The Sun-Herald

Our icons have Australia Post licked

Some things you do in this life come back to haunt you. A few years ago this column suggested to Australia Post that it issue a series of stamps depicting Australia's icons. We conducted a poll and established that, in the view of Stay in Touch readers, the Australian icons most suitable for depiction on a stamp were:

1. Vegemite; 2. An Akubra hat/Driza-Bone; 3. A meat pie and tomato sauce; 4. A lifesaver and a surf-reel; 5. A Hills hoist; 6. Sydney Harbour Bridge/Opera House; 7. Uluru; 8. A Holden; 9. A can of beer; 10. A lamington. The runners up included Aeroplane Jelly, a Granny Smith apple, a didgeridoo, Bananas in Pyjamas, a property developer and a garden swan made out of a peeled-back tyre, painted white.

In the end Australia Post declined all our readers' suggestions and instead issued a series on Australian movies. We broke off all communication.

Yesterday, when we were perusing the online magazine Stamp Bulletin, we discovered that Australia Post plans to issue a stamp series titled "Big Things" on June 5 to celebrate the "giant kitsch replicas" that dot our countryside. As Australia Post says: "From representing iconic Australiana, Big Things themselves have become iconic for many Australians." The Big Things were painted by Reg Mombassa, legendary for his work on Mambo's equally iconic "loud" shirts.

We don't dispute the right of the Big Golden Guitar (Tamworth), the Big Lobster (Kingston, South Australia), the Big Banana (Coffs Harbour), the Big Merino (Goulburn) and the Big Pineapple (Nambour, Queensland) to be called icons, but we demand to know how Australia Post has the nerve to exclude the Big Potato (Robertson), the Big Bull (Wauchope), the Big Prawn (Ballina), the Big Cheese (Bega), the Big Crocodile (Wyndham, Western Australia), the Big Orange (Berri, South Australia), and the Big Peanut (Kingaroy, Queensland).

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.