mike carey

And it's only funny because that's exactly what many of his critics sound like!

Whatever music you want to have playing, Mike! Not sure about the TV, Curious, Fox News in the background might not be ideal.

No, Gman, don't know why that is. As you said, there are some singers who don't slide into a North American accent, and others who don't do it in all their numbers. It's not limited to the ones you've listed, regional US accents tend to be 'normalised' too.

How many pronounce the ll in the way that Argentines do as zh?

Gman, there is virtually no accent difference in Australia. There are some differences in vocabulary, but they are minor. There are accent differences between Australia and New Zealand, but none between the east and west coasts of Australia.

Yes, when I was travelling in Europe in the 70s I spent some time with South Africans. They said that Dutch and Flemish speakers were reminded of their grandparents when they heard South Africans speak Afrikaans. That's amazing linguistically. It's as if American or Australian English had become separate languages from English: South African Dutch speakers weren't separated from the Dutch for all that much longer than we were from England, but Afrikaans became a separate language when our languages did not become separate. What is similar though is that our accents froze and preserved how English was spoken when we became separate communities from the UK. Researchers say that Australian English became set with its accent within 10 years of settlement here in the early 19th century.

I was surprised, I had learnt French and not Italian or Spanish, but travelling in South America I found I could read and understand Spanish and Italian newspapers reasonably well. I couldn't speak the languages but could understand the printed word. (More so Italian than Spanish.)

All the Anglosphere countries are less than enthusiastic at speaking second languages. There are exceptions such as the mandated French proficiency for government jobs in Canada, and the varying use of first nations' languages. Most white South Africans speak both English and Afrikaans. Australians are no different to that. Foreign language proficiency is usually limited to immigrants and their children, with notable exceptions like our previous prime minister. I learnt French for five years in high school but was never fluent, although I could get by in France when I was younger, now not so much. I also studied a couple of languages at uni, but was never fluent in them. I could ask really, really basic questions in Chinese - in writing but not orally in Hong Kong - and read things in Japan. For all that I'm functionally monolingual now. In Australia there is rarely either the need or the opportunity to speak foreign languages.

Indeed, someone has to do it!!

I have been a distant admirer of Alec and Ryan for a long time. I hope to become a much closer admirer, but only time will tell on that!

The Malaysian PM has just confirmed that the debris found at La Réunion was from MH370. So with that we can dispense with the conspiracy theories about the aircraft being flown to Diego Garcia or Central Asia.

The test of whether Uber is classy (as opposed to the driver in question) is how quickly they threw the driver out the door when they found out about it, which they apparently did. Cab drivers are more likely to be aware of the laws and be aware of the consequences of disregarding them, but you still hear stories of them turning assistance dogs away (and the follow up stories of drivers being prosecuted). I guess the poor driver no longer has to worry about scratches on his precious leather seats.

Go to your profile page and click on your number of points in the left hand column, and a box sill come up listing all the reward points you have. There is a link from that to a list of all the available points.

I don't know when first had a queer moment and recognised it as such, although in retrospect there were a few. I bought those body-building magazines but never for a moment associated what I saw with any form of sexual attraction, and generally managed the same dissociation between thinking about men's bodies and sexual attraction. I find it hard to believe myself now! I knew about poofters but thought of that as something about creepy old men (no, I hadn't met any) rather than something that might relate to 'normal people'. Something about growing up in a small town and being naïve: it's not that the place was homophobic, homosexuality just wasn't a thing to me. Realising that it actually was a thing and that it was part of me came slowly. Looking back I just didn't know what I was missing.

This is a serious concern. I'm waiting with bated breath for the Donald to blame President Obama for failing to stop these foreign birds from entering the United States and threatening American dinosaurs.

Two shark attacks in a day or so earlier this week within a couple of kilometres of each other on the NSW Far North Coast, no fatalities. And then a huge kids surfing carnival went ahead there without incident.

+ 1

Nice pecs, just drooling here!

Ah yes, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, now RMIT University.

Noooo, it doesn't show at all! And I am sufficiently aware to know what you were talking about!! One newspaper in Melbourne (The Age) is often referred to as the Spencer Street Soviet (its offices were in Spencer Street). It's all fun!

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross We'll toil with hearts and hands; To make this Commonwealth of ours Renowned of all the lands; 'Commonwealth' is such a socialist construct, but I wouldn't claim its advocates were neurotic nut cases.

Certainly looks that way!

Yes it is sad that racial identity is such a big issue. If it were not a big issue she could have turned up at the NAACP, done the good work she apparently did without having to say what her racial identity was, or having anyone consider asking.

Walmart has form with this. I'm sure I saw the same thing advertised for the festival of lights. That would be Hamukkah I guess.

Hey, I'm an Australian and I get it!!