Coolangatta (it clearly doesn’t matter)

People come in all shapes and sizes but at Coolangatta Airport, by and large, the shape is round and the size is extra-large. Tattooed, sunburnt men and their waddling wives, and vice-versa. Their noisy kids with pudgy arms gripping iPads with greasy fingers and running a version of amuck because no one’s ever thought to tell them not to.

This is the picture I see before me.

Here, also, slouch grown Australian adult men who think it’s ok to wear baseball caps (it’s not), often coupled with a pair of the latest thongs down below – deemed adequate dress for a voyage out into the greater public, nowhere near a beach (except as the crow flies).

Add to that ensemble a singlet, allowing full visual access to hair and/or flabby underarms and you have the Great Australian Men’s Travelling Uniform. And it’s uniform in its baseness; common ground for common folk, those men who were never told or to whom the thought never occurred that some situations may call for something *slightly* more than the barest minimum of attire – just because thongs protect your feet to some degree, just because a singlet covers a percentage of the upper body and just because American sportsmen wear baseball caps as significant identifiers, doesn’t mean a tradie from Shepparton should as well.

Have some dignity, you morons. Have at least some semblance of pride. Wear a button-up shirt. Wear some slacks, even a pair of chinos if you have to. Don’t eat so much fattening food and, for fk’s sake, shut up your noisy children.

Then get on a plane.