I mostly grew up in an Australian city widely acknowledged as the most isolated capital in the world and one that boasts the largest number of serial killers per capita. For the purposes of this blog, let us call this place “Perth”.
It’s been eighteen years since I last lived in Perth, but at heart, I am still a Perth Girl. Not necessarily through choice, mind you. It’s Facebook that does it to me.
Whenever I log onto that Hallowed Site, I am faced with an endless stream of “Friend Suggestions”, the vast majority of whom are from Perth and who share at least seven mutual friends with me – all from Perth, too, of course.
Yep, those six degrees of separation are reduced down to a cosy -2 degrees in Perth. Let’s put it this way: if you know two people from Perth, the chances are that they are either related or have slept with each other. Or if not, one of them is related to someone the other’s slept with. Or vice versa. But hopefully they are not related and sleeping with each other – although I’ve heard tell that happens quite a lot South Of The River.
Even when I lived my furthest away from Perth, I could not escape the place.
In my first full-time job in London, I took over from a (British) woman whose best friend was from Perth. Turns out that this best friend and I had both worked at Cinema City McDonalds at the same time and shared another friend who was last seen in London being thrown out of a gay nightclub for having sex with her boyfriend under a table (which isn’t behaviour specific to Perth but just made for a more interesting anecdote, don’t you think?).
Moreover, it was in London that I met a South-of-the-River Perth boy and ended up marrying him and having three children with him. (That’s my husband, in case you were wondering).
And then there’s this Perth story:
One afternoon, I was sitting around drinking beer in Covent Garden with my friend GT (a fellow Perth exile), and another friend (non-Perth) called Mr M.
“I have a friend who works around here,” I mentioned casually.
“So do I,” GT replied. I sensed a competition.
“My friend is a graphic designer,” I said.
“So is my friend,” GT rejoined.
“Well, my friend’s name is Marc with a ‘c’!” I shouted.
“SO IS MINE!” GT shouted back.
And we both furiously started digging around our wallets only to pull out matching business cards for the same ruddy person. Who also happened to hail from Perth.
Our friend Mr M was a little frightened.
“What the fuck just happened there?” he said.
“You, my friend, have just witnessed a Genuine Perth Moment,” I replied, tucking the business card back in my wallet. After all, I’d need it for the next time I talked to somebody from Perth.
Perth girls are easy. (That’s a Jeff Goldblum reference, to anyone who thinks I was slagging off Perth girls.) (Which I was.) (NDM excepted.)
I’m not even going to dignify that comment with a response.
Whoops, did I just respond?
Line of the day, M-M L. Nice one.
KC’ll have a good one later on too.
Sorry, I think Adelaide wins – my sister and brother married siblings and I married their second cousin. It means that my niece and my children share a spooky number of genes!
Which should serve them well when they get married.
Yep, I reckon the city of churches wins too. Not just on the 1 degree of separation, but don’t we also have the most violent murders? They may not ALL be seral killers in SA though.
Unless they’re violent murders involving Weet Bix, in which case they are Cereal Killers.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
Yep, I really knock myself out.
NDM, will you please NOT pinch all my Dad jokes ?
I’m from NSW, however when I was 17 my best friend and I started our around-Oz adventure in Perth. We rented our share house with a man we discovered was a psychopath. We had a Kiwi girlfriend, and she also lived in share housing with a psychopath. I worked at Scarborough McDonalds, and my manager was a psychopath too! Obviuosly, we did not really enjoy our time in Perth, so we high-tailed it to the sunny, red-dust streets of Broome.
I just finished reading Cloudstreet, which showed Perth in a very different light (and yes, there is the token Perth psychopath in that novel as well!)
Will need to reread Cloud Street. Don’t remember Winton’s take on Perth – but I read it while living in Perth and that can obscure a girl’s vision.
So did your friend get thrown out of a gay nightclub for having sex with her boyfriend under a table because they weren’t gay?
Fair question. Unfortunately, I don’t know. Perhaps if you ask somebody else from Perth, they’ll be able to tell you the answer.
For some reason, despite how adamantly you insist, and despite your consistent peppering of name “Perth” throughout this post, I can’t help thinking you are really from Adelaide….?!
Inexplicable, I know. I think it was the murderer’s reference….that, and the fact that I have this annoying, overbearing habit of thinking i know everything….
Me too…will the NDM ever reveal her true identity?
Truly, I am from Perth. Born there and everything. I can even sing the “Love You Perth” channel 7 theme song from the late 80s.
As for the serial killer reference, I have to admit that “widely acknowledged” should be “widely acknowledged by me and my husband”.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Perth is a great big exotic, sophisticated, anonymous metropolis now, don’t you know? I’ve only bumped into 1 old high school flame, 2 other high school friends, 2 primary school colleagues, a few people from uni & discovered that the people staying across the road actually live in my grandmother’s house where I practically grew up, over the last few days here at Rottnest Island. It’s not like an endless reunion/orgy here at all.
Wow, if it were an endless orgy, I don’t think I would ever have left (Actually, I probably would have. Who’s got the energy for all that Perth sex?)
Love, love love Perth. Beautiful city, and a beautiful state. I fell in love with a bank teller when I first went there. I couldn’t make a move, as my wife was with me. Life’s a bitch, sometimes……….
Hang on… I worked as a bank teller in Perth and remember a dashing fellow holding a Fender guitar and a wife.
Of course by “bank teller”, I mean “Health Food Store Assistant” and by “remember”, I mean “made up completely”.
Ah Perth – the stories, the memories, the great big ruddy pile of sand with a city built on it with buses that – I apologies to anyone who loves the Perth Bus network – just make NO sense at all!!!
a Uni trip ( the uni was 15 mins away from me via car) would take me an HOUR AND A HALF.
But the people (when not driving) were lovely.
and the weather (when not torrentially raining) was lovely.
It was just a bit too much like a slightly larger version of Geelong for me…mind you I kind of felt the same was about Adelaide- think I’ve been spoilt by Melbourne :s
My husband and I both tell very similar stories about the bus system – particularly the Sunday/Public Holiday timetable. We both went to catch a bus to the city, stood there for an hour or so and then went home.
That’s how Perth people have fun – or at least how they had fun in the 80s.
Graffitto spotted on a road tunnel on the outskirts of Sydney: “In the midst of life….we are in Perth”
My stepmother once commented to my father that all three of his daughters were born in Perth.
“Did you know that Perth rhymes with birth?” was his response.
So profound.
Perth mirth
oh that is the best line. poor old perth. the destination of tired soap opera characters
I heard the poet Harry Hutton in Sydney say “in the midst of life we are in Perth” in the late fifties. Since he had just recently come from living in Perth, I assumed that he made this pronouncement first while he was there.
…..Stupid Perth
Whatever gave you that impression of Perth???
And a similar story when I worked in London:
“Hey KC – there’s a new girl started and she’s from Australia. You probaby know her”
“Yeah – of course – population of 19 million. I’m bound to know her”
Long story short. Didn’t know her personally but she was best mates with half the people I’d been to high school with. In Perth. South-of-the-river.
Stupid Australia.
now here’s a funny thing. i too grew up in perth. (south of the river, thank you very much) and have also not lived there in 18 years (hmm coincidence?). i am also very much in the same generation of the ndm and her contemporaries, but, just to rock the boat: we have NO FRIENDS IN COMMON. not on facebook, not in real life, not even in blog land. somehow we manage to exist in completely different circles. how weird is that? for perth, which used to be just full of perth people (before the ‘boom’, that is) it’s really fairly unusual. as for serial killers per capita – what’s up with that? did you make that up, ndm?
I think the only conclusions that I can draw from all that evidence is that A) we have never met and B) one of us must be a serial killer.
LOL-in my religion we just call that Jewish Geography.
My mother can get on an airplane coming to visit me from Israel and she will be able to find at least a few people with mutual connections.
The other day I was sitting at the hospital with my FIL, just started chatting with a visitor from another room. Her husband works with my friend who lives across the street from me. ODD the way this goes.
Is it just me or is that “It’s a Small World After All!” song starting to go through people’s heads?
Re: the birth mirth-A certain S Fry back in Uni days said it was called Perth, Earth because of the DNA tower…discuss.
On a more serious note, the wafia can have its benefits on unspoken, deeper levels. Heath Ledger’s sister and I managed to connect, despite the dangerously wannabee atmosphere of the 4 Seasons Hotel on the night of the Oscars, by me saying “I’m from Perth”. Volumes, people, volumes.
However I’m not so sure about the degrees of removal since this boom phenomenon. The days when I would catch a bus as a schoolboy and find myself sitting next to my grandmother (twice people, twice and she lived nowhere near me, okay so maybe she was a little confused that day) may be over. They are inventing people and suburbs as we speak oop north and south of the river has been finally deemed an habitable and almost enviable place to live.
Moreover, they have this “metro” thing, LINKING people and places, in PERTH!! I felt bittersweet pangs of nostalgia and anger and wanted to turn to all these newby UK perthites standing next to me on this CROWDED(!) CARPETED tube ” do you know how we pioneers suffered to get you here?”. How much of my twenty year worldwide wanderlust has its origins in waiting for that one, on the hour,bus to arrive twinkling in the sun on the crest of the hill*Sob*.
xx Some Guy from Paris
Three little words: “I’m from Perth”. Oh, you make me laugh, you random person in Paris you.
Of course Perth these days is a completely different beast from the playground of our youth. The carpet on the trains obviously proves this. Or is the carpet on the platforms? Or both? It *is* a boom town after all.
Ha.
This whole bloody country has -2 degrees of separation.
I guess it’s what comes of living on an island.
Perth has the highest number of serial killers? I told my sister Oldham (home of the race riots 2000) safer.
She emigrated from Manchester to Perth in Jan 2009 (I don’t know why either). After 15 months she has around 50 friends, 40 of them who come from Manchester, a few she actually knew from home but didn’t realise they’d emigrated too.
I’m quite glad she hasn’t got to know many of the natives if they’re likely to chop her up & kill her.
You know, in all my time in Perth, I never met anyone from Manchester. However, when I was in Manchester, I ran into a friend from Perth. You do the maths.
Great post as usual NDM. However I feel this comments thread has gone astray. As someone who STILL LIVES in the beautiful, dusty minitropolis known as Perth, Western Australia (where I met @TheNDM many moons ago) I feel duty bound to respond to the understandable errors I see above.
1, Yes Radelaide is the Serial Killer Capital. I mean come on if nothing else – the bodies in the barrels!
2. Our buses are so-so, but our trains rock.
3. There is actually only one degree of separation. The Perth moments that occur in Perth itself are like this. Someone you’ve been working with for seven years will say, “I was talking to my Aunty the otherday and it turns out she taught you in Primary school in the mid 1970s.”
4. Although everyone knows everyone and has sex with everyone, I would argue that we are not all related to each other. I guess that’s what the mining boom is really good for. Extending the gene pool.
5. Perth is essentially about BOGANS. I know all you Melburnians and Sydenysiders think you have the best BOGANS, but it’s like Will Smith’s I AM LEGEND over here. We all caught the disease.
1. Troy Buswell – BOGAN!
2. The Bell Tower – BOGAN!
3. BurswoodCasino – ULTRA BOGAN!
4. The Red Bull Air Race – BOGAN!
5. Nightlife in Northbridge where you go to get stabbed – BOGAN!
And that’s the way we love it. There are only two footy teams worthy of note in our opinion. The fact that Dockers fans think the Eagles are ‘silvertails’ is hilarious. They’re bogans with better looking jerseys. Ben Cousins presided over a period of national headline grabbing rampant Boganism in this supposedly upmarket football club’s history.
And I was at the Perth taping of AUSTRALIA’s GOT TALENT recently and I found Kyle Sandilands quite entertaining. Clearly, I have Boganosis of the Medula Oblongata also.
Cheers!
Actually Perth is all about cashed up bogans – as Mr NDM’s story goes: When last visiting Perth he expressed surprise at the $4 price tag for a cup of mediocre coffee and got sneeringly told: “It’s a boom state – get used to it”.
Ah, the Burswood Casino. I remember many an evening spent driving over there only to be turned away by security for either being underage or wearing the wrong clothes.
That was considered A Great Night Out in the late 80s.
As for attending the taping of Australia’s Got Talent and finding Kyle “Eyes So Cold” Sandilands amusing… I really don’t know what to say except to extend my deepest felt condolences…
Brilliant. I’m blogging about the 6 degrees too. Strange coincidences.
You’re blogging about it too? That makes us virtually related!
As a comment regarding the Perth public transport system, (at least back in the 80’s), it was a rare thing to find someone who didn’t have a car license.
Like me, for instance?
yep, you were the only person i knew in perth who didn’t drive. you have to drive in perth. in a bogan car. at the risk of cross-breeding, and yes, thank goodness for the *boom* for bringing in new genes, i would like to link to this topical blog: http://thingsboganslike.wordpress.com/
Actually, the best part about Perth, is the road to Freo. Now THAT’S a cool place……..
Agreed. Although Mirrabooka’s Ice World is also a huge draw card.
Perth sounds EXACTLY like Christchurch, NZ – although I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot warmer.
The train – sucks, always has.
Mr trivia is a) a well done parody or
b) the proud owner of Perth pride ?
Boom town does not extend gene pool cmon. It’s like.a magnet for what is wrong about Perth.
I’m not saying don’t do drugs but the avg miner hasn’t got much upstairs to give away. Sydney trains are noisy bur they go everywhere. Perth trains go to? Armadale?
Growing up in Perth, dreaming of escape, the response to any other destination was, yeah, you’re probably right, it probably is a nice place, if you can afford it. Oh, the irony.