Grisards of Oz

Shivering on the patio of Big Chicks last night, I sang the praises of the Aussies whose company we fell into during our cruise on the Yangtze, particularly the middle-aged couple lumped together with us and three other couples travelling independently through the same company to form a seating group for dinner. One of my friends said, "But Australians are like Americans. And they're loud." And get this: He said that like it was a bad thing.

I got along with everyone on the cruise (with the exception of the large Scandinavian and Chinese groups, who ignored everyone else, and the previously-mentioned Canadian-Chinese Princess, who we'll deal with in due time), whether they were from Montgomery, Melbourne, or Monterrey, but it was the Aussies that I really had fun with. Pete, a furry mountain of a man with a permanently attached telescopic photo apparatus, said of me at one point "He's got my sense of humour" (although with all the vowels rearranged, of course) and I took it as a high compliment.

Whatever craziness took place--and between what passed for organisation on-board and off, there was no shortage of it--I never saw them get riled. Even during the increasingly outrageous fiasco that was our excursion to the Ghost City on Ming Shan, they never lost their smiles; the barbs just got a little sharper as their tongues pressed more firmly into their cheeks. With the Gaels, Canadians, and Usonians (not to mention Mexicans, Frenchmen, and others) I was more guarded, but once I heard that unmistakable Aussie brogue I knew I could go right into taking the mickey out of anyone and everything. After a week of high-strung Chinese guides, it was what I needed.

So it comes as no surprise that the Aussies have even found the antidote to the sickening lameness of Olympic mascots, such as the omnipresent-in-China Fuwa (Chinese for "fivefold bad idea"), in the form of Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat, who stole the show from the official contenders at the Sydney games. I stumbled across him by accent during today's desk shift when utopian_camorra and I realised we could remember nothing about the mascot for the Atlanta games except that it was terrible.

Incidentally, another of my front desk supervisors inadvertently spawned a wicked great idea when she mused about the selection process for Olympic mascots in the sense of "hyperactive fur-suited guys" rather than "cheaply-made polyester souvenirs". Well, obviously there needs to be a parallel Mascot Olympics to decided who is worthy of being dressed like a tremendous hydrocephalic baby or neoteric mammal with a glandular disorder. I'm sure the sausage runners from Miller Park are in trim, but how will they do in the synchronised swimming event?