I spent last week on a tropical island. I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed when my husband proposed it. I wanted to go to Paris, but seeing that blogging and unpublished novels don’t pay that much (well anything at all if I’m honest), a tropical island would have to do. Well wasn’t I in for a surprise. That tropical island was the closest thing to paradise on earth that I’m likely to experience. Yep, I was wrong. Paris, Schmaris!

Anyway it’s a hotspot for diving, snorkelling and fishing.  Apparently you can sit in a crashed fighter plane and see the insides of a sunken Japanese freighter.  Me, I’m just happy to snorkel around and look at coral and Nemo fish.

So this is how our (there were six of  us) day panned out. Get up, dive off the jetty, swim with the fish, get out, eat, swim, drink, swim, drink, play pool, snorkel, relax, read, sleep, swim, drink, eat, drink, dance/sing, sleep.

We broke it up with trips into Gizo to buy fresh fruit from the markets (red bananas, limes, pawpaw, pineapple) displayed over bits of tarp laid on the ground (hey it’s a third world country).

The Lodge itself was a bit of luxury (have a look at the picture I took). There are two cabins (which are airconditioned) which flank an open area equipped with a plasma tv, kitchen, barbie and loungechairs you can stretch out on all cooled with big tropical fans. It overlooks the water which is easily accessed by a long jetty with an umbrella on the end.

We also had access to a motorboat which my husband and his friend used for fishing, carting us up to the bar and thinking they were locals.

We ate fish that was fresh caught everyday–in some cases by my husband and/or his mate. I learned to love sashimi and Sol Brew, the local beer.  We spent a large amount of our time at the SB Bar which juts out into the sea and is a perfect launching point for a quick swim at any time of the day.  Most of the time we were the only people at the resort so we felt like we owned the place (oh to be so lucky).

But most importantly for me I discovered that a tropical island holiday is as good for the soul as a week in Paris, yet a lot less stressful. 

Apparently the flight attendants like to make the flight enjoyable with quotes like the following.

In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travellingwith more than one small child, pick your favourite.

Your seats cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.

As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses.

Sure beats Virgin airlines getting all snippy about making a point about serving free food to those who bought expensive fares.

It’s all that bloody Paul Simon’s fault. Oprah weighed up the facts about going to Ulura, found out it was 40 degrees in the shade, that there were bloody black sticky flies everywhere and her reaction was count me out–I’m giving Uluru a miss. Nothing wrong with that. Sounds like my idea of hell too.

But then Mr Interfering Paul Simon gets on the phone, raves on about it and next thing you know she’s off on a flight to Uluru. I thought she’d be more stubborn that that, but you know how she likes a bit of celebrity advice.

And then all those bloody screaming fans in Federation Square in Melbourne. They frightened the shit out of her and denied, yes denied her the chance to share a teaching moment or in her words “a little kernel of teaching”.

Bloody fans. Always in the way and she had to be on a good lookout for the “crazies”. I’d like to reassure her that we don’t have crazies in Australia but that’s not true, because due to the frantic carrying of some people, it would be wrong of me to say so.

I thought she’d have something to say about that poxy dinner party she went to in Melbourne where they served up the Mexican, because that’s what you do. Invite an American–avid eaters of the TexMex–around for El Paso taco night. Those pretentious yuppies were super embarrassing with all their flashy showing off and talk about sex. I was cringeing, but not the big O. She always welcomes a bit of sex talk around the dinner table.

Anyway my favourite revelation about Oprah’s big Oz tour was the way she remembered Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s name. She broke it down into two syllables. Here’s how she did it.

“Think of ‘lard’. Think of ‘lard’. Gill-Lard,” Winfrey, in her Melbourne hotel suite before the walk, rehearsed.
“Gills and the fish and lard?
“OK, good.”

That’s so funny. For the rest of my days I will think of Ms Gillard as a fat red fish.

It’s a great technique that word association thing. Think of the association for Kevin Rudd–KRudd, krudd–big steaming turd. I bet that’s what the fat red fish thinks anyway. Image

I did this last year. You can read that post here.  I’ve had a look at them and am proud to say that I didn’t do any of them. Well done me.

So here’s this year’s list.

• I will not get a tattoo. Favoured by bogans, footballers, cricketers and Julia Roberts, I promise never to get anything tattooed on my body anywhere. Ever.
• I will not drink crappy grog. Or maybe I should amend that to say I will only drink bad grog when there is absolutely no decent stuff left in the house and it’s an emergency.
• I will not take a spin class. Yay what fun, building thighs like a brickie’s labourer while some bossy person with a commando complex bellows at you. Not for me.
• I will not visit India. Can’t think of one single reason that I’d want to. Not one. I can look at the Taj Mahal on youtube.
• I will not eat broccoli. I don’t care how good it is for you. It’s horrible, I hate it, I’m with every three-year old in the world who spits it out. No more broccoli for me this year.

That looks pretty achievable. I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to sit back and look at this in a year’s time and know that I have been successful.

What’s your non-resolution? Image

So this is what happened. As soon as the alarm went off I knew immediately what happened. “Bracelet” I said to the security office while showing it to him. I offered to put it through the xray machine but they said no and pulled me aside. I know the drill, I stood arms outstretched and leg apart waiting for the wand waving, but no. A female security officer approached me, pulling on blue rubber gloves like I haven’t seen since I had my last pap smear test and she told me she was going to do a pat down.

So I got felt up. Up my legs, brushed my crotch, down my legs. Felt my bum, up my back, across my shoulders, full cupping of my boobs with a quizzical look. “Underwire bra” I offered by explanation (what was she, an idiot) and then down my waist and across my belly. It wasn’t pleasant but I’m not inclined to make a fuss when I have a flight to catch. And then I read about this pat down as conducted on blogger Erin Chase.

She instructed me, “Spread your feet apart and hold your arms out to the side.” I obliged.

She patted my left arm, my right arm, my upper back and my lower back. She then said, “I need to reach in and feel along the inside of your waistband.”

She felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to feel both of my buttocks. She reached from behind in the middle of my buttocks towards my vagina area.

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my buttocks, or reach forward to my vagina area.

She then moved in front of my and touched the top and underneath portions of both of my breasts.

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my breasts.

She then felt around my waist. She then moved to the bottoms of my legs.

She then felt my inner thighs and my vagina area, touching both of my labia.

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my vagina area or my labia.

She then told me that I could put my shoes on and I asked if I could pick up the baby, she replied Yes.

She then moved back to my belongings to finish scanning them with the paper discs for explosives. When she finished she said I was free to go.

While I felt mildly invaded, actually I more annoyed than invaded, I had nothing on this poor woman. She touched her vagina and labia. That’s horrific. She’s pursuing them for sexual assault. There was no facility for use of the full body scan equipment in either of our cases.

I understand the need for vigilance against terrorist threats, but I am concerned about the powers that are being given to airport security staff. Let’s be frank, some of them don’t exactly inspire confidence. Most of them are employed by private security concerns. The training required is hardly comprehensive. A security check is done on them, but this not comprehensive either. Let’s be frank, any whack job could wriggle their way into the job and if they were a whack job with a propensity for touchy feely then they would be in seventh heaven.

That all said I’m sure that most of the security staff are upright citizens who get no pleasure out of touching random stranger’s genitalia, but really is this going too far? We had the boss of British BA saying that airport security was rubbish. I’d have to agree after watching the security staff at one international airport have a lengthy discussion, all the while talking and laughing while bags flowed willy nilly through the xray machine. Needless to say there was no pat down happening there. Lucky no random bombers were out that day.

Every time a new security measure is introduced it is a reaction. It’s not proactive–it’s reacting to something that has already happened. The baby bottle bomber means we can’t have liquids, the shoe bomber means our shoes have to be scanned and the genital hiding bomber means we all are now to be touched up at will.

Never mind that it has been 11 months since he tried to blow up a plane with bombs hidden in his genitalia. No one else has tried to do it for the last 11 months, but all of a sudden it seems that action should be taken right now. Image

I don’t think I am but there’s no room for complacency here. There’s an A-Z of things bogans like, and fortunately I don’t like, do or say any of these things.

Anyway here’s a sample in no particular order. You can read the full list here. I’m loving the David Attenborough tone.

Discount airlines. The bogan ins not longer restricted to holidying within a five-hour Commodore journey of its nest. But it expects celebrity services at bargain prices. If the discount flight is 30 minutes late, a small cluster of bogans can be seen gesticulating maniacally at the service desk. The bogans’ flat nasal vowels reverberate across the departure lounge, prompting other bogans to begin howling like a neighbourhood of cross-eyed dogs. Due to incidents such as this, the Bali to Brisbane Jetstar flight on Sunday afternoons has come to known as the bogan bus.

ADHD. While the bogan parent is always eager to acquire cheap glory, it is vehemently unwilling to accept responsibility for the conduct of bogan junior, despite Bilynda and Maxxx setting fire to the upholstery in the formal dining room area. Using the same mental shortcut that caused it to decide that it had a spurious gluten intolerance, the bogan will loudly and arbitrarily announce that its recalcitrant offspring has ADHD. At this point, the bogan parent feels relieved and reassured that none of this mess is their fault. Click here to find a complete list of bogan baby names which are a testimony to phonetic spelling.

Enormous prams. Mumma Hummers, as they are affectionately known, are the armoured tanks of the baby transport world. These giant infant carriers ruthlessly dominate every footpath, zebra crossing and foodcourt aisle that they happen to rumble across. For while the bogan mother is walking a child instead of a pit bull, she desires to intimidate all the same.

Number plates. Because the bogan has more personality thatn the rest of us, it requires more canvases upon which to portray its talents. One of these is the lower back, but another important one is the number plate of the bogan’s car. The message usually refers to the car’s ability to attain speed or the alleged importance or desirability of its owner.

WAGS. There is a celebrity that appeals even more greatly to the bogan than the fooballer or cricketer. Their girlfriend. The femme-bogue decides tha becoming a WAG is her calling; her destiny. This results in weekly pilgrimages to weekend haunts known for containing athletes, where the femme-bogues stalk their prey with a single-minded, ruthless determination. By the end of the night, the female bogan has passed out in a tangle of arms, legs, sequins and shame.

Xmas sales. The bogans surge, foaming at the mouth and desperately snatching any item with a 2 metre radius of a sign saying “(up to) 70% off”. Skinny bogans wriggle between the fat ones, tall ones reach over the top, and the fat ones jut their ample rumps outwards to create a quivering exclusion zone around the precious discounts.

Anyway after having a good look through the book and the site I think my husband might be safe. I’ve effectively knocked the bogan out of him over the last few years. But I remain ever vigilant.  However if you are not so lucky and see yourself in some of this then just dismiss the whole thing as stereotypical claptrap. Image

However the reason why I am reluctant to go to the US is because I’m not a tipper. I’m an Australian, we don’t tip–it’s well unAustralian. It comes from a long history of it being the law here in Australia to pay your workers the minimum wage. Their very survival is dependent therefore on their ability to perform their job, not rely on customer handouts. Novel idea that America, you should try it. Anyway Aussies don’t tip–we’re tightarses.

Anyway this whole tipping thing has me flummoxed. Let’s say I was to go the the US how on earth would I know who to tip and how much. I’ve heard (and it strikes fear into my heart) that if you were to a simple thing like go the hairdresser you would be likely to tip at least three people–the colourist, the hairdresser and the hairwasher. How do you do it? Do you slip them a sneaky couple of bucks or do you make a big show of it? I am so grateful that the only tip my hairdresser gets is a bottle of wine at Christmas.

Apparently the tipping rate is 10% in the US. So if your drink costs $5 you are supposed to slip the barman 50c. Hardly seems worthwhile but I guess all those 50c add up. So do you leave it on the bar or yell out “Victor–here’s your tip” and wave that 50c around. Confusing to say the least.

How about porters at hotels. Do you pay then per bag or just one lump sum? Actually they could prescribe to the Australian customer service charter and not bother at all, but I know they do bother in the US (because they need that tip) so what do you do? Oh the dilemma.

Restaurants provide another problem. The tipping percentage rises to 20%. That’s a big lump on the bill, isn’t it. And awfully presumptuous I believe. I wouldn’t tip that–it’s too much. I’d probably starve or be beaten up by a sea of angry service workers.

Americans are horrified by our non-tipping culture. While eating with some US friends in Italy we had 15 euro change left over. They insisted it be the tip. I was horrified. That could have bought us 3 litres of wine (see my priorities). When I protested that the service had been nothing short of appalling and the food worse, they still insisted it was the right thing to do. I’m still mystified as to why poor behaviour should be rewarded and they were mystified as to why I didn’t want to tip.

In the UK they have a discretionary service charge that they like to slip onto accounts. It was a whopping 15% on the bill I received. When you take into account that I had to chase up the wine order, they charged me for a more expensive wine that I didn’t order, that the ordered water did not appear until dinner was served and the food tasted very ordinary do they really deserved a bonus? They should have known better than to take on a tightwad Aussie.

Despite what I said earlier I do tip. I usually leave my change for the staff at restaurants and more if the service has been exceptional and I round up to the nearest $5 or $10 for the cab driver (provided no scenic routes were used). If I pay by credit card I’ll usually leave a couple of dollars in the tip jar as I leave. However this is my choice and entirely dependent on the service I have received not on a handout culture. Image So do you tip or not?