Australia Bound

Things were pretty grim for many people in the UK at the beginning of the 1970s, which was perhaps the reason so many of my friends left. They went to Australia where, according to reports filtering back, the living was easy. Brits, especially, were welcomed with open arms (presumably so as to facilitate the Australian sport of Pommie-bashing, although my friends must have held their own, since none of them ever returned). I visit them from time to time and am due to go again later this year, which is why I have taken more interest lately in things antipodean. For example, we dined last week in a Hoxton restaurant owned by an Australian chef who invited us to bring our own bottles of wine (thereby making our dinner almost affordable). It reminded me that the first time I had encountered this practice was in Sydney circa 1980 where ‘BYOG’ inscribed on a restaurant door was explained to me as an acronym for Bring Your Own Grog. Good on yer, chef!

Whilst in London I went to an exhibition on the work of Ove Arup, the Danish-born, one-time philosophy student turned world-famous engineer/architect whose iconic early work, the penguin pool at London zoo, was soon overshadowed by much grander projects. The one in which I was particularly interested, of course, was the Sydney Opera House. Designed by another Dane, Jorn Utzon, apparently without much practical detail concerning realisation, it was Ove Arup and his team who eventually figured out how to build it. The complexity of the curved structures was such that, for the first time in architecture, a computer was employed to work out the mathematics of the structural integrity: otherwise they would still be at it with slide-rules. The Opera House turned out beautifully, despite running over budget, but I have suspicions as to the originality of its design: here is a photo of the Manchester’s Oxford Road railway station, built in 1960. Jorn and Ove might have saved themselves a lot of work had they spoken to its creators.

I also went to see the exhibition You Say You Want a Revolution? in which architecture of another kind was featured – the geodesic dome, as popularised by Buckminster Fuller. It was part of the 1960s counter-culture that flourished in America where, at the forefront of the early eco-warrior movement, people established communes upon the ideals of self-sufficiency and sustainability. By now the movement should have swept the world, such is the irrefutable logic of not destroying our planet, yet it’s astonishing – and not a little depressing – how easily it was steamrollered by neo-liberal capitalism, leaving just a few diehard idealists clinging on in the backwoods. It is, then, perhaps a coincidence of timing that the film Captain Fantastic has just been released: its protagonist is just such a diehard and those of us who regret our own pathetic capitulation to capitalism can’t help but cheer him on in his determined struggle against the military-industrial complex.

Somebody suggested I might need a visa to visit Australia. It seemed unlikely - I mean, it is some sort of colony isn’t it? But it has been 15 years since I last went and much has changed since, particularly in respect of the migration of populations, so I went online to check. Sure enough, there is no longer a fast-lane for Brits. The good old days are over: now we have to queue up with the rest of humanity to make a case for a brief visit to see old friends – blood relatives even – in case we might hide behind a billabong tree to avoid the flight home. What they don’t realise is, it’s not that bad here: things have brightened up since the 1970s. Anyway, I received an email acknowledging receipt of my application some days ago, but still no visa. Did someone tell them that I went to that Revolution exhibition?