Thursday, January 26, 2017

734



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Western Australia


Lucky Bay    Esperance






Bells Gorge   Gibb River Road




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2017
















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National Anthem of STRAYA
 (to the tune of Hey Ya)










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Ben Pobjie is a writer, comedian and poet
 with no journalistic qualifications whatsoever
. He has written for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald,
 New Matilda, The Roar, and Crikey, among others.
 His latest book, Error Australis, is out now


 Menzies's Kisch-Off
The Egon Kisch affair was one of the jolliest bits 
of tomfoolery in Australian political history,
 hilarious mainly for the fact that it involved government policy
 so mind-blowingly and transparently moronic
 that one has to admire the sheer audacity of the federal government
 in being so unafraid of looking like idiots in public 
that they actually implemented it.
Egon Kisch was a communist and anti-war activist
 who had gained notoriety in Europe for opposing Hitler,
 a stance that though soon to gain widespread popularity,
 was in 1934 a prime example of the dangerous extremism 
that the Lyons government wished to keep out of Australia.
Kisch planned to visit Australia to speak of his experiences 
under the Nazi regime,
 which gave the government the screaming irrits.
 They refused him entry, but Kisch circumvented 
the ban by the cunning tactic of leaping off his ship
 onto Station Pier and breaking his leg.
However, his belief that broken legs were grounds
 for entry was ill-founded, and he was returned to his ship
. Kisch supporters took his case to the High Court,
 and attorney-general Robert Menzies,
 the future prime minister and eyebrow model,
 stated that we would determine who came to this country
 and the circumstances in which they come
 (a sentiment that would later inspire John Howard,
 and then every Liberal and Labor MP in the country).
The surrealist humour of the government denying entry
 to a foreign intellectual for being too
 vehemently anti-Hitler was droll enough,
 but it got even better when the government,
 prevented from banning Kisch by the High Court, 
tried to exclude him via the Immigration Restriction Act,
 one of the most amusingly lunatic laws any country has ever passed.
The act stated that anyone who failed a dictation test
 in any European language could be excluded.
 This meant that even if one of those disreputable foreigners
 were so underhanded
 as to learn English — i.e. the language Australians spoke
 — the government could prove their unsuitability to enter 
the country by proving their lack of fluency in, say, 
Portuguese or Romansch, or any of the other languages
 that were totally irrelevant.
Kisch was a particularly difficult case,
 though, because he happened to be able to speak many
 European languages, being a widely-travelled 
and well-educated Jewish German Czech.
He passed the test in tongue after tongue,
 and the government was at its wit's end when the solution was found.
 Kisch was ordered to write the Lord's Prayer in Scottish Gaelic,
 a language noted for being spoken by almost nobody, 
including Scottish people such as the Scottish-raised
 immigration officer who tested him.
Kisch failed, and Menzies and Lyons high-fived.
The High Court rained on their parade 
by ruling Scottish Gaelic was not covered by the Act,
 and Kisch was allowed in:
 but history's annals had gained another sparkling chapter.
To be clear, Australia's government attempted
 to deny entry to an anti-Nazi activist by use of a law
 which blocked foreigners from visiting the country
 if they were unable to speak a language chosen
 by the government that was not the official,
 or even a commonly-spoken, language in Australia.
If that doesn't give you a good belly laugh,
 I don't know what will.


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Way Out West 
fro the movie "Red Dog"






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Cartoons


















































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Lorikeets, Corellas and a Kookaburra


Two corellas muscle in on a lorikeet family having breakfast
. A bemused kookaburra flies in to check out the action
 until it begins to get a little too close for comfort.
 Although the kookaburra makes some token attempts to repel the loris,
 I think he really enjoys their antics.





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Animals




















 The Emu War
Australia cannot lay claim to any great empires 
or epic conquests,
 but we do have one distinction that no other nation 
on Earth can boast: we are the only country 
in history to lose a war to birds.
In 1932, the farmers of Western Australia,
 fed up with the 20,000 emus that kept dropping in to their farms 
to eat all their crops, 
went to defence minister Sir George Pearce
 to demand he take action to safeguard
 the precious wheat of the Campion region.
Pearce, a man who knew the value of a show of strength,
 decided that what the emus needed was a hefty dose 
of good old-fashioned military might.
And so Major GPW Meredith of the 
Royal Australian Artillery was sent
, along with two soldiers, two Lewis guns,
 and 10,000 bullets,
 into the scrubland to show the emus 
just who was the more highly-evolved
Almost immediately the expedition ran into trouble. 
The soldiers attempted to herd the emus into a suitable place
 in which to mow them down en masse,
 but the birds, well-trained in guerrilla tactics,
 continually split into small groups
 and ran off in different directions,
 making it damnably difficult for the guns
 to draw a bead on them
. Also, the guns jammed.
Also, when the guns worked,
 and when an emu stood still long enough to shoot at,
 they proved resistant to bullets to an unsettling degree.
The soldiers retreated, weary and sick of the sight of feathers.
 Meredith's official report noted, optimistically,
 that his men had suffered no casualties. 
The emus' report noted that humans
 were slow-moving and stupid.
The House of Representatives debated the matter
 and questions were asked of the minister 
regarding whether medals were to be awarded 
for survivors of the campaign.

The question of why, blessed as we are with a native animal
 that is essentially a cross between
 an armoured car and a velociraptor,
 our military has not taken advantage 
by training emus for combat duty 
in the Australian Defence Force,
 remains unanswered to this day.
Peter Pobjie






pink and grey galahs










































































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This kangaroo "Mr Magoo" was seen in Mt Isa, Queensland
 looking after his keepers truck. 
Leanne and Eddie have raised this kangaroo from a joey,
 Mr Magoo even goes along with Eddie to build fences
 and trap dingoes on their remote QLD property.
 Mr Magoo is so much a part of the family that
 he even sleeps in a double bed with his carers.
 Upon setting off for Mt Isa, Eddie saw 
Mr Magoo chasing the truck some two kilometres 
down the road from home. 
Fearing for the safety of his beloved friend from other motorists,
 he pulled over and let him hop in for the drive. 
After staying in the truck while Eddie ducked into a shop,
 Mr Magoo got a little impatient and started to beep the horn





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Around the Nation

Western Australia

















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Queensland










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South Australia



















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Northern Territory










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New South Wales






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Tasmania


















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We are Australian 
 Australia Day




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 Ben Hall, Clown Prince of Bushrangers
A lot of people think Ned Kelly was the funniest bushranger,
 but any fool can put a bucket on his head 
and swan about writing letters.
 For bushranging comedy with some real originality
 and intelligence behind it,
 you need to look to the conceptual art of Bold Ben Hall,
 the tragic hero who turned to a life of crime
 after his wife left him and the police burnt down his house.
Unlike most bushrangers,
 Hall was not all that interested in shooting people.
 Even robbery under arms took a secondary place 
in his priorities to the all-important goal 
of publicly humiliating the police. 
To this end, he conducted a criminal career
 that was less a reign of terror than an 
extended live episode of Candid Camera.

Hall never killed anyone and gained a reputation as
 "the gentleman bushranger". 
And unlike the fifty other "gentleman bushrangers",
 he actually deserved it.
On two separate occasions,
 Hall's gang bailed up the NSW town of Canowindra,
 locked the police in their own cells,
 and threw a huge party for the rest of the population 
in the town's pub.
On leaving, they paid the landlord for all goods consumed 
and the townspeople for their time,
 just to really rub it in that they were not only smarter than the cops, 
but more generous.
However, Hall's bushranging career hit a peak 
when he was being pursued by the local police,
 near Bathurst.
Disarming the troopers,
 the gang proceeded to strip them naked and tie them to trees,
 whereupon Hall delivered a stirring lecture 
on the pressing problem of police misbehaviour,
 before riding off into what I presume was a beautiful sunset,
 leaving the long arm of the law to await assistance
 in its highly embarrassed state.
It was the ultimate example of Ben Hall's raison d'etre as a bushranger 
 on that day, one of Australia's greatest bushrangers 
proved that you could make as powerful a statement 
by taking the piss out of the coppers as by shooting them.
If Hall's educational address was not particularly 
well-received by its captive audience,
 it was certainly well-timed, 
and one might think a warmer embrace of the Hall method 
in the corridors of power might be beneficial
 when dealing with disciplinary matters.
In any case,
 it was a shining testament to the legacy of Ben Hall,
 a man who defied the law not for personal gain 
or the satisfaction of base desires,
 but for the innocent and noble purpose 
of having a bit of a laugh at others' expense
 Good on him

Peter Pobjie 



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Zorba the Greek Yolngu style

Aboriginal interpretation of Zorba the Greek.
Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy from Milingimbi has been 
in the Indigenous Media Industry for many years
 and has been a long-standing member and supporter
 of the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association, TEABBA Radio.
 He has worked Independently in Music and Film for many years also. 
As the man behind the camera and release of the video,
 Frank is also representing the dance group who call themselves 
"The Chooky Dancers"
. Frank has said that he filmed the footage at this years
 Ramingining Festival on the 30th September 
and knew it would be "something special"
 as soon as he saw the boys rehearsing. 
"The crowd went wild as you can see in the video,
 and the classic song Zorba the Greek has now become
 a hit overnight in the communities
 and now it seems, everywhere else too" 
Frank said.







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Facts


































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My Australia 
We've Done Us Proud





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Odds and Ends


















































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Hume and Hovell's Frypan Fight
Hamilton Hume and William Hovell are two of Australia's
 most accomplished and amusing explorers.
Their exploits included many highly comic moments,
 including the time Hume threatened to throw Hovell
 into the Murray River,
 and the time they went to Corio Bay,
 which Hovell told everyone was Western Port Bay
 because of his poor sense of direction 
an excellent quality for an explorer to have.
But the incident which was not only revelatory
 of the pressures and challenges of the exploring lifestyle,
 but also seems to have been heavily inspired by
 an episode of I Love Lucy,
 was the famous frying pan fight.
This happened when relations between the intrepid pair
 reached an all-time low,
 with Hovell sick of Hume constantly making him cross rivers
 and Hume tired of Hovell stumbling around aimlessly 
bumping into trees and so forth.

An argument over the best way to proceed
 when they ran up against a mountain 
Hume most likely thinking they should walk around it
 and Hovell probably wanting to bang his head against it 'til it fell over
 became heated,
 and the explorers decided the only way
 to move forward was to split up.
Understandably, they divided up their provisions. 
Less understandably, the resolved to cut their tent in half.
 But the real brawl was over the expedition's frying pan,
 which was apparently of great sentimental value
 to these two pioneering cretins.
They fought over it 
and I don't mean they argued,
 I mean they stood in the wide Australian outback,
 each having hold of one side of the pan,
 pulling furiously.
In the end, the pan fell into two pieces, 
and one man took the pan itself, the other taking the handle. 
What the one who got the handle thought he was going
 to do with a frying pan handle with no frying pan attached,
 historians can only speculate on,
 but I suppose it was a kind of moral trophy.
If they'd had time, 
they probably would have drawn a line down the middle 
of the Great Dividing Range and ordered each other 
to stay on their own side.
Later on, Hovell rejoined Hume when, 
in a rare interlude of self-awareness,
 he realised he'd stuffed up, 
but history had already been illuminated 
by the glorious petulance of two of Australia's
 most irritatingly half-witted explorers.

 Peter Pobjie




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A Number On My Back
 (The Wallaby Anthem) 
 John Williamson






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Qantas the Spirit of Australia





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10 Weird Things That Are Common in Australia




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 Ned Kelly's Pen Pal
Ned Kelly is one of our most iconic murderers,
 cutting a swathe through 19th-century colonial Australia 
with style, bravado and most importantly, a funny hat.
He is legendary for his bushranging exploits
, but less well-known are his tangles
 with the law before he took to the bush.

These include the occasion on which young Ned, 
on being accosted by a police constable
 who had noticed him riding a stolen horse, 
beat up the copper and rode around on his back 
quite a social faux pas in those days.
The pre-bushranging Ned Kelly committed numerous crimes 
of varying seriousness and strangeness, 
but one of the most strange 
— if not most serious — 
was his defence of a friend, Ben Gould, 
who had been accused of horse stealing by one 
Jeremiah McCormack 
(horse stealing was common in those days as there 
was no internet and youths were starved for entertainment).
Kelly and Gould resolved to teach McCormack a lesson and,
 to that end, sent McCormack's wife a rude letter,
 accompanied by a box of calves' testicles.
While it's not exactly "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes", 
you've got to admit that getting a couple of cow balls
 in the mail would shake a person up, 
and it showed that even then,
 at the tender age of 15, 
Ned displayed a keen instinct for psychological warfare 
and a taste for the nauseating that would serve
 him well in his future career.
These days, nobody even writes letters anymore,
 let alone takes the time to package up a bundle of bovine gonads
 to hammer home the message to an enemy,
 and in a way that's a shame.

Say what you like about the days of colonial Australia, 
but back then men were men, women were women
, and calves' testicles were hand-delivered, 
and that's a piece of traditional Aussie culture we've lost.
Peter Pobjie




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Waltzing Matilda Territory style 
Ali Mills

The song is a version of our unofficial national anthem 
Waltzing Matilda, 
the lyrics for which were penned by Banjo Paterson
 on a track east of Winton, in Outback Queensland.

It is sung in the Top End's Kriol, 
a combination of languages said to have grown organically
 from the meeting of Aboriginal, European
 and Chinese people around Darwin.








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More Odds and Ends












































































































the Kidman stations









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