Mister Brisbane: Code read
How to eat a scone, how to swear politely, and where to go
I’ve been thinking about Australia’s postcode system. Why? Because I wasn’t home when a package arrived, so I got a notification from Australia Post that I could pick it up at the post office in my suburb. And it occurred to me that the post office in my suburb isn’t actually the nearest post office to where I live. And, even more confusingly, the two post offices — which, like most of them, are licensed by Australia Post but are actually independent small businesses — share the same postcode.
When I lived in the United Kingdom, the post code for my address was unique to my property and a few surrounding it. Over there if you only include the postcode and not the street address, there’s a strong likelihood that the letter or parcel will find you. Fat chance of that happening here.
The Australian system of four-digit postcodes means there are only 10,000 possible places in all of Australia. Is it time for a change?
Tune in to the Mister Brisbane radio show on Reading Radio at 1296AM and on DAB+ in Brisbane at 6.30pm on Tuesday nights. It’s also available as a podcast. Just search for “Mister Brisbane” on your favourite player or follow this link.
SCONE LOGIC
A small indulgence: I put my diet on pause and I had a scone, with cream and jam, at Expresso Max at Toombul shopping centre. Without thinking, I put the cream on first, following the Devon tradition rather than the Cornish. Was I wrong to do so? (Also, purists might note that the cream isn’t clotted.)
WORD PING PONG
My friend and contemporary Scott noted on Facebook recently: “Just chatting with a bloke my age who said something ‘pings me off’. Haven’t heard that since primary school.” He also noted the variant “ping ding”. Of course, this got me thinking about changes in the language, which is one of my pet subjects.
Each generation has its slang, and that’s for a reason — so the previous generation doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. (In fact, Cockney rhyming slang is said the have originated so the police didn’t know what the criminal classes were talking about. When homosexuality was illegal, the gay community also had coded phrases for the same reason.) “Pinging” someone off is also a euphemism — for “pissing” them off — just as “cripes” or “crikey” were originally used to avoid blasphemy.
Some words have but a brief moment in the sun, but they can make comebacks. I’m told that “groovy”, a term associated with the 1960s, was briefly fashionable again a decade or so ago. Perhaps it was in an ironic way. Are there words or phrases you used when you were young that have fallen out of fashion? Perhaps you’d like them to be revived. Let me know.
BUYING POWER
A friend was recently complaining on social media how he’d been to a Brisbane store that used to be the go-to place for the particular product it sells. When he asked a question, the shop assistant went and Googled it — which my friend had already done. In the past, the staff would have known the answer and be able to recommend an appropriate product.
That got me thinking about shopping with my mother when I was a child. We’d go to, say, Bayards, and there would be a shop assistant with an encyclopaedic knowledge of sewing and knitting materials and paraphernalia. These days, you are lucky to get service at all let alone expert advice. I suppose it’s a sign of the times, but if bricks-and-mortar stores are to survive, they’re going to have to offer something extra over online shops — and expert advice just may be it.
GO SEE
In her new show, From Broadway with Love, the fabulous Caroline O’Connor will be performing highlights from her musical career, working her way through a songbook of favourites from Chicago, West Side Story, Funny Girl, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Mack and Mabel, Anastasia, Anything Goes, Man of La Mancha, The Boy from Oz and Moulin Rouge. It’s on at the Cremorne Theatre from March 10-13. Book here.
FEEDBACK
On the subject of local celebs, Matt wrote: “Rowena Wallace is the only local actor/celebrity name I recognise from that list and I didn’t realise she was from Brisbane. Have memories of watching theatre restaurant shows on TV in Brisbane in the 80’s. They were ‘interesting’.”
Regarding people not knowing their history, Anthony said: “Yes it’s a hollow excuse to say ‘it happened before I was born’. If everybody had had that approach Shakespeare would be long forgotten.”