'Roos Go Out

Sad to say the Socceroos were booted out of the World Cup by Italy who won with a 92nd minute disputed penalty. I'm glad to say that some round here did point out that if they'd taken their chances and put the ball in the net earlier, then the penalty wouldn't have mattered.

We were at the Jetty Theatre in Coffs last night for the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow, a good place to test the mood following this sporting disaster. The female Kiwi compere reported that her Aussie friends were on the edge of their seats until the final whistle then sank back with sighs of "oh well, there you go." And now it's forgotten. It takes a foreigner to deliver the best insights, I think, and her theme was that Aussies are pretty laid back, if not more laid back than Kiwis, in fact. She pointed out that New Zealand has no dangerous wildlife at all. In Australia, by way of contrast, we have a world-beating array of deadly creatures and insects and even something as apparently cuddly as a duck-billed platapus can poison you. And yet we don't seem to worry.

It's true. Our shortest route to the beach is known to harbour red-bellied black snakes and brown snakes, both potentially lethal, but it's still the route we all use, even barefoot, in some cases. A schoolgirl was even attacked by a kangaroo in Coffs last week.

The other significant contribution came from an American who had been living here since 1992. He confessed that he hadn't applied for citizenship yet. "I've had the forms for two years but I just can't be arsed to fill them out. See...I reckon that means I'm a citizen already."

'Roos Go Through

Well, they did it. The nation had a definite spring in its step this morning despite getting up at 5am to see Australia play Croatia with qualification for the knock-out stage at stake for both sides (this is the World Cup, it's football, played with a round ball, for those non-sporting readers).

A late goal from Harry Kewell, or King Harry, as the Prime Minister calls him, was enough to draw the game, which was all they needed to finish second in their group. Travellers stranded at Canberra airport this morning because of fog were still fondly watching the replays many hours later. This was just as well as many were there for some hours (I know, I was one of those travellers).

Here's an irony. I've mentioned before that football here is very much the preserve of immigrant communities, though that may now change, and the list of player's names has a distinct European/Balkan flavour. The Socceroos' captain is a guy called Mark Viduka and he's of Croatian descent and started his professional career there. I reckon he passes Norman Tebbit's infamous cricket test, if that's not too confusing.

Now For The Manacle Marks

I’ve just been told that I am now a Permanent Resident in Australia. The letter came from the Department of Immigration this week. I’ve been on probation, as it were, for the last 18 months or so. I can’t pretend that it’s been a worry for us, though the consequences of a rejection would have been pretty horrendous. So now I can, in due course apply for citizenship and have the hereditary manacle marks put on my legs. (Sorry, that comes from a joke that New Zealanders tell – how can you tell an Aussie from a Kiwi?)

As I’ve noted before, it’s easy to forget that we’re living in a foreign country. This week reminded me that, until now, I could have been asked to leave at any time. Curiously, for the first time, I’ve also been racially abused. At the end of a long and, from both sides, fruitless phone call about the Government selling its stake in the Snowy Mountain hydro scheme, I was told I was a Pommie bastard and could piss off.

Now I don’t for a minute this ranks high in terms of racial abuse (though I am having counselling, obviously) but it does make you think. I didn’t get a chance to tell him I wasn’t a Pom because he put the phone down, but the point was I was being abused because of something over which I had no control, over something he thought I was. What must it be like to put up with that every day because of the colour of your skin? To add insult to injury, the Government pulled out of the sale the next day, citing strong public sentiment. I’ll say.

And for the record, I will be supporting Australia against England in the first rugby union test this Sunday, though what that proves in this context, I’m not sure, given that I am, of course, Welsh.

Codes for Kiwis

I read in The Australian this week that New Zealand is introducing a full national system of post codes. It was only a short article, but the four paragraphs managed to be pretty superior about the fact that our neighbours across the water were only just attaining this level of sophistication. This is very much in keeping with Australian attitudes to New Zealand generally, despite recent rugby results.

Personally, I find it rather encouraging that they’ve managed without codes until now. What it says to me is that, by and large, their communities are of a manageable, humane size and they’ve presumably been able to provide a decent service without reducing every neighbourhood to a sequence of digits or digits and letters.

Even now, they only need a four-digit code, as opposed to the six or seven letters and digits you have in the UK. And Australia is still getting by with only four digits for the whole continent.