Of marsupials and (soy) flesh for fantasy
I start with these words from the newspapers this week: ‘vegan strippers’ and ‘wombat rape’.
OK, now that you’ve recovered from laughter/astonishment/head-shaking (strike out whichever doesn’t apply), take a look at this article which has all the ingredients to be a proud member of the ‘Only in America’ club. I love the idea that you can simultaneously engage in activities both politically correct (not eating meat) and incorrect (visiting a strip club).
But lest you think I only want to poke fun at strange behavior in the US, here’s the next best thing for Australians: making fun of New Zealanders, our neighbors across the ditch (as the Tasman Sea is called). The arresting police officer told the court that alcohol played a large part in the accused’s life and, to use an Australianism, you’d have to speculate whether he was a stubby (beer bottle) short of a six-pack …
Written by Jamie Snashall · Filed Under Befuddled Foreigner
Jamie Snashall grew up in Tasmania – that little island to the south of Australia – which made him something of a befuddled foreigner in his own country. The English novelist LP Hartley once said "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," and many Aussies would think that that perfectly describes Tasmania, a former British penal colony for the nineteenth century convicts who were too bad for Sydney.
Banished at the age of 13, he ended up in the nation’s capital, Canberra, where he became a political junkie, worked as a very civil servant for some years before jumping into the political arena as media and policy adviser to Julia Gillard, who has recently become Australia’s first female deputy Prime Minister.
His weaknesses are U2, Star Wars, Thai food and red wine, preferably all mixed up together. In his spare time, he is trying to finish a TV sitcom about a college student and civil servant who are roommates. When not writing this blog and working on his sitcom, he is allegedly enrolled in the Mid Career MPA program.
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