![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonIt's Australia Day today, the 222nd anniversary of the First Fleet arriving in Port Jackson where they dumped a load of convicts and roundly pissed off the locals who had been around for somewhere between 40,000 and 65,000 years by that point.
It's a strange public holiday, because the European attitudes to it fall somewhere between 'Fucking Godzone innit? Pass the beer!' and 'Er, actually, we pretty much failed to live up to international law when we took the country ...'* while the Indigenous attitudes are along the lines of 'Geez, you wouldn't think Reconciliation would be that hard for a country that can take monumental drought in its stride.'
As a result, the day itself sees everything from infltable-thong-swimming records to Invasion Day protests. As a ring-in, I like to do a demi-Australian Day, so I went to the pub, and had some lamb, but drank no beer and had neither lamington nor pavlova. Having said that, I am now craving pavlova ...
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raitala said something quite interesting in December, which is that I seemed far more affectionate towards Australia this year than last. I was surprised, but she was right, and it took the two of us a few minutes to work out why. Of course, it was the bushfires, and the sense of unity and purposefulness they brought out in the nation. Natural disaster is the glue that seals all cracks in Australian society, but many of the cracks still lurk underneath. Most of the time they are small and cosmetic, but a few are a bit structural. Having said that, most are being worked on and at least there is a system that allows, even encourages debate. And when all else fails, the lamingtons are brilliant, even if they turn out to have been originally from New Zealand.
On a totally unrelated and profoundly shallow note, I would wear each and every garment in this Christian Dior collection and am now thoroughly regretting not buying a new dressage hat while in London. Time to pull out the silks and sewing machine ...
* Interestingly, Governor Phillip, who came out with the First Fleet, was actually very good about the rights of the indigenous population, as were a number of his successors. John Macarthur, leading businessman of the colony, on the other hand, was a complete bastard.
It's a strange public holiday, because the European attitudes to it fall somewhere between 'Fucking Godzone innit? Pass the beer!' and 'Er, actually, we pretty much failed to live up to international law when we took the country ...'* while the Indigenous attitudes are along the lines of 'Geez, you wouldn't think Reconciliation would be that hard for a country that can take monumental drought in its stride.'
As a result, the day itself sees everything from infltable-thong-swimming records to Invasion Day protests. As a ring-in, I like to do a demi-Australian Day, so I went to the pub, and had some lamb, but drank no beer and had neither lamington nor pavlova. Having said that, I am now craving pavlova ...
raitala said something quite interesting in December, which is that I seemed far more affectionate towards Australia this year than last. I was surprised, but she was right, and it took the two of us a few minutes to work out why. Of course, it was the bushfires, and the sense of unity and purposefulness they brought out in the nation. Natural disaster is the glue that seals all cracks in Australian society, but many of the cracks still lurk underneath. Most of the time they are small and cosmetic, but a few are a bit structural. Having said that, most are being worked on and at least there is a system that allows, even encourages debate. And when all else fails, the lamingtons are brilliant, even if they turn out to have been originally from New Zealand.On a totally unrelated and profoundly shallow note, I would wear each and every garment in this Christian Dior collection and am now thoroughly regretting not buying a new dressage hat while in London. Time to pull out the silks and sewing machine ...
* Interestingly, Governor Phillip, who came out with the First Fleet, was actually very good about the rights of the indigenous population, as were a number of his successors. John Macarthur, leading businessman of the colony, on the other hand, was a complete bastard.
