Great Things the Australians have Invented - Part 1

Stubbie Holders

I’d put this up there with the discovery of fire and the wheel. The man who invented Stubbie holders, should be lauded in the company of Einstein and Newton. Like most great inventions, it is deceptively simple. A small flexible cup made from rubber based products and usually sporting a garish picture advertising a beer company or football team. It is designed to hold a bottle of beer (known as a Stubbie, as everything in Australia has to end in “ie”) or can of beer (if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know this is called a tinnie). The purpose is to keep the beer cold until its final sip. I had originally assumed that this marvellous invention was designed for the sultry climes of Queensland or the Northern Territories, where temperatures sometimes reach the levels of an Arab’s armpit, 3 hours into his interview in Abu Ghraib prison. But in fact, the humble Stubbie holder is useful in all beer drinking scenarios. To be scientific for a moment, glass is a medium level conductor of heat. Not as bad as metal and somewhat worse than wood. The simple act of clutching a bottle or glass while engaging in weighty conversation on the prospects of Carlton winning the flag in 2008 will cause heat to pass from your body into the clutched liquid. In much the same way as Jesus enters into bread and wine during a Mass. Well maybe not like that but beer is as important to me as God, so you’ll have to excuse the comparison.

The net effect is that the start of the beer will taste crisp and refreshing, while the dregs will taste like, well dregs. Cunning scientists employed by the Australian Beer industry realised that people drink cold beer faster than they drink warm beer (there’s a lesson to the English there). So the race was on to find the solution. While the rest of the world was busy splitting atoms and untangling the web of DNA, Aussie Scientists were busy trying to figure out how to keep beer cold. And God bless them, I say. In Melbourne, they came up with an Interim solution called “The Pot”. This involves serving beer in such a ridiculously small glass that it’s drunk before you leave the bar, thus preventing it from getting warm. But bar service is so unbelievably poor in Melbourne that this was never a long term solution. And so the Stubbie holder was born. After you get over the initial embarrassment of clutching a small rubber cup with a picture of a Koala Bear on the front, you release yourself to a night of drinking cold beer in the manner of the guests at the wedding of Cana. The last will be as good as the first. It’s nothing short of a miracle.

Kath and Kim

Kath and Kim is not the funniest thing on TV, it's not the best written or the most risky. But it captures a nation's soul in a self-deprecating manner like no other. When Father Ted was in its pomp, we Irish marvelled at its ability to dissect the sacred cows of Irish culture and serve them up to us as juicy steaks. We recognised all the caricatures as fundamental truths from our childhoods. The alcoholic priest, the murderous married couple whose mouths wouldn't melt butter when seen in public and the bishop and his mistresses. Father Ted was famously made and broadcast in Britain and while we laughed at our recent past as it was dressed in pantomime costume before us, we also hid behind our cultural cringe and only peeked over it to see if the British were laughing with us or at us!

Kath and Kim has a similar impact on Australians and Melbournians in particular. They recognise the accents as being a not so distant stretch from the average voice you’ll hear in suburban malls. The garish clothes are the sort you see on a sunny day in St Kilda and the social phopahs are indicative of a country where money and wealth are racing ahead and manners are lagging behind. The attraction of Kath and Kim is that they are materially rich enough to indulge in all of the pastimes of modern living. The big house, the plasma TV, the endless supply of Chardonnay and fake tanning. But they don’t have the “breeding” to enjoy it properly. We, the viewing public, feel that we have this breeding which allows the program to portray us as our uneducated selves. There are many countries that have experienced a similar economic boom in recent years and created a new class of people with money and pretensions. Australia has offered a ready made template to make fun of this development and Ireland in particular could make use of it. “Mary and Margaret” sounds good, not least because I could write it and base it on my two sisters.

It’s also the most popular comedy in New Zealand, but I’m pretty sure they’re not laughing with them.

Beetroot on Hamburgers

Sometimes you have to wonder who the first person to discover something was and how he came across it. What sort of experimentation was somebody doing when they discovered that a plastic bag over your head and an amyl nitrate soaked orange in your mouth would deliver higher sexual enjoyment (although presumably not for your partner who has to look at you at the time)? Or what could that person have been up to when they discovered that licking a particular frog would give you hallucination fits?

I have the same thoughts about the man that discovered that beetroot goes with hamburgers. I suspect he’s related to the idiot that invented pickles in Big Macs. But the beetroot is genius. It adds flavour and provides unwashable colouring to your hands, providing instant evidence in the morning of your previous nights dining habits. The Aussies take the beetroot thing a bit far though. You can get an Aussie Pizza here, which includes kangaroo or emu meat (this being the only country in the world that eats the animals depicted on their national emblem) and a large dollop of beetroot. It’s just wrong.

But when you’ve had a skinful of stubbies at an afternoon Barbie and you’re trying to sober up before Kath and Kim, then an Aussie burger with a large slice of beetroot is your only man.