literally another aussie in london

The english rednecks

Recently Robin Williams called Australians “English Rednecks”, probably because, in many ways, we are.

Instead of people agreeing or laughing this off, Australia’s Prime Minister K-Rudd insulted Alabama.

It was an interesting tactic, especially as Robin Williams is from Chicago, and because it was always going to be taken badly by Albamians.

When K-Rudd had done some stereotyping of his own, Williams realised that people were taking it the wrong way and basically said, “I meant the way they speak, I said this in a Sydney comedy club and everyone laughed.” I saw an Adam Hill gig once where he said the Aussie accent was just a slowed down version of cockney, K-Rudd did not get involved.

Then he offered to take K-Rudd to a strip club, which was the highlight of the whole event. He should have offered to take him to a Alabama strip club.

I mention all this not because of its link to Australians and the English, but because I was supposed to go on Talksport as a token Aussie and talk about it.

Talksport is a national commercial ralk radio station.  I’ve never listened to it, but I assume it is 70% football and %30 other stuff.

The idea was I would pre-record my interview and it would be replayed overnight on their current affairs program.

I’m not sure this is really current affairs, but I can talk shit about lots of things, so I was willing to give it a go.

Alas, I fucked up.

Somehow I managed to miss a digit from my mobile, and while the producer was trying to email me I was watching old Law & Order episodes.

Being that it was Good Friday, I didn’t check my emails before I retired for the night.

This was my first chance at being an expert on anything non-cricket related, and I fucked it up.

It wasn’t even the first time I had fucked up, ages ago when I first arrived in London I was given my first “big break” by subbing for some people and going to a major cricket book launch.

Instead I got the time wrong, and was mid vomit when I realised.

Missing the digit of a phone number was far more dignified.

But I am happy with the level of self sabotage I achieved.

I did have one goodish line for the Robin Williams interview, “Let’s face it, you can say whatever you want after you make a masterpiece like flubber”.

April 6, 2010 Posted by Jrod | living in london | accents, kevin rudd, robin williams | 4 Comments