The way of life

Originally posted by acorn ↑

lt always makes me laugh when a politician talks about the " Australian way of life ".

Their world inside the Canberra bubble is so far away from reality it's not funny.. Just like when they make the obligatory visit to a country area wearing brand new RM Williams boots and an Akubra.

l really like France. And l really like the French . Especially the cranky ones that talk about " the French way ". ln some ways it is the difference that is the most interesting.

l could live in France tomorrow and be very happy about it. As l could in most of the countries in the world.

That's the awesome thing about traveling . You learn about new things. You have new experiences that you don't have at home. You learn about yourself .lt gives one a new refreshing perspective and l always feel 'reset ' when l get home after traveling .

The Australian way of life is changing as is life everywhere else . While people may fondly look back with their rose colored glasses on no one really wants to live in the past.

Dutton's " Australian way of life " .

50 years ago we Australians were punching on with each other if we ran into someone from another suburb or town.

40 years ago the ' skips ' were punching on with sons of the Europeans. Particularly ltalians and Greeks . Today, we can't get enough of their food and culture and we all travel to their home countries for holidays.

30 years ago we punching on with Asians . Today, we can't get enough of their food and culture . Who hasn't been to Bali , Singapore , Thailand , lndia Vietnam, Japan , China etc ?

My point is that the Australian way of life is changing every day. Muppets like the Spud are living in the past and desperately looking for an emotional response from the stupid and easily fooled.

So now we have Pinto pining for the past in some really lovely old French village. Wishing for the old days of little choice of food.

All while using modern technology to share his thoughts. Maybe that village should ban electricity and the internet so that it can become even more authentic ?

Nothing like a bit of irony.

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“So now we have Pinto pining for the past”

I don’t actually pine for the past

I just prefer that - when I’m in Vietnam for lunch - I get to eat street food and not maccas

And I saw it - before it disappears

In France - I like to have lunch in a tiny restaurant in a small town on a backroad - and not in maccas
And I did that - before it disappeared

I’ve just pulled off the highways in the outback- headed into the desert for a kilometre and spent the night-
I did that - before the highways were fenced.

This is my Australia (and I’m doing the other bit as well.
———————————-
My Country

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold –
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

-- Dorothea Mackellar

The difference with me is that I’ll think of many places - not just one country -

and I won’t be thinking of maccas