BAPH
BAPH is an acronym used within the Stalinist-inspired bureaucracy of the Australian Broadcasting Commission when referring to ‘the rest of the country’, meaning anywhere situated beyond the outskirts of Melbourne and Sydney, and which stands for ‘Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart’—the capital cities of the other four states (Canberra and Darwin don’t even get a look-in).Within the ABC the BAPH gulag serves as both threat and punishment. Occasionally BAPH is exploited to provide leverage in the eternal struggle between Melbourne and Sydney for absolute dominance (the ABC program George Negus Tonight, for example, was moved to Adelaide to combat the perception of the ABC as being Sydney-centric, while bringing about the closure of the Melbourne production unit—a tactic referred to in military circles as ‘a scorched earth policy’).
South Australia’s role in all of this? It proudly supplies a much-needed vowel. [CG]
Bickford’s cordial
I drank a lot of cordial when I was growing up. Without having any statistics to back me up, I would hazard a guess that a lot of Adelaideans drank a lot of cordial growing up, to disguise the taste of the water. Bickford’s Lime Juice Cordial always seemed like an adult kind of cordial, in that it wasn’t brightly coloured or sugar-flavoured. I wasn’t impressed with it as a child (how could it claim to be “lime” cordial if it wasn’t lime green?) but my family a lways had a bottle in the fridge, and when my brother moved to Townsville, my sister gave him a bottle of Bickfords for Christmas. (We weren’t an extravagant lot.) Bickford’s is also distinctive because of its old-fashioned label, which isn’t just a cute “olde tyme” marketing angle. A.M. (that is, Anne Margaret) Bickford and Sons have been producing the cordial in Adelaide since 1874, which suggests Adelaide has always had crap water. [HV]
Big Rocking Horse
Aficionados of Big Things will find the Biggest Rocking Horse in the World, at Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills, somewhat of a disappointment. To be blunt, it’s quite tasteful.
The metal structure (which doesn’t rock) has viewing platforms on several levels, and after climbing it, you can buy well-made wooden toys from the toy factory nearby. Those looking for Big Things which embody the ideals of Big Thinginess (uglier, tackier, shabbier) would be well-advised to visit the Big Crayfish at Kingston in the South-East, the Big Galah at Kimba or the Big Orange at Berri. [HV]
Bus tickets, Adelaide
For many years, Adelaide bus tickets came with words of wisdom printed on the back. The ones that have stuck in my mind include: “Those who weave in and out of lanes usually end up in stitches,” which I used to quote desperately to my dad during terrifying car trips; and, “No girl wants to be the highest peach on the tree where she can’t be reached or squeezed” (obviously, this was back in the days when sexual harassment was more fun). These sayings were supplied by Kenneth Leal, the managing director of the company that printed the tickets. When the State Transport Authority changed to its sophisticated electronic ticketing system, the words of wisdom disappeared, and commuters were left with nothing to ponder on their bus trips into the city. Years later they returned, looking oddly out of place on multitrips. The most recent ticket I bought read: “Purpose is what gives life meaning…Subject to Passenger Transport Act and Regulations and Conditions of Travel VG8.” There’s something to think about. [HV]Buzz Bus
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, all government and community services organisations became mystifyingly obsessed with understanding the Youth Culture that was On the Streets. The highest mountain a brown-wearing middle-aged bureaucrat could climb was being a part of something that a young person described as ‘cool’. Interestingly, this phenomenon still persists.The greatest achievement produced by these laughable attempts to understand our young was the jingle for the Buzz Bus. It was the most memorable commercial song to come out of Adelaide in the 1980s, narrowly shadowing the catchy, “Get John Bannon to lead the state/ If you want South Australia to win” and walloping the execrable “’Cos they don’t have fritz in Sydney…” advertisement for the State Bank.
The Buzz Bus concept was a mobile youth drop-in centre. For some reason, those running it had enough cash to produce a TV commercial, which was a goldmine for visual cues: troubled youth are graffiting their school, beating up the elderly etc, but on arrival of the Buzz Bus they immediately stop all of these activities and flock to the Bus.
But it didn’t stop there. The commercial was accompanied by an anthemic but street-wise jingle featuring lyrics along the lines of, “Where you can be you and be entertained/ Stay a while/ And play some games/ At the b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-buzz bus [Spoken word bit, followed by big musical finish:] The b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-Buzz Bus!”
Stuttered lyrics were far more popular then than now (cf, for example, the “b-b-b-b baby” in Bachmann Turner Overdrive’s “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”), but I can’t recall another occasion when they’ve been incorporated into a commercial. Certainly not to such stunning effect.
Both the Buzz Bus name and concept are now laughably dated, but the jingle stands as a community service pop song rarely equalled to this day. [SH]