Mmmm for Mos

A Mos Burger just opened up down the road from me. Hurrah! It's one of the few fast food places that has something decent on the menu that I can actually eat (the rice burger). Mos Burger bills themselves as the most popular burger place in Japan. Most of their menu also seems much healthier than anything sold at the other burger franchises around.

Several months ago someone took me to try a rice burger at the first Mos Burger restaurant to open in Australia and I found it very good. The rice paddies are made from rice pressed into shape.  The rice burgers are not that big, so my plan thus far has been to buy two at a time.  The plan is working well.

French Kissing Kangaroos

It's Australia Day again, so for this months book is: The Kangaroo from the Greek language Animals of the World Series.

Help teach your children Greek with this illustrated book of tongue pashing kangaroos.  That should be Australias new Olympic mascot the Pashing Kangaroos.

Xmas Road Toal

Australia entered the Afghanistan War on October 7 2001.  Since that time 32 Australian soldiers have been killed over the past ten years serving in Afghanistan.  In contrast there has been 14598 Australians killed in car accidents over the same period.

What that means is, being an Australian soldier in a war zone is 456 times safer than being a civilian driving on an Australian road.  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that, despite the situation, Australian soldiers know what they're doing while half the drivers on the road don't have the slightest clue what they're doing.

Or maybe we should just all drive tanks.

Phoenix Five

I've recently been made aware of an extremely low budget Australian Sci-Fi Series called Phoenix Five made in the 1960's.  And from what I can ascertain it's as absolutely as awesome as that sound.  I can't believe no one ever told me about this before, and it turns out it was the third in a trilogy of related TV sci-fi serials.

Phoenix Five has been accused of ‘cheaply going where Star Trek had boldly gone before’, but that acutely does it an injustice.  To understand Phoenix Five you have to first understand the preceding two serials of it's trilogy, The Interpretaris and Vega 4.

The Interpretaris aired in October 1966 and was in production before Star Trek went to air that September.  Filmed in black and white, the Interpretaris was set over 500 years in the future, with the Earth at the centre of a peaceful federation of planets. The title refers to the spacecraft, ‘The Interpretaris’ the flagship of the World Council fleet. The story centres around the crew returning alien specimens to their home worlds while outwitting an evil scientist.

It's interesting to note that The Interpretaris featured a Russian crew member from its start, significantly before the Star Trek series introduced Chekov.  It also featured a cumbersome computeroid (robot) called Henry.  The Interpretaris was not what your would call a sophisticated production but it was decided to make a sequel the following year called Vega 4.

Vega 4 was filmed in colour and featured all new evil scientist antagonist, set on an all new spaceship, the Vega 4, which looked exactly like the Interpertaris, and had an upgraded and improved computeroid called Henry which looked exactly like the Henry on the the Interpretaris.

The third series in the trilogy was Phoenix Five. The same basic formula was applied: the title referred to the spacecraft (which also resembled the earlier model), with a crew of two male, one female and a computeroid (this time called Karl).  The major difference was in the structure. Phoenix Five was not a serial, but consisted of self-contained episodes.

Here's the titles and groovy sound track. Enjoy.

Cucumber Castle

It’s OK it’s the Bee Gees, they’re brothers, it’s not a metaphor like how the term sausage factory could be construed to be.

Before they were the Bee Gees they called their band Wee Johnny Hayes & the Bluecats.  But it didn’t catch on.  And before you ask, no, Cucumber Castle isn't a reference to Wee Johnny in any respect.

Mustafas Chocolate Phlegm

If you lsiten closely to Men At Works song Who Can It Be Now you will hear them sing "I like it here with my chocolate phlegm".

In Midnight Oils song Short Memory Peter Garrett is absoloutely singing "Short memory Mustafa, short memory".

Well what do you expect from a politician who looks like Voldemort and dances like parkinsons.

Australias First Supervillan

Today is the Anniversary of the Glenrowan Shootout between the Victorian Police and the Kelly Gang led by Ned Kelly, Australias first Supervillan.

Ned was son of Red Kelly who died in 1866 when Ned was eleven, so he left school to help his mother support the family.  Ned's criminal life started early, his mother would often chastise him yelling "Edward, get that bloody bucket off your head!"  When he was fourteen, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Chinese man called Ah Fook. At fifteen he was arrested for being a suspected accomplice of the bushranger Harry Power. Both these charges were dismissed, but police regarded him as a "juvenile bushranger". Eighteen charges were brought against members of Ned's immediate family before he was officially declared an outlaw, half of them resulted in guilty verdicts.

Some years later, in April 1878, an unreliable police officer named Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly home, hoping to arrest Ned's brother Dan for stealing horses. He claimed that while he was there, Ned shot him in the wrist, however, Ned may have been interstate at the time of the incident. Ned's mother Ellen was arrested for aiding and abetting an attempted murder. During this time Ned was constantly irritated by the neighbours son, Nudge, who would drop in unannounced, greet Mr Kelly, then help himself to their pantry. So Ned and Dan went into hiding, and were later joined by Ned's friend Joe Byrne, and Dan's friend Steve Hart.

 

Being of Irish decent, they planned to run a whiskey distillery to earn enough to appeal their mums sentence.  On receiving a tipoff that four policemen were planning to track them down. The gang ambushed the police camp at Stringybark Creek and shot three of the policemen.  From this moment on these four men were officially outlaws: the notorious Kelly gang. In 1879 the Kelly gang began constructing their suits of armour from plough mouldboards, as they were all big enthusiasts of the Steam-punk.

On 9 December 1878 the Kelly gang took possession of a sheep station near Euroa, locking up twenty two hostages in a store-room. While Byrne guarded the captives, the other three went and held up the National Bank. The outlaws then gave an exhibition of horsemanship which entertained and surprised their hostages. After which they had supper, told the hostages not to raise the alarm for another three hours, then left.

On 8 February 1879, the gang struck again, this time at Jerilderie. They locked up two policemen and took possession of the police station and remained there until Monday morning. Wearing police uniforms, they held up the Bank of New South Wales and rounded up sixty people in the Hotel next door. Ned gave a written statement of over eight thousand words to a bank-teller as explanation and justification of his conduct.  He probably felt he had a lot of explaining to do.

A friend of Joe Byrne's, became an agent for the police, and on 27 June 1880, was shot dead by Byrne in his own doorway while the four constables assigned to guard him hid in a bedroom. Byrne and Dan then joined Ned and Hart at Glenrowan, where they took possession of a hotel and detained about sixty people. The Kelly Gang was equipped with their armour, had little sleep and consumed much alcohol. They knew that a passenger train carrying a police detachment was on its way and ordered the rail tracks pulled up in order to cause a derailment, however, police stopped the train before it reached the damaged tracks after being informed by some of the hostages that had been let go.

At around 2am Ned and Dan declared it a non-event as the train had not arrived. Just as they told the hostages to go home the police laid siege to the hotel and much shooting occurred.  Dan, Byrne and Hart took refuge inside and Ned went bush. The police continued to fire Byrne was shot in the thigh and bled to death.  About 5am Ned returned, still clad in armour, and was brought down by bullet wounds in the legs. Most of the captives in the hotel had succeeded in leaving the building, the last of them emerging about 10am. With Ned captured and Byrne dead, only Dan and Hart were not accounted for, so the police continued to fire sporadically until 3pm, when a policeman set the building on fire. Dan and Hart had apparently taken poison and were burned beyond recognition.  Or maybe they escaped, it's hard to tell when the evidence has been burned beyond recognition by the police.

 

The Victorian Police had been told three times by informants of the existence of the armour and that it was capable of deflecting bullets but dismissed the information as "nonsense" and "an impossibility". Despite these warnings none of the police realised the gang were wearing armour until after the siege was over.

Until Ned fell the police even questioned whether he was human. Constable Arthur, who was closest, thought he was a "huge blackfellow wrapped in a blanket", Constable Dowsett exclaimed it was "old Nick" and Senior Constable Kelly called out "Look out, boys, it’s the bunyip. He’s bullet-proof!". Constable Gascoigne, who recognised Ned's voice, told Superintendent Sadlier he had "fired at him point blank and hit him straight in the body. But there is no use firing at Ned Kelly, he can't be hurt".  Although aware of the information supplied by the informant prior to the siege, The Superintendant later wrote that even after Gascoigne's comment "no thought of armour" had occurred to him.  In hind sight, it was probably not a good plan for the Victorian Government to use Keystone Cops for their law enforcement.

Captain Cook

On this day in 1770 Captain Cook discovered Australia.

Captain Cook was the first person ever to discoverer Australia and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Cook found it on a Dutch map, the Dutch discovered Australia in 1606 on a map they bought off the Portuguese.  The Portuguese had a huge trade in buying, copying and selling maps, which is how they discovered Australia in 1521 on a map they purchased from the Chinese.  The Chinese discovered Australia in 1418 when they followed the string of islands southwards.

Australia.  Discovered by Captain Cook.


Captain Cook also discovered Hawaii and enjoyed a good sandwich.

Originally Cook named Hawaii "The Sandwich Islands".  He also tentatively named a group of islands near the tip of South America "Sandwich Land".  These islands later became known as "The Sandwich Islands" and their name officially changed to "The South Sandwich Islands" so as not to be confused with Hawaii, still called "The Sandwich Islands" at the time.

The Earl of Sandwich paid for the Resolution and both it's companion ships the Adventure and the Discovery for the Pacific exploration.  If he had funded the Endeavour, it could have been Australia that was named "Sandwich Land".  If this was so, Olympic announcers would have to say stuff like ".. and in lane four is Ian Thorpe representing Sandwich Land".  Australias international marketing potential would be outrageous. 

Cook arrived in Hawaii during the season of Lono the god of peace and Fertility.  Upon going ashore Cook was baffled by the great ceremony which greeted him and did not realise that he was being accepted as a Polynesian god. With his poor grasp of local etiquette his crew soon outstayed their welcome. Two days after sailing away from the island, the Resolution sprung its foremast and had to return.  This time the season of Lono had ended and the season of Ku, the god of war, had begun.

Cook did not receive the welcome he expected.

There was stealing of boats and attempted hostage taking, and guns and clubs all over the shop.  Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death on the beach during a not very leisurely stroll.  The local islanders believed that the power of a man was in his bones, so they took Cooks corpse, gutted and cooked Cook, to enable the bones to be easily removed.  Whereon Captain Cooks name became his self fulfilling prophecy.

Invasion Day

Today is Australia Day! The day that we officially celebrate the founding of Australia, or as it’s referred to in the record industry, "The Landmass Previously Known as New Holland".

Today Australians commemorate the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland and probably the shooting of some Aborigines. 

Eighteen years after Captain Cook told everyone he was the first person to find this new country, the British parliament decided that being the other side of the earth, Australia would be a good place to dump convicts as it was deemed far enough out of sight from the upper classes.  So off they all went, down under.

Swords by Candlelight

I'm trying not to talk to much about the flood because the talk about it is everywhere else.  but with the flood waters rising here, the other night our power was cut off until morning leaving me to occupy myself in the middle of the night by candle light.  I thought about reading a book but the idea of setting fire to the pages and waking up the rest of the house with burnt screaming put me off that.  I ended up doing some sword training in the candle light, returning to a plan of doing 3000 cuts each day (in my underwear!).  I've found 3000 cuts a day is a bit harsh on my shoulders so I'm only managing about 3 or so days in a week for now.

The following morning parts of the CBD were flooded and I went looting to see how bad the damage was.   The water is not far below the levels to the 1974 flood. Here's a comparative picture of one of the local pubs, one from 1974 and one I took while the water was still rising another meter or so.

Wtih the dams at 190% capacity the local council has still not yet removed the level 4 water restrictions from the drought one and a half years ago.

Eureka Stockade

It's the anniversary of Australians unsuccessful battle of independence.  For anyone that's not clear on the subject, Australians battle for independence was triggered by unrest over gold mining taxes.  The war was unsuccessful because the British got up early and the revolutionaries had been up late drinking the night before.

On the 11 November 1854 miners objecting to the expense of a Miner's Licence, taxation and lack of representation, formed a union several thousand strong.  In the rising tide of anger and resentment over the next couple of weeks, a militant leader was elected.  In swift fashion, a military stockade was built, brigades were formed, and captains were appointed.  Licenses were burned, the rebel Eureka Flag was flown, and an oath of allegiance was sworn.

During the 2nd of December, some 1500 men were training in and around the stockade. That night many of the miners went back to their own tents after the traditional Saturday night carousing.  At 3:00am Sunday, 3rd of December 1854 the British approached the stockade.  Official records show that the war raged on until approximately 3:10am the same morning when the army of miners was routed and decided they should go home.  22 miners and 6 soldiers were killed.

The battle of Eureka Stockade.  A truly Australian story.