Ok, people of a certain age will remember a deodorant called “Uncle Sam”.

For those of you who are younger… And those of you who are older but forget things that are trivial and of no consequence:

The deodorant was a clever play on the famous ad:

The ad basically suggested…

Actually, it explicitly said: “You need Uncle Sam, You need Uncle Sam…”

And, rather ironically, in an age when young people were protesting about Australia being the running lapdogs of the capitalists trying to expand their market into Vietnam, Uncle Sam – the deodorant achieved a certain popularity.

Its failure, in the end, was because it was basically no good. As a friend told me at the time, “It has no smell and it doesn’t stop you sweating… It’s fuckin’ useless!”

Ok, I understand that marketing can often triumph over quality, but there is a limit to that.

“Unca Donald, why does Unca Scrooge swim in his money bin?”

“Because he can, Huey, because he can!”

For those of you who’ve never read the Gospel According To Walt (Disney, not Whitman), that’s a reference to Donald Duck cartoons. Donald Duck cartoons do a wonderful job of the explaining the best of American life. One moment, Donald doesn’t have enough money to buy a camera, but when the nephews come home with a camera, he can suddenly afford tickets to some overseas country where he intends to take photos. Mm, this is the way it works over there apparently. Everything you need falls into your lap; then you can go wherever you like…

Almost everything about America… No, it’s not America. America is the continent. Two continents, actually. The country is “The United States Of America”.

Gee, Alanis Morrissette, that’s ACTUALLY ironic.

And speaking of irony…

Did you find it ironic that while Donald Trump was attracting flack for de-classifying documents, our current Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet only attracts page five in the Mandrake Media for “accidentally” release classified material?

Oh, just me then?