Howard Jacobson on being named an honorary Aussie:
We take the good times with the bad in this column. Life isn't all Twitter and terror and porn. In proof whereof I am pleased to share with readers the news that I have been made an honorary Australian. In my heart I've been an honorary Australian a long time, but now it's official.
The title was conferred on me by the Australian high commissioner, Alexander Downer, at a moving ceremony in London last week. I have a medal to prove it. The only downside is that the honour lasts a mere 12 months. This time next year, someone else will get it and I'll just be any old Pommy bastard again.
Between ourselves, reader, it was being called a Pommy bastard that made me fall for Australia in the first place. Written down, it doesn't have much to recommend it, I grant you, but breathed into your face in situ – which might be a sophisticated cocktail lounge peopled by bankers and newspapermen in the middle of Sydney, or an outback bearpit with sawdust on the floor and 20 stockmen in Chelsea boots and ankle socks leering at you from the bar – the phrase "you Pommy bastard" expresses a warmth, I'd even go so far as to say a sentimentality, it is near impossible to convey to anyone who has never been its recipient.
[And now read on....]
