Life on the Hedge

Let’s talk trees. And not any old trees. Oh no, these are trees that spark wars, riots, and attacks of the manic hedge trimmer.We’re talking Leyland Cypress here – or Cupressocyparis leylandii, to give it a proper name. It’s the quickest growing conifer, growing as much 4 feet (that’s over a meter in Catholic) a year. At Bedgebury Pinetum in the UK the Leylandii are 130 ft tall and still growing strong.

The Leyland Cypress has been cast in the role of the villain, thank to a number of disputes between neighbours over boundary hedges. Back in the mother country, the Government is expected to shortly ban them, following the Department of Environment study 'High Hedges: possible solutions'. And a Consultation Paper on the topic. There’s even a telephone hotline to report urgent hedge problems –Hedgeline.

And yet in “A hedge too far” it is made clear that this is a noble breed. The Leyland Cypress is not found in the wild. It came about because man brought together two species from distinct genera of plants from different regions that would otherwise never have met. The parent trees came from opposite ends of the Pacific coast of N. America - the resulting cross between a Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) from California and the Nootka or Alaska Cypress (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis). The original progenitors were growing close together in a tree collection in Park Wood, Leighton Hall near Welshpool, in Powys.

The hybrid was named after Christopher John Naylor (1849-1926), the eldest son of John Naylor (1813-1889) of Leighton Hall; Christopher John changed his surname to Leyland in 1891 on inheriting the Leyland Entailed Estates. 20 years later, a cross occurred at Leighton Estate when the cones of the Monterey Cypress were fertilised with pollen from the Nootka. The result of that cross was baptised "Leighton Green" in 1911 – when my house was already half a century old. As a hybrid, Leyland Cypress are sterile so all the trees in Australia have resulted from cuttings originating in Welshpool.

And these Leighton Greens are what I bought down at Parklea Markets this weekend, at $10 a tree – a pricey sum considering I need about 20 of the blighters to screen off the road from the house. Odd though it may sound, this is actually an environmentally sensitive way of reducing the quite horrific road noise: a thick bushy green barrier is much better than high brick wall. It looks better too.

However I can’t help feeling that I'm living life on the hedge, and the neighbours, when they see the cute, wee, little trees, are going to form a ravenous hoard with pitchforks, axes, and the obligatory chain saw.

Mind you, you can't run around with your head stuck in the sand sitting on the fence. And it may take a while – the plants I put in are all of 18 inches high.

One hundred years of solid food

Moving to a new house is like frequent travel – it broadens more than the mind. There are many advantages to living in a historical cottage half way to the Hawkesbury. The charm. The character. The availability of takeaways.

Sadly, since moving here, I’ve discovered that the house is directly opposite a strip mall of some of the best takeaways known to man. Even rather rotund rolly polly man.I mean, just look at them.

For a start there is the Hilltop Indian, which specialises in both North and South Indian food (hmmm – hedging its bets then?) Then there is Danny’s Pizzas, with the best in Organic Pizza (the Pizza Palour previously known as Kellyville Pizza – also the best in Organic...) A Dominos, for those moments when the pizza company that knows no constant name won’t do. Thai Spy – guess what, they sell Thai. Do you see what they’ve done with the name there? Chinese, times two. A burger bar (which, alas, has a ban on beetroot in the burgers). Arthur’s Restaurant, with the best in contemporary Australian (which seems to be pasta, curry, steak, and pies). And look, there is even an offy! The list goes on.

And quite frankly, as a growing boy, I need this food. I’m certainly growing – outwards. Still, having someone else cooking is better than a slap on the face with a blunt fish.It may be windy on the top of these here hills, but there’s no danger of going hungry.

Pole to Dipole

UHF. It’s a word to strike terror into the heart of broadcasters down under.

Which is odd, considering the rest of the world adopted it a full half century ago.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself here... let me explain.

In the beginning there were dinosaurs. But they got too fat and died out. Then man arose. And he invented television. It used a system called VHF. However this was gloriously inefficient. So he moved onto UHF, as far back as 1972. By 1985, the last VHF transmission was heard – or rather seen – in the UK. But in Australia, they like to do things just a little bit differently, and continue to use the same technology that was designed back in 1935 when television first hit the ether. VHF (or Very High Frequency – as opposed to UHF: Ultra High Frequency).

And so, you end up with the curious sight in Australia of ranks of houses all looking like something that make a Radio Ham excited: huge piles of aluminium piled up on the roof, instead of small, neat UHF aerials.

Now, move forwards in history a little while, and you’ll get to digital TV. The Aussie government wisely decided this should be UHF only, and the valuable VHF spectrum sold off, to raise millions for the taxpayer. However Australian broadcasters looked at the costs involved at building a new mast, disagreed, and the government backed down. Coincidentally costing the taxpayer millions, but avoiding a nasty spat with channel 9 or 10, which could have brought down the government. Except for the ABC and SBS of course, who were told to go the UHF route anyway.

So – excuse me if I’m digressing – this is why you find me, standing on a roof with a great 12 foot long and 10 feet wide VHF TV Aerial straight out of the arc, trying to get something that few countries provide: Digital TV on VHF. After hours of trying, and rotating a little bit left or a little bit right, I gave up, and went back to the shop.

“This TV aerial is dead” I explained... no more, not even nailed to the pole. At least it won’t get any of these new fangled commercial channels – only the ABC.

They looked at a map, and then gently explained: because I’m more than 50km from central Sydney I’m in a regional area. Hence – no digital TV for me, unless I buy a “remote and rural” antenna.

To add in salt to injury, it’s fully 22 feet long, Log Periodic, with a dipole like central heating plumbing, and demands mountings that would stop the Titanic. Sadly, I’ve got one on special order from the manufacturer...

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.