oz culture

We often receive TV broacasts relayed from Australia, it's the usual stuff you'd expect: Skippy re-runs, and repeats of Home And Away, Neighbours, etc.

Well suddenly all that has changed, and there's only one programme on, round-the-clock: bushfire caught on film, bushfire interviews, bushfire discussions, footage of half-singed koalas. You can see the whole of Orstrahya thinking "At last! Something has happened here."

With the permission of Albert, who lives in Australia,, here's a fragment of an email he sent me:

... strewth it's been hot here, too hot to think straight. For weeks we were sweating naked in front of fans. I bought an air-conditioner, but of course the electricians are all too busy installing for other people, so the machine's just been sitting there in the box. Now I've finally got a guy to come and do the installation this week, and the weather's suddenly turned cold and it's flamin rainin! Who needs the air-conditioner now?

Notice the complaining tone. The Aussies are no longer world-leaders at cricket, but they're still world champions in whingeing. To be fair, they're not whingeing at all about the firestrorms, they're crowing: g'day world, look at us, we've got world-class fires. Next week, they'll be bragging about their world-class floods.

For some reason they're not keen to talk about the cricket. A recent Australian newspaper article, headlined "Australian cricket will be back", actually spends only two sentences on cricket before wandering off topic to crow at length about Lance Armstrong racing his bike in Adelaide, Roger Federer playing in Melbourne, and Australia's world dominance of Australian football. Anyone would think their cricket team's recent performance wasn't worth talking about.

My friend Alec left a helpful comment for Ricky Ponting at the newspaper.