It smelt, the staff were rude and most of the chairs had no stuffing in them. We loved it. And it was here that talk finally turned to our CB names.
Now the theory is this. We’d be in two cars so in order to minimise our outlay on text messages and calls, and to maximise our fun in annoying the b******s off locals and truckies alike we’d decided to get CB radios in Priscilla and Dave (Dave being the name of the other two’s car - as in ‘Alright Dave’ and has lead to them becoming known as the Davettes). But as anyone who’s ever seen Smoky and The Bandit knows, you have to have a really cool moniker. Now I really wanted to be called Alf Ramsey’s Bald Spot. But no-one got the joke. I then realised that I didn’t mean Alf Ramsey (he was the 1966 England manager) I meant the bloke out of Home & Away. Alf Roberts. Still no-one thought it was funny. He was, after all, the bloke from Coronation Street. It took the almighty sacrifice of Julie to watch an episode of the cursed programme (thanks again hun) to let me know I meant Alf Stewart. It still wasn’t that funny. However there were some slightly funnier options thrown around in Mustang’s. Mandy’s b**** and Mandy’s Monkey were offered up (unsurprisingly from the lady I laughingly describe as my girlfriend), Warney’s Hairpiece was met with a rather lukewarm reception, Gary Glitter’s Little Girl and Michael Jackson’s Little Boy, less so. Some I’m simply unable to commit to print. Let’s just say that by the end of the evening nothing had been decided and I had a rather disturbing insight into the minds of my compadres.
The only other thing to come from the evening was yet more confirmation of the unhelpfulness of front line staff in Australia. In Mustang’s, they were showing the Premiership. Any chance I can get it put on the big screen? I enquired of the miserable looking b**** behind the bar. Ask the manager, was the response. And that was it. She turned her back and walked away while I was still waiting to be pointed in the right direction. Not even a nod towards him or her to aid my progress. Hmmmm. I returned to my seat somewhat miffed. About ten minutes passed and the same girl came to tell me they were closing that section of the bar and that I had to move. She actually used less words than I just did. Can you ask the manager about getting the game on the big screen please, I asked in my bestest and most polite voice. I took the grunt as a reply in the affirmative. I watched as she went back behind the bar and started cleaning. Maybe he’s out the back and she’s just waiting for him, I thought. Twenty minutes passed. I went over again. Did you ask the manager about getting the game on the big screen? She pretended not to hear. Excuse me, did you ask the manager about the Premiership game going on the big screen? I asked loud enough to get the attention of the badly dressed bouncer. She tutted and pointed to a seedy looking bloke at the end of the bar, trying rather badly to flirt with another barmaid. You’ll have to ask him. Thanks for your help, I replied with as much sarcasm as I could muster and a look that I hoped conveyed the full force of my disgust. She just went back to examining the dirty cloth she was ‘cleaning’ the bar with. Not really expecting much success I approached the manager. He looked at me and I said hi. He turned away and went back to flirting with the barmaid. I stood and waited as he did his very best to ignore my presence stood right next to him looking at his skanky suit and lank greasy hair. Eventually I got tired of waiting and said pretty loudly Excuse me mate, are you the manager? The bouncer came over and stood next to him. Yeah mate, what can I do for you? f*** off and have a wash would be a good start. I stopped myself and asked a little testily ‘Can you put the Premiership game you’ve got on the small screens on the big screen please?’ ‘No’ and he started to turn away. I touched his arm and the bouncer loomed larger. ‘Why not?’ ‘Cos it’s English football and we close in about an hour’ ‘So?’ ‘You English always get rowdy when we have to turn it off, and I’m fed up with having glasses and bottles chucked at me’ ‘You should try being a bit friendlier to them then, and get some bar staff who know how to do their job properly’ He just blinked at me and turned away. I stared at the bouncer daring him to break every bone in my body. He didn’t (thank f***) and I brushed past him and went and sat down. Back to watching St Mirren v Rangers on the big screen, and trying to see what was happening in the Arsenal game at the same time. Not easy when you’re already going one eyed and not wearing your glasses. This attitude of being as unhelpful as possible seems to be a trait of every Aussie front line worker we’ve met so far. I once made the mistake of asking a girl in a bakery for change for the parking metre. Tutting when I approached her, looking at me with open hostility when I asked her for some change ‘I suppose you want dollar coins’ ‘Anything you have really’ Cue more tutting and a blank stare when I thanked her. We’ve bought tickets to The Big Day Out in Melbourne. Cue Mand shouting into the phone when the third person in a row had just put the phone down on her mid sentence. Her actual words were (don’t read this Chris) ‘Fine, don’t f***ing help me then you rude f***ing c*** ’ We were in a library at the time. We tried going to a drive in movie on Halloween. We must have asked three or four people, from the guy who booked us in at the camp to the dude who sold us our fish and chips to go with, if it was any good and they all told us it was great. It may well have been. It was also f***in closed. In fact it only opens at weekends. So why the f*** not tell us? In fact, now I come to think about it, when we first pulled in at a fish and chip shop Mand went in to the café bit and asked for the fish and chip shop and was told ‘It’s closed’. That’s it. ‘Well is there another one anywhere?’ ‘About 2 kms down the road’. So why not f***ing tell us that you cupid stunt? This may seem quite petty but after five weeks of it it really starts to grate on you. Why is it all such a mission? Maybe we spent too much time in Asia where they do everything in their power to help you. Or maybe we’re just a couple of whinging Poms...
Anyway, back to Perth and our second big night out. This was at the behest of Dave 2 and Ali. Dave swung it for us by promising free beer from his mate all night and with Andy and Kimbers crying off due to gayness, the four of us got twatted and headed out for the club. Black Betty’s. We finally got in after a slight detour to Dave’s mate’s hostel (he wasn’t there) and found him at the bar. The music was provided by a live band who’s play a set, then a DJ would take over, then the band would come back on again. It was superb. They were a covers band and just did rock classics all night. Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Jet. Absolutely first class. But free beer all night seemed a bit too good to be true. And so it turned out. But it was free draft until midnight. Sweet. This guy’s hostel had a deal with the club that they could free pitchers of beer until midnight but they had to get the beer from him and were only allowed half pint glasses to drink from. What difference that makes I have no idea. In fact I tend to drink faster from a half pint than I do from a pint glass. Suits me. Our drunkenness was helped immensely by the lady whose duty it was to mind our drinks while we went outside for a cigarette. That’s right folks, smoking in bars and clubs is now illegal in Australia. Pointless when the smoke machine is making it impossible to breathe and the place smells like a piss stained tramp, but there you go. Anyway, we left our drinks with this woman and when we came back they were gone. So she gave us a pitcher in compensation. Now this gave us a great idea. We went to the bar and asked for three empty pitchers. Then we kept going back to our man at the bar and getting refills on our half pints and pouring them into the pitcher. Five minutes later and we had four full pitchers and eight half pints between us. Beautiful. Let the drunkenness commence.
Now here’s the crack. Ali and Dave between them had cooked up the idea that we should pretend to be gay all night. Just to really annoy all the locals and try and get a response. Mand was duly enlisted as our fag hag and Dave and Ali spent the next couple of hours dirty dancing with each other and flouncing around like Graham Norton. At one point we thought Dave had actually pulled an Irish guy, but it turned out he was just trying to pull Mand. Now this guy was priceless. Proper small town Irish. He just couldn’t get his head round Dave and Ali. Especially when they started touching him, calling him darling, and feeling each other up. He just lost it. Pure fear and confusion. And this only made them worse. Only rarely have I heard such disturbing and twisted gay sex talk coming from a couple of straight guys. It was immense. Irish boy kept looking at me for help but seeing as how he was still trying to chat up Mand I was a little disinclined to make it easy for him. Once again I had someone asking me if I minded the fact that my girlfriend was dancing without me. This question has arisen so often lately, that I’m honestly starting to wonder if it should bother me. Well, nearly. After I’d said no to this question about twenty thousand times I eventually got a bit annoyed at the yokel p**** ‘I’ll tell you why, shall I?’ I asked him. ‘Because I have got something that no other f***er in this bar has. Especially not you. Do you understand?’ He didn’t, but at least he finally f***ed off.
Going back to this smoking outside bit (it comes in in England next year I think), it doesn’t actually make too much difference over here. But then it’s not pissing down and freezing cold. But you do end up talking to people that you normally wouldn’t. One guy who fell into this category was a drunken Maori with arms the size of my thighs and enough money in his pocket to finance a revolution. And he was seriously pissed. He just kept fixing me with a pair of bug eyes and telling me how much money he had and that he was a miner and that he didn’t want any trouble but was willing to go toe to toe with anyone who fancied it. At one point the bouncers refused to let him in cos he was too drunk and he just pulled out a huge wad of notes, peeled off about 10 $50 bills and handed them over. In he went. And he was still there at the end of the night when we all kicked out.
And this is where things took a turn for the worse. The main reason we left was that Ali’s small man syndrome had kicked in. It started with some random chat about what a true Australian handshake was. Erm, yep, I don’t understand it either. But Ali got into an argument with a biker outside about it and it very nearly kicked off there and then. Back inside and I could see he was itching to smash someone. Some guy on the dancefloor accidentally bumped into him and Ali all but punched him. If it wasn’t for the girl he was dancing with stepping between them and the guy apologising profusely he probably would have. Outside, and Mand was chatting to some guy from Brighton. Dave took real exception to this and got right in his face and said ‘Bye’. The guy looked a bit put out and returned to his mates. Who happened to be locals. Next up, one of them is going off about how these c*** aren’t even local and they’ve got no right being rude to people in their city. That’s the difference between everywhere else in Aus and Perth apparently. The friendliness of the people. Could’ve fooled me mate. But this obviously fired Ali up and he was quickly in amongst them telling them they were all c*** and that Perth was a pile of s***. Thankfully the more sober ones ushered their mates away while we ushered Ali away. Some things don’t change no matter where you are in the world. Another is that you’ll find big holes dug in the road without anybody actually working on them - this is true of every country we’ve visited so far. If it’s the same firm producing day-glo orange cones all over the world, then I’m getting me some shares. We went home via the kebab shop as Ali tried to start a fight with just about everybody that crossed his path. These small people and their tempers huh?
The thing is, he is a genuinely nice bloke and funny as you like. He’s got a kid back home, talks about his family with a real evident love, never has a bad word to say about anyone, goes out of his way to make you feel at ease and welcome and is easily the nicest bloke we’ve met in Australia yet. Oh yeah, and he’s coming to visit us in England in five years when he’s earned enough to buy his own house over here. He’s heard how cheap the drugs are in England and nothing’s gonna stop him. The reason he was stuck in Perth was because he had to attend a course for work and then they were dicking him around on his flights to his next mine. Eventually they phoned him one evening and told him they’d booked his flight for the morning after next. When he left without saying goodbye (I’d spoken to him not 10 minutes before) we were genuinely gutted. Strange for me, but there it was. Two days later we got an email apologising. The guy’s a diamond. End of.
So all in all a successful ten days or so in Perth. But it was time to move on to pastures new and start on our epic road trip across Australia. At least we hope it’ll be epic. It’ll definitely be long. Starting with the short hop to Fremantle. Happy days.
Laters all
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