The GAA hasn’t evolved? What about ye? ‘Mate’

JUST before she left her seat on flight EY460, the Australian woman who had been sitting beside me for 13 hours from Abu Dhabi welcomed me to her native city.

“Have a good time in Melbourne,” she said before heading off down the aisle. This friendly and polite gesture is entirely consistent with the natives of this land. Australians are very well-mannered.

Another example. When I boarded a tram on Sunday and struggled to work out how to validate my ticket, two passengers immediately offered assistance. Such forthcoming helpfulness doesn’t generally occur in cities with a population of 4,000,000 inhabitants.