Transcript of AE 1305 - The Goss: What Do You Like About Being Australian?

G'day, you mob! Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news weather locally Down Under here in Australia or Non-locally overseas in other parts of the world, okay. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right. If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising. And that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

Your wedding?

Of course you can't. It's compulsory!

Go for it. That's recording. I'll do mine too. Near the. Yeah, near the, uh. I was like, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? Holding it there with your arm.

Just. It's the start of an episode.

It's the vibe. Yeah, it's the vibe. Um, what do you like about being an Aussie, dad? So this is a again, you can think about this while I'm introducing it. This was on Ask an Australian. So we had a whole bunch of these Reddit things that we'd been saving up for a little while, that we thought we would do Goss episodes about. Because R, as in Reddit slash ask an Australian. The subreddit is cool because you can have people who are obviously Australians there, but obviously not Australians as well, asking questions, and every now and then they come in big ones where loads of people pile on.

Yeah.

Um, whether they're Aussies or not with their experiences or everything like that. So anyway, uh, what do you like about being an Aussie? It's time for a positive question. I'm still nervous about coming to Australia. Uh, about my master's degree as a cowboy boot wearing American. I'm curious about what Aussie people like about the country they live in, or aspects of their own culture. I saw some pictures of campus and seemed fascinated about the birds. English he's using is weird. Um, I seem fascinated about the birds. Uh, lots of pretty colours. I want to take pictures of them. Second question, if you don't mind. Um, what's good to drink in the land Down Under, alcohol or non alcohol that isn't Milo. Anything strong or weak? Local specialities.

That isn't Milo.

Yeah.

So you wipe that off the coat.

No, no fucking Milo. Yeah, I've had that.

You've taken that answer number one off.

Yeah. So I guess that's the, the person asking this, um, this question. But before I start answering or saying some of the answers from lower down, what do you like about being Australian?

.. Australian?

And do you get to answer this one?

I don't know.

If you haven't been overseas. Do you have to have gone overseas?

I don't know. No. I think that answer, that you can answer that one. It's actually a harder answer than what do you like about living in Australia? Because being an Australian is about identity rather than location and culture. Um, so I'll try the identity. One is interesting because I don't know that I can answer it. I don't know, because I've never been anything else. And so but again, it's a, it's what do you like. It's not. What do you think is better about being Australian.

Well if you put yourself in a position of like, okay, tomorrow Australia got nuked and you couldn't live here anymore and you had to move to a different country, say you moved to Canada, what would be the things you would be thinking about?

What do you miss the most.

Yeah, when you're thinking about what it was like living in Australia? Being Australian, all that sort of stuff, what would you be- not lamenting, but.

Like some of it? Yeah. And that sort of clarifies it because some of it is about your experience rather than your identity, and so my...

Which you could have anywhere to..

Which are tied together. Yeah, but for me, I think a lot of it is about the growing up experience of living in a bayside suburb of Melbourne and the beach.

Yeah.

Just. I grew up on the beach. Um, and yeah, I love the wildlife. The question had wildlife in there. I love the different environments that you've got. I mean, it's a large country is always going to have a range of ecosystems and habitats and different environments. But you can go to the US and it's the same thing, Canada, a bit less so because it's further north. And so you don't get hot deserts as an example, you don't get warm rainforests.

Yeah.

Um, not too many warm rainforests in the US, but.

It is something you take for granted, right? Like, we've got a lot of listeners from countries that are landlocked. And I had a it's a girl..

Switzerland!

Yeah.

What's it like going to the beach?

You like go to a lake or..

Go to a different country? But I was. I had a student recently who had a lesson with me. She was asking for advice about what universities to go to and how to get experience as a biologist and all that sort of stuff. And. And she wanted to be a marine biologist, and she's from Munich. She loved cats playing around. She's from Munich. And I'm like. So how often do you go on excursions to the beach? Cause that's hundreds of kilometres away from any ocean, I'm pretty sure, right. Like.

Exactly.

And she's like, yeah, you pretty much have to go through several countries or go all the way to the north to Denmark or something, you know, like up there, to get to them. And I'm like. It's funny how it blows my mind that you can just drive into another country, you know, go for an hour and you're like, yep, we're in, you know, Austria or whatever.

Yeah. Well..

For us, it's a..

Story that you sister told, when she went to Europe, she and her partner went to Europe, and they were staying with some friends that she knew in Amsterdam. And they said, You want to go to Paris for dinner? You'd travel through three countries to get there and back in. You spent 12 hours and that includes dinner in Paris.

Well, I think I saw something about the UK having flights that were like one way from London..

Flights from..

London to Germany. Yeah, it was like £40 or something. And I'm like..

Cheap Ryanair.

It's 100 bucks?

Some of those..

That's, that wouldn't even get you from Melbourne to Sydney, you know, like that's wouldn't get you anywhere.

Not the same distance as Melbourne to Sydney! And Melbourne and Sydney are close, in Australian context.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So I think part of that thing is the thing that I like about being Australian is the lifestyle. Um, it's pretty relaxed in most places. Um, even in Sydney, which is chaos in comparison with everywhere else in the country.

It seems to be getting worse.

Yeah, I don't know, it's getting worse. Well, I don't think it's getting any worse than anywhere else. It just started off ahead. It's, um. But it's that relaxed outdoor lifestyle. I think for me and and it's whether you like that because you grew up with it or whether you like it, because you naturally do like the outdoors, it's.

Do you worry about our like my kids not having that kind of experience or having access to it because of the cost of living crisis and cost of housing..

They still have it. I mean, where do you take your kids when you go? You go outdoors. You don't take them to an indoor play area or, you know, go to the movies or something. You go to the beach or, you know, outdoor playgrounds and those sort of things.

Yes it is. Yeah. I've got friends who live in places like Iceland and Estonia and, you know, northern Europe, and they're always just like, you guys don't understand how much you just like during winter, can just do you still get to just do whatever whenever really, you know, like it's not, um, dark for 24 hours a day, you know, with the sun barely coming up above the horizon. And that would be such a foreign thing for me. I think. I wonder if I would have serious issues with depression, you know.

A lot of people do. Yeah.

Yeah. And just being like, I want to do stuff. I want to go out. I want to see animals. I want to, you know.

Teacher from, um.

Mr. Cunningham.

Yeah. Who, who went to..

My primary school?

Yeah. From your primary school. Who went to Alaska. Went to Fairbanks, Alaska, which is above the Arctic Circle, and.

Yeah.

And I remember he wrote back a letter that we got at the start of the year, but he'd written it, you know, like early February, and he just said, Ha! The sun rose today. What?

Yeah.

And that was the first time since he got there. He got there on Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

And the first time he saw the sun was in the first week of February. Yeah. And. Yeah. But then he said the other the other months later, he said the other side of that is, you know, it's summer in Alaska when the signs on the golf course change from green changed to green fees half price after midnight. And he said people are out playing golf at 2:00 in the morning because they- and he said they don't sleep. And he said that is not an exaggeration. So people can nap. During summer, they'll go and have an hour sleep in the afternoon or something, because for winter you do nothing other than sit indoors. Because it's so cold and it's dark. There's nothing else you can do.

It's mind blowing, isn't it? And you think people lived in these environments? The Inuit, you know, you're like, I can understand them living in a really cold place when there's lots of sun, and you can go out and about and see stuff and hunt and do all that sort of thing. But it's crazy to think that for half the year it was dark. And how do you hunt the dark in the ice and everything like that, you know, like it's just mind..

I don't know too much about. I suspect that those places were migratory. They didn't. They only went there in summer. Mm. Um, you know that they lived way below the Arctic Circle.

I guess the people who follow the food and you follow probably realise the climate's going to be easier and everything like that. But it was interesting prior to you coming over today, for some reason, something came up on Facebook, and it was a story about a guy who did like a would you say like a I guess it's a biological experiment where he went into a cave deep down and set up a place to live and just wanted to see what would happen with his circadian rhythm and everything like that. And I think he had like a large tent with all of his things, and he was like, um, I think he ended up having a 48 hour cycle where it was like he was awake for two days at a time and then would sleep for like a day and a half. And apparently time also started slowing down when they were asking him count to 100, as if every single time you count a number, it's a second. It became twice as long.

Oh, right.

Instead of being like one, two, three, whatever. It was really interesting seeing all these, like, things that would change when light is removed from your environment and or you have fake light, right? You can do whatever, whenever. And there's no sunlight. You're not looking outside and being like, what time is it? You know, you've got no clock and yeah. Anyway, getting off topic, but um, yeah, some of these are pretty obvious Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. No, it's not perfect, but the more familiar you are with system, the systems with other systems, the more perfect it looks.

Yeah.

It is interesting when you compare- like, that's one of the biggest anxieties. I think for me, if I was to move to America, um, because I would love to go there and live just because of the countryside..

You have to have a job with health benefits.

Yeah.

You have to.

Yeah, it's. But it seems like it's just insane, right? That health insurance over there. Or if you don't have insurance and how much you have to pay, you know, people get bankrupt.

Yeah.

Because they get bitten by a snake or something. And it's $150,000 worth of treatment.

Yeah. You're in a hospital for a week and you have to sell your house.

Well, and or you get something like HIV and, you know, it's $700 a pill, you know, per week. And it's like no one can afford it. So it's, it's one of those weird things that's one of those culture shock slash things from the outside. You look at America and you're like, how do you guys allow this system to exist? This is, it's such a, how do you not look around the world and see other systems set up?

Because it's top-down dominated?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Big business dominates. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The pharmaceutical..

Pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry, they they're not going to suddenly go. We'll just accept the fact that the government will take extra tax, which is what happens in Australia. For those who don't know, to explain our medical benefits system in Australia. Um, we pay a small amount extra on our tax. 1.5% or something.

Yeah.

Um, on our tax, for free medical care.

Yeah.

It costs you to go to the doctor.

Yeah.

But you get roughly half of that back. But hospital care in a public hospital is free.

So if you. Yeah. You'be been-

Nothing. Nothing that happens in a public hospital will cost you money. Yeah. If you want to go to a private hospital because you can get a different form of care, quicker.

Elective surgeries, right..

Elective surgery. They will cost money.

And if you want it sooner. Yes.

But, there is a refund on some of that as well. But you need, you know, unless you're extremely wealthy. You're going to need insurance to cover that. But if the, the worst thing that happens to you is never going to cost you money in Australia.

Yeah.

It's the elective stuff that might.

I think I was reading something about that recently where they were like, if you get a gall stone or something and it's like not life threatening, but it's painful, they're not going to rush you to the front of the queue. You have to wait, you know, potentially months for that surgery.

But if it's extremely painful, but it'll be dealt with in days.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, the example is the surgery that I've had, three surgeries for, you know, a heart problem.

Yeah.

Uh, and that's cost me because I went to private hospitals to do it.

Or you had insurance, though.

Because I had insurance. Yeah. And that cost me roughly for the three of them. It cost me about $2,000.

And would that be elective if it were me and I didn't have insurance?

It is elective.

Yeah.

Um, whereas if I wanted to go to a public college, I could have had done at a public hospital. It cost me nothing.

Yeah.

But I might have had to wait a year for. For each one.

Yeah. Okay. Because there's a long list.

Yeah, a long list of people, and you just keep getting bumped. You might never get to..

The more severe people come to the front of heart surgery or whatever.

And whereas with private health insurance, each one of those surgeries would have cost me about $50,000. Mhm. And it's just covered by insurance.

Yeah.

But it's also covered. If that had been life threatening, if the treatment I needed, the surgery I needed had got to the point where I needed it to for quality of life and to save my life, then it would have been free at a public hospital.

Yeah.

And that's the thing that Americans just don't understand.

It's weird, isn't it, when you try..

They don't understand it.

And it's so, it's one of those fundamental differences between Americans. They seem to want to fight for a system that seems objectively so fucked up.

Yeah. And because it's, it's this. And look, I've got lots of American friends and relatives. I've spent more time in the United States than any other country in the world. Maybe more time in Canada, but it'll be close. Mhm. Um, I love the United States, many things about it, but there is this inherent parochial patriotism, and those two words are different. But when you put the two together of we live in the greatest country in the world. And as soon as you have that mentality, it means that there cannot be anything wrong with your system. That if you want to change the system, it'll be worse.

Yeah.

And Obama and Clinton before him and things fought for decades to try and get cheaper.

Medicare or that health care..

For people who could not afford or did not have private health insurance. And I had arguments with friends who were just saying, but this will destroy our medical system. Yeah, I won't I won't be able to..

Name another Western country..

That shouldn't be able to tell me where I go to get medical care. They're giving it to you. You still have the choice. You want to go and pay for it. You want to have private health insurance. Nothing is changing. People who cannot afford that are getting it for free.

Yeah.

How is this a bad thing? And they would scream and shout at me like, this is the end of the world. And yeah, it's political ideology has taken over your brain.

It's so funny when you meet Americans who've permanently migrated to places like Australia and then ask them about what they think and they're just like, yeah, the place is cooked, man.

Yeah, yeah.

Mental cases. And I've got several American friends who live in Australia.

Yeah. Um, one in particular who's, you know, very well respected businessman. And he just shakes his head and he still considers himself an American. He's lived in Australia for more than half his life.

Yeah.

He still is an American citizen. He votes in America. He does. You know, he goes back there occasionally and, um, he went through the university system in America, you know.

Good grief.

Yeah. He he was on the winning boat that won back the America's Cup.

Oh, really?

From Australia in 1987 when Australia won. And so he is about as American as you can possibly get. But where does he live? In Australia?

Well, a lot of them do, right. Yeah. You find that out. But I think before we get on to the next ones, the other one would be obviously gun, gun-related culture and laws.

Yeah. So that for me is not about being Australian. It's about not being American. Because almost every other country in the world is similar to Australia.

Yeah. I guess we're just talking about being connected to the medical thing and the culture shock.

Oh yeah.

You know, going to America would blow my mind of just seeing guns everywhere all the time. Not, you know, that's the stereotype. There's probably plenty of places. You never see them. Yeah.

You almost never see them. But my, my favourite story about that is the first time I went to Dallas in Texas. I was there for a conference. And Dallas is the weirdest city I've ever been to because it's the most sterile city. The central business district is full of, you know, 60, 70, 80 storey towers.

Isn't everything underground? Is that..

Everything is underground and built into the buildings.

Yeah. Okay.

There are no shops in the streets. There's no restaurants or bars or anything else. They're all in the buildings or underground. So you're going around. And so there's no shopping malls. The shopping malls are out in the suburbs. So if you're staying in the city of Dallas, you've got to get out to the suburbs to go shopping. So I wanted to just go out and do some shopping while I was there. So I thought, all right, I'm not going to get a taxi out to this thing. I'll work out the best. Public transport is always fun in a new city. So. All right, I can get the train from just, you know, down the corner and, you know, get out, you know, 7 or 8 stations and get out and go shopping. Um, and so I was sitting there at the station waiting for the train to come along. This guy walks up, sits down beside me and says, Hi there, good day.

He said, Did you just call me gay?

Yeah. He says, you're an Aussie. I said, yes.

No mate, Aussie.

Aussie!

I know!

And I said yes. Guess what the next question was that came out of his mouth.

Uh, you got a gun? No, no.

So, What's there to shoot? So, What's there to shoot there?

It's like, I don't know.

So how do I answer that?

Pigs, mate.

Well, pigs. Goats. Deer. Yeah.

What's there to shoot?

But yeah, he wasn't wearing a gun or whatever, but that was his first question. This is the first guy I met.

What? Can I.

.. Kill in the street if a random guy walks up and goes. So what's there to kill?

Yeah. Howdy?

Yeah, Howdy! But it was, I was watching something about Trump's recent third assassination attempt or whatever, and I think they blew it out of proportion.

.. assassination attempt.

Sorry?

The non assassination..

Well, I think it sounds like it was a sovereign- what is it called again?

Yeah, they found somebody who might have had a gun. Yeah.

Well he had like a fake number, plates, ammo in his car and a fake license and passport and everything. But it turns out the guy was one of those weirdo sovereign nation people who doesn't believe in any, any governments or anything..

Which always, it just amuses me. That whole idea.

Yeah. Where, yeah, it's a weird one, right? But he apparently went. And the reason he got in trouble was because he had, I think it was firearms that were unregistered or not registered to him or the ammo or whatever. And then I learned that, holy shit, people can just go to these rallies with guns.

Yeah.

They can just go to a presidential rally and have a gun!

If you're in a state that allows.

Right to bear arms or whatever it is that..

Open carry.

Yeah. Jesus Christ. So I was just thinking, fuck. So you can go to these places for, like, a presidential election. No wonder Trump has glass all around him. Like, but I was like, that's so foreign to me.

Yeah.

You know, the fact that we can go to any of those sorts of public events and, you know, you would just assume that effectively, no one around you that isn't a biker is going to have a gun, you know. And to send your kids, you know, these were some more of these sorts of comments of like sending your kids to school and, and not having to worry about them being shot. Yeah. Well, all that sort of associated trauma with like, having to do, um, shooter drills. There's a shooter on the campus. What do we do? Where do we go?

Duck and Cover.

Yeah. I can't imagine that. Because this is one of those conversations I have with Kel quite often. I'm always like, so Brazil, because you talk to any Brazilian. And one of the first things they'll tell you is how violent Brazil is.

Yeah.

And it seems to be like, um, it's almost like a badge thing. They're like, you know. Oh, you wouldn't. You'd be in trouble. You'd never survive. And you're like, okay, I don't want to go there. I'm scared.

Glasgow, mate. Yeah.

But I always say to her, I'm like, I wonder what kind of effect that has trauma wise on the broader public?

It's cultural trauma.

Yeah. Of just constantly having to have an eye open, an eye over your shoulder, worrying about those sorts of things.

I remember when we first met, Kel, when, you know, when she came to to live and she was living with us and. Yeah, two of you were living with us for a month or two.

Yeah.

Um, when you're looking for a house. And she was not severely, but genuinely newly traumatised by the fact that we didn't have the front door locked.

Yeah.

And we just..

Kept going out there and shutting the door and locking it.

Yeah. The gauze door was open. We didn't even lock the gauze door because the lock's broken on it.

Yeah, exactly.

And we just had it open. You were the same here. I can look straight out into the street, and she just freaked her out.

Well, and it was in Brazil..

They had fences in front of it, and it was.

It was not the imminent fear of something about to happen. It was just this cultural thing that when you go into a house, you lock the door behind you.

Yeah.

And you have bars on the windows and..

Well, and that's I think a lot of the time you will. That's the point of entry for people. They if the door's open, like if you're coming in, that's when people are going to walk up with a gun or something and then come in with you and be like, hey.

Get back.

In. Yeah, exactly. And so it is one of those things where I remember saying that. And she's she's always like, when you come to Brazil, when we finally go there, um, you're going to have to undo all of your, you know, your normal life in Australia. Yeah.

And that's, that's when I started with is this this, this sort of open, relaxed, casual thing about being in Australia as well. But, you know, there are places there are places in the city of Melbourne and in Sydney that I wouldn't walk down some of the streets. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. No.

Well that was one of those things..

There's more of them than I'd been to in the US.

I had taken for granted, I think is especially as a man when I was in Melbourne and living in North Melbourne. It's not really dangerous. It doesn't, at least in that area, unless you go to maybe some of the, like little social housing type areas where you're people will know you're not from there. If you went there at night and they'd be like, what are you doing?

Are you a drug dealer?

Yeah, exactly. Or they'd just be like, this is not your area. Get out, you know? But I remember saying I'd go, you know, for a run at night, like 10:11 p.m., run around the park. Yeah. What the fuck am I care? Through the park. And I remember Kelly, who, when she came out, was like, there's lights in the park, right? And I'm like, No? There's moonlight. She's like, You'll get raped! I'm like, Who's going to rape me?!

Yeah, exactly.

I might get murdered or robbed, but I'm not going to get. Trust me.

And that's. And yes, there is that element. And look, there are plenty of women in Melbourne who would not go walking in Royal Park at night.

Well, and that was where I had to check my privilege and realise, okay. I'm a male..

I've responded to a few things over the years on sort of Facebook groups and things where people have been going, oh, you know, there's, you know, I got traumatised by somebody abusing me at the beach or whatever. And and..

You're like, what?..

My brain just immediately goes, that's never going to happen to me. Mhm. You know I'm a large adult male.

You abuse me and in order to like..

Abuse you. And I'll just go. What are you going to do? Like, seriously, there's like 5% of the population that I would have physical fear of. And, and 95% of that 5% are sensible human beings.

That must be growing every year, though. Dad, You know, the older you get..

Oh, yeah, the older I get. Yeah.

Percentage is getting bigger.

But yeah, there's there's that thing of, like, I just don't feel that physical threat.

Yeah. And that's something that I think most men, even small men.

Oh yeah! Exactly.

Don't feel or think about. But that was one of those things I think, you know, like about being Australia, you at least in most places..

Almost everywhere is safe.

You can just go out at night. Yeah, and..

During the day. During the night, you know, there are places where you don't want to go. And then most of those, it's obvious.

Yeah. And but that said, you know, when I was out and about running and walking and, you know, doing stuff late at night because I would want to go for a walk or play Pokemon Go when that was a fad or whatever it was. If someone was walking behind me and they looked dodgy, I was still looking over my shoulder.

Looking over your shoulder, yeah.

I wasn't just like in Fairyland. Like la la la la. Nothing's going to happen to me. It was still, I'm still like..

Yeah, but you look over your shoulder and you look over your shoulder and go, nah, they're all right. Yeah.

Yes. Or you just start making weird noises.

And look, there's always there's always that thing of, you know, even, you know, large adult male. But yeah, it's that you brought a knife to a gunfight. I bring nothing to a knife fight.

Yeah.

So, you know, the number of idiots, you know, around that are going to do something stupid, but.

Yeah. Yeah, well. I had a friend who was bashed in the middle of Melbourne, and that was the reason he started doing Muay Thai and MMA and everything like that. And he was just like, I just randomly got jumped when I came out of a nightclub. It wasn't. Didn't say anything to anyone. Didn't do anything..

.. early in the morning.

Well, yeah, it was at night.

Yeah.

And he was just like, I was just outside an alley, and these guys just jumped me and kicked the shit out of me. And so it does, you know, still happen, but by and large, you know, like even Kerr Lewis around here, which has, you know, dodgy shit happening from time to time, I think at least for me, I would, I would probably not be that afraid.

Like I've only ever had it happen once to me in. And it was in Canada.

Really? Okay.

In Toronto, um, where I was middle of the day, like, you know, just walking down, you know, not quite a back alley, but a minor street down, you know, not in the central business district, but close to it. And a couple of kids, like teenagers came up and went, give us your wallet.

And you were like?

And I just looked at them and said, take it. The first one of you is going to die. The second one might get me. Who's going to come at me first? Like, look at me like, are you cooked? Yeah. That's. If I get hold of you, you're dead.

Yeah.

No. Fuck off. And they left. Yeah. They just walked away.

By the way, we don't recommend that you speak to people trying to rob you like this.

No, I don't, but you make an assessment. If they're going to if they're going to have a knife, they'll pull the knife by now. You know they're going to. But these are kids.

You normally start with that. Yeah.

Exactly. You don't, you don't lowball it at the beginning if you're going to rob somebody.

Ah, I do have a gun somewhere.

2 15 year old kids. You're kidding, you know. The second one might get the boots in, but you wonder how many times who's going to be the one here that ends up in hospital, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. You just sort of shake your head and go. Really? Idiot.

All right. So anyway, 25 minutes later.

Yeah, 25 minutes later.

Next one. The birds. I sit on my balcony most days, and getting to hear a cocky or a magpie sing makes immigrating all the more worth it.

Oh, yeah. Once you've heard your first magpie chorus and your first kookaburra, you go, I'm hooked.

Or at the moment, what are they? The invasive doves?

Yeah. Yeah.

You know that sound that (making bird-like sounds).

My grandfather used to call that across the road. He said they're calling it across the road. And you listen to it now, and you can't unhear it. See? The microphone's probably won't pick that up for me.

The place that I first heard that or remember hearing that.

Yeah, it was spotted..

Your mother's place.

Yeah, yeah.

And I remember that's where..

.. My grandfather lived with us, and he. Yeah. They were. They lived in the trees around our house, but.

Yeah. Isn't that funny? Like. Yeah. Those early memories that I have of your mother. My grandmother. And she passed away when I was 11 or 12.

Um, when was it? Yeah, about that..

99?

Uh yeah.

Yeah.

Speaker1:
So 12. And, uh, there are so many of those sorts of things that I have memories of, like animals, um, and like 98. The smell of juice. The orange juice. Just juice. That smell. Because she would have orange juice and I would I remember asking her for some when I was a little kid, probably Noah's age, being, like, holding up. I can see myself in her kitchen asking for juice and then drinking it and having that smell. Anytime I open just juice, I get that in straight away. I'm like, boom, back in that..

Well smell is so evocative of memory.

Isn't that so bizarre?

Yeah. Your smell evokes memories better than certainly visions and sound sometimes, but.

Speaker1:
This is sort of off topic. But I had that I didn't realise. So the person I lost my virginity to, right? I remember that..

Who shall remain nameless! He was a very nice man!

Speaker1:
I remember her having a distinct smell. It was one of these weird situations. I had gone away and was staying with a friend for a few nights at his place and hooked up with this girl multiple times, and then sort of towards the end of the time that I was there, lost my virginity. But I remember she had her hair done on the night before we got..

Hairspray?

No, it was the bleach!

Speaker2:
Oh, really? Oh!

And I didn't. I didn't realise for years I had no idea- I was. I remember being like, really attracted to and into this person. And then on the night when we hooked up and, you know, I lost my virginity. I remember being like, what is this god awful smell that I can smell in her hair that wasn't there previously, and she'd had her hair done. And it took ten years later. I think it must have been a decade later that, um, I was I think I was I must have been with another girl of some kind. Whatever.

'Some kind'? The bleached hair kind!

Whatever the situation, whatever the situation was. And she'd had her hair bleached and I smelt the same smell, and it smacked me in the face, and I was just like, that's what it was! The whole time. I was like, why did she smell so weird that night? Like that had perplexed me for so long.

Yeah.

And it turned out that it was the smell of bleaching hair. And that stuck with me and slapped me in the face when I. When I finally smelt it again for the first time and put me back there. It's so funny how smell can do that with where vision.

Vision doesn't because we're, we're bombarded with vision.

But.

All the time.

Speaker1:
Vision is one of these weird ones where it does in the sense of faces, you'll see someone's face.

Because that's unique.

Yeah, but you'll instantly be like, I fucking know you.

Yeah.

I know you, but I don't know your name.

Speaker2:
Sorry. I'm Billy Connolly. Gag. Yeah.

Speaker1:
I won't know your name. I can't remember where. But I will see your face. And I'll be like I've seen you..

Eventually it'll come to me..

I've seen you before. But smell, at least in that sense. Usually you know instantly where it was, who was there. It's such a strange difference, right, between those two things.

Speaker2:
How many olfactory senses do we actually get in our lifetime?

Of smell?

Yeah. Hundreds? Maybe thousands?

I don't know. Depends on how you define it.

Speaker2:
All right. It's thousands a minute.

Yeah.

And that's the difference. It's.

Yeah.

So when when we get something unique in our sensory system, in vision, it's just. Oh, yeah, I've got a unique thing every five seconds.

Speaker1:
But it's always so weird when you see someone and you're like, I fucking love you.

Speaker2:
And it's always associated with something, though.

Yeah. And you realise, oh, they worked near a place that I used to work, and I would see them every now and then out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't like they were someone you were friends with or. And you were like, my brain still somehow remembers your face.

Speaker2:
And sometimes it's names as well.

Yeah!

And a face and name combined. And I still have one. And I remember I won't use the person's name, but.

Speaker1:
Because they listen to the podcast.

Oh, yeah. Of course. So maybe I should because they'll be able to connect it. But there was a, um, you know, your mum and I were there, you know, family history, obsession. Mhm. Um, we often watch the who do you think you are? Various things. Well, there was one Australian episode where there was a person who was just associated with but knew something about the family history of the person who was the..

Subject of the show, yeah.

Um, and I went, I know this person. I know the name, and I know the face, and I can instantly put the two together. To this day, I have no idea where I know them from.

Yeah.

None.

Speaker1:
But it is their name.

Speaker2:
It's absolutely. It's just bang. As soon as they. As soon as they saw the I said, that's this person's name. And they said, and he is such and such. And Jo went, what? I went, I have no idea where I know them from.

Speaker1:
And you may have just met them randomly through someone else at a meeting one day, and they were just like, this is Bill.

Yeah.

Speaker2:
And it wasn't quite that random. It was somebody who had some significance in whatever it was going on. So I started wracking through did I teach their child at school? Did I know them through university? Did I know them through one of the sports that I do?

It's funny how you fixate on it too. You'd be like, fuck, I want to work this out.

Speaker2:
I still do! Clearly, my brain is still going, I know this person.

Speaker1:
I need to solve this.

Speaker2:
Yeah. And I looked them up, got nothing. Like, found the person. Yeah, but got nothing.

Speaker1:
So it's always funny how much we've evolved to be able to do that with faces. But if you turn a face upside down, you can't recognise it the same way.

Because facial recognition works..

So our brain has, like the mathematical algorithm in there for the face and sticks those away as long as they're upright. I wonder if you if you raise someone to have a mirror in front of their eyes where they saw everything upside down if it would work the same way. But. But I also think all the time when I'm driving around, I'm like, I wonder how many of these cars locally I've just passed by a hundred times.

And you've never noticed them?

Yeah, just. And you know.

Yeah. What's your next door neighbours car?

Speaker1:
Oh, well, I know those. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker2:
But but often you don't.

Speaker1:
But beyond that. No.

Speaker2:
Yeah. You'd see the car driving down the street. You won't recognise it, but when you drive past, you go. Of course. That's my next door neighbour's car.

Yeah.

You don't think who's visiting next door? You know. You know the silver Audi is the next door neighbour's car.

Speaker1:
Exactly. But, yeah, that stuff fascinates me. Anyway, let's keep going. Sorry, guys, we're getting distracted.

We are.

The relative lack of people when you go outside the major cities, and that religion isn't really much of a thing and is generally very low key.

Speaker2:
Well, they're two completely separate things, but.

Yeah. Yeah, these are two points, obviously. Um, I guess..

People.

Well, and that's one of those interesting things.

Speaker2:
We're in a very big country with a small number of people.

Well, we have a lot of people.

Speaker2:
Well, only 27 million..

But they live in a very restricted..

.. Area in the world. And more than 70 or 80% of the population of Australia lives in five cities.

Speaker1:
Well, live within 50km of the ocean.

And then 90%, 95% live within 50km of the ocean.

Speaker1:
But that's because the majority of our continent is desert.

Yeah. Exactly. But but it's true. Like, again, I keep harking back to Britain or the US, and Britain is a bit like Australia, but it's shrunk in a sense that there are 5 or 6 big cities and a lot of small towns, little villages.

Yeah.

In the US, there's 5 or 6 big cities and 100 medium sized cities and a thousand small cities.

Yeah.

So the US is actually very urbanised, but there's just lots of it.

Speaker1:
But that's why they hit the jackpot geographically, right? Like, and demographically, they, they colonised a location where effectively the whole thing is arable land.

Speaker2:
Yeah, it's about 10% of it. It's either mountain or desert..

But it's like that, that's why America is the power of powers in the world.

Speaker2:
Which is why they've got 340 million and we've got 27 million.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it would be. It would be so interesting to think about the size of Australia if we didn't have a massive desert or multiple deserts in the middle of our continent. If it was all the equivalent of America arable land, and you could just fill it up with people and cities..

And food for them.

Yeah, exactly. You wonder how big we would actually be. Um, but yeah, the lack of people outside the major cities. It is interesting you only have to drive for about half an hour or so, and it, you know, you're out in the, in the sticks, in woop woop, in the country.

Speaker2:
And there's we have a lot of very little towns, towns of 3000 people or less.

Yeah.

Um, but even then you go to one of those and you can walk down the street in the middle of the day and speak ten people. It's not. Yeah. Goods.

Speaker1:
Wow. And it's almost a romantic thing, right? Where you wish it was more like that.

Oh, Australian country towns are wonderful.

Yeah.

Speaker1:
But then.

People give a shit.

Speaker2:
Yeah, but..

You want to know where are you from? What are you doing? Who are you?

Speaker2:
English villages are the same. You know, a little English village. And they just have this home that you feel at home in them, even though you're a complete foreigner. Yes. You speak their language.

Speaker1:
That's a small number of people, right?

Yeah, but they're always so welcoming.

Speaker1:
We had that vibe in Lord Howe Island when we went there.

Yeah.

I remember there was only two.

Speaker2:
That is the most bizarre place in the world.

It's great!

From a cultural point of view, but it is great. It's a beautiful place, spectacularly beautiful. But it's got, what, a population of 300 and something.

Less than that. It was 200 and something I thought.

And then. And they'll have during the peak season, they'll have another 350 people because they restrict the numbers based on the number of beds in accommodation.

Yeah.

Uh, and so..

This wee, was like the island had one restaurant, right?

Speaker2:
And everything. And there's, there's the golf club and the bowling club and the, you know, there's various things. And a couple of the resorts had their own restaurants. But, yeah, there was one cafe restaurant.

Speaker1:
And he would just go there every day.

And one little general store.

I remember people would wave to you. People were so friendly and..

You're can walk, yeah, and you ride your bike everywhere. Yeah, because there's no hire cars or anything when you get there and there's no..

Well, you don't need to. It's seven kilometres long.

11km, I think is the furthest you can go from one point to the other.

Yeah.

Um, and, and so it's, it is one of those weird places, but it is like this, you know, a little village, it's obviously isolated, but, um.

What is it? 500 K's off the coastlines?

5 or 600 K's. Yeah.

Yeah.

And and because they you can't buy land there, no more land will ever be developed there.

Well, and they're probably saving any of the houses and everything for people who've been born there.

Yeah. It is you're, you're the only way you can buy something is if somebody dies and never leaves it to anybody and sells it. Um, but yeah, it's one of those little classic isolated villages. But yeah, there's lots of places like that in Australia that are just great little country towns.

Some of these comments are, I'm scrolling down. I once saw an alcoholic Milo drink. That shit went hard.

An alcoholic Milo drink?

Well. And then someone was like Baileys Irish Cream on Coco Pops is an awesome summer breakfast.

No, no, that's not even Australian. Like the brand is, but Coco Pops has an exact equivalent in various countries in Europe and in North America.

Chocolate breakfast?

Yeah, the chocolate rice bubbles. Yeah.

Someone said I'm having a pet kangaroo to ride me to work every day. All right, we got another. An actual serious one. One. Generally, people are very easygoing, laid back and not judging or non judgemental.

Yeah, pretty much. You can work as a doctor even if you have lots of tattoos, facial piercings. Nobody cares about your physical appearance. That's probably a more recent thing, right? I imagine when you were growing up, it would have been much more of a Oh, Jesus. Like.

Yeah, but I don't think people would have been judgemental about it. I just think that there was because we I've speak in sentences here. I've grew up in, you know, a baby boomer. So I grew up post-World War Two.

Yeah.

And have spanned obviously 67 years since then. But post-World War Two, the baby boomers in Australia were still very culturally, conservatively British.

Yeah.

In the way they viewed things. So people who aspired to, um, the educated professions, doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and those sorts of things were naturally conservative, not necessarily politically conservative, but they behaved in conservative ways because all of the people that worked in those industries were like that.

Yeah.

And I think that broke down in the 1960s, the late 60s and into the 1970s with, you know, all of the, you know, the women's liberation, racial rights, gay rights. More recently, all of that sort of stuff started to break down. And so it became much more common for people to, you know, when I was a kid, you didn't have long hair. And then the 1970s happened and everybody had long hair. So you went to a doctor who was under the age of 40, and they could have been long hair and had a tattoo, you know, so and so that sort of now becomes much more, you know, openly. Yeah, you're right. They're right, in a sense that if you, if somebody walks in the door of your house or a shop or whatever, you couldn't necessarily pick what sort of industry they worked in.

Yeah.

Based on what they look like.

The key thing is like seeing police officers with tattoo sleeves and some of them even on steroids, where you're like, you must be taking an illicit, illicit substance and you're a cop. Yeah. And you're a cop.

No, I just do lots of work in the gym.

Yeah. Oh, just just just boiled chicken and rice, mate. Yeah.

Lots of bicep curls here.

Yeah. And the next one was not having to tip in restaurants. That would get me in trouble, I think in North America, because..

Tipping is only, only North American.

Is it, is it America or is it Canada as well?

Oh, Canada. Canada picks up most of North America. Most of the US is bad.

Canada would have the minimum wage much higher than the average American state.

The tipping state thing, because they've just got the overhang from the US.

The service workers must be loving that there..

It already is that tipping is an English thing. It came from tea houses in Britain in the 18th century.

Well, but it's such a big thing in America because their minimum wage is so low.

But the reason their minimum wage is so low is because they get tips. It's this spiralling thing. And I've probably..

What is it again? I'm fat because I'm depressed and I'm depressed because I'm fat.

Yeah, but it's that. It's the. I probably told this story before, but I remember being at a conference in San Diego, and it was at a conference hotel out near the airport, so it wasn't near the centre of town. So if you wanted to go to the bar at night, you went to the bar in the hotel, or you got in a taxi for half an hour to get into town. So guess where we went? The bar in the hotel. This bar was huge. It was a conference sort of hotel, and the bar would have 4 or 500 people in it. At 10:00 at night, they had two bar men and they were men, so I'm allowed to use that term. And a waitress, and I'm allowed to use that term, a female waiter. And in most places in North America, particularly in the US. So that's another cultural thing. Just a little aside, in Australia, the thing a lot of people get freaked out is if you go to a bar, you go to the bar and you order your drinks. You never do that in the United States.

They have to come to you.

You go to a bar and you sit at a table and a waiter will come.

But that's because that's how they make their money, right?

That's how they make their tips.

And so we got to know this waitress over a few nights, because we were in the bar every night.

I think I remember the story.

And she was young, like she was a university student. She's probably 20. And I asked her one night I said, so how much do you make in a night? She says, how much do I earn or how much do I make? And I said, tell me. And she said, I earn $2 an hour for a ten hour shift. I make $20. I said, how much do you take home? She said, between 200 and $2000 a night.

Yeah. It's like almost like strippers, right? Yeah.

In tips. Because. And that's why tipping will never disappear. Because the basic wage is never going to go to $200 an hour.

Yeah, but it's not even going to go to the amount that would make it worthwhile. You know, I remember when I was working in a restaurant in Melbourne, I was getting paid between..

You get 20..

25? I was getting $25 an hour. This was about ten years ago.

They didn't work..

And I was getting, I was getting tips as well. And so often it would be I was on like $36 an hour with tips, and it was a weird one where the tips were obviously, for whatever reason, we've taken on that American thing to where you would just say, you know, if you want a tip, tip and you would ask, you would be trained to ask.

Yeah, of course, because..

And most people didn't. But every now and then, yeah, every now and then people would because again, you would work your ass off on the service trying to earn them. And I remember being like, but we're already getting paid really well. Yeah, we're already getting a really good wage.

Yeah, but you're getting tips for the bar and the chef.

Well, we were getting $25 an hour, right. So the average shift you would make, you know, 1 to 200 bucks and then you would get tips on top of that. America. Yeah. You get like 20 bucks an hour. Or 20 bucks for your entire ten hour shift or something. Yeah. It's it's mind blowing.

Yeah. So yeah, tipping just is not a thing in Australia.

So yeah..

Well I always feel like..

You have to.

Don't even think about tipping.

Well, you don't have to. Yeah. And as someone who used to, it was never- that's one of those differences too. I never felt like..

You never looked down on somebody..

If someone didn't tip me and I was like, oh, this piece of shit, I'm going to spit in his soup next time.

Don't even think about it.

Whereas in America, I hear that happens quite a lot. There was one.

I saw a video..

I saw a video a while back of this woman who delivered some food, and the woman who'd bought it was like, oh, here's your tip. And she's like, I left you a note in there, please don't read it. And she said. Like, you know, thanks for the tip, you fucking piece of shit. You know, like, lost it at her and didn't realise the woman had had the cash on her and was going to give it to her when she was delivered it.

That was one of the challenges in, because by the time I started going to North America a lot, most of the time you were paying with credit cards. Mhm. And so you would add a tip to the bill.

Apparently they're like up to 30%.

Yeah. Well it used to be 15% when I started going. Then it went to 18.

Jesus!

And some people would. Some places would automatically add 20%.

You'd be like, take it off and..

You go take it off. And whereas I used to try to not tip on the credit card, but leave cash.

Yeah.

Because that then allows, you know, who allowed the waiter to choose to, whether it went to the house or they they stuck it in their pocket. Because a lot of these places that, you know, we'd go to the house.

Well, that's what happens with chefs.

The chef would take 80% of it.

Wow. Okay.

And then everybody else would get the dregs. Yeah. So.

As would be if it was paid via debit card or credit card, it would go to everyone. And if they gave you cash, it was sort of like in your pocket. You should hand it in. But quite often they would say, please don't give it to these other arseholes that we didn't like. Keep it yourself. And you'd be like, okay, done. Uh, anyway, I think that's probably about it. I don't know what. Are there any other things that you really like about being Australian?

Um, no.

I think we sort of have to do an episode of what we don't like.

Vegemite. That's not what I don't like. I do like Vegemite.

You like Vegemite?

Of course everybody likes Vegemite in Australia.

I think you just start so young that you just just. Yeah, it's. It probably objectively tastes like shit, but you just associate it with good things.

But it doesn't! I don't. I have no recollection.

Of ever eating it.

Ever not liking Vegemite.

I wonder what it would be like..

I'm sure I don't remember the first time I had it as a two year old with Vegemite.

But that's what I mean. It'd be so interesting to have insight into a child's mind when they first try it. Can they have it and think, Ooh

I can never remember putting Vegemite on something for you and you going, I'm not eating that.

Yeah.

You and your sister. Can you ever remember your kids not liking Vegemite?

Oh, not off the top of my mind. Not enough that there was obviously some kind of a visceral response.

Whereas plenty of other food you'd go, I'm not eating broccoli.

Yeah, that's. Yeah.

You have one mouthful of it and go, Never again.

Yeah, this is poison.

Vegemite?

But you've got to get them young and I think that's it. Whereas and because..

It's the right amount.

You can give, yeah, little babies, you can give them curry.

Yeah.

Because their, their sense of taste is so immature that they can't differentiate a lot of things and they actually quite babies, quite like strong flavours because everything else is just bland. But as you, you get to being an older child or a teenager,

Taste buds..

Things, you pick something up and go Ohh Vegemite? I'm not eating that rubbish. And so if you didn't grow up with it.

Yeah, I know I'm still trying to get Kel to like it and she's just like, she won't. Why would I ever eat that shit? I would rather just have butter on bread. And you're like, fair enough!

Fair enough.

Anyway, thanks for hanging out, guys. We'll see you next time.

Bye!