Melbourne's warm weather, Victoria's bushfires and the cool change

It's sometimes a surprise to people new to the city to learn that Melbourne is the hottest city in Australia...

...by one measurement anyway.  Sydneysiders and Brisbanites like to mock their southern cousins for living in a "chilly" city.  Melburnians certainly experience cooler winters, as befits people living as close to Antarctica as it's possible to get on the Australian mainland.  Anyone from Northern Europe or much of the USA or Canada may question the accuracy of the description, though.

But when it comes to the ability consistently to deliver the hottest day of the year, Melbourne trounces every other city in the country.  

Melbourne, 2009

The height of summer is in January and February.  If you look at the average temperature figures  for these months, you will see a pleasant range, between a low of about 14̊ centigrade and a high of around 26̊.  But for some days in every summer, winds will gather in the far north or northwest.  After sweeping their way across four thousand kilometres of roasting desert, picking up temperature on the way, they throw themselves onto Melbourne with all the force of a continent's heat, before rushing on to cool themselves over the Southern Ocean.

On days like this, Melbourne's temperatures will shoot up to 40̊ centigrade or more, and if you're very unlucky they won't drop below the mid 20s even at night.

Several of Australia's cities get up into the 40s at some point during summer, but Melbourne generally has the knack of topping them.  Perhaps the most extreme example came in 2009 when, between the 28th and 30th January, the city experienced three successive days in excess of 43̊ C, followed about a week later by its all time record of 46.4̊.

Melbourne's heatwave crown rests uneasily on her head.  Quite apart from the personal discomfort of her residents, the city sits in the state of Victoria, which is one of the most fire-prone places on earth.  Whether started by happenstance or (regrettably) arson, when a blaze gets going it can be virtually impossible to extinguish, particularly whilst it's being fanned by a strong, hot wind.  The 2009 temperatures helped cause the devastation of the Black Saturday bushfires in which, tragically, 173 people died and 414 were injured.  Property was devastated and many survivors were rendered homeless.  

During a major fire there's a good chance that the smoke from its incinerated hinterland will blow over the city, filling the air with a slight mist and invading your nose and throat, and making it impossible to forget what's unfolding perhaps just a hundred kilometres away.  Victoria's propensity to fire is truly astounding:  the coloured areas on this map show only the major areas that have been burnt out over just the last ten years.

When they're in the middle of one of these enervating heatwaves, one thought keeps Melburnians going:  the cool change.  This is what they call the weather fronts that bring relief from the oven-like temperatures.

If her summer temperatures are noteworthy, Melbourne's cool changes are quite impressive too.  Suddenly, the wind will swing from the north to the west or south, and the change is instantaneous.  The mercury may drop by fifteen degrees in as little as ten minutes, and people go from planning trips to the beach to putting on an extra layer of clothes.  I have yet to complain about this inconvenience.

Julia Gillard v Tony Abbott: Australian politics for dummies

Bill Bryson wrote that there was nothing in Australian life more complicated and bewildering to the outsider than its politics.  Not only is it difficult to argue with that, but also if the price of being an insider is having to try to understand them, I'm quite happy to stay on the outside.

Bryson gave up when he got to the voting system.  I consider him a bit of a lightweight, personally.  At least that bit's written down in the Constitution and various Acts of Parliament, so you can actually read about it.  What I can't cope with is the fact that, as soon as you think you've got to grips with an issue, some more knowledgeable Aussie will wink and tell you that it's all nonsense.  With a superior but confidential air, they will tell you that the only reason for that policy is because of some dirty deal done, or vendetta started, back when Mr or Ms X was climbing the greasy pole in trade union politics.

What follows is therefore a simplistic, unfair and highly prejudiced introduction to Australian political life - enough, say, to equip you for the first twenty years or so of living here.

What are the groupings?  Well, there are two main parties, one of which isn't one party but two.  The first is Labor, which is currently governing the nation in a loose coalition with various independents and Greens.  By a quirk of history, its name is the only place in Australia that the American spelling of the word is used in place of the British "Labour".

I wonder if he's had enough cake?

The second is, confusingly, actually known as the Coalition, and is made up of a confederation of the Liberal Party and the National Party.  The Liberal Party is the larger of the two, and when they win elections it tends to supply the Prime Minister.

Labor supporters are, I am led to believe, a bunch of Communists whose aim is to expropriate the property of hard-working Australians, shoot anyone who owns their own house, and distribute the proceeds to criminals, drug addicts and the chronically workshy.   

Liberals, on the other hand, tend to be crypto-fascist gun nuts with religious mania, who are never happier than when they're sending orphans to the workhouse, hanging gays from lampposts and shackling feminists to the kitchen sink.  The Nationals are similar, but not as nice.

The final party worth mentioning are the Greens.  They are made up of female vegetarians whose brains have been enfeebled by long term exposure to nut cutlets, and men who are only there because they want to sleep with the women.

The current Prime Minister, and leader of the Labor Party, is Julia Gillard.  She combines the distinction of being her nation's first woman Premier with an accent that curls the toes of many of her fellow Australians, reminiscent as it is of your less sophisticated grandmother enquiring earnestly whether you'd like another slice of cake.

The leader of the Liberals, and of the Coalition, is Tony Abbott.  A balding, jug-eared hatchet man, his biggest claim to fame is probably his addiction to demonstrating his virility by parading around on beaches wearing nothing more than budgie smugglers (Speedos) and a pelt that would shame a gorilla.

Sorry, Putin wasn't available.  Will
Tony Abbott do instead?

What of the current political situation?  Well, so far as I understand it, the Coalition has no policies whatsoever.  This means that it is far ahead in the opinion polls, as a result of Labor's habit of introducing new taxes that it unfortunately forgot to mention to the voters at the previous election.

Many Australians will tell you that the only reasons for voting for the party on the other side of the spectrum to theirs are moral degeneracy or intellectual inferiority.  This is unfair.  Their electoral laws say that they have to cast a ballot, so they've got to vote for someone.  Even if that means that they end up literally having to vote for anyone.

Chadstone Shopping Centre and retailing in Melbourne

Whether you're after a guinea pig, a special outfit or a family member who disappeared suddenly, Chadstone is the place to start looking.

Melbourne is made for the motor car, which means that it was also made for the cathedrals to consumerism that are shopping malls, with their easy parking facilities.  And the biggest of them all, the mother, father and grandparent of all the other malls in Australia, is Chadstone.

Uptown Chaddy

Known affectionately (or otherwise) as "Chaddy", Chadstone's vital statistics are impressive, even when compared with its American cousins.  The biggest shopping centre in Australia by far, if it were transplanted to the USA it would be the 15th biggest there, and expansion has been announced that would make it bigger than all but six American malls.  It already has 530 stores, more than any American site, and free parking for 9,500 cars.

I'm no adherent of modern consumerist culture but, for a Briton of my vintage, Chadstone is something of a wonder of the modern world.  Where I was brought up, a shopping mall was a fairly small and definitely seedy place.  Probably built in the 1970s, its interior would display an awful lot of concrete.  Perhaps there would be some central area that the planners had fondly thought would be a focal point, but which would in fact be used by the sorts of teenager whom your mother had warned you about, to get off with each other. If that was beyond them, they might seek apprenticeship with one or more of the derelicts, who gathered there because it was better than drinking in the rain.

Chadstone is nothing like this.  Quite apart from its sheer size, the customers who frequent the Gucci and Tiffany & Co outlets wouldn't stand for being panhandled by a semi-permanent feral population.  They do their shopping in a spacious, calming place, full of white and light, where tall palms grow towards a well-designed roof.  

It's not all Fifth Avenue.  Chadstone has things that people like me want to buy, but you have to leave the palms and piano players that embellish the high-rent zones behind.  The roof lowers and becomes opaque as you enter what I like to think of as the useful part, where they will cut your keys, and you can find a riot of delicatessens, greengrocers and cut-price kids' clothing stores.

You can see it from the moon, you know.  Probably.

If the wonder of Chadstone is its sheer size, it's also the best reason for not actually going there in the first place.  When added to a somewhat incongruous design, it's a very easy place in which to get lost.  
Even if you know where you are, whether or not you can remember where you parked your car is another question entirely.  For the uninitiated, the best advice is to locate a couple of the major stores and never to go anywhere where you're not confident of being able to find your way back to them.  Instead of teenagers and derelicts, if Chadstone has a semi-permanent population it's likely to be made up of straggling, pale-faced parents, looking for the shop where they agreed to meet their children last year.

News on the radio and TV

Want to feel like you've got away from it all?  Try catching up with the news via the commercial broadcast media.

Australia is, famously, a long way from anywhere else.  One of the attractions of its vast open spaces is the feeling that you've escaped from the trials of everyday life, and the relentless grind of depressing news stories.  When you're out in the bush, famines, war and tsunamis are all thousands of miles away.

But really, why spend all that money and endure such discomfort if you just want to get away from the ceaseless roll call of global catastrophe?  A few days with Australian commercial free to air (FTA) TV or radio will achieve the same thing for a fraction of the effort.

OK, it does contain a good deal of drama - mostly in the form of imported US cop shows, and emotional incontinents blubbering about their life crises on the Oprah Show and its bastard offspring.  Really heavy duty misery, though, is almost entirely absent.  

That's not to say they don't provide news bulletins.  It's just that the news they supply is almost exclusively local, and local news in a prosperous, well-regulated country like Australia tends towards the anodyne.  A ferry could have sunk in the Philippines, killing 600 people, and the chances are you wouldn't hear about it.  And why would you, when there are teenagers being beaten up in suburban fast food outlets and car smashes on the freeway during rush hour?  Global financial meltdown still in the offing?  Have a heartwarming story about the senior citizen who beat off burglars who were trying to make off with his service medals instead.

If you only watch commercial TV, this is probably
where you think news comes from

It's probably those who come from the UK that notice the difference most starkly.  At almost all levels in the British broadcast media the news is reflected through the prism of the BBC - a vast, well-funded organisation dedicated to bringing the big stories from around the world to your sitting room.  Even the commercial FTA media to a certain extent dances to its tune as far as news coverage is concerned.

There are Australian FTA broadcasters which aim to provide the news junkie with more.  The ABC, which is the national state-owned broadcaster, provides serious international news and comment, and has both TV and a radio presence.  It doesn't have the BBC's global reach, but via tie-ins with its British sister and US networks it will bring you the biggest stories from around the world.  Similarly SBS, which has a particular remit to provide the nation's many migrant communities with programming relevant to them, has a more international flavour to its bulletins.

But it's the commercial TV channels - Seven, Nine and Ten - that have by far the biggest audience share.  The commercial radio stations hold the vast majority of the listeners.  Unless their audiences are switching over en masse to take in the better coverage available elsewhere, or getting all their news from the web, it's hard not to conclude that they're happier in blissful ignorance of the wider world.

It has its attractions.  The world's pain is, after all, a terrible thing to have to bear, and when it's all so far away anyhow, why not forget about it all?  For a bit, anyway.