The Good Oil: Living in Australia as an Expat

We don’t have a TV. We had one in the UK, but heard rumours that not all UK TVs work over here, so we sold it in the UK when we moved here in 2002. We didn’t buy a new one here because our UK expat friends tell us that Aussie TV is – to put it politely – not worth watching. Also it’s nice not having a TV – gives you time for chatting and reading. And blogging, of course.

(It also gives you a great excuse when the Foxtel door-to-door mob come a-calling. “Why don’t you want to have Foxtel?” “We don’t have a TV”. “Oh…”)

Weirdos

Interestingly, when we tell people we don’t have a TV, their first reaction is, “Woah, weird!”, closely followed by, “No, good on you – you’re not missing much…”

When we go on trips, though, we love watching the TV in our motel/B&B room. It’s a real treat. We do mostly watch ABC and SBS though – everything else seems absolute tosh. (We did get strangely addicted to Channel 7’s Border Security on our last couple of trips, but it’s still tosh.) (more…)