An Englishman's View of Australia

[David Baird]

Dear Whoever,

I came across a passage called "An Englishman's View of Australia," with authorship attributed to Douglas Adams. Did he actually write it?

The beginning of the passage is, "Australia is a very confusing place, taking up a large amount of the bottom half of the planet. It is recognisable from orbit because of many unusual features, including what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge into the girting sea."

Best Regards,

David Baird

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

Post by David Baird
Dear Whoever,
I came across a passage called "An Englishman's View of Australia,"
with authorship attributed to Douglas Adams. Did he actually write it?
The beginning of the passage is, "Australia is a very confusing place,
taking up a large amount of the bottom half of the planet. It is
recognisable from orbit because of many unusual features, including
what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern
edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge into the girting sea."
Best Regards,
David Baird

In "Last chance to see" he visited the antipodes.

https://dangerousintersection.org/2009/01/21/douglas-adams-guide-to-
australia/

Are you suggesting it's someone else's words?

[Nemo Thorx]

Quoting Kerr-Mudd,John from 06 Feb (a Thursday in 2020) at 0906 hours...

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John

Post by David Baird
Dear Whoever,
I came across a passage called "An Englishman's View of Australia,"
with authorship attributed to Douglas Adams. Did he actually write it?
The beginning of the passage is, "Australia is a very confusing place,
taking up a large amount of the bottom half of the planet. It is
recognisable from orbit because of many unusual features, including
what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern
edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge into the girting sea."
Best Regards,
David Baird

In "Last chance to see" he visited the antipodes.
https://dangerousintersection.org/2009/01/21/douglas-adams-guide-to-
australia/
Are you suggesting it's someone else's words?

Yes.

It's known by many titles, including "Australia - A Confusing Place",
"An Englishman's View of Australia", "Douglas Adams' Guide to
Australia", "Confused by the Confusing Country" and "Australia
- A Cultural Perspective"

Douglas Adams enjoyed reading it a lot, but admits it wasn't him, and
asked who DID write it here:
http://mboard.douglasadams.com/cgi-bin/info/dnathread.cgi?2060,0

And in that thread we find one Jeremy Lee explaining it was his and
originally titled "Australia: The confusing Country" and written for
H2G2 in 1999

Here is a link to a copy which has the correct creditation as well as
a link to the forum http://members.iinet.net.au/~ploke/Vines/vines4.html

And this should probably be considered the official version, being as it
is on h2g2.com: https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A53650 (but it lacks the
credit that clears up these confusions)


Anyway, let's give final word to what Douglas DID write about
Australia... https://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-08-a.html



.../Nemo

[Greg Warren]

Post by David Baird
Dear Whoever,
I came across a passage called "An Englishman's View of Australia," with authorship attributed to Douglas Adams. Did he actually write it?
The beginning of the passage is, "Australia is a very confusing place, taking up a large amount of the bottom half of the planet. It is recognizable from orbit because of many unusual features, including what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge into the girting sea."
Best Regards,
David Baird

Excuse me it looks like it is trying to feel Like Douglas style but is probably some would be comedian that thinks his delivery is enough to Laugh at. As the first three is maybe & two are simply facts only simple Person would laugh at the obvious it IS recognizable from space but only for its size & shape anyway. From space the White Cliffs of Dover should More obvious Being so White. Then I think. IF this Supposed Space ship is probably circling at the equator to slow it d approach But more odd is NO mention of the giant spikes Teeth within the Bight Could be teeth is the kind of Pithy Thing a real comedian might mention Bit still not funny. What is more odd is one great big rock dropped in the middle that changes colors center Bight, makes Perfect Sense to me because of words like might & tight should I go on.... unless Your name is Webster

[Nemo Thorx]

Quoting Greg Warren from 18 Jun (a Thursday in 2020) at 1609 hours...

Post by Greg Warren
Excuse me it looks like it is trying to feel Like Douglas style but is
probably some would be comedian that thinks his delivery is enough to
Laugh at.

If you see my reply (it's a sub-reply to someone else admittedly) there
is a decent trace of the origin of this article, including Douglas
saying it's very good and he really wished he had written it.

And then Jeremy Lee telling the story of his creation of it.

The most tl;dr is this...
http://mboard.douglasadams.com/cgi-bin/info/dnathread.cgi?2060,0

.../Nemo