I saw a headline and ignored it for a couple days. But finally, I admit it, I couldn’t resist. The headline was, “Monkeys and apes chain smoking as panic grips planet.”

Pardon my French, but “Tu me chies?”

Oh, wait. “Pardon my French” doesn’t really require actual French. It’s just a polite phrase you mindlessly stick in front of something slightly crude. So let’s do away with the français and just put it in English.

Are you shitting me?

Here’s what the accompanying article said:

Stressed-out primates have taken to chain smoking cigarettes as the coronavirus crisis rages across the globe.

Monkeys and chimps have failed to kick the habit as entertained visitors are seen to laugh as the animals spark up amid the pandemic.

They’ve “taken to chain smoking?”

C’mon, people. We’re talking about monkeys. They are not aware of the Kung Flu and they are not stressed out about it. They’re not pissed at the duplicity of the Chinese government. They’re not worried because the monkey is the next cage coughed on them. They’re not tut-tutting because the alpha chimp isn’t practicing proper social distancing as he humps one female after another. They’re not watching videos of celebrities urging them to wash their hands with hot soap and water for thirty seconds. They’re monkeys. Even if they did watch those videos they’d immediately run outside and toss poop at each other. And trust me on this, they’re not down at the grocery store fighting each other for the last roll of Charmin. 

And speaking of stores, I can promise you that they’re not hanging around outside the neighborhood liquor store asking older chimps to buy them cigarettes.

No. Some moron zookeeper goes out and buys the ciggies. The same moron opens the pack, takes one out, hands it to the monkey, and unless I missed another news item reporting that monkeys have mastered fire in the last few days, he must light the cigarette for the monkey.

Let the monkeys go cold turkey, you morons.

Stop buying them cigarettes. Buy them bananas.

That being said, there was always the rumor that Donovan’s 1967 hit Mellow Yellow was about the hallucinogenic effects of smoking banana peels.

They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow

Electrical banana
Is gonna be a sudden craze
Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase…

I hear that Donovan’s supplier was a chimpanzee in the London Zoo.

In the United States we have the Star Spangled Banner. A lot of people think it should be replaced with America the Beautiful. A few others think it’s too militaristic and should be replaced with some unspecified peaceful tune. Probably one that mentions veganism and condemns vaping and has politically-correct pronouns. Unfortunately for those linguini-spines wimps most Americans kind of like to stand up, put their right hands across their hearts, and attempt to sing some very patriotic words they can’t quite remember.

But I don’t think you’d get the same degree of support for the Australian national anthem from Australians. Sure, they all know that Advance Australia Fair is their national anthem. But if a vote were held, a lot of Aussies would probably support a couple other songs.

Here’s the real Aussie national anthem:

Replacement Nominee Number One – Waltzing Matilda. Every Aussie old enough to talk can probably sing this song. It means something very special, very dear to them. It reflects themes from a legendary era of the nation’s past. This video shows 100,000 Aussies exuberantly singing along during the closing ceremonies at the Sydney Olympics.

Replacement Nominee Number Two – The Land Down Under. This is a much more contemporary song that does everything for the last couple generations that Waltzing Matilda does for the older folks. Men at Work recorded it back in 1981 and I’m going to guess it gets performed at official functions almost as often as the actual national anthem does. And odds are every Aussie knows every one of the words. Here it is in a cell phone commercial:

I don’t think I’ll get to vote on the subject, but if I could I’d have a tough choice between Waltzing Matilda and The Land Down Under. After much wavering I think I’d eventually check the box for Waltzing Matilda.

No. I’ve changed my mind. I’d vote for The Land Down Under.

No. Waltzing Matilda.

Land Down Under.

Crap. I can’t decide.

I love 99.9% of all Aussies. They’re funny and quirky and wonderful people. That being said, we’ve been quarantined for less than ten days, yet the number of Aussie TV personalities I hate is growing faster than the Coronavirus.

Andrew O’Keefe – The host of Australia’s version of The Chase, O’Keefe is truly the most annoying man on television. He’s pompous, overbearing, unfunny, and prone to make odd noises and absurd hand motions. But his most annoying trait is his constant, phony, grating guffaws.

“Fast” Ed Halmagyi – Author, chef and one of the hosts of Better Homes & Gardens TV, Halmagyi has one of the most irritating voices in the history of sound. His head is always tilted and turned so that he can only look into the camera out of the corners of his eyes.

Every host of The Project – According to Wikipedia, The Project features “…stories by the main cast, often of a humorous but insightful nature.“ No, it really doesn’t. There’s nothing insightful when you know exactly what each host’s opinion will be before it is proffered. And just because everyone laughs uproariously in reaction to everyone else’s clearly-scripted-but-supposedly-adlibbed comments does not mean those comments are funny. (From left to right above: the smug Peter Helliar, the incredibly smug Waleed Aly, the remarkably smug Carrie Bickmore, and the tremendously smug Lisa Wilkinson)

Curtis Stone – If given a choice between watching Curtis Stone or having my eyeballs gouged out with red hot spoons, I’d opt for the spoons. He’s a celebrity chef who nearly reaches orgasm every time something touches his tastebuds. Nothing — absolutely nothing — in the history of food has ever tasted as good as whatever this guy just stuck in his pie hole. That exaggerated reaction just drives me up the wall.

Jamie Oliver – Yes, he’s actually English, but he’s constantly on TV here in Australia. At one point during the preparation of each recipe he is guaranteed to crouch down and bend over so that his face is on the same plane as the food and the camera. It’s a completely unnatural stance with no discernible purpose, but he clearly considers it his signature move. It’s like his version of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

I have a feeling that the more TV we watch during our isolation, the more this list will grow.

However, I’m not sure Jamie and I are going to survive six months in quarantine. It’s only been ten days and she already seems a bit aggravated by the fact that every time one of these people appears on-screen I point my finger at the TV and say, “Ka-pow!”

We really need to get Netflix.

We need a little perspective here. It’s farther from Sydney to Perth than from Moscow to Paris. Australia’s almost as big as the continental United States. And it’s almost fifty percent bigger than Europe.

On the other hand, the house in which we’re quarantined isn’t much bigger than our pool house in Texas.

I was being my normal goofy self attempting to make Jamie laugh. She wouldn’t laugh and I wouldn’t give up. I can only assume she was not amused because she finally looked at me and said, “It’s going to be a long winter, isn’t it?”

Yes, she’s trapped with me in isolation in this house for the next few months.

Talk about a captive audience.

I’ve written a lot about the differences between American and Australian dialects of the English language.

There’s a lingerie store in San Luis Obispo, California, where we lived for a dozen years, named Fanny Wrappers. When our Aussie friend Hamish first walked down Higuera Street and saw the store he did a double take, then whipped out his cell phone, took a photo of the store, immediately forwarded it to friends Down Under, and said, “No one back home will believe this.”

Why? What was so surprising about the name.

Well, in America a fanny is an innocent term for a woman’s rear end. Her buttocks. Her heinie. In Australia a fanny is a female anatomical feature that is, shall we say, very nearby and uniquely female.

American children carry fanny packs to school. Australian children definitely do not.

Our first stop on a normal Saturday morning is the Barossa Farmers Market. It’s everything you’d hope for in a small farm town farmers market. In addition to all the fresh fruits and veggies and baked and canned goods, you’re sure to run into friends and neighbors. We love it.

Unfortunately, it has temporarily fallen victim to the Coronavirus and is closed until further notice.

This is our friend John and his wife Lee. She’s the brains behind their thriving muesli and granola business. He’s the brawn.

This is one crazy map. But Australia is a crazy place, so nothing surprises us anymore.

We were once driving across the country and thought we couldn’t get to where we were going on time. Then we crossed the border from South Australia into Western Australia and found out we had suddenly gained an extra 2.5 hours by going from one time zone to another. We made it with time to spare.

Like I said, crazy.