Patriot Realm

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 home town of 35 or so residents.

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.

As we celebrate the birth of Australia, we will be busy heading for the beach, the barbeque or the backyard. Or all three. Ice sales will skyrocket and beer sales will be bigger than an outback blowfly. 

But there is a serious side to the claims of " Invasion Day"  and it has nothing to do with white pommy soldiers or white pommy convicts.

It has everything to do with blow ins who don't give a damn about our country, our culture or our way of life.Everyday is becoming Invasion Day and one day a year is condemned by the blowflies, blow ins and criminals and crooks that plague our once great Nation: Australia.

It was back in 2018 when Larry Pickering passed away and went to whatever rambunctious old cartoonists and blog writers call the Rainbow Bridge. He was the quintessential Australian larrikin. The man that offended and seemingly didn't give a hoot. In fact, he managed to offend with ease and incredible skill. 

His pen was mightier than the sword and he wielded it with clever cartoons,words and with much enthusiasm. In fact, he seemingly managed to offend and or entertain Australia with his rapier wit and his astoundingly provocative cartoons depicting modern Australia. 

Another 26th of January is on our doorstep. Only a few more sleeps before we 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 have one too many.

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 pull each other's leg and tell jokes about who had a convict in their ancestry.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has resigned after months of rumors.

Ardern, whose popularity has plummeted during the last six months, told us “she had nothing left in the tank.” In her resignation speech, she called on Labour Party ministers to consider which reform areas should be priorities and which should be scrapped as Labour moves to try to wipe some controversial policies off its plate.