ABC radio recently interviewed Dr Mary Holmes from Flinders Uni about her survey on English expats in Australia, and why they choose to return to the UK. Its interesting stuff..

- 20% of English migrants return from Aus to the UK

- Poms claim to be ‘bored’ of Australia

- Poms miss family in UK 

Click here for AUDIO:

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Expats across the country will be thrilled to hear that for just 15 quid John Lewis will deliver online purchases to Australia.

But, before you throw away your Freedom Furniture sofa and upgrade to a John Lewis beauty, you’ll be disappointed to hear that there are a bunch of exclusions, including furniture (oh, and crackers). Here is the full list:

• All electrical items (including those with batteries)
• Lighting (except lampshades)
• Furniture and heavy or bulky items which need to be carried by more than one person
• Food/alcohol/perishables/flowers & plants
• Crackers and candles
• Liquids and aerosols
• Beauty products
• Knives/scissors
• Fabric by length, fabric samples, wallpaper
• Paints, glues and products containing these items (e.g toys)

The app will make British TV shows such as Little Britain, A Bit Of Fry And Laurie and Absolutely Fabulous available for iPad users through the App store for a monthly subscription fee of AU$9.49 or AU$89.99 a year (as expected).

The app enables users to stream and to download shows for offline viewing for when Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity is not available.

Jana Bennett, president of Worldwide Networks and global BBC iPlayer, said: “We launched the global BBC iPlayer because we think there’s an untapped market for the ‘best of British’ shows, both for Brits living abroad and for all those people we know have a love of great British television, nowhere more so than Australia.”

However, first impressions suggest that it is not as good as the ‘full’ iPlayer that is available in the UK. The BBC must protect deals with Australian broadcasters where they have sold shows exclusively, so these will be missing. It looks like they will be relying on archive content.

There is no Match of The Day either which is disappointing.

When you can get a fake VPN to access the real iplayer for free, or find MOTD online for fee, im not sure that people will rush to  get this ‘light’ version for $89.99.

Maybe it will improve in time?

Please let us know what you think below.

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POMSTAR reported last year that Topshop was opening a small concession at Incu in Sydney, and based on other International experience, a full store should follow in a few years time.

It appears however, that the ZARA launch may have prompted Mr Green to move faster. It has been reported this week (by Fashionising.com) that Topshop is currently negotiating retail locations in both Sydney and Melbourne for full flagship stores that they aim to have open pre-Christmas, this year.

It is likely that Topshop will opt for outer-suburb locations in Chatswood shopping centre, Sydney (which is a bit rubbish) and the Jam Factory, on the Chapel Street high street in Melbourne – in the space made available from Borders closing.

Australia is currently the third largest customer on Topshop.co.uk. I would suggest a good number of those orders are from the 1.3 million, UK expat community. Im sure you’re all pretty happy about this news -bring on the M&S and H&M…

Lets just hope it actually happens, there have been a few false starts over the years.

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WOW! BIG NEWS… The BBC’s international iPlayer iPad app will cost less than $10 (£6.13) a month when it launches later this year, according to director general Mark Thompson.

He said the global version of the corporation’s online catch-up service for iPads will launch “definitely this year”, adding that it will cost, “a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than 10″. The internationaliPlayer iPad app will also give subscribers access to BBC archive programming.

Would you pay $10 per month? Given Foxtel, with all channels including and UKTV and Lifestyle etc. costs $100+ per month it could represent great value. The license fee in the UK is currently around 145 pounds, so we will actually getting BBC TV content for less in Australia than they are paying in the UK!

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..It is being widely reported that the BBC will lunch a global version of the iPlayer soon, available in Australia. There has been no official statement yet from the BBC Trust, and no launch dates yet, but Luke Bradley-Jones, Managing Director of the Global iPlayer said: “Our research has shown there is an international audience of British TV fans that are frequently watching TV online – and we are excited about rolling out our iPlayer VOD service to meet and grow this demand.” “We strongly believe the Global iPlayer is going to offer an excellent opportunity for the UK’s creative industry to directly reach much sought after digital audiences and revenue streams around the world.”

There no word either on pricing structure. BBC Worldwide makes big money by selling BBC shows to broadcasters around the world, and Australia is a significant market for purchasing BBC programming. They will therefore have to replace that revenue with money from either; advertising, viewers paying to view episodes, or viewers paying a subscription. I suspect they will go subscription model, with possibly the option to buy per show. How much would you be willing to pay? My guess is they will go for something close to AU$10 per month.

The other big question is, will any of the other UK channels be included at launch or in future? This was the plan with the now defunct ‘Project Kangaroo’.

It’s certainly big news for expat Brits in Aus – the only slight disappointment is MOTD doesn’t get feature on iPlayer because of rights restrictions – BOOOOOOOO.

It’s easy to see why with  Shaun Ryder, Linford Christie, Sheryl Gascoigne… o and an american Playboy model.  See the full lineup here.

Classic trash TV stuff. The only problem is that, as usual it’s not on Australian TV. Im sure we will get see it in 2012, if you subscribe to UKTV or Lifestyle.

We need a POM revolution to get one of the major Oz TV networks to partner with ITV and show it as it happens – makes sence as it’s filmed here and the biggest stars are known here, the others no one knows in the UK either and it doesnt seem to matter..

Maybe we need a Facebook group to start the revolution? Maybe not.

Season 3 started last week in the UK though, and lucky for us someone has uploaded the whole episode to Youtube. Get it while you can below:

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