Your American Masters

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I like Australians and I like Australia. Very much. It is, however, socially British-colonially stuffy. You can taste that in the air even over in WA, Perth and Fremantle -- I got over there by submarine once, about 1983. While Australia and America are much alike in that they have a fundamentally English/British culture laid upon a larger, drier, hotter place than the UK is, America has a freewheeling quality that Australia lacks -- a quality I found that I missed in the otherwise delightful Australian experience.

I imagine Australians coming up here, and being ritually shown the Big Dipper and the Pole Star on the first clear night just as Americans tend to ask to see the Southern Cross, wouldn't find it too difficult to adapt, though.