Sunday, September 8, 2013

She'll Be Right, Mate!

Dateline - Sydney, 8th September, 1953

Awoke this morning to a grey and overcast morning - the clear and sunny skies of recent weeks have gone - and the realization that we are Under New Management. Changes Will Have to be Made if we are to Open For Business.

The first order of business is to get a haircut. My hair is too long - it slightly covers my ears - and it's going to cost a fortune if I use that much Brylcreem (and that's another thing - Her Indoors is going to have to buy some antimacassars). Then I shall have to see my tailor - it will be best to get in quickly, before demand drives the price of brown tweed up through the roof. Something with a waistcoat, I fancy - and while I await my suit, I shall have to get the little woman to let down the hems of my existing trousers and create some turnups, in line with the new fashion. I shall need to get a couple of new hats, too.

I'm going to have to change careers, of course - there will be no demand for computer security in Australia and all that work will be in countries that have decided to build telecommunications infrastructure. The German car will have to go, too - it's politically incorrect, now. A Holden in every garage, that's the motto! And I hope that we'll soon be able to take a break for a short holiday - perhaps in the Great Barrier Reef, before it's gone, or the bits of the Northern Territory that haven't been dug up yet.

The better half is going to have to sell off her business - in our hearts, we always felt it was a mistake to let women advise giant corporations and government. What were we thinking? But she's quite looking forward to her new life at home, and has set about choosing material for new curtains, throw cushions, bedspreads and tablecloths. But before she can put the sewing machine to work on those, she's going to have to let those hemlines down - they're just not acceptable these days! And she's going to need a couple of new hats, too.

Oh, yes - comfort and style for the ladies!


We are expecting some resistance from our daughter. We should never have encouraged her in this foolish belief that she should get educated, learn languages and travel, so we are just going to have to bite the bullet and withdraw her from University so that she can go to secretarial college and learn shorthand. Hopefully she can master it quickly enough to get a job in an office and then, with a bit of luck, she'll meet a sound chap, get married and settle down. We shall be grandparents before we know it! I wonder how she'll look in a hat?

The young master, of course, accepts that he will have to sign up for nasho. My advice to him is: join the Navy! There'll be plenty of demand for young officer cadets to take charge in our Northern Defences, and since they'll need lots of ships to tow leaky fishing boats full of refugees back out to sea, I expect he'll have his own command in just a few years. After that, he should be well set for a job with a bank.

I do hope the little woman's over-active mind doesn't lead her astray.

And there's more good news for the young people, too - housing will be much more affordable, with the reintroduction of asbestos sheeting as a cheap building material (thanks, Julie!). The economy is going to boom, and soon the Harbour will once more be full of ships from distant lands, the docks ringing to the cheerful sounds of low-paid immigrant labourers! Gina's mines, too, will benefit  - her "New Australian" workers are so much better suited to tunneling work, and they need very little pay, since they only eat a couple of bowls of rice per day.

Soon, our coal-powered factories will be mass-producing widgets at prices that can compete with expensive Chinese-made widgets, those silly Chinese having introduced a 10 yuan-per-tonne carbon tax. How silly is that? We know that carbon is a colourless gas, so how can it be harmful? Tony is right - global warming is crap, and those boffins who dreamt it up have lost touch with reality. It's time somebody stood up to these "experts". And even better - our cheap electricity will allow us to run bigger air conditioners, which I find is so important, with the warmer weather we seem to be getting at the moment.

It's good that we have such a stable hand on the tiller, a sound chap, educated in the Mother Country, who understands our rightful place in the world, and that we mustn't get above our station as a colonial outpost of The Empire. A man who understands that Thrift is a Virtue, and that we cannot afford luxuries like the ABC - no matter, since we look forward to clustering around our wireless sets of an evening listening to the replayed highlights of BBC Radio Four, or dancing to big band sounds. Then it's off to bed, and up with the dawn to cycle to work - or down to the Surf Club, on the weekend. If the pushbike is good enough for Our Leader, it's good enough for me!

Anyway, that's all I have time to write in this first report - we have to rush off to church, as Tony is expecting a good turnout. And after that, the ladies will come home and put the roast in the oven for Sunday lunch, while me and my cobbers sink a few schooners of Tooheys Old at the RSL.

Aye, Australia - it's the lucky country, all right.

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