The Dumbest Question Ever

Australians are notorious for looking for the "Australian connection" in anything. Bill Bryson has supposited that this is because the rest of the world doesn't pay attention to us, so we have to pay attention to ourselves. But it does reach ridiculous proportions. For example, a news bulletin will never report on any disaster that takes place overseas without reporting whether there were or weren't any Australians involved. Ditto when any overseas celebrity dies (such as, Don Adams a.k.a Maxwell Smart, may he R.I.P.), the media never fail to mention any trips they made to Australia, work they may have done here, etc.

Well, this morning on the Today show, the all-time level of credulity was reached. Richard Wilkins, whom I've never much cared for, was interviewing the director Cameron Crowe, discussing the release of his new film. Crowe mentioned the fact that Almost Famous did better box office in Australia than in any other country.
Wilkins said to Crowe: "I understand you met Russell Crowe recently. Do you feel a connection with him, because of your shared surname?"
(I am not making this up. If you follow the Wilkins link above, you can watch the video of the interview).

Cameron's response was masterful (or perhaps condescending. In fact, I'm pumping for the latter). If it was me, I'd have found the phone book, shown Wilkins the list of all the people with the surname Crowe, asked "Am I supposed to feel a connection with all of these people, you goit?!?", tossed the book at Wilkins' head, and stormed out. But Cameron just smiled and said "We're secretly brothers!", as if Wilkins' didn't deserve to be derided for being a pillock.

Okay, it's fine for the Australian media to look for some connection when reporting stories. But that was the most ludicrously convoluted piece of shameful blather I've ever seen. Especially since we are now pointing out that technically Russell Crowe isn't really Australian at all.