Transcript of AE 1171 - Interivew: Getting to Know Chris Delapp from Instant English - Part 1

G'day, you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have a special interview episode that I did with Chris Delapp from 'Instant English'. You may also find him under 'Instant English UK'. So, he's originally from Great Britain. He has taught English for quite a number of years.

He's been in places like Japan, teaching, and then I think more recently he's moved to Spain and he's living life, living his best life there. I've been chatting to him a little bit on social media and getting to know him and thought it would be really cool to do a podcast interview with him where we would just see where the conversation went.

And it ended up going for about an hour and a half, maybe a little longer. So, I've cut this into two episodes and you'll kind of hear the first time we ever actually talked to each other in person and us kind of getting to know one another. So, hopefully you really enjoy this interview, guys. We cover so many topics like talking about the weather. Chris talks about his phobias of flying on planes and snakes.

He talks about life in Japan, you know, working there. And then what it's like living in Spain. We cover things like cash, using cash today versus using card and how cash is almost becoming obsolete. We obviously talk about Britain versus Australia and British English versus Australian English. We talk about ancestry and using DNA tests to work out where your ancestors came from.

And we also dive into things like Australian history, you know, the convicts and the First Fleet and how that ties in with British history too. So, I think it's a really great conversation, guys. We're just being our authentic selves, hanging out, getting to know one another and yeah, shooting the breeze. So, I hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for both episodes.

If you're listening to part two now, listen to part one and if you're listening to part one, stay tuned for part two. Without any further ado, slap the bird and let's get into it.

How are you going, dude? Anyway, how's your day been?

Yeah. I'm just waking up. So, apologies for the slowness. It normally takes me about 2 hours to get into gear. But yeah, it's good. Good. Very hot today again. So, braced for another balmy day. All good. Yeah. How's it going where you are? You're in the winter, right? So, you're the opposite.

Well, what are we? 6:00 at the moment. And I don't know, this is the window behind me. It's blurred out on the screen, but it's dark as. It's been dark for about probably about an hour and a half since 4:30pm. So, yeah, it gets a bit depressing. I know.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I thought Australia- I thought there were more positives in Australia than in England, but it seems like we are on par on that one.

Well I think...

Not that I'm in England now, but you know, if I were.

What's the- Is it the southernmost latitude in Great Britain? Like what- How many degrees- I guess it would be degrees north. But what's like the lowest number there? Is it in the thirties or the forties? And it's not a trick question. I'm just thinking I'm at 37 degrees south. And so, if in England it's about the same, yeah, we'll have those winters that are similar here.

But if you go all the way north to like the tip in Australia, I think it's like 12 degrees south of the equator and so it would be completely different in terms of daylight hours and everything.

Yeah. I'm not sure. I know- I could tell you what the most southern places but I don't know the degrees...

I have to have a look.

...Is not my forte. Yeah, it's normally about in winter, it's like 4pm as well. The sun comes up at like 8am if you're lucky, and then it goes down at 4:00-4:30pm. So, it's pretty bleak if you work in an office job, you normally sort of go to work in the dark and then come home in the dark and sit in office all day.

I've heard that. I think I mean, there's probably people who have those kinds of jobs here in Australia. Like, yeah, if you were leaving- If you were leaving in about, I don't know, at around 6:00 in the morning and getting home after 4:30pm, you'd probably be in the same situation.

And I've got friends in places like Estonia and Finland and they're like, oh, I go for like three months without seeing the sun. You know, because they have a certain job that there's like no windows or, you know, I don't have a good view and they're like, I pretty much arrive at the office or whatever and it's dark and I leave and it's dark and they're just like, that's just how it is.

Yeah. Well, I used to work in Pizza Hut for seven years. Not for the free pizza. You know, there were other perks, like they paid me and stuff, but mainly for the pizza. But when I worked at Pizza Hut, they had no windows. So, you start at like 6am, I'd roll out at like 11pm. Oh, those were the days. Good old days.

Far out.

Yeah, that was pretty bleak.

So, should we just include this part in the podcast? Maybe we start where we started with "How was your morning?"

Yeah, just the previous part to that. You- feel free to try? No...

That'll forever remain a mystery for people.

What- You know, when you meet someone or like a random person in Australia. Is it the weather that's the first topic? Because you know, for me it's like if we didn't speak about the weather just now, I probably would have been panicking and sweating, you know. It needs to be the topic to break the ice...

It's a bit of a cliche. It's a bit of a cliche, but I think you would you know, you'd "oh, yeah. Pretty hot day, right?" You know, or "windy day". You know, "fuck it's cold", you know. Like you could strike up a conversation like that if you wanted.

Yeah. I mean, just what do you have to complain about apart from just, it's a really nice day again, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice day again. Like, I feel like in Melbourne it's a bit different, right? It's kind of you have a more of a European climate, right? Because it's quite far south I've heard. I've never been to Sydney, so I have no idea.

I might just kill my video cause it's- Internet's having a hissy fit on my end, so hopefully this speeds things up a bit. So, feel free to kill yours if you want as well. But yeah, Melbourne's an interesting one. Melbourne kind of has this cliche of four seasons in one day. So, we go usually in that spring/autumn period you'll get- You just get messed up if you go out and you're not prepared.

So, you have to be, you know, taking an umbrella. You might be in shorts because it's 25 degrees in the morning when you're leaving home, but you know that it could suddenly become a cold, windy day where it's ten degrees. So, you'd better take some jeans and a jacket just in case. So, it...

Wow.

The southern parts of Australia, I think especially the southeast is much more like that, especially Victoria and Tasmania would be like that. I think maybe Perth would be sort of similar but a bit warmer and probably I think the climate's a little more consistent. It's not as up and down during the winters from what I understand, but as soon as you go past like Sydney, it's pretty mild and they don't get-

So, because of the geography of Australia that the bottom part of Australia is obviously near Antarctica or at least you know Antarctica is the next stop. We get all these cold fronts that come over the top of the south part that are sort of circling the globe. And so, we get these constant cold fronts that come through and change the temperature and mess us up.

Whereas if you're going up the East Coast or the West Coast, you don't have the same kind of weather patterns. It's kind of stuff just sits there for a while. And so, it's either, you know, windy and rainy for a long period or it's sunny and shiny for a long period and everything.

What do you guys think about, you know, as a country. What do you guys think about Perth? Like is it- Like, do they- Are there like running jokes about Perth? Because it's quite isolated, so the people from there, are they sort of similar to people you might find in the middle of the, you know, the end of Scotland or something, you know, the Shetland Islands in the UK?

Are they a bit odd? Because they're just so isolated.

I don't think we make jokes about people from Perth. I think we'd probably make jokes about Perth more so, you know, so it'd be like, why would you ever go there? It's so far from everything, right? Like, I think it's closer to Jakarta than it is to any other city in Australia. Big city, right? So, yeah, it's this weird place that is just very, very isolated.

But the people tend to be pretty- It's sort of like a small version of Melbourne I feel, like where the people are pretty chill, the nightlife is great, everything would be- I haven't been there, but from what I understand, everything there is pretty nice. It's just they have beautiful beaches, lots of animals, lots of wildlife. It's just remote.

But for I think like the sort of, what would you say, like in America and the central East Mountain people, you know that kind of hillbilly joke would be made more about Tasmanian's I think sort of being all inbred and you know, what is it, that there's like a joke that takes the piss out of both Tasmanian's and the rest of Australians where it's like, "why do Tasmanians have two heads?"

"And it's so they can have a conversation they can understand when they come to the mainland." And your kind of like, is that making fun about Tasmanian's or is that making fun about the rest of Australia? Like...

It depends on your perspective. Yeah. Oh, fair enough. I just thought that- Because it seems- Well, from my perspective, a lot of my friends who have done the very traditional three months in Southeast Asia and then run out of money and then do the work away in Australia, they always land in Perth, like Perth is the first stop.

And then whenever I spoke to my friends after, they always say like, it was quite hard to get out of Perth because it's so far they never have enough money to get anywhere. And we check on the map, like, how far away is it? And it's miles away from anything. So, it's like, why don't fly there?

Like, he was just, you know, I had a friend who was stuck there for six months living in a caravan.

Jesus.

Because he was trying to get money to get a flight somewhere else or. But eventually he went to Sydney. Eventually, yeah.

There's probably... (static) Do you want to kill your video? Just because it is delayed a bit. I think it's my internet. It's not your fault. Sorry. Hopefully that speeds the audio up a bit.

Okay. No worries.

Sorry about that.

Sure.

Yeah. So, I think it's probably just closer to parts of Southeast Asia, so they can probably get a flight there pretty easily. But then getting from Perth, outside or to other parts of Australia, perhaps there are only certain, like Qantas, you know, certain plane airlines that do it and they're expensive. I'm not sure but yeah, I've heard the same thing, especially when they're doing like the working holiday.

They probably also end up with jobs there or whatever and they're kind of like, well, I guess I sort of have to sit here for six months and smash this work out on a farm or something.

Yeah. No, it's my choice, my dreams. I'm terrified of flying. Well, I'm not that bad. I'm terrified of snakes. But then my second biggest fear is flying. So, obviously Australia is on my bucket list to...

Is your worst nightmare, like having to watch the film "Snakes on a Plane"?

Yes. Yes, that is the worst. And then why did they make another? They made a second one. It's like just trying to torture me.

Slow year for Samuel L Jackson.

...Anything worse, but. Just anything else. Anything else, please, you know. Why did it have to be snakes? Why couldn't it be spiders? Why couldn't it be sharks?

Why is it snakes that freak you out, if I can ask?

I actually have no idea whatsoever. It's totally irrational and it goes all the way to objects that resemble snakes. So, you know, anything phallic shaped is just a nightmare for me. So...

And then the next line is, and the worst part is I'm a homosexual man. That feels like that would be an amazing sitcom. Right? So, like a homosexual man who has a phobia of snakes, and anything snake shaped.

That should be the follow up to "Snakes on a Plane". It should just be phallic shaped objects on planes.

I feel like that would definitely be some kind of a porno.

But yeah, I don't know why. I've seen like four snakes in my life and it's been the worst experience ever. I didn't see any in Australia, but then I was sort of downtown Sydney for most of my time and I'm not sure how many snakes are just up and down Bondi Beach. I don't think too many. So...

Yeah, it's pretty uncommon to have them around in the...

...I don't know why. Are you not scared?

No. I mean, it's one of those things, though. I think I've just been raised up around them, you know, like I was always in love with Steve Irwin, and I caught a brown snake when I was like ten years old, I think. This is one of the most deadly snakes in the world.

And it was winter, and I ended up just catching one, putting it in a bucket and bringing it back into the cabin where my grandparents and parents were waking up in the morning and I was like, hey, check this out. And they just freaked. But snakes never really freaked me out. Getting bitten by a snake would freak me out.

...I would. Oh my God.

But...

Yeah, I'm getting sweat on.

Sorry.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's completely ridiculous, but. So, one of my dreams, going back to the flying aspect, one of my dreams was- Because I always research about the airline companies and that kind of thing. And Qantas is like one thing I'd love to try just because those kind of airlines are so good. They make you feel so comfortable and it's lovely. Have you ever flown on Qantas?

Yeah, I have.

Was it...?

It's pretty easy to do that when you live in Australia.

Like Ryanair, but in Australia?

No, I think Ryanair is here. Actually, we may not have Ryanair.

...Quality.

Sorry?

Imagine it's much better quality, but there are- Everywhere is Qantas. Because everything in Europe is just Ryanair and then a little bit of, you know, British Airways now and then.

Yeah. I think we have like, what have we got? Tigerair would be probably the most budget and then Jetstar would be a step up from that, I think. You know, like you actually get a chair not just like a plastic seat or something. And then above that we would have...

I flew- Oh, sorry.

No, you go.

I think it's a bit delayed.

Yeah, there's a delay.

I was going to just say, Jetstar- I flew with Jetstar from Japan to Australia, the one I flew there. And it was the most budget airline- Well, compared to the second most budget airline after Ryanair.

Yeah.

I was on the flight for- Was it 9 hours or something? 10 hours? And they wouldn't serve me food unless I paid with credit card. I didn't have anything, cos I thought they would give me food on the flight, but. Luckily, I was sat next to some Christian lady and she shared her food. I mean, I had to take in a bit of the Bible, but I got some- Got a bit of rice, so what can you do really. Yeah. That brings back memories.

No, I think, yeah. Every time I've flown Jetstar it's BYO. But Qantas is good quality. Qantas is good. It's just more expensive. That's the thing.

Yeah. I suppose, you know, you have to fork out for the quality. And I found a couple of questions like I'm just curious if you could answer them. About like, it was like something- Five questions you need to ask an Australian.

Oh man, unleash.

...Cos some of them are pretty interesting. The first one for me, the most interesting one was "why is Burger King called Hungry Jacks?"

Because I think Hungry Jacks sued the shit out of them. Like from what I remember...

So, there was Burger King and then Hungry Jacks, the logo was too similar?

I think something happened, so yeah, in the seventies Hungry Jacks launched in Australia and something weird happened- Like I've got- What have we got here? I'll open up this article here. Burger King Corporation versus Hungry Jacks was an Australian court case decided in New South Wales in 2001 concerning a dispute between the US state- United States based fast food chain Burger King and its Australian franchisee Hungry Jacks.

So, Hungry Jacks bought the franchise for Burger King to run it in Australia, but just changed the name. And then what happened was the rules were set up that Burger King couldn't have any franchises in Australia. Right?

It'd be like if we bought McDonald's and instead of calling it McDonald's, we called it Big Mac or like, you know, the Big M and we had those restaurants everywhere in Australia, but it was effectively McDonald's, but an Australian bought version of it and they were paying McDonald's for the rights.

That happened, but then Burger King snuck a bunch of their restaurants into, I think, airports. And so, Hungry Jack's sued the shit out of them. And I think, you know, one millions of dollars and they were banned from opening any stores in Australia and I think they had to turn over all their stores to Hungry Jacks. So, you'd have to look into it.

But I think something like that happened where they encroached on their- The legal rules or whatever because Hungry Jacks was technically a franchisee of Burger King.

Wow. So, Hungry Jack's was it like a fast-food chain already? And they basically just bought the rights to Burger King to kind of keep them out? Or did they actually just sort of take their products and was like, we sell Burger King products too? Or was it just, they wanted to keep them away?

It looks like, based on an article here, the name Burger King was already a brand in Australia, and it wasn't- It couldn't be bought by Burger King in America, so they had to use a different name. And then obviously something weird happened where somehow they ended up being able to open stores in airlines. Because I remember going to Melbourne Airport and they had a Burger King there and I was just like, what the hell?

And I think that would have been- That would have been around 2001, maybe 2000. And yeah, but you'll have to look up the full story. But I think that's the basic idea that somehow Burger King couldn't use that brand in Australia. And so, hungry jacks, whether it was like set up by Burger King or someone approached Burger King and was like, hey, we want to set up franchises using everything, we'll just use a different name.

Can you give us all of your, you know, legal copyright and all that sort of, you know, intellectual property and then set it up? But then something else happened where later on Burger King tried to like, I don't know, get a double dip and set up more restaurants with a different brand name.

...I suppose. What were they trying to think, like in airports it's kind of like international zones or something? Like, you know, if they opened up a Burger King in an embassy or something. Okay, it's in Australia, but it's within the Ecuadorian embassy. So, you know...

Yeah.

...Legally it's not in Australia or something like that.

I think it was something along those lines where something fishy was going on with like where they set them up because they were obviously trying to make a bit more money and they saw that they had a market there or something. But yeah, they were stepping on Hungry Jack's toes and they got sued.

What- Something's really interesting. This question, the next one was, "why are all your presidents so odd?"

We don't have presidents.

...Into this and- Prime Minister's. Sorry. Prime Minister's, is it?

Yeah. Prime Ministers. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Prime Minister. Why are the Prime Ministers so curious? They seem to have a lot of hidden talents or- Was there one with a world record or something?

They're probably the older ones. Let's see, world record.

Okay.

That rings a bell.

...Pretty tamely.

...Nowadays. They're pretty much morons. But...

Well, yeah, welcome to the club.

Ah, so Hawke. Yeah. So, Bob Hawke holds the highest ever approval rating and he had some record, I think for sculling of beer. He was renowned for that. Like he would scull a pint of beer in 2 seconds. I think he could smash that down.

Jesus.

There was another one- I'm not sure. We had another one that has like the longest serving- The longest serving prime minister of Australia was 18 years. Yeah, I'm not sure with the world record. Yeah. It looks like it's Bob Hawke with the beer drinking world record where he sculled 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.

Jesus.

Yeah, he was an animal.

Yeah, was that after he won or was it just like to get, like, voters on his side? So...

I think if I saw him do that before, I would be like, yeah, nice guy. I'm gonna vote for him.

That would have been before. That looks like he did that in 1954 and he was Prime Minister, Bob Hawke was the Prime Minister in I think like the eighties, I think. When did he get it? So, 83 to 91 is when he was the Prime Minister, but he would always be on TV sculling beers. And I remember seeing that and being like, what the hell?

And my dad telling me, oh yeah, he's got the world record for, you know, sculling beer, pints of beer or whatever. So, two and a half in 11 seconds. Man, you would get so drunk so quickly.

Yeah. No- Well, nowadays as well, especially, I'm 31. But like, I don't know if you know many prime ministers from England or the UK...

A few of them, the more recent ones.

...thing that happened. Yeah. What's the one- I can't even remember her name now. She was...

Thatcher or Theresa may?

...Boring and dull. It was a lady Prime Minister. Theresa may, that was it.

Yeah.

She did a bit of a dance, in a conference once, and that was wild. People were like, oh, my God, she's dancing. So, that's how far, you know, you are from us, really.

I feel like- It's an interesting cultural difference, though, in Great Britain. It seems like your prime ministers are always the sort of elite upper class, like they've gone to elite, elite private schools. They've then studied at Oxford, you know...

Like... So, there's a school near me called Geelong Grammar. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it, but it has, it has a year nine- The entire year is spent up in the mountains. It's called timber top. And they have this like location. It's the most expensive school in Australia.

I think it's about $70,000 Australian a year and you effectively day board, right, so you'll arrive at like 7:00am, you study, you go to school and then you study after school until like 8pm and then you might get picked up by your parents if you don't live at the school.

And so, all the prime ministers, it seems, or at least Prince Charles went there. He went for Timbertop. He spent a year there. And I believe- What's the name of your current prime minister? I've got a mind blank. The guy with the weird blonde hair.

Boris.

Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson.

He went there as well. So, and I think he went to Oxford, you know, and he would have gone to an incredibly expensive private school in I imagine, London somewhere. So, it's an interesting thing where it seems like back in Great Britain there is this- You guys seem to elect people who are always really, really, really elite.

Whereas in Australia sometimes you're going to have politicians like that and prime ministers, usually they're in the Liberal Party. So, the Liberal Party would be the equivalent, I think of- What have you guys got? You've got the Tories, are they the sort of leftists? Or are they the Conservatives?

The Tories are the right.

Tories are the right. Yeah. Okay. So, it would be the equivalent of the Tories.

Okay.

But yes, we have this interesting thing where in Australia I think the politicians are always trying to show how normal they are. Even if they have a background that is very sort of hoity toity and you know, they went to private schools and they travelled abroad and you know, I think, you know, went to Europe or whatever to study there at Oxford.

They tend to try and not emphasise that at all because the average Australian really doesn't like that or resonate with that at all. So, we kind of like normal human beings who end up leading and I get the feeling that in Great Britain that's, you know, you guys have a House of Lords, right, where you literally aren't elected.

If you're a Lord, you go into that House and you have a, you know, you've got quite a bit of power and you still have like the monarchy and everything there. So, it's still- That kind of class difference is very important, I feel, in British life and you know, like it's part of the culture. Again, I've never been there, so I don't know.

But from what I understand as someone who is of British heritage and obviously exposed to the culture quite a bit, it seems like that's a big thing. Whereas in Australia we have something called tall poppy syndrome where we really hate people tooting their own horns and trying to show that they're better than anyone else.

So, usually you'll have people like the Prime Minister of Australia, whoever they are, whether they're really well- What would you say?

Like they're really well educated and everything. They'll be constantly trying to show that they're normal, the way they speak, the way they dress, the photoshoots that they get done, you know, they'll be like, oh, here's me at the pub sinking a few tinnies with the mates, you know, tin cans of beer, just you know, I'm just an average Aussie bloke.

Whereas you know, you see Boris Johnson coming out of his house. Would you guys like some tea? Would you like some tea? Any tea for you guys? You know?

Yeah.

It's just a very different way of just behaving.

You know the Prime Minister that was- So, the Prime Minister that got the world record for sculling or downing the beers.

Bob Hawke. Yeah.

He learnt to do that. That was a post learnt talent like because "we need to make you seem a bit more normal..."

No. So, it sounds like he got that record- He got that record nearly 30 years before he was a Prime Minister, so. And he was the Labour leader. So, the Labour Party is like our leftists, they're the ones that are obviously concerned with like unions and the average Aussie battler and everything like the left in Britain I imagine.

So, they tend to be much more sort of, of the earth, you know, Aussies and just, you know, working class Australians who then got into politics and everything and they want to stand up for the average Australian. And Bob Hawke was their Prime Minister, he was on that side of it. So, he was much more, I think that kind of a guy where he obviously went through university and was a heavy drinker.

No. Sorry. Well, it sounds like a good idea. I mean, I think in England we are maybe a bit- Well, we're a bunch of hypocrites, really, because we quite like the idea that we want our politicians to seem down to earth and that kind of thing. But when they are down to earth, we just make fun of them. Or we say like, oh, they're just like us. They're normal. How can they run the country? They don't know what they're doing.

But, you know, so it's like we want two things at the same time. It doesn't really make sense.

Well, that always gets me here in Australia, too, because we're always complaining about politicians lying. But the way that the system is set up, it's almost like they can't ever be 100% honest because it ends up being this like if you ever admit fault, every politician on the opposing side will say that you're not fit for doing your job, right.

And in reality, it's not about whether or not you made a mistake. It's about whether or not you ever admit to making a mistake. And that's pretty much the death nail, right? Like if you stand up and say, you know what, I was wrong about this in the past and I screwed up. It's kind of like, okay, so when are you resigning?

You know, like, and, but the leaders we end up with are just constant liars who make mistakes but just never admit to them because they can save face and then stay in power. And I think it's the same with Boris Johnson, you know, like the recent controversy he's had with his parties during COVID and everything.

And I mean, you know, oh, I was only there for 10 minutes having one cup of tea and then I left, you know, it was everyone else's fault, but not mine. And you're kind of like, well, dude. Like, come on.

Yeah, it's mad. It's mad. Normally- Well, I think for me, it's the first time that I've seen a politician in the UK sort of lie so blatantly. Normally they they would lie, resign and then they take like a two-year sabbatical and then they are kind of recycled back into the system. You know, in some way, like they always come back, so.

But this time he's just like, no, no, it didn't happen. No. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you caught me. I'm sorry you had to see that or something, right? But.

Yeah. I'm not sorry for doing the wrong thing. I'm sorry you're upset. Yeah, I think Trump- When Donald Trump became president in the US and it became incredibly obvious that the more you lied, the more airtime you got, and that there was effectively no repercussions. Right? There was no downside for just lying through your teeth about everything. That's when I feel like it reached Australia.

It obviously reached Great Britain; it reached Brazil. Their president is, you know, Bolsonaro. He has said openly that he thinks Trump's a great guy and loves the way that he does politics and is copying what, you know, his rhetoric. And so, I think it was just weird, right, where you had Hillary Clinton running against Donald Trump and she was much more of that old school, you know, still lied.

But would kind of- I feel like she's the kind of person that would fall on her sword if she was caught in a lie, whereas Donald Trump would just keep saying, no, it's just not true. You're wrong. I'm the greatest, you know. It's like clearly you are not the great- No, but I am. You know, like you're just not- I've got alternative facts, you know?

Yeah, exactly. I think you see- He is quite impressive in the way that, like, he can make you believe what he's saying is true. Just because he's so confident in his own remarks or his own comments. Sometimes I'm watching it and I'm like, maybe it is fake news. You know, you kind of get caught up in it. Like, how can- He's so believable. Like, he seems so sure of his opinion...

Do you guys have the expression in Great Britain "a bullshit artist"?

I think so, yeah. I haven't heard it for a while but, yeah, bullshit artist...

We use that for someone who's really good at spinning a lie. Right. Who's full of shit all the time. But they're really good at lying and being full of shit. So, you know, you would if you went to a pub and there's some guy standing there and he's like, oh yeah, I've got a Ferrari at home because I worked really hard and I got all this money. And the guy next to him is like, this guy's so full of shit. Like, he does not have a Ferrari.

He'd be like, this guy is a bullshit artist, you know? Don't fall for it.

It's a good one. Well, talking about down the pub, another one I had here, which I didn't see when I was in Australia, but you know, I was only there for six days or something. So, the other question was like, how much bagged wine do you drink?

Goon.

Is that a thing?

Goon. Yeah.

Are you on the bagged wine?

Ah, not personally.

Is it a thing? Like, because, you know, Australia is renowned for wine. So, I thought bagged wine would be more like you might see kids in the park in England doing that because, you know, it's so expensive...

100%.

In Australia, is it a thing?

It's a thing that I think, and again I could get myself in a bit of trouble here. But when I was growing up it was the kind of thing that you did as soon as you turned 18. So, you would be kids in a park who wanted to get pissed off stuff that tasted relatively okay and was palatable but was cheap and you can get a lot of it. And I think cask wine or goon, it's like four litres of wine for maybe 20 bucks.

So, you know, and it's 17% alcohol as opposed to say like a beer or something where a six pack would be, I don't know, 5%-6% alcohol and $20. So, I think that used to be the sort of trope, it would be anyone drinking out of a goon bag, especially like at a party or out in public in particular. It would be they're just trying to get pissed, they just want to get drunk.

And it tended to be very, very cheap, horrible wine. So, I remember one of my friends raged up once, got really angry because they asked me when I was going to a party to get some goon for them. And I think, I can't remember what they wanted, but I ended up getting the dry red wine and they were just like, what the fuck did you buy? This is the worst of the worst kind. The dry red wine goon version of it. Why would you buy this for me?

And I was like, mate, I don't drink wine. I don't know.

Yeah. God, that must be really- Yeah, it's hard to drink dry red wine now. But...

Yeah. But we have a thing here. We have a really funny thing that you would sort of do as a joke at parties sometimes. And it's one of those things, if you're a bit more, I don't know, culturally lower-class, right? So, if you're a bit more of the Aussie bloke or Aussie girl type, that's a little bit more bogan and has a lot of friends that are kind of a bit more bogan.

Again, I'm not trying to pass judgement because I've done this in the past. You'll have get-togethers usually in your twenties, you know, parties where people come over in their backyard, there's a barbecue going, and we have these clotheslines in Australia called the hills hoist.

I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but they're like a clothesline that's got a cross on the top and it kind of rotates around so you can stand in one spot and put clothes up on the wires and rotate it. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like an umbrella that you can, you know, you erect, and you can put on clothes on in a sort of square shape and you rotate it around so you don't have to move.

What'll happen is people will tie goon bags to the ends of the poles on a hills hoist clothesline at a party, usually after they're already drunk.

And it's kind of like- It's sort of like a weird game of drinking musical chairs where there'll be music playing or something and they stop it and someone has to spin the hills hoist clothesline and whoever the goon bag stops in front of, they have to drink out of the goon bag and then they spin it. And so, it's this kind of common cliche drinking game.

...If you've got one with, you know, like if you had some better than others, like if you brought the dry red wine and then you had like a slightly better, you know, sweeter one or something. Could be quite cool going around. Wow, that's quite good. Yeah, I like it.

I think the expectation is, though, that it's going to be horrible one way or another.

That's not really the objective, is it? You're not- You don't bring cheese with you, do you... (Inaudible)

Maybe the home brand cheese from the local supermarket. Yeah.

We normally did it with like cider. So, when we were sort of 16 to 18 and well, normally after that you find a bit of money somewhere. So, you don't have to drink in the park anymore. But for those three years it was normally 40 litres of cider, that Strongbow. I don't know if you have Strongbow in Australia. So, that was like the stuff you could get your hands on.

For some reason, I don't know why, it was quite easy to buy cider, so now I don't drink cider at all. It's just like the worst thing I could think of apart from planes and snakes.

That's the third one. Is it on the list?

Yeah. It's a bad idea. Yeah, if I'm drinking cider and a snake pops out. God.

On a plane. Yeah.

On a plane. Yeah. 40 litre bottle of cider.

Jesus. That's huge. 40 litres.

Yeah. I feel like- No, wait.

That'd be like a keg.

It's not 40 litres, is it? It's not. I should double check that.

But we- It was interesting. I think I remember when I went to university, so this would have been- I went to uni, I started going to uni in 2006. I think it would have been by like 2009-ish that cider started becoming a thing where everyone was drinking- Is it Rekorderlig? Is that the brand, the Swedish cider? I vaguely remember it being something like Rekorderlig.

Yeah. Kopparberg as well...

Yeah. These were all these flavoured ciders, right. And so, I remember I could never handle beer. It was always way too bitter for me. I didn't like it when I was younger, but I started drinking cider in my twenties, probably 23, 24, because I didn't drink before that. I only started when I was in my mid-twenties and quickly went from the sweet ciders to the sort of normal ciders to the dry ciders, and then slowly got away from the sweet tasting.

All ciders tasted sweet to me by that point, and that's when I started getting into the kind of lighter beers. And then just it was a snowball all the way down to Guinness, the dark beers. And it's...

A gateway drug for you, then...

100%. 100% it was. And it was the same for coffee. I never drank coffee until I was at university. And then I had- My friends were always getting them. So, I was out, and I'd be like, alright, I'll get a hot chocolate. And they'd just be like, oh, Pete, Jesus Christ. Just get a coffee, you weirdo.

So, I ended up getting a mocha, which is a cappuccino with chocolate effectively in the actual coffee, not just on the top. And then pretty quickly, you know, I'd have a mocha with two sugars and be like, yeah, I can handle the coffee. And then I'd have no sugars. And then eventually I was like, well, I'm just going to get a cappuccino and put three sugars in that.

And now I'm just like, give me a capp, no sugar, you know, like just ugh. So, it is funny how- I don't know if it's like an age thing too. The older you get, like once you get into your twenties and start, you know, rolling closer to your thirties, you kind of move away from sweet beverages and your kind of like, I just can't smash, you know, like a bottle of coke. But I could have Diet Coke.

I just can't handle the really, really, really sweet taste of these things. It's just too brutal.

That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm on- Well, just turned 31 now. I'm on the dark chocolate now, the 80% cocoa, whatever it is. I can't- Yeah, I can't- This is the craziest shit that happened to my life. So, I don't have milk anymore, you know, the typical dairy milk or whatever you would. Not for me.

You're an animal. You're an animal, mate. I'm the same. Dark chocolate all the way. I can't handle...

I know. I didn't want to say that on the pod. But it came out. Yeah. I've just recently got into as well- Like, I used to hate it for years, like, and I couldn't understand other people as well. I was like, this is mad, but I like the craft beers now. Like, I'm really into craft beer.

Oh man.

I used to go to craft beer places, and I would say to people like, excuse me, what's the normal beer you have here? Like, I want the normal one and they just look at you like you're an idiot.

But now, so- I don't know what happened, but like now I can't drink normal beer. Well, I can, but I just prefer to drink the- Like, drinking mead or something.

Yeah.

IPA, I should say that it isn't just Spanish.

It's the same for me, dude. It's the same for me. I went down that hole as well where I started just getting more and more interested in...

...Each thing.

I think it's just a- It's probably like a middle-aged man thing where you suddenly start getting into a certain niche and you kind of want to explore the different areas of it. You know, where there's a meme that keeps going around online that I keep seeing on Facebook and it's like got four different images. I can't remember all four of them. But it's like a guy mowing his lawn and taking care of his garden.

Then there's someone, you know, with all these different beers and there's a guy with a barbecue. And then I think there's a guy with a car and a boat, and it's like once you get to 30, your man will pick one of these and use it to define his personality or his identity. And it's so funny because literally every single bloke I know falls into one or more of those categories. Right? Usually, one of them.

Like there's a guy up the road here...

Yeah.

...Whose front lawn looks like a golf green and he's literally out there every day smoking a fag, having a cigarette on the front lawn, just staring at it and, you know, thinking about what he has to do next. Right. Like have I got to mow it a millimetre this week? Have I got to put down some clay? Have I got to put down some gypsum? And then the next-door neighbour next to him is just obsessed with barbecues.

So. And they're all like 35-36.

Sounds like a nice cul-de-sac, you know?

Yeah, that's it. But it...

It could all come together. Yeah.

I wonder what the equivalent would be for women? Like, because I'm sure that there's some sort of equivalent. It's just something I've never thought about prior to this. But there must be a thing where women, they get past a certain age and there are these common clichés with like, you know, either you get into, I don't know. What would you call it?

Like those women who dress really trendy, kind of- Just the fashion sort of women that love wearing different kinds of fashion and have, you know, crazy different hats all the time. And they put a lot of effort into how they look, even if they're staying at home, taking care of the kids. And then there are other women who are like, no, I'm in a tracksuit for the rest of my life, you know? And to be fair, I'm that kind of a woman right now.

It's just tracksuits every day. But...

Yeah, I mean, yeah. After the pandemic, I just, I haven't picked up anything that's not- Well, it's comfy in some related way. You know, I wouldn't wear jeans anymore, for example, but it's just- Well, you can't go back once you've been in a tracksuit for one year.

It's so true. Oh, man, it's so true. It's so true. I've been- Ever since I had kids, I was just, like, changing all the time because they spill shit on me. I get puked on, I get pooped on, I get, like, food on me all the time and I'm just like, I'm not wearing anything nice anymore. Like, it's just too- It's going to take a few years before I trust my children to- For me to wear anything that I didn't buy at Kmart or Target.

That's just me, basically with myself. I just- If I buy something really nice, like the other day, I bought a new stripy T-shirt. It wasn't that nice. It was about €10. So, it's not exactly splashing the cash. But for me it was.

That's about $100 Australian.

Yeah, it was- Yeah. But I spilt yoghurt on it and I was very disappointed in myself and I tried getting it out, you know, scrubbing it out with various bleaches and stuff, but. So, that's why I thought, you know, that's why I don't wear nice clothes because I can't trust myself anymore, you know, so. And I don't need to impress anyone.

But actually, well, you know when you're talking about Australian dollars. Your money, is it very colourful...?

Yes.

...It's very colourful. What, is that just like to help you not lose it or?

Yeah, that's it.

You've had too many schooners or too many coon bags or whatever they're called.

Oh, geez. Don't drop the C-word. It's the G-word. Goon. Goon. Yeah. No, it's- I remember going to America and just being like, what the fuck? All the money looks exactly the same, you just have to look for the number. Like, I don't recognise the president heads on the different notes. And it turns out like the only way that I think they differ at least back then because they're all paper money too is the length of the notes.

So, the hundred will be the longest and then they get progressively shorter. But they were all the white/green colour, and I was always like, this is just so difficult to quickly flip through my wallet, to look at the money that I've got and know what I need to bring out.

And the other thing that always pissed me off about being in America was that they never included the tax in the prices that you would see on, say, the board at McDonald's or something. So, you would think, okay, a burger is $2.50, I'll get the $2.50 out. And then you go up there and they're like, sorry, sir, that's $2.75. And you're like, what the fuck?

But I just spent the last 2 minutes trying to work out which note to use and which coins and everything. And now I have to go fish through all these other ones. But yeah, so we invented apparently in Australia the polymer that is used in banknotes. I think it's now New Zealand, I think Canada, I think there are some Southeast Asian countries that use it as well.

So, we've like patented that, and we obviously get a commission every time a banknotes made overseas from that polymer. But we made that polymer that allowed us to move away from paper money and I think it was the nineties, and so- But even then it was coloured. So, we had like the, at the moment it's sort of like a purply colour for the $5, a blue for the $10, a red for the $20, a yellow for the $50 and then a green for the $100.

And yeah, they're polymer notes so you can't light them on fire, you can't rip them. You can still snort cocaine with them, but that's about it. Apart from paying for things to.

Yeah. I think we have them now in the UK when I went back there in February, I think the £5 notes and the £10, they're like plastic now or, you know, they're not paper anymore or- Some of them had people complaining.

I think they're more durable. So, they last a lot longer, too. They don't get torn or anything like that, so.

It's just the worst when you have to pay with a half torn £5 note and the cashier's like, I can't accept this. And you're like, no, it's fine, honestly. Give it to me or whatever.

I always wondered if you could, like, tear a note in a certain way so that you tore it in half and you could both use that money, so you've effectively doubled your money. But I think there's probably rules. But yeah, I remember having the paper notes and sometimes they'd be like sticky taped because they'd almost been torn through or something, and you'd be like, yeah. It was a crazy time back then with the paper notes and everything.

I've had that a few times in some other countries, I think it was Peru and Colombia where they would have like coloured notes, but it wasn't- Well, they had like sort of shades of different colours. So, like I remember the, I think it was 1,000 pesos and then they had the 10,000 pesos and they were both different shades of red.

So, you always- Well, in my case, kind of always spending more because they would like give you change and I don't know, some people would maybe assume that I was tipping them or maybe they just took advantage of my stupidity. But, you know, you had to be quite careful sometimes. I think England's not that bad, but it's also pretty similar in shades.

But then there are different sizes, the £5 notes a lot smaller than the £10, for example, and the £20. So...

I wonder what's like...

...Your currency, you know a lot more. Like, it's easier.

Yeah. I wonder what it's like though, for people who are blind. There must be certain aspects to the notes, too, that allow them to differentiate quickly between the different notes, even if they can't see them. And colours, obviously just one thing, but.

Alrighty, guys. So, that was part one of a two-part series where I'll be chatting with Chris in the next episode in the next coming week. So, keep an eye out for that. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the podcast once again, mate, it was an absolute pleasure chatting with you and I hope to have you on the podcast again in the future.

And guys, be sure to check out Chris Delapp at "Instant English" on all of the different platforms. Okay, you'll find him on TikTok, Instagram, bilibili, youtube, facebook, everything. So, go check him out. Anyway, see you guys' next week.