Yeah nearly that time again, I didn't even know about the game.

My son was discharged from hospital this afternoon, and returns to Melbourne on Tuesday.

He looks a lot like Herman Munster in his halo, but, he is up walking around, and in good spirits.

Pete

Pete, have you heard about the bushfire here yesterday arvo? Not sure if they would report
on it in Qld or not.

I was driving home from Ballarat from a birthday party yesterday afternoon, and I could see this massive
great big cloud of smoke, coming from this way. I have to tell you it was one of the most stressful and scariest times I have ever had, - the closer I got, the bigger it got, the sky was blocked and everything looked a brown and orange colour. Anyway, turns out it wasn't here, but started in Snake Valley, and was heading here. We
were put on alert, but after awhile it was heading Scarsdale/Smythesdale way. Then overnight it changed again, and 6 houses have been lost in Haddon. I think a lot of Nintingbool was burnt too, but no houses.

Last I heard over 700 firefighters were there, and 800 hectares had been burnt out. No livestock lost so far, it was all bushland and pine forests. We had some rain overnight, thank goodness, because they said last
night it was totally out of control, and was being fuelled by winds of 32km hour. Anyway, winds died down and they apparently now have control.


Anyway, because of your ties to the area, thought you might be interested. Hope all is well with your Aunty.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl,
Wow that was a close call, I will telephone my Auntie today, and, get the story from her.

People that have never seen an Aussie bushfire could not imagine what it is like. Our native trees are almost all eucalypts, and when I fire comes through, the trees give of a gas hat is explosive.

Fanned by strong winds, the fire travels at enormous speed through the tree tops.

Thank you for the info Cheryl, and I am glad that you are safe, oh and a belated happy birthday.

Pete

Thanks for the birthday wish Pete, but my birthday was last September

Sorry A.F. I misread your post, at first I thought you said you were returning from your birthdat party, anyhow, better late than never.

Pete

Wow an Aussie thread, why didnt i see this earlier.

Hi everyone, im from SA

Welcome Joey 85,
You may have the honour of being our first "crow eater". We have all been a little slack lately, letting this good bond we have slip away a little.

Enjoy your time here Joey, nothing is taken seriously, and, judging by your great Avatar, you need to call into the Avatar thread, and enjoy a coldie at the very Aussie MMG bar and grill.


Pete

Hi Joey

Welcome to our Aussie Thread

Whereabouts in SA?

I'm in Vic.

Cheryl

Hey Cheryl & Pete

I live in Brighton, just south of adelaide.

Thanks for the welcome

Hi Joey.

Justin from Brisbane here....

What's that weird growth on your avatar's eye?

Looks like she's a good candidate for some anti-fungal cream, methinks.

Ignore him Joey, Justin's just jealous, or, have you been peeping through keyholes?

Pete

Have you been hibernating Justin?

welcome ,plz be quickly.

Yoda, call me they do.

hey Justin,


still waiting for more pics


sorry for being offtopic, but it's hard to find him outside the aussiethread

Hope, you are doing fine, Mel

Hey all you Aussies,
Today we found the 5th snake of the summer in our complex, kinda makes you want to wear gumboots day and night. We have a larege canal develoement in front of us and about 5 acres of rainforest behind us, snake heaven.

After killing one in the kitchen in early summer, I have been a little tentative walking around barefoot at night.

We have a number of green tree frogs around, as we have water, and I guess this rings the dinner bell.

Pete

Speaking of Snakes....

A friend of mine was bitten by a Tiger Snake (one of the most venomous snakes in Aus) right in front of me!!

We tournequed his leg, and made sure to leave the biten ankle alone. He collapsed on the way to my car ... midnight, raining, ... managed to get him into the car, and he remained consious the whole time. Sweat pouring from him, and he described his halusinations all the time I drove the windy dirt road track to the main highway, then booted it to the nearest hospital. In one town along the way I stopped beside a Chubb Security guard and told him to call the hospital .... So, on arrival they were all ready for us.
They positively identified the bite as being a Tiger Snake .... The doctor had never administered anti-venine, and was reading the instructions on the box!

He Survived

Lucky man, lots dont.

Pete

Hi everybody.

I haven't posted in this thread before (not being from Oz) but I see a lot of familiar faces here so I thought I'd drop in for a chat.

This morning (UK time) I was casually watching the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games when suddenly The Church came on and played Under the Milky Way. Brilliant. As soon as the TV coverage was over, I dusted down my copy of Starfish and gave it a couple of plays.

I remember going into one of our local second-hand CD shops in the early 90s and the owner was playing the track Metropolis from Gold Afternoon Fix. I did not know who it was but I was hooked by this track and asked who was singing it. He showed me the CD and said they were an Australian group and might be difficult to find. I had heard a track by The Church back in the 80s but had never really followed them up.

Listening to Metropolis was one of those life-changing moments. I often wonder how different my life might have been if I had walked into the shop five minutes later and had missed hearing that track. I made it my mission to collect every CD that The Church produced. Some of the later stuff is perhaps more of an acquired taste but there are always some good tracks; the early stuff is superb - Unguarded Moment (Skins and Heart) and Almost With You (The Blurred Crusade) with its wonderful Spanish guitar solo are perhaps my favourite tracks.

So it was real nostalgia for me today while watching TV.

I like music from all over the place (I collect a lot from Norway and Sweden these days) but I love Aussie groups - starting with The Easybeats and The Seekers way back, Olivia Newton-John, Rick Springfield, Skyhooks, Little River Band, Men At Work, INXS, Diesel, Jimmy Barnes, The Cruel Sea, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, Crowded House (OK - part NZ) through to Powderfinger, Silverchair, Savage Garden and The Vines. I guess there are lots I don't know about as well.

Back in the 90s I had the good fortune to see Midnight Oil in concert in Glasgow, Crowded House and AC/DC in Aberdeen. The AC/DC concert was something else, just superb.

Anyway, enough Reminiscing (LRB) for the moment. Time to enjoy my Gold Afternoon Fix again.

Oh, almost forgot to add how wonderful the Commonwealth Games opening Ceremony went.......did everyone else love it as much as I did? I thought it was fantastic, especially with the inclusion of the Yarra River..............had I known all that was going to happen, we would've gone down. I thought Melbourne looked absolutely beautiful, I would imagine that people who haven't been to Melbourne, would now like to visit
Remember any interested people, my Husband coached Jared Tallent (racewalker) for a good many years before the Australian Institute of Sport pinched him a couple of years back . So if you watch, cheer him on, we'll be there, my kids are so excited because Jared being a family friend, makes it so much more interesting and exciting for them.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl

Did they do "Howzat"? I loved that single but I don't know anything else by them. I feel a new mission looming - a Sherbet hunt.

I enjoyed the Opening Ceremony, it was a great show. To start with I was only half-watching, but when they said The Church were going to play Under The Milky Way, I turned the volume up and sat glued to the rest of it. The fireworks at the end were spectacular.

Yes, they did sing Howzat!! They were around the same time as Skyhooks, and there was a real rivalry b/w skyhooks and sherbert fans. You either liked one or the other, NEVER both. Publicly, I was Sherbert, but privately, I loved Skyhooks too.

Very sad Shirley (Graham) Strachan was killed so young.

Go on your Sherbert Hunt.........I'd upload some songs for you....lol....but mine are all on vinyl......hopefully you might be pleasantly surprised.

Cheryl.

Hi Cake,
Very interestin that someone from theU.K. has such an encyclopedic knowledge of Aussie music, I had completely forgotten about The Church, until the other day when I heard "under the milky way".

I remember them best from the 70's, but don't remember, any particular songs, I can remember a real acoustic prescence with violins etc.

We have had a real revival of 70's players lately doing smaller club circuits, I have managed to see:

James Reyne (Ex Australian Crawl)

Russell Morris (3 times)

Brian Cadd (3 times)

And Ian Moss (ex Cold Chisel)

In the comfort of my own club, playing to an audience of only a couple of hundred.

Consequently, I have been downloading a lot of their material from "Lime Wire", and it is amazing just how much of their work is available.
I have a 200WPC Bose system hooked up to my laptop, so I get soundstage like sound while I work.

Pete

That's interesting info, Cheryl. Sherbet were just a one-hit-wonder in the UK. I just checked my Guinness Book of UK Hit Singles - Howzat was in the charts for 10 weeks reaching number 4 back in 76. But nothing else reached us. I don't remember Skyhooks doing anything, though the book says they were in the charts for 1 week at position number 73 back in 79 with Women in Uniform - but this song only really became popular with the Iron Maiden cover version a year later.

The first I heard of Skyhooks was when a mate who worked for the local paper got free copies of LPs to review. He gave me a bundle of LPs from 79 which he didn't want and the best ones were Molly Hatchet and Skyhooks (Guilty until proven insane). I don't think many Brits would have heard of Skyhooks though lots could do a rousing chorus of Howzat. I loved the Skyhooks LP which included Women in uniform, Trouble with the computer (how apt!!), and the hilarious Why dontcha all get *ucked.

I got this on CD some years back along with Straight in a gay gay world and Hot for the orient which were going quite cheap in Tower Records, Glasgow - they used to have a great import section with a lot of bargains and I bought a lot of Church stuff there. Sadly the Glasgow shop looked like it was closing down the last time I was there - the import section was away and it was no longer the ideal destination for a day's CD shopping trip to the other side of the country.


Hi Pete

I guess I've always tried to keep up with "interesting music" and a lot of Aussie stuff comes into that category for me. Being a collector at heart, if I get interested in a singer or group, I like to collect everything they do, solo albums and offshoots as well. As well as a good Church collection I also have Steve Kilbey solos, Jack Frost, The Refo:mation etc etc.

Sometimes the best concerts are in the pubs, clubs and small theatres. You don't get deafened in the small places and you actually get to see the people close up.

I remember going to Kirkcaldy with a pal to see Nils Lofgren in a small theatre with about 200 people - it was sheer magic. We just came out of the theatre at the end and said to one another, "Did we really just see Nils Lofgren? Imagine him coming to a wee place like Kirkcaldy!"

Happy days.....


The snow has stopped now, I'll maybe go out for a walk. See you later.

Hi, it's me up here in Canada just popping into your thread here if you don't mind too much ........I 'd like to say Hi to all the Australian MMG members from all of us up North of the 49th Paralel.

Reading your posts is fun and informative !!

Pete , I hope your son is doing better. I am the Father of 2 sons, 21 and 25 years old.

Well, I gotta go and read some more.

Take care !!

This is scary Cake,
My first Mother in Law comes from Kircaldy, emigrated to Australia in the 1930's, the old girl is in her 90's now.

Pete

Thank you for your concern, he is doing very well, he will be wearing a "Halo Brace" for another 8 weeks,
followed by a neck brace for a month, but, he's alive, and mending.

Pete

Hey Hey Hey !

Aussies you are letting the team down !

Have we all become so serious that we can't find the time to spend together?

Let's bring this thread back to page 1

Pete

What can I say, we rock
Nice to be back in Aus, some things I miss from overseas but I shall enjoy my time back here
Wide open spaces...... no stress

This has been an interesting week for us Queenslanders, with cyclone Larry decimating the far North, first ever category five to cross the Queensland coast in history (recorded history that is).

And right behind Larry is cyclone Wati, many times bigger, but, still only a category 3, but maybe intensifying.

95% of Australia's banana industry has been wiped out, and our sugar cane farmers, looking forward to the best prices in 10 long hard years, have been wiped out days before the harvest.

Imagine a category 5 with winds of 290kmh hitting a highly populated area, the loss of life and propert would be impossible to guess. Luckily the Far North of Australia is relatively low in population.

Pete

Yes, the price of bananas here in Sydney has sky-rocketed, from three dollars a kilo to over six dollars.

Banana prices will rise, but Innisfail did not hold 95% of the banana industry as reported....anyone who has travelled Australia's east coast knows they are grown in large amounts in the Coffs Harbour region as well as many other places north of there...

Majority of the bananas grown in Innisfail are sold within Australia where as in other areas, majority are exported. It will take time for prices to fall back to where they were before Cyclone Larry hit, but we are not out of bananas or anywhere near as the press is making people believe. It is sad for the growers in the effected areas as they held the market and now it leaves it wide open for other farmers to step in, and to take that back in years to come as new crops come to fruitation will be a struggle.

Sugarcane farmers have been struggling for the past 6 years or so...first year the crops have been worth anything and now they lose it all. It's a tough life being a farmer.

I have an Aunt up there, heard from her as the eye of the cyclone was sitting over them, haven't heard from her since....

Have not heard of any loss of life, mandatory evacution was definately a good thing even if people were not happy at the time. No looting either. Way to stick together Aussies.

The cyclone sounds terrible. Nature at it's cruellest again. Terribly sad for the farmers, but they are at the hands of nature!!

I haven't heard that much about it, with the Commonwealth Games, school holidays, and I have a nasty cold, can't say I've watched the news, or even read the papers much!!!

Hope all our MMG Queenslanders are unaffected, and can carry on as usual

Cheryl

Well cant say they are $6 here outside of Brisbane Last I saw at Woolies yesterday was $3.98 a kilo and probably more today Guess I'll have to hold off from eating them for a while.

Wow,there is so jollification....


Are all the people said for "Thread from Aussies".
What the meaning of "Thread from Aussies".
Who can tell me ?
I think there are go-getters district.But I'm a jackeroo .

Man you completely lost me, not sure what you're asking here

Me too

Pete

My English is so poor .

I'm only want to know what is the topic talk about .

Its a thread for people from Australia.

I don't know the word of "thread". Is it the same as "think" ？？？

Hello HYIPdoing

Everytime a new topic is started, it is called a 'Thread'.

If you read all the topics under the heading 'General Chat' , then all of those topics are Threads.

This is the Australian Thread, for us Aussies, but you are very welcome to join us, as is everyone else.

Hope this makes it easier for you to understand.

Cheryl

Thread is the name that is given to a new topic when after it has been posted, there are a number of replies. The fact that this topic gets longer and longer, and all the posts have a similar subject, in this case things to do with Australia, resembles a thread or a string.

So we call it a thread.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Sorry Cheryl, we were both typing at the same time.

Well, he should understand now

Im sure he does
Nice to see some action in here guys!

I am just watching the evening news, they have just shown a picture of an enormous coconut palm with a piece of wood driven right through he trunk, through the force of the wind.

The power of nature is an incredible thing.

Pete

Saw a photo in the local paper this a.m. showing a banana plantation.

Very tragic.

Then someone trying to add a touch of humour - a local juice bar with a sign,

YES, we have NO banana's

Now the other side of Australia is getting slapped about by a severe tropical cyclone. I have a friend over in Karatha living in a caravan. She emptied it out yesterday and is staying with some friends. Her greatest fear was that exmouth would take a direct hit where her house is which is only 6 months old and very low laying, luckily it looks like it will drop to category 2 by the time it reaches there on it's current track.

Karatha is still expected to be hit with damaging winds and a heap of rain, fingers crossed it continues on it's current track and hits very mildly populated areas.

A.F. I love you like a sister, however after last night's debacle,when Essendon hammered my beloved swans, I may have to rethink the situation.

I always thought Mathew LLoyd was a gigantic poof, and now I'm sure of it, seriously what kind of relationship do you think he has with the umpire?

I did hear that after the game Mathew,dressed in a party frock was seen leaving the stadium arm in arm with 4 umpires, clutching a cask of sherry, and,giggling.

A.F. this is very distressing stuff, Barry Hall reckons, after one of those infront of goal frees, he heard the umpire say to matty,"gis a kiss Matty", Matty replied, "later ducky."

Now Big Bazza, is not one to tell porky pies. HHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.



Pete

Aawwwww.....poor Pete



Pete, you gotta get a grip on reality mate, you sure you weren't watching a skit on the footy show now??


Ahhhh, dont you just love footy season????!!!!!!!

We had to go to a wedding Saturday and on a table of 12, 10 of us follow the bombers!!

LOL....the other two, well, 2 bob snobs if ever you saw one........we had 2 people with mobile phones getting regular 5 minute updates, plus a few sneaks into the bar to check out the big screen..............sorry I missed the game, but we had fun. Can't say the other two did.

I'd like to say sorry about you're 'beloved swannies' hehe, but I'm not.

And just for you, I am about to change my Avatar.

AUSSIE RULES - BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!