Back in the 1980s, Crocodile Dundee got tourists to Australia by putting an extra shrimp, one at a time, on the barbie for them. The country’s new tourism campaign, which launches today, has a similar flavor, but without the Croc around to give it that extra kick, it resorts to some mild cursing in the tagline: A new Web site, WheretheBloodyHellAreYou.com, shows a new commercial in which Aussies frolic and say things like, “We’ve poured you a beer. We’ve had the camels shampooed. We’ve saved you a spot on the beach. And we’ve got the sharks out of the pool. … So where the bloody hell are you?” Predictably, some fools are bothered by the “bloody hell” line, prompting Prime Minister John Howard to defend it. “It’s a colloquialism,” he says. “It’s not a word that is seen quite in the same category as other words that nobody ought to use in public or on the media or in advertisements.” Like, say, “wife-beater.”
—Posted by Tim Nudd
