MELLIPOP: HOW NOT TO BE POPULAR IN PERTH

Ok, so I think I pissed off a train carriage full of Perthites today.

So the whole city is in a heightened state of parochial fervour. It's the "local derby" today. Both WA-based AFL teams are going head to head down at Subiaco Oval. Perth vs Fremantle. This is quite a big deal, apparently, and was enough to inspire a tiresome round of at least 20 internal staff emails in the office this afternoon. The question on everyone's lips is: "Who is better? WA or WA?". The answer to this question pleases everyone in WA. Whichever way you look at it, WA is the winner. WA are the champions of the mofo world.

But all this has nothing to do with me placing myself at acute risk of being lynched by a packed carriage of afternoon commuters. It does, however, illustrate the theme on which I was expounding to one of my colleagues, whom I had the misfortune of sharing my train ride home with because a) I am in the seriously deep throes of an obsession with the band Wilco and wanted nothing more than to strap on the iPod and unwind after work and b) I really don't find this particular colleague to be of any interest whatsoever and had all but exhausted my stores of polite social chit chat for the week.

So my colleague is not a Perthite either. Like me, he is an intruder - a painful reminder to the good people of Perth that humankind exists outside of Western Australia. We threaten the sanctity of the tribe, see. They don't like facing the realisation that they are not, in fact, the centre of the known (and unknown) universe. This was the essence of my drive-time lecture, as I explained to my colleague the reasons why I was moving back to Sydney. And the reasons why I wouldn't miss Perth.

By this point I was really quite enjoying the collection of judgemental stares and rolled-eyes I was attracting. Then the lady sitting next to me was so moved to object that she sought to interrupt our conversation, leaping to the defence of Perth and seeking to justify the insularity of the tribal mind on the pretense of Perth's geographic isolation. To which I replied that Perth wilfully reinforces its own sense of social and cultural isolation, which is not so much a function of the external pressures of geography as it is an internal function of a collective masturbatory geo-centrism. Or something. And then promptly dismissed her without another word.

I need to work on my attitude, see. I'm back in Sydney in three weeks.

It's nice to know that I've still got the goods.