That’s what I was thinking, either casing the place (but it is a secure apartment building) or will pressure for cash. I’m big and ugly enough to feel secure with a stranger, but you’re right, I’ll give the UK number a ring when they open this evening.

The Cayman GT4 in GT7 is just sublime. Pointy, but with great mid-corner stability.

Oglaf: The Spoom - Very NSFW

I used Khan Academy when I reentered uni as a mature-age student and found it very helpful

I’m not a fan of ATHF and The Mouse and the Mask is still in my top 5 of all time. Production and lyricism are on another level.

Oh man, speaking of Kweli, his Black Star album with Mos Def needs a mention

He’s also Ice Cube’s cousin

Those Unkle and Jeru the Damaja albums are rock solid recommendations

Hip Hop: DJ Shadow- Endtroducing… Blues: RL Burnside- A Ass Pocket of Whiskey Psychedelic Rock: The Cambodian Space Project- Whisky Cambodia Dance/Electro: The Presets- Apocalypso

No relation

Huge vote of confidence for Doohan there, jeez.

“Ticketing giants Ticketmaster and Ticketek have defended the practice, saying prices were set by artists and their teams, and that demand-driven pricing mitigates the problem of ticket scalping.”

People were fed up with scalpers overcharging for tickets, so we decided to overcharge in their place. Problem solved, you’re welcome!

When I say “herbal” you say “no, thanks”

Honestly, it sounded like my Nan when she’s got her teeth out

I’d wager she decided on doing it before she lost her round.

She knew very well that it would lead to disqualification, but used her platform in a much more powerful way than continuing in the competition. Big respect, she’s a badass.

It is, but the great barrier Reef is within the tropics and so undergoes more of a wet/dry season instead of summer/autumn/winter/spring.

All day long on the chaise longue

If you haven’t heard it before, please listen to the song “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Scottish-Australian songwriter Eric Bogle. That song, as well as “I Was Only 19” by Redgum, perfectly encapsulates the reason for the memorials.

The songs do not glorify our success as a military nation, nor do they portray the soldiers they are about as grand heros or defenders of freedom. They are about very young men, sent away by their country to experience unimaginable horror and suffering, only to return to a home with, at best, minimal support and, at worst, the shame of the community they once were a part of.

Each name on each of those memorials- thousands of them- represent an experience of the unimaginable, and a family irreparably changed. They are a reminder of what was taken, and of the sorrow that was caused. I do not see them as prideful, celebratory or reverential, and I do not know of anyone who does. They are a commiseration.

With regards to ANZAC, and it’s place in Australian culture, you are essentially looking at modern Australia’s foundational myth. In the 1950s and 1960s when Australia was having its own civil rights moment, the original foundation myth of terra nullius and the “brave”, white settlers conquering an untamed land finally began to feel too untrue to most Australians, too much like a myth. Colonial Australia needed a new explanation for its existence and it is around that time that the Gallipoli campaign started to be promoted by various historians and authors as Australia’s “coming of age” as a nation.

The intention was to give (white) Australians a point of reference for themselves, something they could point to and say “the things that we are, this is where they came to be”. Qualities like mateship, camaraderie, larrakinism, hard work, disdain for authority or aristocracy and resilience in the face of adversity. Those were the qualities promoted as being cemented in the national psyche at ANZAC Cove. It is a manufactured narrative, but those writers were very successful, as you can see.

There’s more that can be said for Australia treats it’s narrative history, especially that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but that’s better left for another (long) post. If you’re interested in how Australia viewed it’s two competing foundational stories in the 1990s and 2000s, and how it effects the way we talk about our history today, look up the History Wars. Let me know if you think there was a winner.

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