Brandnoo. A Blog by Ben Hindmarch

Sydney is not the capital city of Australia, that’s Canberra. Canberra is about 4 hours drive south of Sydney and is where the country’s politicians and bureaucrats live and work. Giving them their own city was a brilliant idea as it keeps them away from the rest of the Australian people who are for the most part very nice and a lot of fun.

Sydney isn’t a particularly big city, but is home to Australia’s biggest international community with large populations of people from various East Asian countries, as well as a massive amount of British and Irish. Both the Brits and the Irish form such a large proportion of the Sydney population, if everyone of these nationalities were suddenly deported, every bar in Bondi and surrounding areas would risk bankruptcy.

I live in Surry Hills, which is just outside the CBD (CBD is the Central Business District and just means the city centre, but nobody says ‘city centre’ as it takes too long to pronounce. Australians love shortening every word they can). Surry Hills is meant to be the creative hub of Sydney and sometimes is, although the rest of the time it’s Newtown. Newtown has a massive lesbian population, something that probably sounds far more exciting in your imagination than in actual reality.

Winter in Australia is usually some time just after lunch on a Tuesday in the middle of July. Before and after this time the winterest it gets is 12 degrees Celsius, so it’s still possible to have your lunch outside in a warm jacket if you’re Australian, and a t-shirt if you’re English.

Everything is casual in Australia. Deadlines, timetables, start times and delivery times are all approximate and sometimes voluntary.

A lot of Australians who live outside of Sydney regard Sydneysiders as being stuck up. Having lived in London before Sydney doesn’t put me in much of a position to judge, although if I were to judge, and obviously I’m about to, I’d say that there are stuck up places you can go, but you could just as easily find a bar where the bar snacks come from a vending machine in the hall and the bartender is also your bookmaker.

One of the best things to do in Australia is lawn bowls. It involves being outside, not straining yourself and drinking beer so therefore it is a fundamentally Australian past-time, and is not the just the territory of the elderly tea-drinkers as it is in the UK.

Sydney has several beaches, all of which are so crowded that on some occasions during the summer it’s standing room only. During peak-season, it’s compulsory for pasty English people to man the beach at all times. The distinct reflection from their pale bodies act as a beacon for anybody struggling in the water.

Sydney is possibly the greatest city in the world to live in. It’s even got shops selling Twiglets for when the British population fancy a taste from home of the Marmite dipped nobbly wheat sticks we love so much. You can’t get better than that.