The guys, Tim Ferguson (ex-Duntroon soldier), Paul McDermott (painter) and Richard Fidler (author and sculptor), have just released their first Australian album ICON and it's just what all BIG GIG lovers have been waiting for. And the wacky threesome would like us to believe they have just pulled off one of the biggest movie coups in Hollywood-parts in Batman 2. "

"Yep, we're playing the Penguin's henchmen-we get to plod around and look mean and go 'ooogh, ooogh, ooogh'," says Tim who looks strikingly like Matt Dillon. "Apparently we got noticed at the Edinburgh Festival and the next thing we know we're signed and we start filming next February in London," he shrugs innocently.

ICON is sure to be a hit with DAAS fans, with songs on it like "Commies for Christ" and "I want to Spill the Blood of a Hippie". Do they dress like perfectly respectable, clean-cut young men with the single objective of shocking and confusing every one?

"Of course. It's just so that you are constantly one step ahead of people. Reporters who come to interview us usually arrive in a state of nervousness. They think we are going to stand up on the table and urinate. And then they see we are just nice middle class boys from Canberra," says Tim with an ironic grin.

The content of British television is downright immoral. If you check your TV guide you'll see a host of programs on every station designed to educate, enlighten and stimulate. Great shows like "Accountancy Television" (BBC1), "Legal Network"(BBC2) and "A Study of Maastricht"(ITV) flood the airwaves. Recently Channel Four did a series of "Workers of the Waterways", an hour spent with the people who maintain and safeguard the waterways in Britain. The show went out at 8.30 - prime time. We all thought "Aha! I shall simply change the channel to ITV!" But Alas! ITV was presenting (and this is true) "Lucinda Lambton's Hall of Fame celebrating the sewers of Victorian civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazallgette".

Millions of viewers who'd switched on to get away from it all got as far as the bathroom. As one, the nation clicked over to the Beeb.

Bad move. To smash the opposition and rate through the roof BBC1 has "Wildlife Showcase" (a visual diary of a year in the life of Holland's wetlands) and crazy radical, on the edge BBC2 had a very sexy show on the Chess Championship.

Christ! We were raised in the Antipodes on a diet of American crap full of gratuitous violence and sex! Educational programs were on at lunchtime and the closest we came to Holland's wetlands was fevered glimpses of our parents badly hidden porn video.

Somehow, somebody with the best of intentions took British TV and turned it into a giant turd.

Some Marxist Middlesex granny decided the box was rotting our minds, that we were becoming zombies, that watching Starsky and Hutch blow away the guts of s drug runner would make us run our and stab the neighbours with a fork.

They devised a sinister solution to our fun. Educate! Enlighten! Stimulate! These pricks of conscience invented such classic shows as "Let's talk Lettuce!", "Who Cares Wins" and "The Tory Conference Live". Let television be a tool for improving society!

Bollocks. When we, The People, get home from a hard days slog on the treadmill, we want to watch intestines flying in a hail of bullets, brains splashing in Jackson Pollock's hideout walls young sexy Yanks banging away at each other in frenzies of rubber, feathers and Baywatch bikinis!

We want to switch off both sides of our brains and fill them up with crap. We don't watch the box to think. It's too mesmerising a device to activate the mind's higher functions. No thanks. Just pull up the tops of our skulls, pour in that wicked sludge and zip us up again.

Blood. Filth and Slaughter!!!!

Now, that's entertainment.

A sensual dream like fall - layer after layer of delicate clouds part before him - semi-opaque draperies that he gently passed through. They rolled carelessly around him and perhaps they would have held him there but She was too strong.

The frosted air forces a blush to his cheeks like a brisk winter morning. He felt suffused with life, a kindred with all things - living and dead. A kind of knowledge that flowed in steady pulses through his veins and stuck momentarily in his temples where the dull thud became a sanguine clamour. He felt sanctified.

He fell with grace.

This tiny shape - insignificant - tumbling through space on the inevitable journey back to soil. Back to fresh, dry earth.

Back to familiar things.

His eyes were wide with wonder. Beneath him the splendour of 'the mother' was boundless. The close knit forests that spread their searching fingers into the soft patchwork quilt of fields.

The lake to the left which sat still like a giant mirror to the sky. The arteries of rivers. The mountains that rose from the plains like misshapen backbones.

All the earth was focused on him, focused and concentrating on this speck.

The sun was on his back and warming it.

Then he saw it.

Saw it out of the corner of his eye.

At first he was confused, and slightly frightened. For a moment his heart skipped a beat. His temples stopped their insistent echo.

A dark shape in the distance was moving at an incredibly high speed skimming over the ground, it adjusted itself as it moved. Conforming to every new shape that it encountered. He watched it with apprehension. It was moving towards where he would end his journey. As if it knew, as if these things were predetermined. Panic gripped him. His heart began to pound furiously.

He was close.

He could see, now, the algae on the trees and rocks, the patterns on the leaves - the minute details of nature. He lost the pattern of distance.

He was very close.

Then...there was no need for fear - no need to be frightened - so close...and he realised what the dark shape was, it was his own shadow racing over the earth with outstretched arms to be united with him.

Smug chuckles from the old school ties around the table. An awkward pause as the three Allstars exchange glances, silently electing Paul to do the job.

"Oh yes" interrupts Paul, an executioner's smile adorning his face, "We have libraries. We have the Olympics too…."

Hack. Slash. Jab!

A quick slice to the throat and it's all over. The inbred cad lies twitching on the table and the old school ties try vainly to soak up the blood.

The English believe Awstwalia to be a land of slack-jawed, beer guzzling thugs who dislike Foreplay. Of course Foreplay is an appalling pastime but why do they think we're all stupid? Simple - we told them that we were stupid.

As soon as Australians land at Heathrow they feel the need to discard their urbane, middle Class, literate selves and adopt the characteristics of a troglodyte on mogadon.

The accent becomes broader, the Drizabone comes out. The bullshit stories become rampant - "The White Shark leapt 60 foot into the air, rapped it's tongue around the fuselage of the Mig.21 and pulled it out of the way of the Quantas Jumbo Jet just before they collided above the sun-drenched beach smothered in neckless boys called Craig and their naked girlfriends" etc. etc. etc..

Only in London will you hear Australians using the term like Oz, cobber, fair Dinkum and bonza. We shove beer down our necks like we were Dr Who's Tardis. We walk up pissed to strangers and say "What did you say about my sister mate?!!", praying desperately they don't realise we're from Toorak or Vaucluse.

The women act like they've addled their brains by too much swimming in the typing pool and the men become Ockers. Lets get one thing straight. The Ocker is a wife-bashing, racist, beer-gutted homophobe. A true Ocker would never travel overseas anyway, fearful that he may turn to sodomy and perhaps enjoy it.

DAAS say - pick up your Drizabone and read up on your Trollop. Let us gloat about our literacy levels at dinner parties and smash the corrupt monarchy into the bargain. We have libraries and the Olympics. Let the English sit on that!

Next, the thought of travelling to Ireland might creep into your consciousness. Yes, a quick trip to the Green Isle renowned for the beauty of its sheep and the stupidity of its people. The ideal tourist destination…..

Traveller. Beware!

For a start. Guinness, the lifeblood of the nation, the high-calibre stuff that dominates 90 per cent of the conversation in Eire, makes you fart uncontrollably. And its high yeast content has nasty side effects for women. Scratch one holiday….

Sure, the sheep are pretty, but they won't talk to you and give you rude looks if you say you're Australian. And if you say you're a Kiwi they call the cops.

As for the people, well, it would be politically incorrect to say they were stupid. The Doug Anthony Allstars are renowned for being politically correct and we're not going to spoil our reputation here.

Let's just say that the Irish are warm, street smart, generous and highly intelligent people who pretend to be stupid.

All the street signs are bilingual, in English and Irish - a worthy initiative you might think. The tragedy is that nobody actually speaks Irish. It's hard enough understanding the gibberish English they speak in Cork without tackling a whole other language.

But the road signs keep the Yank tourists happy. They could say "All Septics Must Be Drowned In Their Own Vomit" for all the Yanks care. Anyway, Australians have been speaking Irish for years. At least after a few cold ones it's hard to tell the difference.

Never ask an Irishman for directions. They will tell you anything just to keep you happy. Ask for the town's Post Office and they will direct you to the North Pole and back via jet ski if it will send you merrily on your way. The chances are that the Post Office doesn't exist anyway.

Don't trust maps either. They were drawn up by Oliver Cromwell's girlfriend and haven't been changed since. If you see a church marked on a map don't head for it because the chances are that Oliver burnt it to the ground when he and his troops rampaged through the countryside. He was the last tourist to have a fun-filled holiday in Ireland.

Divorce, Gays, the pill, the Sunday Sport and oral sex are all illegal in the Republic of Ireland. You can buy condoms but you need a letter from your grandmother first and you then must travel with a nun to make sure you don't use it.

The Catholic Church, that most defiled, corrupt and despicable of real estate franchises, has the little isle by the short and curlies. Despite the rampant bed-hopping canoodlers in cassocks who get caught with their collars around their ankles every week, the Holy "C" still walks loudly and carries a big stick.

One suspects that if the priests wore rubber torture masks during mass and yelped 'I'm Bisexual for Jesus' or 'I'm a sucker for Sodomy!' from the pulpit, the constitution of Ireland of Ireland would remain under their control.

If the urge takes you and you can't resist the call of the Guinness, don't ask for directions and if you're going to sleep with a local, check them for rosary beads.

Oh, and if you talk to the sheep, use a Dublin accent.

Filmed at the National Theatre, it is virtually the same concert we saw in WA - complete with the stripping, down to his pants, of a man in the front row.

The video promotion claims that "virtually all the material in this video is offensive - there are only two clean jokes". It is a fairly accurate description.

Without the restrictions of television decorum, most DAAS humour is crude, sexist and schoolboyish.

Their real comic qualities shine through when they forget about exaggerated use of four-letter words and simulated sex. Otherwise, the humour is laboured and contrived.

But the Doug Anthony All Stars have many fans as a result of their appearances on The Big Gig. These will, no doubt, enjoy this release.

Call them bad taste, call them smart-arses, call them what you like, but be prepared - they will probably attack your foibles (and those of anyone else) with so much venom you will wish you played safe and laughed along with these maniacal mirth-makers.

Parents of the Johnny Young Talent team could only muster a look of horror (followed by a grimace) when they discovered the Allstars had signed their children as their Brisbane support act.

One of the troublesome trio Tim Ferguson said they wanted as a replacement the Brisbane Braille Society Male Choir, but they were busy with shooting practise at the local gun club and could not be disturbed.

Comedy musicians Divine Decadence will be the support for them for their five Perth shows.