Accidental Tourist

Australia day in London is a strange thing.

When catching the last tube home last night after being at an Aussie BBQ (even in the cold) it was impossible not to know that it was Australia day. It seemed like every one of the 200 000 odd Aussies living in London were on the last trains home. They were clearly marked by cheeks covered in Oz flag stickers, heads covered in Fosters branded Akubra hats and flags being waved or worn as capes. Even those who didn’t make the effort to dress up were still somehow clearly recognisable.

My whole trip home was full of drunken conversations with random Aussies. You’d take one look at each other, recognise a fellow Aussie and spark up a drunken conversation – usually starting with “Happy Australia day”. When have you ever wished somebody a “Happy Australia day”? I don’t remember ever having done it at home. Yesterday it was happy Australia day’s all round.

Australia day in London takes on an increased significance, particularly for those fresh off the boat. To most people back home Australia day generally just means a day off and as good a reason as any to have a BBQ and a few beers in the sun. But to those people who are still experiencing the new found pride in their national identity that comes from living outside your own culture for the first time, Australia day is a perfect chance to say to all those foreigners around you that I am Australian and I’m proud of it. Most people are happy to say it loudly too - who has ever painted their face just to go to the pub in Australia ?

I’ve been to the “Australian cultural Mecca ” that is the Shepherds Bush Walkabout on Australia day. I’ve been drunk on snake bites and sung along (loudly) to Cold Chisel and Men at Work. I may well have had to be somewhat drunk to do it, but I did have a damn good time and revelled in the chance to be patriotic with like minded countrymen all enjoying our new found bond that comes from living on foreign soil.

Debates around when it is and isn’t appropriate wave a flag seem to have become a permanent feature in all the papers back home. Here is London wearing the flag draped around your shoulders isn’t about being racist or protagonist, it’s just about being proud of who you are.

Yes I am alive and well. Thank you to all those who made contact last week to make sure I wasn’t one of the unfortunate people caught in the London terrorist attacks. Thankfully I can say that other then being mildly inconvenienced by delays to the tube since, I and everyone I know were lucky enough to have been far from any danger.

It has been a very unusual experience being in a city during a terrorist attack. It has certainly been less confronting then I would have thought it would be. Other then the day or so worth of disruption to the city that happened as a result life has pretty much just carried on as normal. It was obviously the hot topic been a topic of conversation over the weekend, but people certainly weren’t overreacting and running riot on the streets or forming lynch mobs wielding pitch forks and Union Jacks. The whole event seemed to be handled well by the authorities who had been well prepared for such an event and the general public accepted the disruptions caused and long walks home without complaining.

When riding the tube to work the morning after there was a faintly sombre edge to the usual blank emotionless faces sitting in silence. You could almost see the worried thoughts creeping into peoples minds after the events of the previous day. Although passengers were striving to display a stiff upper lip and not let the terrorists win, it was hard to ignore the events of yesterday and carry on as normal throughout the journey when there was a stark reminder of yesterday’s events staring back you from the front pages of the morning newspapers. The pages that usually fill people’s hands only served to fill the carriage full of the images of the chaos that ensued in a tunnel not unlike the one that we were currently encased in.

Every time the train slowed for the usual minor delays between stations there was a sense of apprehensiveness in the air. You could almost see the paranoia creeping into people’s minds as they wondered if this latest delay was a result of some sinister event further up the line.

On days like these it’s very hard to ignore the precariousness of a daily routine that involves willingly walking down into a tunnel that takes you some fifty metres underground with no immediate route to reach the daylight above.

The strange thing about it is that in reality the only thing that changed on my daily trip to work was my personal perception of the world around me. The trains still ran at the same speed. The other passengers were still their usual downcast glum expressionless selves. Everyone sat in silence without uttering a word to each other. And the newspapers still showed the usual headlines and pictures of death and destruction – it’s just that this time they weren’t covering events on the other side of the world, they was covering events much closer to home.

Above ground there seemed to be a similar sense of indefinable eeriness, though once again, it’s hard to tell if it’s really happening or if it’s just my own perception changing. The streets hadn’t suddenly emptied, people were still going about their daily business – but it was very quiet for a Friday. There was still the usual odd song of a siren echoing down the streets – they just seemed to be slightly more frequent. Life was going on as normal but there seems to be an ever so slight tension in the air. There wasn’t fire and chaos descending from above but you felt like in people’s minds that’s they wouldn’t have been entirely surprised nor perturbed if it did.

Overall though, there was no panic on the streets of London. There wasn’t even a minor annoyance at having the entire city disrupted for a day (it’s actually one of the first times I haven’t heard people complaining about the tube making them late). You almost sense that most Londoners accepted a major terrorist attack as only a matter of time and that now that the inevitable has come there is almost relief at the relatively minor destruction and disruption it caused, compared to 9/11 that is. The best indications of all were that the international cricket still went on at Lords and that the bars in the West End were still full that Friday night - normal service had resumed.

It might seem alien to little ol’ Aussie me, but in a city that still has fresh memories of the IRA terrorist bombings, let alone needing to be rebuilt after WWII, this isn’t such a novelty. Sure it’s not good, but the city has been preparing for this for a long time now. Londoners are well informed about the dangers of terrorism and have accepted it as part of day-to-day life. Although it may be worrying at times they won’t let the terrorists win. Life will go on and people won’t let fear affect their day to day actions. The stiff upper lip will prevail.

I have the pleasure of saying the had by the biggest highlight of my trip over the weekend. (For those cricket non-lovers/people who’ve got no idea what the game in all about, you might not appreciate this as much, but that’s the lot in life you’ve choosen by not following the noble game : )

For those of you who bothered to read my last email, you’ll remember me describing how I landed a job working at Lords Cricket Ground doing basic bar work. Well, on Saturday I had my first days work there for a One Day series final game between England and South Africa.

After working a full-time week I was required to be a the ground by 7am on a Saturday morning, so by the time my alarm went off that morning at 5.00am I wasn’t exactly the most chipper camper. But by the end of the day my tiredness had been well and trully forgotten.

When I arrived there, I lined up with the rest of the match day workforce of 1-200 people to be allocated the area I’d be working in for the day.

I ended up being told I’d be working as the barman in the Media Centre, which to refresh peoples memopry is the big blimp looking thing at one end of the ground where the TV Commentators, Journalists, photographers, etc are based.

To get to the point, I spent the day surving the whole host of England/Sth African ex-players/greats of the game that I’d grown up watching, who now make up the media. Let me give you a list of some of the names to put you in the picture:

Gower, Atherton, Gatting, Botham, Michael Holding, Michael Slater (the only Aussie), Gus Fraser, Henry Olonga, Alan Donald, the English selectors, among others.

I’m even able to say that I had the pleasure of being getting Michael Slater and a few others quite drunk by the end of the day.

It’s a pity it wasn’t an Australian game otherwise there would have been the entire Aussie media contingent there….although, if Ritchie Bennau had of been there I’d would have been kicked out before long for endlessly quoting 12th Man sayings at him (”Ritchie, Ritchie!, How ’bout an autograph”).

On top of all this, I was able to spend the day getting paid to watch a game of cricket from the best view point in the ground.

As I said, by the end of the day I’d forgotten all about how tired I should have been, had I not have been so excited.

There’s also a test match coming up at Lord’s in two weeks so I’m going to have to see if there’s any chance of getting myself put back in the bar for that as well. The only problem is that I’d have to take a few days of my full-time work to do it. But I’m thinking that it might well be worth working my arse off and sacrificing the money for. I’m just going to have to see what I can scam….