First November Tuesday is the best day for a foreigner to come to know Aussies. Ladies wear beautiful and elegant dresses, often with flower motifs, and their heads are decorated with the latest fashion hats. Gentlemen, as much as they can, put on their best suits. While tie is a must in Melbourne, Sydney does just fine with slightly exposed hairy chests.

At 11 am, everybody’s queueing to bet on their favourite horse, or, more often, a horse that happens to have a right name, number or any other attribute appealing to a particular punter. No exceptions, no excuses.

By two o’clock, all pubs in the whole country are packed with ladies and gentlemen in their above mentioned outfits, minus the ones who are already too off their faces to attend.

At three o’clock, the race that stops a nation starts. A bit over hundred thousand lucky ones are starring at the race in the Flemington Racecourse, the rest of us are starring at the TV sets instead. There is absolutely nothing else happening in Australia at the time.

It’s all over in just over three minutes.

The rest of scenario is easy to guess. Most people who went to pubs for their extended lunch will never make it back to work. Shopping centres are deserted, stock exchange vacated. You can’t make it to a bar even in the town where’s soda sold out.

Celebrations don’t end until late. Too late, for some, too. The favourite pick-up line can’t be simplier: who did you go for? I wonder about the statistics… How many kids are born in first weeks of August?

And Wednesday? Record-breaking number of sickies doesn’t surprise anybody. Few wretched mongrels only made it to the flower beds. Morning hurts. And it takes three more painful days to reach weekend.

Ouch! I guess we should make MPs to enact a Melbourne Cup Day week-long national holiday to recover. Yes, I’ll speak to my member… As soon as he recovers…