Well it’s been six weeks now since I touched down on the red
earth that passes for Australian soil. I’ve
been waiting for a moment of pure Australian culture to write and so as I sit
here digesting last night’s kangaroo steak under a 35 degree sun I felt the
time was right. The majority of my time
in those first few days was spent scouring the job pages in the local paper and
negotiating the maze that is Australia’s various government departments. One of the big sticking points was proving
who I was and trying to convince the bored office worker on the other side of
the desk that I should be allowed to stay over here. The taxation department proved to be the most
difficult people, which, considering I wanted to give them money is a
surprise. For nearly four weeks letters
went back and forth like a ping pong ball… all at my expense of course before
they finally granted me permission for me to start paying them. This brings me conveniently to a bit of a
home truth about Australia, you pay for everything! The best example I can
think of is the bank… every month I entrust them with my hard earned money and
in return they charge me the princely sum of $4 for the privilege. They give me no interest and charge me the
equivalent of pulling my pants down should I slip up and accidentally use an
ATM that isn’t owned by them. But having
got that off my chest I feel much better, if not a little lighter in the
pockets.
After the first couple of weeks of settling in I started to
clock up a steady stream of interviews from an apprentice chef to Pest control
but the common theme of never hearing anything back began to get a bit
disheartening. I was picking up a couple
of days of labouring here and there to tide me over financially and spending
the rest of my time job hunting. Labouring
is not something I’ve ever done before.
By 11am on day 1 my pipe cleaner arms were beginning to drop off but by
this point I’d already traded my sidi cycling shoes for steel capped boots so I
knuckled down and kept unloading the boxes of condoms and subway sauce. In the mean time I had been called in for an
interview for a sales job in the heart of Perth… finally a chance to work in
the vibrant hub of the inner city. I
waited in the reception surrounded by more beautiful girls than a snoop dogg
music video. Just half an hour later and
I’d been given the job; although what the job entailed I still had no
idea. I went in apprehensively on day
one. The 40 minute train ride was more
Delhi than Perth as crowds of people crammed in to what would have been a great
advert for deodorant. The job was
everything a salesman doesn’t tell you, on the outside glamorous, spending my
day ogling the local girls but realistically selling merchandise to people who
neither needed it nor could really afford it.
By 1PM on day two I had quit, I morally objected to the job and its
ruthless rates of commission ensured I would have only scraped a living. As it turned out I wouldn’t even have earned
a living as the $160 worth of commission owed to me never materialised. I knew by this point that I had to start
living more like the immigrant I was. In
the UK migrants frequent a few places, firstly cheap shops… Lidl/Aldi do a
roaring trade selling home favourites to various nationalities so I now spend
most of my shopping budget in the local cheap and chinky (that’s not it’s real
name, it’s just a food shop run by Chinese people at great prices). Secondly and contrary to general British
opinion: Migrants want to work. My plan
is to make money here so when the opportunity to work long unsociable hours (6am-4pm)
for good money came around, I jumped at the chance. Firstly there was the formality of taking a
DNA test… or so I thought. It turns out
it was D&A, meaning drug and alcohol test, pee in a cup to you and I. You would have thought this would come
naturally to a cyclist but I’ve never been drug tested so it was novel. By tea time (which is pronounced dinner over
here) I had passed and was set for my new job as a concrete sheet loader man…
it truly is as exciting as it sounds but at over $1000 (£645) per week I think
I can live with it for a while.
I have been somewhat cut off from the outside world this
last few weeks with precious little internet and just the local paper whose
sports pages are packed out with AFL (Australian rules football, basically quidditch
without brooms) for company. Never the
less the façade being played out in cycling at the moment has trickled down to
me. I won’t vent my frustrations here
but it does seem as though cycling is in need of a root and branch clean up. At
the age of 15 I was asked at a cycling camp who my hero was and I replied “Lance
Armstrong”. Lance for me brought cycling from an obscure
hobby to a genuine interest and made it a big chunk of my life. I took it for what it was, entertainment and
fun. It’s difficult to know where cycling can go immediately… certainly a new
poster boy is needed. Personally I think
the sport needs a new direction, people who want a return to the glory days
need to take off their cotton cycling jersey and put down their 1976 cycling
weekly. But you should believe in the
new generation, I’ve seen what the Dave Rayner riders dream of and they want to
do it right, do it clean… see for yourself at www.daveraynerfund.com or even better
grab a ticket to the Dinner and meet the guys!
Cheers for now x
Motorised doping anyone???
Hmmm…. Broccoflower, these aussies have been down here too long
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