England

What Do You Do With a Coat Stand in Australia?

12 October 2011 Australian Climate

This year, Brisbane apparently had its coldest winter for 11 years. As I write this, winter is well and truly behind us. Today was not exactly scorchio, but it was a beautiful clear and sunny day with temperatures hitting around 28°C. That’s about 82°F or so. But when I wrote this article for the August [...]

UK versus Australia: The X-Factor

2 September 2011 Entertainment Australia

This week the Australian version of The X-Factor began a new series on television. From what I can see, the program appears to be on almost every night, lasting over an hour for each one. So I won’t be watching it, no way will I spend that much of my time watching wannabee’s warbling. But [...]

Australia Post vs Royal Mail

26 August 2011 Life in Australia

If you were to search Google for the “most famous postman in the world”, you would find more than one reference to Postman Pat. I just did it, well, it’s not a very sunny day here in Australia, and found the big nosed postman in positions 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10. That’s [...]

Best Country to Live In, England or Australia?

17 November 2010 Life in Australia

Human Development Index Massive Flaw Exposed! The thing is, you can argue all day long about the minutiae. Which country has the cheaper houses? In which country are your job prospects better? Which country pays the best salaries? Which country has the best weather? (…err, let me think?) Alright, obviously Australia has the better weather… [...]

Moving to Australia and Missing England

13 November 2010 Life in Australia

Exactly 3 years ago today, on 12 November 2007, me and my family boarded an aeroplane and flew out to Australia to live permanently. Now I have heard from more than one source, but probably not more than five sources, that there is a thing called the three year itch. Apparently, at around the three-year [...]

The Cost of Water and Sewerage Compared; England vs. Australia

10 November 2010 Cost of Living - Australia

Before I embark on what many of you will regard as a rant, I would like to just say that I am looking at the price of water and sewerage services as, right now, here in Australia, the soaring cost of our utilities is causing great concern around the country. I have already spoken about [...]

Moving to Australia and Moving Back to England Again.

2 August 2010 Moving To Australia

Last week I told you about my night out at the pub when a group of us went into the city to have a farewell do for some good friends of ours. You can read about the “leaving do” here. But in a nutshell, our friends came here to live in Australia for two years [...]

Australia: Acclimatising to the Weather

31 May 2010 Australian Climate

OK, the love affair with shorts is over! Yesterday my sister and brother-in-law jumped on a plane headed back to Old Blighty and they took the rain with them, just as they had bought it here in the first place. Or had they? I’ll come to that in a minute and also explain my heading [...]