Bars, pubs, hotels etc

What you need to understand is that up until quite recently the Australian idea of a pub was essentially a room with a concrete floor - easily hosable you see - and a bar with ceiling high fridges packed with three different cans of beer. That's still the case in a lot of Australia although the beer situation has improved astronomically since I left. I'll do a post on that later.

So back to bars. The thing is, without a point of reference Aussies aren't quite sure what a pub is. It's fine if it's a pub that's been set up in the English/Irish style by someone familiar with that type of pub. It ends up being the same kind of thing generally minus most of the decore and atmosphere. However there are vast amounts of places called pubs that aren't pubs at all. They're wine bars or even restaurants.

Case in point, one astonishingly good place in South Melbourne is called Laramo's. This is frequently referred to as a gasto-pub which is a very British term. It's not a pub at all, it's a rather posh wine bar with an excellent full service restaurant partitioned off on the side.

Things get more puzzling still when you see various bar/pubs called Hotels when there's no accomodation on offer. It'd be amusing to ask for a room. This is a bit of a historical thing because most bars of any description were often incorporated into real hotels. The whole concept of the seperate bar/pub that was a nice place to be really didn't take off until the British and Irish started building them en masse.

Things got rather ridiculous when, on a holiday about 10 years ago back to my home town Darwin the main drag consisted of a good half a dozen 'Irish pubs'. There was precious little that was Irish about them but they were at least a little more plush than the concrete slab hotel I mentioned earlier. Weirder still was the fact that they turned the old cinema into an 'English Pub' - the very same Cinema I saw Star Wars in as a little boy... Course there's not much that's British about it other than the tacky red phone box and some old bottles and books on shelves, that's British right?

I can't adequately convey how weird it was going to the loo only to find this was the only bit that was more or less original. How small the urinals look as an adult! I half expected to emerge into the the flickering flourescent lighting of the black and white tile checked foyer with the little barred hatch you bought your tickets from and the stained counter where the gruff old lady sold soft drinks and malteezers.

English pub indeed! It's where Darth Vader got his, not a disposal outlet for a London tourist tat wholesaler. I think I may have digressed.

Mobile phones - Caller ID

I've had a lot of mobile telephones in various countries. As you might expect given the title of this Blog, the experience in Australia was somewhat eccentric.

I'll try not to harp on how I was forced to buy a pre-paid thing when I first arrived, told by a Vodafone store that I definately could use it for Internet use and then sat on technical support (being charged until I ran out of credit) for an eternity trying to figure out why not and then ultimately suggesting to the chap perhaps it's because I'm pre-pay. "Oh, yes. It doesn't work with pre-pay." Thanks mate, bye Vodafone.

So on to Optus. Got me a brand new N95. Simple enough you'd think except that caller-ID doesn't work on it. You know, how someone's name comes up so you can work out if you want to pick up your mobile or not - or at least customise your greeting anywhere between, say, "hello" and "fuck off you scumbag, I told you never to call me again".

I eventually email support who tell me it's been fixed. They don't fix it. So I call up and it's fixed.

This is a bit of a recurring theme in Australia. If you do something via a web site or via email, chances are you're not going to get a good result. Call up, speak to a real person (which is much easier than in Europe these days, and things get fixed.

It's not necessary better or worse, it's just strange.