I HAVEN’T been back to Cronulla for 10 years. I lived here while on a working holiday, which was my attempt to clean up my act by leaving England. And coming to Australia! A-HA-HA-HA!
Anyway, not much has changed, other than Paddy’s Bar – at which I had to tolerate The Cranberries on repeat and dodge eight-year-old Irish dancers trundling across the dance-floor, all while bearing an armful of steak plates – now reborn as JD’s Bar and Grill.
Oh, fun fact: the lowly waitstaff of Paddy’s Bar were continuously monitored and grilled about money that kept wafting off from the till, resulting in an environment of heightened paranoia and unpleasantness. The mystery was solved one morning when I turned up to work and discovered that Paddy himself had fleeced the entire joint, right down to the kegs, cutlery and pats of butter, doing a diddly on his business partner.
I give that fine establishment a miss and head to the beach for a modern-day reenactment of Puberty Blues. This iconic Oz novel and film was co-written by Kathy Lette, pre-churning out chuckles days. In essence, a pair of dispirited teenage girls, back in the late ’70s, waste away summer days by gawking at surfers and minding their Chiko Rolls as they zip around arrogantly on the waves. My puberty, by contrast, was spent pining after a sulky lifeguard at Slough Swimming Baths, dodging floaters and perverts in goggles.
Keeper? Will think about what book to recreate next. I’m wearing hot pants in Debbie and Sue’s honour, by the way.
Hey man, now you're really living 
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