A Stranger in a Stranger Land
While I consider myself to have a pretty decent imagination, there
are things that are so outlandish that even I wouldn’t have dreamt them
up. Such things are found
throughout the Australian experience.
Here is a collection of a few that have hit the high points.
Water Dragons (Physignathus
lesueurii)
While perhaps not indigenous to Australia, these lizard looking
creatures are certainly prolific. Most
of the lizards are of a modest or relatively small size, like a decent sized
urban squirrel in Calgary, but without fur, but some can be as lard as a one kg
(~2.2 lbs). As you might guess,
their name is derived from the fact that they are riparian and are capable of
running across water.[1]
The spectacle of seeing a lizard deftly running across the water
is impressive. Of course, such a
spectacle doesn’t go unnoticed and kicks off a fresh debate as to the origin of
said lizard. Was the lizard created, or did it evolve? Where does
creation start and evolution take over?
Did the dragon evolve to walk on water, was it created to, like the son
of God? Was Jesus merely created a
mortal that later evolved into a deity?
Is there something divine about reptiles, or merely another one of
Satan’s guises?
An alternative argument is that things are just strange here and
strange creatures are simply part of the larger landscape. Of course the locals referring to the
noble Physignathus lesueurii as a “Jesus Lizard” doesn’t help to quell
the argument.
Children’s Sports
Seriously? Children’s
sports? That can’t be that much of
a stretch can it? I mean we know
that the Aussies are crazy about their sports and since you can’t put kids in
coal mines anymore, you have to do something with them. In fact most parents that I know have
their kids in sport. However, as
might be anticipated, this is where the Aussies depart from others.
Rather than merely having “Mini soccer” for kids under 6, the
Aussies, have a league that allows children (of either gender) that at 4 and
older to play Australian Rules Football, a sport that the UN has prohibited
outside of this continent. (The
Scots and Irish have gotten around the prohibition by calling it “Gaelic Rules”
and thus being “cultural”, as visiting bodily harm is in northern anglo
societies.) But it’s “OK” because
“it’s not full contact” but “only skill development”. Ok then.
Right. Skills such as
jumping off another player’s shoulders (not withstanding what team) to catch
the ball for a “mark”, like “raking one’s cleats across an opponent’s chest” or
learning how to shake of having a ball accidently kicked into your face? I guess on the upside, there is less of
the chasing of butterflies that you see kids do playing U8 soccer in Calgary,
because a) butterflies are so prolific here that it’s not such a big deal to
see them and b) if they don’t keep their heads up playing mini AFL they’ll get
walloped.
I can’t believe when I see grown men playing AFL, I can’t imagine
watching children.
Estate Planning
One of the responsibilities that I had as in an in-house lawyer
was dealing with estates matters.
Without naming names, and jeopardizing my standing as a solicitor and
also adding a certain amount of dramatic atmosphere, most of the questions
involved questions posed to me about releasing funds that were under our
control. The conversation would go
like this:
So mate, I’ve
got this client who’s dead and they came in to the office today.
You’re dead
client came into the office today?
Sorry dude, you’ve got the wrong number, I can help you with a bunch of
things but re-animation is well outside of my practice area.
No, sorry mate,
I mean that my client is dead and his kid came in today asking
However this should not be misunderstood to mean that estate
planning is not widely known. I
also had a legal education provision service call and inquire if they could
sign me up for a course. You know,
because even here the implication is that you will attend a course rather than merely consider attending, because you’re just not that busy. So the course offered had nothing to do
with my practice or interests or anything really but I took the opportunity to
inquire into an estates planning course.
This is what I got:
States? Why states?
Estates.
What about states
No, E-states
You mean like e-commerce
among states?
No. Estates like dead people.
That just
doesn’t make a lot of sense mate, you want to set up an e-commerce site for
dead people?
No. How to deal with the estates of dead
people, you know like what happens to their property upon going to their great
reward?
Ok, I
send you something on property development.
I ended up receiving a
workshop on building codes. While
I suppose there could be a connection between estate planning and building
codes, it would appear that if you don’t adhere to one (the building codes) you
had better do some estate planning.
Sort of the Minneapolis Metrodome snow load rating for beneficiaries by
engineers.
I do like the idea of the
e-commerce site for dead people, arguably if I got enough subscribers I could
take it public like Linkedin and Twitter, except that I could have these
subscribers forever. There has to be a financial upside in
that….
Advertising
I just have to add the photo here.
Other shocking examples include the mobile phone advertisement
that features a cartoon portrayal of a talking moose standing in front of the
Three Sisters mountain outside of Canmore. WTF? I
understand that there are more Aussies between the ages of 18-22 in Banff
National Park than in Sydney, but really?
A talking moose and the Three Sisters? I can’t even begin to understand.
The zenith of talking animals in advertising campaign features
another Canadian icon, the beaver.
Not industrious, not a symbol of ecology, not Canadaa’s fur bearing heritage
or a plug for tourism in this campaign, but a mascot. Incidentally from a Canadian perspective, an obscene
mascot. In this advertisement for
feminine hygiene products, the talking beaver (I know, I know, but like I said,
I can’t even make this up) states that this product “…is the best care for down there.” I suppose if a beaver could talk, it would tell you what it
preferred. I still shake my head.
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