The Ugly

Soon after we moved here I noticed something perplexing about many of the cars and posted one of the many pictures I've collected on a theme.  Here it is again.

I often see that car parked outside the local swimming pool when the owner's children and mine have lessons. I don't understand her car decoration.

Since then I've collected quite a few more snaps on the theme of "car adornments I don't understand."  It wasn't hard.  I'll spare you all the ones that simply have a creepy personalised number plate.  I'll also spare you ones with that Australia-shaped sticker and the words "F**k off we're full" because they are far too common to longer be interesting, but here is a variation on that theme.

Here is another mystery.

Most of you will be familiar with all the many variations on the "My family" stickers.  Not my cup of tea but it doesn't bother me that other people like and use them.  Just in case you don't know what I mean, here is one of the longer ones I've seen.

And a variation spotted in Mandurah.  Hmmm. Charming.

But there is one thing that still shocks me eveytime I see it.  Please tell me these aren't doing the rounds in NZ too.  Here, on a car with two childseats in the back which was parked at a local scenic spot where a group of families were having a picnic, were....car nuts.

Couldn't see them properly?  Here are some more.  Common as, well, balls around here.

Must go now as all that ugliness has depressed me. The only fun part of this whole situation is when we spot a car with a creepy personalised numberplate, at least one cringy sticker and car nuts.  Then I yell "Jackpot!" and instruct my partner to keep up with it so that I can get a photo.  No luck so far though because to those people "50 km per hour" means "65", "80" means "110" and "110" seems to mean "Just go as fast as you jollywell like".

It's another world

Picture: Jon Hewson

If you've ever heard me say that life in this part of the world is always interesting and wondered what I mean by that, well an article that appeared in a local newspaper this week about sums it up.  The article titled "Cashed up bogan from Mandurah sparks debate in Wall Street Journal" was written by Vanessa Schmitt of the the Mandurah Coastal Times and you can read it here.  In case you were wondering, this isn't a hoax.

You may have thought that the "two-speed economy" and the "cashed up bogan" were just media constructs, but let me assure you they are not.  Mandurah is a prime example of Australia's so-called two-speed economy as in this small city we have people with enormous wealth living right alongside people living in serious poverty. And cashed-up bogans are not only real but they make up a large part of this community along with doing-it-tough bogans, FIFO (fly in fly out) workers and their families, grey nomads, living-the-dream-lifestylers, and recent migrants (mostly from the UK and South Africa but lots of New Zealanders too).

So read the article and see if you can work out why I with my handmade, slow-living, permaculture, make-do-and-mend, let's-not-bust-our-one-planet, there-are-dozens-of-things-I-value-more-than-money, buy-once-buy-well style found Mandurah extremely challenging when I first moved here.  It really is another world here and some bits of it sure as heck aren't pretty.  Is this what those deluded NZ politicians mean when they bang on about NZ needing to "catch up with Australia"?