10 reasons for scottish not to move to oz!! (just a bit of fun)

[Tosh105]

1.It’s full of Australians. I know that might sound pretty trite, but I have always thought that Oz has always had two main things going for it; it’s where most of the Australians are, and it’s very far away from here. If, like me, you are instantly irritated by some spotty, Antipodean youth addressing you as “mate” and telling you that there are “no worries”, then it’s just pure madness to transport yourself to where there are millions of the buggers. And how long would it be before living in the hell of a Ramsay Street neighbourhood with all its matey chumminess drove you to look out the whisky and Webley and end the misery for ever? Forget it. Stay safe at home.

2. The weather is bloody awful. Now, looking out through streaming windows at the relentness greyness of the Scottish summer this might seem a bit far fetched, but take it from me, I’ve been there, twice. Long, parched, baking days without end may seem idyllic, but they bring their own kind of torture. Before long you’re longing for just a whiff of a breeze, or a smirr of rain, but no chance. Continuous sunshine is just so boring, and it translates into the population, who are endlessly boring about the weather (cf whiney Aussie pop group Crowded House etc). Give it two months and you’ll be dreaming fondly of East Kilbride’s horizontal rain, I promise you.

3. Crime. Now I don’t know if crime rates in Oz are any better or any worse than ours back here at home, but that’s not the point. At least in Scotland you know where the criminals are, and what places to avoid. But in Oz they are everywhere, because it’s deeply embedded in the genes. Not strictly Australia’s fault that it was the dumping ground for Britain’s criminal classes in times gone by, but there’s no escaping history I’m afraid. They’re everywhere, from the upmarket apartments on Sydney harbour to the remotest, dilapidated sheep station. You’re never safe. Is that what you want? No, of course it isn’t!

4. The Outback. Sometimes referred to as “the bush” by the natives, it’s where people apparently go “walkabout” ie wander around aimlessly with nothing particular to do. Anyway, forget any romantic notion you may be harbouring through an overdose of Crocodile Dundee. The Outback is basically an awful, desolate, waterless landscape full of SFA. Even a visitor from Lanarkshire would be depressed. Nobody in their right mind goes there so it’s full of winos, desperados and ne’er-do-wells. No different to Coatbridge, I hear you say, but think of the size of it. It’s vast. So, like the aforesaid Coatbridge, best avoided at all costs.

5. Poisonous flora and fauna. It’s a well recorded fact that Australia is teeming with plants and beasties that bite, sting, and generally are unpleasant – and that’s not counting the human varieties! It’s reckoned that most of the creatures on this planet that are fatal to human beings are concentrated in Ozzie land. You can’t go anywhere without fear of being stung, bitten, burrowed into or defecated on, all inevitably leading to a slow, painful and horrifying death. You can’t even go to the loo without some bandit red spider biting you on the bum. Still want to go there? I don’t think so.

6. Sport. The Aussies are only good at sports which nobody cares about. Swimming. What’s that all about? And they aren’t even good at that any more. Yes, they win at rugby occasionally, but only when the All Blacks let them. And rugby in Scotland is only played by a slack handful of inbred farming folk in the Borders whose everyday lives are so unedifyingly awful that they’re prepared to risk the rest of it in a wheelchair just to relieve the tedium. Cricket? A game for poofs. Aussie Rules football? I rest my case.

7. The sea. In case you hadn’t noticed, Oz-Land is surrounded by miles and miles of ocean. Aussie state propaganda perpetuates the myth of long, golden beaches and warm, inviting sea to bathe in. What they don’t mention, surprise, surprise, is the vast array of nasties lurking just below the surface ready to attack the unwary. If the jelly fish don’t get you the sharks will. Aussie beaches are the shark equivalent of Tesco’s, except without the variety. Surfers (now there’s a completely pointless exercise) regularly get great chunks chewed off them by these storm troopers of the deep, who can hardly believe their good luck at so much food presented to them on a plate. Well, a surf board, but same thing. Stay out of the water if you value your limbs, that’s what I say. Or, even better, don’t go at all!

8. Aussie men. Time was when Aussie men were lean, mean, fighting machines, the “shock troops of the Empire” as Rommel called them. Hard outdoor work and better nutrition than their Old Country colleagues set them apart. Well, that’s all gone now, sadly. Generations of standing supping weak lager round the barbie in stubbies and thongs (whatever they are) have done for them, and are we’re left with is a collection of overweight and flabby blokes who probably can’t make it to the end of the driveway without wheezing, let alone carve a living out of the unforgiving bush as their forefathers did. Hell, even the lifesavers on Bondi Beach look a bit lardy these days. Then there’s all that boorish mateiness you would have to endure. No thanks.

9. Aussie women. It gets worse. Imagine being surrounded by a sea of Kylie and Dannii Minogue clones, all speaking in that irritating manner where every sentence ends in a higher tone like a question. As in “we went to the movies last night?” Could you stand it? I didn’t think so. And you probably think that Dame Edna Everidge is a parody, don’t you? Well she’s not. Believe me, the streets of Melbourne and Perth (dammit, they can’t even make up their own place names) are swarming with Dame Ednas. On television, funny; in real life, not.

10. We’ve got it all here already. If none of the horrors previously described have put you off, ponder this. Most of them exist in Bonny Scotland too! Terrible weather, crime up there with the best of them, midgies and wasps and nettles (OK, not fatal, but you know what I mean), pitiful record at most sporting activities and a population which defies Darwin’s theories on evolution. But there’s more – we’re actually better than the Aussies at poverty, disease, diabolical eating habits, smoking and of course our main source of national pride, the drink. Why would anyone want to leave all this behind? Get down Sauchiehall Street in the wee small hours of a Sunday morning and remind yourselves just what a great wee country we live in.

You have probably surmised by now that I would rather eat my own dung than emigrate to Australia, but that’s not the case. I quite like Australians, actually, it’s just that I’ve never managed a whole one. But there are obviously lots of potential dung eaters out there in middle Scotland, pining for a better life Down Under. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.