Antipodean Views of a Global Metropolis: Australians and South Africans in Contemporary London

Abstract

Pew Australians, New Zealanders, or South Africans living in the UK have managed to avoid the patronising put -downs or crude stereotypes that Britons gleefully trundle out when they hear the foreign accent. For Australians living in the UK, Barry McKenzie has cast a long shadow. 'We would be the first to admit that we enjoy a drink. And we love nothing more than to give the Poms a hard time, usually in a jovial manner over a pint or two', noted the editor of the expatriate Australian journal TNTin I987, 'But to assume that the traveller from Down Under is simply a Paul Hogan clone or, at worst, a reincarnation ofBazza McKenzie is a gross disservice to our readers'. I Others, of course, have been more than happy to live up to Bazza's beery legacy.