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 Tuesday, 19 February 2002
On The Edge Of The World, Sometimes In It.
There’s no denying that Perth often feels like it is on the very edge of the world or just slightly beyond it. It’s the sheer fact of geographic isolation.
Some people find that very attractive, especially English writers, it turns out. Many of them live here in order to find the peace and quiet to write, and to enjoy a reasonably mild climate, then they go back to Britain to endure the rounds of research, publicity, and self-promotion during the season for it.
Ben Elton lives part-time south of Fremantle with his Western Australian wife Sophie whom he met in Melbourne, and every so often there’ll be a piece in the local paper about some British author who keeps a book-lined flat in West Perth, or East Perth in the now expensive part by the water’s edge.
And as I was coming home yesterday from an interview in East Perth I dropped in to a bookstore and when I flipped over a new novel on Cleopatra I read that the English author lives some of each year in a small town on the Western Australian coast.
12:00:08 PM 
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Tale Of Two Cities.
There has been a long-standing Western Australian habit of circulating between Melbourne and Perth, especially in the arts.
You could not have a more contrasting pair of cities. Melbourne has winters that demand you wear an overcoat, and it’s always wise to carry an umbrella. In Perth nobody has ever worn an overcoat, much less a cashmere sports jacket. I can’t remember the last heavy rain since moving here just before Christmas, although of course it is not the rainy season.
But when it rains heavily in Perth the streets can flood. In Melbourne the rain is more in the way of mist. Sydney is the worst of the major cities for long weeks of continuous downpours.
The weather thing is trivial though compared to the different ways of living in each city. Melbourne is interior, and people gather indoors to live lives of the mind and social relations. Perth is all about exterior things, the outdoor life.
In Melbourne you flock to museums and galleries, coffee shops and markets, concerts and bands, or at least the local industry watering hole. That rarely happens in Perth and I am damned if there is anything even closely resembling an industry gathering spot.
Of course you can say the same thing about Sydney, which in some aspects is Perth but bigger.
11:44:18 AM
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There And Back Again.
I received news that my first ex and her guy are yet again packing up and moving to Melbourne. They’d only just returned here from there, just before I did, and now they’re off once more.
People working in the arts, technology and education in this country have been turned into an eternally mobile workforce, subject to short-term contracts and unforeseeable futures. They’ve become third-world-ized. This is one of the many clues that this government just does not get it when it comes to the modern world.
Instead of building infrastructure and stability they’ve sought to compete with the third world on the third world’s terms. In the process they are turning us into a third world nation.
Even Malaysia is supporting the knowledge and high tech industries in a way the Liberal government cannot conceive of. And India has been doing it long before the Malaysians.
11:28:36 AM
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More Brits Online.
The Guardian newspaper reports that subscriptions to internet service providers rose 11.5% in Britain last year. Yet more evidence against the naysayers. Keep it coming.
11:08:48 AM
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