Happy Australia Day tomorrow ...

... or in fact 'today' because it is already 26th January on that part of the planet! Happy Australia Day! to any antipodean readers who may pass this way!

(shamelessly 'filched' from Brenton on his Aussielicious website)

Burning Man 2012

I had never heard of Burning Man until a year or two ago, and through the same link in Australia that got me to the really lovely video below of this year's event. Burning Man is a week-long annual event in Nevada (USA) "described by many participants as an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance". Read more here. I'm including this video because it is visually arresting and seems to capture the surrealistic nature of this event:

(thru Brenton at aussielicious)

The sincerest (if perhaps underhand) form of flattery ...

... is to confuse buyers into supposing that your product comes from a nation that has proved very successful in producing a very satisfactory product you once thought yourselves uniquely qualified to manufacture. Or, how a French wine sought, subliminally, to pass itself of as a New Zealand produced wine. Sound far-fetched?

Well, click here to read about how Loire Valley-based firm Lacheteau labelled one of its wines as something called "Kiwi Cuvee", mainly destined for export to wine consumers in the UK who, in recent years, have becoome very partial to New World wines, largely because of their consistency and relatively modest cost, when compared with the traditionally superior, but somewhat 'mercurial', wines from France at whatever price level, apart perhaps from those at the very top of the price-tree. Problems arose when the French firm tried to register its product in Australia, outside of the political control of the European Union, and the New Zealand Winemakers Association objected to the registration.

A little bit of internet searching turned up this pretty conclusive 'evidence' from French website Vitisphere.com:

(26/11/2001) André Lacheteau, négociant en Val de Loire SURTITRE André Lacheteau, négoce Lacheteau SA à Doué-La-Fontaine (49), est Président de l'AFED (Association française des négociants-éleveurs embouteilleurs distributeurs). Interview de André Lacheteau Comment analysez-vous les difficultés actuelles des vins français sur le marché export ? Tout d’abord, il n’y a pas un marché, mais des marchés du vin. Je crois surtout que le système des Appellations d’Origine Contrôlées manque de crédibilité pour le cœur de gamme. Normalement, ce devrait être des vins de terroir difficilement reproductibles ailleurs. Or, depuis trente ans, il s’est produit une déviation sur les génériques. Les Bordeaux et Côtes du Rhône proviennent d’assemblages de différents terroirs et n’ont pas, au final, les caractéristiques d’un produit inimitable. Il faut donc trouver un statut à ces vins de cœur de marché, afin qu’ils aient des règles de production comme les vins de pays et les vins de cépages. Il est nécessaire d’assouplir la réglementation et les pratiques œnologiques, pour pouvoir lutter à armes égales avec nos compétiteurs étrangers. Sur le plan des copeaux par exemple, je suis favorable à ce qu’ils soient autorisés pour les vins autres qu’AOC. Une réglementation sur l’étiquetage devrait bientôt voir le jour… Pourquoi ne pas en profiter pour libéraliser la réglementation sur les vins de pays et de cépages ? Vous parlez d’une offre française atomisée et de restructurer les entreprises commerciales… En effet. Le regroupement des moyens de commercialisation est indispensable. Il faut des aides pour améliorer le marketing et rassembler les multiples petites structures qui "polluent" le marché export. Pourquoi ne pas les réunir au sein d’une grande entreprise ? Cela permettrait d’éclaircir l’offre. Comment, en Val de Loire, envisagez-vous de surmonter cette crise ? En Val de Loire, on ne ressent pas trop la crise viticole. Hormis sur le gamay, qui souffre du même mal que les vins de table français… Mais correspond-il au goût d’aujourd’hui ? Ne faudrait-il pas planter du cabernet sauvignon ? Les vins blancs et rosés marchent mieux que les rouges, en ce moment. Nous venons de créer une "Kiwi Cuvée" à destination de la Grande-Bretagne. Ce VDP du Jardin de la France, sauvignon, est un complet succès, alors que le marché du sauvignon est assez tendu. L’idée marketing y est pour beaucoup. Son nom a d’ailleurs provoqué un article polémique dans le Financial Times… Mais est ce qu’une certaine viticulture est aujourd’hui capable de faire ces produits destinés à l’export ? En fait, il y a beaucoup d’apporteurs de raisins au négoce. Il faut donc favoriser les contrats et la sécurisation des approvisionnements pour les négociants. Si les viticulteurs vendaient du moût plutôt qu’un produit fini, cela règlerait aussi le problème de la qualité. Car un des drames actuels de la viticulture française est que les producteurs élaborent des vins dont personne ne veut !

- It is of course a very logical and sensible strategy to try to match the product with the tastes of today's consumer. And the strategy of using a name such as 'Kiwi' in the UK market is perhaps understandable, given this country's close emotional and historic ties with New Zealand.

The big irony for me in this whole affair is the focus on the word 'Kiwi' which is, of course, in the minds of many, synonymous with New Zealand. Hitstorically the name referred to the Kiwi, the smallest living ratite and a national symbol of New Zealand, being native to that country. In addition, which British child, and indeed those in many other countries throughout the world, hasn't grown up knowing the name Kiwi shoe polish a product originally developed in Australia (not New Zealand), but given this name by its Australian 'inventor' to honour the home country of his wife. The even bigger irony is that the ubiquitous 'Kiwi fruit', probably the product which most of today's younger people are most familiar with which uses that name and which is commonly-supposed to have some connection with New Zealand, in fact has absolutely no historic connnection with that country except that it was brought there from China by an evangelist preacher. For marketing purposes in the 1950s the original names 'macaque peach', 'melonette' or worse still 'Chinese gooseberry' were not considered suitable, so the completely fictitious name of 'kiwifruit' was coined and is now used worldwide. So the largely-unknown to most people Kiwi bird, genuinely of New Zealland origin, and the much more widely-known 'kiwifruit', which has absolutely no more to do with New Zealand than I do, is being used to to justify a court-ruling in a case brought in Australia by New Zealand interests, with Australia being the home of another false-usage of the name 'Kiwi'. It's about as logical as the case in Scotland many years ago when a cafe-owner by the name of 'McDonald' was taken to court, and lost, in a case brought by the ubiquitous American fast-food firm 'McDonalds', originally started by two US-based brothers called McDonalds, but who sold the firm to a marketing genius called Ray Kroc in 1955; try as I might I have been unable to find out much about the antecedents of Mr Kroc, but I think it safe to say it is unlikely they were Scottish - lol.

The point of all this? What it boils down to is the commercial importance of names in marketing and the perceived need to protect certain names used to sell products, irrespective of the underlying qualities of the products being peddled. In this case the name 'Kiwi' has been found unexceptional in France's back yard, the rest of the EU, but has been black-balled in another spehere of influence on the other side of the planet. Who has 'right' on their side in this case is entirely a metter of perspective; for myself I have no real opinion to offer. I'm sure the wine itself is pleasant enough to drink, but that seems to have been completely side-lined in this particular dispute.

Child migrants and the 'apologies'

I've known about the programme to transfer 'British stock' from the UK to Australia, at least partly in support of Australia's 'White Australia' policy at the time, for quite a few years. It always seemed to me to be, when I first heard with incredulity what had been done and made an effort to find out a little more about it, a discreditable period in the history of both the UK and Australia. As I write this, we are just waiting in the next hour for an announcement in Canberra from Australian Prime Minister Rudd, in which he is expected to issue an apology to the migrant children on behalf of the Australian Government and nation. Other countries in the 'white Commonwealth', for example Canada, were also recipients of these children I gather.

It is thought that our own Prime Minister may issue a similar apology on behalf of the British Government and nation in the near future, too. It is possible also that the claims for compensation from some of the now middle-aged to elderly migrants may be granted. It seems clear that at least some of the children were lied to at the time when they were told that their parents had died so there was no home for them to return to; the children involved were I understand almost entirely inhabitants at the time of orphanages in the UK, for various reasons. It is certainly clear that many of the children did not go to the 'better lives' that had been held out to them as their future, but to be treated as little better than indentured labour in low-grade jobs in remote spots of a strange land from which they had no way out; some were also abused in various ways, it seems. The educational opportunities afforded them were also, at best, mediocre in many cases it seems, thus consigning them to the likelihood of limited futures.

I've read in a few blogs today varying opinions about the merits of issuing an apology, mostly negative, on the basis that any apology of this nature is hollow because the present government and Prime Minister is certainly not responsible for what was done in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. This is undoubtedly completely true; I don't like Labour or Gordon Brown, but even I would admit readily that it has nothing to do with today's Labour Party or our current Prime Minister persnally. Any more than Australian PM Kevin Rudd can in any way be considered responsible at a personal level, nor can the present Australian government.

Some recent apologies issued in various countries have indeed been largely meaningless, because they touched on matters which are now so far back in history that no one living today has any personal memory of the activities for which the apologies were being issued - for example slavery in the US, or the treatment of some native Americans by the US government.

However, many of the 'victims' of the child migration policy are still very much alive, as are one imagines many of the public and elected officials in both the UK and Australia who were responsible for putting the policy in place, as well I expect as many of those organisations, such as charities in both countries, who were charged with carrying out the policy. So an apology by both governments is not in any way meaningless to those involved, particularly the children affected by the policy. The same might be said of the apology some years ago by the US government in respect of US citizens during World War II who were of Japanese origin and who were, after 'Pearl Harbour', interned by the US authorities; many of the US citizens of Japanese origin were 2nd or 3rd generation US-born.

In summary, my view is that an apology today by Rudd and/or Brown is not a hollow gesture, but a necessary correction of a seriously defective, cruel and fundamentally wicked policy even if in theory it was not totally 'evil' in intent, whilst accepting (as I do) that it was undertaken with motives which rest on somewhat shaky moral ground. Mind you such politically-motivated migrations have occurred often in human history, some in quite recent times (e.g. the encouragement given to Metropolitan French to colonise Algeria when it was under French control, or the similar encoouragement given by the British Government for British citizens to colonise Kenya when it was a British colony. Today there is an even greater ongoing migration of people which has been going on for some years with the migrants concerned being strongly encouraged (not to say shoved on boats and planes) to move - I am speaking about the policy of the Indonesian government to ease the over-population on the island of Java by shipping large numbers of people to the much less densely-populated islands of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi as well as various other islands in the Indonesian archipelago; Sumatra for example, being much closer to neighbour Malaysia is in theory at risk, over the longer term, of territorial incurson because of its abundant natural resources, as well as of internal political dissension because of the ethnic make-up of its own population. There are many sources of information about this - see here and here for example, not to mention the related potential extraordinary project discussed here.

To come back, though, to the child migration from the UK to Australia I am currently (16NOV 00.15 GMT) watching the live apology from Australian PM Rudd in a large hall before a great number of the affected migrants and their families; a very moving occasion indeed.

Finally, I have absolutely no personal stake in this issue, but ever since I first became aware of this UK-Australia child migration project in the post-war period I have been troubled by some memories from my early childhood. At the first primary school I attended, which was in the Newhaven area of Edinburgh (we, my brother and I, lived in a distant part of Edinburgh, but made the journey across the city each day to attend this school for reaons we needn't go into here) and one of my class-mates and friends from when I first went there (a few months before my 5th birthday) until I was about 7 1/2 was a boy who was an orphan and who lived in a Barnardo's home not far away from the school. Occasionally I would visit the home with him after school (they were apparently encouraged to have friends visit) and as a child I thought no more about it; he was simply a class-mate and someone whom I liked as a school-friend; without being immodest we were probably the two cleverest boys in our class. Anyway, one day he didn't turn up at school and I asked the teacher where he was - she said he had 'gone away'. A few days later I decided to visit the home to ask after him and can still remember (I was less than 8 then) the seeming 'evasion' in the response I got. Of course he may simply have gone back to his real family, but I have occasionally wondered, since I heard about the migration policy sometime in the 1980s, if he might have been one of those involved. I'm afraid I do not even remember my friend's name, so it is unlikely I would ever be able to find out what did happen to him. At the time, of course, I had no real idea of anything to do with such matters - I doubt if I really had any idea about where places I had seen on maps, such as America, Canada, India, South Africa or Australia, were. Happy and generally contented as my childhood was, this is one minor niggle that I occasionally ponder on - today's apology in Australia has brought this whole subject back into my consciousness; the time-frame I am recalling is the period from about mid-1957 to late-1959, so it is certainly within the relevant dates when this policy was in force.

Nanny-State Netherlands says 'No!'

From a British perspective it sometimes seems that we have the most complete 'nanny-state' in the world (why, there's even a blog dedicated to the premise), but we have a close rival in the Netherlands, whose government apparatus has stepped in to prevent a 13 (going on 14) year old girl from launching her attempt to sail solo around the world. Here are a few excerpts from the BBC report which illustrate perfectly the suffocating effect on a young person's courage, when even the judge admits her sailing-skills are not in question:

Judges at the Utrecht district court said Ms Dekker's sailing skills were not in question. But they said her safety plan was not fully developed and that she had no experience with sleep management.

- the final sentence really takes the biscuit! Just how much 'experience' do the judges at the Utrecht district court have with this thing called 'sleep management'? And just what does this thing about her safety plan not being fully developed mean? Not all risks can, or necessarily should, be ironed out before anyone steps out of their front doors in the morning. I might be involved in an accident later this morning when I go out in my car to do some shopping; perhaps this (I hope!) non-existent accident will be 'my fault', or perhaps not. Does that mean I should just stay in bed all day, to avoid the risk?

Interestingly just yesterday Prince Edward's off-the-cuff and perfectly reasonable if infelicitously-expressed comments (about the untimely death of a young person walking in the bush in Australia) seem to have sparked off both remarks about 'another Royal gaffe' in the style of his father The Duke of Edinburgh, who started the 'Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme', but also challenging the [obvious to me] fact that some young people do seek out thrills and yes, DANGER, quite deliberately. There are other points of view, however. Poor Price Edward - his youthful folly with the "It's a knock-out" games is never likely to be forgotten, nor his petulance when criticised for the flop it turned out to be. But however clumsily he may have expressed himself recently in Australia, I think youngsters do relish a certain element of 'risk' and being taken out of their usual 'comfort zones'. It's just a pity that 'the State' seems to want populations to be totally-insulated and docile 'consumers' unable to think for themselves or to do (or be allowed to do) anything for themselves. Would we have ever travelled to what is now the United States or Australia, for example, if the explorers who undertook those quite dangerous expeditions (not to say fatal for some of the early pioneers!) had not had the courage to sail off in pretty small and flimsy craft with none of the modern technologies we take for granted such as GPS or satellite-internet? With this attitude is it ever likely we'll make a return visit to the moon, never mind attempt visits to Mars and beyond?! Rant ends ...

Finally, I wish the young Dutch person mentioned at the beginning of this article every success when she finally manages to escape the clutches of the Dutch 'State' next summer.

Romance and the art of wooing, Australian outback style

The mayor of a remote town in northern Queensland has a novel way of trying to restore the severe gender imbalance in the local population. No doubt there will be thousands, and if not thousands then hundreds, and if not hundreds then tens - OK, perhaps there'll be a few lovelies from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth and other points south who will flock to the town in the hope of finding a husband. Which among them could resist this sales-pitch?

Mayor of Mount Isa (Queensland), John Molony: "Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness. Some, in other places in Australia, need to proceed to Mount Isa where happiness awaits. Really, beauty is only skin deep. Isn't there a fairy tale about an ugly duckling that evolves into a beautiful swan."

I'm sure you'll agree this is pretty heroic stuff! Perhaps poorly expressed, but the gender imbalance does seem pretty extreme (819 females aged 20-24 out of a total population of 21,421) and poverty is obviously not the problem, as the place sits above "one of the world's biggest underground mines", but I daresay the remoteness and harsh climate is a difficulty. All joking apart though, maybe someone needs to help the mayor refine his ideas, rather than simply laugh him down - he's obviously only trying to improve the local situation for young men in the area, not to mention the long-term viability of settlement there.

More Australian satire: 'Holy Homosexuals'!

My last post prompted me to look on YouTube to see if there were any more online sketches from this Australian television comedy show and it's a rich seam!

This one shows the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, being waylaid by an interviewer trying to get clarification about some of the things written in the Bible:



It's amazing how the spectacle-wearing Jensen conveniently wants to ignore that other verse in the Bible, isn't it? There's lots of other inconsistencies in that 'novel' for anyone who cares to look. Once more I suggest you read the captions floating along the bottom, too.

Scientific breakthrough: Christian gene isolated ...

... leaving open the possibility that this 'affliction' can be eliminated ... worried parents delighted!

This very amusing satire is aparently a sketch from an Australian comedy show. Don't forget to read the captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen; some quite witty observations there, too. Yes indeed, believers in 'imaginary friends' everywhere will be alarmed by this research!



(thru the very naughty Aussielicious, one of my favourite reads of late)

Midweek YouTube - Spoof Australian tourism ad.

Not quite what the tourism folks 'down under' had in mind when they launched their recent ad. campaign to encourage visitors to Australia.