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

Well, this is Australia Day and I did my bit by being involved in the flag raising ceremony outside the Town Hall in Melbourne and then being in the parade. It was pretty cool...

Anyway, i figured I'd post the great We Are Australia - smart arse version... I didn't write this, but it's been going round e-mails and published on the net so much...



WE ARE ONE

We are the people of a free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasional wanker. Welcome from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New Zealand), and although we live in the best country in the world, we reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody like. We are One Nation but divided into many States.

First, there's Victoria, named after a queen who didn't believe In lesbians. Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, cafe latte, grand final day, and big horse races. Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitch is that "it's liveable". At least that's what they think. The rest of us think it is too bloody cold and wet.

Next, there's NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar, thin books read quickly and millions of dancing queens. Its capital Sydney has more queens than any other city in the world and is proud of it. Its mascots are Bondi lifesavers who pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right sides of their brains separate.

Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the family that bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets an extra chromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternest faces. It holds the world record for a single mass shooting, which the Yanks can't seem to beat no matter how often they try.

South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival of foreigners and bizarre axe murders. SA is the state of innovation. Where else can you so effectively reuse country bank vaults and barrels as in Snowtown, just out of Adelaide (also named after a queen). They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views of Adelaide sent the Formula One drivers to sleep at the wheel.

Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant. It's main claim to fame is that it doesn't have daylight saving because if it did, all the men would get erections on the bus on the way to work. WA was the last state to stop importing convicts and many of them still work there in the government and business.

The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, kangaroos, Jackaroos, emus, Uluru, and dusty kids with big smiles. It also has the highest Beer consumption of anywhere on the planet and its creek beds have the Highest aluminium content of anywhere too. Although the Territory is the Centrepiece of our national culture, few of us live there and the rest prefer to flyover it on our way to Bali.

And there's Queensland. While any mention of God seems silly in a document defining a nation of half arsed sceptics, it is worth noting that God probably made Queensland, as its beautiful one day and perfect the next. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a mystery.

Oh yes and there's Canberra. The less said the better.

We, the citizens of Oz, are united by Highways, whose treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than murderers. We are united in our lust for international recognition, so desperate for praise we leap in joy when a rag tag gaggle of corrupt IOC officials tells us Sydney is better than Beijing. We are united by a democracy so flawed that a political party albeit a redneck gun toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat in Federal Parliament. Not that we're whingeing, we leave that to our Pommy immigrants.

We want to make "no worries mate" our national phrase, "she'll be right mate" our national attitude and "Waltzing Matilda" our national anthem(so what if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide). We love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a sailing race and still tell us who's winning. And we're the best in the world at all the sports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby league and union, AFL, roo shooting, two up and horse racing. We also have the biggest rock, The tastiest pies, and the worst dressed Olympians in the known universe.

Only in Australia can a pizza delivery get to your house faster than an ambulance. Only in Australia do we have bank doors wide open, no security guards, or cameras but chain the pens to the desk. Stand proud Aussies - we shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by Sea and pissed by lunchtime. Even though we might seem a racist, Closed minded, sports obsessed little people, at least we feel better for it.

I am, you are, we are Australian!

P.S We also shoot and eat the two animals that are on our National Crest!!!! No other country has this distinction!

HAPPY AUSTIALIA DAY






Cat

Traveller in Time on his toes
"Happy Australian Day !

(This is nearly an entry )"

*doesn't bother reading all that right now, because she knows she won't have time to read it all in one go right now 'cause she has to clean her room, but comes in to wave an imaginary mini Australian flag, as her little way of taking part in the spirit of the day, although isn't really psyched about it at all*

*waves other mini Australian flag*

How come we don't get an England day?

Cause no one 'discovered' your country and tried to kill all the inhabitants. And cause we're special.

Go AUSTRALIA!!!

Happy Australia Day. Love your national literature. As for the Olympic uniforms: Canada will send you down some Roots hand-me-downs as a gesture of international peacekeeping. You can start a Roots Australia in Perth. Which means you will have to learn the greatest game on the planet: hockey. Course its not gonna be much fun if you don't have ice. Perhaps you will have to annex NZ. D-oh!

btw when is NZ Day?

*wanders around whistling something about "tried to kill all the inhabitants"...*

Something to celebrate sure.

I live in Canberra and if that comment wasn't completly true I would strike you down for it...

Yes, but the important distcinction is that now, we don't do it. We just give money to everyone who's even remotely Aboriginal and some of them have never done anything non-Western in their lives... Sometimes, I think we take the whole compensation thing a bit far. I mean, if they deserve it, go ahead but some of these 'Aboriginals' have one indigenous Australian ancestor and that was like generations ago, or so it seems...

I might be going to live with a tribe of aboriginals in central australia in June! *excited*

Traveller in Time dreaming over a thread
", that will be

Dancing the path of your ancesters . . .

?
"

That sounds pretty cool, Cat! What would you be doing?

Happy Australia Day!

It's with school. Lots of schools go on a Central Australia trip, but for ours this year 7 of our year 10s (me) and year 11s and 7 from another school will be going with this lady who takes different schools each year and we go and live with the people for 9 days or something and they teach us stuff and we pay them for teaching and housing and stuff.

It sounds so cool! I hope I get in...

Cat

That sounds terrific. We should have something like that in Canada (but we don't).

Um as for incursions into Aboriginal territory: it's not just geography that has been taken over. I gather there is quite a lot fishy going on now with Aboriginal art. I gather it used to be part of spiritual practice and now they just turn out what they think the tourists want in return for pittances to buy more paint. Meanwhile the academics and art dealers are making $ hand over fist imposing their interpretations.

This happened for a while here in Canada, particularly with Inuit carvings. It still is happening, but you see more and more First Nations going off to art school and widening their expressive repertoire and getting living wages from it. We saw some awesome stuff on Manitoulin Island two summers ago.

I found an old newspaper from Wednesday this morning; it has an advert for Fosters with a cut-out "tanned hand" so that you can stick it on and drink your Fosters like an Aussie

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I'll have to get some of the people from my school to phone you then, so we can change that

Oh dear Lord, no! I think my stupidity senses would overload.

Re the Fosters Tanned Hand: Brilliant! I am stealing it right away and turning out Blue Hands with which to drink Molsons like a troo Canuk.