Saturday, July 31, 2021
LITTLE DARWIN MENAGERIE SURPRISE
One of our two resident Curlew families has produced a chick ahead of time , seen here with its mother , another egg still to hatch . Worryingly, it is adventurous , runs about in the open where it could be picked off by a bird of prey . It went into the prone position with its father.
Friday, July 30, 2021
CROW CHIPS IN
Sensing it was on a win, this cheeky Crow advanced on a man eating fish and chips on the beach at Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island , and called out ,resulting in flying chips thrown over the shoulder .
Thursday, July 29, 2021
FIGHTER JETS IN TALISMAN SABRE EXERCISE OFF COAST PLUS SURPRISE JETSKI INVASION
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| Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island . Vallis photos |
SANTA CRUZ MASSACRE SYMPOSIUM
November 12 will be the 30th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Massacre, Dili, East Timor . To mark the occasion a two-day online symposium will be held to which Darwin activist Robert Wesley-Smith, a longtime East Timor supporter , has been asked to contribute . He will cover his demonstration against the massacre , the first in Australia, followed by a march on the Indonesian consulate.
Information supplied for the symposium follows :
The Santa Cruz Massacre of 12 November 1991 in Dili, East Timor was a turning point in the East Timorese struggle for national self-determination. The Indonesian army’s killing of more than two hundred and seventy young East Timorese protesters at the Santa Cruz cemetery was captured in dramatic footage and broadcast internationally, turning global attention back to this former Portuguese colony.
Critically, the protest – and its violent crackdown – dramatically changed the way the international community regarded the Indonesian occupation of the territory. Responses to the Santa Cruz Massacre also demonstrated the growing power, influence, and impact of transnational solidarity networks and global human rights activism.
Scheduled in the leadup to the thirty-year anniversary of the massacre, this two-day online symposium will bring together international researchers to discuss this critical event. The symposium is organised by the Timor-Leste Studies Association (TLSA), Australia, in partnership with the Centro Nacional Chega (CNC), Timor-Leste and supported by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).
We welcome papers covering, for example, the leadup to and significance of the 12 November protest, the East Timorese clandestine movement’s strategy, the Indonesian counterstrategy and responses, and the international dimensions of this event. Papers may be presented in Tetum, Portuguese, English or Indonesian.
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
SCOMO TURNS LODGE INTO PALAIS DE DUNCE , TAKES FRENCH LEAVE
French aroma to permeate Coalition utterances as famous flatulist appointed PM's new spin doctor .
CANBERRA : Award winning political journalist Argus Tuft today exclusively revealed that the Scott Morrison Funk Bunker has appointed French windbag Petomane as its new strategist in a desperate bid to cover up the PM's gross failures as a national leader.
Argus Tuft says the PM met Petomane when he was taken on a tour of Paris by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, above, after attending the G7 conference , staged in a lavish Cornish pasty factory .
On that educational tour , the PM , while taking part in a laying on of hands ceremony in the naughty Moulin Rouge, who should blow in , but Le Petomane?
Petomane , a great showman , soon had the entire crowd , including ScoMo , laughing like mad. In fact , some matrons became so hysterical they ripped off their corsets to improve their breathing .
Back in Australia , increasingly revealed as a hollow showman / tobacco is good for you advertising copywriter, the PM came under attack ,despite the News Corp PR machine going into overdrive for the Coalition , "performing acrobatic leaps of spin ", worthy of Olympic gold medals .
This did not stop the PM from being asked embarrassing questions on air . Philip Coorey of the Austalian Financial Review concisely explained the situation.
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
QUEUE FOR ORAL NECTAR JAB
Lorikeets raiding the blossoms of Pyrostegia venusta , known as the Flame Vine and Golden Shower .
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| Vallis photos. |
Monday, July 26, 2021
SAILORS AND HUNTER HOME FROM THE SEA
With the help of Robert Louis Stevenson , after spotting the above Hunter luxury yacht ,from Sydney, tied up on Magnetic Island , our Shipping Reporter put together a pictorial portfolio of moored vessels ,representing a lot of floating assets .
Sunday, July 25, 2021
EXPEDITION THROUGH THE INDIAN EMPIRE
The superb Northern Territory Genealogical Society's reference library in Darwin overflows with great material , stories galore . Built up from many sources over the years ,including donations, deceased estates ,book sales, subscriptions ,it includes ephemera and photographs ,with filing cabinets and credenzas filled with treasures .
It is exciting to explore its contents from the back of a swaying elephant , armed with a notebook and camera .
For example, you sense the following worn 1886 volume may have an interesting history itself .
Upon opening , an inscription is found revealing it had once belonged to Professor Geoffrey Forrester Fairbairn , Reader in Australian History, at the Australian National University, Canberra , who died in London on September 11,1980.
The son of James Valentine Fairbairn , Minister for Air (1939-1940) in the Menzies Ministry , he was a commentator on Southeast Asian politics and an expert on Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, about which he wrote several books.
The National Library of Australia contains the Geoffrey Fairbairn Collection ,annotated by his wife, Dr Anne Fairbairn , the granddaughter of Australia's fourth Prime Minister ,George Reid . It includes a South Vietnam flag,some items subjected to damp and mould .
A poet, journalist and Arab culture expert ,In 1998 ,she received the Order of Australia for services to literature and international relations between Australia and the Middle East. She died on October 22,2018, aged 90.
The author of the book, Sir William Hunter , had started off in the Indian Civil Service in 1862, became a magistrate and a prodigious writer on matters relating to India . He presided over the Commission on Indian Education ,was Vice- Chancellor of the University of Calcutta , wrote a regular weekly column about India for The Times and contributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica .
UPCOMING : More gems from the library involving America and Canada, Crimea , Australian Jews .
Saturday, July 24, 2021
MUTILATED MERMAID TURNS VEGETARIAN
Shipping Reporter Overcooked Scoop
Our waterfront roundsman , the only one in North Australia , has been ordered to have an eye test after he claimed the mysterious mutilated mermaid on Magnetic Island now has a giant asparagus growing out of her navel !!!
To back up his preposterous claim , he produced the above photograph . At first glance, it did appear that she was indeed sporting a large, tasty , green asparagus shoot from that beauty spot .
However, when the remains of her torso were forensically examined with a made in China Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass, it was found to be an optical illusion , part of her vital statistics not yet maltreated or ripped off by some twisted ratfink.
The observant Shipping Reporter previously revealed that the mermaid's arms, then her head , without the sleepy mainland media noticing , were torn off , sticks jabbed in the armholes.
Friday, July 23, 2021
RADIOACTIVE JOURNALIST IN FISHY STORY
In these days of smart phones and digitised newspapers, you don't hear the expression today's front page news is tomorrow's fish and chips wrapper . Anyway , it is probably against modern health regulations and undoubtedly unhygienic to wrap a serving or two in manhandled papers.
Recently , on a trip to a Queensland dump shop , the book section provided an unexpected battered serving of Australian and New Zealand reporting in the shape of the spotty - covered , well- worn , Wake of the Invercauld , about men shipwrecked in 1864 on the Auckland Islands,300 miles south of NZ .
Instantly, on seeing the above title on the spine in a jumble of volumes , I was reminded of a NZ reporter friend , the late Ross Annabell , who deserves to be inducted into the Australian Hall of Journalism Fame , the Kiwi equivalent as well , if not already ensconced there .
By Peter Simon
In numerous conversations with Ross , covering a wide range of subjects , once over a jugged hare sandwich , he mentioned that he had gone to the Auckland Islands while looking for the gold of the General Grant , wrecked in the same area as the Invercauld , two years later .
While on that assignment , he had also scanned the area for possible signs of uranium bearing rocks , he having written The Uranium Hunters , about the Northern Territory uranium boom of the l950s. This blog explained how he had been caught up in the search for uranium there , and at one stage thought he was going to make a fortune with a strike he made with a geiger counter ,even smuggled some yellowcake into NZ .
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| Ross, with camera, inside steaming Mount Tarawera crater. |
I first met Ross on the Rotorua Daily Post , in the North Island of New Zealand, in the early 1960s , where he was a feature writer and a good one at that . Starting off as a cub reporter in Christchurch , he flew to Australia in 1950 aboard a Sunderland flying boat . He worked for the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, the Mackay Mercury , in Queensland . He was an early photo-journalist along the way , writing illustrated articles for many publications .
He was the first editor of the Mount Isa Mail and an early editor of the Northern Territory News , Darwin, where he covered the airport rescue of Mrs Petrov from Russian guards trying to force her out of Australia . Because I had worked on the NT News under the great editor , Jim Bowditch ,with whom Ross had dealings , we had some common interests in Rotorua. Sharing a gold prospecting dish was another , with which we never struck it rich.
He lived with his English wife, Meg, above Rotorua , at Mamaku , a kind of ghost town , which had been an early thriving timber milling community . There he was restoring a rundown , stripped - house , surrounded by blackberries , which had been the mill manager's fancy abode, one room so big it was dubbed the ballroom.
A great do it yourself Kiwi , he was a keen hunter , made his own home brew , had a cut down Boer war rifle and a strange van , the shaky timber body built on an old chassis ,which caught fire while driving to work from Mamaku . It looked very much like the following vehicle in the British television show, The Keeper , I saw recently , about a German prisoner of war who was a skilled soccer goalie. In it I went on enjoyable bush walking and mountain climbing trips with Ross.
In later years , he discussed with me how to get a novel he had written about a woman, If I remember correctly, running a fishing boat on the Great Barrier Reef , drawing on his experience fishing for six months off Mackay . This Queen of the Reef, sounded similar to the Canadian series, The Adventures of Tugboat Annie .
His book on the uranium boom in Australia sold well . While working in Darwin , he was smuggled into the Rum Jungle uranium mine to reveal poor conditions under which the men worked and lived. Uranium fever spread across to New Zealand in the l950s , the first find there made by two mates, a goldminer and a fisherman , in the Buller Gorge in l955.
An enterprising Kiwi firm , believe it or not , even produced Uranium Ice Cream .
Other books Ross wrote were about the Rotorua Maori Guide ,Rangi, and two about pioneering pilot , Captain Fred Ladd.
He won NZ awards for investigative reporting and taught journalism. Ross was 91 when he died on September 7, 2018.
BRISVEGAS BIRD AND BOTTLE BEAT
One of our wondering nerdy correspondents, Michael, sent this photograph from Brisbane, along with another shot of old bottles recently unearthed there by council workers . Just imagine what treasures will be found in earthworks carried out for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games ?
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