Patriot Realm

Only one country in the entire world can boast of more cars than people within its borders—an astounding 25 percent more, according to the most recent statistics.

Can you guess the country? I’ll give you a few more hints:

This fascinating enclave’s GDP per capita ranks among the highest on the planet, almost as high as that of the United States. It claims, credibly, to be home to the oldest existing sovereign state as well as the oldest constitutional republic. For most of its 17 centuries of existence, it’s been one of the freer and more tolerant of the world’s countries.

• What is going on in our country..... the world? Our whole way of life is under threat. 
• Our Prime Minister's daughter apparently writes a poem. Good grief. Is this what we have come to?
• Some words written by a marketing team and attributed to a young girl? Come on. Please.

Another 26th of January is here. It's time to gather our daggy thongs, search out the shorts with the flag plastered all over them and order in a few slabs, a keg or 3 and assemble around the barbie at the appointed hour ( normally around 11 am ) to tell a few mate jokes and sink a few tinnies. 

We'll dust off the cricket bat and ball while the missus makes the salads and the kids are reminded that beer always lives in the bathtub on Australia Day." Oi! Get your Dad a beer! " will resonate around this great dusty island and we will slag each other off and tell tall tales and true about who had a convict in their ancestry.

So said poet John Masefield  By far the most tantalising problem confronting mariners for centuries was how to calculate Longtitude. Today we take latitude and longtitude for granted. We all know what they are but by far, of all the problems that have confronted mankind waiting to be solved by men of science, Longtitude was the most insoluble ever.

It took over 2,000 years for a workable solution to be developed and in the intervening years it was the cause of huge and consistent loss of life at sea.

It is over 250 years since Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia and it's worth asking ... what was Cook doing here?

He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's. 

Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.