Ben Southall fended off 34,000 other applicants in a worldwide competition to land the six-month Tourism Queensland post. The job description outline in brief: living an adventurer's lifestyle, looking after the island, hosting guests and publicising the results on a blog, all in the name of saying what fantastic place Queensland is to visit. All amazingly jammy for the right kind of person.
Except now, days away from finishing his tour of duty, Ben Southall has been sting by a deadly Irukandji jellyfish spending several days in hospital.
The media love the Schadenfreude of this: the accident brings Mr Southall down to size and makes the audience a little less jealous of his 'jackpot-win' opportunity. Why is this a reasonable inference? The media have only reported on his job when things have gone wrong, for example when he was criticised for having too much of a good time and not blogging enough.
From the beginning of 2010, Mr Southall starts an 18-month stint of promoting Queensland to the world, so the dream is not diminishing. This new chance to shine would seem to be opening a career path for him, globetrotting the world to promote a region: the British Council would welcome him with open arms.
The moral of the tale? Go for the dream if you have the talent, and see what transpires afterwards. There's hope for us all yet.
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