Patriot Realm

As a child, we spent our Christmas holidays at a remote coastal sheep farm, The car would be loaded up with camping gear and we would head off on the long drive to spend 2 weeks of fishing, mucking around in the shearing shed, hiking across the paddocks and exploring the rock pools at low tide. Our Aunts and Uncles would already be there and our cousins would be smug that they had already scanned out the best places to build forts, swim and generally get into mischief.

On 19 March 1932 the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened to the public. This landmark bridge is almost the poster child that is synonymous with Australia and is no doubt one of the most instantly recognizable bridges in the world.

The brainchild of John Bradfield, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is tribute to the man who brought us the concept of the much touted " Bradfield Scheme " and also the Storey Bridge in Brisbane and Sydney's rail system. He oversaw the rebuilding of the bridge over the Hawkesbury River and the construction of dams such as the Cataract and Burrinjuck dams. In 1917 he wrote a paper predicting Sydney’s population would nearly triple by 1950 to more than 2.2 million. This was used in Bradfield’s day as an argument for suburban electrified trains as a way to open up new land for development. source. 

Last year ANZAC Day was subsumed by the Coronavirus lockdown and we were denied the right to celebrate it and honour our Diggers in the usual way by government decree.

As the day approaches it looks like this year it may be subsumed again by the furore of the March 4 Women’s Rights movement or the demonstrations by the Aboriginal Industry asking for MORE.

Either way, I expect that we will still get the usual collection of the bearded unwashed telling us how wrong we were/are for participating in any war because we should be celebrating peace.

These angry shots are not the first, nor will they be the last salvos we ordinary grateful citizens will be subjected to by this ignorant element in our society. Ignore them and roll with the punches.

When one talks about real angry shots and the peaceful scenario of Port Philip Bay on a calm and cloudy day one does not normally connect the two in the same sentence but on 4^th August 1914, they did.

Ad-Free ABC?

(Australian Broadcasting Commission)

In recent decades “our” ABC has become a pampered left-wing mega-phone.

The 17th of March marks the date of the death of St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland. St Patrick was actually born in Britain but, when he was 16, he was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as a slave. It was about the year 415 and there was no kids helpline or social media available to send out a cry for help. So he planned and plotted and eventually managed to escape. Sadly, Paddy was no Houdini and he was sent off to France where he was introduced to Christianity. 

He escaped again and managed to return to Ireland, which he now accepted as home. Converted to the Christian religion, he set about spreading the Word throughout Ireland.  Perhaps the most well-known legend of St. Patrick is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock.

He is credited with ridding Ireland of snakes and is generally regarded as being a pretty good chap. 

Of course, he would never have risen to the levels of global recognition that his name enjoys today, had it not been for one singular event: The Irish Potato Famine.