Phils Phun: January 2017

734

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Western Australia

Lucky Bay Esperance

Bells Gorge Gibb River Road

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2017

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National Anthem of STRAYA

(to the tune of Hey Ya)

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Ben Pobjie is a writer, comedian and poet
with no journalistic qualifications whatsoever
. He has written for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald,
New Matilda, The Roar, and Crikey, among others.
His latest book, Error Australis, is out now

Menzies's Kisch-Off

The Egon Kisch affair was one of the jolliest bits

of tomfoolery in Australian political history,

hilarious mainly for the fact that it involved government policy

so mind-blowingly and transparently moronic

that one has to admire the sheer audacity of the federal government

in being so unafraid of looking like idiots in public

that they actually implemented it.

Egon Kisch was a communist and anti-war activist

who had gained notoriety in Europe for opposing Hitler,

a stance that though soon to gain widespread popularity,

was in 1934 a prime example of the dangerous extremism

that the Lyons government wished to keep out of Australia.

Kisch planned to visit Australia to speak of his experiences

under the Nazi regime,

which gave the government the screaming irrits.

They refused him entry, but Kisch circumvented

the ban by the cunning tactic of leaping off his ship

onto Station Pier and breaking his leg.

However, his belief that broken legs were grounds

for entry was ill-founded, and he was returned to his ship

. Kisch supporters took his case to the High Court,

and attorney-general Robert Menzies,

the future prime minister and eyebrow model,

stated that we would determine who came to this country

and the circumstances in which they come

(a sentiment that would later inspire John Howard,

and then every Liberal and Labor MP in the country).

The surrealist humour of the government denying entry

to a foreign intellectual for being too

vehemently anti-Hitler was droll enough,

but it got even better when the government,

prevented from banning Kisch by the High Court,

tried to exclude him via the Immigration Restriction Act,

one of the most amusingly lunatic laws any country has ever passed.

The act stated that anyone who failed a dictation test

in any European language could be excluded.

This meant that even if one of those disreputable foreigners

were so underhanded

as to learn English — i.e. the language Australians spoke

— the government could prove their unsuitability to enter

the country by proving their lack of fluency in, say,

Portuguese or Romansch, or any of the other languages

that were totally irrelevant.

Kisch was a particularly difficult case,

though, because he happened to be able to speak many

European languages, being a widely-travelled

and well-educated Jewish German Czech.

He passed the test in tongue after tongue,

and the government was at its wit's end when the solution was found.

Kisch was ordered to write the Lord's Prayer in Scottish Gaelic,

a language noted for being spoken by almost nobody,

including Scottish people such as the Scottish-raised

immigration officer who tested him.

Kisch failed, and Menzies and Lyons high-fived.

The High Court rained on their parade

by ruling Scottish Gaelic was not covered by the Act,

and Kisch was allowed in:

but history's annals had gained another sparkling chapter.

To be clear, Australia's government attempted

to deny entry to an anti-Nazi activist by use of a law

which blocked foreigners from visiting the country

if they were unable to speak a language chosen

by the government that was not the official,

or even a commonly-spoken, language in Australia.

If that doesn't give you a good belly laugh,

I don't know what will.

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Way Out West

fro the movie "Red Dog"

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Cartoons

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Lorikeets, Corellas and a Kookaburra

Two corellas muscle in on a lorikeet family having breakfast
. A bemused kookaburra flies in to check out the action
until it begins to get a little too close for comfort.
Although the kookaburra makes some token attempts to repel the loris,
I think he really enjoys their antics.

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Animals

The Emu War

Australia cannot lay claim to any great empires

or epic conquests,

but we do have one distinction that no other nation

on Earth can boast: we are the only country

in history to lose a war to birds.

In 1932, the farmers of Western Australia,

fed up with the 20,000 emus that kept dropping in to their farms

to eat all their crops,

went to defence minister Sir George Pearce

to demand he take action to safeguard

the precious wheat of the Campion region.

Pearce, a man who knew the value of a show of strength,

decided that what the emus needed was a hefty dose

of good old-fashioned military might.

And so Major GPW Meredith of the

Royal Australian Artillery was sent

, along with two soldiers, two Lewis guns,

and 10,000 bullets,

into the scrubland to show the emus

just who was the more highly-evolved

Almost immediately the expedition ran into trouble.

The soldiers attempted to herd the emus into a suitable place

in which to mow them down en masse,

but the birds, well-trained in guerrilla tactics,

continually split into small groups

and ran off in different directions,

making it damnably difficult for the guns

to draw a bead on them

. Also, the guns jammed.

Also, when the guns worked,

and when an emu stood still long enough to shoot at,

they proved resistant to bullets to an unsettling degree.

The soldiers retreated, weary and sick of the sight of feathers.

Meredith's official report noted, optimistically,

that his men had suffered no casualties.

The emus' report noted that humans

were slow-moving and stupid.

The House of Representatives debated the matter

and questions were asked of the minister

regarding whether medals were to be awarded

for survivors of the campaign.

The question of why, blessed as we are with a native animal

that is essentially a cross between

an armoured car and a velociraptor,

our military has not taken advantage

by training emus for combat duty

in the Australian Defence Force,

remains unanswered to this day.

Peter Pobjie

pink and grey galahs

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This kangaroo "Mr Magoo" was seen in Mt Isa, Queensland

looking after his keepers truck.
Leanne and Eddie have raised this kangaroo from a joey,

Mr Magoo even goes along with Eddie to build fences

and trap dingoes on their remote QLD property.

Mr Magoo is so much a part of the family that

he even sleeps in a double bed with his carers.

Upon setting off for Mt Isa, Eddie saw

Mr Magoo chasing the truck some two kilometres

down the road from home.

Fearing for the safety of his beloved friend from other motorists,

he pulled over and let him hop in for the drive.
After staying in the truck while Eddie ducked into a shop,

Mr Magoo got a little impatient and started to beep the horn

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Around the Nation

Western Australia

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Queensland

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South Australia

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Northern Territory

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New South Wales

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Tasmania

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Victoria

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We are Australian

Australia Day

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Ben Hall, Clown Prince of Bushrangers

A lot of people think Ned Kelly was the funniest bushranger,

but any fool can put a bucket on his head

and swan about writing letters.

For bushranging comedy with some real originality

and intelligence behind it,

you need to look to the conceptual art of Bold Ben Hall,

the tragic hero who turned to a life of crime

after his wife left him and the police burnt down his house.

Unlike most bushrangers,

Hall was not all that interested in shooting people.

Even robbery under arms took a secondary place

in his priorities to the all-important goal

of publicly humiliating the police.

To this end, he conducted a criminal career

that was less a reign of terror than an

extended live episode of Candid Camera.

Hall never killed anyone and gained a reputation as

"the gentleman bushranger".

And unlike the fifty other "gentleman bushrangers",

he actually deserved it.

On two separate occasions,

Hall's gang bailed up the NSW town of Canowindra,

locked the police in their own cells,

and threw a huge party for the rest of the population

in the town's pub.

On leaving, they paid the landlord for all goods consumed

and the townspeople for their time,

just to really rub it in that they were not only smarter than the cops,

but more generous.

However, Hall's bushranging career hit a peak

when he was being pursued by the local police,

near Bathurst.

Disarming the troopers,

the gang proceeded to strip them naked and tie them to trees,

whereupon Hall delivered a stirring lecture

on the pressing problem of police misbehaviour,

before riding off into what I presume was a beautiful sunset,

leaving the long arm of the law to await assistance

in its highly embarrassed state.

It was the ultimate example of Ben Hall's raison d'etre as a bushranger

on that day, one of Australia's greatest bushrangers

proved that you could make as powerful a statement

by taking the piss out of the coppers as by shooting them.

If Hall's educational address was not particularly

well-received by its captive audience,

it was certainly well-timed,

and one might think a warmer embrace of the Hall method

in the corridors of power might be beneficial

when dealing with disciplinary matters.

In any case,

it was a shining testament to the legacy of Ben Hall,

a man who defied the law not for personal gain

or the satisfaction of base desires,

but for the innocent and noble purpose

of having a bit of a laugh at others' expense

Good on him

Peter Pobjie

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Zorba the Greek Yolngu style

Aboriginal interpretation of Zorba the Greek.
Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy from Milingimbi has been

in the Indigenous Media Industry for many years

and has been a long-standing member and supporter

of the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association, TEABBA Radio.

He has worked Independently in Music and Film for many years also.
As the man behind the camera and release of the video,

Frank is also representing the dance group who call themselves

"The Chooky Dancers"

. Frank has said that he filmed the footage at this years

Ramingining Festival on the 30th September

and knew it would be "something special"

as soon as he saw the boys rehearsing.

"The crowd went wild as you can see in the video,

and the classic song Zorba the Greek has now become

a hit overnight in the communities

and now it seems, everywhere else too"

Frank said.

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Facts

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My Australia

We've Done Us Proud

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Odds and Ends

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Hume and Hovell's Frypan Fight

Hamilton Hume and William Hovell are two of Australia's

most accomplished and amusing explorers.

Their exploits included many highly comic moments,

including the time Hume threatened to throw Hovell

into the Murray River,

and the time they went to Corio Bay,

which Hovell told everyone was Western Port Bay

because of his poor sense of direction

an excellent quality for an explorer to have.

But the incident which was not only revelatory

of the pressures and challenges of the exploring lifestyle,

but also seems to have been heavily inspired by

an episode of I Love Lucy,

was the famous frying pan fight.

This happened when relations between the intrepid pair

reached an all-time low,

with Hovell sick of Hume constantly making him cross rivers

and Hume tired of Hovell stumbling around aimlessly

bumping into trees and so forth.

An argument over the best way to proceed

when they ran up against a mountain

Hume most likely thinking they should walk around it

and Hovell probably wanting to bang his head against it 'til it fell over

became heated,

and the explorers decided the only way

to move forward was to split up.

Understandably, they divided up their provisions.

Less understandably, the resolved to cut their tent in half.

But the real brawl was over the expedition's frying pan,

which was apparently of great sentimental value

to these two pioneering cretins.

They fought over it

and I don't mean they argued,

I mean they stood in the wide Australian outback,

each having hold of one side of the pan,

pulling furiously.

In the end, the pan fell into two pieces,

and one man took the pan itself, the other taking the handle.

What the one who got the handle thought he was going

to do with a frying pan handle with no frying pan attached,

historians can only speculate on,

but I suppose it was a kind of moral trophy.

If they'd had time,

they probably would have drawn a line down the middle

of the Great Dividing Range and ordered each other

to stay on their own side.

Later on, Hovell rejoined Hume when,

in a rare interlude of self-awareness,

he realised he'd stuffed up,

but history had already been illuminated

by the glorious petulance of two of Australia's

most irritatingly half-witted explorers.

Peter Pobjie

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A Number On My Back

(The Wallaby Anthem)

John Williamson

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Signs

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Qantas the Spirit of Australia

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Drop Bears

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10 Weird Things That Are Common in Australia

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Ned Kelly's Pen Pal

Ned Kelly is one of our most iconic murderers,

cutting a swathe through 19th-century colonial Australia

with style, bravado and most importantly, a funny hat.

He is legendary for his bushranging exploits

, but less well-known are his tangles

with the law before he took to the bush.

These include the occasion on which young Ned,

on being accosted by a police constable

who had noticed him riding a stolen horse,

beat up the copper and rode around on his back

quite a social faux pas in those days.

The pre-bushranging Ned Kelly committed numerous crimes

of varying seriousness and strangeness,

but one of the most strange

— if not most serious —

was his defence of a friend, Ben Gould,

who had been accused of horse stealing by one

Jeremiah McCormack

(horse stealing was common in those days as there

was no internet and youths were starved for entertainment).

Kelly and Gould resolved to teach McCormack a lesson and,

to that end, sent McCormack's wife a rude letter,

accompanied by a box of calves' testicles.

While it's not exactly "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes",

you've got to admit that getting a couple of cow balls

in the mail would shake a person up,

and it showed that even then,

at the tender age of 15,

Ned displayed a keen instinct for psychological warfare

and a taste for the nauseating that would serve

him well in his future career.

These days, nobody even writes letters anymore,

let alone takes the time to package up a bundle of bovine gonads

to hammer home the message to an enemy,

and in a way that's a shame.

Say what you like about the days of colonial Australia,

but back then men were men, women were women

, and calves' testicles were hand-delivered,

and that's a piece of traditional Aussie culture we've lost.

Peter Pobjie

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Waltzing Matilda Territory style

Ali Mills

The song is a version of our unofficial national anthem

Waltzing Matilda,

the lyrics for which were penned by Banjo Paterson

on a track east of Winton, in Outback Queensland.

It is sung in the Top End's Kriol,

a combination of languages said to have grown organically

from the meeting of Aboriginal, European

and Chinese people around Darwin.