There’s something enchanting about the North Shore, a place more English than England, something so white and pure it would sell for records at an auction for ivory (though something as dull as the North Shore should be more illegal than ivory). I have good word (from someone who does PR for the whaling industry) that Central Queensland is more ethnically diverse than Sydney’s North Shore. Though someone ought to have told Pauline Hanson that London is what you get when you mix Lakemba with Lane Cove (and Wahroonga might’ve been a better place to purchase than Westminster).
Mind you, if I had somehow ever found the money and Blue blood a way to live and go to school on the North Shore (getting into North Sydney Boys High School doesn’t count, although maybe being a Haemophiliac does...), and if I thus turned into a true SHEmale, I probably wouldn’t be writing as something as vulgar as this blog (NB: if you think that turning into a SHEmale involves a sex change, then you are disowned as a friend of this blog. But from what I hear about rowing teams and Apple [in the] Chapel, you might actually be closer to the truth). However, a recent guided tour of the North Shore made me slightly ever more thankful that my dear parents blew what savings they had in the nineties on overseas holidays rather than classier real estate. Whereas money makes the Eastern Suburbs posh, obnoxious and extravagant (a place where women at Bondi Junction scream at Citryrail staff for not holding the train for them “because I’m not Asian!”), money somehow makes the North Shore really pretty but just a little dull.
On the North Shore, there is nice park
On the North Shore, houses have names
On the North Shore, there are hedges
On the North Shore, this was the only car that wasn't German-made
On the North Shore, people live behind gates.
On the North Shore, Blake Dawson Waldron got this car for his 16th birthday
Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed paying $29 for my fish and chips at the Coonanbarra cafe, where unlike other cafes, you actually have an excuse to use the salt and pepper on your table.
Come to think of it, I settled in so well that I too was convinced that I was a Chinese language assistant at Knox and Abbotsleigh (rather than just some guy who dressed up like one so they wouldn’t suspect I was from Epping or that I was at least from Chatswood). Indeed, whenever I saw anyone that was remotely of colour, I asked my local but ethnic tour guide if they were related. However, I never managed to stop feeling guilty for being served, rather than the one actually doing the serving (never did I forget that I had more in common with the Asian waiters rather than my fellow diners), but amazingly, at no point did any one hand me an apron or feather-duster. I so would have fit in at Knox.
On the North Shore, people eat at this cafe
Come to think of it, I settled in so well that I too was convinced that I was a Chinese language assistant at Knox and Abbotsleigh (rather than just some guy who dressed up like one so they wouldn’t suspect I was from Epping or that I was at least from Chatswood). Indeed, whenever I saw anyone that was remotely of colour, I asked my local but ethnic tour guide if they were related. However, I never managed to stop feeling guilty for being served, rather than the one actually doing the serving (never did I forget that I had more in common with the Asian waiters rather than my fellow diners), but amazingly, at no point did any one hand me an apron or feather-duster. I so would have fit in at Knox.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, not growing up on the North Shore meant that when I walked into this shop, I actually knew how offensive this display was of not just one, but an entire colony of Golliwog dolls (I’m assuming Enid Blyton intended it to be colony rather than herd, flock or gaggle, now that would just be mean). I guess they weren’t expecting Oprah or anyone of ‘that sort’ in this shop anytime soon.
On the North Shore, would you like flowers with that?
The problem, though, wasn’t that I didn’t support the rights of persons to buy childhood toys. I’m all for buying dolls (hell, I have one of Hannah Spearritt of S Club 7 that I won as the major prize when I was thirteen, they wouldn’t let me swap it for the minor prize of their new album). However, my personal tour guide – a North Shore native who constantly bemoans the lack of appropriate make up for dark-skinned women in Australia - couldn’t understand why I found the Golliwog dolls so offensive.
Yes, readers – people with dark skin that grew up on the North Shore don’t know that Golliwog dolls are offensive to them.
It’s enough to make you want to start up an NGO.
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