I love all God's Creatures but I must admit to an affinity with some more than others. There is something about the cat that makes me suspect that it sashayed up the boarding ramp onto Noah's Ark before every other living thing because it just knew that it was the king of the beasts. Ignore for a moment that most domestic moggies are distant cousins 700 times removed from the lion; the cat instinctively knows that it is descended from the king of the jungle and that is all there is to say about that.
The 8th of August is International Cats Day so I feel it is worth celebrating our life with cats. And dogs.
Read more: Cats and Dogs - an essay
The Olympic Games were held in Melbourne between 22nd November and 8th December, 1956. The first time they had ever been held in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s sporting prowess was well known world-wide through the triumphs of out tennis players and cricketers but when it came to Olympic sports we were virtually unknown despite our success in all Olympiads since the inception of the modern era. The simple fact was that generally speaking Olympic sports were not huge spectator sports in Australia so the world wondered what this little nation of 9 million people and 170 million sheep at the bottom of the world was thinking about when it had the audacity to apply to stage the Olympic Games.
Read more: I remember when.... Melbourne hosted the 1956 Olympics
When the Picasso exhibition was showing at the Art Gallery of NSW a number of years back, I accompanied Mrs Flysa despite my misgivings, which proved to be well-founded. The abstract paintings were stereotyped and uninspiring, and the relatively few attempts at portraiture appeared amateurish. The term sacred cow came to mind, It was a relief to escape and view the magnificent works of the masters in nearby rooms. By comparison, The Sons of Clovis by Evariste Vital Luminaisand The Defence of Rorke's Drift by Alphonse de Neuville, were as day is to night compared to Picasso.
Claiming to save the world from the global warming ghosts, climate alarmists are smashing our future with Green Wrecking Balls.
One day, when sanity returns to the world, we will be able to tell a future generation, “We were here when science lost touch with reality. We were here when the medical profession lost its mind. We were here when feelings displaced biology.”
Yes, we will get to tell the shocking story unless, of course, our society completely falls apart and self-destructs. Otherwise, we will get to bear witness to these days of societal madness and insanity.
For over 100 years our country’s economy was wrought from gold. The gold that was mined from the ground and the gold that came from the golden fleeces of our unique strains of merino sheep. The common expression was that Australia rode on the sheep’s back.
The 4th of August marks the 6th anniversary of my father's passing. He was married to Redhead for 65 years and they enjoyed a marriage that was firey, fulfilling and fun. It was a marriage of two Geminis and, to those of you who follow the stars, that portends a rather tempestuous and exciting relationship.
Redhead and Raymond F Peters were and are individual characters of a calibre rarely seen these days. They have and had determination, self-will and a strong belief in what is right and what is wrong.
While we celebrate the life and death of people who have the conviction and self-confidence to stand up for what is fair, then all is good in the world.
When that strength is stifled and the voices suffocated, we must hear alarm bells ring and the church bells tolling the death knell of our civilisation.
Read more: Peace Love and Harmony - even when it takes a shovel
Over the past few days, we have had issues with disqus deciding that certain people are banned, or unable to log in.
We have experienced posters being banned because a third party has decided that our comments sometimes offend someone.
Threats of being banned from the platform...
Things are not good.
I read with great delight the article on Saturday from Possum Nana about her wonderful childhood memories of a caring and loving mother and how her fondest recollections were of this saintly Florence Nightingale figure sweeping in and out of her life and how she has memories of this idyllic angel.
Well, let me tell you, that. as a child and adult, I share those memories. But with one big difference. Redhead was and is a fierce woman. A giant of a woman ( dispite her diminutive stature without high heels ) and how mothers can be both the Florence Nightingale and the Queen Bodicea all rolled into one. My Mum Redhead is just such a woman.
You do NOT cross Redhead!
" I have many vices but thankfully gambling is not one of them."
I wrote this as a comment on the blog a while ago and I was alerted to the fact that this was, in actual fact a strange thing to say.
I had to step back and consider this statement. A comment, made in haste, suddenly put under the microscope of public opinion.
The keywords of course are vice and gambling.
So, what is a vice and what is a gamble?
When, on 20th April 1653, Oliver Cromwell blasted the Rump Parliament in Britain, he gave a speech that could well be delivered in Parliaments around the world today. His passionate words were those of a man who had had a gutful of the lying, self-serving people who were betraying their country to get a slice of a very corrupt and tainted pie.
When I re-read this speech this morning, I could not help but think that it is time for a global cleanout of the cesspits we call Parliament and how our Politicians are overfed vultures feeding on the Carcass of the People they were elected to protect and represent.
Beneath the swaying trees and the green grass of Norfolk Island lies a brutal chapter…
154 hits
In a world that seems determined to teach us to hate our countries, I remember…
291 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble In a stunning turn of events, Peter “Cooker” Fookit - who…
340 hits
For nearly three decades, the Port Arthur Massacre has been remembered as Australia's darkest day…
453 hits
Who pays the Ferryman? In the old myths, no soul crossed the river Styx without…
279 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Special Correspondent for Ratty News Roderick Whiskers McNibble here, tail fluffed…
343 hits
Each war seems to produce its own under-appreciated heroes who, for reasons that have nothing…
386 hits
Just before dawn on August 7, 1915, the men of the 8th and 10th Australian…
378 hits
It is not often that a hero can also be a larrikin and vice versa.…
330 hits
On ANZAC Day we remember the fallen, the brave, the heroic. But behind every name…
357 hits
Magic happens everywhere and goodness, wonder and delight can be found alive and well throughout…
152 hits
How many people around the world have been warning about the danger we are in? …
165 hits
Two names. Two battles. One legend. At Chunuk Bair and Lone Pine, ANZAC soldiers faced…
486 hits
It has been truly said that Australia arrived in Gallipoli as six separate States and…
369 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Investigative Reporter Extraordinaire The Ratty News Foreign Desk | Special Report…
382 hits
There are men who live great adventures and there are men who write about them.…
401 hits
When life collapses and the weight of grief threatens to bury us, we have two…
401 hits
He was short, wiry, and came from the dusty outskirts of Clermont in rural Queensland.…
500 hits
As the sun rises on another ANZAC Day in less than two weeks, and an…
284 hits
Some memories shimmer in the mind like a heat haze, half mischief, half magic. This…
285 hits
For over five years now, this blog has grown into more than just a place…
284 hits
In a stunning turn of events, Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble - microphone-wielding rat and founding fur…
375 hits
How did it happen? How did a failed artist and fringe political agitator rise from…
324 hits
What happens when the battlefield goes silent....but the war doesn’t end? When soldiers come home,…
461 hits
John B. Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments of the 1960s, designed to be paradises with unlimited…
314 hits
Throughout history, religion has been hailed as a guiding light, a beacon of morality and…
366 hits
In a fast-changing Australia, where new cultures and identities weave fresh threads into our ever…
311 hits
When I was a young lass, I was a fencer. No, not the farming type…
331 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Ratty News Investigative Correspondent Heard Island, Antarctica - A once-quiet expanse of…
465 hits
In a world obsessed with competition, the most powerful alliances are often overlooked, those between…
324 hits
Fear has always been the most powerful weapon of control, whether wielded by governments against…
309 hits
On a chilly October night in 1938, millions of Americans huddled around their radios, unaware…
284 hits