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A British tourist criticized Australia, where he spent three weeks over Christmas, for being “too nice to live in” and for its “trivial drawbacks”.
Journalist Jack Kessler also complained that in London his appearance marks him as ‘a solid seven’, but in Australia, where ‘everyone is beach-ready’, he only had a five.
Australians, in turn, criticized his views on coffee, flip flops and pale skin.
Furious commenters on Facebook even told Kessler that he was “not a seven in any continent or time zone.”
Jack Kessler (pictured) complained that in London his appearance marks him as a ‘solid seven’, but in Australia, where he considers ‘everyone is beach ready’, he only had a five.
Mr. Kessler’s article in London freesheet the evening standard began positively, saying that after a few days in Sydney she could imagine living there.
But his next sentence was ‘stay a while longer and you’ll soon realize you barely get it’.
He paid a backhanded compliment by saying his The first week in Australia was ‘a world of prelapsarian (innocent) delights.
“A time machine going back, if not to the womb, then maybe to the mid-’90s, just with Uber.”
Kessler then wrote a series of clichés and exaggerations about the food Australians like (aioli is the condiment of choice), their clothing (shorts are ‘standard dress for men’) and how they love to swear ( the C word is ‘a term of endearment,’ he reckons).
He said that after a week of living on Sydney’s ‘bourgeois eastern shores, with its harbor views and sea breezes’, he felt so local that he, too, could only ‘pity those who live in the sweltering western suburbs’. .
Jack Kessler complained that the handsome residents of Sydney’s eastern suburbs made him feel less attractive. In the photo, people at Bondi Beach.
Kessler’s article in the Evening Standard, a free London publication, said that he was “in reasonable shape for London.”
But he soon became annoyed with “the kind of trivial inconveniences that residents put up with but are often overlooked by tourists.”
Kessler said he liked the coffee from Australia, “but try to get one after 3:30pm.” He later complained that his thongs were giving him blisters.
And then there was a moment of supreme weirdness, where he said that “it started to feel weird living in a country that didn’t have an independent nuclear deterrent.”
This was the last straw for some commentators and brought out one of the Australian traits that Kessler neglected to mention and exaggerated: sarcasm.
“I am often paralyzed by the anxiety of not having an independent nuclear deterrent and rarely survive to the end of the week,” wrote one.
Commenters on Facebook soon told Kessler that he was not a seven on any continent or time zone.
“I often judge my vacation destinations by their independent nuclear deterrence offerings, to be honest,” said another.
Some posters took issue with both Kessler’s coffee and nuclear comments.
“A pale Englishman stays in Sydney’s more expensive seaside suburbs and develops an insecurity complex, possibly caused by no coffee after 3pm and fear of one-sided nuclear war,” one wrote.
Even some of his fellow Londoners disagreed with him, with one saying: “I moved from London to South Australia in 2007 and it was the best thing I’ve ever had.”
‘The lifestyle options here are fantastic and my health has improved dramatically. I have never returned to the UK and have no plans to.’
Kessler said that while he liked coffee in Australia, he couldn’t “get one after 3:30pm.” In the photo, a cappuccino.
Kessler’s haste to judge struck a raw never with many, especially the poster he wrote: ‘A guy who says he was “living” in a country when he was there for 3 weeks, is the kind of guy who says he “traveled from backpacking” around Asia after hotel hopping from Tokyo to Seoul.
‘I don’t trust those kinds of people.’
Perhaps the most insightful and sarcastic commenter was the one who wrote: “The fresh, clean, pleasant air, ocean views and sandy beaches were no match for the darkness or thick air of the London Underground.”
After noting that “Australia’s GDP per capita is 30 per cent higher than the UK”, Kessler ended his article with another backhanded compliment, writing that “My theory is that the country is too nice to live in.”
‘Australians are suffering from the lesser-detected high-income trap.’
The commenter who wrote that ‘it doesn’t seem like you’d be happy anywhere’ summed up how many felt.