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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Oz Day

The 26th Jan in Australia Day when we down under express our appreciation by having a BBQ on the beach.


Few, if any, give a nod to the Greatest Man in our History; a man even more important than George Washington is to the USA.

Once it had been the practice of the Mother Country of both America and Oz,  Great Britain (Hoorah!)  to send recalcitrants on the 6 week voyage to the American colonies (where they all became the ancestors of today's democrats). That was well after the Pilgrims, of course, who made a real pig's ear of colonisation and had to be bailed out by the locals. 

But after the Revolution (largely fueled by those recalcitrants again) the Great British mind turned to where else it might send its riff-raff.

Oz had been on few minds until then.

But it was decided that Oz, being so far away, wild and well off the trade routes  would be a splendid place to send the unwashed and unwilling and so it was that..... drum roll......


Captain Arthur Phillip

...was commissioned to take eleven boats on an eight-month trip to Oz with  1400 souls on board including 800 of said unwashed mob which in turn included 200 ladies of both day and night. He took some Marines with him too.

He managed this huge task - akin to sending a small but unwilling Texas village to Mars - without losing one ship. And whereas the Atlantic crossing usually lost 10% to accident and disease, Arthur Phillip's foresight saw fewer than 2% lost on the epic voyage.


He established his base in what is now Sydney ( a real den of iniquity, known worldwide now for its Queer Mardi Gras) after looking around from Botany Bay. Its the quality of the folk you see.

Within a shortish time he had established a viable and growing colony, doing a far better job with the Navy Manual than the Pilgrims did with their strange version of the Bible. (Arthur also had one but relied more on knots than nots). He did not need the locals to bail him out.

Actually, by sailing the 40deg latitude he first arrived in Tasmania - or Van Dieman's Land as it was called - whence he turned north having not actually having missed Oz altogether.


So let us drink a toast to Capt Phillip, the Founder and First Governor of Oz.

Cheers Arthur, maaaate.

And throw another prawn on the Barbie.

Pax.





4 comments:

  1. In the Royal Marine Museum near Portsmouth there is a tapestry depicting the founding of Australia and the raising of the Union flag by Captain Arthur Philip.

    http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2015/01/08/the-founding-of-australia-and-the-raising-of-the-union-flag/

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've just been fighting a war with Australians over Phillip. I was called racist.

    ReplyDelete

Ne meias in stragulo aut pueros circummittam.

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The Tavern gets rowdy visitors from time to time. Some are brain dead and some soul dead. They attack customers and the bar staff and piss on the carpets. Those people will not be allowed in anymore. So... Be Nice..