Category: Australiana

A neo-colonialist slapped down

On the ABC last night, Chris Uhlmann – one of our up-and-coming political journalists – interviewed Peter O’Neill, who is one of the two Prime Ministers currently battling it out in Papua New Guinea.   You probably know nothing about this, so here’s a link to give you a little background, though you don’t need to know anything about it for the purposes of this post.

Uhlmann is trying to be an aggressive type of journo, but he’s still reasonably respectful when he talks with Gillard, Rudd or Abbott.   Last night he spoke to O’Neill (who is Papua New Guinean through and through, name notwithstanding) as though he, Uhlmann, were a member of a super-power, condescending to a representative of a minor client state.

O’Neill ignored the impolite tone, concentrating on answering the questions at face value, until the final supercilious question was delivered, “Have you yet spoken with Julia Gillard?”

O’Neill looked up at the camera, exhibiting, or quite possibly feigning, great surprise and responded, “Why on earth should I want to talk to the Australian Prime Minister?   She has nothing to do with the government of my country.”

Uhlmann looked utterly nonplussed, as he should.   Hopefully he will be a little more respectful next time.   PNG may have once been an Australian colony, but that ended 36 years ago.

Work-boots !!

Farewell to Bellerive Oval in Hobart.   A local boot manufacturer has acquired the naming rights for squillions of dollars, so this famous Tassie cricket field will now be known as the Blundstone Arena.   Since their elastic sided workboots are known by all Aussies as Blunnies, that’s what it will probably come to be called.

But I am delighted to say that many people have sworn to continue to call it the Bellerive Oval;   I’m one of them. Continue reading “Work-boots !!”

We’ve definitely been invaded

I believe I’ve mentioned in passing that biltong is available almost everywhere in South East Queensland (not in other States or territories), due to the large influx of Saffers into Brisbane and the surrounding area.

But I was still quite surprised this morning when we went to daughter’s for Sunday breakfast, to find her partner busy at the barbie cooking not only bacon, but also boerewors.   Apparently it’s now available everywhere in SEQ, including in the large supermarkets – Woolies and Coles.

So I reckon Sipu should stop regarding Queensland as a foreign country with a strange culture.   It’s merely an outpost of SA, now. 🙂

 

Ready for a rout?

This is an aerial view of Brisbane, looking north.   In the fold of the river is the area known as Kangaroo Point, where OZ lived for a few years.   The big round thing is The Gabba – which is short for Woolloongabba, the suburb where it’s located.   Our Cricket season traditionally starts at The Gabba – the first test of the year is always played here. Continue reading “Ready for a rout?”

More Aussie Humour

While taking my obligatory daily walk, I usually listen to music that I’ve downloaded to my phone, but for the last few days I’ve varied things by listening to “Triple M”, an Aussie commercial FM station.   Of course, they carry adverts, which are frequently highly localised and delivered in a strong local accent, wherever one happens to be.   I’m inclined to ignore the content, but I learn a lot of dialect.

Yesterday, however, I was much amused by one for a new Ute – a Mazda I believe, though I could be wrong – which had a delightful political throwaway buried in the exaggerated Queensland Strine.   Describing the virtues of the new vehicle, at breakneck speed, the guy said –

… and as for grunt, well, this baby delivers 412 Newton-metres, which is more torque than you get at a Climate Change Convention …

Quite made my day. 🙂

What d’ya reckon, Soutie?

Or how about you, Sipu?

Here’s our new Australian Team Coach and Selector, Mikey Arthur.

A Saffer who coached the Proteas with some success until he suddenly left after a disagreement with CSA or Graeme Smith or possibly both.

At the time he avowed that he wanted nothing more than to move to England and coach a County Team, but apparently the Poms didn’t want him and he ended up as coach to the WA (West Australia) Warriors.   He has  a reputation for being a good man-manager – is that praise, or is it a nice way of saying that his cricket isn’t very good?

Reactions from Aussie fans have been mixed, so far.   Some of the derogatory comments included –

  • Anyone would be better than Tim Neilsen
  • Why can’t we have an Aussie coach?
  • Does this mean our team will become as arrogant and precious as the Proteas?

Continue reading “What d’ya reckon, Soutie?”

This man has trashed Australia


This greedy, self-centred Irish gobshite (a word I hate, but nothing else is appropriate) has singlehandedly trashed the image of Australia around the world, playing havoc with our economy and ensuring that the airline that we were once proud to describe as an Australian icon will inexorably lose money and morph into another low service, poor safety Asian also-ran.

He ignored his customers, stranding some 80,000 of them around the globe.

Last year he took home $11 million as his salary plus bonus, but his declared objective is to get round Australia’s strong employment laws so that he can pay his employees Asian sweatshop wages.

He is a scrote.

Thank goodness that even Juliar had sufficient balls to (indirectly) order Qantas back into the air.