In 1770, Capt James Cook parked his boat in Kurnell, Botany Bay, Australia and met some local people – as you do.  These locals, as a gift of friendship after noticing Cook didn’t have any, gave him a boomerang and a couple of clubs so he could hunt.  These items, a significant part of Australian history, are for sale in Christies in London and are expected to fetch more than £60,000 – reports the Brisbane Times.

Now, this is terrible for a number of reasons.  Firstly, that these items are such an incredibly significant part of modern Australian history – almost surely the first items from Australia ever exported.  Also, incredibly culturally significant to the Aboriginal people – how often to they actually get to view something their ancestors made, hold it in their hands.  To Australian historians this must represent the oldest piece of wood found from Australia, ever..  not to mention the archaeological value of such items in learning about Aboriginal culture and crafting techniques, of which so little remain.  And to the Australian people this is almost, when you really think about it, the item representing the birth of Australia as a country recognised to the world.

Image: Christies, London

To the rest of the world, it may just be a curved stick.  To Australians, it’s so much more.

There’s been a cry for the Aussie govt to get the UK govt to buy it and gift it back to us, where it can be displayed in Botany Bay for all to see.  I think Australia’s rich should band together and buy this, as a gift to the country that has provided then so much.  Why don’t we just form a conglomerate, every family inthe country donates a dollar, and we’ll be sorted!  It belongs back home in Australia, where it will get the respect it deserves, not rotting away in a cupboard somewhere in a private collection or buried in the bowels of the Natural History Museum in London.

Please, Aussie, make a noise about this.  This one’s important.  And not just to the descendants of the giver.  If I had the cash, I’d buy it and gift it myself. If a conglomerate forms, let me know the details…

The Umbilical Brothers are an duo from Aussie, who combine mime and sound effects with fantastic results.  They’ve been regulars on Aussie tele for a long while, and in honor of the Edinburgh Festival (which is currently going on), which incidentally was the last time I saw them (BRILLIANT! LMAO!)…

Gentlepersons, I give you…

THE UMBILICAL BROTHERS!

I’ve just found out that the Umbies will be in NZ in Sept and coing to London in Oct – WHOOHOO!  Guess where I’m gonna be?! :)

xx

Anyone who’s been out of touch with the world for the last few days, I have news.  The Olympics have started.

Yep, that ritual athletic testing that started in an ancient foreign land as a way of challenging soldiers has returned once again.  (Which, by the way, means that I’ve been away over 8 years.  I arrived in the UK before Sydney 2000. Egads!)  The best of the world have gathered in Bejing for two weeks of testing before their peers and the world.

Talk about your stage-fright – estimated 4 billion people watching the opening ceremony?  Bloody Hell!  But from what I could see there was only one stuff up – and I imagine some poor little Chinese guy getting a slap around the ear for letting the torch-bearing air-runner guy catch up with the unravelling scroll.

All the athletes look lean & hungry.  That’s how they’re supposed to look, right? Lean & hungry?  Are we not feeding these people regularly?  They all look ready to defend their country and themselves from repeated embarrassment of failing dismally.  If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over my 30something years on the earth, there’s always someone better than you.  Sorry..  Maybe I’m feeling a little too reflective today.

But along with the lean & hungry come the joys of a fiercely patriotic crowd, and billions of televiewers everywhere, screaming and shouting, clapping, laughing, crying along with their team.  The Olympics is the only time people can be most vehemently patriotic with no fear of recrimination, verbal abuse or attack.  It is expected at the Olympics, encouraged.  Over two hundred countries coming together to wage mini battles with each other.

Question:  Have the Olympics become our pseudo world war?  Instead of taking out your emeny with bullets and bombs, you take them out with skill and expertise, with a fine throw or blistering speed.  You take them out honestly and directly, with no cheating or sly actions, no backstabbing or sabotage.  You do it directly in front of them, to their face, and you wait for the words ‘bad sport’ to start fizzing about between their ears, at which point they’ll come and congratulate you on a good match/race/battle.

And I even understand why it’s being held in China, despite their air quality and human rights record, despite their environmental and foreign policy.  It’s being held there because the IOC reached a point where it had to say yes for to be seen as being influenced by politics.  See, China is the most populated country in earth, they send ridiculous amounts of althletes to each and every games, they do very well in each and every games, and they haven’t hosted in over 100 years.  The IOC proclaims itself a non-political animal, and under that guise had reached a point where they could no longer refuse China’s application to host.  They had no choice.  To do otherwise was to rebuke China, which no-one seems willing to do.  I mean, geez, Moscow hosted in the middle of the cold war.  Germany hosted, Hitler opened their games.  The IOC had to do it to stay apolitical.  I’ll stop there, I don’t want this post to be an anti-China rant.

I realise from the above that it may seem I sneer at the Olympics.  But I don’t.  Honestly.  I’ve got nothing but admiration for the athletes who can devote themselves so completely to their sport.  I don’t think I could do it.  And I’ve nothing but admiration for the medalists themselves.  To be the acknowledged best in the world at anything must be a fantastic feeing and worth every second of that seemingly endless training.

And, of course, there’s the fact that I’m Australian and we love and respect sportsmen and women.  We’re a sporting nation.  Comes with the sunshine and being able to go outside.  The Australian press are whipping up a patriotic frenzy, I find myself trying to program my tele-watching to times when there’ll be coverage of Aussies (and I understand totally that the UK coverage is all about the UK team, I just wish they’d interview a winner every now and again!  Oh, but they did interview that Zimbabwe swimmer with the american accent, thought I’m not sure why..)

I find myself digging my wee aussie flag out of the box and drapiing it proudly around the house.  I find myself suddenly shouting “Go Aussie!” at the screen, freaking out cat and flatmate.  But I can’t help it.  And gorram it, I shouldn’t have to!

So GO AUSSIE!  Go, you good things!  Enjoy yourselves and bring us back some neckwear, huh?

Oh, and..  ahem..  good luck to everyone else too. :)

xx

One of my favourite ever Church tracks.  Enjoy. x

Thanks to Nell for this one – an extension of my previous post on Australianism 

You know you’re Australian if….

• You know the meaning of ‘girt’
• You believe that stubbies can either be worn or drunk
• You think it is normal to have a Prime Minister called Kevin
• You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse
• You’ve made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden
• When you hear that an American ‘roots for his team’ you wonder how often and with whom
• You understand that the phrase ‘a group of women wearing black thongs’ refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds
• You pronounce Melbourne as ‘Mel-bin’
• You pronounce Penrith as ‘Pen-riff’
• You believe the ‘L’ in the word ‘Australia’ is optional
• You can translate: ‘Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas’
• You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep
• You call your best friend ‘a total bastard’ but someone you really, truly despise is just ‘a bit of a bastard’
• You think ‘Woolloomooloo’ is a perfectly reasonable name for a place
• You believe is makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice as big as its $2 coin
• You understand that ‘Wagga Wagga’ can be abbreviated to ‘Wagga’ but ‘Woy Woy’ can’t be called ‘Woy’
• You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread
• You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis
• You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says ‘cobber’
• You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels’ song ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’
• You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year
• You still don’t get why the ‘Labor’ in ‘Australian Labor Party’ is not spelt with a ‘u’
• You wear ugg boots outside the house
• You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like them
• Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language
• You understand that ‘excuse me’ can sound rude, while ’scuse me’ is always polite
• You know what it’s like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose
• You understand that ‘you’ has a plural and that it’s ‘youse’
• You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle
• You biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules of beach cricket
• You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call ‘Anzac cookies’
• You still think of Kylie Minogue as ‘that girl off Neighbours’
• When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs – just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit
• You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction
• When working at a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer and excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer
• You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second
• You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government’s new test for migrants
• You will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they will understand!!