Patriot Realm

Roasting the poor pig is many centuries old, and thus the ways of cooking it are just as many if counted in decades. 

The word "pork" has its origins in the Old French language. In Middle English, the term "porc" referred to the meat of a pig, while "pig" or "swine" denoted the live animal. 

The transition from "porc" to "pork" likely occurred during the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century.

Almost every river in Eastern Australia is now pouring surplus water into the sea. But only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years - the Wyaralong Dam built 13 years ago and Paradise Dam built 19 years ago.

Droughts will come again and we will wish for another dam-builder like Joh Bjelke Petersen whose government built at least eight dams in Queensland - the Burdekin, Wivenhoe, Hinze, Beardmore, Haig, Fairbairn, Bjelke-Petersen and Eungella dams. But that all came to a halt in 1988 when the plans to build the Wolffdene Dam were scuttled by all the usual suspects.

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.

Living in the real Outback of Australia is like confronting yourself with yourself. Seeing yourself for who you are. It is like meeting yourself as a stranger and wondering if you will like that person. 

It was back in the 1990's that I met Albert. A quiet man who had shunned the city and, after a trip to Brisbane in 1949, decided that the big lights were not for him. He returned to the Channel Country and never left again.

Albert was an older bloke who lived in my new hometown of 35 or so residents. It was a very very long way from the coast. 

I was thinking about Australia Day and what it means. Or, at the very least, MEANT. A day to celebrate being unique. Because there really is ( or was) no country like Aussie in the world. Find one, and I will eat my thongs and chuck a sickie and not turn up for work on the 25th while I get into practice mode for Australia Day on the 26th. 

It is OUR day. Like America's 4th of July we have unashamedly gone full Aussie bogan one day of the year and we just have  fun being, well, Australian. 

I have looked through some of the Aussie stuff we have published over the years. So here it is, a bit of Aussie humour and a bit of a wake-up call to all the lefties. Don't destroy our Aussieness. You Canberra and city elites will never know when you will need a boy from the bush to sort the swines out. 

Or worry that they might just go rogue....