My poor little country has a few self-image issues...

The people in charge of the great land of ‘Ostrayah’ have just paid some very large amounts of money (in very large sacks) to an advertising agency. It seems that there aren’t enough people coming here to give us money just for being cool, so we had to get in some consultants to work on our image. We’d like to be one of the popular kids, instead of being that slightly eccentric kid that you’ve seen around but you’re not really sure where you know them from…

I really feel for my country. I was one of those eccentric kids!

The advertising agency came up with some glossy TV ads to be shown overseas. From what I’ve seen, the ads star the usual cast of exceptionally good looking people. This is only natural, because we all look like Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger, Russell Crowe and Olivia Newton John... (Really! We do!) Basically the people prance about in picturesque settings, and then say “So where the bloody hell are you?”

Some people hate it, less people love it, I just hope that people from other cultures don’t sit at home thinking "Yes they're pretty, but someone needs to wash their mouths out with soap!"

It's such a weird slogan for them to come up with. I don’t know anyone who would say it, let alone say it in the context of inviting people from other cultures to come and see how wonderful everything is here... They’re spending $180 million on this, so I hope they know what they’re doing! Actually, that’s not really as much money as it sounds, because it’s $180 million of our little ‘Ostrayan’ dollars…

Personally I think people will want to come visit, as long as they keep showing pictures of cool stuff that we have…






(If I had $180 million to spend on this post I'd have some better quality photos...)