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Today my boss declared this 'the greatest song in the history of songs'. Possibly an overstatement.
I've just been reading an interview with US-based Australian author Geraldine Brooks. This interview, in fact. In it, the interviewer says to her that Tasmania is a separate country and she doesn't correct him, and then a bit later he suggests again that Tasmania is a country and she still doesn't correct him. So now not only does he believe, incorrectly, that Tasmania is a country, but so will all his readers. That reminds me of a book I picked up in the library a few weeks ago, about a couple of American writers who visited Tasmania. I put the book down again because both the blurb on the back and the text of the first few pages also suggested that the authors thought that Tasmania was a separate country, even after having been there. Which it isn't, any more than Hawaii is a separate country. It's a state (as in a province rather than a nation) that also happens to be an island. That's not a difficult concept to grasp, is it? Anyway, that incensed me so much I didn't really take in the rest of the interview. Hmph.
Driving home the other day, I passed an accident that had won the emergency services trifecta: there was a police car, an ambulance and a firetruck in attendance. A policeman and an ambo were standing by the side of the road, having a good laugh at something, and there were two firemen just sort of looking at a patch on the road, so I gathered that whatever caused them all to be there wasn't serious.
I've just been reading an interview with US-based Australian author Geraldine Brooks. This interview, in fact. In it, the interviewer says to her that Tasmania is a separate country and she doesn't correct him, and then a bit later he suggests again that Tasmania is a country and she still doesn't correct him. So now not only does he believe, incorrectly, that Tasmania is a country, but so will all his readers. That reminds me of a book I picked up in the library a few weeks ago, about a couple of American writers who visited Tasmania. I put the book down again because both the blurb on the back and the text of the first few pages also suggested that the authors thought that Tasmania was a separate country, even after having been there. Which it isn't, any more than Hawaii is a separate country. It's a state (as in a province rather than a nation) that also happens to be an island. That's not a difficult concept to grasp, is it? Anyway, that incensed me so much I didn't really take in the rest of the interview. Hmph.
Driving home the other day, I passed an accident that had won the emergency services trifecta: there was a police car, an ambulance and a firetruck in attendance. A policeman and an ambo were standing by the side of the road, having a good laugh at something, and there were two firemen just sort of looking at a patch on the road, so I gathered that whatever caused them all to be there wasn't serious.