A nation behaving badly

March 30, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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around_the_world.jpgAre Australians the ultimate ugly tourists?

It seems we’re costing Australian tax payers more and more while we’re overseas and dying abroad at an ever increaasing rate. We keep getting arrested while travelling and we apparently don’t care much for those in authority. We also need rescuing a lot more that we used to.

The information has been released by our own Department of Foreign Affairs and is being reported at News.com.au in the article Department of Foreign Affairs reports latest Australian tourist figures.

WHINGEING, irresponsible, cut-rate Australian tourists abroad are costing those who stay home millions of dollars and are being arrested more than ever.

The latest figures from the Department of Foreign Affairs show that 2009 is set to become the first year when more than 1000 Australians are arrested and when more than 1000 Australians are expected to die overseas, The Australian reports.

Surely we’re not all bad.

While I don’t get to travel overseas a lot I do make a point of behaving myself while in someone else’s country. Mind you, I pretty much behave at home too. I suppose that with more Aussies travelling we’re bound to see an increase in the number of ‘ugly Australians’ leaving our shores.

What’s your experience? Do you travel a lot? If you’re Australian have you ever seen other Aussies behaving in such a way that you’d rather you weren’t idetified as their countrymen? If you’re not from the land down under, what are your impressions of Australians that have visited your part of the world? Who do you think are the world’s worst tourists?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section of this post.



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Talking with Shelley Harland

March 30, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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When someone claims musical influences as diverse as The Beatles, Bjork, the Motown sound and the Carpenters, you’re assured that their music won’t be anything ordinary. Shelley Harland’s music is indeed extraordinary.

Commuting between Sydney, New York and London, she combines a range of influences to create her own unique sound. She recently joined me on the phone for a radio interview on 98.5 Sonshine FM.

The song in the video, Wonder, is the first single to be lifted from her soon to be released album, Red Leaf.

Shelley has collaborated with a range of artists including John Cale from the very influential Velvet Underground who commissioned her to work on some of his recent releases.

You can hear my conversation with Shelley by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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The Power of Twitter

March 30, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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twitter_logo.pngIf you’re a Twitter skeptic, you might like to reconsider.

Alison Godfrey has written at News.com.au that using Twitter helped her get the home loan she needed. Her article Commonwealth Bank all a-Twitter over mortgage approval tweet, describes how she turned things around very quickly by using less than 140 characters.

It seems that someone at the Commonwealth Bank saw her tweet about her negative banking experience and the head of Commonwealth Bank’s customer service team was in touch with her within an hour and seventeen minutes. Apparently a lot of the big business players are now monitoring social media to see where they’re being mentioned in cyberspace. I’ll have to keep that in mind when our house sells and we need to confirm our financial arrangements.

By the way, if you are using Twitter, feel free to follow me.

You’ll find my Twitter profile here.

If you don’t twitter and you’re wondering what I’m talking about, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are posts of up to 140 characters in length. Sort of a cross between text messaging and blogging.

Find out more at the Twitter page on Wiki.



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