like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

more4 (channel4's offshoot channel) often shows the australian versions of Bake Off, First Dates, Married at First Sight, Grand Designs and (my favourite) Lego Masters. admittedly these are all formats we've sold them but...

IME living as a young adult in the UK, you will know at least one Australian, you will be less likely to know an American.

When I was a young adult (as opposed to an old one) I knew loads of Aussies, a fair number of Kiwis also, and a smaller number of Americans too.

When I first moved to London I worked with a lot of Australians, South Africans and Kiwis, all of whom were good people and great company. I strongly suspect there's not as many Australians in London as they're used to be though.

some good parties, aye. this would be in and around Ealing..

Another thing, they'd all support any team that was playing England at any sport, it was like I was still in Scotland.

There is a battery of standard Australian slang that most UK people know: "fair dinkum", "strewth", calling women "Sheilas" - actually I'm struggling to remember much more. "Throw another prawn on the barbie".

But I think it is also true that Australia had more of a presence in UK cultural imagination 30+ years ago than it does now. I think most UK people know little about Australian politics for instance unless they have specific family or professional connexions.

Many UK citizens are very interested in India because their families came from India. Ditto Pakistan, Bangladesh.

Most people have never met anyone from the Falkland Islands and will never go to that place.

Australian soap operas were even blamed for changing UK speech patterns at one point!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2538554/Want-promotion-Dont-speak-like-AUSSIE-Rising-pitch-end-sentences-make-sound-insecure.html

should be noted that up here in the M62 corridor we have plenty of interaction with Australasians thanks to the Rugby League interconnections

i dont really watch masterchef any more bcz the world is on fire plus marcus is a tool but the AUSTRALIAN masterchef is the goat

important facts u shd write down somewhere

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/14/arts-council-to-survive-funding-opera-car-parks

Instead of voting for a party who believed in the arts back in 2019 they chose to open a voting app.

UK, forever and ever.

Finally, they are also closing down. About 50% of the venues I've produced at have gone bust, as rising rents and bills force business models away from artistic priorities and towards maximising revenue. This often means turning lively, eclectic venues into Wagamamas or gyms.

— Joe Bates (@josephmbates) November 14, 2022

planet of weeds

Australian soap operas were even blamed for changing UK speech patterns at one point!

I think calling university "uni", which is now seemingly standard for anyone under 40 in the UK, came from Australian soaps.

No, I remember that from way back.

Is “no worries” one of those Ozisms?

"She'll Be Right"

Khan will advise people to stop using cars when people are dying of heat stroke.

Londoner renters: looking for an affordable place to live.

Average asking rents:

Oct-Dec 2021: £2,142

Jan-Mar 2022: £2,193

Apr-June 2022: £2,257

July-Sep 2022: £2,343

Prices are breaking records every quarter.

It’s time the Govt let me freeze rents.

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) November 14, 2022

All that tweet does is make me think rents aren't rising as fast as I thought they were.

Yeah it's an average. He could've collected screen shots of people looking at mad rental increases of far more than 200 quid, and tied that with the horrendous stories of landlord abuse, cruelty and neglect.

Obv the mayor of London has no power to intervene in the dysfunctional economics of London

Obv the mayor of London has no power to intervene in the dysfunctional economics of London

Excuse my dysfunctional phone

There is a battery of standard Australian slang that most UK people know: "fair dinkum", "strewth", calling women "Sheilas" - actually I'm struggling to remember much more. "Throw another prawn on the barbie".

tfw you have your finger on the pulse of standard Australian slang

When I was at secondary school in the 1970s-80s, one of my teachers thought that Let's Talk Strine by 'Afferbeck Lauder' was the funniest bk ever written:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strine

lol i also encountered that book at school (a few years earlier)

my take then was that i didn't really get it

nor did I cobber

I think calling university "uni", which is now seemingly standard for anyone under 40 in the UK, came from Australian soaps.

― fetter, Monday, 14 November 2022 12:45 (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

No, I remember that from way back.

― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Monday, 14 November 2022 12:47 (six hours ago)

I'd never heard it anywhere until Neighbours circa 1988/89.

According to OED goes back to 1898.

Etymology: Shortened < university n. Compare Univ n.
colloquial (chiefly Australian and New Zealand).

= university n. 1. Also attributive and in other combinations.
1898 Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. (Red Page) The only classical idioms I have found..are rotter, i.e., an adept in learning anything; and panem agere, Sydney Uni. slang for ‘doing a loaf’.

There’s citations for it featuring in ‘the ABZ of Scouse’ in 1966 and in Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ in 1975, so had definitely reached UK before Neighbours.

i was at uni in 1987 and kids obsessively watched Neighbours in the union so i'm confused here

did Americans take Varsity with them and leave Uni behind?

I think it's an Australianism. I grew up in Australia so was acquainted with 'uni' but I went to university in the UK in the mid eighties and I'm pretty sure the term wasn't used. People said 'college'.

I think of 'uni' as a post-1990s UK development. No-one would have said it at the university I attended in the 1990s. It's pretty much Blair years and on, I would say ... synchronising perhaps with the amount of 'Uni' expansion under Blair.

The other thing that people would have said (and still would) instead of saying 'are you going in to the UNIVERSITY today?' would be ... just to name the actual university. That's why the abbreviation wasn't needed.

That might work if you're chatting in term time with your fellow students but the more general term (abbreviated or otherwise) is useful outside of those confines, e.g. 'the friends I made at uni are much better than you lot'.

I agree. But I don't recall the term being used, say 30 years ago.

tbh I have no recollection of which individual words I was using 30 years ago, it feels so natural to say now that it would seem surprising if i weren't using it then - but I have no evidence one way or the other.

I don't recall it not being used, and I feel like it would've been used, and I was there 87-90. But I am old and my memory is shot. An awful lot of students gathered in the Union to watch Neighbours every day so maybe the word had already arrived, idk

I wouldn't say it now either.

according to this graph the arrival of neighbours in the uk coincides with a precipitous drop in usage - in books, not necessarily a reflection of common speech:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=uni&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3

I first heard "uni" on Neighbours I think. but I've never heard anyone call university "college". thought that was a US thing.

i know it wasn't used *around me* when i was at "uni" (79-82) bcz it only started getting my hackles up way later -- i wd have been prickly earlier

but maybe my friends were just like "mark is weird abt this, don't say it round him or he'll post it to that stupid thread"

xp -- i *do* generally call university college but only bcz i don't want to say university or uni lol

What horror.

Today a coroner has ruled that 2-year-old Awaab Ishak died as a result of a severe respiratory condition caused due to prolonged exposure to mould in a home environment. Action to treat and prevent the mould was not taken. Awaab Ishak, from Rochdale, died in December 2020. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/tONlin3joR

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) November 15, 2022

Zac Goldsmith interviewed by (and tries to run away from) 11 year old girl:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/zac-goldsmith-cop27-confronted-climate-activist-egypt-b1039877.html

UK: closing arts orgs and opera houses.

Europe: this does sound nice.

"If successful, the scheme would be extended and probably rolled out to a wider age group, possibly from the age of 15 upwards."

This is just so brilliant, a new generation of creative people will be nurtured. & cultural institutions supported. A win-win!https://t.co/y4PzLzz1Pa

— Marijam Didžgalvytė (@marijamdid) November 15, 2022

won't need arts when tourists start flocking in to get an authentic look at what the 1850s were like

according to this graph the arrival of neighbours in the uk coincides with a precipitous drop in usage - in books, not necessarily a reflection of common speech:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=uni&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3🕸

Forgot the link

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+uni&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3

Did any of the characters in Neighbours actually go to uni though?