>But the one thing that is clear from them is that you're as thin-skinned
>as >it's possible to be without actually applying for Australian
>citizenship.
Comrade Doug! I really must protest at this gratuitous racist slur! Did we complain when you imperialist running dogs quotad our lamb exports? Well, except for just a couple of whinging farmers ... Did we feel personally affronted when you took our middle-eastern grain markets? Well, mebbe a coupla drunks rang a bemused desk sergeant at the embassy at four in the morning (well, we couldn't sleep)... Didn't we merely smile indulgently as you sent your salesmen in to pinch the Indonesian markets we lost in our noble defence of the helpless East Timorese (over whom, as you'd know, we've always watched with a father's love)? Well, nearly all of us did ... Were we upset when you refused to assist on the ground in East Timor just because we wouldn't give you our intelligence on Kopassus planning until it was too late? Okay, some voices in the media might have been raised ... Did we lash out when you made us pay more per capita than any other country for the dubious rights to your odious 'cultural' product? Other than a couple of arty-farty malcontents, I mean ...
Do I mind that all the lists I get on are dominated by imperialist Yanqui lickspittles, that I have to pay twice what you do to type my missives on an American computer in an American programme on American topics with an American spellcheck; that you've bought our Vegemite and that our yummy Arnotts biscuits just don't taste right now you've got your filthy mits on 'em; that I had to buy *Wall St* on hire-purchase coz of unfair trade practices by nasty foreign publishers; that Dennis Connor was a bad sport in the Americas Cup; that baseball is transforming the noble art of cricket into a meaningless pyjamafest; that you don't pay us a cent's rent for large military installations which make us nuclear targets (and that we're not allowed on our own property); that we spent a decade having to listen to Jefferson Starship; that our social democrats felt unable to develop a decent social policy in case they upset a coupla prepubescent finance speculators on Wall St; that our internal cultural conversation has been quieted by your definition of our conversation as an unfairly protected trade in commodities; that my kids now want to wear their baseball caps backwards; that New York was rude to our lovely Pat Rafter; that you were nasty to our Harry Bridges; that you gave our Lachlan some weird drawl of a speech impediment; that you sold us two very rusty battleships at top-drawer prices; that you aided and abetted in Gough Whitlam's destruction; that your 'health insurers' are quietly destroying a health system you yanks can only dream about; that you're making ugly verbs out of our beautiful nouns (impacting, accessing, medalling); PJ O'Rourke; that you fail to see us for the rightful strutters of the international stage and the sophisticated saviours of the universe we really are???
Not a bit of it.
Nope. Our hide's as thick as that of a rhinoceros. Of course, ours is smoother, more deeply tanned, and fetchingly stretched over a cascade of rippling muscle and seductive curves, and much nicer than other people's.
Especially Daniel's.
Yours tough as teak yet hauntingly sensitive, Rob.