Extinction is Forever    Philip Game walks tall in Atlanta, but only the sauropods seem to be watching...

Three stories above us loomed a Cretaceous colossus, his skeletal visage frozen eons ago in an eternal snarl. It was as if we were personally liable for his extinction. At his feet, Atlanta socialites, squeezed into strapless cocktail dresses, mingled gaily with visitors from Inner Mongolia, even more splendid in their high-necked, aquamarine velvet gowns and felt hats.

My boss, an American in charge of the Australian trade office in Atlanta, Georgia, had tossed the embossed invitation across my desk. "Mebbe you better git along to this tonight", he drawled. Australian cultural attaché for the evening: what an honour. The 1996 Olympic Games were just months away and 'Hotlanta' held centre stage.

The burghers had cordially invited Australia's presence at a reception to kick off a travelling exhibition of Chinese dinosaurs at Atlanta's new Fernbank museum. Clearly an occasion demanding representation at the highest available level.

Myself, in fact, brought to town to fill in for one of the office clerks. Suitably scrubbed, Australia's representative boarded the public bus out to genteel Druid Hills amidst the fragrant spring dogwood - where the movie Driving Miss Daisy was set - and trudged up a long driveway, overtaken by a succession of shiny Volvos and a thirty-foot peach-coloured stretch limo.

Footsore, the Australian dignitary identified himself to Ms Elizabeth Hornbuckle ("Why sirrr, y'all called me today!") and Ms Mozelle Funkbunkel. The ladies pressed on his lapel a badge declaring I Supported 10 Tons Of Bones. Another Southern belle, crowned by an enormous bouffant wig, was smiling bravely at the brontosaurus and indeed at everything else in sight.

Gratefully I accepted a wedge of Georgia pecan pie with icecream, washed it down with a glass of California Zinfandel wine.

Twenty-eight metres from tail to snout, Nuoero saurus chagensis came to light in a salt lake in Inner Mongolia and so had been nicknamed Oagan Nur Lizard Fish.

Gazing speechless up at this long-extinct but still menacing monster - one lash of his imperious tail would knock you cold - your narrator noticed two almond-eyed nymphs slipping away from their places in the traditional dance troupe.

"Ah could ate a TANK!" declared one petite artiste to the other.

"You should be speaking Chinese," I chided.

"Ah don't know any Char-nayse!" she admitted.

Displayed for the monster's delectation was a slab of cake as big as a house, a skeletal dinosaur etched across it in chocolate icing by the Great Cookie Company of America. Heedless of this offering, the sauropod continued to bare its fangs, just as it would do for the rest of eternity.

Ever-mindful of the need for complete sobriety at any occasion when Australia's cultural standing is on display, the nation's representative hesitated before accepting a third glass of California Zinfandel.

Platinum blondes in figure-hugging tweed suits clutched mobile phones to shell-pink ears and smiled tantalizingly at the Australian in case he might be someone of note. He was, of course.

Blowsy belles in form-fitting crimson, blue, green and purple were distracting me from the contemplation of recent advances in palaeontology. I made one worthy but doomed attempt to discuss the dinosaur eggs with a cheerful but stone-deaf gentleman of advanced years, a trustee of this lavishly-endowed institution.

Diplomatic duty done, it became time to weave discretely home. I held tightly to the bannisters as I climbed up past the nine-banded armadillo and the bald eagle.

At the entrance two Fire Department trucks and the DeKalb County Ambulance were pulled up, engines running.

I wondered if the senior trustee had suffered a coronary. Out on the street corner a morose individual, tuxedo unbuttoned, was muttering darkly about late night bus services. He was the barman, now off-duty, and we shared a cab back into town.

The acting cultural attaché clambered wearily up to his hotel room. Another thankless task lay at hand: skimming through sixty or more cable TV channels, seventeen of them fixated on the O.J. Simpson murder trial.