A word of explanation about Max Q's '
You could always make a holiday when Howard finally manages to get his tongue around the, for him, nefandous "S" word!' for anyone not up with Australian political issues (and anyone who didn't catch the subtle message on the front of Midnight Oil's T-shirts at the Sydney Olympics):
Our Prime Minister John Howard has repeatedly - and pointedly - refused to say "Sorry" to the Aboriginal people of Australia for all the past wrongs inflicted upon them by generations of white immigrants. He has gone as far as saying he personally "regrets" past injustices, but has stopped short of using what Max calls the "S" word, apparently on legal advice that it may be construed as an admission of guilt and hence open the floodgates to compensation claims.
If he does say it, I hope he does it in September, as we desperately need a public holiday thereabouts to break up the long bleak stretch of all-work-no-play that lasts from June (Somebody Else's Queen's Birthday) to Christmas, although it is punctuated in my metropolis by a horse race in November.
