Is it true that all Australian women are called “Sheila”? Isn’t that a bit confusing? And what about that Rod Stewart song, shouldn’t that be “Waltzing Sheila” then? - Mario, location unknown

There’s about ten million girls and women in Australia, and they are not all called Sheila. A few of them might be, but they in no way represent the majority, or even a significant portion.

There’s an old joke that suggests that the average Australian man’s foreplay consists of shouting “Brace yourself, sheila!”, but in actual fact most Australian are far more sophisticated than this, and generally take the effort to at least remember and use the correct name.

The very idea of Rod Stewart performing, or even writing, “Waltzing Matilda” is quite disturbing, and may well give me nightmares tonight. The song was actually written by A.B. “Banjo” Patterson in 1895, which would be at least a couple of years before Rod was born.

• Wikipedia: Waltzing Matilda

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2002 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.