Patriot Realm

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.

Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the Covid disease. 

We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides:

‘Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally.’ – Thucydides

I have never had a tattoo. Nor am I likely to. I hate pain and am rather partial to my skin colour without feeling the need to change its colour or use it as a canvas for artistic expression.

It seems somehow foreign to me. I am rather appreciative of myself and what I look like and, though I may not be as I wish I appeared to others, I am what I am as Popeye used to say.

Last night, I went down memory lane and stumbled on a long forgotten holiday when I ate scones and home made apricot jam and drank freshly brewed coffee in a stone cafe in Central Otago.

It was a typical holiday. Redhead and I headed off for a 5 day jaunt around a small region of the South Island of New Zealand.

To my younger readers: There was a time when people had things called " holidays. " They were when you could go where ever you wanted and travel and explore new and interesting places. We didn't have facemasks back then. We didn't have vaccine passports and all citizens could travel and mingle and meet and eat and greet. It was known as ": fun " and the amazing thing was that, in those days, it was none of the government's business what we did and who we did it with.