If I Lived In Sutherland Shire I Would Leave

If I lived in Sutherland Shire I would leave.

It’s not that I don’t like white sliced bread, the sound of surf or The Shire television show, it’s just that I wouldn’t want to live in a place that was so precious about itself. All that fuss. Where’s the sense of humour? Anybody would think the area south of Tom Uglys bridge was a sacred site dedicated to mayor Provan’s good taste.

So Channel 10’s ‘‘dramality’’ is silly. But so are many 19 year olds. And so are many television shows not based in the shire.

So rich people living on those Sylvania Waters canals serve tea in designer crockery and let their kids host mega parties.

So inarticulate young blokes talk about girls, sex and surfing, and young women spend all their own or their parents’ money on keeping themselves marketable. Or turning themselves into strange art forms, as in the case of the two tanned girls, Sophie and Vernesa.

While I laughed at the silliness, I would have called the show satire rather than comedy because at some level it says something about affluence — something the shire prides itself on. It also says something about shallowness, which tends to be a by-product of the affluent life. And how do shire people want to be portrayed? As PhD-wearing nerds and bluestockings?

Of course, the show would be much more interesting if it were about tanned, botoxed and surgically rearranged older women. Having played nice and tasteful for so many decades they would know where the bodies are buried: who did what to whom since they started upgrading those modest fibros and post war red brickers into designer palaces and charging millions for real estate.

And what about tanned and buffed older men? Beckaa’s dad is sure to have a good story to tell.

If I didn’t already live there I’d move to the Inner West, under the flight path.

People don’t seem so insular here. And you get to eat good bread.

I’ve heard you can’t get sourdough in the shire. The council probably wouldn’t approve a DA for that sort of fancy bakery. Too alien.

What do they do on a Saturday morning when the more connected world is having bacon and avocado on toasted sourdough and spending a few happy hours with the newspapers?

I have also heard that people don’t read in the shire. Nope! It has been said that not a book or magazine is allowed to mess up most overly-designed ‘‘Cronulla style’’ houses.

Surrounded by all that ‘‘great outdoors’’ stuff that the shire wants to keep to itself, everyone must be surfing and playing with boats. Or resting on their laurels, congratulating themselves on the good luck of managing to buy in when a basic house was in a normal price range.

Lighten up. Get out more. The rest of the world doesn’t care that much. And no, I’m not jealous of the shire lifestyle.