What rugby is this?

Certainly they do treat what is in fact professional entertainment - not to be confused with sport - as barely legal warfare, from what little I've seen on TV. Now, if it were amateur games I suppose you could support one side or the other but for the life of me I can't see what's so important about one group or another playing the equivalent of WW3.

Totally agree! I remember last time we won it was the same with "Johnny Rotten" splashed across the papers the next day. They can't handle losing. It's like someone who constantly goes on about how fabulous they are - you can help love it when they are taken down a peg or two!!

Poor losers! That is the biggest understatement ever. I thought the Americns were bad but at being bad losers the Australians really can brag about being the best at it. It's like when a six year old loses the egg and spoon race and crosses her arms and storms off in a huff. Except here it's a national sport.

I remember John Howard's face the last time they lost, he had a real frown/sulk on his face as he handed out the trophy.
Even the guys at work thought it looked really bad.

No worse then what the Sun prints every time England plays Germany

I once accused an Australian of being a bad looser, his reply was "well we haven't had as much practice at it as you lot" to which I couldnt really argue

Is that just not his normal face?

Imagine the look when he has to hand over the keys to The Lodge...

S

In fairness, the English media's response would (will) be to slaughter all the English players and the managers and coaches regardless of what chance they had before the tournament. Let's not get carried away here - there's bad on both sides and good. Just because Arkon and Wol don't see the good doesn't mean it's not there for others.

I think that is the point Arkon and Wol are making. The British papers slag off their own teams regardless of winning or losing. UNHEARD of in Oz they would never slag off the best teams in the world. The Ozzies just can't accept that they are NOT the whole world just one big country in it. This is most Ozzies I have come across, if I tell them I don't like something here they look at me as if I am mad and when I justify why they look as if they are going to burst into tears as they can't defend themselves.

Yes, I've just experienced this in the last 10 minutes. I was bemoaning the lack of 0% finance deals on cars here, and they all just started protecting the dealers, saying "What's in it for the dealer to offer you 0% finance?" A complete lack of and willing to understand that somewhere else may do some things better...

S

You know mate - it's a cyclical argument. I haven't encountered anything like the problems that you and Arkon have here - so what does that prove? You guys are shit magnets and I'm not? I don't know, life hasn't been one big dreamy joyride here, but the problems I have had are no worse than the ones I had in the UK.

For instance, I had a horrific time of it with BT in the UK (we ended up paying for a phone line 8 months after we emigrated, amongst many other hassles due entirely to BT's ineptness). Despite great efforts on our part we got paid child benefits for many months after we left the country and when we finally got them to accept that we'd emigrated they sent us a nasty letter demanding immediate payment of over three thousand quid. We had building work done on our UK house which lead to the roof collapsing in above my son's bedroom. We had sewage pipes that backed up and belched effluent all over the garden which cost several thousand pounds to fix and which required four return visits from the contractor due to shoddy work. I bought a car (fully checked by the AA prior to purchase) from a main dealer for 7k which cost me over 8k in repairs within the space of two years. We had a tree surgeon round who managed to fell a pine tree on top of my next door neighbours two month old Imprezza. We had a power-cut for five days straight and received 50 quid in compensation from the power company (try running a home Internet business from McDonalds). The road we lived on subsided and partially collapsed due to heavy rain and badly neglected drains the year we moved in - I have just heard from my neighbour that it's currently being fixed, six years later!!!!

I might also add that I know many born-and-bred Brits who have had similar problems.

What does it all prove? Sweet **** all. That's life mate - whatever planet you live on.

See above.

I genuinely wish you all the best back in the UK Arkon and, since I don't have any sterling that needs moving at the moment, I will join you in praying that exchange rate down to the two-for-one territory.

And Hutch I bet you (quite rightly) complained like hell about what you describe. And you should: inefficiency at the level we're talking about is inexcusable.

What Arkon and others are saying is that there is a greater level of incompetence here - but that the proletariat just sits and accepts that's the way it is: there seems absolutely NO idea that (a) there are better and cheaper ways of doing things elsewhere and (b) we should aspire to improvement, not to mediocrity.

Americans are also bullshitters and jingoists (generalising a little <g> ) but the difference is that they won't just accept things *have* to be done badly.

Yes, this is one of the big things that used to bug me. Winning at all cost in sport was always imperitive, yet raising the standard of workmanship, service and life in general is way down on their list, and anyone who fights for it is a whinger or pain in the arse.

Yea I complained - and you know where it got me?

Like I said - I don't think there is a greater level of incompetence. I haven't experienced anything here even remotely like the examples I made in my previous post. Doesn't mean you haven't been ripped off or stitched up, just that it's not as simple as "It happened to me and some of my dinkie-die friends, therefore it must happen to everyone." The thing is, I most certainly am not one of those people that just puts up with poor service because that's how it is - if it sucked, I'd say so.

I lived in America and conducted a considerable amount of business over there and I think you're wrong. If anything, it's worse, since everything is governed by massive multi-nationals (Walmart anyone?) to a far greater degree than any other country. Competition hardly ever equates to better service - certainly not in the long-term.

Just to put this in to perspective, it is not all Australia and rugby, Queensland and nsw care about Rugby the rest of us could not give a toss, it hardly rates a mention in the southern states an WA............mm

Whooa! 2.26 and falling.......