Dances With Chazzwazzers

Dear friends,

It’s usually about this time of the day, probably earlier, that I’m thumbing out my annual Festive Text. As I’m looking to keep my spending down to a minimum (I am, just don’t mention the Dim Sum selection I bought for tomorrow’s Boxing Day Test Match picnic) and because I’m not over keen on giving my English mobile phone provider a great bulk of my Travelling Expenditure War Chest, for one year only, it’s Season’s Greetings via the medium of blog post.

Which means today’s offering is a bit on the tame side again. Sorry about that.

However, China is en route via a three day train journey from Perth, with his hands gaffer-taped round a wine bottle and sharing his cabin with an over-amorous pensioner (male) so there could be one or two stories to relay there.

Plus there’s Boxing Day at The G tomorrow.

And it’s nearly Friday, and I think I’ve found the stereotypical Aussie pie to tell you all about. Looking forward to getting stuck in and reporting back to all you lovely people.

There’s a Games Maker’s view of the Olympics to come too.

Before all that, it is Christmas Day. Thank you all for your wonderful generosity and valued friendship over the last year.

Have an absolutely marvellous Christmas one and all.

That’s usually the gist of my text message. Now then; enjoy.

Huzzah!!!

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

(Hello Auntie Daphne x)

H

Peter Butterworth’s character, the disbelieving missionary in Carry On Up The Khyber would have empathised. Close on 40 degrees outside and I’m part of a dozen or so Brits sitting down steadfastly to Roast Turkey and Roast Pork with all the trimmings.

All that’s missing is the walls caving in and the band playing on.

With typical British resolve we plough on through the delicious, if untypical middle of Aussie summer fayre, with gusto. Then someone hits the iPod and Fairytale of New York (Hello Chris!) fills the room with cynical yet seasonal cheer.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….

“Uh, well, this next one’s probably Australia’s most famous Carol. It seemed logical to the lyricist to pen a Carol set in sunnier climes as he felt most of his country folk couldn’t relate to the snow when it’s 110 outside.”
How wise. And how that sentiment that still rings true.
Seven in the evening and it’s still stifling outside. We head to the relatively cool surrounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral for Carols in the Cathedral starring the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and a host of the great and good of Australian classical music.
It’s a long way from home in every sense of the word and a far cry from the endearingly wonderfully Dibley-esque scenes that pass for Christmas Carols back at St.Mary’s, Salford, Bedfordshire.
The cathedral dates back to 1836, I’ll leave the technical stuff to people who know their religious buildings, and wimp out here with, ‘and is really impressive.’
In fact, I don’t know too much about classical music to feel qualified enough to put together a well-informed critique, so I’ll put ‘really impressive’ for everything here.

Almost halfway through the service, we do get round to Australia’s Carol, Christmas Day. I struggle through it but give it some for O’ Come All Ye Faithful, missing Ed & Kenners’ playful ‘O’ Come’ in the wrong bits and Dad rushing around with chairs, determinedly accommodating all comers for St.Mary’s big night, leaving no pew or space unoccupied (Hello chaps!).
In fact I find myself transported back home as I lull along in a trance like state bought on by the magnificent choir. The readers’ Victorian tones are supplanted by Bedfordshire voices, croaks and coughs. The ornate surroundings are replaced with the humbler, colder, more familiar setting back home. Reverend Hugh is there too directing proceedings, though only in my mind.
The soprano, a Miss Siobhan Stagg, ups the sentiment levels as well as the musicianship through her spellbinding ‘Wiegenlied’ before the choir’s ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ has the audience in raptures.
All in all, it’s been a wonderful evening and I am, once again on this trip, extremely grateful for the goodwill and kindness of others (Thank you very much indeed Gooders!). We head over the road to Federation Square and a post concert beer.

Everything is the same though remarkably different.

“Skull, skull, skull”, the lippy kids in the corner again. Bay 13, home to the most socially challenged of Melbourne’s cricket fans. This evening the Junior Bogans are in the house, on Wednesday, Boxing Day, it’ll be their older brothers, fathers and uncles.
My view from the Second Tier above the mosh pit of the Melbourne Cricket Ground means, although I can hear the words, I don’t get to see whether or not the target of their vitriolic request performs his challenge. Neither do I get to see if any of the local Sheilas less than cordially invited to remove their tops do so. Or the public misery of the other cowering objects of their raucous abuse.
I try and concentrate on the cricket, which is more than they do. But then, the game meanders on as inconsequentially as an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Having the attention span of a gnat with ADHD isn’t recommended for a Friday night at Australia’s premier sporting venue.
To be fair to the organisers, they’re pulling out all the stops to ensure audience involvement, to give the big boost to the Big Bash.
It just seems they’re trying too hard.

Tonight’s match is between the Melbourne Stars and the Sydney Sixers, a rivalry between cities and states that transcends all sports and gives the contest a welcome bit of edge. Locals back their team with the same level of ferocity as they barrack the opposition. Sixers’ Steve Smith, in particular, comes in for a good deal of abuse. Running, fielding, mis-fielding, bowling, nervously shelling catches; everything he does has the uncomfortable deportment of a man who’s recently soiled himself. His evening improves somewhat when he clings on to a miscue from Stars’ Glenn Maxwell.
Unfortunately for the away side, following a costly mis-field early on, Maxwell makes an impressive, game-changing 82 before Smith’s intervention. The Australian ODI man, with the help of veteran T20 specialist Brad Hodge has wrested the impetus back for his team following their early scare. Coming from 50 balls, his innings features seven mighty boundaries, which momentarily threatens to tear the Junior Bogans away from their synchronised crowd sledging. Stars finish with 177-6 from their 20 overs.

Meanwhile, the venue entertainment people are in full flow. A Q-Branch worth of gadgets for the easily distracted is liberally meted out on a fifth full MCG. There’s the Boom Cam, The Energy Australia Energiser, The Kiss Cam, colour coordinated fireworks to match the teams colours, green and pink balloons and, on impact, via stumping, run out or bowled, flashing stumps and bails. All of this is dutifully captured by the drone camera circling the stadium like a deranged Cabbage White, the FoxKopter.

The Big Bash has the wow-factor of the IPL but the attendances and interest levels of the English version, which is why, despite the organisers best endeavours, this pet project of Australian cricket seems as doomed to fail as the Sixers’ attempts at winning once Lasith Malinga gets given the ball.
The Sri Lankan paceman finishes with 4-0-18-1 and strangles the Sydney team’s reply despite their promising start. Steve O’Keefe top scores with 42 but the introduction of Malinga and Melbourne’s captain dries up the scoring options, Malinga’s yorking of Brad Haddin all but seals the deal as Sydney struggle to 155-6, 21 shy of Melbourne’s total.

Not that Bay 13 would know the result if you asked them. The merry mix of caps back to front, beaters, baggy pants and ill-advised, ill-fitting smarter shirts and shorts gives the impression of an ugly melange of 8 Mile and Green Street. Towards the end of the innings, Hodge fields in front of the rabble, whipping them up into a frenzy with his caustic carrying on. Hero and hero-worshippers seem well suited. The chanting continues, along English lines but with different melodies. We leave them to it and head out into the cool Melbourne night. Skull, skull, skull….

Does your mother know you’re here?

Footnote. Melbourne’s captain? None other than Shane Warne. I can say I’ve seen Warney in action at The G.
Past his best, though not, apparently, if you ask Liz Hurley, and nowhere near as monumental an occasion as when my brother and sister-in-law were here for his 700th Test wicket (Hello Will, hello Sian! X), but, nonetheless I’ve seen this iconic sportsman in his spiritual home and I’m happy enough with that.

To paraphrase Morrissey; spicy is nice and spicy can stop you, from doing all the things in life you’d like to.
Like getting through the first session of a Test Match.
Or a long tuk-tuk journey.
Or coughing.

So while I enjoyed the food side of the Indian leg of my trip, variations on a theme of veg curry all day everyday were starting to become a tad repetitive (in more ways than one). Thank heavens for Aussie foodie heaven then and Melbourne.

Gooders’ weekly trip to the Veg Out Farmer’s Market, St.Kilda yields the welcome conclusion to my spice odyssey. A cheerful, chubby chap in his mid-twenties greets us in an accent that is half Sydney, half Skelmersdale. He looks like the sort of bloke who’d be at home among my kid brother’s Young Farmers friendship circle (Hello Ed, Rex, Kenners, Henry, Goodge, Terry, Rustler et al) and has the happy demeanour to support my notion. One of the three protagonists of Pacdon Park, selling meat to the Aussies the British way, he and his chums set up in business four years ago in New South Wales and are very good at what they do.
Offering Great British specialities to a receptive, knowledgeable customer-base, Pacdon do traditional, they do it by hand, and, my goodness, they do it well.

In fact Gooders -possibly one of the kindest people on God’s Earth and my minder in Melbourne- fills her cooler bag with Boxing Day breakfast goodies. It’s all going in.
Lancashire sausages, Cumberland sausages. Hang on, surely not?
Yep, it’s there too.

Pudding Noir.

The linchpin of any breakfast worthy of the name. They do haggis too, though I won’t need the “Great Chieftain o’ the Pudding Race” (Hello Kevin!) for just over a month. Then there’s my lunch.

Pork Pie.

Melton Mowbray in Melbourne. The pastry is the hues Mr Cornwell deliriously sung about, lacking the darker finish you usually associate with the Pork Farm version. In fact the pie lacks in a lot of things in direct contrast to the ones you buy back home.

There’s less salt. Less pepper. And there’s no jelly.

It’s an Aussie Nanny State thing but the lads aren’t allowed to produce their pies with jelly due to food safety laws. But to be honest, you don’t buy the pork pie for the jelly, do you? Do you?
Oh, you do. Right.
But buying a pork pie for the jelly is a bit liking buying a car for the sun roof. You certainly expect it, but it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t come with it. Anyway, the quality of the pie isn’t compromised by the lack of the three above ingredients. That the pork itself tastes so delicious is as a result of this too. Maybe it’s my meat-free last month or so, but this is one of the best pork pies I’ve ever tasted.

Not for the first time this Festive period I find myself looking forward more to Boxing Day than Christmas Day.
And to Burns’ Night beyond that.

A gentle stroll in the Victorian lunchtime sun, from the MCG, over the William Barak Bridge, through Birrarung Marr towards Federation Square. An uncoordinated game of football breaks out between uncoordinated people.
Taking in the impressive finery of the rowing sheds and waterside bars on the Southbank of the Yarra River to my left and the imposing steepling finery of the CBD on my right I’m half aware of the people up ahead ambitiously attempting to transform Melbourne to the Maracana.
“Look out mate” comes the cry as the ball heads my way. Happy it’s going to avoid me my a well-judged fraction I decide to ignore the man’s warning and the desire to extravagantly trap the ball and walk on in my own world.

Whump.

Something smacks into my shin. It’s not the ball.

“Aw jeez sorry mate” giggles this charming girl from behind her sunglasses, picking the ball and herself out of the gutter as her mates roar with laughter. The call from the Matildas obviously got lost in the post.

Welcome to Australia.

My last 350 rupees are splurged on a mock-Mont Blanc pen (They’d run out of biros. Hello Tesco Nige, by the way.) within the airport terminal. A necessary procurement along with the complimentary notelets from the hotel. Scribble now, blog later. The devil will find work for idle hands to do. Several thousand miles to go. Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne in the company of Air Malaysia.

“When the President does it, that means that it is not a steaming pile of horse poo…” Frank Langella stars in the inflight movie’s main role on the Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur leg. Robot & Frank is the title apparently. People tune in inquisitively.
Frost & Nixon is one of my favourite films of all time. Your man Langella was Oscar nominated, deservedly, for his role as the doomed President. This is him, older, whiter, balder, more hang dog post his finest hour.**
Langella frowns his way mournfully through proceedings, trying hard to look interested, trying harder to maintain credibility as he conducts a cod-Short Circuit type relationship with a plastic space age robot of the type that failed the auditions for a Beastie Boys video. The best thing about the film is Liv Tyler’s legs. There is no harsher come down than the one from the White House, even as an actor.
Either that or there’s no business like show business.
The sound around me is the hurried rustling of passengers replacing their earphones back into the plastic bags. At least three hours before we land. Poor bloke.

The Aerotram, KL airport. I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in the window. Resplendent in Panama hat and horizontal striped blue and white t-shirt. Ye gods, it dawns on me that I look like I should be doing a turn on the waters of Venice or punting down the Cam. First impressions count. Don’t give those Aussies anything. In plenty of time for the connecting flight to Melbourne, I head to the gents to sort out my contact lenses but take the opportunity to address my sartorial issue. Emerging from the bogs sporting another shirt with the very embodiment of Great British man looking on earnestly from the breast, his name writ large.

Stelling.

I’m ready for Australia now.
I decide to carry the hat though.

Although, quite by accident, later it falls out of the overhead locker on to the head of a grumpy looking lady from beneath her hijab. That her young daughter is laughing isn’t making it any easier for me as I do my best to look solemnly apologetic.
Air Malaysia are good. I’ll fly with them again. Good staff, good choice of entertainment, well on the second part of the journey anyway.
Beef for the first time in ages functionally washed down with average air food claret. The Dark Knight Rises is well worth the wait. Gary Oldman needs to do a Bond film. Nearly the best thing about the film is Anne Hathaway’s arse. It is that good.
I don’t sleep. I never do on planes. Despite the wonderful hostesses doing their best to help by segueing smartly around my variations on a theme of gangly. Some kid behind me constantly sniffing grinners isn’t helping my route into subconsciousness. I ponder the previous night in the most comfortable bed in the world and consider twenty four hours is a long time in sleeping patterns. I also reflect on the evening’s film versus Skyfall. It keeps me awake. That and thoughts of the next month or so.
I’m excited. I think.

My first repast on Australian territory, just after seven as the sun comes up over Coober Pedy, washed down with weak black tea with the sound of Concrete Jungle on my iPad is, bizarrely, chicken pie in a box. Who? Why?
Air Malaysia’s attempt to mix it with the locals, or, genuinely, is chicken pie de rigeur among Malaysians first thing in the morning? Either way, it’s not worth devoting anymore words to.

Unlike Australia, which hopefully will give me a month or so of material. Time to get among the chazzwazzers….

*Ha ha! Hello erstwhile colleagues! I’m laughing now but I fear I’ll soon be begging for my job back.

**And, no, his role as the baddie in Cutthroat Island was not his finest hour, irony fans…..

The Waterstones Hotel, Andheri East, Mumbai. I shouldn’t be staying here. I’ve got the Australian economy to negotiate for the next month or so. £10 for a steak pie, £15 for a beer. If I buy a round, I will have to pawn my beloved Elstow cricket shirt. (Just imagine how much a Blunham one would go for, eh Nick?)

Monday evening, sat in Nagpur airport, with five weeks slumming it behind me and the thought of negotiating Mumbai by night, I’ve just committed the backpacker’s equivalent of sashaying down the wicket three balls into negotiating a spell from the opposition’s best left arm spinner on the fourth day in the baking heat. When you’re 55-4.

Weary after the late flight, the Sounds of the 60’s loving but basically useless taxi driver (though not in his choice of in-car sounds) and the communication breakdown between the online provider’s fiction and the hotel’s fact, I eventually get to my room.

The bed is bigger than Austria’s national debt. Four huge pillows lay tantalisingly on top. The mattress is easier than Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits. There’s a desk I won’t have time to sit at. A flat screen Plasma telly I won’t have time to watch. A minibar I won’t have time to drain. The bathroom features a cartoon by someone who dreams of being as brilliant as The Telegraph’s Matt.

Hot water! Instantly. Constantly. The travel beard goes (Hello Grandma! x) courtesy of the complimentary shaving cream, Bic-type razor and an old Squeeze album, though don’t ask me why I chose this as the soundtrack. The shower rids me properly of the dust I’ve been carrying around since Ahmedabad. I revitalise, reenergise and enjoy my sadly all too temporary surroundings.

Everything about the room admonishes yet justifies my decision to spend my last night in India in unalloyed comfort.

You can’t take it with you.

Just what I think as I ponder piking the Courvoisier and the Shortbread.

To the airport my good man. Jaldi jaldi….

Silence. No tooting, no tuk-tuks, no taxis. The pigeons attempting fruitlessly to nest on the synthetic roof of the hotel’s neighbouring outbuilding don’t get a look in either. No Call to Prayer to be heard today. Commerce is the ruling religion out here in Sahar, Mumbai.

The wake up call for the clientele is the distant sound of the Stock Markets opening.
The gentle hum of the under employed AC unit and the thick panel of sound proof window, my looking glass into the other side of India. The reinforced bubble. The India that pays the bills, moves the economy, keeps the rich obscenely richer and the foot on the throat of the others.

A mile into the clearing distance, giant jumbos climb at regular intervals into the morning Mumbai air. Hawks gracefully accompany them on the prowl for breakfast.
After five weeks of backpacking, for my last night in India I’ve had an upgrade. Welcome to Waterstones in East Andheri. A newly opened boutique hotel and a cross between The Rainforest Cafe and the ill-fated Cuban hotel in The Quantum Of Solace in among the familiar, bigger names. While the Gateway to India stands watch impressively in front of the Taj Mahal Hotel, here, overlooking the international airport, is the tradesman’s entrance.

After the first time in a long time, I’m on the inside looking out rather than the main attraction at the museum. Down to breakfast, through the impressive scored marble corridors and the rough shag astroturf carpet. Business people heads in papers, tablets, frothy coffees. Two mint blondes turn heads for a minute. A ghastly, reedy cover of a New Order song does the honours on the Muzak Jukebox. From the ceiling, plants grow downwards. Water cascades needlessly down the outside walls. Janitors pluck and sweep tirelessly at the omnipresent plastic grass.

The black coffee tastes good. I wonder fleetingly how that miserable Northern bastard from the hotel in Nagpur has got his this morning. I really don’t care. Lost in luxury and reflecting on England’s triumph, my second visit to this tempestuous holiday romance of a country and the next stop on my travels.

I sit in dreamy contemplation.

Then Wizard’s cretinous Christmas anthem playing over the hotel airwaves wakes me from my daydreams. Is nowhere safe from this horrible, horrible song? Time to go to the airport.

Sukriya India.

Ian Bell, the hero of Jamtha. I liked writing that. Well played sir.
Well played Trotty. Well played Jimmy.

Well played England.

Of course, it was all down to this you know…..

Fair ye well, Lucky Paul. Go well in Nepal sir.
See you for a few Monteiths in Dunedin in about eleven weeks time and the start, just before play as custom now dictates, of the first Test Match between New Zealand and England.