Travelling Down Under: How to translate Strine, Australia's national language.

The first 30 years of my life were spent in Australia and since moving to London, I have made at least one trip every year to the land of my birth. But despite the frequency of my visits, I am increasingly finding it difficult to understand the language.

It now seems that most descriptive names in Australia are reduced to words ending in “o” or “ie”.

Over the years I have become  accustomed to “arvo” (afternoon), “tinnie” (can of beer or a small tin boat), "cossie" (swimming costume) “rellie” or “rello” (a relative) and being referred to as a “journo” (journalist), but what was I to make of a headline in the Australian papers about a man’s leg being chewed off by a “saltie”? 

I found that answer only by reading well down into the story and learning that a “saltie” is a salt water crocodile. I also noted that the man with the chewed leg was in a critical condition in “hossie” (hospital).

On one recent trip, I was challenged by a large illuminated sign over a highway “Have you renewed your rego?” My immediate response was to shout: “Well, I might renew it if I knew what it was”. A friend later enlightened me. “Rego” was short for car registration, the Australian equivalent of the UK’s road tax. 

I note in recent emails the increasing use of "renos". This turns out to be the Strine short form for renovations. 

Some of this word reduction and slang is amusing, and I couldn’t help smiling when I learned some time ago that “carked it” meant that someone had died (i.e. become a carcass). On a recent trip to my homeland several people used "carked" in their conversion, such as "Did you know that old Fred had 'carked' it?" 

I also love the much-used “hoon”, the short form of hooligan, and “rort”, the term most frequently applied to phoney expenses and rip-offs by politicians (“pollies”).

What surprises me is how the slang has been adopted in recent years by Australia’s mainstream media. 

It is common, indeed usual, for Australian newspapers to refer to “firies” (firemen), ambos (ambulance drivers), and “schoolies” (drunken end-of-school-year parties).

Scanning the Australian papers on the internet the other day I also came across “tradie” (tradesman, such as plumber, electrician and carpenter), “boatie” (someone with a small boat), “yachtie” (a yachtsman) and “servo” (a motor vehicle service station).

And then there are the slang words that pop up in emails and social media postings from my friends (“mates” is preferred) and relatives (sorry, rellos) in "Godzone" (Australia): There is “bowlo” (member of a lawn bowls club), “sando” (sandwich) and “trannie” (no longer a transistor radio; now a transexual). Also, a friend reported that their child had a "tantie" (tantrum).

I received an email from a friend who apologised for failing to "corro" recently. Corro? Yes, of course. That turned out to be the short form for "correspond". He told me that he had been busy with the builders brought in to do some "renos" (renovations).

I recently tore my hamstring in a fall. I received several sympathetic emails from Australian friends in which they referred to my "hammy". 

Finally, I should tell you about a recent email in which a women friend heaped praise on her “gynie”. No doubt, by now, you will have decoded this to be a reference to her gynaecologist.

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And how did the Aussie accent come about? Here are some suggestions:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/28/drunken_slurring_aussies_strine_forefathers/ 

Tiananmen Square: Memories of the dramatic events

Back in 1989 I was sent to Beijing to co-ordinate coverage for BBC radio of the Sino-Soviet Summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping, but the story turned out to be very different from what everyone had expected.  I quickly found myself in the midst of what turned out to be the biggest and most memorable story of my career -  the Tiananmen Square uprising. The Gorbachev-Deng summit rapidly became a sidebar story, so much so that I can't remember how it went or if the summit ever came to any agreements. 

Extracts from the diary I wrote shortly after returning to my BBC base in London are on my website HERE:

What happens when a missing WW2 warplane is found?

For many years I have wondered what would happen if someone stumbled across the wreckage of the Royal Air Force Wellington bomber that was co-flown by my uncle, Sergeant Alexander Lewis Cox of Melbourne, Australia. This was reinforced recently when I learned that the remains of a WW2 Hellcat fighter-bomber had been found with the body of the New Zealand pilot on a remote mountainside in Norway. And since writing this, there has been news of a further discovery of a WW2 plane containing the remains of a pilot.

More can be found HERE

Back when radio was fun and called the wireless

I've just found an entertaining and informative recording of an interview I did with the Australian actor and broadcaster Ray Barrett back in December 1974. Ray, who gained international fame in the BBC TV series The Troubleshooters,  spent much of his career also working in radio in both the United Kingdom and Australia.

In the interview, Ray talked about how different radio was between the two countries and what it was like being Tarzan and many other characters in Australian radio serials.

You'll find the interview HERE.

Ray returned to his home country in the 1970s and died of a brain haemorrhage on Queensland's Gold Coast in 2009.

What happened to Florrie Cox?

Florence Martha "Florrie" Cox and the newly-ordained Baptist missionary, the Rev. Frank E. Paice, became engaged to be married in 1912. There was much joy in the two families and at the church they both attended in Melbourne, Australia. But their honeymoon in Bengal, India, was a troubled occasion when they found it impossible to consummate the marriage for reasons neither could fully understand. So began the compelling saga of how the couple struggled to understand and cope with Florrie's condition, while fellow Baptist missionary Olga Johnston waited impatiently in the wings to snatch Frank away.

Why did the families and the church go to such lengths to hide what happened? And why did two Supreme Court judges in Melbourne order the divorce file to be sealed for all time? Ian D. Richardson, an Australian journalist who worked for many years for the BBC, was determined to learn the truth about his Great Aunt Florrie. God's Triangle is the result: a true story of revelation and betrayal.

Download the story here: https://www.godstriangle.com/ebook.html   

AUSTRALIA: a surprising and wonderful museum find

An Australian friend, the Bendigo artist Gail Tavener, recently tipped me off about printing equipment she had seen in a wonderful museum at Wedderburn, a small former gold mining town (population 680 at the last census) in the state of Victoria. As she remembered that I had once trained as a printer, she wondered if I knew anything about the machines, a Linotype type-setting machine and a Heidelberg automatic printing press. I not only knew about them, but once worked on these exact machines. 

           (click on photographs to enlarge them, then Escape to go back to the story)

Back in 1961, I was employed by the Tribune weekly newspaper in the neighbouring town of Charlton when my mother sold it to Ian and Coral Cameron from Wedderburn. Ian's father had owned the Wedderburn Express but had sold it to a solicitor, Eric Shackleton "Shack" Bailey and printer John Somerville. The Express had, since its inception in the 1800s, been entirely handset, but "Shack" and John modernised the operation by buying an Intertype (also known as a Linotype) and a Heidelberg printing machine. Ian Cameron decided to loan me to the Express for a few days each week to teach John Somerville how to use the equipment.

As I was on a visit to my homeland last month, I was able to call at the museum to be greeted by Denise Nichols and her enthusiastic and friendly colleagues. It was a delight to be shown around and reunited with the equipment that was part of my life so many decades ago.

The Intertype/Linotype (above) and the Heidelberg (below)

The old type cases, and on the right is the roller that printed the proof sheets

,

Denise Nichols opens a tin of biscuits with the biscuits still intact, sort of, and below are some of the displays in the grocery shop that was frozen in time.

    Finally, CLICK HERE for more details.

A taste of a compelling thriller

Jackson Dunbar is an ambitious, talented and impetuous television correspondent who gets a much-desired posting to the Middle East. But he is not to know that he will run into friends from an almost-forgotten past. Each one presents him with unexpected and powerful challengers, and the cost is high.

Here's the start to the story...

CHAPTER 1

Jackson Dunbar – Jacko to his colleagues and friends – surveys the scene before him with some disappointment. He has been in Armibar, capital of Central Arabia, for a month now and he still hasn’t been able to get a report on the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News.

It is a frustrating time for an ambitious TV correspondent. Twice he has been to demonstrations in this shabby street, pock-marked by bullets from a long-past battle, and in a part of the city well away from the eyes of most citizens. On both occasions, a promised dramatic event failed to make the grade, except for a few short clips on the World News channel.

Jackson’s young Australian cameraman, Pete Fox, is busy filming about 100 Arab men chanting and waving placards calling for the destruction of Britain, America and Israel. Jackson stands to one side making a few pencilled notes.

Jackson is 35, of medium height and weight. His hair is dark but showing signs of thinning. His preferred work wear is casual shoes, neat jeans and plain open-necked shirts. In summary, his appearance is very ordinary. He is a person who would rarely attract attention in the street, but he is gifted with an intuitive talent to project an image of knowledge and authority when in front of a TV camera.

The demonstrators are mostly in grubby traditional outfits, the ankle-length thawb or dishdash, and headwear, the keffiyeh. Women wearing black hijabs stand in the doorways ululating and clapping.

It is very routine stuff, unlikely to have any impact, and Jackson wonders why the demonstration is being held in such an out-of-the-way run-down street with its dusty pot-holed roads, broken pavements and heaps of stinking uncollected rubbish. Police and soldiers in their cheap crumpled uniforms are there in substantial numbers as they always are for demonstrations, but even they are looking upon the protest in a way that suggests they wish they were back in their barracks playing cards or kicking a football around the parade square.

Pete, in his late twenties and with an accent and choice of clothes that make clear his Down Under origins, comes over to Jackson: “Do you want to do a piece-to-camera, mate?”

Jackson takes another look around him and shakes his head. “It’s another no-no. Let’s pack it in and get back to the bureau.”

Pete is unsure. “I think I’ll stick around a bit while they’re still here,” nodding towards the CNN and Al-Jazeera crews and newsagency reporters.

“Please yourself, but my expenses need urgent attention,” Jackson says with a grin.

He goes to the BBC’s silver Range Rover 4x4 parked nearby and gets in beside the staff driver, Yassin Azizi, an easy-going young Arab with a bushy dark moustache, wearing smart western clothes and smoking a cigarette. 

Five minutes later the car is moving down an avenue alongside the Armibar Central Plaza, a busy and prosperous air conditioned shopping mall with life going on as though the city is at total peace with itself.  It is a world and a culture away from where they have just been. Many of the women are confidently wearing fashionable Western clothes and proudly flaunting expensive designer handbags. Were it not for the many men bustling about in their neat white thawbs and patterned keffiyehs, it could be any flourishing business centre in the developed world.

Jackson spots a modern glass-fronted bank and tells Yassin to pull over at the ATM. He inserts his card and taps in the PIN. The card is rejected. Jackson angrily bangs the machine with his fist and walks back to the car, watched with resignation by Yassin.

“Bloody banks!” mutters Jackson.

Yassin anticipates what will happen next and already has his wallet out by the time Jackson gets back into the passenger seat. He hands over a $50 note.

“Thanks,” says Jackson, embarrassed that this is not the first time. “I’ll give it back when I get my exes.” Yassin sighs but says nothing.

The car resumes the journey back to the bureau. Jackson’s mobile phone rings. He sees on the screen that Pete is calling. “Hi Pete!” There is no answer and the line goes dead. “Bloody phones,” declares Jackson.

The car continues on its way, both men remaining silent. Then, as they turn into the street lined with modern brick office blocks where the bureau is situated, they spot the thirties-something Anglo-Arab office manager, Samira Lang, at the front door. She simultaneously sees the car and runs out onto the roadway, waving her hands furiously. Jackson winds down his window. “Go back, go back,” Samira shouts. Jackson’s mobile rings. It is Pete again.

“What’s the problem, Pete?” Jackson listens briefly, then, “Okay. We’re on our way back now.” There is a Hollywood-style squealing of tyres as Yassin does a fierce U-turn and speeds away.

Ten minutes later, Jackson is back at the scene of the demonstration. It could not be more shockingly different than when they left it such a short time ago. It is a blood bath. Wounded and dead Arabs, both military and civilian, both male and female, are lying in pools of blood on the road and in doorways. Soldiers are tensely lined up, rifles raised and firing shots into the air, to keep back a gathering crowd. There are sirens as police and military cars and ambulances arrive. Some of the injured demonstrators are already in the back of private utility trucks that charge away with headlights and horns blazing.

Jackson sees Pete filming from a doorway and runs to him. Pete has blood running down his face. “What the fuck happened?”

Pete replies while continuing filming. “The demo was infiltrated by militants just before you left.”

“Did you see them?” Jackson demands.

“I guess I did.”

“Well, why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“How the hell was I to know they were carrying hidden guns and grenades?! They just looked like regular demonstrators who’d turned up late. Anyway, mate, don’t blame me for your own failings. You shouldn’t have pissed off before you knew the story was really over. You should know how sensitive everything is in this city.”

Jackson accepts that Pete is right and that is how the acerbic bureau chief, Mack Galbraith, will also see it. He knows he has to do something fast and drastic to salvage the situation. “C’mon. Let’s not get into an argument, Pete, I need to know what you filmed?”

“Most of it, mate.”

“Thank Christ!” Jackson mutters.

Pete pauses to wipe the blood from his face before adding caustically: “And thanks for asking how I am!”

“Sorry, Pete. What happened?”

“A ricochet off the wall just above me when the troops opened fire on a guy who had appeared at a window with his gun. It’s only a graze. I’ll be okay. But the guy at the window copped it.”

“Glad you weren’t badly hurt.”

Having expressed his concern, even belatedly, Jackson is anxious to get back to the story. He nods towards the CNN and Al Jazeera crews as they speed away. “How much did they get?”

“All of it, mate, and both Jane and Omar were in the middle of doing their pieces-to-camera when it all blew up.”

“Oh shit, shit, shit! Mack is going to tear my balls off over this.”

Desperation is taking hold of Jackson. “Look mate, I’ve really got to do a piece-to-camera.”

“That’s going to look a bit lame at this stage, Jacko.”

“No it won’t. Run into that derelict building over there, filming as you go, then turn the camera on me as I run in after you.”

Pete hesitates. Jackson panics as he sees his promising career coming apart before his eyes. “Do it, will you! Just do as I say!”

The row begins to attract bystanders, now that most of the wounded and bodies have been taken away. Pete is embarrassed and runs without enthusiasm into the derelict building as instructed. 

Jackson pauses then races after Pete as though competing in a 100-metre sprint. Once inside, he crouches down, catches his breath and begins pouring out words to the camera:

“What started out today as a peaceful protest has turned violent. It…”

Jackson suddenly flinches and anxiously looks around before resuming his report.

“Er. It isn’t quite clear why the protest turned into such a savage confrontation, but there are many dead and wounded. This bloody event is sure to place additional pressure on the Central Arabian Government, which has been facing serious allegations of corruption and a weakness towards what is seen as the imperial ambitions of Israel and Western governments.”

Jackson flinches again, looks around anxiously, pauses a few seconds, then casually stands up and dusts himself down. “That should do the trick, Pete. Let’s get this back to the office.”

As they return to the 4x4, Jackson fails to notice a small heap of human excrement just inside the entrance to the building. He steps right into it. He screws up his face and wipes his shoe clean on a tuft of grass. “You could be in the shit in more than one way,” laughs Pete.

There is more to read from this story by going HERE to Look Inside.  And for some of the reviews, go HERE