Kid Bolt: Outlaw

There are many things you can’t buy in Australia that you can buy in more enlightened countries. Chocolate digestives for example. Unpasteurised cheese. Door bolts.

Yep, I kid you not, Door Bolts have bought the dust. They are unobtainable in Australia. Oh, sure, you can buy little flimsy brass things that bend at the first sign of movement. But not the good solid, slide the bolt home with a solid foot of iron keeping out intruders from your castle. And why not? Because they are illegal, that’s why.

I’ve spent weeks going into every hardware shop known to man – or at least the Sydney Basin – and I’ve found nothing resembling the good old fashioned barrel bolt favoured by the Victorians and sold in their million ever since. Eventually the friendly chap in the Baulkham Hills ironmongers told me. Oh, you can’t buy those nowadays. Highly dangerous they are. What... a door bolt? Yep... the fire brigade banned the sale of them because, in the event of a fire, they need to be able to kick your door in. But hang on – think about it – doesn’t that mean that anyone can kick my door in? Thugs, thieves, milkmen, passing small children?

And now something at the back of what remains of my mind, springs to the fore. When I had the 2 – two! – surveys done on this heap of matchwood, both spent pretty much a page listing the faults of the bathroom door, and how:

The toilet area is restrictive and the door swings inwards. In case of an emergency, the door cannot be readily removed from the outside. Recommend that a new door with a BCA catch and lift off hinges be installed to the door to comply with the current BCA standards...

Whoa! So I’ve got to replace the lovely old Victoria door, and put on one of these flimsy Australian bend-in-a-breeze type door handles, to satisfy the fire brigade? And then leave the wobbly front door with a catch that will scarcely lock at the best of times.

Or, in a moment of pique, wish that I'd emigrated with some, then decide that there's no use locking the stable door after the chooks have burnt down, and order a dozen normal door bolts from B&Q in the UK via Mail Order. Purely for decoration you understand.

Lost in Transition

Why is it, when you move, you have twice as much junk as you thought you had, and can never find anything you want. Coffee mugs. The toaster. The piece of paper with a small number on it that you can’t actually extract from the company because it would be asking too much to ask them to move into the digital age and computerise their records so they could do something as basic as search for the number if you happen to, say, have mislaid it.

But it’s not any number. Oh no, it’s the number you need to get your deposit back if you’ve been lucky enough to rent a property in Aussieland. And from no less a body than NSW Fair Trading.

However, they need that bit of paper, which is why on moving day, when I was up to my armpits in saucepans, a voice asked if I happened to have it handy. I must have gone through every box. Every bag. There Aldi shelf - where I've been slowly buying toold from Aldi, each week they have something new on special. Even the cardboard box the car parts are stored in, looking for the piece of paper that they quietly sent a year back, with no indication that you’d actually need it. As if renting a house in Australia isn’t weird enough, with 100 point checks and the requirement to lodge your diving licence. Which of course you can’t get until get (the diving licence that is) until you have a permanent address. Catch 22 and all that.

Incredible to think that I actually arrived in this country with only my half of 100Kg (which I flew over with). If I want to go back, I’d need a container. And yet, of that little piece of paper, there was nothing to be seen. Until that is, a small voice popped up and said “Oh, here it is. I filed it with my papers from the house...”

The silence of the lamps

“The man who wired this up is a bloody idiot”.

Not my comment, but that of a professional electrician, describing just one of the curious battery of switches that line up by the back door. One is marked Floodlight, so you might, in your naivety, imagine that this would turn on the floodlight for the back drive. Oh no. Instead this light is on permanently, 24 hours a day – at least it is now I’ve replaced the bulb. It also has an auto sensor so you might think it turns on and off when you walk through in the dark. Think again. Time and space is in a continuum, empires may rise and fall, but that blinking bulb refuses to blink.

I kept on trying to figure it out, but I was barking up a brick wall.

Now elsewhere in the world if you want to fix something, you can fix it yourself. Not so in Aussieland, where there is such a closed shop that you can’t touch a wire yourself, because the electricians union say only they should touch the wires – and the government is so full of closed shop surrender monkeys, they believe them. In the UK the sparkies tried to bring in regulations like this – but initially just tried to stop DIY work in kitchens and bathrooms (the so called Part P of the Building Regs) have now been watered down at DIY insistence, and all you have to do is tell the council you’re rewiring it yourself, and if they want to check it, the council has to pay their own inspectors to have a look. Come down to the Antipodes, and the closed shop system is so (in)effective not only are wires out of bounds, they won’t even let you do your own plumbing. I kid you not: even taps come with legal warnings that if you change a washer without a licence, you’ll spend the next ten years down the local nick.

Which doesn’t explain why so called professionals have made such a total bodge-up of the whole job, that my switch doesn’t.

Thankfully, I have a tame, professional, electrician who was stunned at some of the bizarre logic employed for the lighting. Never mind the light-that-never-dies, there is also a switch that turns on all the lights in all the bedrooms (but no switch actually IN the room, which might be considered useful). Which offers a unique way of waking up the household at 3am when you stagger around looking for the bathroom. Add in the upstairs sockets on the downstairs lighting circuit, stove on a plug, and the three-phase supply for a small domestic dwelling, and...

We finally came to the conclusion that the man who originally wired up the house was either a genius or an idiot.

Bogan's Run

For the first time in my life, I’ve ordered satellite TV. I did used to think that calling up and saying “I’d like a subscription to the home of Boganism, and a lovely dish on the wall please” was right up there with saying “I’d like my leg cut off” and “I’m a bloke, I’m an occer, and I really love my VB”. But, in this ever shifting universe, I’ve finally come to the conclusion, that there are worse things that could happen, than sticking a Sat dish on the side of a 150 year old house. Three things have made me decide this.

• The lack of a TV aerial in the house, which makes for certain domestic tension.


• The complete lack of anything worth watching on domestic Australian TV.


• The huge internet costs that come about from watching decent TV from the UK, via the BBC iPlayer in Australia – the land that unmetered interweb access forgot.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the incredulous voice from India, when I called up the Foxtel call centre, asking for the most basic of basic packages, which gives you, well not a lot to be honest, but at least the basic terrestrial free channels and BBC World. It’s very hard to track down this basic package, as the awful Foxtel website hides away the details, and instead will only let you sign up for one of the major channel packages – at 100 dollars a month – but if you call up, you can force it through. So long as you have an iron will and nerves of steel, to put up with the pit-bull like sales drones. I was asked 8 times – 8 – to reconsider. “But sir... surely you want sports?” “Commonwealth games?” “How about if I sign you up and you can see if you like it?” “There are a lot of well packaged options” “There is a great package of film channels” “I hear you sir, but everyone watches sports?” Who is this everyone? Really?

That really gets up my goat.

I mean, really? It isn’t me. Although I see from today’s AFR that 80% of Foxtel’s 1.6 million subscribers take sports. And that the commonwealth games coverage costs an extra $85. I ended up just begging the guy to give me BBC World, with no HD, no extra recording boxes, no extra boxes in any other rooms, no extra anything, the most basic of basic channels I could get. Honestly – Australian Pay TV makes buying a TV licence in the UK seem like the bargain of the century.

The Consistent Gardner

There's nothing quite like a well-manicured lawn to set the day off right. And there’s equally nothing better than seeing someone going to the time and effort of cutting a lawn. Now, have all that happen, and someone has cut your lawn, and you didn't expect it, the day becomes so good, it’ll have tweety birds and everything. This is in the same mythical universe where someone will turn up and magically cut your lawn, for no obvious or apparent reason than they feel like it. Welcome to my world.

For some unknown reason, some person or persons unknown have turned up, mown the lawn, trimmed the hedge, swept up the leaves, and even neatly cut the edging around the bricks on the edge of now neatly cut lawn. It’s better than a kick in the teeth by a blind horse

Who are these people? Is this in some way connected to the theory that for every force, there is an equally and opposite force? Just as the lawn grows, so someone will want to come in and trim it? It’s all most curious.

A partial answer has come from the chap who has sold us the hovel. He says that for the past 15 years, ever since they built the town houses, someone has consistently turned up religiously to do the garden. They’ve never asked for money, no bill have ever been produced, and no one has ever spoken to, nor least seen, these people.

It remains a mystery as deep as UFOs, Telekinesis, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Loch Ness Monster.

Brave Newt World

Another day of turning perfectly good furniture into firewood. Today, the huge reception desk in, errr, reception, bit the dust. It was this lovely, custom made thing, that weights close on 100 stone (or, if you prefer that in Roman Catholic, 250kg) with a desktop you can disassemble cars on, and which is thicker than an office block. It’s also like one of those Chinese puzzles, with screws hidden behind false walls that are glued on, with trim stuck around them. At one stage I got so desperate I was on the stage of getting the axe from Aldi, and turning it into kindling for next winter. No fear, it eventually gave way under the weight of a yard long crowbar.

Meanwhile – as they say – out in the garden, which is growing ever more rampant and luxurious as the growing season ends (in Australia, things tend to grow wild in the winter, and then turn into a dry husk in the summer – never let it be said that it’s not a topsy turvey world Down Under, where even the seasons are reversed) I’ve been hearing this strange rustle in the bushes. What is this strange beast that lurks, undetected, in the shrubbery. Mice? Snakes? Snakes eating the mice? Another night parrot? No… it’s a family of newts that live down the well.

However, just at the moment, I can't really deal with them - I have too many irons in the air, and balls in the fire.

The Thirty Nine Stops

What a quite extraordinary system Sydney has for renting houses. Instead of the agents earning a living and, you know, showing you around, they just organise one open day when in half an hour everyone who wants to see the place can, and then they take in applications – on the day – and decide who they would like to rent to. Quite bizarre – and also, a huge pain if you want to rent a place, as you can go weeks without having an application accepted. But it’s a boon if you’re living in the house that is being let out – as we are – because you only get disturbed once, for half an hour, as an endless queue of people poke their noses into your house. Few of whom, it seems, actually want to rent it: it was fascinating seeing our neighbours trot around just for what the Aussies call a “sticky beak” (or, if you prefer that in English, a “Rubber Neck”). Others are on the continual hunt for a pot of gold – or, as it’s known in Sydney, a cheap decent place to rent. One couple at the viewing had seen 39 different places.

At least, once that is done and dusted, I can get on with the business of moving into the hovel, which will be the delightful abode while I’m renovating it.

Of course it’s only when you move into a place do you start to find the little quirks that leave you scratching your head, asking “why? Just... why?”

How, for example, did they get the dining room table – which has been left in the house – into the dining room? It’s just way too big to get through the door in any direction. I did think of either a) leaving it there, and it will, forever more, be the dining room. Or b) chopping it up for firewood. However, since it is sitting in the room that will become the main bedroom, and which is therefore destined to become the first room I’ll work on, I had to get the blasted thing out of there. Which entailed taking the whole thing to pieces. And of course, it wasn’t just screwed together. Oh no, they’ve glued and nailed it for good measure.

I’ve also started a list. It’s sort of leaning to one side, rather like my house at the moment. It’s a huge long list of jobs, including everything from as basic to removing the wasp nest around the security light, to sanding down acres – miles! – of ancient weatherboards.

The road less gravelled

If we didn’t complete today we'll be up a gum tree without a paddle. After all, the hopelessly awful townhouse we’re renting is back on the rental market, and indeed the open day is scheduled for tomorrow.

And how complex could it be just to hand a very, very big cheque to a chap who has been trying to offload a tumbledown farmhouse for three – three! years – at the end of what was once a gravelled road, but is now far less gravelled, and is far more a massive tide – ocean, no less – of tar

It's not rocket surgery but I firmly expected something to go wrong... and yet, and yet... it all worked. Whey!

However, against all expectations... 3pm came and went. But at 22 minutes past 3, I got an Email to hear that the hovel is all mine! All mine! Well, it will be in 25 years, when I’ve paid the bank off.

To Kiln a mocking bird

Today, I’ve phoned up and asked someone to remove a dead parrot from INSIDE my stove... only in Australia, as they say. Punch lines on a postcard. Yes, this is an ex-parrot. And it’s in my stove. Not exactly what I expected to say the day before completion, and the day I get my first look inside the prospective purchase since I had a quick 10 minute look around the inside.

Of course, the first hassle was parking. Never mind the 7 – seven! – car park spaces this place, apparently have. After the local residents have been helping themselves, including one cheeky chap who’s been parking his Ute under what will, tomorrow, be my car-port, at the far end of my drive, on my property, in the mistaken apprehension that MY stands for “Mine is Yours” I finally got in the door.

Two thoughts: And the first sight of this wondrous abode – in the dark, on a windy night – was that this place is much bigger than I thought it was. And the second is that it’s falling down faster than a heavily leveraged tower block in Dubai, and that living in a Travelodge would be way more comfortable.

It was so quiet you could hear a mouse drop.

And then, the horror struck. The birds! The birds! Yes, goodness knows how it flew in there, but there’s a Night Parrot. It’s sitting firmly inside what, tomorrow, will be my stove. And it’s also firmly dead. If it wasn’t propped up in the logs, it would be a pushing hup the daises. Goodness knows how it got there. Very pretty it looks too, having a mottled yellowish green belly, and, with a rather squat, fat – overfed – appearance. Maybe that explains by the blasted thing obviously flew down the chimney, and died. Probably in shock at the look of the hovel. It looks a little stunned: maybe it’s pining for the fjords, instead of gone to meet its maker. Sometimes I wish I could just erase parts of my memory. Then when I sit and think about it, I’m glad I saw him. I also would rather someone else went and removed the poor thing, and instead of nailing the deceased to its perch, it would run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

One other fascinating observation. There is hot water! Lots of it! Yes, in an act of almost incredible stupidity, the vendors have kept the 5kW Hot water emersion heater switched on for the past three years, while the building has been abandoned! That’s about $0.25 an hour, $6 a day, $2190 a year, or $6,500 they’ve wasted! Incredible! Unbelievable! I almost feel good about the $4000 I lost changing the deposit from GBP to AUD at the wrong time...

Merchant Bankers

Can I just say – I like HSBC Premier. I’ve never liked banks before, and regarded them as something akin to the Devil incarnate, but yesterday, they shone, going above and beyond the call of duty. And what have they done to increase my estimation? Kept the branch open! I should have transferred the money for the remain deposit yesterday – but due to an almightily cockup, known as a limit on domestic money transfers, it failed. Cue instant panic today – thankfully rectified, when after an anguished phone call to Premier Central, we worked out that the only option is for me to get a bank cheque, and for them to keep the bank open until I could get there at 5. Which they did – and good on them! But a curse on this silly system of banks shutting at 4pm – it’s like going back to the arc!

The pain of paint

Today I walked down to Kensington, and went into the local friendly campus DIY shop. And in turn I nearly died of shock when I saw... the price of paint! Or, as it is now called, the pain of paint. Think UK... think about 10 quid for a tin of ceiling paint. 15 quid if you're really splashing out. Not in Oz... Think about 60 to 70 dollars for 2 litres of the stuff, well over 100 if you want a decent 6 litre tin!

Thankfully they had one tin on "special" which I nabbed at 40$.

I actually went in looking for door bolts, but they don't have any normal ones either. Apparently - and I kid you not - they are illegal. That's why you only get small flimsy ones that the fire brigade can break if they fancy a quick smash and grab job on your house. The nice sold Victorian ones I'm after have to be... flown in from the UK. I'm putting in an order online. IT's either that or ones that will bend in a stiff breeze.

God mews however... I've found some wonderful stuff that is designed for... repairing interior weatherboard suffering from dry rot! It’s curious - and curiously expensive - filler. A huge pot of turpentine and a long extension lead (for fridge) topped off today's purchases. Ah, I know how to live.

Sterling’s taking a pounding

Only now do I know the pain of going long on a currency at a 25 year AUD low with a hard option & needed to unravel. Ouch.

Here is any easy way to lose money: transfer cash from one side of the world to the other, when the currency you want is at a 25 year high, and the one you’ve got is down among the boondocks, kicking it’s metaphorical heels in the gutter. Yes, you’ve guessed it – I’ve transferred a whole heap of money from the UK to Australia, at $1.63 to one GBP. Great if you’re an Aussie backpacker off to see London: downright suicidal if you’re trying to buy a house in Oz. Just last week it was at 1.75, and I’m now kicking myself for not moving over the cash then. More than kicking myself infact: the basic mistake of hoping the pound would go higher has seen me sitting on the wrong hedge, and then some. It’s cost me 4 grand, just waiting for a week. Aghghgh