July 19, 2012

  • Down Under

    The book I read to research this post was Down Under by Bill Bryson which is an excellent book which I bought from a carboot sale. This book is a kind of general history of Australia. Apparently the ruling australian prime minister in 1967 went in a lagoon and disappeared without a trace. If it had been the US president for example it would have made the front page around the world. As it is hardly any newspapers outside australia reported it. Probably partly due to australia's remoteness also don't forget it's got a small population & has a relatively stable government & economy so tends to get ignored by the worlds press. At the Sydney Olympics Australia came 4th in its medal tally in a very diverse range of sports which is fantastic for a country with 19 million. China's population increases by a larger amount than that every year. Even though baseball isn't an established sport in Australia there are even some australian professional players in america. Apparently in a given period the New York Times ran as many stories on Belarus as it did on Australia. It was only discovered around 300 years ago. At one stage someone set sail from South America to try and discover a great southern landmass and by chance sailed through the Torres Straits which separate Australia from Papua New Guinea and no idea how close they came to discovering Australia. Tasmania was discovered before Oz by a ship from the Dutch East India Company and called Van Dieman's Land after the captain's boss. In Fiji and New Zealand there were cannibals who would try and eat anyone unfortunate enough to land there. A lot of people thought there was a great southern continental landmass that would rival eurasia and when Australia had been explored were rather disappointed.

oldscratbag

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