Fifteen large

Fruities, or 'pokies' as they're called here, are a huge earner for pubs and clubs. Rather than have one or two dotted about the pub, they have to be sectioned off in their own room or area, and there's normally as many as the place can fit in to that room, seeing as they make a lot of money for the place. When they banned smoking in pubs and clubs a few NRL clubs nearly went out of business as revenue from the pokies nosedived due to the two going hand in hand and people stopped playing if they couldn't have a snout to calm the nerves as they pissed away the week's wages. They're the big Vegas jobs and weirdly when I went to Atlantic City, all the machines that were in Caesar's Palace etc were made in Australia.

Like the yank versions, you can vary how much you stake on each spin, how many rows/combinations you play etc and they generally go from 1c a credit to $1. You can get to the point where you've covered all the bets on three credits a spin and can be playing over $20 a spin (over a tenner, and this is in a pub rather than the Belagio or summat).

Anyway..., I'm in the local the other night (The Golden Sheaf, it of the famous five quid bottle of Heineken, though I discovered the beer's cheaper at the bar in the pokie room...) and I'm having a small flutter one of the machines. I'm playing $1.50 a spin which despite being 80p a go is obviously small beer, especially when there's a lad next to me who's playing $10 a spin. Who wins $15,500. Fifteen grand. Pleased? He certainly offered to buy his mates a round. The maximum one-off prize you can win on any machine is ten grand, you know this because every machine has a sign on it saying so, along with "your chances of winning this are no greater than one in a million", and then there's usually little cards for gambler's anonymous that you can take away with you when it's all come on top.

Like the jackpot on fruities back home is thirty quid or whatever but you can often get a repeater, he won two and half grand six times (or something like that). He got a cheque for fifteen grand and five hundred in fifties. It's a massive amount to win on the fruities, but in the big world hardly life changing. It's about eight grand - I'd pay off my credit card, get the m.o.t. and insurance done on the motor, then pay for a trip back to the UK, then that would be that. Even then, the lad who won was talking to his mate and I was picking up that he's a regular big player - he was about forty and he said summat like "I've been playing since I was seventeen, I'm not even close to breaking even". Funnily enough he was saying it with a huge grin on his mooey whilst getting the drinks in, so he didn't seem too fussed about stumbling upon this insight at that particular moment.

Favourtie overseas city?

What's your favourite overseas city? Mine's New York. The Guardian and Observer 2009 travel awards have come out and Sydney's been voted the favourite overseas city.

Fair enough, it's a grand place and could conceivably knock New York into third spot (behind Cape Town in second? I've never been), but then you have a goosey at the other categories and it starts to tell a more-middle-class-than-me story: Favourite European country? Switzerland. Beats off challenges from Norway, Austria and Sweden.

Right enough eh?! I'm sure if I'd ever been I wouldn't be able get enough of those gaffs meself, but even if I ate more humous than I do now and went to the theatre a lot I'd probably still stick Spain in there somewhere ("the Adalucian mountains are simply devine in the late summer darling, which is when I have been there with my partner. I have also been to the Iberian Peninsula in the spring, but that was when I was getting fucked on a stag do in Magaluf. Marvellous.")

It's like they took the survey during a parent's evening at private school, and you had to shout out your answer in front of all the other parents. Chile as one of the favourite long-haul destinations? I've been bored with Chile for years, sold the cottage in Santiago way back in 2007. Completely overdeveloped now. If you must stay in South America, it's all about Paraguay these days.

Seriously though, what's yer favourite UK city? Mine's London, but I'm guessing that's where half the voters live so they're not considering it as a travel destination. If I still lived in London it'd probably be Brighton or Manchester, but I've never been to Newcastle which is meant to be alright, and I've only ever been to Glasgow once, when I was ten (I bought Ghosts 'n' Goblins on cassette for my Commodore 64, it was the game Todd in Neighbours was addicted to at the time). Liverpool's good too. Edinburgh is good for a mini-break, but the weather is always, always, absolute shite. Anyone been to Bristol? What about favourite European city? It's definitely Barcelona for me.

Reassuringly expensive?

With Australia faring much better than other western economies during the 'GFC' the Aussie dollar has strengthed a lot recently, which is a winner for Aussies going abroad on holiday, but crap for tourists coming the other way, as well as lots of international business looking to spend here.

When I first got here it cost 40p for a dollar, and it's now over 56p, which throws up some mental examples for someone like me who despite being here for two years still regularly converts stuff back into pounds: In my local the other night I nearly keeled over when I ordered a bottle of Heineken... for $9! That's five pounds nine pence (£5.09!) for a standard 330ml bottle of Dutch lager. It's normally a bit more expensive due to being foreign and flash, and my local is an expensive pub and you could probably get it for between six and eight in other gaffs, but still, five quid a bottle, thankfully my wages work the same way! In the work canteen we've got a vending machine that punts out coke, crisps, chocolate etc. With a normal sized Twirl being the current squeaker at $2.40 - £1.36! Even back when it was 40p the dollar that's still nearly a quid - how much is a chocolate bar in a London newsagents these days? If you go into a bit of a poncey bar how much are they gonna do you for a bottle, about four notes? The world's going mad and I'm getting old - I remember that Thomas Cook holiday advert from a few years ago (2004-ish?) that was just a picture of a pint of lager with a "£3" tag hanging from it, and the line 'time to get away' underneath it.

Warners were all set to start filming The Green Hornet here next month, as like Superman and The Matrix trilogy in the past it cost a lot less to make them here due to the exchange rate, but that's now been shelved.

The upside is that ordering stuff on UK or US Amazon (or from abroad in general) is now a shed load cheaper. It always was compared to buying stuff in the shops here (due to transport costs, crap import taxes and trying to make you 'buy Aussie' in general), but is even more so now.

Just as well none of you lot are planning a trip over here eh! (oooh! Ya mum etc...)

Over and Elt

See that's yer Gately brown bread then. Frankly I prefer 'massive nyron, ketemine and gay shennanigans binge' type deaths than the 'natural causes, could have happened to anyone' style check outs. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but I've been wondering what folks in the media have been saying behind closed doors, as rather than the 'sweet, purest soul' stuff that folk have been punting out, he was actually known as a bit of a diva-strop-chucking Elton John junior. I wasn't surprised to hear Reg was a big mate.

I'll dust this one off to highlight my point, some of ya will know this one: When I went to interview him back in my early days (when he was launching the "I'm gonna do a Robbie" solo career) I was told to tread careful as he was well known as a bit of a diva and for giving journos short shrift. We're batting the usual shite questions and answers back and forth until halfway through the interview (at a suite in Selfridge's Hotel) the batteries in the tape recorder die. I try to laugh it off and say don't worry, I'll remember everything and write it up from memory back at the office. He looks at me like I've just shit in his bath, and I quickly grab a pen and paper from my bag and pretend I was joking. His mask slipped a bit and I certainly got the feeling that if I had taken any longer to put my brain in gear I'd have been on the receiving end of something quite flappy and wonderful.

You know when you're interviewing folk that they're giving you their best smarmy bullshit (apart from Ian Brown of course, me and him definitely connected), but they don't normally confirm it, and weirdly enough the only other time it ever happened was with Just Jack, who was another big mate of Elt, and it was in fact big Reg who got the annoying tit his record deal. Maybe he gives them a bit of media coaching whilst showing them round his bedroom...

Just seen this – you can always count on the Daily Facist when it's an iron or an immigrant can't ya? Not that it ain't a wee bit suss... but still, outragous.

Advance Australia Fair

First there was the booze restrictions at the Bathurst 1000 supercar races, then the Blackface uproar, then some of the UK's finest minds (big Charlie Tinsley included) can't recognise the PM, and now this - midget racing! It's all in the link, but basically, after a couple of weeks of absolute PR shockers for the country, the organisers of a horse race meet thought it'd be a winner to go ahead with the "Midget's Cup", where three 'people of slight stature' getting togged up in racing colours and get piggy-backs down the home straight from three lucky punters. It was in The Current, I assume as none of you read such filth you may not yet be aware of the latest winner from the Lucky Country.

What's equally funny is the backlash response you get from a sizable section of the population - it doesn't matter what it is, there'll always be folk who knee-jerk a defence - in all those cases it was against the "fun police" and PC brigade who aim to spoil the fun of those they don't agree with. They've got a point, up to a point, but blackface for christ sake?! After getting hammered from a section of the press and public (in classic American 'you ain't from round here, don't be telling us what we can and can't do' style) Connick Jnr's come out again this week and said he still believes what he did was right! It's brilliant living here sometimes, you think you know the score, then suddenly find yourself in some weird episode of In Sickness And In Health, with half the country ranting on like Alf Garnett about there being nowt wrong with what they're doing.

Not near me of course, I work at the ABC and half our staff are black alcoholic midgets.

Perma-tan

I became a permanent Australian resident last week. Got a letter through from immigration: "Thank you for choosing us, you're an asset to this country and we hope you stay forever. If there's anything we can do, give us a buzz."

Alright, not quite, but there was a bit at the end about 'congratulations and good luck with your new life in Australia', which made it sound official and a fairly big deal, even though it just came through on one sheet of paper, and the visa I've already got in my passport is all I need, so I don't need to go anywhere or get anything stamped.

I can now act up and get goonered from here and would be able to sign on, sitting on a couch in the front yard all day in a wifebeater with my gelled mullett glinting magnificently in the sun. But y'know, softly softly catchee monkey and all that, there's no rush...