Anzac Day - a public holiday where we hold a Dawn Service for Australian and New Zealand military personnel who have died. Where every town and city hold marches for those that are still alive, or for family members to march to hold their memories alive.
The RSL (Returned Serviceperople's League) clubs serves free beer and its the only day that two-up is considered legal.
For the rest of us its a day off work and a somber way to remember how screwed up the world (and our place in it is).
For most of us, the thing we most learned about Anzac Day at school is this: Some time before we were born, in some huge war overseas, lots of our "boys" went overseas to foreign places because the British told us to.
The British Military command (who is always portrayed as being complete and utter nincompoops) sent a bunch of ANZACs to some place in Turkey. They were off course and landed on some beach that was miles from where they were supposed to be (this was the Poms fault too). Many ANZACs died there trying to do what they told until they got fed up and left. Because the Poms were so useless at everything else, the ANZACs created their own ruses, such as a self-firing rifle which fooled the Turks and allowed many more ANZACs to leave than if we'd done it the Pommy way.
OK the official version is here.
Basically the role of Anzac Day in most Australian minds is: We always help our mates. If someone in a position of power over us lands us in the toilet, well .... we are Aussies and we will bloody well get ourselves out of it!
And that my friends describes the quintessentially Australian approach to life, in as such as there is one.
Why we haven't done this in the Middle East is beyond my understanding but that's a rant for another day.
Finally I'd like to leave you all with the last great Anzac Day tradition - ANZAC bikkies. This is the recipe my mum made before we both found out we can't eat rolled oats.
Please be aware all you furriners, that yes you do need Golden Syrup to make these work. Corn syrup, Crisco, glucose syrup - are all rubbish and wont work.
About the only alternative I can conceive is treacle with a touch of honey in it. The origins of these bikkies can be found here.
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon boiling water
pinch salt
1. Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut together.
2. Melt syrup and butter together.
3. Mix soda with boiling water and add to melted butter and syrup.
4. Add to dry ingredients.
5. Place teaspoonfuls of mixture well spaced on a greased slide.
6 Bake in a slow over (150-160 degrees C) for 20 minutes.
Makes 50
Recipe typed out from the bible of Australian cookery, The Commonsense Cookery Book.
3 comments:
Long known the brits were useless at most things. Probably why the Irish have to go and show them how it's done...
I won't be back there, they'll have to struggle on without me lmfao
And that's the way it used to be here, but we have lost that in my lifetime. If WWII were to happen today, Europe would be on their own, even after Pearl Harbor; we are so busy bickering and pointing fingers and not taking responsibility for even the simple things, we'd never be able to do what needed doing. And that's pretty much the crux of a lot of the woes in the world - no one taking responsibility and taking care of business. Taking responsibility has come down to someone in "power" taking from one group and giving to another, instead of encouraging the other to figure out what the first group did to get what they have.
It's nice to see that these days mean something still, somewhere in the world. Here, on Veteran's Day, banks and post offices are closed; I, a veteran, have never had the day off. And Memorial Day isn't really about fallen soldiers anymore; it's a day to get drunk and go boating and start vacations. Pretty sad, actually.
Okay - what's Golden Syrup? Our field rep from Sydney was here for training this week; had I known, I woulda asked her to slide some into her tool kit (airport screeners never look in the engineer's tool kits - kinda scary, if you think about it)....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_syrup
And yep - unfortunately there is a downside of Anzac Day involving many road accidents due to drunk drivers and/or drunk pedestrians.
I used to go to the Dawn Service when I was a child with my grandfather (WWII veteran) but since he died, the personal significance of Anzac Day has died for me too. I spent the day quietly at home. I still cry every time I hear the Last Post being played though ...
Post a Comment