Australia

Liza is a funny one alrighty. I think she's a wonderful performer and firecracker hot, yet I'm as straight as a die.

I might be biased though, because I think Judy Garland was the greatest everything ever.

(Except for Gwyneth Paltrow)

Which reminds me! Did you get a chance to listen to the Kransky Sisters yet (further back up the thread)? I'm interested in seeing what people overseas think about them.


Just in case you think of your question, I have some spare answers lying around, so I'll give them to you now, and you won't have to wait later on.


1. Yes, but only only in South Australia, because they're all weird over there.

2. Generally from October to May, depending on the Monsoon.

3. Nicole Kidman, but only because she's a redhead.


Hope you find those helpful.


:)


Cheers HBS.


PS. Hey, you wanna avatar for Halloween?
 
MG1962 said:
There is often a lot of discussion about what being Australian actually means.
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I can't really believe that it has taken so long for someone to give the correct answer.

Sporting success. Seriously. I can give many examples.
 
lionking said:
I can't really believe that it has taken so long for someone to give the correct answer.

Sporting success. Seriously. I can give many examples.
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I like the fact that we are a nation of paradoxes and the inexplicable.
For example..
... explain marsupials to foreigners. Done? OK, now explain monotremes
... Explain Peter Allens sexuality and marriage (no disrespect) to Liza.
... We live in a democracy but voting is compulsory - never made sense to me.
... We love multiculturalism but dont want more migrants? (Not me, I love migrants - I have been making new freinds recently through some studying, some who have come from Somalia, via Uganda - fascinating stories and wonderful poeple).
... So much space, but nowhere to expand out cities.

Just a couple of 'off the toppers'.
 
A.A.Alfie said:
I like the fact that we are a nation of paradoxes and the inexplicable.
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Core of my heart, my country! Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks, watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze.

- Dorothea MacKellar​


A.A.Alfie said:
For example.

. . . explain marsupials to foreigners. Done? OK, now explain monotremes
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"I've never seen a Platypus," said Dot, "do tell me what it is like!"

"I couldn't describe it," said the Kangaroo, with a shudder, "it seems made up of parts of two or three different sorts of creatures. None of us can account for it. It must have been an experiment, when all the rest of us were made; or else it was made up of the odds and ends of the birds and beasts that were left over after we were all finished."

Little Dot clapped her hands. "Oh, dear Kangaroo," she said, "do take me to see the Platypus! there was nothing like that in my Noah's ark."

- Ethel C. Pedley in Dot and the Kangaroo​


A.A.Alfie said:
. . . Explain Peter Allen's sexuality and marriage (no disrespect) to Liza.
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Lizatherine:

Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?

Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.

Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.


Peteruchio:

Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

- William Shakespeare​


A.A.Alfie said:
. . . We live in a democracy but voting is compulsory - never made sense to me.
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"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

- Sir Winston Churchill​


A.A.Alfie said:
. . . We love multiculturalism but dont want more migrants? (Not me, I love migrants - I have been making new freinds recently through some studying, some who have come from Somalia, via Uganda - fascinating stories and wonderful poeple).
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There has probably never been a better time than the present to re-assess our national cultural policy. Australia, like the rest of the world, is at a critical moment in its history. Here, as elsewhere, traditional values and ideologies are in flux and the speed of global economic and technological change has created doubt and cynicism about the ability of national governments to confront the future. What is distinctively Australian about our culture is under assault from homogenised international mass culture.

Ironically, our culture has never been more vital than it is now. At every level of society, Australians are engaged in cultural activities that are helping to re- invent the national identity, and most Australians would agree on the need to enhance and enrich our culture. To achieve this, cultural policy must enter the mainstream of federal policy-making.

From the preamble to Creative Nation:
Commonwealth Cultural Policy, October 1994​



A.A.Alfie said:
. . . So much space, but nowhere to expand out cities.
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The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft, dim skies-
I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.

- Dorothea MacKellar​


A.A.Alfie said:
Just a couple of 'off the toppers'.
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Right back atcha :)
 
A.A.Alfie said:
... We live in a democracy but voting is compulsory - never made sense to me.
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On one hand, there's some appeal in this, but on the other hand, I'm against anything being compulsory.

How is it enforced? You can't register your car without a voting receipt? (That seems to be how stuff is done in America...)
 
<snip>The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,<snip>

For some reason when I read that word as "codpiece". (I think I need another cup of coffee) :)
 
HawaiiBigSis said:
On one hand, there's some appeal in this, but on the other hand, I'm against anything being compulsory.

How is it enforced? You can't register your car without a voting receipt? (That seems to be how stuff is done in America...)
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You get fined if you don't vote - even in council elections. No big deal.

But Australians are so apathetic to politics that if it weren't compulsory, maybe only 20% would vote. And that's not democracy to my way of thinking.
 
lionking said:
You get fined if you don't vote - even in council elections. No big deal.

But Australians are so apathetic to politics that if it weren't compulsory, maybe only 20% would vote. And that's not democracy to my way of thinking.
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But what makes you pay the fine?

America had a slightly higher voter turnout for the 2008 election, but I imagine it falls to 20% for non-presidential elections or local ones.
 
HawaiiBigSis said:
But what makes you pay the fine?

America had a slightly higher voter turnout for the 2008 election, but I imagine it falls to 20% for non-presidential elections or local ones.
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If you don't pay the fine they keep adding to it until it becomes a Serious Amount™. Then the Sheriff, who is an officer of the Court in Australia, comes and delivers a Summons to go and tell the magistrate why you didn't pay your fine. If you don't go to court, they get nasty. If you go to court and have a tantrum about compulsory voting, they get nasty. If you cop an increased fine and still don't pay, they get nasty.

I find it easier to vote. It takes five bloody minutes, for Aten's sake. I couldn't type out a decent rant in that time.

I sometimes think it would be good if they didn't require the brain-dead to vote, but at the same time, compulsory voting forces people to at least inform themselves a little about politics and government, so that's kinda good. Maybe a heap of ill-informed, half-arsed votes is better than the government having no idea what people think of them.

I can see pros and cons for both sides, and I don't think I have a strong opinion one way or the other.

I DO know though, that if you don't pay a fine here, it won't ever go away. Eventually, at some stage, everyone is going to need a Government-provided service of some kind. That's when the man behind the desk looks at his computer screen and says, "Ah! Mr Akhenaten, we've been hoping you'd drop in. Have a seat."


Uh oh.
 
HawaiiBigSis said:
On one hand, there's some appeal in this, but on the other hand, I'm against anything being compulsory.

How is it enforced? You can't register your car without a voting receipt? (That seems to be how stuff is done in America...)
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They look at births and deaths, tax returns that sort of thing, and if you show up as 18 or over and you don't vote, a fine you get.

Of course, it's easier with Derryn Hinch (a Melbourne radio personality). He's vowed not to vote until it's not compulsary, so he gets a fine every couple of years.
 
The fine is not all that much. I used to know a guy who just paid the fine every year - he viewed it as a cost for his choice to not vote.

But personally, I am very much in favour of compulsory voting. For many elections when I was younger I voted informal - I'd turn up to the polling place, get my name ticked off the list, then simply hand in a blank ballot paper - because I just didn't care that much. That option is open to anyone. However, as I got older, I realised that I actually wanted to have a say in things - I discovered that I had opinions, and I discovered that having opinions is important to the political process. You still have the right to hold no opinion - you can vote informal as I did. But you still have a responsibility as a citizen to at least show up. Personally I don't consider it so much of a responsibility to vote, but as a right. It's also a duty - like jury duty, which I will also make no effort to get out of.

I have definitely found that as I have become older, I have become more political. But even the youth of the country are affected by politics, and they also have a right and a duty to make whatever contribution they can.

And anyway, if you don't vote, then you have no right to complain when you disagree with the result of an election.
 
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The Melbourne Cup​



Melbourne Cup Day is Australia's most famous Tuesday. At 3.00 pm AEDT, on the first Tuesday in November, Australians everywhere stop for one of the world's most famous horse races - the Melbourne Cup.


MelbourneCup.jpg


It​


It's a day when the nation stops whatever it's doing to listen to the race call, or watch the race on TV. Even those who don't usually bet, try their luck with a small wager or entry into a 'sweep' - a lottery in which each ticket-holder is matched with a randomly drawn horse.


Phar Lap

Phar Lap is perhaps Australia's most famous racehorse, combining stamina and speed. Foaled in New Zealand in 1926 by Night Raid out of Entreaty he grew to 17 hands. Over his career he won more than £65,000 in prize money and won 37 of his 51 starts. From September 1929 he was the favourite in all but one of his races. Phar Lap became the darling of Australian race crowds during the Great Depression of the 1930s - winning all four days of the 1930 Flemington Spring Carnival including the Melbourne Cup carrying 62.5 kg.


PharLap.jpg

Phar Lap with jockey Jim Pike riding at Flemington race track
​



Read moar
 
MELBOURNE CUP FINISHING ORDER

1. Shocking $9.90 the win and $3.50 the place

2. Crime Scene $10.50 the place

3. Mourilyan $8.20 the place

4. Master O'Reilly

5. Harris Tweed

6. Alcopop

7. Viewed

8. C'est La Guerre

9. Kibbutz

10. Newport

11. Daffodil

12. Munsef

13. Gallions Reach

14. Leica Ding

15. Ista Kareem

16. Allez Wonder

17. Capecover

18. Basaltico

19. Zavite

20. Spin Around

21. Roman Emperor

22. Fiumicino

23. Warringah​
 
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a controversial figure in Russian politics whose regime human rights groups have linked to a variety of human-rights violations, has entered two horses to participate in Melbourne's Spring Carnival, a series of thoroughbred horse races that are held through October and November. His stallion Bankable is set to start in the $655,000 LKS Mackinnon Stakes race on Oct. 31, and his gelding Mourilyan will race in the Melbourne Cup itself. Both horses are about to be quarantined in England before flying to to Australia. If Australian authorities don't intervene — which some politicians here are saying they should — they are due to arrive in Australia on Oct. 10.
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Link to Time Magazine article


How interesting. I didn't know about that until just now.

Thanks.
 
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