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...)
1 comment:
I don't want to come across all comic book guy, but you've really let yourself down there. The picture is, correctly, of the green lantern, yet for some unfathomable reason you wrote that the film was the green hornet. The green hornet is little more than a comedy batman wannabe, complete with kung-fu sidekick, where as the green lantern is a cosmic adventurer, using his power ring to help protect the planet from all kinds of alien threats, none more so than his arch nemesis Sinestro.
That was too comic book guy, wasn't it.
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