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POETRY DEBASED

Guess the author:

Dorothea McKellar who said Australia was the land of drought and flooding rains and the wild weather patterns of this holiday season are certainly a testament to her iconic Australian poem.

It’s a certain freeeelancer ...

Posted by Tim B. on 01/08/2008 at 05:06 PM
  1. It is not often a boogie board walks down the main street of Ungarie.

    I daresay that it is not often a boogie board walks anywhere.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 05:16 PM • permalink

  2. I’ve never seen a boogie board walk down the street.

    Posted by Pogria on 2008 01 08 at 05:16 PM • permalink

  3. SNAP! Paco.

    Posted by Pogria on 2008 01 08 at 05:17 PM • permalink

  4. Traceee is prone to a bit of exaggeration.  I know the district, as my mother was born in Lake Cargelligo, and my first thought on reading the article was “bullshit, it’s not 200 km from Ungarie to the Lake because it only takes just over an hour to drive from West Wyalong to the Lake and Ungarie is about a third of the way there”.  I checked Whereis and it’s 75km from Ungarie to Lake Cargelligo. 

    Traceee, it only takes a minute to go to Whereis and type “Ungarie” in the ‘from’ box and “Lake Cargelligo” in the ‘to’ box and hit the ‘get directions’ button.

    At least she got the approximate distance between the Lake and Condo right. (pedant mode/off)

    Posted by craigo on 2008 01 08 at 05:33 PM • permalink

  5. Can a poem be “iconic”? I thought icons had to be visual…

    Posted by mojo on 2008 01 08 at 05:41 PM • permalink

  6. This is just grist for the Timitator’s mill. Standby for today’s “Timmeh”, who is apparently one crazed Victorian ambulance chaser, to make mocking and disparaging comments about the weather/climate commentary, in a tone allegedly resembling Mr Blair’s.

    Posted by CB on 2008 01 08 at 05:44 PM • permalink

  7. #4 craigo,

    water birth was it? ;)

    Posted by Pogria on 2008 01 08 at 05:46 PM • permalink

  8. It is not often a boogie board walks down the main street of Ungarie.

    No, usually they just kind of…boogie on down the street, before jivin’ and sashaying.  Finally, they keep on truckin’

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 01 08 at 05:50 PM • permalink

  9. Are there no editors left in journalism?
    How can such a badly written, totally ungrammatical sentence, ever have made it to print?

    Posted by BB77 on 2008 01 08 at 06:01 PM • permalink

  10. Dorothea McKellar who said Australia was the land of drought and flooding rains and the wild weather patterns of this holiday season are certainly a testament to her iconic Australian poem.

    Try:

    In her iconic poem, Dorothea McKellar said Australia was the land of drought and flooding rains; the wild weather patterns of this holiday season are certainly a testament to that.

    Posted by BB77 on 2008 01 08 at 06:04 PM • permalink

  11. #7 Ha ha Pogs :)  Of course, she was born in the town by the lake, not the lake itself - Nan wasn’t into that new age stuff.

    Posted by craigo on 2008 01 08 at 06:06 PM • permalink

  12. #10 BB77, leave out “certainly a”.  Testaments are usually certain.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2008 01 08 at 06:20 PM • permalink

  13. Why does every sentence have its own paragraph?

    It’s awful, especially

    What is left is the heartbreaking sight of what was to be the Hardings’ wool cutting stock for 2008, and hundreds of kilometres of missing or damaged fences.

    And two para/sentences later she explains that the lambs are dead, in another paddock.

    It’s disjointed and hard to read.

    She’s a journalist. I’m not.

    Posted by kae on 2008 01 08 at 06:32 PM • permalink

  14. As someone who used to shear the bloody things this line is like fingernails down a blackboard.
    “..What is left is the heartbreaking sight of what was to be the Hardings’ wool cutting stock..”

    Wool cutting stock? WTF is that? Retardese for a mob waiting to be SHORN.
    She probably thinks this is a Shorn sheep
    not this.

    Plaease if your going to write something Tracee get the lingo right for the industry you are talking about.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 01 08 at 06:37 PM • permalink

  15. #9: BB77 totally beat me to it.

    So, parsing that sentence, Dorothy MacKellar are a testament to her own poetry??? I think Traceeee are illiterate.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 06:43 PM • permalink

  16. #14 TFM

    When I was a kid we used to have sporting exchange visits with a school in Sydney and would get billetted out.

    One year we had a lad staying with us whose name was Lamb. Shaun Lamb.

    He was unaware of the joke until we pointed it out to him at dinner on the first night.

    His brother Terry ended up being a half handy rugby league player in the 1980’s

    Posted by Pickles on 2008 01 08 at 06:57 PM • permalink

  17. Pickles

    Poor bugger….

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 01 08 at 06:59 PM • permalink

  18. With Traceeee providing the comic relief in Aunty’s ‘News’ coverage over the summer, does this mean she no longer writes her ‘Recipes For Head-Tilters’ column in Saturday’s Aged?

    Inquiring minds would like to know.

    Posted by Jay Santos on 2008 01 08 at 07:00 PM • permalink

  19. Pickles,

    Was his middle name Liddell?

    Posted by Jay Santos on 2008 01 08 at 07:02 PM • permalink

  20. Ack. Must. Read. Real. English.

    The love of field and coppice
    Of green and shaded lanes,
    Of ordered woods and gardens
    Is running in your veins.
    Strong love of grey-blue distance,
    Brown streams and soft, dim skies
    I know, but cannot share it,
    My love is otherwise.

    I love a sunburnt country,
    A land of sweeping plains,
    Of ragged mountain ranges,
    Of droughts and flooding rains.
    I love her far horizons,
    I love her jewel-sea,
    Her beauty and her terror
    The wide brown land for me!

    The stark white ring-barked forests,
    All tragic to the moon,
    The sapphire-misted mountains,
    The hot gold hush of noon,
    Green tangle of the brushes
    Where lithe lianas coil,
    And orchids deck the tree-tops,
    And ferns the warm dark soil.

    Core of my heart, my country!
    Her pitiless blue sky,
    When, sick at heart, around us
    We see the cattle die
    But then the grey clouds gather,
    And we can bless again
    The drumming of an army,
    The steady soaking rain.

    Core of my heart, my country!
    Land of the rainbow gold,
    For flood and fire and famine
    She pays us back threefold.
    Over the thirsty paddocks,
    Watch, after many days,

    The filmy veil of greenness
    That thickens as we gaze…
    An opal-hearted country,
    A wilful, lavish land
    All you who have not loved her,
    You will not understand
    though Earth holds many splendours,
    Wherever I may die,
    I know to what brown country
    My homing thoughts will fly.

    Posted by jpaulg on 2008 01 08 at 07:20 PM • permalink

  21. Here’s another for you, JPG.

    Lived a woman wonderful,
      (May the Lord amend her!)
    Neither simple, kind, nor true,
    But her Pagan beauty drew
    Christian gentlemen a few
      Hotly to attend her.

    Christian gentlemen a few
      From Berwick unto Dover;
    For she was South Africa,
    And she was South Africa,
    She was Our South Africa,
      Africa all over !

    Half her land was dead with drouth,
      Half was red with battle;
    She was fenced with fire and sword
    Plague on pestilence outpoured,
    Locusts on the greening sward
      And murrain on the cattle!

    True, ah true, and overtrue.
      That is why we love her!
    For she is South Africa,
    And she is South Africa,
    She is Our South Africa,
      Africa all over!

    Bitter hard her lovers toiled,
      Scandalous their payment,
    Food forgot on trains derailed;
    Cattle-dung where fuel failed;
    Water where the mules had staled;
      And sackcloth for their raiment!

    So she filled their mouths with dust
      And their bones with fever;
    Greeted them with cruel lies;
    Treated them despiteful-wise;
    Meted them calamities
      Till they vowed to leave her!

    They took ship and they took sail,
      Raging, from her borders
    In a little, none the less,
    They forgat their sore duresse,
    They forgave her waywardness
      And returned for orders!

    They esteemed her favour more
      Than a Throne’s foundation.
    For the glory of her face
    Bade farewell to breed and race
    Yea, and made their burial-place
      Altar of a Nation!

    Wherefore, being bought by blood,
      And by blood restored
    To the arms that nearly lost,
    She, because of all she cost,
    Stands, a very woman, most
      Perfect and adored!

    On your feet, and let them know
      This is why we love her!
    For she is South Africa,
    She is Our South Africa,
    Is Our Own South Africa,
      Africa all over !

    Posted by Achillea on 2008 01 08 at 07:29 PM • permalink

  22. #13 kae: I think the choppy formatting is because she thinks in terms of bullet points. Maybe they published her outline by mistake.

    I think that I shall never see,
    A scribe as bad as ol’ Traceeee,

    A scribe whose puckered lips are prest,
    To the butt of every moonbat pest,

    A scribe who looks agog all day,
    At human gods with feet of clay,

    A scribe who may the year-long wear,
    A tinfoil hat pinned to her hair,

    Upon whose bosom drool has puddled,
    As she looks at life with a mind befuddled,

    Fools are limned by poets like me,
    But do only fools write for ABC?

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 07:46 PM • permalink

  23. #22: For the record: with the most profound apologies to Joyce Kilmer.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 07:48 PM • permalink

  24. 22. Nicely done.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 01 08 at 07:51 PM • permalink

  25. #22 Paco
    Yeah, that or she thinks the lines “look pretty”.

    Posted by kae on 2008 01 08 at 07:56 PM • permalink

  26. #24: Thanks, Frollicking, but I’m just holding Lyle’s place in line. Where is that guy, anyway? Probably out collecting a Pulitzer Prize or something.

    #25 kae: Let’s hope she doesn’t figure out how to use any art software; otherwise she’ll be inserting little hearts and ponies in her “work”.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 08:00 PM • permalink

  27. #26
    And unicorns, there must be unicorns, and fairies, of course.

    Posted by kae on 2008 01 08 at 08:03 PM • permalink

  28. Traceeeeee’s name wasn’t in the Rockwiz credits on Saturday. Did they find out she was neither clever nor funny?

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 01 08 at 08:17 PM • permalink

  29. #28 Contrail: Maybe they just ran out of e’s.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 08:23 PM • permalink

  30. Hoow about a little Haiku


    Traceeeeeeeeeeeee Hutchison

    Ego Maniac In Drag

    Must Suck To Be Her

    Posted by swassociates on 2008 01 08 at 08:41 PM • permalink

  31. Good one, swass.

    Hey, I just had a thought (don’t say it). Maybe a cockroach write’s Traceeee‘s stuff.

    Posted by paco on 2008 01 08 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  32. What amazes me is that Traceeeeeeeee wrote, in her endearingly childish manner, of floods and pestillence and drought and hardship without mentioning once….
    (drum roll please)
    climate change or gloobal warmening.

    Posted by Bonmot on 2008 01 08 at 09:51 PM • permalink

  33. English is Traceeeeeeee’s second language.
    She doesn’t have a first.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 08 at 09:57 PM • permalink

  34. Labor was talking about stopping most drought payments now there is talk about floods damage payments. Should not all farmer payments be stopped and spend more on the arts? Who needs farms when we have starving artists? And of course we need the ABC to keep us informed too. Do we not?
    By the way off. O/T?. Why do all Indians sound like Mahatma Cote?

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 01 08 at 10:19 PM • permalink

  35. the bar for natural disaster activations seems to be getting lower and lower, and areas of the north coast NSW or parts of SE qld are no doubt deserving, the area declared is getting larger and larger.  All so various hangers on can access the public tit. 

    And then the meeja waxes hysterical about every bit of wind or rainfall that deems to smite the earth.  When the worst doesn’t happen it seems to make no difference, the hysteria just gets cranked up for the next cold front or tropical low.

    Posted by entropy on 2008 01 08 at 10:52 PM • permalink

  36. #34
    By the way off. O/T?. Why do all Indians sound like Mahatma Cote?

    For the same reason all Orientals sound like Jackie Chan.

    Also - anybody seen ‘I am Legend’?

    Not bad, but bloody disconcerting to have Will Smith who’s supposed to be the brainiest scientist in the world, talkin’ like rap ghetto speak man, like, I mean he talks like Ice T on steroids.

    Ridiculous.

    Posted by Bonmot on 2008 01 08 at 11:57 PM • permalink

  37. #36 So Bonmot, is it a hit or a miss?

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 01 09 at 12:18 AM • permalink

  38. G’day Ash
    Mixed review. Excellent sfx - Times Square with lions prowling around etc. is exceptional.

    Plot well, is overcooked - it’s a straight remake of The Omega Man. It’s a bit like Planet of The Apes, it’s got mutants and zombies, and a rap talking scientist. Nothing new here. Move along folks.
    Wait till it comes to DVD.

    Posted by Bonmot on 2008 01 09 at 12:33 AM • permalink

  39. G’day Bonmot, thanks for the tip. I hate wasting money on movies I should have waited to come out on DVD.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 01 09 at 12:43 AM • permalink

  40. Perhaps Traceee reads best when accompanied with interpretive dance.
    Unless, of course, English isn’t her native language. 
    In which case she should be applauded for trying so hard.
    #36
    Does it end the same way as the book?

    Posted by lotocoti on 2008 01 09 at 12:53 AM • permalink

  41. “My country” was written in 1904-5 and published in 1908. Did they have Global Warming and Climate Change then?

    Posted by McAnzac on 2008 01 09 at 01:21 AM • permalink

  42. #41
    No, no. In those days it was just the weather. And it was normal.

    Posted by kae on 2008 01 09 at 01:24 AM • permalink

  43. I wish one of our resident wordsmiths would do a 21st century updated version of “My Country.”
      Hint.

    Posted by spot_the_dog on 2008 01 09 at 01:46 AM • permalink

  44. There’s nothing new about the Aussie climate. See another poem, Said Hanrahan, by John O’Brien, published in 1921. It’s humorous to those who aren’t scared by Chicken Little.

    Posted by Angela Bell on 2008 01 09 at 02:58 AM • permalink

  45. #21 Thanks for that. Interesting how both Australia and South Africa both have iconic poems about what a tough bitch of a place the country is but we wouldn’t swap it for anything else.

    Posted by jpaulg on 2008 01 09 at 03:15 AM • permalink

  46. #22 Paco, I missed this:

    I think the choppy format is because she thinks

    Ok. That’s your mistake right there.

    Posted by kae on 2008 01 09 at 03:18 AM • permalink

  47. The first three paragraphs are appalling - she repeats the same stuff in para 1 that she mentions in para 1 and para 2(quoted above) only makes sense if you read it a few time very slowly.

    I didn’t bother with the rest.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 09 at 04:29 AM • permalink

  48. You know what? I’ll just repost. (Too tired to riposte)

    She repeats the same stuff in para 3 that she mentions in para 1. Para 2 - hard to understand unless you read it very slowly.


    There - I’ve proofread it properly.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 09 at 04:32 AM • permalink

  49. #9. What you said.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 09 at 04:33 AM • permalink

  50. #28 Your comment reminded me - Catherine Deveny’s got a book out. There’s a complimentary comment on the cover by Rove McManus. He includes the word “funny” in his comment.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 09 at 04:39 AM • permalink

  51. 36-38: This was on my list of movies to see until I saw the name of Akiva Goldsman in the script credits. Mr Goldsman has added stupid to such cinema classics as the Lost In Space movie and Batman and Robin. If the writer’s strike in Hollywood is keeping him away from the typewriter then some good is definitely coming of it.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 09 at 06:18 AM • permalink

  52. #38 - I thought “The Omega Man” was based on a book written in the 1960’s called “I am legend”.....

    Posted by mr creosote on 2008 01 09 at 06:18 AM • permalink

  53. 52 - Exactly right. This is the third movie based on the book. The Omega Man was the second; The Last Man On Earth with Vincent Price was the first.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 09 at 06:26 AM • permalink

  54. I Am Legend actually scraped home with me. There were some pleasant plot deviations from the Hollywood norms. It almost harked back to the good old days.

    The main character is a soldier who isn’t the at the centre of, or uncovering, a military/industrial complex plot, or right wing conspiracy. This soldier is actually the hope and solution for the problem.

    Surprisingly, civilian scientists are responsible for creating the zombies and not the military ones. Also, no commercially motivated, superfluous love scenes to broaden appeal.

    Although there are several wobbly bits of internal logic, the scenes of an abandoned city make up for it. The CG zombies however, are not scary. Kinda like a hippy pacifist telling you he’s gonna kick your arse.

    Posted by Penguin on 2008 01 09 at 07:43 AM • permalink

  55. This is the third movie based on the book.

    Fourth, actually.  There’s also I am Omega (which looks like crap, but I’ll watch any Marc Dacascos movie in the hope he’ll take his shirt off).

    Posted by Achillea on 2008 01 09 at 10:37 AM • permalink

  56. It’s a short story, folks, not a novel. Richard Matheson, one hell of a writer.

    Posted by mojo on 2008 01 09 at 11:44 AM • permalink

  57. Achillea, I Am Omega sounds rather cheap and nasty. This movie on the other hand…

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 09 at 04:07 PM • permalink

  58. #26,27, don’t forget the dolphins.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 01 09 at 04:40 PM • permalink

  59. Swinish, ‘Cheap and nasty?’  From your lips ...

    Posted by Achillea on 2008 01 09 at 04:50 PM • permalink

  60. Okay, okay! I retract that statement.
    Never argue with a man who’s holding an axe and smeared all over with blue paint - something my grandmother taught me many years ago.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 09 at 04:58 PM • permalink

  61. #54 Penguin—Aw, no “superfluous love scenes”?

    Damn, with Will Smith in it and dialog such as Bonmot reports, it coulda been titled like another “end-of-world” book/movie:

    On the Bitch

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 09 at 09:47 PM • permalink

  62. (crickets…)

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 09 at 09:48 PM • permalink

  63. “I Am Legend” was almost ruined by the dreaded CGI.

    Really, why do filmmakers rely on this crap so much? When done well, and depicting monsters (“Jurassic Park”, “The Host”), it’s great. But it can’t model human motions (they look rubbery) or familiar machines (like the scene in “Enemy at the Gates” where the Russians are attacked by cartoon Stukas.)

    The “zombies” in “I Am Legend” were basically bald, grey-skinned people. How much could it have cost to make-up extras like that? Instead we get Will Smith attacked by a group of - Gollums. Rubbery, goofy Gollums. What should have been terrifying was just dumb.

    That said, it’s a good movie because Will Smith is in it. And there are some knock-out scenes.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 01 10 at 02:55 AM • permalink

  64. Oh, yeah, and #61 was funny.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 01 10 at 02:56 AM • permalink

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