My Goodness gracious! Can you believe it?

Why weren’t the Japanese terrified by Percival?

Singapore fell seventy five years ago. It’s uncanny. It seems like yesterday. And every now and again the little thought, “What if Singapore hadn’t fallen’? Would Percival have pulled through? Would Bennett not have done a bunk?
And what of the troops? They would’ve just enjoyed a tropical interlude and written Evelyn Waugh type novels of an eternal imperial sunset.

Would all those nurses not have been slaughtered on the beach? Would the ships not have been bombed? The sick and injured not bayonetted in their beds. And would have the Brewsters, the Wapiti’s and Wildebeeste’s been able to defend the skies above? And finally and most emphatically, would’ve the mighty guns fired in real anger and sunk dozens of big Japanese capital ships?. And rather than go down in scarcely fifteen minutes to an inglorious end, would’ve the Prince of Wales and Repulse shooed those pesky naval forces away? Imagine if it never happened? And Singapore, still a colony, would be a popular stoping off point for Malaya, Ceylon and the jewel in the crown India. All gone now, and nowadays the closest the old empire gets in showing its might is when a cruiser gets stuck on a reef somewhere off Lord Howe Island. Captain Cook would turn in his grave.

An aliance you can rely on, and great ironing skills.

But what have we learnt from Singapore?

Tons!!

We’ve learnt not to rely solely on one big ally for protection! We’ve learnt unlike the brief experiment of ABDA alliance, (the American, British, Dutch and Australian alliance to sweep the Japanese navy from Java) not to rely on flimsy alliances with near neighbours. And most of all we’ve learnt not to be seduced by the promise of paying vast sums of money for equipment that is either obscenely over-priced or hopelessly out of date.

No longer will Australia be seduced by the requirement for Big Navy, Big Airforce and the contemporary equivalent of Brewster Buffaloes, (the F35) as the very best thing in aviation technology. And never again will thousands of young Australians to be ensnared by global geo politics. That’s the lesson learnt from Singapore.

What the end of Empire looks like from the air. HMS Prince of Wales going under.

Well, the truth be known.

What have we really learnt?

We can tell you, and it’s quite rude.

We’ve learnt Fuck all!!

Brewsters, Up there with the F35 as an expensive excercise in scrap metal recycling.

Australia still doesn’t posses a foreign policy beyond a supine forelock tugging to our big brother somewhere on the other side of the Pacific. We’re tied lock stock and smoking barrel to the next act of international lunacy, and our military brass hope that by purchasing a fleet of outmoded froggy subs, we’ll be at the forefront. The forefront of what??

But it does prove one thing. It keeps the military brass busy, and that’s a good thing. Without an obscenely huge defence budget they may turn their attention to something even more obscenely absurd, the process of Australian government. That would be real tragedy. The lesson of Singapore, a lesson unlearnt, and Lee Kwan Yue told us what our future would be: ‘the white trash’, perhaps contributing in our now special way to global stability in the early twenty first century with our staunch ally ,(whats his name? Trunbull?) .

Or as Hollywood would call it; not ANZUS but ‘Dumb and Dumber’.

Ira at bath time. Correct water temperature is vital.

Dear reader. At last something more interesting than politics, a melting planet and Corey Bernardii. This comes to us from our esteemed anthropologist Ira Maine, esq, who graces us with a startling discovery from what’s left, (paddock sized now) of the Amazonian rainforests. We are reliably told the remaining fragment of rainforest is watered regularly and had a nice fence made from real wire to protect it from further development.

The amazonian rainforest protected behind a purpose built fence. It’s custodians, Bill and Trish Leefeater pose for the camera.

Deep in the Venezuelan Amazon a group of scientists groped their way (how dare you, you filthy swine! mind where you’re groping!) amongst the Yanomami (named after a Dutch guy who had no  Mammy) tribe, collecting samples of skin flora and fauna from this vastly remote-from-civilisation mob who’d never heard of soap. The outcome of all this was the discovery that the Yanomami tribe carried umpteen times more bacteria on their bodies than  the rest of us. This, it was concluded, was because us sophisticated, squeaky clean Westerners wash away vast quantities of useful bacteria every time we bathe. Science reckons that we probably need every one of those old microbes we have just washed down the sink and scientists are beginning to think that that the loss of these microscopic fauna may be directly contributing to all sorts of modern ailments.
Well, as they say, ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs…’
And the prescient Poms,triumph again. Ahead of the rest with the Industrial Revolution, now leading the world once more in their avoidance of soap!

One way or the other, you can now buy, in the States, a body spray which contains every bug known to man, and even James Hamblin, senior editor at the Atlantic, has given up showering altogether! His missus says he now smells like a bloke rather than a walking ad for Brut!

Why Australia didnt end up buying the Invinciple, Conversion to showers and soap requirement considered by RAN to be too expensive. Cheaper to buy the f 35 Stealth Fighter. ( Hansard)

God help us all.  I can see it all now…Palmolive penniless, Bath salts bankrupt and bubble baths bust. Where will it all end, I bleakly ask? This news will most decidedly cause a great stink and the vapours will quickly reestablish their place in society as ladies of delicate sensibilities encounter evidence of the resurgence of that long neglected, personally perfumed manly essence, Body Odour. . I feel it is the first whiff of the beginning of the end.. I have, purely as a precautionary measure, divested myself this morning of my shares in Madame Frou-Frou’s Personal Bath-Time Playthings (modelled entirely from the finest French Soaps) God, I’ll miss them…

And finally they say that the meek shall inherit the earth…
A modern twist on this is that the meek shall inherit the inside lane…

I am re- investing my few shillings in heavily perfumed handkerchiefs in order to help the discerning lessen the stench of the mob.

Ira

So, I was right after all!

And this fragment from Sir Atney, shows how they “do it” up North.

I wait until there is a heavy downpour after midnight, strip off and go for a naked run around the block. That’s enough to keep me squeaky clean!

Sir Atney

oh, I forgot to mention… While I’m running around I balance a bar of Mr Pears most excellent Coal Tar Soap on my head.

Sir Atney

Kevin Rudd closes the gap

Kev 07. Loves dressing up. Craves RECOGNITION!

You’ve gotta hand it to Kev, welched on climate change, carbon taxes, grotesque inequality and reform of any significant type and stood back as the intervention wiped a swathe of incarceration across indigenous communities. Kev you posturing sanctimonious wanker .You are at one with Tony Abbott on this. Your ignorance is so profound. You let the incarceration, the disfunction, the entropy happen and did nothing. In actual fact by your hand alone you made it worse.

Could we please keep politicians, and ex Prime Ministers out of the indigenous equation. They always have an axe to grind, a legacy to nurture, and they never ever listen. You and Jenny Macklin made the ‘second stolen generation’ happen. It’s your baby Kev. And it’s you who must bear some major responsibility for the lives of people rotting on Manaus and Nauru. You posturing wanker!!

Goodonya Kev!

Hmmm, another case of workplace bullying?

So the world pissed you off from the U.N top job where you thought you’d find a cosy sinecure. Now you’re back for whatever brief interval to sermonise on the “ second stolen generation”. Yet your policies, unchecked and rampant, did more to alienate communities than your predecessor John “intervention” Howard ever did. By your hand alone you ensured that the militarisation of the NT was complete and whilst you pounced around talking of the ‘biggest moral dilemma of our time’ you walked away. You offered an apology because it made you feel good, but you never backed it up. You allowed the mass incarceration to continue as the only function of governance and ignored all the indices of communities riven by police and do gooders (a little like your self) who all had strong opinions on what needed to be done to repair the confected crisis you inherited from your predecessor.

Funny, you never listened to members of your own cabinet either. So what motivates you to posture once again upon the lives of people you are so thoroughly and profoundly removed from. You’ve never once tried to understand the complexity of issues they face and your solutions comes as the facile musings of someone who always has a simple solution to complex problems. And they’re usually wrong.

And you assume the electorate hasn’t got a memory. On that you’re probably right.

Remember the you were big on homelessness before you came to power. You actually visited the odd shelter and pronounced, bit like the apology, that you’d do something about it. Homelessness is off the scale now, because you did nothing. Nothing on tax reform, nothing on negative gearing and nothing on the yawning abyss between haves and have nots. And the reason? You have benefitted by the divide, and have no intention of doing anything about it. As another ambitious Queenslander you balance your convictions between righteous indignation and a holier than though assumption that your views are shared by others whom you never listen to. You are the echo chamber of your own convictions. And mostly you’re wrong. Like the other ex PM who believed he knew first Australians, Tony Abbott, you have a self belief that is purely delusional.

Please Kev, go back to wherever you came from and find a sinecure in a university somewhere , where you can make pronouncements on all manner of things and pretend to be worthy. And we’ll pretend to listen.

Dear reader what follows is a particularly silly description from Australia’s glorious manufacturing history. And what better personification of ‘Can-do’ than the CAC Boomerang. Designed and ready within fifteen weeks. Demonstration than when put to the test Australia could really be innovative and forward thinking. Now we squabble over energy policy whilst the world literally burns. Still though the Liberal Party has seen the light and thrown it’s weight behind One Nation in W.A.
A decision guided by a shared interest in strong governance and principle to keep the status quo intact. And do nothing about the future which is a whole election away.

This illustration depicts the glorious moment when 422 Squadron “Wignell’s own Wings”, performed their ceremonial fly past over Black Rock on the 23rd September 1944. The Boomerang, originally designed as high speed interceptor in 1942 was outclassed by 44 by the Spitfires, Mustangs and Corsairs then in use in the Pacific Theatre. However as a close support aircraft and close attack interceptor its agility was highly valued, The Boomerang could get into tricky spots and out again. As the Pilot Bluey-Bouncer-Booma , the famous red headed fighter ace enthused “ it’ll do the job once , twice, three times and all day long and always get you back again’.

Such was the performance of the legendary Boomerang that a flight of Boomerangs en route to Sydney found themselves flying via Hobart in a complete circle due to faulty Astro Navigational compass. The Boomerangs almost drained of fuel returned to Point Cook. Their reliability was well and truly proven. As a close support aircraft they were famous for their penetrating work upon Shaggy Ridge, the Pimple and the Krause’s Knob in the prelude to the Finschafen campaign. In one instance, a flight of Boomerangs armed with two underslung Mk V anti personnel mines were able to subdue an impregnable japanese dugout by landing the charges at precisely the right spot an at precisely the exact moment when the commander of the japanese Northern New Guinea was having his bath. The resultant explosion, sent the bath flying in a parabolic arc which sank the adjacent destroyer Fukiyaki in a sheet of flame and smoke, to which the commander enthused, bombed, bathed and bust in one hit. ‘A clean sweep’.

Nowadays fifteen weeks of Government innovation results in something like this.

However in spite of the glory, during the closing stages of the war, the allied high command were still gravely concerned about groups of japanese infantry that still held out in isolated outposts across the pacific. Unable to spare the resources for mopping up exercises and unwilling to sacrifice so many lives at the end of the war which was to all intents and purposes won, they set about developing a modified anti personnel mine which could be dropped at almost ground level, and the resultant shock-wave, when detonated, would render all individuals within a twelve kilometre radius insensible. The bomb, nicknamed the “Sleep-maker’, resembled a torpedo. The armourers had a splendid time painting moons, cows, and all manner of sleep related images. But after a two day period the victims would recover, enabling a peaceful rounding up and surrender. Initial trials on paddocks filled with sheep and open range chicken farms had proved promising. In one instance a flight of Boomerangs operating out of Canberra inadvertently dropped one on parliament and no one noticed for several weeks.

Finally a date was slated for the operation on the island of Teri-Yaki part of the Itchy- na na chain, in which a large garrison of Japanese had refused any entreaty to surrender. A flight of twelve Boomerangs were readied for attack and under cover of night their escort carrier, (seen in the background) HMAS Prolapse. At first the attack seemed to be an outstanding success, the Boomerangs all taking off in perfect formation and then headed directly towards their designated target. Just before they arrived over the target, the Boomerangs in perfect formation turned southwards and headed back towards their escort ship. In a matter of minutes it was all over. The escort and the Boomerangs were engulfed in a titanic explosion and slid to the bottom of the Ichi-waki sea. The subsequent enquiry revealed the astro navigational compass had not been re-calibrated to the Northern hemisphere and subsequently their “return instinct” counteracted the pilots course. The rest of the squadron were scrapped, and the Boomerangs retired from active service.

The Sunset of the Century by Rabindranath Tagore 

(Written in the Bengali on the last day of last (19th) century)

1:

The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red
clouds of the West and the whirlwind of hatred.
The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its drunken
delirium of greed, is dancing to the clash of steel and the
howling verses of vengeance.

2:

The hungry self of the Nation shall burst in a violence of
fury from its own shameless feeding.
For it has made the world its food,
And licking it, crunching it and swallowing it in big morsels,
It swells and swells
Till in the midst of its unholy feast descends the sudden
shaft of heaven piercing its heart of grossness.

3:

The crimson glow of light on the horizon is not the light of
thy dawn of peace, my Motherland.
It is the glimmer of the funeral pyre burning to ashes the
vast flesh,—the self-love of the Nation—dead under its own
excess.
Thy morning waits behind the patient dark of the East,
Meek and silent.

4:

Keep watch, India.
Bring your offerings of worship for that sacred sunrise.
Let the first hymn of its welcome sound in your voice and sing
“Come, Peace, thou daughter of God’s own great
suffering.
Come with thy treasure of contentment, the sword of
fortitude,
And meekness crowning thy forehead.”

5:

Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand before the proud
and the powerful
With your white robe of simpleness.
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom
of the soul.
Build God’s throne daily upon the ample bareness of your
poverty
And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not
everlasting.

THE END.

Buckley’s

Ngurrju mayi?

I graduated as a Geologist in the early 1960’s. Back then not very many students at Melbourne Uni. studied Geology. When the Nickel Boom with its inflated salaries and bonuses burst upon Australia there was a seismic shift in the incentive to study Geology, a love and fascination with rocks was replaced by an obsession with share prices and wealth ‘creation’. Earth Sciences student numbers rose exponentially.

One such pre-Nickel Boom student was Stan Stroud. Stan called into our student flat in Carlton with a handful of 45s (if you don’t know what these are, ask an old person).

It was Stan who introduced us to Little Richard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Ujb6lJ_mM

For this I’ll be forever grateful to Stan. Years later ‘Lucille’ was one of the favourite numbers to feature at Yuendumu jam-sessions and concerts.

Another pre-Nickel boom student of Geology was Craig Robertson. Like Stan and others, Craig disappeared into the Geo-sphere. There was no Google search engine back then. Social Media hadn’t been dreamed up as yet. Most of your friends and acquaintances simply ephemerated into vague memories (such as Stan and Little Richard).

So imagine the pleasant surprise when 15 years later a publisher friend of ours gave me a book ‘Buckley’s Hope’. The author? None other than Craig Robertson. A third of a century has passed since I read Craig’s fascinating well researched and well written novel on Buckley.

In a second hand book shop in Lorne we chanced upon ‘Our Australian Colonies’ by Samuel Mossman. Although it doesn’t appear on the tome, I estimate the publishing date to have been around 1867.

I quote from page 108: “… Shall it be said then that this fair and fertile portion of our common mother earth was destined by the Almighty to be perpetually occupied by the indolent savage? Such a conclusion would be contrary to His mandate, where He commands us to ‘multiply and replenish the earth’ …” You get the drift.

On a wall at Marla on the Highway named after him, there is a poster featuring John McDouall Stuart’s expeditions. JMcS aborted his first attempt at crossing the continent from south to north in 1858 because he ran out of provisions according to the poster. Page 51: “…when he was compelled to retrace his steps, on account of meeting a hostile tribe of natives, who barred his further progress…” Thus history is written and rewritten.

William Buckley was an escaped convict who emerged after 32 years (1803-1835) living with the Wadawurrung people on Bellarine Peninsula near present day Geelong.

Page180-182 deal with that ‘European savage’ Buckley (nowhere on these pages is Buckley referred to as William)… “… One would suppose that any civilized man of ordinary activity of intellect, would have improved the occasion and taught these simple people how to improve their condition. Instead of doing so, or even retaining his position in the scale of civilisation, he adopted their savage habits, and lived like the beasts in the fields…”

Civilization (Andrew Sisters and Danny Kaye)…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6LQojHOxjY

In 1861 the Burke and Wills expedition ended in tragedy. Burke and Wills had Buckley’s. Burke and Wills died within a few days of each other. King succeeded in joining a group of Yantruwanta and lived with them for several months before being found (alive). It was to no avail that Burke and Wills retained their position in the scale of civilisation, but it did save them from being vilified as was William Buckley. Page 181: “This case is a melancholy instance of the depravity of human nature, notwithstanding the material advantages of a civilized birthright, when the individual is deficient in moral and religious principle. Those who conversed with him afterwards, describe his mental deficiencies as bordering on idiotcy (sic)…”

I can’t recall reading anything like this in Craig’s novel.

Notwithstanding his ‘idiotsy’, Buckley was given the position of Interpreter to the natives, and as a guide for Captain Foster Fyans, among others; his knowledge of the Aboriginal language was put to good use (Wikipedia). After a year Buckley became disenchanted with his new life and left for Van Diemen’s land. I suspect his disenchantment may have been due to this “good use” to betray and be complicit in the dispossession of his friends and family.

The 19^th Century book has reminded me of a saying from the Pacific Islands: “When the Missionaries came they had the Bible and we had the Land, now we have the Bible and they have the Land”… Hallelujah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YaGwI7GjlA

For four decades I’ve witnessed the ethnocentric assimilationists trying to finish off the job of dispossessions, disempowerment and ethnocide started in 1788.

You know what? I reckon they’ve got Buckley’s

Ngaka-na-nyarra nyanyi,

Jungarrayi

PS- Googling, I find that Stan Stroud is the Senior Metocean Advisor to Woodside Ltd.

In offshore and coastal engineering, metocean refers to the syllabic abbreviation of meteorology and (physical) oceanography. You learn something new every day!

And that Craig Robertson is a technical writer who documents computerised information systems. He lives in Melbourne, and is also the author of ‘Song of Gondwana’

(Must read it!)

New Sun Smart ” Heat Wave Alert” Signs to be installed in all capital cities. Courtesy Minerals and Energy Council

Good Governance

Australia swelters in a heat wave. A heat wave more intense than the last. It promises just to be a preamble to the imminent Hyper Heat Wave. The Hyper Heat Wave will be so intense, cars will sink into the oleaginous goo of molten road surfaces. Kiddies, will be burnt upon the surface of the schoolyard. Their lifeless forms vapourised to a post Hiroshima-esque shadow. Mums and dads, will die horribly. Dessicated, dusted and decoupaged as mere carapaces of their former selves. That is the terrible, frightful reality of global warming. That is the hyper reality that reality television just don’t get. The unutterable truth of where we stand now. Poised on the precipice of humanity’s last hour. Moments before being swallowed whole by the gaping maw of a revengeful and bitter earth god thingy.

Donald indicating where Lord Murdoch stands in the greater scheme of things

Luckily, Rupert of the book of Murdoch was on hand to help Donald go through his lines when interviewed by Time. And to the readers satisfaction, climate change is just a myth. Therese May has made herself giddy by keeping up with Rupert’s constant to-ing and fro-ing between the U.S and Downing Street.  And, just to remind the western corporatised pseudo democracies where the power lies, Rupert is adamant that climate change is rubbish for Australia also. To prove a point, his mates in the Minerals and Energy Council bought along a lump of coal to pass around the floor of the federal parliament.

And the ” little people” play at governing for the other 99%.

Coal doesn’t technically vote. But the pollies were worship-ful. They know the reason behind the South Australian blackout, the reason behind ‘black’, (pick any day of the week) and the reason why manufacturing, education, healthcare, thinking and imagination are stone cold dead. We’ve lost our faith in coal. Coal pleads the reason why. Possibly the best non question time in parliament. The treasurer “Scott of the Impenetrable” passed it to Barnaby who tossed to Tony, who bowled it, ( left arm unorthodox) to Kevin and then lobbed it over the speakers head into the lap of Eric who declared it ‘righteous’, and before hand-balling it to Susan, made a quick pass to Malcolm. And with that, Malcolm’s credentials as leader, (for at least the rest of the week) was secured.

‘Mission accomplished’ hurrahed the new leader of Australian Conservatives. High-fives from Gina and Sophie. Australian politics on sale to the highest bidder. Because in governance, as in the board room, Malcolm proudly proclaimed, “in politics, you quite often get what you pay for’. The day over, the pollies all retired to investigate the current value of their investment properties, superannuation schemes, parliamentary pension funds and anything else that proves to them that they’re on the right side of history. And Coal, God bless it’s soul, demonstrated once and for all ‘the power of One’.

And on this day our Lord Murdoch, uttered; ‘I see everything that i have made, and behold, It is very good’

Sir Tony in a reflective mood.

Today we’re going to talk about the CEO of Australia Posts salary. But first a revealing story from Washington, bought to us by our esteemed correspondent Sir Tony Emo of Atney:

“Washington: President Donald Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night. Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the Cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack…..”

Australia Post CEO is just not paid enough.

Jeannie Pratt angry that her invitation to Mr Fahours’ slumber party arrived late.

There’s been quite a lot of odium kicked up recently about the CEO of Australia Post getting over 5 million a year. Some people have suggested quite unfairly that his salary is way way way out of wack with the pathetic indices of Austria post efficiency. For example it takes sometimes up to three weeks to deliver a letter in Bendigo. In dem olden days it would be delivered by hand from a dray, or perhaps a beautiful PMG bicycle in one half a day. There were morning and afternoon deliveries, and everyone knew, whether it be call up notices or tax returns the friendly neighbourhood postie would be right on time and cheerily, (angry dogs notwithstanding) ensure that the post got through.

Australia Post trials new bicycle technology

Not these days, letters are gathered in Bendigo, then re-sorted in Melbourne, before they’re then re-sent to the main sorting repository in Dandenong. They’re then analysed and re-sorted before being sent to Albury and then from Albury re-sorted and redistributed to arrive smack back in the town they came from a few weeks earlier. Consequently no one uses the mail service. If you sent an invitation, for example you could guarantee that it would arrive days after the event, and as it has been proven so, everyone, from the city council to the local lions club, now eschew post tor email or what’s colloquially referred to as “Bush telegraph”. Now the telegraph hasn’t been in use properly since the siege of Mafeking, but we’d like to remind Australia Post if they should like to upgrade this old technology, the ancient posts are still there along the Melbourne Bendigo rail-line. And though the wires have been re-utilised by cocky farmers, the system is still virtually intact. Also the distance between Big Hill and Mt Alexander, then thru to Macedon is still ideal for heliograph, semaphore or as the natives were wont to use, smoke signals. Morse is still quite effective and native runners, though out of favour since settlement could still be found and would prove a boom to indigenous education and outsourced education providers.

These are just a few of the initiatives that we at pcbycp plan to put forward to Mr Fahour at the next annual meeting of Australia Post and anticipate with mailing times blowing our to pre-Euclidean times, we can have a big impact on Australia post strategic output ‘moving forward’ as they say in management speak.

Mr Fahour’s House. It’s native in design and equipped with dual semaphores and in house envelope lickers.

But we do know this much, Mr Fahour is fabulously wealthy and he gives half of the sum he earns to charity. And that, with the tax incentive is a good reason to give. Without the salary he’d be skint. So Mr Fahour if you’re listening, (it is alleged he licks over 3000 envelopes personally as an act of contrition) we hope you sort this out, and well keep you posted on future developments. Because at pcbycp we like to put our stamp on things.

Dear reader with the Trump ascendancy putting everything up in the air, (so the speak) we feel it is fitting to offer you this snippet from the past in which certainty was erased in the maelstrom of war. And what is described here is all true!!

We can only hope that we’ll be at war with someone real soon, as the entropy of worrying about humanity, the environment and reality television is just too much. And with a new broom in the White House there’s never been a better time to don the khaki and celebrate all the wars we’ve fought with our dear allies, or anyone willing to stand with us for the virtues of manifest destiny, Real Estate and Empire. And if you want to know more about the Empire ring 0300045671243, (toll free) and ask for Rupert.

Fockers over the Federal. Dry Saturday. Dec 25. 1917.

By 1917 things on the western front were in a complete stalemate. The central powers keen to make inroads on other fronts after the success in the Russian campaign and the treaty of Brest Litovsk sought to establish a diversion before the weight of America’s entry turned the tables against victory. After exhaustive research at High Command it was determined that amongst the allies a breakthrough could be made if morale could be sapped from the combatants host countries, and with the subsequent collapse of morale, the ardour for fighting would be reduced.

Wowserism driving recruitment to unprecedented numbers

Among the most enthusiastic combatants, who actually volunteered happily for slaughter, the Australians had made quite a mark. The German command were fascinated by their capacity to destroy themselves in useless engagements and were spell-bound by the Australian command’s subservience to the lowest tier of British Officer. Indeed in several instances German officers educated and trained In Oxford and Cambridge wandered into the Australian lines in disguise and ordered whole battalions over the top. To their surprise and without hesitation to a man they did. Flabbergasted by their willingness for immolation it was felt that the Australian solder, though possessed with fighting ardour and tenacity lacked a sense of personal safety and this was felt to be partly due to the acceptance of life on the front as worthwhile with its sideshows of free drinking and cheap wine, and other creature comforts, to the austerity bought about by six o clock closing back home.

Happy soldiers enjoy a Pilsener on the western front. Unfettered by six Oclock closing.

Success with the Irish had proved how important changes to drinking culture were to the civilians, and how this in turn effected the troops on the front. After considerable research the German High Command determined that a sub group in Victoria, the “wowser’ had instigated six oclock closing in a pathetic attempt to increase patriotic fervour. The opposite took place, which further accelerated the flow of volunteers for the front and the promise of access to virtually, “free grog”. The wowsers congregated in a temple of sorts, the Federal Coffee Palace, and it was from this building their tentacles of temperance spread across the land. To the Germans the process was simple, sever the octopus at the head, and the wowser hold on the public would collapse. Without wowsers and temperance, hotels would re-open and the willingness to venture to the western front would cease. And ultimately, the Australian, and perhaps the rest of the colonials would lose interest in fighting for Empire altogether.

On December 25 1917, Zeppelin L7, 89, 90 and 91 with heavy Albatross and Focker Escort wrought “Mass Destruction on the City of Melbourne’. Their strategic objective, to undermine the instigation of six oclock closing by destroying the Federal Coffee Palace. In what became known as ‘Dry Saturday’, the stately building was destroyed. What ensued was a catastrophe unparalleled since the ascension of Mathew Guy as Planning Minister. Though the Federal Coffee Palace was reduced to rubble, the early closing of pubs continued till 1965. Only the demise of all the wowsers through old age could change the regime and by then they’d passed the baton to a new generation of wowsers who succeeded in closing everything else.

Inaugural AFLW Match. Arguably, more turned up than Donald’s inauguration.

Hmmm, interesting times. In case you hadn’t noticed the Women’s inaugural footy match was an astounding success, and with God’s blessing Collingwood Lost…… again. And, a whole week has passed without a statement from Corey Bernardii. Trouble must be brewing. But in case you wondered The U.S has a new President and his henchmen, sounds like just the thing Corey needs to get his ultra conservative party up. And who better than a Bostonian to tell us just what its like in the U.S. And you can take it or leave it as it may not be, (to coin a favoured Bostonian Phrase) ‘your cup of tea’.

From Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College:

“I don’t like to talk about politics on Facebook, political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends, but there is an important non-partisan point to make today.
What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries is creating what is known as a “shock event.”

‘The Don’, congratulates “the Bannon’, on their opening partnership.

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.
Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot. My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one’s interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like. I don’t know what Bannon is up to, although I have some guesses. I know Bannon’s ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle, and my friends range pretty widely, who will benefit from whatever it is. If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal. But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.

Happy Faces and Clean Guernseys, proof that ‘Cold Power’ beats ‘Slave Power’ everytime!

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln’s strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Prime Minister Lincoln, steps out of his Continental before declaring war on New Zealand. September 3 1939. source: Alternate Facts suppository.

Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.”

He did indeed. We at Pcbycp can heartily concur, and demonstrate that we’re no slouch in the history department either. He, (Prime Minister Lincoln) drove a Lincoln Continental with Hydrostatic Fluid-drive and independent coaxial flange modulators on each wheel. And that why he was the greatest Prime Minister Australia ever had!!