Well as usual I have noticed someone I’ve miss someone completely off the list – in this case Jamie Oliver, who has swept up an impressive 150,000 followers.

Elsewhere, Lily Allen is now very close to the magic one million followers – I guess she’ll probably make it in a week or so.

And those who were shocked at Coldplay overtaking Stephen Fry will not be cheered by the fact that Richard Bacon now has more followers than the erudite Mr Fry.

Meanwhile Google Wave looks genuinely awesome, the best thing to
come out of Australia since... er... anyway it makes Microsoft Exchange
look very last century.

If I’d thought about this for more than a couple of seconds I should have realised that some thin-skinned Australians would take offence.  Sure enough, our receptionist is now not talking to me – and is putting through endless calls from recruitment consultants.  Worse still, we’ve had a very long email from an antipodean who took particular offence to my racist comment:

To whom it may concern,

I am a potential client of Harvest Digital and I recently received the below email from your company.  However I do not understand the need to mention Australia and its lack of successful exports!!

I find it incredibly offensive and hurtful that your company represents such a standpoint.

I would like to let you know about some of the successful things Australia has brought to the world,

1. The Bionic Ear - Melbourne University professor made history in 1978 by inventing the world's first bionic ear.

2. The Black Box Flight recorder - Dr. David Warren from Melbourne invented the first black box flight recorder in 1958.

3. The Cow Fan, During summer temperatures in Australia can soar into the fifties, too hot for most European farm animals. Luckily the ever ingenious Australian farmers have come up with a solution to cool our cows.

4. Meat Flavored Water: Inventor Andrew started marketing meat and vegetable flavored bottled water to canine connoisseurs in December 2003. It's like a sports drink for dogs he said and put his Dog Plus K-9 Water on sale across Australia in flavors ranging from bacon and beef to liver, chicken and corn. A 600ml bottle will set you back $2.95

5. Viagra Oysters - Oysters have long been known as an aphrodisiac, but NSW oyster farmer George thought he could do better and started lacing his oysters with Viagra hoping for lucrative markets in Asia where many men are obsessed with all sorts of ways to increase their virility. ( To the point where they will drink urine from tigers and rhinoceros for perceived benefits.) Unfortunately, no matter how good the idea may have sounded, there are always a few whingers out there, and so the NSW Food Safety authority says it is illegal and breaches the NSW Food Act and also Pfizer was not happy with their trademarked name being used in this way and threatened with legal action, but George reckons that countries outside Australia have different regulations so even if they are illegal in Australia he still sells them overseas, and change the name to get Pfizer off his back.

From the above points it is clear that Australia is a great nation and that we in fact contribute greatly to the world on all different levels from Science to Bovine welfare.

I would like to note that your email asked me “how’s it going????” …….Well as a result of this attack on our proud nation I am willing to say that I am not so good and I will be in touch with more Aussie great inventions in the near future.

Regards

Mac

Well Mac (and Mel!), all I can say is sorry!  The thrust of my argument was to say how good Google Wave was and not to put down Australia. Now that I have the facts in front of me, I can see that Australian ingenuity clearly out-classes second-rate British inventions like television, the telephone and the internet.

Next time I’ll stick to being rude to the French…