OZ +5: The Perfect Blend...

I haven't watched Neighbours since I was a student and everyone watched it.

Charlene, Scott, Clive Gibbons in his garish shorts leaping out of his Ute to perform an emergency tracheotomy on Lucy Robinson on the kitchen table with a bread knife lest she die of a bee sting.

Even when I did watch it, it was always the same episode. Helen Daniels had had a stroke and Jim Robinson was pacing up and down a hospital corridor wondering if she would be all right. Or Jim Robinson had had a heart attack and Helen Daniels was pacing up and down a hospital corridor wondering if he would be all right. Only not very fast, on account of her stroke.

Now it's got jazzed up theme music and widescreen titles. There are really no old people in it anymore, just Hollyoaks-style teenagers. It's not even on BBC1 and Bouncer, alas, has bounced his last.

And of course, no-one to speak of really watches it. Not least in Australia, where they never really did anyway.

But it carries on relentlessly and it's Christmas...



All the houses on Pin Oak Court...



...in Vermont South have the sort of naff blow-mould santas and snowmen and reindeer in their front gardens. They get paid a lot of money for their houses to be (ab)used in this way. They even have a security guard on duty 24 hours a day paid for by the TV company...



So many of them have made so much money that they don't actually live in the houses anymore, just rent them out and relax on their private beaches somewhere.

The Alistair Mc Gowan look-a-like guide gives you the run down of who lived and died where and you can grab the sign and have your photo taken with it.



Then it's round the corner to Lassiters...



...which looks so crap in real life! And to Lou and Harold's general store, which I'm pretty sure used to be Daphne's Coffee Shop.

Erinsborough High is just around the corner. The guide turns it in to Erinsborough High by the simple addition of a sign which he hangs on the railings...



And then you get to see Janelle in a meet'n'greet...



Janelle Timmins? You know...? Her? (Nope, means nothing to me either...) Anyhow, she happily signs autographs on her Sunday morning and chats about her happy, happy times on the show. I guess it's either that or Panto. And it's not really Christmas. Only in Erinsborough.

(Note: they do tell you that "Erinsborough" was so named because it's an anagram of "Neighbours" without the extra O and R. Which is a bit like saying "good" is an anagram of "crap", but with different letters.)