I was thinking of doing a blog about how to speak Australian – you know the kind of thing: how it’s English but not quite as pommies know it, with a few examples of amusing differences and strange usages for us all to marvel at and laugh condescendingly.
But this is the kind of thing that just keeps growing the more you look into it – your classic rabbit hole. Every time there’s an interesting or different pronunciation or usage, it gets added to the ever-growing list – and the task becomes bigger and more prone to being put off. It’s like having a barn full of boxed treasures you’ve hoarded away and have no idea how to even begin getting to grips with – so you just add more. Then you’re on that reality show about hoarders – called ‘Hoarders’.
I was girding my laptop to have a go at the word hoard yesterday, and then the fates intervened by cutting all power to my shed – sorry, ‘studio’ – which seemed to erase the settings for some of the vital bits of IT gear in there, so way too much time and swearing was spent getting it all back and running right. That’s why there was no blog yesterday – so sorry to disappoint my reader.
This morning dawned bright and frosty, and I thought I’d have another go – and then this happened:
And I thought: hang on – let’s just focus on one word, which comes with a universe of unspoken connotations and a lexicon of subtle sub-meanings. That word is ‘Ute.’
For those possibly not in the know, a ute is a utility vehicle – what’s known where I come from as a bakkie, and in many other parts of the world as a pick-up. You’d be amazed at the huge variety of shapes and sizes of ute we get here. Like anywhere with lots of wide-open spaces, farms and sun-kissed leisure, a nice roomy vehicle with lots of power and a tough constitution is pretty much the order of the day.
The one in the pics belongs to a local bloke who installs air conditioners. It’s a ‘60s American Ford with a huge V8 engine and bags of power. When he started it up, it sounded like a Lancaster bomber taxiing for take-off.
As I student, I revelled in the cachet that came with having a ute. Well, I say ute, but it wasn’t really of the same species, let alone genus, of the V8 Ford. It was, in fact, a VW Golf pickup – what in the UK is called a Caddy. You could have parked it in the back of the Ford V8 and have room for a few sheep with attendant sheepdogs.
To say the man who sold me this conveyance saw me coming would be an understatement. He must have been rubbing his hands with glee and quoting PT Barnum all the way to the bank. It was a problematic vehicle. Later we found out that this mendacious individual had an active hobby racing Golfs at the local track, and I think all his clapped-out spares were cobbled together to create my bakkie.
To start with, the tailgate didn’t open – ever. It didn’t have the necessary handle to unlatch it. Moving forward, the sliding window at the back of the cab had been installed the wrong way around, so its latch was on the outside – which posed something of a security risk in that anyone could gain access at any time.
In the same vein, a few days after I got it home, the CV joints started making ominous knocking sounds – they had been packed with grease to disguise their dilapidated status. And when I took it for a drive on a dirt road one day, thousands of crumbs of smashed windscreen glass fell out of the bottoms of the doors – proof positive of a pretty significant crash sometime in its eventful history.
Being the only ute among many students, it was often pressed into duty moving furniture, boxes of books, theatrical props, and once a huge PA system for a political rally in a heaving African township. I wouldn’t have minded so much if those borrowing it didn’t expect its owner to share in the heavy lifting too. Seriously, when you’re trying to establish yourself as an effete intellectual, manual labour is just wrong.
Despite all this, it was a lively performer: it carried me from Cape Town to Pretoria, then Gaborone, and on to Bulawayo in various stages – as well as ferrying me safely home from the Albany District Pineapple Cricket Tournament one night when I would have blown a good high percentage if unfortunate enough to be breathalysed. It was indeed a simpler time.
And it was through a dangerous DUI incident that my blue bakkie met its demise – without me at the wheel. My stepbrother ‘borrowed’ it for a night out and crashed it at high speed while in an advanced liquorous state. Fortunately for him and his passenger, the structure was so riddled with rust that it crumpled like a paper bag, ejecting both occupants who walked away virtually unscratched.
There’s a moral to that story, which is obvious: don’t drink and drive. Not every car will be so forgiving. There’s another moral, which is don’t lend your car to your stepbrother – no good can possibly come of it. Just as you’d never beat another man’s dog, wrecking his ute is just terribly bad manners.
Anyway, here in Braidwood you see all varieties of ute, from strictly no-frills Hilux workhorses with wide cargo trays and big steel tool chests to luxurious air-conditioned Range Rovers whose fantastic 4×4 capabilities are never needed for more than the school run or perhaps towing a horsebox to a gymkhana. Now Elon Musk is threatening to produce an electric ute. Where will it end?
There’s so much more to be said about utes – of course there is: they’re fundamental to the Aussie way of life and the warp and weft of national consciousness. But for now, let’s leave it that I’m hoping there’s a ute in our future at Corner Cottage – I’d welcome any recommendations from those in the know. It’s not the kind of decision you should get wrong a second time.