Come onnnnnnn!

I had some interesting feedback on this previous post.

By no means am I renouncing my nationality or pride in my country. You do things a bit backwards down there but hey - for the most part, that's fine by me.

However, I think we are a nation that can be quite full of ourselves. Especially when it comes to sport. I remember reading somewhere that Australia spends more per head on sport than any other nation. Hence such quips as 'the only culture Australia knows is in yoghurt...'

The other day I was reading 'The Age' about Hewitt getting knocked out of Wimbledon by Federer. This didn't make the news over here.* The only news about Hewitt in the papers here was that two of his fans were booted out of Wimbledon for being idiots (no comment). The Age article went on to say that Hewitt and Federer had '...six wimbledon wins between them...' By this, they meant Hewitt has won Wimbledon once. Go back to making babies, Ley Ley.

Back to Aussies being full of themselves though. It's all down to expectations. When you live in a country foreign to your own, your ears prick up at hearing an accent the same as your own. You are naturally friendly to your own kind - they get what you are on about, miss the same things about home that you do and you don't need to explain words or phrases you use. Maybe it's all about me putting fellow Aussies over here on a pedestal. Maybe when I meet them I expect them to be fair dinkum. Don't get me wrong, I have met about 7 Aussies over here who have been fantastic fun and generally great people.

I think I need to change my approach. Maybe I need to be more judgemental? If I think straight away - 'You my friend, are sure to be a dead set wanker' then 9 times out of 10, I won't be disappointed and nobobdy will have to hear me whinge on the topic again. You will just hear me crowing when I meet that one in a million Aussie who is a bloody legend.

It will be easy to judge too, because I can spot an Aussie over here from 10 paces. Sange used to say back home that she could do the same with Scots. She couldn't explain how she always knew if someone was Scottish (before hearing them speak), but she nearly always could. I can do exactly the same over here with Aussies. It's easier with blokes than girls though. Not sure why.

* The Wimbledon news dominating the papers is about the choker Andy Murray, who is surely set to get done like a dogs dinner by Nadal tonight, meaning that the Poms will have to barrack for people from other countries. They are used to it. They didn't make it into the Euro 2008 for the football either. Maybe they need to spend more per head on sport??