OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Came across this:



So when IS Australia Day? I looked it up.. 26th January. Easy to remember, a month and a day after Christmas, except for Igor. WHOO HOOO!!!! In 2 weeks. Which made me wonder... HOW MANY VERSIONS of Waltzing Matilda are there on YouTube?? To lead up to Australia Day, I'll be posting.. er, maybe I shouldn't be so obnoxious... I'll post some Australian stuff. Stuff I like anyhow..

Iskandar

Most of the stuff I plan to post over the next couple weeks is stuff I came across on YouTube over the years. But this one, I just found it last night. The man who wrote "Waltzing Matilda" was one Banjo Paterson, there was an article about him in National Geographic magazine maybe 10 years ago, and it mentioned this poem - "Clancy of the Overflow". Paterson wrote a great deal about Australia's bush country, and the life of people who lived there, but he, himself, like most Australians, lived in one of the coastal cities. To the uninitiated, "Clancy of the Overflow" might be someone who's a plumber, who fixes toilets.. but no, "The Overflow" is, I think, the name of a river, and the country surrounding it. Clancy lived there, and made a living riding, shearing sheep, etc., a way of life that seemed romantic to townspeople. The poem has something to do with that. This is best enjoyed right before bed, with a mug of hot cocoa.



Iskandar

Mmmm... Contentious issue. Might be best to avoid this one.

When I was kid in Adelaide there was a radio programme (no TV at that time) about Clancy of the Overflow. Very portentous enunciation of the title by the announcer, which I remember to this day. The most memorable of the poems to a kid was of course, "The Man From Ironbark", but i think his magnum opus was "the Man From Snowy River", in which Clancy made an appearance.

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Oh really? I had no idea. I just looked up the date on Wikipedia.

Anyhow I do plan to post more Australia-related stuff in the next couple weeks.



The Man from Snowy River will be coming up after some other stuff. It's a good listen.

Iskandar

The following video belongs to a genre I wasn't aware existed, but it appears is actually quite common. Someone will write a song (or, in this case, a poem), and sometime later someone will write an "answer song" (or poem). "Clancy of the Overflow" prompted this, "Clancy's Reply". The Overflow, it turns out, was a sheep station (a big sheep ranch).



I looked up the controversy about Australia Day. Yikes... quite contentious indeed!

Iskandar

My favorite Australian pop band, ever. Waaay before my time, too - I must've been four or five when they were at the top of the charts. LOTS of their songs on YouTube, which I found out about maybe 10 years ago. They are (or were, shortly before this) still performing occasionally, though their hair has turned grey (or disappeared). Here is them in their heyday - a couple of their more well-known tracks. There're also some that's a lot more obscure, which I'll post later.





Iskandar

mac strayed into my territory with one of his videos, and now you're doing it. Way back in the late eighties, I was a librarian on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland and Judith Durham was one of my customers. Nice woman, living something of a hippy lifestyle in the hinterland. Always charming, but never gave a clue as to her fame.

Although I lived in Australia until 1965, I am not sure that I ever heard of the Seekers until returning to England. They became very big in the UK, part of "swinging England", with a string of hits. Athol Guy later formed "The New Seekers" who are most famous for the song "I'd like to teach the world to sing", largely because of the version that was used to advertise a fizzy drink. (Actually, I haven't fact-checked that, but I am pretty sure).

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Actually, I think I did get it wrong, and it wasn't Athol who formed the New Seekers, but one of the other men.

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Yeah, it was Potger (one of the guitar players). Athol was the double bass player. There's a TON of information on Wikipedia..

Here's them 30+ years later.. Athol's lost most of his hair, everyone except Durham has turned grey, but they sing and play as well as ever. This song's sort of become the traditional way to end a folk concert (though "Goodnight Irene" is more often used in the US).



There are some even more recent recordings on YouTube.

Iskandar

This one's a little different - it's a movie trailer. We don't get to see many movies out of Australia, I forget what brought this one to the local theaters (apparently I watched it back in 2017 - I'd forgotten what it was called, and had to find some old emails). It seems a little morbid, but this was one of the best road trip movies I've ever come across. Most road trip movies are set in the US, I've done quite a bit of cross-country driving across the US myself, this is a little different. Straight across the Outback, from Broken Hill, NSW, along the Oodnadatta Trail, to Darwin (in the top center of Australia). 3000 miles. Australian sights and sounds (road trains!), Australian humor, Australian bars, Australian situations, Australian football. I'm not really sure the portrayal of the main indigenous Australian character was fair - he's made out to be someone you couldn't really count on, he'd lose confidence and retreat into the "tall grass".



This is one heck of a movie, and I'm glad I watched it when I did. It certainly made an impression. I suppose it's probably on Netflix if you want to watch it.

Iskandar

I think if there's one thing we can guarantee, it's that portrayals of our First Peoples will invariably fail. Far too often, they'll be simplistic, two dimensional, "through-white-eyes" renditions of a magnificently complex and misunderstood peoples. (Having said that, movies are often guilty of reducing us all to lesser versions of ourselves.)

I think there have only ever been one or two truly significant attempts to focus primarily upon indigenous Australians as themselves. Iskandar, may I recommend for you: Ten Canoes. It's a fascinating watch, necessarily difficult because the medium is so foreign to our usual sensitivities. (The other one worth watching is Rabbit proof fence.)




And if you want something outrageously different, then you should consider: "Bran Nue Day". (Here's a trailer.)

Thanks! I watched the first 10 minutes of Ten Canoes, I'll have to set aside some time specifically to watch it (the best time always seems to be right before bedtime). It IS different. Bran Nue Day looks VERY intriguing, one day I'll actually subscribe to Netflix, maybe it's there.

I've been trying to decide what to post next, I've got so many candidates, and I'm trying to decide what to save for later (there's still 10 days left to post). But I thought I'd post this one tonight. I'm sure it's quite famous, you've probably heard it before, it's been performed by numerous singers (both on and off YouTube), I first heard it on the radio sung by English folksinger June Tabor. It's one of two very famous songs about the Great War by Scotsman Eric Bogle, who moved to Australia at age 25. It's also specifically Australian, about Australians who fought and died in a far-off land in a futile campaign. It's also supposedly got a reputation for being a long-time sing-along staple in Australian bars. Like other Eric Bogle songs, it has a parody (sung to the same tune, unfortunately I couldn't find anyone performing it on YouTube), about a folk singer in an Australian pub. After he sings a song, the crowd says "Now, son, that was a good song, but we'll sing you a better one". And they sing.. this. My favorite two lines in the parody were "And I wish Eric Bogle had gone straight to hell/And had never come to Australia." I mean, how can you compete with Eric Bogle?

I'll save the second Eric Bogle song for a more appropriate date - maybe 11th November.

Of the many, many performances on YouTube, I'll post Eric Bogle's himself.



Iskandar

Talking of June Tabor and Australian songs, I first heard this song on her album "Ashes and Diamonds".
https://youtu.be/Q2ZSnYh7omw?list=PL103BF421E2332E8E

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Other setups:
DHS H301 Blade/DHS Hurricane 3 Nat/Loki GTX Pro
BTY MPM Blade/DHS H3 Neo/Dawei 388D-1