Another 26th of January is on our doorstep. Only one more sleep 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 get pissed.
We'll dust off the cricket bat and ball while the ball and chain 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 crappy 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.
Not that any of us are. We all work hard and we all know we are just taking the piss. It's an Aussie, bloke thing.
Not one of us 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.
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.
I suspect that I have just written the eulogy to Australia.
Cheers and have a nice Australia Day, you beautiful bastards.
But I suspect that it will be our last.
And it bloody breaks my heart.
RIP Australia. You were bloody magnificent while you lasted.
Australia Day is about celebrating being Australian. Not who we were, but who we hope to be. Not where we came from, but where we are now. Not what was, but what we have.
Being grateful to be part of the future, not of the past.
How hard is this for the dickheads from the left to understand?
No one owns this country.
NO ONE. We are all guests but, for the moment, I want to enjoy Australia Day and my moment in the sun. I have the daggy shorts in the wash. The flag is on the car and the beers are on ice.
And I can't play cricket for shit.
Cheers and have a nice Australia Day, you beautiful bastards. Enjoy it because I think that this will be our last.