Machination is the perfect word to describe what ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his supporters in the Australian government have been doing for the last few weeks, culminating in the events of today, and those that will fill the newspapers next Monday.

You have to understand that Australians in general don’t take politics and government too seriously.  We don’t like to vote, and the person who gets in is usually the least disliked one, not the most popular. In Australia you won’t see any of those well-attended love-ins politicians get in the US. The biggest reason people go to see their local member here is to have a shout at them and tell them what a crap job they are doing. We view politics a bit like a car race, our ears only really perk up when something goes wrong and one of the leaders crashes.

Kevin Rudd crashed and burned in spectacular style a few years ago when Julia Gillard performed an unexpected manoeuver, cutting him off and sending him plunging over a cliff. She took over the leadership herself in quite a nasty and personal attack on Kevin, and became our first female Prime Minister . Nobody really cared that unpopular, micro-managing, double-speak Kevin wasn’t in charge, but in overthrowing her boss, Julia proved the thing that we all know to be true. Politicians can’t be trusted. She never reached the level of popularity or respect a properly elected leader should have, even after an election kept her in power.

Kevin seemed to take the criticism and personal attacks to heart, spending his time as the new foreign minister making friends overseas and rolling up his trousers to help out flood victims in Queensland in an attempt to revamp his image and convince us he was really a good guy.

We didn’t believe it, and all suspected that he was spending his spare time in a dark lair formulating an evil plan to take Julia down. We were right. Yesterday we heard that Kevin was throwing in his job as the foreign minister and cutting short a junket in Washington. He was coming home to have a showdown with his arch-nemesis. Today we hear Julia has called for a leadership ballot on Monday morning. We are all a bit sick of Julia now, so Kevin and his efforts to undermine her have piqued our interest again. Really though, we all just wish they would shut up and get on with the job of running the country, or let someone else do it.

The Advertiser 18 Aug 1947 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article35993888

I laughed at this article from 1947, if this was the punishment for plotting against the government here there would be nobody left! I am sure that Julia would love to mete out the same kind of punishment to Kevin and his supporters. Death, with a side order of jail,  heavy fines and revocation of citizenship.

Unfortunately, the loser of the showdown on Monday will get a job on the backbench and still collect a paycheck the size of which the rest of us would kill for. Any remaining shred of credibility either of them had is the only thing that has been sentenced to death.

Not much of a punishment for all the ridiculous media speculation we have been subjected to for weeks. For some time we expected that this leadership spill was nothing but a beat-up.

The media frenzy bought to mind the hilarious shows Frontline, an Australian comedy from the 90′s satirizing current affairs, and The Hollowmen a satirical look at what really goes on behind the scenes in a political department.

Have a look on youtube.

This Frontline clip is called Point Scoring and Emotional Manipulation http://youtu.be/Cwfne1aYA3g . The Ray Martin hairstyle on Mike always cracks me up and the fashions are dated. Nevertheless, the subject is just as fresh as ever and I bet those same conversations are going on in news rooms around the world right now.

The Hollowmen; http://youtu.be/7XeQin9abx4 and we just know that this is how politics really is.

The Advertiser 18 Jun 1929 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article35739898

One year ago today we all heard the news that there had been a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. 185 people died and many were injured or displaced. Across the ditch, we hung on the news reports of rescues and the visions of the bravery of rescuers.

Christchurch and its surrounds have always been on shaky ground, and in the last year there have been regular tremors (more than 5000), including another large quake just before christmas, keeping the population on their toes.

Over 1400 buildings, homes and businesses, needed to be partially or totally demolished due to damage after the 2011 quake and some places have been abandoned altogether. Rebuilding has begun in the city, but at a slow pace due to the ongoing shakes.

Two minutes of silence will be observed at 12:51 New Zealand local time today, the time the quake hit, and afterward some of the people who helped in various ways at the time will be presented with awards.

The people of Christchurch and the other affected areas will always remember the events of that day, but they are nevertheless going on with the business of living in their beautiful place.

carpark at yarra glen swap meet 2012

We took the short drive out to Yarra Glen on Sunday to have a look at the car show and swap meet there.

The man of the house is still on the hunt for anything XW and was hopeful that he would find a hidden treasure there.

No luck for him, but the kids found a lovely lady whose stall had second-hand lego kits, and was willing to talk all about them with two curious boys. They happily yacked her ear off, spent some of their savings on lego, and came home happy.

Oh well, my new camera and I had a good walk around and stickynose, so another trip will keep us happy too.

I love a car show/swap meet, there is always something to take a picture of. One of my favourites of the day came thanks to son number 2 who requested a photo of the interesting tunnel formed by trestle tables of unpainted trailer wheel arches. Thanks kiddo!

The West Australian 16 Feb 1942 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47181120

On the 19th of February 1942, at around 10 in the morning, 260 Japanese planes conducted an air raid on the city of Darwin. Around an hour later another wave attacked.

At the time of the bombing the civilian population of Darwin was approximately 2000. Around 250 people were killed and nearly 400 injured that day. More bombs were dropped on Darwin on the 19th of February 1942 than during the attack of Pearl Harbour on the 7th December 1941 .

This news article of the 15th of February reported that the Japanese were sending small bombers on reconnaissance missions over the city of Darwin in the north of Australia. Apparently these reports weren’t taken as seriously as they should have been, Australians believed distance kept them safely remote from any direct attacks. Nobody expected that the first assault on the mainland would occur within days.

The two waves of attack on the 19th centred on the harbour and military ships docked there, the aerodromes, shipping lanes and Darwin hospital. By the end of the day most of the facilities and essential services in Darwin were destroyed. Many civilians left, and began heading south, understandably believing that the attack was the start of an invasion. These air raids were the start of over 100 attacks in the north of Australia for the next two years.

Last year the Australian government officially recognized the 19th of February as a national day of significance, but this year is the first time it has been officially celebrated. On Sunday during the ceremonies commemorating the 70th anniversary of this event, Australia’s Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, opened a $10 million museum dedicated to the bombing of Darwin.

Thousands of people, including about 90 people who survived the attacks, attended the ceremony, flyover and re-enactment (guns, planes, no bombs, phew!). A service was also given to honour the 89 American soldiers that died when the USS Peary was hit in the harbour.

I recently bought a new camera. I know this might not necessarily sound like a thing worth a blog post, but for me it is a very big thing. It means that I will be retiring my old camera, and that is not something I take lightly. My thinking about retiring a camera is a little like growing bored with your puppy and trading him in for another one.

You see, I love my cameras. LOVE. Love with a capital You-Touch-That-And-I’ll-Kill-You. I love my cameras in a way that I am sure totally annoys my family. One thing that caused me to suspect this was when the man of the house bought an expensive inverter for charging batteries on our camping trips. He would never have to hear me moan about flat camera batteries again.

I knew I had a problem when I bought myself a (slightly) cheaper backup camera that could live in my handbag so I would never have to worry about being caught without one. Yes, my mobile phone has the ability to take photos, it is no fun to take photos with, hence, it is not a camera. Yeah, I know, it’s ridiculous. Obsessions don’t have to make sense…..

That isn’t to say that I am a wonderful photographer, I just love looking at the world in small slices. I was a little scared when I bought the new camera though. The old camera has an effect on the little critters I find, it seems to have the ability to hypnotize them, and they are very reluctant to leave while it is looking at them. Very convenient. The other, less special, handbag camera I have has the ability to make most creatures leave as quickly as possible. I was very worried that I would spend all this money on a new one only to find it has the same annoying power. Fortunately, so far, it seems to be fairly successful in avoiding scaring them away, so, phew!

I thought I would share a few pictures from my beloved old camera in this post. Hopefully I will have some photos worth sharing from the new camera too!

garden mushrooms

washing line robber

barbed wire bird

Household Lingo No 2.

Monkeys.

Monkeys is used a lot here, I have only recently realized how much!

If the kids are being too noisy I will grumpily call out ‘shut your monkeys!’ or ‘zip your monkey!’ This is me telling them that they are sounding like monkeys who need to be quieter or risk being turfed out the door to play outside in the trees. It is a polite way of saying SHUT UP!

Number 1 son used monkey yesterday (prompting this post) and completely cracked me up even though he was using it as a substitute for swearing.

We had taken the dog for a walk to the river and were dropping in at the shop on the way home. No 1 had waited in the car with the dog. As we walked back to the car with our booty I unlocked it with the remote. Clearly No 1 wasn’t aware we were returning, and the unexpected noise of all the doors unlocking was quite a shock. As I sat down in the driver’s seat all I heard was ‘wow, you scared the monkeys out of me!’ My brain suddenly filled with an image of a group of tiny, terrified monkeys pouring out from under his t-shirt and fleeing for their lives through the open car door!

We also use monkey to remind the kids that they need to stop jumping around; ‘sit down monkey’, to let them know that their antics are amusing us; ‘you funny monkey’…. hmmm…. actually, we use it for everything!

Worker 3 Dec 1951 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71397944

I understand that Mr Bee-Mason might have had his hands a little full at the time of the initial sting, but you would think that once the deafness set in you would remember the bee in your ear earlier.

I don’t think much of the doctor either, did he even look in the ear or was he just guessing?

Mr. J.C. Bee-Mason has a great name for a bee-keeper, doesn’t he? A mason can be a name for a member of a widespread secret organization. Could a Bee-Mason be another name for a person who understands the secrets of bees?

The Mercury 18 Apr 1933 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24881432

I tripped and fell and my ear just dropped right off. I bet there aren’t many other people in the world that can say that!

If you were sinking a few at the local inn on a cold and snowy night, and a person came in telling you that their ear was outside on the ground, I suspect you would be wondering what kind of beverage the innkeeper had been serving!

How desperate was Josef Steinmetz for a drink to have travelled in the bitter cold long enough for his ear to have been so damaged by frostbite?

The Sydney Morning Herald 21 Apr 1943 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17845323

Many sailors have been involved in rescues at sea, but I expect that they mainly rescue humans. What would you think if you got this call, to rescue a plane that is floating on a raft? I suspect that you would be checking the date wasn’t April the first.

I imagine that every morning the captain of the Samsonia wandered out on deck and just shook his head to see the Lockheed bomber, lashed to a raft, trailing along behind his own tug. It must have been one hell of a raft, to keep a bomber afloat for three days.

Can you imagine if they were unable to find it and at some later date an  unsuspecting fisherman came across it?

What fantastical story do you think he would attach to this amazing sight?

The West Australian-15 July 1936 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article40733834

My current favourite book is the gigantic (1400 page) dictionary of slang written by Eric Partridge (1894-1979).

Without the help of Mr Partridge I wouldn’t have been able to understand many of the obscure words used in the old articles I love. I realized the other day that there was no reason he wouldn’t be referred to somewhere in these newspaper articles so I looked him up. Lo and behold, there is an article about him being awarded a fellowship to begin writing what will end up being ‘The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang’, yet another book on my wish list.

Eric Partridge was a very interesting man and achieved a lot in one life. He was born in New Zealand and came to Australia in his teens. He served at Gallipoli and was wounded in France. Later, he took up a travelling scholarship at Oxford, lectured at universities in Manchester and London and started a publishing house before writing a variety of dictionaries and books about language. (See http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110155b.htm for a summary of his biography)

Morning Bulletin 6 Mar 1929 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article54645539

In my readings about him I found his name mentioned regarding a scandalous book called ‘The Sleeveless Errand’ written by Norah James. The book was declared to be obscene and all copies ordered to be destroyed. Mr Partridge owned the publisher of this book, Scholartis. He read the book and had suggested that, although horrible, the language mirrored real life in certain parts of the community.

I doubt those people making the decision in court in 1929 were people in the part of society her book used for reference. Banning the ‘degrading muck’ in this book would hardly make the lower classes change their ways would it? I wonder if the  language in the book would have been seen differently if it was written by a man.

Obviously the ordered destruction was not as effective as the magistrate would have hoped. I notice that copies of it can be bought on the interweb. Who would have thought of that outcome back in 1929?

If anyone out there has read ’The Sleeveless Errand’ I would be very interested to know what you thought of it.