BBC - Around the World - Ariel's 'Foreign Bureau' - 21 December 2004

By Louisa Bayles, Sales Manager Australasia, BBC Worldwide,

21 December 2004

When people find out I work for the BBC, based in Australia, a frequent response is: "That’s incredible! How did you get transferred? And how do I get a job there?"

I sell programmes to New Zealand, looking after the children’s TV business and new media areas as part of a team of around 40 in Sydney involved in licensing, distributing and marketing TV, books, TV channels, DVDs and other BBC product throughout Australasia and Asia.

My four years in Sydney have included a year living by the beach in both Manly and Bondi. The view and the ferry commuting to work make the current high-rise harbour side experience at Darling Point just as special.

On a good day the water is Caribbean blue. Gliding past the Opera House and Fort Dennison with the Harbour Bridge ahead, fellow regulars smile; one of the signs of becoming a local is that you actually know people in random places. A quick stroll over the bridge and it’s ready for work at Worldwide HQ in North Sydney.

The TV team is on the 11th floor at the Berry St site. Generally the first task is clearing e-mails, as London has finished the day and New Zealand has a two-hour head start.

The time difference is tricky to manage. If we haven’t heard from London in the morning there is little you can do until 24 hours later – and you have to call NZ before 3pm or the phones ring out.

This week follows the fabulous Doctor Who-themed BBC client Christmas party. Two hundred clients, press and staff packed out a downtown nightclub, raced Daleks and danced to KLF and the Timelords’ Doctor Who.

Pubs and clubs don’t close the way they do in London. But Sydney’s many 24-hour licensed venues call for a degree of self-control, and an inbuilt homing pigeon for the uninitiated.

Christmas for many in Sydney is prawns, salad and anything cold – it’s a chance to visit the city’s fish markets, queuing from dawn to secure the most succulent.

On Christmas Day the city beaches are usually filled with foreigners as everyone who has a family goes home to them.

But Christmas for me has followed a similar pattern for the last three years. Christmas Eve is the Orphans’ Party, at which between 15 and 25 expatriate Brits, many like myself in ‘mixed marriages’, celebrate a true Pommy Xmas.

This used to be a highly civilised sit-down affair around a traditional Christmas table (finest crystal and china) but has evolved (Aussie style) to a full blown party with raucous dancing and karaoke style party games.

On Christmas Day we drive to the childhood home of my recently acquired Australian husband in the Hunter Valley where my mother-in-law Betty presides over a family get together including six grandchildren.

Much turkey (cold), ham and other Christmas fare is devoured, and it’s rather like the UK except that calls for a brisk walk are heartily ignored – no one wants to venture out in the 40 degree heat.