So what do ya really think about
us? *
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
(* a favourite column)
“SO maaaate, what do you think of Austraya and Sydney and our
weather and our facilities and are these Olympics the best you’ve ever
attended and don’tcha just love Thorpey?’’
Shoot me if I ever sound like this. I mean obviously the correct
question should have been: “What do you think of that man-god, superfish, dynamo, deadset legend Ian ‘Thorpedo’ Thorpe?’’
(Shakes head.) Some people will never learn.
Ever since our first race, I have started to think it’s decidedly
inconvenient we’ve let some 199-odd countries come here for the Olympics. After all, that’s 198 possible competitors to obscure our views of an heroic Aussie (oi, oi, oi) in glorious action.
Not to mention the times they’ll take up important space on the
dais, singing along to a song wholly unrelated to home being girt by sea – a song about wussy animals, flora or dictatorships that we can’t even mouth the words to anyway because they often REFUSE to sing in English. (True.)
Further, and this may shock you - some of these visitors also refuse
to answer the reasonable questions of our leading TV journalists. In fact it
doesn’t even matter how slowly and loudly we shout at them “BUT ENOUGH ABOUT US, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF US?’’ the interviewees still look at us as though we are the mad ones.
Okay, so what if they don’t speak English? That’s beside the point.
That’s not to imply we’re a parochial mob. And, I mean, I’m sure
we’re not alone in knowing the intimate details of Ian Thorpe’s shoe-size
(ma-ate size 17, why’dyaevenask?).
Okay, admittedly it’s mainly Aussies who seem to know an awful lot
about all things Thorpey.
It didn’t always used to be like this. Pre-Olympics, Australia used
to care about things other than whether our Governor-General was nine sheets to the wind or, as it turned out, merely nervous about addressing 3.7 billion people - a figure commentator Bruce McAvaney astutely observed was even “more than 3 billion’’. By my rough calculations Brucey may be on to something.
We used to care about things that, dammit, should also have
attention paid to them along with this two-week sporting gala.
Important things. Vital things. Things that affect our nation’s
standing and psyche.
Things like: Does anyone know when the cricket starts?
And, what do the world’s cricketing nations think of us ?
Hey, I think I see a Hungarian official we can ask.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 26 SEP 2000