Patriot Realm

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.

Old mate from down the road called Luigi or some other woggie name will take a good hearted hammering and Jimmy Jimmy from up north will bring out his collection of Kevin Bloody Wilson cassettes and no one will own a cassette player.  

We'll have a back up though: a youtube link on the smart TV with old Kevin singing about Santa or about living next door to Alan Bond and we all know the lyrics so we'll sing along and laugh and pat each other on the back and call each other a lazy bastard.

We'll offend everyone around the world by singing along with the lyrics that don't really upset anyone that matters, because even the REAL aboriginals love a sense of humour. In fact Kevin Bloody Wilson was very popular in the Aboriginal communities.

But not so much in the cities. Pretty much the same as today really. It's hard to imagine that this song was born in the days that Australia won the America's Cup when Alan Bond was a " tall Poppy. "

 You see, Australia used to be a different country. We had this thing that is called a " sense of humour."

It carried us through two World Wars, the Depression and much more besides. 

We used to laugh at ourselves, others and life in general.In times of hardship and plenty alike, we laughed. In adversity and in times of joy.

I cannot understand why the world is so hell bent on killing humour. No matter how strange or foreign it may sound to the ears that are not " part of the gang. "

Life was hard so, in our leisure hours or days, we would kick back and relax and enjoy that amazing thing called LIFE. And we never apologised for being who we are:

Australians.

People mock our accent and we do too. It's an Aussie thing. People like Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin made a cracking good living by sounding like Aussies. And Steve Irwin ( God Bless him ) sold Australia to the world.

Steve showed the world the human side of the Aussie Spirit.

Now, there is no way I ( or any other Aussie I know ) would do what Steve did. But sometimes, we like to think that it is our CHARACTER as inhabitants of this amazing country, that comes to the fore.

You see, we see ourselves as Steve Irwins.

We live with the beasties and the biters and the bad dudes every day. In our backyards. I guess we just never expected them to invade our parliament and our government throughout our nation.So many snakes.

We fight the invaders that threaten us. Or, at least, we used to.

We are not lazy bastards. Not the Real Ones anyhow.

Real Aussies work hard and we call each other " lazy bastards "  over the barbie because we all know we are just taking the mickey.  It's an Aussie, bloke thing. 

We'll talk in riddles to " outsiders " and answer questions with questions. That's another Aussie thing.

Not one of us REAL AUSTRALIANS - black, white or inbetween - will talk about Invasion Day. Not one of us will lament the day that our ancestors were transported from the old country to the new and not one of us will apologise for being Aussie. Because we love this country too much to ever apologise for the gift that Australia has given us. And I write this as a migrant.

NOT BLOODY ONE OF US.

We all know how to eat a sausage at Bunnings. As I said some time ago, The Bunnings Warehouse Sausage Sizzles are a part of Australian Culture, much like the Election Day tents outside the polling booths.

I have been known to choose my polling booth by whether or not it has a sausage sizzle.

Personally, I don’t think you should be allowed to become an Australian Citizen unless you have passed the Snag Test.

If you don’t know that “ Snag “ is Aussie slang for sausage, then you may as well bugger off now and hand in your Passport.

You shouldn't be allowed to get an Aussie passport unless you speak English. Come here and you should have to pass the pub test.

Maybe not speak Aussie ( that takes years ) but at least be able to speak English. Because the two are entirely different. Like Americans can speak English but not everyone can understand Mississipian.

Or someone in Britain can speak Cockney. That is a different story.

But at least English.

It takes a long time to learn how to speak Aussie.

But you have to want to learn in the first place.

There is a sign outside a hospital in Melbourne Australia. There is only one world I understood.

Hello.

When did that happen?

When did the country of Kevin Bloody Wilson, Steve Irwin,, Paul Hogan and Dame Edna become a Refugee Centre?

I suspect that the death of Australia is inevitable because Australians are becoming an endangered species.

I suspect that I have just written the eulogy to Australia.