Squashed by Brisbane's brainless sandwich-stealers

Being a Pom in Brisbane this week was not a whole lot of fun. Not much fun being an Aussie, either. There were barriers around the Gabba stadium, where the first Ashes Test was played, of the type you might throw across a street in Baghdad to stop a riot. They were there to prevent jay-walking. Everywhere you looked baseball-capped security men, many armed, eyeballed the paying customers suspiciously. They were on guard for offensive items. Beach balls, cool boxes, home-made sandwiches, trumpets, you know the sort of thing. All banned. Welcome to Western democracy, 2006.

You read a lot of sentimental old rubbish about Australia. Sun all day, party all night, one long shrimp-fixated barbie, in which nobody takes life, or themselves, too seriously. Don’t you believe it. “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free,” runs the first line of the national anthem. Except at some time over the past two decades Australia became swamped in rules and regulations, taking its lead from the old country and, of course, America.

What is it about English-speaking democracies that their officers work so hard at mining the meanest, most small-minded elements of human nature? Traffic wardens, the various layers of piddling, incompetent bureaucracy that sap the human spirit just in the act of trying to cross the road. All Englishmen knew the type that barked its orders at the Gabba, just as an Australian in London would recognise our breed of council narks, issuing tickets to those whose wheelie bin etiquette does not conform to the latest directive. There is something about the zeal with which parts of the West have embraced the war against free will that is as terrifying as any dictatorship.

There were so many things you could do to get ejected at the Gabba that when the ground emptied late in the day it was hard to work out if the absentees had gone home for tea or were all being held in an underground dungeon for trying to start a Mexican wave. Banned, apparently. Banned by those in charge of the fastest-growing industry in the West: small-minded, false authority. Jumped-up little twerps telling everybody what to do. A nation of traffic police is what we have created, a nation of sheep unable to cross a clear road unless a little green man tells them to and worse, a nation of glowering baseball caps, who feel empowered by that little green man.

We are losing our ability to stroll to the park while doing nothing wrong. It is hard to do nothing wrong these days. You can break three laws putting your rubbish out. You can get the third degree at the departure gate for the possession of toothpaste. Fly south and see the future. Australia is a fascinating study because it shows what can happen to even the most unpretentious society once this mind-set takes hold.

You know what was great about Australia? Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat. The Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 had three proper mascots, Syd, Ollie and Millie, but nobody gave a monkey’s about them. The figure the nation took to its heart was a large-rumped, stuffed marsupial, the unofficial mascot of an irreverent late-night sports show. At first the Olympic Committee tried to ban Fatso, but sensing a PR disaster, and after he had appeared on the podium with two gold medal winners, it beat a hasty retreat. That is Australia, left to its own devices. How did the country go from there to ejecting people from a stadium for wearing watermelon shells as hats?

The ridiculously overbearing security presence around the Gabba were nicknamed the fun police. They would not let supporters take rucksacks with drinks or sandwiches into the ground, but instead made them remove their rations and place them in a plastic bag. The rucksack could then be carried in, but only if it was in a plastic bag. This raised the bar for global stupidity, but do not expect the new standard to last long.

And we can moan and shake our heads, but there is a deadly serious by-product of this thinking. We deliver to foreign lands the same idiots who decree that our own citizens can’t be trusted to eat a sandwich while watching the cricket. Then when there is a disaster, we wonder why.

Renewed faith in family and marriage

One prime advantage of having no strings attached is that nobody relies on you for anything. I have no one expecting me home at a certain hour and no one relying on me for buying groceries, assistance in cooking dinners , nappies changed or even bedtime stories read. My mother, of course, thinks this is totally tragic, and in one way it could be just that. A sad and unhinged isolated existence in a sprawling lonely city. But living with flatmates shelters me from domestic loneliness, and I often go stir crazy from the lack of lone time.

I had a cappuccino with a gorgeous 30-year-old divorcée last Friday afternoon at SouthBank and she told me, without any prompting, all the bad things about marriage. I warned her not to. I’m already turned off by the whole institution after so many horror stories. This is slightly baffling, as my family’s relationship histories for many generations have produced happy marriages and cheerful healthy offspring. I am the emotional black sheep of the fluffy fleeced flock.

The divorcée further entrenched my fear. She described that dreaded feeling of being “obliged” not to go out, or to come home at certain times. The way she put it sounded pretty awful, and no matter how much you love your family, wife or husband there will always come a time when that obligation niggles a bit too hard.

Being a naturally combative person, I told her it was good to feel obliged to do something for someone else at times, otherwise your existence ends up being completely selfish - and pointless. She roared with laughter and told me to wait and see.

On Saturday morning I was invited by Sean, asking if I wanted to come around for lunch that afternoon. And so, being unencumbered and unobliged to do anything else, I gratefully accepted.

Strangely, unlike most marrieds with kids, their house didn’t hint of tiny people at all. They must have scrubbed hard to remove all traces of toddlers. I glanced around the crowded bookshelves, which were bursting with heavy encyclopaedias and thick volumes on Stalin and Churchill. I searched in vain among the photo frames for cherubic faces smiling from windswept beaches. Not one toy or dummy littered any of the crazily clean surfaces.

I took my self to a self-exploration walk through the house. Everything looked to be emaculate, well planned and designed. Danish art meets Sri Lankan casual elegance in rich teak wood furniture around long sprawling white walls. I returned to the lunch table and got lost in stories from other guests of exciting times spent in Central Asia. The host became obsessed with toasting everyone with indescribably strong vodka – a way of honouring his guests. It was a fantasy of a Borat movie crossed with Casino Royale.

It was a beautiful exerience, tender yet racy. I finally stumbled home, with my faith in the joys of family life repaired and the possibility of a happy married future a real prospect.

Gold Coast Wedding

My Greek myth, not surprisingly, evaporated the moment I was whisked into the grime of the city, courtesy of the Eastern Suburbs trainline. Choking from bus fumes on Oxford Street or blown by wet winds on train platforms I wonder: is this how life is meant to be lived or should I do a Shirley Valentine and leave it all behind? Pressed against some sweating businessman on the Tube in the rush hour, I daydream of my island and the realities of setting up there.

Luckily my normal returning to Sydney funk has been diluted by the balmy spring sunshine after a few rainy days. I am unimpressed with the way I slip back into my routine so quickly. When away I always think I will revolutionize my life - perhaps with a revamp of my non-existent fitness regime. I planned a daily early morning run in Hyde Park, followed by a spot of meditation. I would be calm and Zen and breathe from the depths of my diaphragm and radiate optimism. But the only real trace of my island existence is a regular trip down to Coles to buy tropical juice in an attempt to recreate my healthy breakfasts.

I spun back into Sydney just in time to honor a wedding invite. I had a twelve-hour turnaround, for which I had tried on a few inappropriate suits that no longer fitted and ended up blessing my mother, who recently bought me an age-appropriate suit which made me look mature and sophisticated rather than tacky and eccentric. I flew to Gold Coast, the Guardian Angel Catholic church, realizing that I would barely know anyone - it was my friend’s wedding.

I really didn’t know where or with whom to sit. As I was looking wildly lost, my friend’s sister scooped me up and deposited me in a pew which was obviously for misfits. I discovered later that we were all alone in our particular ways - though most of this lot were widowed or divorced.

I bravely sang out those stirring hymns in an otherwise silent row of Australians. The sermon was full of talk of growing up and the excitement of taking on a new chapter. The vicar talked of life after marriage as the culmination of our individual production lines, where we emerged as “finished products”, and he claimed the institution was so sacred that it defied all mathematical rules. It is, he said, the only time one plus one equals one. It sounded like some kind of Excel spreadsheet to me.

Winter in Bombay, as well as all over India, is the marriage season. Between October and February, it is not unknown for as many as 14,000 weddings to take place in the city on a single day. Getting hitched is a business, with an average ceremony and reception costing $10,000. Wonder, if all saccharine coated candy floss is required to express one's undying love for another. Well, who am I to make a comment - things I own have already ended up owning me. Am myself slave to the Ikea nesting instinct and am pretty much the contents of my wallet, my jeans and my shoes. All style (apparently) definitely no substance.