I received this list in a forward from Sarah G a few weeks ago, but have been chuckling over it ever since. I’ve bolded the ones I find particularly apt, especially as I’ve had to explain many of these cultural issues to numerous Brits over the last few years:

You Know You’re Australian If:

• You know the meaning of the world “girt”
• You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn
• You think its normal to have a leader named Kevin
• You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse
• You’ve made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden
• You believe it is appropriate to put a rubber in your son’s pencil case when he first attends school
• When you hear that an American “roots for his team” you wonder how often and with whom
• You understand that the phrase “a group of women wearing black thongs” refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds
• You pronounce Melbourne as “Mel-bin”
• You pronounce Penrith as “Pen-riff”
• You believe the “l” in the word ” Australia ” is optional
• You can translate: “Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas.”
• You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep
• You call your best friend “a total b*stard” but someone you really, truly despise is just “a bit of a b*stard”
• You think “Woolloomooloo” is a perfectly reasonable name for a place
• You’re secretly proud of our killer wildlife
• You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice as big as its $2 coin
• You understand that “Wagga Wagga” can be abbreviated to “Wagga” but “Woy Woy” can’t be called “Woy”
• You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread
• You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis
• Hamburger. Beetroot. Of course
• You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels’ song Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again
• You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year
• You still don’t get why the “Labor” in “Australian Labor Party” is not spelt with a “u”
• You wear ugg boots outside the house
• You believe, as an article of faith, that every important discovery in the world was made by an Australian but then sold off to the Yanks for a pittance
• You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like them
• Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language
• You understand that “excuse me” can sound rude, while “scuse me” is always polite
• You know what it’s like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose
• You understand that “you” has a plural and that it’s “youse”
• You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle
• Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket
• You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call “Anzac cookies”
• You still think of Kylie as “that girl off Neighbours”
• When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs - just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit
• You believe the phrase “smart casual” refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered
• You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction
• When working on a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer
• You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second
• You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government’s new test for migrants
• You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says “cobber”
• You know the oath of mateship can never be limited by geographical distance
• You’ve mimicked Alf Stewart from the TV show Home and Away’s broad, Australian accent, eg. “push off, ya flamin’ drongo!”
• You’ve had an argument with your mate over whether Ford or Holden makes the better car
• You’ve done the “hot sand” dance at the beach while running from the ocean back to your towel
• You know who Ray Martin is
• You start using words like ‘bloody’ and ‘grouse’ and call people ‘champ’
• You stop greeting people with ‘hello’ and go straight to the “how ya doin’?”
• You’ve been to a day-nighter cricket match and screamed out incomprehensibly until your throat went raw
• You have a story that somehow revolves around excess consumption of alcohol and a mate named ‘Dave’
• You’ve risked attending an outdoor music festival on the hottest day of the year
• You’ve tried to hang off a clothesline while pretending you can fly
• You’ve had a visit to the emergency room after hanging off the clothesline pretending you can fly
• You own a pair of thongs for everyday use, and another pair of dress thongs’ for special occasions
• You don’t know what’s in a meat pie, and you don’t care
• You call soccer “soccer, not “football”
• You’ve squeezed Vegemite through Vita Wheats to make little Vegemite worm
• You suck your coffee/tea through a Tim Tam
• You realise that lifeguards are the only people who can get away with wearing Speedos
• You pledge allegiance to Vegemite over Promite, even if you don’t eat itYou understand the value of public holidays
• Your weekends are spent barracking for your favourite sports team
• You’ve played beach cricket with a tennis ball and a bat fashioned out of a fence post
• You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok, and have told a mate in tough times that “She’ll be right, mate”
• You use the phrase, “no worries” at least once a day
• You’ve been on a beach holiday and have probably stayed in a caravan
• You constantly shorten words to “brekkie”, “arvo” and “barbie”
• You’ve adopted a local bar as your own

I wonder how many Rob would relate to having lived in Australia for a year?