So it was Australia Day on Monday. It's not a public holiday I've ever particularly rejoiced in above and beyond it being a day away from the desk, what with the whole "oh, oops, we forgot to acknowledge the tens of thousands of years of history and culture that were already here when we arrived" thing. But a public holiday is a public holiday - and when you don't get to have it, being on the other side of the world and all, well it becomes a different sort of phenomenon.
For me, as a student of well, shall we say broadly "culture", it was hilarious to witness the excessive ongoings in Shepherds Bush (aka SheBu aka Little Australia) earlier this week. You know you're someone drenched in Aussies when your shoes start sticking to the floor before you've even finished walking in the door.
The last time I was in a Walkabout Pub was 10 years ago in Brighton with Kirsten. And they are as dodgy now as they were then. All I remember from last time was returning from the bathrooms to find Kirsten ensconsed in the company of two sunburnt English boys in polyester shirts and her leaning over and whispering, "You're name is Jane, mine is Sarah and we're accounting students at Brighton College". You can imagine where the evening went from there...
Thankfully no need for a nom de plume this time around, though if I was channelling anyone it was David Attenborough as I ventured oxymoronically into this completely foreign place. Am I snob? Well, probably yes, but I really hope inherently no. I mean, I burn for you as much as the next person but it is wrong to wonder, even casually, if someone sporting an "I ♥ Penriff" t-shirt is embracing the great joy that is irony - or if it's just that they're missing two front teeth?
It was actually though a really fun night, and a funny night too. Not least of all because when I stopped to buy food on the way back to the tube station only to find myself surrounded by intoxicated, heaving, noisy, smelly Australians from Canberra, well, I pretended to be English.
It's a funny thing being Australian here in London. This drunk but charming old man chatted me up at the bus stop the other day and upon discovering I was Australian asked me why I wasn't in Earl's Court with the rest of my fellow countrymen. I said I wasn't sure exactly but he was pleased that I was in East London - told me I was sure to have an "authentic experience" living in these here woods. I shudder to think what an authentic East End experience might entail but as long as my shoes don't stick to the carpet then it can't be all bad?
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