The Memoirs of William John Wills

"Burke Couldn't Organise a Piss-Up at a Brewery"

The following are extracts from the diary of William John Wills who tragically perished with his companion Robert O'Hara Burke while searching for an inland route from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

20 August 1860

And we're off. A long way to go still. Burke reckons it might take a year. Maybe even two. Wish he'd told me that before we left. I was hoping we'd be back by Friday. Probably going to miss the start of the cricket season. I've been working on my outswingers.

21 August 1860

Slow going. I suggested to Burke that we should jog. He said we'd be tired by lunch. Speaking of lunch, I'm looking forward to more of that salted beef. Delicious!

30 August 1860

Burke's been acting strangely. Last night he had an argument with his hat.

6 September 1860

We reached Swan Hill. I mentioned to Burke that it seems to be already well established. He said everywhere we'd been so far has already been settled. Annoying. I'd been making maps. I asked why we didn't start from here.

20 September 1860

Burke's really starting to annoy me. He's the worst bushman I've ever seen. Last night he accidentally set fire to a camel.

12 October 1860

We reached Menindee after nearly 2 months of travelling. Apparently the mail coach does it in a week. If I'd know that I could've posted myself some food. This salted beef seems rather high in sodium.

18 October 1860

Crossed a small creek today and Burke sunk. King pulled him out and Burke pretended he'd meant it. There was an eel in his pocket. We ate it for afternoon tea.

26 October 1860

I've been walking behind Burke for weeks and I conclude his pants are too high. No one wears them like that anymore. I wore them like that back in '53.

11 November 1860

We reach Coopers Creek. Still haven't set foot in territory unchartered by Europeans. Burke tripped over a horse and landed on a bullants' nest. He was badly stung and ran around shouting obscenities at King. King was brushing his teeth at the time and humming old show tunes. He didn't notice.

20 November 1860

Still at Coopers Creek. Burke is starting to move his neck like a camel.

5 December 1860

Burke has taken to drinking his own urine. King pointed out that we still have plenty of water.

16 December 1860

Burke decided just four of us would set off for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Him, me, King and another bloke who I only noticed for the first time this morning. And only because he shat on my boots. Pretty annoyed with that. I pushed him onto the fire and Burke immediately began roasting marshmallows. Don't now where he got them. What else is he harbouring?

3 January 1861

I swear I saw something moving in Burke's beard. I mentioned it and said he was was just readjusting his lips. A likely story. Whatever it was it had a tail.

11 January 1861

Burke's been complaining of sore feet. He's been wearing his shoes on the wrong feet since we left Essendon. King and I have been giggling about it for months.

18 January 1861

Burke's been randomly placing bits of cheese in his beard. Definitely something living in there. Fucking duplicitous Irish cunt. And where the fuck did he get the cheese?

29 January 1861

Burke claimed we were lost. I asked how we could be lost when all we were doing was heading north. King pointed out that we were always lost because nobody had been here before. Burke got confused and asked a swallow for directions.

9 February 1861

Reached the Gulf of Carpentaria. Yay! There was a swamp blocking the way to the ocean but, you know what, close enough. We'll just tell them we made it. King put a scorpion in Burke's trousers this morning. Hasn't been a reaction yet. Not sure why.

10 February 1861

Turns out the scorpion had died. I think Burke squashed it when he sat on a rock to eat his salted beef. Must find another one.

14 February 1861

Valentine's Day. King slipped a love letter into Burke's back pocket. Burke was furious and didn't let King use the shovel for the rest of the day.

15 February 1861

Fuck it's hot.

18 February 1861

Burke finally realised his shoes were on the wrong feet. Seriously, what a fucking nonce.

25 February 1861

I snuck a peek at Burke's diary. Every entry referred to his underpants and how well they fit. He has no fucking idea how to punctuate.

2 March 1861

Getting hungry. All I've eaten for the last 3 months is salted beef, snake and grubs the local aborigines gave us. Burke has supplemented his diet with dirt.

7 March 1861

I saw something move in Burke's beard again. Tomorrow I'm going to make a grab for it. Burke bumped into a small hill today while looking for firewood.

8 March 1861

King tackled Burke to the ground and held him down while I rummaged through his beard. Nothing. Burke didn't seem to notice.

25 March 1861

Burke gave the fourth bloke a terrible beating for stealing his porridge. He spent a lot of time lining up each slap and yelled 'rissole' with each blow. Where the fuck did that cunt find porridge?

30 March 1861

Burke squatted for a poo but forgot to pull his pants down. How King laughed. Burke was distressed and tied King to an emu.

10 April 1862

Burke shot the last horse. He'd been aiming at a cockatoo in a nearby tree. We ate it anyway. King did the butchering and distributed the meat. Burke had trouble cutting his piece before realising it was the saddle.

17 April 1861

The fourth bloke died today. I thought about eating him but didn't mention it. King suggested we dig a grave with Burke's dessert spoon. Burke ate a sock.

21 April 1861

Finally returned to Coopers Creek. The camp was abandoned. They'd left us some food buried under a tree. Fucking salted beef. Was that a joke? Turns out they'd left that morning. Burke finally ate his other sock.

4 May 1861

Nothing for it. Burke has gone mad. Tried to climb inside a camel to sleep. The camel was visibly shaken and refused to eat.

What?!

It's too early in the morning for me to write a lengthy post about this, and too early for me to really grasp why I am so offended/annoyed by this article.

But I am, so here it is. Discuss away.

What the?!

I just received this flyer in the mail.


I seriously cannot believe a company in this day and age would be so blatantly racist. I've sent them an email to tell them so.

Go Away!

Isn't this lovely.

Wouldn't you think these arseholes would just go away? The only people they appeal to are fucking cunts. The party is made up of fucking cunts. They are all fucking cunts.

I'm calling for all members of Australia First and anybody who supports them and anyone who says 'I don't vote for them but I think they have some great ideas' or anyone who says 'I'm not racist, but...' or anyone who is anti-immigration just because they don't like foreigners or anyone who thinks all Muslims are terrorists, or all Aborigines are no-hopers or all Asians are drug-smugglers, to be transported on crowded, diseased, rotten timber ships, to a specially designed island made of dogshit and drunken teenagers' vomit, somewhere in the southern ocean. There, nobody will want to migrate to your country, you slime-bags.

Things We Did in Middle Class Suburbia in the 70s

We threw everything out. Everything. There was no recycling. We threw out plastic, aluminium, steel, glass and paper & cardboard. If paper and cardboard didn't fit in the 'one size fits all' bins, we burned it in the incinerator. Sometimes even plastic bags would be burned. That can't be good. Clouds of smoke would belch into the atmosphere all across the suburbs on an otherwise peaceful Sunday afternoon. Large items that wouldn't fit into bins or the incinerator, would be taken to the tip. Who goes to the tip now? We used to dump car batteries at the tip. Fridges, TVs.

Diet was interesting. Lots of white bread. Plenty of meat. Sweets freely available at 2 lollies a cent. Everything was high fat, sugar or salt. Tab was the first diet soft drink but hardly took the market by storm. I also remember a low sugar version of Solo called Rhondo. Not a huge hit in those days. Low fat milk? I don't think so. My mum used to cook roasts in deep pools of fat. Not oil. Certainly not olive oil. Not even canola. It was lard. Lard that would be re-used over and over again. It would sit in the fridge, a hard, white, greasy lump waiting for next Saturday night's roast. It would last months, perhaps years. Who knew.

My lunch orders at school would consist of a super sausage roll, a jam donut and half a litre of chocolate milk. The bikini-clad Big M girls worked their magic on me in those days. The milk running down their chins and dripping onto their firm, luscious breasts. I wasn't yet 10 but there was something so erotic in this that it didn't matter that I hadn't reached puberty. That scourge, light beer, was introduced. Carlton light. Fosters light. Piss in a can it was. Piss in a can.

I was allowed to roam free. There was bushland a kilometre down the road from our house and I would go there with my brother and friend (coincidentally a contributor to this blog) and we wouldn't return home until tea time, sometimes after dark. We would talk to strangers, ride our bikes without helmets and, when in the back of the car eating weston's wagon wheels, refuse to wear seatbelts because we didn't have to.

There were more fights at the footy both on and off the field. There was a final 4, then 5. There were several easybeat teams (Footscray, St Kilda, Fitzroy, Melbourne) who would win 4 or 5 games between them for the year, and that was only when they played each other. Now it's a socialist game, where the difference between 3 and 14 is almost indiscernible. Socialism has its place but, goddamn it, not in football!

People smoked at home, at work, in the car. In front of their kids, next to their babies, at restaurants. People watered their gardens freely. They even hosed down their concrete driveways. They took 10 minute showers and continuously filled their Clark Rubber pools from the backyard tap.

Men proudly wore moustaches and dodgy sideburns. Yeah they're cool now, but they were real then. Real men drove big, petrol guzzling cars with bench seats and 3 on the tree. Men had hairy chests.

I miss the 70s.

Wrong - In So Many Ways

Good morning everyone.



At least the week can't get worse than this.

The above photo was taken from The Herald Sun who have published this photo, and another shot of a topless 19 year old Pauline Hanson with digitised boobs.

Here is what's wrong:

1. Pauline Hanson trying to be sexy.
2. The Herald Sun thinking shots like this are 'newsworthy'.
3. That Pauline Hanson is news on any level. It's just wrong wrong wrong. I want her to GO AWAY.
4. The fucker that sold the shots - FAIL to him - as much as I dislike Hanson, he too is a fucked up wanker creep for selling the shots.
5. The Herald Sun trying to make an angle out of it... by saying that publication of these shots may de-rail her election campaign. It strikes me that by making that statement, they have crossed from being news reporters to news-makers. It is the newspaper that published the shots. This story did not exist. They made the story. They didn't report the story, they authoured it. They are the story. The shots won't de-rail her campaing... it's the Herald Sun buying and publishing them that may de-rail her campaign. Know what I mean? The article should read, "Herald-Sun derails campaign."
6. Pauline Hanson in a state of undress. I fairdinkuum nearly spewed.
7. Just... ew.

Oh my giddy Aunt. What an awful, awful image.

Make it stop.

Make it stop.

In Terms Of Kevin Rudd

I would like briefly to bring some balance to the Rudd-lovin' that goes on here (lead admirably by Comrade Insertnamehere).

If a Martian came to Earth and read only this blog, they would assume our Prime-Minister was some sort of highly admired uberlord of the world. They would then assume that given his intelligence, charm and genius, that his syntax was exemplary. As such, they'd be saying 'in terms of' a lot.

Here's some Rudd quotes, each followed by my humble suggestion as to how he should have structured his sentence.

1. (Rudd and Swan will work with the Obama admin)... "not just on financial market regulations but also in terms of stimulus to the real economy".

My suggestion: "not just on financial markets but also on economic stiumulus."

2. Rudd angry about Pacific Brands: "In terms of the money they have got from the government, we will go through all of that in terms of what can be extracted back from them."

My suggestion: "We shall consider a return of Government money"


3. To Kerry on the 7.30 report: "...my responses to many of these questions in parliaments in recent weeks have been framed in terms of one, global oil supply, what can be done to boost investment in those countries which are the principal oil exporters? There's a problem there. Two, on the demand side. Global initiatives on energy efficiencies and the huge great push countries of China and India? Three, what do you do in terms of energy efficiency in economies like our own? That goes to the whole regime of fuel efficient cars, in particular. Four, what do you do in terms of an alternative fuel strategy? And five, what do you do in terms of public transport, in order to make it accessible, particularly in our metro areas?"

My suggestion: That Kevin reads some quality literature (Shakespeare perhaps) to remind himself that our language enables us to express things concisely and beautifully at the same time, without burying one's meaning in corporatespeak.

And to stop licking his lips and eating his own earwax.

My Weekend in 'Real Australia' (TM)

Time to be silly again, briefly.

Sorry, it's a bit long, and it may contain traces of buttocks.



Last weekend I went to visit my lady friend, Pony Girl, at her family farm on the outskirts of Ponytown*. Ponytown is deep in The Mallee, a desert region in Victoria's north-west. The largest town in The Mallee is Mildura, which has, you know, some civilisation and long macchiatos and stuff, but Ponytown is nowhere near Mildura. It's just another Mallee town which means dirt, dust and blowflies the size of water buffalo.

When you hit The Mallee, you have also hit Real Australia where you can go all Henry Lawson and shit, and talk about distance, and dirt, and rusting fences drawing lines across your soul and hearts as harsh as landscapes... and you can also start referring to the weather as 'she' ("She's hot today!").

You know, where a Melbourne suburb will be proud of its multiculturalisn, its sustainable local policies, world's best practices and its commitment to recycling, Mallee Towns like the first one I came to are proud of the size of their bull's testicles.



The towns I came across were prima facie dry, barren and loveless. Romance? No. Well not that I could see... it'd be more that Thomas Hardy thing, where haystacks are involved.

Here is what a Mallee Town looks like:



A bowling green that is a bowling greeny-brown. Flies on the lens. Silos at the rear. Every single town looked like this, but boy, the sausage rolls were fantastic. Country-town bakeries = Very Fucking Good.

In between towns, the landscape is this:



And when there is some scrub, it looks like this:



And this is sadly a common sight:



The good news is that fire is rare up there. A) The farms are well watered, and B) The rest is desert so there's nothing to burn. Fires can go up, but they go straight back down again. It's dust storms that cause the problem up there, as well as the odd cyclone or two - they caused havoc last year in the region.

So who would settle in this place? Who would willingly come out here and think, "I might live here"? My great-grand parents, that's who. My Dad is from The Mallee, from a town called Ouyen which is famous for its annual vanilla-slice making competition. That's not a joke.

And so, at my Dad's request, I made a major detour on my way to Ponytown to go and see the town where he came from, because I'd never seen it. More spcifically, he wanted me to see if the house where he was born was still standing, though he was vague on the address. To find out where he lived I visited the Ouyen Historical Society (open Fridays) and sure enough, the lovely old biddies in charge there knew of my family (great grandma 'Digger' was the church organist for years) and they showed me an old 1920's map of the town with all the names of the householders on it, as well as a 1923 record of my great-grandfather paying his rates. They even suggested I go and visit 'old Alf' who is 90-something but 'still of keen mind, and an Anglican' who knew them, and my grandfather. If I ever visit again, I may drop in on old Alf (interestingly, from what the old biddies were saying, and the manner by which they spoke of people, the old Catholic vs Protestant thing is alive and well in country Australia). Also, one of the old biddies was the current organist, and there were only two organists between my great-grandmother and her.... almost 100 years and there's only ever been four organists!

So anyway, I found the house, and it was still standing:



Then I went to Ponytown, nervous as hell, because, you know, I'm in love with her and all, but I was going to be in a separate room because that's how it's done up there. I gave the family a rocking chair and a tartan blanket as a gift. Then we drank beer and wine. Luckily, her parents were grouse and made me feel welcome and I liked them.

Night came. That's when the work on the farm really starts... actually it never stops. The evening involved riding on a massive vine harvester thing, turning sprinklers on and off, checking things, moving things, dealing with things... farm work, and all under the influence of grog. This doesn't happen in Melbourne, but it happens on farms.

The next day was the killer hot day, and Ponyman, Ponygirl's dad, worked all day in the 48 degree heat, doing farm stuff, and we did a little bit of work but not much. I was amazed at the water usage. Thousands of sprinklers are going all day every day, in the middle of the day and all night. In the city we can't water a single geranium properly, but up there, thousands and thousands of litres are spat out continually across even just one farm, the reaosn for which is simple: No water, then no wine or avacados for us in the cities.

Here is Pony Girl in the avacado patch.



I spent a fair bit of time in the trees helping myself to avacados, not just because I like avacados, but because we were both in thongs and she said quite casually about ten minutes into the avacado tour, "Oh, watch out for brown snakes. They're everywhere."

By lunchtime it was 873 degrees, and so the pig-hunting was called off (not a joke either... pig-hunting was the plan) and so because I was being all Real Australian and stuff, I did the next best thing to shooting wild animals. Skinny-dipped in the nearest river.



Why no, I don't have any shame.

In the late evening, when the temperature had dropped to a cool 38 degrees, and when Ponygirl's parents had gone into a town to a do, we sat drinking wine looking over her vines.



There was something intoxicating above and beyond the wine that was to do with the farm itself. The lush vegetation on top of the red earth. The quintessential Australian-ness of the landscape, of the sunset, of the sounds of the birds and the threat of brown snakes. The Henry Lawson-ness of it all. I live in a tourist surf town that has none of this, even though we're 'out bush', sort of. The resorts out my front door graffiti all that's bush about my town, but up in The Mallee, like many other regions of Australia, there's that thing we learnt about in Primary School, that we sense in old bush songs, that we're meant to identify with as Australians. I just don't know what that thing is called other than to call it, with a dose of cityboy arrogance, Real Australia.

It is not to say Melbourne and other cities are not 'real'... it's just that their reality has a lot less to do with the ground.

And so, when the sun went down on Real Australia and Ponygirl and I were left in the dark to fend off mossies and our own inebriation, we kissed, finally, on the lawn, and then went a bit Thomas Hardy for a while.

The next morning she took me into town. Nothing was open. NOTHING.

I was gone after lunch, and may not see her again. She's off, soon. To England. One-way.

And so, to finish off this post, here's some Henry Lawson, which I dedicate to my Ponygirl:

It may be carelessly you spoke
Of never more returning,
But sometimes in the London smoke,
You'll smell the gum leaves burning;
And think of how the grassy plain
Beyond the fog is flowing,
And one that waits in shine or rain,
Where forty cheered you going.


* It's not actually called Ponytown.

What We've All Secretly Been Waiting For

Finally! I mean, jesus, those canny bloody publishers really made us wait for this one. Mercedes Corby on the front cover of Ralph. You bloody bewdy! I've been calling for this for a couple of years now. All us salt of the earth, average Strayans feel we know old Merc pretty well after seeing her in that ripper doco on channel 9 earlier in the year. Or at least plenty of sheilas like her. Doesn't she scrub up a treat! What a stroke of luck having her sister thrown in jail for all those years. Just the break she'd been waitin' for. Fuckin' ripper, mate. Made me Chrissy it has.

We're Not Racist But...

What’s with this kid Tyler Cassidy?

I’m no great fan of the police, particularly when they over-react, and particularly when it involves the use of guns. And particularly when they book me for an illegal u-turn when it wasn’t even a u-turn you fucking cocksucking bastard! But if this kid was genuinely threatening the police with knives and they shot him out of self-defence, then they had no real alternative. Shoot him in the legs? Not likely with limited practise, adrenaline-driven excitement and an antiquated shooting implement.

It’s no good when somebody’s shot. When the person shot is a kid, that’s even worse. But what’s going on with him? He was a member of the Southern Cross Soldiers, an ultra right wing group of illiterate rednecks out to rid the country of immigrants. What’s with that? Hasn’t he enjoyed a good lasagne, a curry or a kebab? (Yes I know it’s not all about food but I’m hungry).

He didn’t deserve to be shot – who does – but what business does an ill-informed 15 year old have brandishing knives at Northcote Plaza? Probably looking for gooks, niggers or wogs to cut up. Possibly off his head on drugs or, more tragically, severely mentally disturbed. This is disastrous and nothing good’s going to come of it. Why can’t people just get along and make love, not war?

Ironically, he was shot at the All Nations Park.

Good Evening.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Further to Ramon's post...

The angels have downed their trumpets and taken a smoko. The ASX has halted trading and the wolves are at bay. The Devil himself has laid down his arms and signed a 14-day ceasefire agreement with the LORD, and Kevin Rudd is set to declare a National Public Holiday.

Yes, Aussie Baz Luhrmann’s ‘epic’ ™ AUSTRALIA is about to be released, which in one fell swoop will restore Australia’s film industry, cement Australia’s global reputation as being the bewdiest place on Earth, and set Australia up to be the new enfant terrible of world arts, the new China and the new black.

Free-trade agreements between Australia and all UN member nations has been ratified, and Australians no longer need working visas or visas at all to go anywhere in the world and they are hitherto allowed to have sex with any man, woman or sheep in any province of any country on Earth. All global citizens must also let any AUSTRALIANS entering their house to empty their larder, and the hosts must darn Australian tourist's socks.

Australians have also been voted as the BEST people EVAH by all polling and data-gathering agencies in every country of the world and in all polls ever commissioned and ever to be commissioned.

Already, shops in Sydney have sold out of tickertape and brass keys to the city which will adorn Australian Nic and Australian Hugh and director of Australia, the Australian senior spokesperson on all things Australian, Baz Lhurmannm, followed by their inauguration as joint Presidents and Kings and Queens of Australia forever and ever. Towering brass statues some thirty metres high depicting the Australians Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and the director of Australia, the greatest Director on Earth, the Australian Baz Lurhneman, have been commissioned to tour the world every four years, starting from some outback shitheap full of redneck cunts in FNQ.

The NT have reported an influx of workers set to reap the inevitable tourist hordes that will descend from all corners of the globe only minutes after seeing the film AUSTRALIA by Baz Luhrnmann. They are currently enrolled in fast-tracking lingo courses, practicing their use of the word ‘crikey’ as it commonly appears in the film Australia which is directed by the Australian genius Baz Lumrhannm.

Chinatown in New York is bankrupt and will soon be re-branded as Outbacktown.

Jim Schembri has been taken outside and shot after his unpatriotic review.

The SES are turning in their badges and the brown snakes have decided to hibernate for summer as well. The white-tails have emptied their venom and the kookaburras can’t stop laughing. Sharks are now vegetarian. Possums speak English. The moon has eloped with an astral whore and somewhere in another room an old clock ticks.

AUSTRALIA is coming.

Big Brother Is Watching... Phew. I Feel Safer.

George Orwell: "I've been taken out of context."


Every time any authority comes up with an idea to keep us all safe, some arseclown from the X Civil Liberties Whatever Organisation comes thundering out and about. “Oh, it’s an infringement on our rights!” they yell.

I have a good friend who works in forensics and she’s trained up on that whole ‘face recognising’ thingamajig; you know, a camera that zooms in on people’s faces as they walk down the street and can recognise wanted criminals and shit. From what she’s told me, there’s certain barriers preventing it from being used extensively in the country. Budget, for one thing. Arseclowns opposing it, for another.

I’m getting old, I’m getting old, I’m getting old. “I have nothing to hide,” is my opinion. Bring it on! Put cameras on every street corner. Make me carry some Australia Card ID. Plant audio devices in my bedroom. I don’t care. If it means nabbing a psychopath who would otherwise do injury to me or others, it’s fine by me. I personally don’t give a flying fuck if some camera zooms in on my face as I’m walking down Brunswick Street with spinach stuck between my teeth. I’m not a wanted criminal. Whatever.

Same goes for x-ray scanning at airports, which Fairfax reports today is being criticized by some douche pulling the tired infringement on our rights line.

I love Orwell, and his ‘Big Brother’ message is being misconstrued by a bevy of fuck-knuckles who have probably never read his books. His point was about Governments controlling people. X-Ray machines at airports aren’t about controlling us, they are about preventing apocalyptic whack-jobs from bringing weapons on to planes, and decreasing the flow of smack, fauna, laundered cash and so on.

I say to the various Civil Liberties hystericals, what is more intrusive on my ‘liberty’? An x-ray machine at an airport, or a psycho with a knife at my throat?

I'm an American! I'm an American too!

In today's Age, Catherine Deveny has written a piece about Sarah Palin.

I smirked at this:

"No political party in the world would have had the genius to dream up Sarah Palin. She's a social experiment with lipstick."

I wryly grinned at this:

"The running mates look like an old rich bloke with erectile dysfunction and his white trash trophy wife wearing glasses so she looks intellectual and that."

But I furrowed my brow at this:

"...the rest of the world should be able to vote in the US elections because the outcome affects us as much as them. If not more."

Is that a joke, or is she serious? I know she's a comedy writer and all (a fact she mentions in the article, and I know that she has been responsible in the past for those lame jokes that overseas TV celebrities read from cue cards at The Logies), but in the context of the article, I have a feeling that where there's smoke there's fire, and she, in a way, believes it.

It is true to say that the result of the Presidential election will affect Australia, but so does the result of elections in Georgia, South Africa, the Solomon Islands and Luxembourg.

Too many people attribute too much influence to the US on our daily lives. The US economy, its businesses, its trade, its TV shows and music... all of it permeates into Australian (and global) infrastructures but ultimately, it affects one randomly plucked 15 y.o checkout chick from Nebraska profoundly more than any of 21,000,000 Australians.

It's like that old cartoon with the two Jewish blokes sitting around Berlin in 1938 reading newspapers. One says, "I'm reading the Guardian from England. Oh, it's all terrible news. Us Jews are being rounded up and put into ghettoes and being treated horribly." The other one says, "Well I'm reading the Nazi newspaper and it's all terrific news. It says that us Jews have all the money and dominate the world!"

Many Australians, particularly the loony left (hello Socialiast Alliance!) attribute EVERYTHING to so-called US Imperialism... from wars to education to religion to culture to arts. They cannot perceive that our own Government, our own opposition, the UN, every other Government on Earth, NATO and a zillion other organisations around the world are all a part of the global experience. It's not just America!

If the Americans vote in McCain and thus inherit a moron for a Vice-President who is just a clogged artery away from being President herself, that's about 95% an American burden to carry, and about 5% the rest of the world's.

Nikki Hudson = Evil Bitch

When will sporting stars learn that in return for stardom they are forbidden from being human?

Some shameless hussy from the Australian Hockey Team wrote on her Facebook page the following:

"Nikki thinks the running of the bulls should be changed and we should be chased by the spainish (sic) mens hockey team. I would definately (sic) make sure I got caught and impaled!''

and,

""Nikki has a black eye from all the girls pushing me out of the way to get prime position by the window seeing naked aussies in rooms across from us!!!''

The grammar is bad enough, as is her habit of talking about herself in the third person, but of course her worst crime is acting and writing like a normal member of society. This is a disgrace! She apologised to Hockey Australia today, but I don't think an apology is enough. She must be made an example of and be fired from the Australian team and perhaps given a prison sentence. Upon release, she should also do a tour of schools to talk of the evils of expressing oneself honestly in a public forum, and for having desires other than the pre-approved 'Gold For Australia'.

To all TSFKA's regular sporting star readers, may I reiterate Australian society's contract with you:

1. You must only speak in pre-approved cliches.

2. You must not express yourself as an individual because you are not an individual. We own you.

3. You must never dabble in narcotics, and we'll test you on your holidays, at your home, in the middle of the night to make sure you haven't had so much as a puff of a joint. The fact that no other occupation on Earth is subject to drug-testing for narcotics is neither here nor there.

5. You have no life other than your sport. You do not exist beyond your sport. No matter who you are, where you come from and what you aspire to, you are a 'role model' for Our Kids (TM) and as such, you must be without blemish, totally compliant to the greater society's whim and preferably a virgin.

Shame, random hockey player, shame.

Long To Reign Over Us

In other Olympic related comment, in today's Age some bloke called Barry Everingham has called for a new Strayan flag.

I accept his offer:



I'm obviously not a designer, but there's method in my visual spasticity.

1. The blue is the same as the blue of the current flag.
2. The blue is to represent the ocean surrounding our country, as well as the night sky.
3. Green and gold are more identifiable with Australia.
4. The green beside the blue represents our green cities and forests along our coastline.
5. Green represents our respect for the environment.
6. Gold is the desert in the centre of our country.
7. Gold also represents our warm inner hearts, and our wealth and riches.
8. It is simple for kids in primary school to draw with crayons, unlike our current flag and many of the proposed new designs of our flag.
9. All the best flags around the world are the most basic. It shouldn't be designed by a graphic designer otherwise it becomes too messy and 'fashionable' only for the time it was created.

Or something.

Maybe the whole thing could rotate 90 degrees, and maybe colours could be of equal width or something.

I even toyed with circular green and gold to make it look more like an island in a sea of blue, but it looked like a target.

I think it's terrific, but if they get rid of the monarchy I'll spew. I'm all happy for a flag change, but I'm also happy for the monarchy to stay as it is. The day we cheer a bureaucratic President is the day we've lost our Australian-ness. Better to have a state leader who lives in another country breeding corgis that we can whinge about, than have some Dick Smith-like character replacing her.

Insert abuse in the comments section.

UPDATE

I've darkened the blue to make it more like the original flag, and made the golden centre more like the one from the Aboriginal flag, as per Louche's suggestion that we should acknowledge their heritage.

Conceptually it;s the same, but this one's a bit prettier I reckon.