Those Lucky Original Australians

An Australian who, when Prime Minister, weakened and seized Aboriginal land, suspended the racial discrimination act and refused to apologise to the  tens of thousands of Aboriginal children who were forcibly taken from their families, that man's view on pretty much anything is unsurprisingly awful
so when he said that the Brits colonising Australia was the luckiest thing that happened to Australia, it's not that much of a surprise.
I guess if you ignore the 100,000 Indigenous Australians who died at the hands of the settler Brits and brush off the way Britain emptied it's Prisons of all its rapists, murders and other undesirables into the country and let's not mention the rounding up of the natives and relocating them into reserves and stealing their land.  
Put all that to one side and yep, those original Australians who were there already must have been thanking their lucky stars when our ships turned up otherwise it's just the rantings of an idiot racist who should keep his big fat prejudiced and bigoted mouth shut.

Drink Beer And Be Healthy Say's Aussies

If ever a nation was going to find that Beer is good for you, it would be the Australian's and sure enough, the NOVA University Lisbon has issued a report that found that men who drank a bottle of lager each day had healthier guts.
The report was written in Australian by probably the only sober person available, and remember this is Australia so by sober they actually mean the only person still capable of typing, so i will translate it.

G'day Sheila's and Bloke's (Hello Ladies and Gentlemen)

Us Dag's at the University of Lisbon down here in Straya (The scientists at the Lisbon University in Australia) have been Flat out doing experiments on Stubbies (working hard on beer experiments) to find a reason to drink beer.
We downed a few slabs (experimented on several alcoholic beverages), no Bludger's here mate (we work very hard), and discovered that Crikey, (Wow) a cold one each day (a bottle of lager) increased healthy bacteria in the gut by 7%.
We did it again to make sure it was Fair Dinkum (honest and true) and was as stoked as a dingo in a billabong (happy to notice) it was true so Fair go mate, Fair suck of the sauce bottle. (we were very satisfied with the results)
So don't bother with the Billy (teapot), throw a snag (Sausage) on the barbie (BBQ) and you and a few cobbers (friends) grab the coldies (lagers) from the Esky (coolbox) and down a few (drink responsibly) and remember, if the betta arf (wife or girlfriend) is sook at ya (not pleased with her partner) at you downing a stubby at Brekky (drinking alcohol at the morning meal), tell her your not getting bugged (inebriated) earlier than usual, your just increasing your gut health.

Hooroo Cobbers. (Goodbye fellow colleagues)

So what that all means is that Australians now have another reason to drink alcohol which to be fair, in a country where they spend most of their time trying to not be murdered by the wildlife, seems fair enough to me.

Aussie's Voting Out The Flamin' Galah

As they are on the other side of the planet and they are awake when we are all asleep, Australia is often the forgotten nation which is why their election is not making much news this side of the Equator.
After nine years out of power, the Labor Party is expected to take the big seat as it appears Australia went down the same route as the UK and America and voted an imbecile into Government and then found out that if you do that, you end up with an imbecile running the nation.
Hopefully that brief experiment the world has gone through where we vote wholly inappropriate people to the top office has lost its appeal and we get some proper grown ups in charge although that doesn't necessarily mean things will be much better, it just means if they eff it all up its because they are incompetent at their jobs and not because they are incompetent as human beings.

Nativity Scene: Aussie Style

I have never read the Bible, it does go on a bit apparently, so the Australians have come up with their own version which cuts out the boring parts and concentrates on the important stuff.
Probably the most important bit, especially at this time of year, is the Nativity though the idea that taking the book and throwing bits of it down the dunny hasn't gone down well with the Churchy type drongo's who like the boring bits.  
So written in 'Strine, the Nativity in the Australian Bible is as follows:

'So Joe hiked up from Nazareth to Bethlehem because this spot in the mulga was where King David came from, and Joe's family tree had King David up in the top branches.
He went there to fill in the forms and sign the register with his fiance, Mary, who was a special sheila and pretty near nine months by this time.
While they were there, she gave birth to a baby boy. She wrapped him in a bunny rug, and tucked him up in a feed trough in a back shed, because the pub was full to bursting.
Three eggheads from out east followed a star to find the baby Jesus and announce their arrival with: 'G’day, Your Majesty!'

Almost brilliant enough to forgive them for Prisoner Cell Block H and Rolf Harris, almost.

Today's Australian Prime Minister Is...

There are many things that we could learn from the Australians, how to throw a bent stick for starters and how to whinge about anything and everything for hours on end to name but two but something the Aussies seem to have a better handle on then us Brits  is how to nudge your Prime Minster aside.
British leaders seem to hang about like an Aussie at a free bar but the Australian leaders seem to be given just enough time to get a name plaque made up and then they are out the door as Malcolm Turnbull has become the fourth PM in a decade to be ousted.   
For some reason Australia has three year terms which i think is a good thing, if the Prime Minister turns out to be a disaster (looking at you Theresa May), then you can turf them out quicker.
Scott Morrison, an avowed Christian who voted against marriage equality in last year’s referendum, has now become the 30th Prime Minister of Australia which isn't bad when you consider they was only on their 25th six years ago. 
Our politicians can take a few lessons on how Australians treat their leaders although looking at the list of Conservatives who would be poised to take over from her, maybe leaving May where she is until she loses the next General Election is quite a smart move because Boris Johnson making decisions is a scary prospect.

More Flat Earther Nonsense

Another day, another bunch of flat Earthers breaking news that we have been blind to, such as yesterdays revelation from the Flat Earth Convention that gravity doesn't exist.
I have always been suspicious about the whole things falling to Earth thing but now not only have we been duped about gravity but now that 2,500 mile wide Island between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the one we have been unwittingly calling Australia, isn't there either.
The country of 24 million people which has given us Kylie, Nicole Kidman, Mad Max, Neighbours, Prisoner Cell Block H, Paul Hogan, Home and Away and bent sticks that you throw, is not real and was created as a cover-up for a mass murder by the British after they shipped criminals into the middle of the ocean in the 18 century and drowned them.
According to the theory, all those Australians currently living there are just Government actors and computer-generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world.
In just two days, the Flat Earthers have opened our eyes to Gravity and Australia so we can scratch Isaac Newton and Captain Cook from our history books and never be bothered by dropping things and hats with corks on them ever again but if there is no Australia then just who has been stuffing us at cricket and rugby for the past 50 years?

Aussies Top Whinging Medal Table Already

The Australian team has arrived in Rio for the Olympics and they have already tied up the three podium finishes in the whinging category.
First off they were unhappy about the accommodation and refused to move into the Olympic Village citing electrical problems, gas and water leaks among other issues in the building which led the Rio Mayor, Eduardo Paes, to responded that the village is 'more beautiful than Sydney's was for the 2000 Games' and that he could always put a kangaroo outside 'to make them feel at home'. 
Then there was an accusation against Brazilian firemen who they say stole team shirts and a laptop and four members of the women's water polo team have gone down with gastroenteritis.
All that on top of the usual Aussie whinging about what Aussies normally whinge about, which is everything and it is sure to get worse when Great Britain thumps them in the medal table again. 

Australia On The Move North

Australia doesn't seem to particularly like being where the tectonic plates put it, it plays International football in the Asian league, participates in the Eurovison Song Contest and at the first opportunity they all come over to the UK to serve us warm, weak lager.
Luckily for them, Australia is drifting North at a rate of 7cm a year and in time will scoop up Papau New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines and amidst much of that famous Aussie whinging, will crash headlong into China. 
Australia is moving North due to tectonic plate movements and it is playing havoc with Aussie Sat Navs which are currently out by 1.5 meters resulting in Australian drivers ending up in creeks and billabongs. Probably. 
The Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country's local co-ordinate system, was last updated in 1994 and will compensate by shifting the countries longitude and latitude upwards by 1.8 meters so by 2020 they should all be fair dinkum.
The time it takes for Australia to drift the 4600 miles to land at Asia's doorstep should also give China enough time to come up with a strategy to deflect the continent away because to be fair, 23 million Aussies turning up and asking directions to the nearest watering hole is a bit much for any country.

Boomerang Brits

A little over 200 years ago, the Brits that landed in Australia were forced to stay there amidst animals and insects that would kill you as soon as look at you and through sweat, toil and tears, built a country that produced Paul Hogan and Kylie Minogue.
Today's Brits that step onto Australia's shark infested shores have the option to come back and they are doing so in there droves apparently with 50% of those who decided to emigrate making the return trip within five years.
The reasons most cited for UK migrants deciding the wide open spaces of Australia are not for them are surprising ranging from horrendous traffic jams, bad roads, cost of living, lack of jobs, weather (Sydney has double the annual rainfall of London), lack of public transport, poor quality housing, Australian TV, unfriendly locals and long working hours.
Not quite what you see in Neighbours and the returning Brits have earned the name 'Boomerang Poms', named after Australia's most famous invention, a bent stick.
I am sure that Australian migrants who make the move in the opposite directions also complain, they complain about everything else so it would be a shock if they never, but most surprising is Brits not abandoning Australia because almost everything over there has the potential to eat, sting, bite or inject poison into you and a visit to the dunny could very well be the last thing you ever do.

Guide To Australia For Refugees

In a surprising change of policy, Australia have announced that they will take 12,000 Syrian refugees over the next 12 months and to help the newcomers integrate into Aussie society, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, have produced a booklet for those coming to the land down under.
Of course the guide runs through all the usual things such as facts and figures about the country, an explanation of national symbols and a history of the country but of it doesn't give the whole story so luckily i will fill in the gaps gleaned from years of watching Australian soaps and listening to Kylie Minogue records.  

1 - The first thing that you will notice when you get to Australia is that their places were named by 5-year-olds so you may well end up at Nobby, Bong Bong, Wagga Wagga, Cocklebiddy, Coo Wee Rup, Humpty Doo, Iron Knob, Koolyanobbing, Mount Buggery, Wooloolmooloo or Tittybong.   

2 - It is a misconception that every animal in Australia is trying to kill you, it's just most of them. In the sea are jellyfish, octopus and sharks while on land you have to dodge deadly spiders, crocodiles, dingoes, ants and giant centipedes. If none of them get you a kangaroo is only a short hop away. Talking of kangaroos... 

3- Kangaroos are everywhere and although some of them may well go for help if you fall down a well or get kidnapped, most will just punch or kick you and then shove you in their pouch and dump you somewhere in the outback. 

4 - Show an Australian a cooker and he will scratch his head in confusion but show him a BBQ and he will turn into a five star chef because Australians cook everything on the 'Barbie'. Everything seems to be meat and prawns and the shout of 'throw another prawn on the barbie' can be heard from gardens up and down the country. If you only learn one phrase, learn that one and you will be welcome into any Australian garden at tea-time.

5 - If there is one thing that Australians excel at more than barbecuing everything, it's sinking a few tinnies because Australians do like a drop of the amber nectar. If you come from a part of the Middle East where drinking alcohol is frowned upon then unfortunately the sight of men, women and children chugging cans of full strength lager is something you will have to get used to. If you ever need to have a discussion with an Australian then try to catch them before 8am because after that the breakfast beer kicks in and all you will get is a drunken rant about how they hate the flamin' Poms.

6 - The Australians call us British Pom's and they will whinge about us until all that alcohol renders them incapable. Don't let it bother you, they are just bitter because we beat them at sports all the time and because we dumped their ancestors in a land filled with animals that try to kill them all those years ago.
Please Note that the relatives we dumped there were all criminals so you may want to keep a tight hold of your purse.    

7 - Australia's delicacy is something called Vegemite. No idea what it is.

8 - Australians and Fashion sense are not two words that have never been in the same sentence together unless 'have no' is placed between them because Australia is the land that even the fashion police have named a no-go area. Singlets, flip-flops, bikinis, budgie smugglers and hats with corks dangling from it are the height of sartorial elegance and are all the items of clothing you need in your wardrobe.

9 - Look at a map of Australia and you will notice that all the main cities are around the eastern edge and that's because all Australians live by the beach and go surfing when they are not at a barbie or being chased up a tree by a dingo.

10 - All Australians have a pet koala, it's like a law over there.

11 - Asked to name an Australian actor and the name most famous is Russell Crowe who began his career in popular Australian Soap Neighbours and then its a bit of a head scratcher. They also try to claim Mel Gibson despite him being American so the well of Australian TV is not very deep. Less of a well and more of a puddle to be honest so you want to make sure the first thing you do is have satellite TV installed otherwise you will condemned to re-runs of Prisoner Cell Block H.   

12 - There are not many musicians with an Australian accent around outside of Australia. There is a reason for that.  

So enjoy your time in Australia, try not to get eaten by a wallaby and wear your hat with corks with pride.

High Hopes For Tony Abbot

It was always a concern that when George W Bush shuffled off into the Texan sunset the World would never again find a leader so toe curlingly stupid but fears have been allayed because we have Australian Tony Abbot filling that Bush shaped hole.
We have had sexist comments such as he has referred to abortion as 'abortion is the easy way out for women', 'women are physiologically unsuited to leadership' and his election campaign contained the alarming 'Vote for me because I’m the guy with the not bad looking daughters'.
His lack of green credentials have led to his belief that  wind farms are “visually appalling, noisy, and a potential health risk' while claiming 'Coal is good for humanity'.  Cynics would say that his view chiming exactly with the fossil fuel lobby in Australia who make massive political donations to his party is just a coincidence.
His view on gay marriage and homosexuality itself is that he feels 'threatened' by it and that 'homosexuality challenges orthodox notions of the right order of things'.
Leaving aside tasteless jokes about thick Irishmen and Aborigines, his most high profile moment came at the G20 summit when Abbot had talked tough about Russian president Putin and saying that he was going to shirtfront him when the Russian turned up, when Mr Putin showed up Abbot handed him a Koala Bear and then posed for cute pictures.
He may not be in the GWB league of idiocy just yet but he still has some time left to elevate himself higher.

Watching Australia

Something that annoys Australians is that because they are at the other end of the World, nobody
takes much notice of them.
They blame the timezone difference because when they are up and about and throwing boomerangs and being chased by deadly spiders or whatever they do down there, we have all gone to bed and when we wake up its ignored for Northern Hemisphere business.
Of course this blog is an advocate of an all inclusive world where everybody has an equal voice so i
occasionally look down under to see what the Aussies have been up to and this week there was an exciting science story.
Australian scientists at the Parkes telescope have been picking up strange radio signals and for the past 17 years they have been scanning the heavens in search for aliens who may be transmitting the signals at Earth to announce their presence.
Finally, after almost two decades of the best Australian brains being baffled as their searches proved fruitless, a student discovered that the source of the signals was the microwave in the kitchen.
Emily Petroff noticed that the signals were only received during business hours and then when the microwave was in use and concluded that: 'It turns out that you can generate these particular local signals by opening the door of the microwave to stop the microwave, and that produces these weird bursts that we're seeing at Parkes. It was kind of a surprise to all of us' she added.
Of course we could point out that it took 17 years for a boffin to recognise that the rays only came when someone was warming a lasagna in the kitchen but to ridicule Australian science would be to ridicule the many other contributions that Australians have given to us such as .....erm ..... hmmm ..... that is ..... erm .... yawn, wow i'm tired, time for bed i reckon.

Australia Does Eurovision

Once a year the best and brightest of European songwriters get together and have a competition to see who can write the best song and in one marvellous night of music we all get together and watch the United Kingdom's entry crash and burn but this year we have come up with a wheeze to avoid finishing in the wooden spoon slot because for one night only, Australia is European.     
With a list of decent Australian bands that starts and ends with INXS, Australia isn't the first place you would turn to to make up the numbers in a song writing competition but the invite has gone out and the Aussie's have accepted so we can't take it back now.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the event, which will be held in May in Austria and Ola Sand who holds the title of the contests executive supervisor called it: 'A daring and at the same time incredibly exciting move'.
It does throw up the possibility that it could become a regular thing with a non-European country being invited to try its luck against the best songsmiths Estonia and Belarus have to offer but i hope whoever the Australians pick to represent them, they come armed with a wobble-board and a didgeridoo and someone who isn't Kylie.
As there are over a million Brits in the land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder, we must quite fancy getting the twelve points from our former colony but if they dish out the null points to us, i vote for ditching them and asking Canada next time.

Happy Birthday Aussies

Today is Australia Day, marking the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships chock full of convicts landed at Port Jackson, New South Wales.
We Brits do have a lot of fun at the Aussie's expense but on their National Day it should be a time to reflect on just what this proud country has contributed to the World, it's great historical figures and it's place in the World.
As i say it should be a time, but what Australia is famous for is the tradition of having its town's and cities named by 5 year old schoolboys so here is the address some Australians have to put on their envelopes.

Banana QLD, Binnaway NSW, Boing Boing NT, Bong Bong NSW, Boyland QLD, Burrumbuttock NSW, Chinaman's Knob VIC, Chinkapook VIC, Cock Wash SA, Cockburn WA, Delicate Nobby NSW, Dismal Swamp TAS, Doo Town TAS, Gooloogong NSW, Grong Grong NSW, Humpty Doo NT, Humpybong QLD, Innaloo WA, Koolyanobbing WA, Mooball NSW, Mount Buggery VIC,
Pimpinbudgie QLD, Poowong VIC, Smiggin Holes NSW, Tittybong VIC, Wagga Wagga NSW, Watanobbi NSW, Wee Waa NSW, Wonglepong QLD, Woodie Woodie and Yorkeys Knob QLD.

With the obligatory mention of sheep, sticks you cant throw away and cork hats, Happy Birthday Australia.

Shark Attack Puzzler

Gentlemen prefer blondes but sharks prefer gentlemen according to the Queensland Bond University who discovered that sharks are nine times more likely to kill men than women.
Ignoring reported attacks when the shark had been provoked by people patting sharks on the head, putting their hands in the shark's, jumping on sharks and trying to ride them, 89% of attacks were on people with XY chromosone.
Now the University plan to work out why almost 9 out of every 10 attacks are on men but i think i can field that one and save them time which could be spent on more important research.
The reason why 89% of attacks are on men is because MEN ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO GET INTO THE SEA WHERE THERE ARE SHARKS, WOMEN HAVE MORE SENSE.
There you go so you can now use that research grant to look into important issues like why do men feel the need to hog the remote control and why do people continue to buy reggae records when it is obviously the same tune.

Aug 22 1770 - Cook Claims Useless Land For Britain

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

After two years of sailing, Captain James Cook has landed in Australia, in a place he has named Botany Bay where he has stuck a flag in the soil and claimed it for Britain.
What the natives, who Cook described as 'very dark or black colour' thought as they watched some strange white man babbling away in a foreign language is anyone guess but i can imagine what King George III is thinking 'great, what we gonna do with a country half a world and 2 years away'?
In my mind when explorers discover new lands, they bring back riches and useful things like tobacco and potatoes, Cook has claimed a land halfway around the globe where the most outstanding feature is a bunch of very dark people.
All the religious people went off to set up colonies in New World so we can't send all them over there so thanks to Captain Cook we are lumbered with another piece of worthless land thousands of miles away that most travellers will die of scurvy getting to.
Cheers Jim.

Australia Under New Management

Google Trend strikes again as Tony Abbott announces Australia is under new management just as Google Trends predicted.
The defeated Mr Rudd said 'Tonight is the time to unite as the great Australian nation because whatever our politics may be, we are all first and foremost Australian' which might have come as a surprise to Tony Abbott who is British, just like the previous Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who was Welsh. 
Deeply religious, Abbott holds some of the more backward looking views of the Church on issues such as abortion and gay marriage and once said the whole climate change thing is 'absolute crap' and was called 'one of the most extreme right-wing conservative leaders or politicians that the Liberal Party has thrown up'.
So if Australia thinks a right-wing Government is going to fix all its ill's, it is in for a short, sharp and potentially very expensive shock.

Australian Elections 2013 Winner Is...

As Australia is one of Britain's children, we really should take notice of it more but as it is so far away and when we are eating breakfast they are getting on their pyjamas, we tend to forget about it and lavish attention on our other well behaved children such as Canada instead.
Apart from England handing out the occasional shallacking to them at sport, the Australians go about their merry way without any guidance or instruction from the Mother country especially now that the British born Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has been dumped and the country get to choose their next Prime Minister.
The race is between Labor's Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party of Australia but as the election isn't until Saturday 7 September our Australian cousins will have to wait to decide whether the Australian born Rudd or England born Abbott will get their hands on power.
Or will they because there is a system that has chosen every single winner of the major elections for the last few years, Google Trends.  
If you want it to be a surprise then look away now but with a fortnight to go, and barring any scandalous pictures of him wearing a New Zealand top, it's currently Rudd but if a week is a long time in politics then a fortnight is twice as long and a few days ago Abbott had a pretty decent lead over his opponent so keep your money under your mattress for now because it's a close one.

Australia Best Place To Live

It may seem strange of a place that has almost every type of killer animal and insect you can think of inside it's borders but Australia has topped a poll as the best country to live in.
The Better Life Index from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development used 11 measures including employment, health, income and satisfaction to discover that after the Aussies, the Swedes and the Canadians were the next best blessed with the US 6th and UK 10th.
Only the omission of Finland kept a Scandinavians clean sweep of the top 10 with with Norway (4th) and Denmark (7th) joining Sweden in the top 10.
Switzerland, Netherlands and Iceland made up the rest of the top 10. 
I'm sure the Aussies will be very happy to see that their homeland is the best place to live in, once one of them has sobered up enough to read the report that is.

Here Comes The Sun

Since i sat here at this time yesterday, the World has spun silently once again on it's axis, the moon has risen majestically in a starless sky before dipping unnoticed below the never changing horizon and i have slept, laughed and sang. Oh how we sang with abandoned as if the madness in the World never existed. 
The Sun rose in a blaze of magnificent colour, the celestial life bringer once again taking up that eternal battle with the English winter, teasing and hinting at a promise of better days ahead before the menacing and rain laden clouds chase it away, tracing the same route below the horizon as its lunar partner in the heavens, gone for another day to lighten and warm a far distant part of the Earth.
Where it went was Australia and strewth did it shine down there, so much so that the Aussies Bureau of Meteorology have had to increase its scale from 52C to 54C to reflect the extreme highs forecast for this week.
Head of climate monitoring and prediction David Jones said 'The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau's model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees'.
As someone who wilts when the mercury heads anywhere near 80F, i can only imagine what it is like when it hovers around 122F so where i don't generally have much sympathy for the Aussies, i do feel for them during this heatwave.
"Whilst you would not put any one event down to climate change' said the Welsh lady the Australians have got running their country 'we do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions'.
As 2012 broke all sort of weather records everywhere, Mother Nature is starting 2013 as if it means to continue the trend of baking, flooding and blowing down the house of the humans, condemning us to reap what we have sowed.