Aussie Slant - It's not the Asian in us

These pages will at times be difficult to understand - not merely because you are a drongo, nor indeed due to the convoluted penmanship of an elitist author

Unfortunately (for you) the writer is Australian. If disoriented after one or two sentences, you are wise to bookmark and return when the dizziness has passed.

Further, it is not helpful that Australians write with an accent - yes, that spoken accent (and I use the term 'spoken' loosely; we bring up our words as if regurgitating food - something we learned from our sports commentators - who learned it from footballers).

Ask any traveller. Upon hearing an Aussie speak they believe a joke is being played at their expense. Surely, the tourist puzzles, this is jesting parlance - as when the English comedians caricature their friends across the channel?

A strong theory, that Australians got their accent from sheep, doesn't explain why the rest of the sheep-breeding world is readily understood. (We certainly overuse that one word taught to us by sheep*)

Then we have the "Faaaark" theory, that crows taught us to swear. Again, it's a little far fetched to believe our accent sprang from a blaspheming feathered scavenger.

The most convincing? We learned our accent from the Australian Aborigine, who developed it trying to speak cockney.

So, dear reader, make allowances - long, wide allowances. We are naive, isolated, simple-minded and trusting bush folk. We have large mouths and large .. feet, which disproves that nexus.

The shorter Our Leader the greater our inferiority. We are surely incapable of "pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in neighbouring countries". Our defence forces are still recovering from the surprise U.S. Military revelation of "interdiction" and have promised to stamp it out, such aberrant social behaviour unbecoming of trained killers.

You have far more to fear from our loudmouthed larrikinism, beer exports ... and diseased infidel sheep in leaky boats.

* A student thesis at the University of New England, Department of Animal Science, proposed sheep are not in fact communicating, they are belching! (ruminants, grass, gas - you know). A red-faced CSIRO spokesperson (gender indeterminate by phone; assumed 'red-faced') responded they are looking into the matter (both ends).

* New Zealanders, like Australians lately, have forgotten their kindergarten lessons and decided to ignore the phonetic alphabet, much to the consternation of normal-speaking compatriots and to the total befuddlement of foreigners. Illustrating the bizarre distortion, and as a warning to unwary travelers, git a lode of thes.