"A 'cons' list about Australia has gone viral. I have some points to add."

Listen to this story being read by Katie Stow, here.

A scrappy little list of pros and cons went floating around the internet this week.

Not one tossing up whether to say with a boyfriend or quit your job (despite Beyoncé's recent war cry ringing in our ears), but instead a list attempting to decide whether to stay in Australia or not.

This list was penned by a woman named Deborah from East Yorkshire, and it outlined the things she loved about living here and the things she definitely wouldn't miss if she left Australia. It included items like 'slow internet' and accused Aussie crumpets of being particularly s**t.

Deborah's note. Image: Daily Mail. 

Well, I am a woman called Katie, also from East Yorkshire, and I have some things to add.

You see, while I've happily lived in Australia for nearly 10 years now, I am still – at my core – a whinging pom. And therefore, I will take any opportunity to have a moan about pretty much anything.

So that's what I'm doing. Right here, right now. Listing out all of my gripes with Australia, and publishing them on a very public 'cons' list. 

First up...

Winter is at the wrong time.

I won't claim to know how the weather system works, or why one hemisphere has a wildly different temperature agenda than the other, but what I do know is that winter in Australia is without a doubt wrong.

And I know what you're thinking: Australian winters are way less dreary than an English winter. And you're right. But in an English winter we have activities. 

Christmas falls smack bang in the middle of winter, giving Brits something to lean into (read: decorate with a chaotic level of tinsel) and look forward to (read: umpteen Christmas parties). And that gives our winter a sense of purpose – and allows us to rebrand crap weather as opportunities to get cosy and festive.

Whereas in Australia, winter is a bleak nothing-really-happening social black hole. One where if you do make plans, it's highly likely that everyone will bail because it's raining.

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Everything can kill you.

This sounds like an exaggeration, but it's not.

The crocodiles can kill you. The sharks can kill you. The spiders can kill you. The snakes can kill you. The extreme weather events can kill you. And this is a lesser-known murderer in Australia, but I was once nearly killed by a kookaburra that flew down to nab the cheese out of my hand, which caused me to fall off a pier in the harbour. So, yes, the birds can kill you here too.

The chocolate is categorically bad.

I know that the UK is not known for its chocolate, but I'm here to tell you they're doing a better job that the choccie-makers here. 

But I'm not here to blame them – I'm here to blame the sun. 

Because for chocolate to physically survive in this country it needs stablising chemicals, otherwise it will turn into a puddle of despair. And these stablising chemicals? They are not tasty. In fact, they take all the creamy goodness out of choc. 

I have clearly become accustomed to this sub-par chocolate, because when I ventured back home to England recently I had a gob-full of Cadbury dairy milk and then screamed across the supermarket: "IT'S SO MILKY AND DELICIOUS."

It takes approximately a million hours to leave the country.

The vastness of Australia regularly blows my mind. 

The first time I flew from England to Australia, the pilot made an announcement on the tannoy about us 'entering Australian airspace', so I started to pack up my things, put my shoes on and prepare for landing. ...Only to realise we were flying over Perth and it was another five hours til we would land in Sydney.

And the distance feels even weirder on land. I have driven for 10 straight hours in one direction here and still not left the state. The same journey in the UK and I could be in Germany, France, Spain. But here? 10 hours deep into a road trip and I'd still be able to tune into Smooth FM. 

This country is bloody huge, and impossible to leave without at least a day's worth of travelling time and a lot of cash to devote to the journey.

There are a lot of Brits here.

Contradictory, I know. 

But seriously, so many of us have found our way over here. Bondi is overrun with pommies and Manly is peppered with the ones who have outgrown Bondi but want to still settle down at the beach.

I was really hoping to be a bit of a novelty – an exotic lady, if you will – but there are so many Brits here that I'm nothing special. And I want to complain about that. Thanks. 

Mullets.

The world's most unattractive haircut has a hold on this nation like no other. 

Mullets are rampant around Australia. Spotted on rugby players, school kids and young professionals alike. Curly ones, straight ones, ones dyed pink, ones with shaved sides. Just when I think I've seen every variation of a mullet, another one comes along to assault my eyeballs. 

Billy Ray Cyrus would be proud, but I am not. 

Are there 'cons' you'd lump onto your own list? Let me know in the comments!

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