Hi! Roy,

In a message to All you wrote:

 RM>  Australians all let us rejoice
 RM>  For we have lots of beers
 RM>  There's VB, Foster's, Tooheys Light
 RM>  And boutique beers for queers!!

Stolen from a Yank...

                  We are proud to be Australian!!!!

We are proud to be Australian!!!! We are proud to be Australian!!!!

WE, the people of the broad brown land of Oz, wish to be recognised as a
free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasional wanker.

We come 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 we're 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 rest 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 in this document.
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 centre piece of our national
culture, few of us live there and the rest prefer to fly over 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 agnostics, it is worth noting that God
probably made Queensland. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a
mystery.

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

We are a united in our lust for international recognition, so desperate for
praise we leap in joy when a ragtag 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 while bloody Brian
Harradine can get 24,000 votes and run the whole country. 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 news readers 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, hockey,
tennis, AFL, roo-shooting, two-up and horse racing, and don't forget Darts.
We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, the blackest aborigines
and the worst-dressed Olympians in the known universe. We shoot, we root,
we vote.

We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime. And even though we might seem a
racist, closed-minded, sports-obsessed little people, at least we're better
than the Kiwis.

Cheers,
Paul.

--- Radius/W32 4.010/18.12.03-beta