THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

No it isn't. Australia has its back to them!

You just wait till our cricket team plays... they must have found a good pub...

Well. Don't know what to say here.

I suppose if Oz bowled England out for 60, they would gloat, or make some ribald comments. But it doesn't seem appropriate somehow.

Here's a picture of Adam Hills at the British Comedy Awards.

Sorry, but I can't find one of him actually winning an award.

But hey, he was there!

At least he wasn't at the bloody cricket!

It's all gone quiet over here.

As said on The Last Leg last night. "This is the most sorry I've felt for an Australian since Toadfish's wife died on honeymoon."

Me, I'm more concerned with facing Newcastle tomorrow and the Danish champions a week Thursday.

Bloody cricketers! And now we're apparently about to see the end of Michael Clarke!

BUT - I didn't watch the cricket last night. The Wallabies beat the All Blacks!

Finally! After 4 years! But the decider is next week in Auckland - where the Wallabies haven't beaten the All Blacks in almost 30 years!

Cheer up! If they ever get out cricket team out of the pub they found over there, then maybe our tennis team wont have to fight another ashes test . Thats what I think happened and I am never wrong .

In the mean time ....

Australia: an American's view

Interesting set of observations from a visitor from the other side of the Pacific.'Value what you have and don't give it away.' There's a lot to admire about Australia, especially if you're a visiting American, says David Mason. More often than you might expect, Australian friends patiently listening to me enthuse about their country have said, ''We need outsiders like you to remind us what we have.'' So here it is - a small presumptuous list of what one foreigner admires in Oz.

1... Health care. I know the controversies, but basic national health care is a gift. In America, medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy. The drug companies dominate politics and advertising.
Obama is being crucified for taking halting baby steps towards sanity. You can't turn on the telly without hours of drug advertisements - something I have never yet seen here. And your emphasis on prevention - making cigarettes less accessible, for one - is a model.

2... Food. Yes, we have great food in America too, especially in the big cities.
But your bread is less sweet, your lamb is cheaper, and your supermarket vegetables and fruits are fresher than ours.
Too often in my country an apple is a ball of pulp as big as your face.
The dainty Pink Lady apples of Oz are the juiciest I've had. And don't get me started on coffee.
In American small towns it tastes like water flavoured with burnt dirt, but the smallest shop in the smallest town in Oz can make a first-rate latte.
I love your ubiquitous bakeries, your hot-cross buns. Shall I go on?

3... Language. How do you do it?
The rhyming slang and Aboriginal place names like magic spells.
Words that seem vaguely English yet also resemble an argot from another planet.
I love the way institutional names get turned into diminutives - Vinnie's and Salvos - and absolutely nothing's sacred.
Everything's an opportunity for word games and everyone's a nickname.
Lingo makes the world go round.
It's the spontaneous wit of the people that tickles me most.
Late one night at a barbie my new mate Suds remarked, ''Nothing's the same since 24-7.'' Amen.

4... Free-to-air TV. In Oz, you buy a TV, plug it in and watch some of the best programming I've ever seen - uncensored.
In America, you can't get diddly-squat without paying a cable or satellite company heavy fees.
In Oz a few channels make it hard to choose.
In America, you've got 400 channels and nothing to watch.

5... Small shops. Outside the big cities in America corporations have nearly erased them.
Identical malls with identical restaurants serving inferior food.
Except for geography, it's hard to tell one American town from another.
The ''take-away'' culture here is wonderful.
Human encounters are real - stirring happens, stories get told.
The curries are to die for. And you don't have to tip!

6... Free camping. We used to have this too, and I guess it's still free when you backpack miles away from the roads.
But I love the fact that in Oz everyone owns the shore and in many places you can pull up a camper van and stare at the sea for weeks.
I love the ''primitive'' and independent campgrounds, the life out of doors.
The few idiots who leave their stubbies and rubbish behind in these pristine places ought to be transported in chains.

7... Religion. In America, it's everywhere - especially where it's not supposed to be, like politics.
I imagine you have your Pharisees too, making a big public show of devotion, but I have yet to meet one here.

8... Roads. Peak hour aside, I've found travel on your roads pure heaven.
My country's ''freeways'' are crowded, crumbling, insanely knotted with looping overpasses - it's like racing homicidal maniacs on fraying spaghetti.
I've taken the Hume without stress, and I love the Princes Highway when it's two lanes.
Ninety minutes south of Bateman's Bay I was sorry to see one billboard for a McDonald's.
It's blocking a lovely paddock view. Someone should remove it.

9... Real multiculturalism. I know there are tensions, just like anywhere else, but I love the distinctiveness of your communities and the way you publicly acknowledge the Aboriginal past.
Recently, too, I spent quality time with Melbourne Greeks, and was gratified both by their devotion to their own great language and culture and their openness to an Afghan lunch.

10. Fewer guns. You had Port Arthur in 1996 and got real in response. America replicates such massacres several times a year and nothing changes.
Why?
Our religion of individual rights makes the good of the community an impossible dream.
Instead of mateship we have ''It's mine and nobody else's''.
We talk a great game about freedom, but too often live in fear.
There's more to say - your kaleidoscopic birds, your perfumed bush in springtime, your vast beaches.
These are just a few blessings that make Australia a rarity.
Of course, it's not paradise - nowhere is - but I love it here.
No need to wave flags like Americans and add to the world's windiness.
Just value what you have and don't give it away.

David Mason is a US writer and professor, and poet laureate of Colorado.

https://www.thedodo.com/man-finds-gigantic-lizard-1491733078.html

Anyone know what the seas are like down on the Southern Ocean this time of year.
The financially crippling offspring is currently exploring various boffin like curiosities on the Australian Bight, as we speak.

"Oh....In South Aust-ralia I was born,
Haul away, heave away......"

Even the kiddie pools of Australia are filled with man eating sharks. So, I'm assuming the southern coast of basically jammed pack with sharks. So many that you can walk on their backs like an improvised boardwalk.

Cleanest ocean on the planet. Heatwave currently affecting south Oz with some very nasty electrical storms.

There are a lot of sharks in the bight - I remember that Adelaide has boating tours that are basically 'let's go tease some sharks' by trolling with a leg of lamb out the back - all fun and games until a shark mistakes a boat towing a skier or innertube rider as one of the fun 'teasing' boats.

Reminds me of locals in Nhulunbhuy* going apeshit at dickhead tourists cleaning their catch at the boat ramp. Because crocodiles will then associate the boat ramp with easy feeding, and guess where the only place is that the locals have to get in the water.

*in North East Arnhem Land (funnily my spell check wants to replace this name with 'unhelpful')

Just had an email from him to say that the weather and conditions have been great, but a big swell is predicted tonight.
He has been doing a lot of zigzagging along the edge of the bight, recording differences of various things at differing depths.

He's out there until Christmas Eve!


Oh to be young again and have such opportunities.


Thanks for the info, guys. Have now been steered towards a tracking website, so I can worry in "real time".

Those waters are glorious.

Fitzgerald River national park was one of the highlights of my last round OZ trek. Mid-Winter, so I basically had it to myself, except for a few pro fisher folk.

The lizards in our neighborhood are much smaller - thank god!

Great post Wilso. I enjoyed it when I posted it a couple of posts back.