Sometime my Questions are looking to hook up with Answers. Sometimes I’m just looking for questions to perfect-match with my preset answers…. other times I am standing on a huge question mark wondering why I have Midnight’s mystery car keys. Jeeeeez it would be handy to have an opportunity to pose those questions that dog me and someone much smarter and more insightful than me could kinda answer them thereby saving me the aggravation of having to really think for myself. It’s Australia Day tomorrow and I am an Aussie toiling away in China. Is this too much to ask for?

Australia Day 2010 is well and truly over as this “Ask VoodooLogic Anything” column goes to press. Yes, sadly we have to wait another whole year for the opportunity to do very little at all to celebrate The Greatest Nation In The Universe™.

And what makes Australia so amazingly great? Well, the answer is pretty obvious — we invented just about everything, or at least just about everything that was worth inventing.

A Partial List Of Things Invented By Australians:

• Vegemite
• Cricket
• Swimming
• Rock’n'Roll
• The Bikini
• Democracy
• New Zealand
• Paul Hogan

In fact, in just about every field of endeavour you look at, you will find an Australian standing there, can of beer in hand, looking just a little smug, because he or she did it better, then went home to shear 300 sheep and plow the South Forty, all before lunch.

Of course, the reason why the rest of the world doesn’t understand or appreciate the fact that Australia is The Greatest Nation In The Universe™ is because we are, at heart, a nation of Quiet Achievers. It is not in our National Identity to make a great deal of fuss about our successes, unless it happens to be at the Olympics or if we’ve beaten South Africa at Cricket.

But back to Australia Day itself — the interesting thing about Australia Day as a celebration is that when it’s Australia Day in Australia, it’s also Australia Day everywhere else. Simultaneously!

That’s right — in the distant reaches of space, where light, gravity and 3G mobile services bend into some twisted, unknown dimension, January 26th is still Australia Day; and you can bet your last can of beer that, Out There, some Methane-Breathing Tentacled Monster turned to another Methane-Breathing Tentacled Monster on Australia Day and said, “Fwoar, check the Tentacles out on that Methane-Breathing Monster. Crikey! Hur hur hur.” [1]

And thus, the truly wonderful thing about Australia Day is that it’s just as applicable to, for example, some poor bugger slaving away in a tiny office in China as it is anywhere else, although it is possible that this person will experience Australia Day in a slightly less fulfilling way, since the rest of us have taken the day off and, as a nation, have buggered off to the beach.

***

So, to answer your question, which we have to admit, we didn’t really understand: it’s not too much to ask for at all.

If an Australian can’t take Australia Day off, regardless of where he or she happens to be, and also regardless of what the local cultural, professional and legal requirements are, then there’s something truly bloody wrong with that. Also, we’d like to add “Strewth!” and “Fair Dinkum?” to our assessment, although possibly not in that order.

We’d like to suggest that should you find yourself stuck in another country on some other future Australia Day, you should make sure you have a jar of Vegemite to hand, you have a few frosty tinnies in the eskie, you have some zinc cream across your nose, you wear an akubra with some corks bobbing from the brim, and you pause every 10 minutes or so to blow some righteous and culturally appropriate tunes on your didgeridoo.[2]

Beauty Mate,

The Ask Voodoologic Anything Team