The Lucky Country

It is a tragic irony of Australian existence that a country -- a continent -- the size of Europe can be so much the same shore to shining shore. Among its 23 million peoples there is seemingly very little difference one person from the other.
We speak the same language  deploying the same accents. Follow the same sports. Watch the same TV channels.
We are Rupert Murdoch’s play things. Hell! he’s one of ours. Local boy makes good.
The most monopolized media networks in the western world make sure that the political debate doesn't drift too far to the left..
We may have a national broadcaster -- modeled on the BBC -- but that too is very much under threat today.
In this mix is the long standing national expectation that this is indeed ‘the lucky country’. Aside from a comparatively buoyant economy sustained by the boom in mining and mineral prices, we have not known civil war, famine, political cataclysm, invasion or relentlessly bad cricket scores.
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Blather Vox Pop : the geriatric nurse

Studs Terkel's great book of radio interviews -- Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do  -- has been around for 40 years.

Its  impact has been huge because it re-invented oral history by celebrating everyday labour and elevating everyone's working life to a shared collective experience we all must, in our own way, negotiate.

Inspired so many years ago by Terkel, The Blather -- instead of pursuing  celebrity chit chat (not that the big whigs would talk to us) -- will occasionally share interviews with folk talking about their lives or their workaday week.

'Vox Pop' refers to the  Latin proverb, Vox populi, vox Dei which translates as "The voice of the people [is] the voice of God".

Since no one else listens to us peeps nowadays, maybe The Blather should.

The first Blather VOX POP is a chat with Kyle, a geriatric nurse.

(Duration: 11:41 — 12.6 MB) mp3

Terra Australis Proprietary Limited

The Reserve Bank in conjunction with the federal Treasury is making arrangements for turning the whole country into a limited liability company. 

And lucky you:every Australian citizen will be offered shares in the float. The new enterprise will take over the country as a going concern, together with all available assets, pre-existing good will, gold reserves and debenture stocks.

This novel initiative is a logical consequence of the currently very popular trend towards privatisation. 

We're fast-tracking it, that's all. 

The formation of Terra Australis Proprietary Limited and its listing on the nation's stock exchanges is intended to shore up the local share market at a time when investors could do with an injection of confidence.

The present zigging and zagging of the All Ordinaries does no-one any good. Your everyday, run-of-the-mill Aussie battler-type person could do without such uncertainty.

Furthermore, the overbearing pressure of state debt will be a thing of the past. This way we settle up and wipe the slate clean in one swoop without having  to  put up with all this relentless  year in year out budget rigmarole.

Every year the same ole same ole…

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You can take comfort in my presence.

GOOD NEWS! I have survived another year. The smiling dial that marks me out has not changed one smidgin in yonks. I'm ageless, that's what I am. I'm still the same bloke I was way back when ; still my dear old mother's son, the crème de la crème of the Highett Rileys in the prime of his wonderful life.

How can this be, you may ask. Surely one day he must be touched by cruel time?

My resilience from the toll life levies rests on a little-known feature of my existence: I'm the second son of God.

(Duration: 2:45 — 3.0MB) mp3
Music: Hopeful Ambience -- Richard Culver September 9th, 2013 (FreeSound)