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Isha Drew's avatar

Welcome! Angus Scott and many other prominent Australian musicians was born in the UK. John Farnham, Australia's greatest pop singer was born in England

https://youtu.be/x4Wwq9_zn_c?si=2tMeMNkAjrFcaf_9

Jimmy Barnes of Cold Chisel - Glaswegian.

Anyway, the Australian 'type' was usually thin and wirey whether tall or short. This was a very hard country to survive in for much of its history. The men were often very tough. They stopped the Germans in North Africa (The Rats of Tobruk) and the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. Not so much in Vietnam as they were conscripts fighting a war they had no place in and were from the next, softer generation unlike the Vietnamese. Lets hope our recent crop of nineteen year olds don't have to test their mettle in foreign battlefields.

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Tom Herzog's avatar

Wonderfully evocative essay. I learn more about a place or a country in twenty minutes from Mr. Dinh than if I had visited the location myself. My proclivity now as an old geezer is to simply pull up a bar stool and order a bottomless glass of the cheap local beer. Not to mention the always ubiquitous burger and fries which can be had everywhere I go. (The only difference I can recall was they had banana ketchup in the Philippines. But it tasted the same as regular ketchup; maybe even a little sweeter.)

Then after several days of staring at the same scenery I wonder why everything everywhere is all the same? I guess I'm just a boring person? Oh well, at least I don't start fights.

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