Australia Day is January 26 which happened to be Saturday. As far as I know, everyone got the public holiday for it (that is, in lieu of Saturday) on the Monday: the 28th (except for my wife, who believes that it was in honour of her birthday).

NSW, being the most intelligent state, was not fooled into thinking that the holiday Monday was Australia Day, because we know how to check the dates on a calendar. Thus we celebrated Australia Day on its proper date, Saturday, and scored the holiday as well. At this very moment, calendar missionaries from NSW are being organised to be sent out into the other states to spread the message of how to tell what day it is. Tasmania will not be included in this for the obvious reason that some goals are simply unobtainable.

Keep sending those missionaries. They go down a treat with a bit of tomato sauce.
(Ever had a pie at the footy?)

(Nope)
(What's that when it's at home?)

Footie- Association Football, soccer.
The pies there are some of the worst you can get anywhere, mostly along the lines of CMOT Dibbler containing genuine pig

Nonononono! I didn't mean soccer, I meant *footie*, as in PROPER footy. Not that silly european game. :P

This one: [www.youtube.com]

WARNING: May contain violence.

If thats Aussie rules it will contain violence.

'Click'

Oh yes so it does.


But the pies are the same are they not, expect the chicken baltie ones, as they are mostly made from chicken feet and necks.

Yoiks. Well, can't be worse than what's in the common hamburger...

The meat pie is the National Dish of Australia and deserves to be discussed in hushed, reverential tones. If you could only throw a pie on the barbie, we wouldn't eat anything else.

<has nightmare vision of Kitten taking this literally and hurling Big Bens at barbie dolls>

Good use for em (the barbies I mean).

You're joking right? I can't possibly lift a clock tower by myself.

I also thought that this involved custard pies being thrown at dolls. Possibly a fairground attraction?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Most nouns in Australia are preferred with either '-a', '-o' or '-ie' suffix. Hence: "Bazza and Robbo wore their cozzies to the barbie" is the preferred form of 'Barry and Robert (or perhaps a gentleman with a surname of Roberts/ Robertson/etc) wore their swimming costumes to the barbecue'. More detail could have been supplied - whether the cozzies were speedos or budgies rather than boardies, for instance.

Paul Hogan (Croc Dundee) made a series of ads for Americans to come to Australia as tourists and uttered the immortal "I'll throw a shrimp on the barbie" as the catchcry. Australians found this immensely amusing because we say 'prawn' rather than 'shrimp' (which we think makes them sound too small to be worth bothering about) and throwing one on a Barbie doll sounded rather lewd.

Last year, a series of ads (at a motza cost) was made for both the UK and US had the tagline, "What are ya bloody waiting for?" and had to be changed (for an even bigger motza cost) to get on US TV without the apparently offensive 'bloody'.

True story about language: After a Cricket Test Match over 50 years ago, the England captain knocked on the door of the Australian dressing rooms and complained to the Australian captain that, while batting, he had been called a 'bastard' by one of the Aussies. The Australian captain swung around and yelled to the team, "Okay! Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

Remember that ad with all the people and a dog saying "bugger"? I always thought it was amazing that it was on during children's tv time slots. It was amusing. I have to not swear at my school, I'd get into enormous trouble (even as a teacher).

What did your school do to make you want to swear at it? Can't you just stand across the road, swear at it when it's not looking and then act innocent? That always worked for me.

I'm amazed you even know swear words!

Especially you Robert :P

Oi! I can swear in French, English, German and Spanish ^_^


In addition to this, I can also say "Where is my tequila?" in Spanish (as well as many other things) and also can say "I don't speak Bosnian" in Bosnian. I'm particularly proud of that last one ^_^

When I was in Year 7, an urban myth (sort of) swept through our French class (yes, either French or German were compulsory in those days) that a kid once did his entire oral exam by saying "Je ne comprend pas" to everything he was asked. Thus, went the myth, he could not be failed because he had spoken French for the whole exam but hadn't had to learn anything except for four words!

I don't know if anyone tried it, but I'm fairly sure they failed miserably as well as copped a caning if they did.

Those were the days of the 'unofficial' White Australia Policy which was effectively rather than specifically racist. The rule was that all prospective immigrants had to sit a test - fair enough you might say. The test could be given in English or any European language. A prospective German immigrant who spoke little English could therefore do the test in German, and so forth. However, the test was available in no Asian languages at all and, wait for it, the officer in charge of the test could - at their own discretion - give the test in German (or Bosnian, etc) to an Asian who could speak English quite well! Believe it or not.

Yep, it was pretty dumb of our people. Makes you embarrassed to be an Aussie when this stuff arises.

Very few countries have a squeaky clean record regarding that sort of thing though. Sadly.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Quick! Everyone to the records room with some soap!