"Holden means a lot to Australia" -Fuck off and die.

This arsehole- I don't know his name, but I believe he has something to do with "Rove Live"- is being paid to tap into my immense well of patriotism in order to pry cash from my already bare wallet.

I don't think I have much to fear from the charms of a 3rd rate comedian doing advertisements for a car company, but it raises an interesting point.

Is it possible to be a patriotic Australian without subscribing to "Football, meat pies, domestic violence and thuggish behaviour overseas"? I believe it is.

This year the trend has been bucked and the Australian of the year is not an athlete of any kind, but rather a person of actual worth. A woman who has pioneered spray on skin for burns victims (See: "People who do good are rarely referred to as do gooders") is a more deserving winner than we've seen in a while.

There is much to make a citizen of this country proud, and not all of it is familiar to people who watch "A Current Affair" Indeed some of the crap being fed to that kind is nothing to be proud of at all. Consider the Diggers in World War One, and specifically Gallipolli. The British treated us with the kind of ambivalent disdain normally reserved for cockroaches, and we took it. We accepted it. It was a shameful page of our national history.

A much more note worthy incident was in the second world war, when our prime minister told Winston Churchill to go and fuck himself, and pulled our battleships out of Europe to concentrate on the more immediate Japanese threat. That's ballsy, and should be celebrated but it isn't.

Many more lesser known events exist, and may be chronicled here as information comes to hand.

The simple pleasures still exist

Upon finishing this day's work I indulged in a sundowner- at 3pm, when the sun still had a good six hours of retribution to administer. The fan, the airconditioning and the ice in my Bacardi formed an alliance to extinguish the fury of the 38 degree day. With some ultra smooth beats in the background, total satiation was the word.

This is what the whole world would be doing on a Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war.

To the very few absolute truths in the world, I add another.

People who sell plastic mugs for seven dollars are cunts.

I'm referring to the obscenely tacky practice of taking the sort of thing you'd piss in at the doctor's surgery, restyling it, slapping a sticker on it and unloading it on a sap "Celebrating his connection with the fatherland"

There were more wretched goings on at yesterday's annual salute to the dour Hun and the efficient Teuton.

Most readily coming to mind is the boorish behaviour exhibited by TJ Crom and Mr Contamination. On a quest for "Loose women", this pair managed to alienate a great proportion of the female patronage, and- considering the size of some of the square-jawed security guards- are lucky to be alive.

There is a special kind of repellance attached to two yelling drunk men all too willing to play "Girl, you'll be a woman soon" with an ever younger and uglier stream of the fairer sex. "When there's grass on the wicket, it's time to play cricket."

Indeed.

Apart from the occasional nod to the Germanic premise of the event (Notably shooting and oompah music) , it was hard to see the appeal of paying an entry fee for the privilege of being overcharged for food and beverage. This is particularly so when the oompah is drowned out by Greenday, and the shooting was diluted to the point where even a lunatic with a fat gut, mullet and waving US flag was allowed to take part.

All the above suggests that an awful time was had, which is not the case. A man doesn't allow his wallet to be hoovered for nine hours if he's having a bad time. The only explanation I can find is that I was attracted with car -wreck fascination to the unfolding drama and could only be pried away when my wallet was well and truly barren.

If such an experience normally makes for a good time, then next year I may give the Schutzenfest a miss, bring a deck chair to Yatala prison and watch brutality instead.

People who do good are rarely referred to as "Do gooders"

A few thousand people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. A few hundered of them were Police, Paramedics and Firefighters who went into the inferno willingly to save lives.

Michael Moore subsequently publishes at least 4 books and releases two movies, making cubic dollars with each venture.

Australian and American soldiers (Way ahead of the UN) land in Aceh, Phuket and Sri Lanka- purifying water, distributing food and providing makeshift shelter.

A French trade union official whinges about debt relief and encourages developing countries to file for bankrupcy.

There's a pretty clear difference. Michael Moore and his ilk are pussies. They rarely get their hands dirty, preferring to bitch from positions of total safety.

Onto the list of do gooders I add people who boycott things. There seems to be a belief out there that a simple checklist is to be followed - a bleeding heart checklist.

Boycott Nike (Buy alternative shoes made under the same conditions)= Check

Boycott Nescafe and Shell (Ditto the above, with different subject matter) = Check

Boycott McDonald's (For reasons other than the synthetic nature of the food) = Check

Of course, in a market economy people can choose to buy or not buy things and their reasons are their own. What gets me is that the people who boycott things believe that it puts them in a position of moral superiority, as if making no real sacrifice and performing no real service to anybody qualifies an individual for such a position.

These people are feeding their conscience, as they consider their conscience to be like an emaciated dog: Barely able to whimper, and silenced by the occasional morsel from the table.

The way I see it, there are three options:

1. Be the kind of bed wetter mentioned above (Michael Moore, Generic Activist)
2. Show no regard for the consequences of your actions; Not measurably worse than option one, but more fun (Donald Rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein)
3. Accept that even the most righteous existence you could possibly live hurts people. Devote energy to something you can actually do something about. (Disaster relief worker, those redneck farm boys who piled into their pick ups and headed for Ground Zero with food and drink for the New York Fire Department)

Real good involves some sort of sacrifice, is not done merely to keep the conscience from biting and is not done with the intent of lording it over others.

Mr Schrempp