Before leaving for Sydney, I was assured that, as a sedate Briton, I would find it too noisy, brash and Americanised. The rivalry between the two cities is strong and the only point on which they are prepared to agree is that Adelaide is a graveyard.
The taxi-drivers of Sydney are a colourful and independent breed. The colour comes out in their language, which is the worst I have heard since my schooldays, and the independence shows in their attitude to their fares. The taxi driver insists on a man-to-man relationship, which is very generous of him since as a Sydneysider he knows himself your superior. To adapt an old saying: "You don't ask a man if he's from Sydney. If he is, he'll tell you, and if he's not - why embarrass him?"
Cities have their characteristic noises; in Bangkok it is the blaring of motor horns; in Sydney the howling of tortured tyres and brakes. This may be partly due to Australia's "give way to the right" rule. At a road-junction, or crossroads not controlled by signals, drivers must give way to traffic on their right. There is no distinction as such between major and minor roads; a car travelling at 50 m.p.h. along a main highway must expect to see vehicles come shooting out in front of him from obscure side-turnings on his right. In practice, few drivers are stupid enough to believe that drivers on the main highway will accord them their legal right of way. At crossroads, if vehicles have arrived simultaneously from the four directions, a position of stalemate is created, since each driver has traffic to his right and no-one can move.
There are enough exceptions and complications resulting from the prior rights of traffic on dual highways (unless intersected by a dual highway), to ensure that few drivers really understand the rule, and to help account for Australia's road toll which is relatively the second highest in the world, with over 3,000 deaths annually. This is some three thousand times more than the deaths due to sharks, but the sharks score heavily in terms of publicity. An alleged shark, allegedly taking dead fish from a skin-diver's float warrants space in Australia's only national daily paper.
The highlight of my stay in Sydney was a visit to a club which, at low cost provides its members with first-class facilities in spacious, wall-appointed premises, together with good food - all financed from the profits of dozens of Poker Machines, ranged round a large assembly room. There was strong opposition to these "one-armed bandits" from sections of the Churches and other groups, who consider them demoralising and responsible for much hardship and unhappiness. The stock reply to this is that nobody is under any compulsion to play the machines; members may make full use of the club facilities without ever putting in a single coin. Those who do are thus voluntarily subsidising poorer members. This, say the abolitionists, ignores the fact that gambling exerts an unwholesome fascination over many reasonably normal people, and that human beings were not designed to be unduly exposed to temptation.
For over two hours, I was part of a syndicate of four, taking turns to operate one machine. This system slows down the rate at which money can be lost and also averages out the luck, to some extent.
All types of "pull" were used on the machine, and for variety, one of our consortium would cover up the dials with his hand and operate blind, so that each time the dials had come to rest, there was a tense pause to find out if the music of coins shooting into the cup would be heard, or merely the final click announcing that another twenty-cent coin had gone for ever. Left-handed pulls were tried, violent snatches, imperceptibly slow pulls, a left-handed push action from an operator who had climbed behind the machine - anything in an attempt to fool it. All knew well that the machines could not lose, but here I saw in action the Australian "battler", whose philosophy it is that you cannot win, but you must keep on battling. A jackpot enabled our syndicate to finish operations without serious loss, but then one of the party wandered off to try his luck alone, and within an hour returned disconsolate having lost more than ten dollars.
Despite the forecast of my Melbourne friend, I found Sydney stimulating and enjoyed my few days there, partly no doubt, because I was taken around by a widely travelled Sydney man who communicated much of his own enthusiasm for the city.
Sydney has an abundance of small bays where sailing boats ride gently at anchor, tempting large numbers of art students to their artistic doom. It was interesting to walk past the painters and to look at their efforts, and it would have been a useful exercise for the artists themselves. Perhaps, in later life they would overcome the handicap, but on the evidence of their paintings, all had been ruined by over-exposure at an impressionable age, to the Impressionists. Other student groups on the grass bordering Rushcutters Bay, were strumming stringed instruments, and singing folk songs pleasantly.
At the cinema of Sydney University, I saw the Soviet film of "Hamlet". The soundtrack was in Russian of course, but English sub-titles gave Shakespeare's words. As the ghost of Hamlet's father was taking his leave, to the sub-titled words:
"Remember me!" - a cryptic message was superimposed on the screen, reading: "Will Miss Seisgy please go to the foyer." The laugh which this provoked somewhat destroyed the dramatic intensity of the scene but made it a Hamlet to remember.