It only took him about ten hours to make it. As you walked along the suntanned footpath of Surfers Paradise, saturated in brown female flesh, you popped into the next bar along the strip and there he was, all grinning and jubilant.
    “What kept you, Duffy?”
    “Had to finish the dinner dishes. Just couldn’t go leaving a mess like that behind.”
    “Don’t tell me Harding’s going soft in his old age.” It was a hopeful comment.
    “No way. Special compassionate Ieave, authorisied John Duffy.”
    “They’ll catch up with you.”
    “They’ll earn their money if they try.”
    “Gawd, look at them tits,” cried Ernie the Weed, who had come with him.
    “Well, you gunna buy your old mate Duffy a beer or what?”

Nino Culotta, an Italian journalist, arrives on assignment in Australia, where he soon discovers that his perfect command of the English language is of no use to him whatsoever. Hence a taxi driver delivers him to his fate…
“Excuse me, sir, but do you mind telling me where now I am?”
“Kings Cross. Three bob.”
“Excuse me, sir, but do you mind telling me where now I am?”
He shouted very loudly, “KINGS BLOODY CROSS!”
I said this to myself two or three times, and decided that it must be the name of a suburb. So I said, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why am I in Kings Bloody Cross?”
    So it continues, as Nino wonders about a job ad which suggests he call after five whether they mean morning or evening, slowly learns the meaning of owyergoin and dago, and that personal abuse is always a form of affection. In fact the book, They’re a Weird Mob, was written by an Irish-Aussie named John O’Grady, and was the beginning of a series of local best sellers. The superb TV series Mother and Son was written and produced by his son, also named John. Oddly, the book and concept has become as dated as fair dinkum Aussies have become almost an endangered species and most of it would be illegal anyway in these multi-cultural and politically corrected days.