Hello me

One of the challenges of doing this kind of work is despite being with lots of different people all of the time you have to be comfortable with your own company. It is rare to have a really substantive conversation with anyone.

As a case in point it is now ten past four on a Saturday afternoon and having wandered around central Sydney by myself fretting on what to take home for the family I am now in a bar drinking a cold one as a treat for myself for having decided what I wanted to buy wife and then taking the plunge and buying her a handbag - a girl can never have too many handbags or shoes, but buying shoes would be a big ask.

Before anyone feels any degree of sympathy if I poke my head out the door and look left I can see the Sydney Harbour Bridge which I did climb the day before yesterday.

Finally the weather has turned good and I can now understand why Aussie's have their beer so cold.......

The last few days have been a little strange, normally at such events I am much more towards the centre knowing people or knowing people who know people, here that is not the case and in a group I smile politely as old contacts greet each other.

They say over 30% of the people that live in Sydney wasn't born in Australia which I can believe. I was just served by a lady approaching more senior years with the broadest of accents who said she was born in Leeds. I have had many similar conversations in the last few days.

This morning we went to the Town Hall which has newly re-opened after a 2 year refurbishment. To celebrate this re-birth there is an exhibition of it's history which includes very prominently and with huge deference imagery and stories around visits by the Queen. My french owned hotel has a huge picture of Princess Diana who used the hotel to 'freshen up' and not even stay. The Queen Victoria Building, an old market hall has been commented on with some fondness and whilst many Australians who have spoken to us has taken the michael a little bit about convicts, sporting victories and our awful weather I detect two things, Australians are enormously proud of their country - the Qantas flight coming up from Melbourne showed a video of the national team returning from the last Olympics showing the emotion of the team and welcoming families, the national flag and competitors with their medals. I suspect even if BA were to do anything similar it would not pull on the heart strings like the Qantas tape.

I also firmly believe that very many Australians are proud of their connections to the 'old country' whilst the fact they were talking to a Brit ie me which may colour this impression I can understand whilst the chattering classes may be interested in breaking its remaining official ties with Britain but I don't think there is any significant appetite to do so by 'regular' people.

In the last hour I have spoken 12 words - 'pint of Carlton draught please, thanks' (twice), to which I will soon add a further 2 'thanks mate' as I leave the bar to go back to the hotel to pack for my next adventure.

P

Peter Jackson
Mobile: +44(0)7887 794396

Sent from my BlackBerry from Vodafone- so please excuse the brevity and the typing mistakes!

Please reply to pj@rede2.com. Thank You