h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To the very bright and know-it-all author of the vegemite conversation,

I am a fifth generation Australian and I don't like it when people knock my culture for fun!

I certainly don't go making up stuff about other peoples cultures! Vegemite is apart of Australia so when you knock vegemite you knock us all! I don't go around saying that American's put ketchup on their babies dummies as a cruel gesture nor do I say that asian children have a taste for rice because they are fed it from a very young age.

My parents never put vegemite on my dummy and I still like the stuff. Vegemite is a very successful product in Australia except you didn't seem to add that to your list of facts. If you knew anything you would realise that Australia is a multicultural society made of many different backgrounds of people who enjoy the taste of vegemite.

Vegemite may be an aquired taste as is food like olives, however it is not a spread that brainwashes our society.

If I was apart of the Vegemite company I would take you to court for trying to defame the product that Australia holds with pride!

Hey 227184,w****r!

Learn to read between the lines and you might just notice the gentle whimsy , the humour and real affection for Australia and Australians that the author has .

Two points:

1: American and Australian are nationalities, not races. We are all members of the human race as are all. Even if you are thinking of race as ethic background, Australia is so multi-cultural that it's not all *raciest* to insult Australia as a whole or vegemite in particular.

2: If you find an American who knows what a babies dummy is I’d be impressed! They are called pacifiers on this side of the pond. If you decided to make a joke about American’s fixation with catsup and hot dogs, I’d laugh. Can't say I know of anyone who puts catsup on pacifiers, it really has little to no nutritional value. Now it would probably be funnier if you made reference to a little known George Washington Carver product called peanut butter and how its use by the American military has reduced toilet paper ration use by over 90%.

Well, I'm a Vegemite-loving Aussie, and I thought that the anti-Vegemite diatribe was hilarious. 'Researcher' says "I don't like it when people knock my culture for fun!" - well why the hell not?! We spend a great deal of our time knocking other people's cultures for fun. And we often have a go at our own too. 'Researcher' is just a humourless exception.

Gag on this:

An Englishman wanted to become an Irishman, so he visited a doctor to find out how to go about this. "Well" said the doctor, "this is a very delicate operation and there is a lot that can go wrong. We'll have to remove 10% of your brain". "That's OK" said the Englishman. "I've always wanted to be Irish and I'm prepared to take the risk".

The operation went ahead but the Englishman woke to find a look of horror on the face of the doctor. "I'm so terribly sorry!!" the doctor said. "We've made a terrible mistake. Instead of removing 10% of your brain, we've removed 90%." The patient just smiled and replied, "No worries, mate!!"

ROFL