Heading to the shores of the mother country is almost a rite of passage for Aussies, even if the credit crunch has curbed our numbers. But have we become just another London tourist-cliché, easily identified by our rugby jerseys and Havaianas? Andy Park shares his opinion on the English experience.

Image: Ian Britton

At a time when almost everyone you know is following the dollar back home, why must it always be reiterated to Australians in London that they are not unusual larrikins, well loved rogues or some kind of exotic frontier import? An Australian in London is a cockroach under the British fridge with a walk-up visa, an arguably shabby reputation and those goddamned Havaianas.

Let’s face it; London is an easy option when all the really interesting people from home are post-doctorate deep in some central European university or brimming with cash and avarice in NYC or doing something unfeasibly dangerous with a natural resource in Malawi. London is the girlfriend that you never really liked but hey, she spoke English, would have comfortable, if not challenging sex on the couch during Big Brother and didn’t get that angry the time she caught you p****** in the kitchen sink.

No, as an Aussie in London, the best you might do is get your hooks in with a European company and/or partner, backslap with entrepreneurial Brisbanites in Fulham or mince about like Bowie in Ray Bans with Melbournians in Dalston. But they all phone mum on a Sunday night, have Gumtree as a favourite site and will carp on about their time “over in Europe” when they get home, like Captain Kirk meets Captain Cook.

Don’t think that I’m one of these holier than thou types that squawk about the Tate Modern and pretend to have never been into a Walkabout, (twice, both with Brits) – I’m no Aussie snob. I own Havaianas and in Meribel last winter I was peppering my disgust for the English with savage expletives whilst going up the chairlift when the quiet Englishman in the chair next to me said, “Sorry, living in Earls Court then are we then?” Okay, I’m an idiot, but it’s that cringing feeling when you’re in a Moroccan Souk haggling for some lantern you don’t really want but trying to be worldly when along walks three guys in State of Origin jerseys, boardies and Arnetts, braying about the third time they did Oktoberfest. It undermines the whole experience – I could have done this in Footscray for a fraction of the price (but may have still needed the inoculations).

The archetypal cliché? An Australian in London. Image: A Park

To be fair, Australians in London have evolved from being behind that bar to owning it. The Canary Wharf Aussie is (or was until the crunch) as ubiquitous as the Earls Court one. True to the cockroach analogy when I moved into an apartment block in Stepney Green the guy upstairs was from Melbourne and by chance happened to work for the same radio station as myself. Yes we have broadened our employment base, our London suburb boundaries to a point, and generally nipped up a gear with disposable income (four star in Pamplona instead of one!) but has the Aussie in London shaken this pretence of novelty? Ask the Polish who drink more, work more and send more home. Or ask a Saffa (South African in London) who has all manner of trouble travelling in countries where we simply rock up to the border and flip flop in.

Essentially, the point I’m labouring is that Australians in London are not special or even particularly well liked. And those Barry McKenzie days finished around the time your parents were doing their stint in London wearing bell-bottoms in Carnaby Street. We are just another London tourist cliché like the shoals of hormonal Italian teenagers in Covent Garden, all gelled up and snogging on a weekend school trip, to the Mayfair Russians who’ve taken fashion cues from MTV’s bling and fur or the great northern out-of-towner family “cum down Lond-on see Bally Elliot” and eat TGIFridays and visit Madame Tussauds. And as for actually living here, up and down my street alone I’ve counted Italian, Irish and Canadian (and of course Chelsea) flags in the windows amongst the Aussie and Kiwi ones. It’s a supermarket promotion of the passports that can be burgled inside.

True story: One snowy night on a tram in Bratislava, four dumb-as-bricks Aussie blokes get aboard doing their best offensive Borat accents while drunkenly trying to find the Chemical Brothers gig. Uncomfortably, the passengers shifted in their seats while the group bellowed out an “Aussie Aussie Aussie”. Finally to my delight one of them turns to me to ask for directions, it must have been the goat I was nursing that allowed me to blend in …

“Scuse me mate, do you speak English?”

“Yes a little, vhere are you from?” I reply, with an appalling accent that incredibly, seemed to work.

“Aw mate we’re all Australian but he’s a filthy Kiwi.”

“Austrian?”

“No, Australian.”

“Austria? Yes very close is Austria.”

I let the confusion continue on awkwardly for several minutes, encouraging him to pull out all his Crocodile Hunter references and impersonations of a hopping kangaroo. We talked about Australian cities and how “awesome” Sydney was. Then he complimented me on my good English. Time for the kill, leaning in close and in an impossibly broad Australian accent I levelled:

“You know the stop for the Chemical Brothers gig was four stops ago you bloody idiot.”

Well, it seemed as if a semi-trailer had just run over Skip, his face a priceless mix of stoned goldfish and a stop sign. Struggling to both exit the tram and compute the fact that there was another Aussie travelling somewhere in the world at the same time, he smacked his head on the pole on the way out. We trundled off into the night as he held his head and tried explaining to his mates in the snow that I was “like fully totally an Aussie”. Take off your Heathrow luggage tags mate.