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Tough times call for infectious viral marketing campaigns. I dare say you've heard of Tourism Queensland's attempt to lure visitors to its shores with a global publicity blitz dressed up as a job advertisement, purportedly . Then there was the supposedly love-struck Sydney woman, who turned to YouTube in her "search" for a dashing stranger who she'd fallen for at a Sydney cafe, where she claimed he had left his jacket. Rather than being a modern-day Cinderella, she turned out, of course, to be an actress employed by a clothing company to promote its latest line.

My favourite viral campaign of the southern summer silly season, though, comes from the Australia Day Council of New South Wales and features our old friend "Advance Australia Fair" Ahead of the celebrations marking national day, it has invited people to take the Advance Australia Dare, singing the anthem in whatever way they see fit. There's a , a , a , and even a . I offer these musical turns as some light-hearted holiday relief to escape from Australia's economic woes, a federal budget which is "buggered", according to an lavishly-quoted report from Access Economics, and the swathe of job losses in the mining industry.

I've been intrigued, and a little surprised, by the government-sponsored marketing campaigns that set out to boost participation in Australia Day. In a country as patriotic as this one, you would have thought they were superfluous. Certainly I've never had to twist arms to get the BBQ fired up.

For all that, the chirpy young bureaucrat who tours the sun-dried suburbs looking for residents who spent last year's national day couch-bound rather than slaving over a hot barbie are rather funny. So, too, his Australia Day checklist, which exhorts patriotic, True Blue Aussies to exercise their constitutional right to give dead arms, make a disparaging remark about English cricket and overcook a variety of meats on a semi-hygienic barbeque.

Forgive me if I don't do the former, but I'll certainly be hurling the odd crustacean in the direction of a flaming grill.

PS. On the larrikin debate, I agree with your comments. At the risk of being a "dobber", that definition was slipped in by London. This definition works for me: "The tradition of irreverence, mockery of authority and disregard for rigid norms of propriety".

Happy Australia Day.

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