What the bloody hell is wrong? At the beginning of this month Tourism Australia launched a new international advertising campaign with this video clip. Little did Australia know, an everyday word in Australian English was not well received by the Brittisch advertising council. Well bloody hell… After the Australian tourism minister explained to Brittain that it was alright the ban was lifted and Brittons could finally enjoy what they missed out on for weeks.

“AUSTRALIA’S “Where the bloody hell are you?” tourism advertising campaign is allowed back on UK television after regulators lifted a ban on the word “bloody”…” www.news.com.au (March 18, 2006)

Everybody interested in tourism in Australia sighed with relief that the Brits finally had come around. But they can’t bloody leave us alone. The Poms have finally backed off, now it’s the turn to Canada to complain. And guess what… It’s not even about the word ‘bloody’, it’s about the phrase ‘I’ve bought you a beer’. Canada reckons this implies consumption of unbranded alcohol.

“FIRST it was “bloody”, then it was “hell” and now it’s “beer” that’s tripping up an Australian tourism advertising campaign…” www.news.com.au (March 22, 2006)

Where the bloody hell is Canada???

I was watching the Paralympics on ABC this morning. Now that’s impressive! Much more so than the Olympics. Of course the Olympics are impressive too, but I was watching people with partly or completely amputated legs slalom down a ski slope. Seated on a contraption mounted on one ski these guys and gals came racing down the mountain at over 70 km/h. That I find true sportsmanship.

After the amputees the turn was to the vision impaired skiers. I was in awe after seeing the amputees come down the hill, but I found it even more impressive to watch people with no or limited visability do the same. With a coach following behind and shouting “left”, “right” at the flags and turns, they came down with about the same speeds of over 70 km/h. One was a German female competitor coached by her husband. That’s what I call true love.

I have deep respect for those athletes and their coaches and supporters. Where in professional sports the aim is often money and victoria, every competitor in the Paralympics is a winner in my eyes.

The greatest sporting event in the Commonwealth of Nations has just started. The opening ceremony for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games has just concluded and is said to be the most spectecular opening ceremony ever. Not only of the Commonwealth Games, but also in comparison to the Olympics. It was also the most expensive opening ceremy ever. It set us back $50 million. But… it was also the openings ceremony with the most people attending. 90,000 at last count. And they paid a minimum of $450 for their tickets. I’m glad my TV is finally working, so I could see it all from the comfort of my couch.

Not counting a few small glitches in the synchronised dancing the ceremony looked astounding. I have to admit, it’s the first opening ceremony I’ve ever seen completely. And it’s interesting how this event makes me proud to… well… I would say to be Australian, but I guess I’d have to stick with proud to live in Melbourne.

But I’m just curious… Before I heard of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games I had never heard of this Olympics spin-off. What’s the story there? How about you guys, all my non-Commonwealth-country-resident-friends?

This semester I’m doing a unit on Culture Tourism. For the major project for that unit I need to do some research on a culture tourism attraction in the Melbourne area. I decided on Puffing Billy (www.puffingbilly.com.au), because I figured it would be interesting. Puffing Billy is a heritage railway in the hills east of Melbourne. It being a heritage railway makes it fall within the definition of culture tourism, but, as I expected, the crowd that I observed today did not quite fit that definition. Yes, I observed today, because one of the points of the research is actually visiting the chosen attraction.

So I got out of bed at 6am this morning (it’s Sunday today), because it would take me about 2.5 hours to reach Belgrave, from where Puffing Billy would depart around 10am. Once I arrived I went to buy my ticket for the train. Unfortunately Melbourne tends to be very hot and dry, especially today, so the government declared a total fire ban today, which means no fires, which means no steam trains, amongst other things. Fortunately the Puffing Billy Preservation Society had a diesel locomotive up their sleeve, so on a slightly limited schedule the train departed Belgrave around 10.30am anyway. The trip was a little shorter than planned, because for some reason the diesel locomotive couldn’t go all the way to the end of the line.

Anyway, I had fun riding on that little train. Check out the Photobook for some of the pictures I took.

I had a strange thought this morning. Since this year I’m again in Australia for my birthday, and I realised that when I turned 24 at midnight, that in Holland I was still 23. So… if I were to live in Australia for the rest of my life, does this mean that I will become a little bit older than when I would be living in Holland or, even worse, Hawaii? Does living close to the international dateline mean my life will last longer? I’d say it’s worth a try.

Jeeeezzzzz… it took them 2 weeks! When I came back from Japan 2 weeks ago I moved into an apartment, a furnished apartment, yes, with everything you can possibly need in it. I organised this apartment 4 weeks before I got back. So, yes, that is 6 weeks ago that I arranged everything. And since both my housemate and me signed the lease, it is not unreasonable to expect to both get a key, right? Esspecially if it costs 60 dollars to make a copy, because it’s a special key… Anyway, it took the real estate agent 6 weeks to get the owner of this apartment to drop their spare key off, so that we could both have a key. But f#@%ing h*ll, 6 weeks? The key should have been there 2 weeks ago… But, we finally got it yesterday, so now we can go out independently. I feel so free! Next on the list, the TV is broken, and since the TV is included in the apartment we should be getting a new one, for free. Wonder how long that’s gonna take…

“Australia has changed the regularly scheduled end of Daylight Saving Time in five Australian states from March 2006 to the first Sunday of April 2006 due to the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Install this update to enable your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.“

Thankfully Microsoft thinks about us here too.