IDIOTS GUIDE TO PERTH

OK, so who would have thought that Perth was going to be so darn wacky? Compared to Sydney, it’s a bizarro world of AFL instead of NRL, pots and pints instead of schooners and midis and courtesy instead of carnage in the realm of human social behaviour.

THE GOOD

FRIENDLY PEOPLE – A sad cliché, but everyone here is so damn polite, it’s like we’re living on the set of the Truman Show. You know, when everyone you pass says “hello” and smiles at you like they genuinely mean it. Weird but nice…Weirder still - Neighbourhood Watch still runs successfully over here...

ROAD FRIENDLY - Road rage is unheard of here, and there is an eerie silence where nary the sound of a horn is ever heard in anger, let alone any choice hand gestures or caustic screams out the windows of passing cars. No tailgating, no cutting you off, no aggro whatsoever. And traffic jams simply don’t exist.

CLEAN OPEN SPACES & FRESH AIR – Lots of green parks and public spaces in the city, a river foreshore and coastline lovingly protected from asshole developers with their 50-storey ghetto monstrosities, pedestrian and cyclist friendly streets and no dull haze of brown smog hanging like a pall over a city in it’s final throes of death.

WA WINE – Like a kid in a candy store, every trip to the local bottlo is an exercise in ecstasy and restraint. WA wines are everywhere and they are cheap and exquisite, many of which are never seen in Sydney. Margaret River premium clearskins are as little as $5.99 a bottle. Then there’s the beer! If I wasn’t so damn broke right now I’d be an alcoholic!

BEACHES – The WA coastline has about 7 or 8 beaches about a thousand times better than any on the east coast. If you don’t mind the frequent White Pointer shark attacks and stay out of the Sniper Range area near the military base in Scarborough, you could have yourself a corker of a day out.

WILDLIFE – Witness Dolphin pods in the river, dodge bird poo from Rainbow Lorikeets in the backyard, protect the dog from Blue Tongue Lizards on walks (two already!), carefully heed “Ducks Crossing” signs in the Perth CBD, kookaburras, pelicans… Wildlife and man live in harmonious bliss. Then there’s the sharks, plus those pesky Brown and Tiger snakes…

FREE ROSEMARY - Another really odd but cool thing is that rosemary is an incredibly common hedge bush, found on highway median strips and along the pavements everywhere. Huge, luscious, abundant rosemary plants ripe for the taking. So if we ever need any fresh rosemary for a recipe, we just go outside to the road out front and pick some.

NO DOOF DOOF CULTURE – Not a pseudo gangsta-rappin’ youth to be seen, nor the pumping baseline of a doof doof car to be heard anywhere. No DOOF DOOF!!!!!


THE BAD

THINGS WE MISS FROM SYDNEY (BESIDES Y’ALL) -

NO Oporto!
NO Merrick & Rosso!
NO good Thai home delivery!
NO Doggie Café!
BUGGER ALL Sunday trading (try getting a loaf of bread)

AFL OBSESSION – Disturbing indeed, the pre-eminent psychosis of the entire state is an unhealthy obsession with AFL. Due to the distinct lack of a B-grade celebrity social scene (think Toni Pearen, Tara Moss and various Packer mistresses) or visiting international celebrities, the citizenry of WA idolise AFL players and the crappy code that supports them.

Not only does the National league get more than its fair share of airtime, local teams like the Cockburn Centipedes not only pull huge crowds (pun only semi-intended), they get broadcast on weekend TV. OK, so there is no actual team called the Centipedes, as such, but there is a suburb called Cockburn, and Anton has already made his first faux pas with that one. Apparently the correct pronunciation is “Co’burn”. How the heck any outsider could ever have guessed that is beyond me…

INCONSISTENT STANDARD DRINK SIZES – I think the thing that infuriates and baffles me most about this crazy town is that there is absolutely NO consistency with regards to beer serving sizes in pubs. Every pub serves differently so you never know what to order, immediately identifying yourself as a dumb tourist, not the cool, self-assured local you are desperately trying to become.

Schooners & Midis, Pots & Pints (a mouthful of spit more than a midi), Pints (about the size of a freakin’ yardglass) & Half pints (about the size of a schooner) and believe it or not one pub sold beers in Small & Large!!! For fuck’s sake Perth – all I want is a freakin’ beer!!! Serve it to me in a dead pensioner's colostomy bag for all I care, just as long as I know it’s the same size freakin’ bag everywhere I go!!!!

Sob…I just want to belong…

OUR BATHROOM – Deserving an entry entirely on its own, our bathroom is a monumental travesty of function and design. The bathroom, sink and tiling is a colour I would describe as “Psychiatric Ward Turquoise”. The shower is over the bathtub, which appears to have been designed for a 3-foot tall midget. On a normal lass such as myself, the water level when reclining in the tub falls frustratingly below the breast line, so that I might as well be bathing in a public urinal for all the coverage I’m getting.

But worst of all, we have a dicky WA water system that is not actually equipped to combine water from both the hot and cold water taps simultaneously, leaving one the option of having a scalding hot shower or a really freakin’ cold one, alternately. Nor can you run both the shower and the hot water tap in the kitchen (or anywhere else) at the same time. Enigmatic - yes. Frustrating as all fuck - hell yes….