Cut To The Credits

It’s finally finished, the Mid-Course exams that have plagued me like Russian tourists plague the children of the Nile are over. I apprehensively started Modern History, moved on to the dynamo of stress which was Advanced History and then relaxed dramatically for a one hour story about internally machinations in a socialist UK for Extension 1. The angst meter dipped up briefly for German, before finally coming through to French, which was passed with a sense of confidence and a relieved smile with thanks to a certain blogger.
Five days, five exams, and now before me, like the open sea, three weeks of free, stressless time. What shall I do with this time? That is a question that will need answering in the near future, and I’m inviting suggestions from all you guys out there, because I’m stumped.

But the post about that particular dilemma is several days in the future. For this is the part of the movie where we fade out, and cut slowly to the credits, several marching lines of black text, overlain with some ancient classic. Cue cultural cringe!

Procrastination

Like that mythical yet unknown teenager so long ago, procrastination will be the death of me. I’m addicted to it. I can’t stop. Invades my every waking moment. Every time I get home, every time I’m alone with nothing to do, I begin. I hold nothing sacred, I think about nothing else. I have a problem.

The Mid-Course Exams for Year 12 are rearing their ugly head like neatly categorised toothed dolphins. You may not think that’s ugly, but imagine dolphins with teeth for a second, and like the British Empire in Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series, I’m sure you’ll come around to my way of thinking. The Mid-Courses are here on Monday and I’ve got to study. I’ve got to write two practice exams at least, one for English and one for History, and added to that complete the backlog of German work that I’ve been neglecting via correspondence. To be fair I have excuses to rationalise my behaviour.

I don’t feel to well. I have a headache. My throat’s sore. What she said really hurt me and I need some time to recover. I feel fat! Leave me alone!

But really. Essays are harder to write than a blog post or a story. You need evidence. You need to read two texts, comb them for quotes and specific stylistic features and shiz, formulate them into structured and orderly paragraphs (Topic, Example, Explanation), then arrange those paragraphs in a way that misdirects the hapless marker into thinking you have some grasp of logic, and can think coherently. It’s nearly impossible. I prefer to go back to my work writing a post-apocalyptic surrealist stream of consciousness romp through the British Orient.

And as for the German homework. I’ve explained the unique mindbending features of the German language on another post. Besides, I have to log into some internet site and listen to RP accented folks speak to me for half an hour to complete the required task. That comes under my definition of cruel and unusual torture. Lol jokz. Love you guys xox.

So instead of making a productive use of a beautiful Saturday morning, here I am. On the computer, switching back and forth, birdlike between a ten year old strategy game and the twisted gaudy wonders of the internet. I am procrastinating. This infection, this disease infects my life like the spread of neoliberalism across the Western world after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. I can’t get out of bed. I can’t be bothered going for a run. Homework is left in a tattered pile within my schoolbag. And I’m feeling the effects.

Like a conscientious Russian housewife, my taught athletic frame is collecting flab in strategic places. I’m falling behind in certain subjects, and every day I put off my required tasks to listen to eighties music and sleep. I know of course where this will all lead. I’ll be unhealthy, stupid and hopeless, crying naked in my bedroom, listening to an Adele, album with a cardboard cask of wine in my hands, surrounded by stray cats.

But I know how to stop this! How to take control of my life! I just need to get stuck in! Je fais m’y mettre! I need to get up early and stop watching reruns of Torchwood! (I’ll have to get my daily dose of homoerotic violence somewhere else instead) I need to start an exercise routine! Run to Buladelah and back with twenty kilo weights on each arm! I need to dive into my schoolwork with joy and panache! That’s it! Routine! Order! I will become the master of my own existence via the divine force of free will!

In a minute.

I’m Forming A Gang!

The headline was alarmist. It’s a lot more complex and tasteful than that. Basically, I have a utopian vision for this year. It’s my New Year’s Resolution. I want to come together with my comrades here and form a glorious syndicate of awesomeness, in our ultimate year of high school. To not waste this precious time, this time of growth and youthful power, and begin already the sort of Nieztchian transformation from socially backward, kind of spindly, teenagers to supermen, warrior-poets in the tradition of Che Guevara, Conan the Barbarian and Doctor Who. Rawr. And play the songs as you read the paragraphs. It helps to create mood. Wow. This is so arthouse.

Firstly we shall become fit in terms of a physical sense and that. We shall go down to the gym centre and train in the arts of boxing and lifting heavy objects, such as shops. Hah. Combined with Taekwondo and constantly attacking each other with blunt objects, this training system will make us invincible fighting machines capable of incapacitating rabid dogs and massaging them until they feel a little better, than training them, through a positive reinforcement system, to become entirely loyal to us, whereupon we shall release them on unfortunate hipsters who’ve migrated here, like bearded bespectacled, little hat wearing geese from the freezing dystopia of Melbourne. In self-defence of course.

Apart from dog training, we shall participate in apolitical Long Marches, trekking through forests rugged and wild, across vast dunes of crystals sands and through thick fetid swamps that may or may not be haunted by the ghosts of Elvin warriors. Probably not though. We shall become one with the esoteric universality of nature, exchanging our individualities for a pantheistic group consciousness and becoming attuned to the natural rhythm and reverberation of Mother Earth. This will probably help build rock hard thighs and attract chicks.

Added to this will be a band. A post punk leftist ska fusion outfit called, the Ancient Tongues of Isis or Deadly Supermarkets Breed Discontent. We’ll play gigs and sing of deep rooted psychological angst, the inherent corruptedness of the societal order and a group of ducks that live in a little pond by Sydney University, the one right across from Broadway, and the Portuguese chicken shop.

But the two best features will be our vehicles, for that features most prominently in my vision. About a half dozen of us, riding in either a Lada Niva, or the back of a Kombi, all decked up in either suits and bow ties, or leather jackets, armed with bows and arrows and with Pendulum and Presets blaring loud over the speakers. We shall be able to take on any reactionary louts with our weapons, training and numbers, and we shall be irresistible to the opposite sex with our deadly combination of style, intelligence, masculinity, and sheer resplendent glory. Cue next song…

From there on we shall ride into eternity, myths and legends set against a melancholy sky, defining our own existences and riding out the oncoming apocalypse with panache. It may seem far-fetched, it may seem like so much smoke in front of those mirrors at carnivals that distort things and make you look humorously fat, but I’m putting this proposal to the lads tomorrow. Hopefully when I next speak the transformation will be underway.

Keyboard

I have a keyboard. Or, should I say, the people have a keyboard, that is currently being used and being kept under the stewardship of myself and immediately relatives at this current moment in time, because private property and all that shiz is totes inefficient and whatnot.

I obtained this keyboard, that is to say, it passed into my stewardship, on the night of the First of September, a(n) historic day, as it is the day that Spring was first invented by Big Brother in 1956. It was a dark and stormy night, and I will relay to you the means in which it appeared…

Alles Der Deustche Seiten Sagt Diese Casiotone Keyboardenzeit Ist Echt Cool!

Thunder rolled through the sodden clouds, a bitter wind cut through the air, the sound of vaguely Arabic folk singing sounded off in the background. Deep in the castle of Ozeano del Sur, a dialtone rang out…

“Yes?” Replied a hooded figure, cowled fingers pressing the device to his skull.

“Of course. The revolution requires such things! Obtain it!” The figure cried, shrieking in awkward enthusiasm. “With He on our side the inevitability of the global revolution is doubly, nay Tripoli, assured!” The call was ended, a bell tolled. The deathly figure began to laugh madly…

<ARTISTIC INTERVAL>

This is not exactly what happened. There are no castles in Australia.

Actually I think there is one, or maybe two. There’s a replica off in the mountains somewhere and my family was going to buy it before the sudden and shocking realisation that we have no money. Instead we rented a flat in Surrey Hills.

The actual story was, that one of revolutionary associates, the ubiquitos Pablo, obtained the keyboard at a local anarcho-syndicalist material exchange collective, also known as “The Markets”.

After brief and momentary exchanges of textual messages the keyboard was brought to my luxurious hovel by Pablo in one of his heavy duty vehicles he captured off the Malaysians during their brief border war with Indonesia. I carried it through the seething rain for hours, only to find there were no batteries.

Immediately I cursed the world and all reality for dealing me such a fickle blow. Then mum bought batteries. Once powered with the charge of eldritch electricity, my keyboard sung it’s digital heart out, pumping out eighties music fit to make the Human League cry. But they make emotional music about girls with their synthesisers, so they’re probably not real men anyway.

So now I take it everywhere, except for the toilet. I’m going to dress up as a homeless person and travel down to Sydney to play minimalist Kraftwerk style synthpop for the unwashed masses. Yes. The Revolution is assured. The Keyboard has made it so.

Sydney: Part Two

Sydney Part Two:

Since Part One’s unmitigated succes, I’ve decided to continue most logically with a second part, entitled Part Two. In this detailed and well crafted essay, I’ll show you the Nightlife, Public Transport and Cemetries of Sydney, and convince you, in thirty seconds or less, to conduct a religious pilgrimage to Iran and convert to the ancient and most venerable faith of Zoroastrianism.

Nightlife

Sydney’s nightlife is famous for it’s exuberance, tenacity and excessive use of Rufalin. Much like Finland in the 1940 Winter War. Apart from Kangaroo mating and Ivan Milat, the first thing that the average person will think about when the term “Sydney nightlife” is mentioned is King’s Cross.

King’s Cross, also known as the Golden Mile, is a section of pubs, clubs and petting zoos, mostly running along Oxford Street in Sydney’s CBD. King’s Cross is famous for it’s drugs, prostitution, and bouncers recruited from various ethnic origins. A series chronicling King’s Cross in the ninties was produced that contained all three of these features in great abundance. I would say that the show contains more nudity than you can shake a stick it, but then again, I’m very good at shaking sticks.

In Australia's King's Cross, Platform Nine And Three Quarters Is Actually A "Massage Parlour"

I only passed briefly through King’s Cross, on a public bus, packed with half asleep, wide eyed bush kids from my Modern History class. A couple of locals gave me disdainful looks when I stood up and shouted “Hey, there’s my old house!”. My class mates either ignored me, acknowleged my statement politely, or commented on how “povo” my house looked. As a young impoverished socialist, I pointed out, I had no option but to live my life in the slums inhabited by my ancestors. But every had stopped listening by that point, so I just started playing with my phone.

Public Transport

Public transport in Sydney is slow, muggy, stinking of stale piss, cigarettes, and filled with foreigners. Also on the ferry you can get wet. The pampered decadent bourgeois of Western society might criticise these unique values and “digusting” but so is commercial radio. And starvation.

I for one like public transport in Sydney. The slowness means you have more than enough time to gawk at your fellow travellers, perhaps identifying potential serial killers, or chatting up people of indiscriminate gender (see King’s Cross). The mugginess allows a traveller to descend into a strange state of trance, where the aformentioned odors of piss and vomit enter one’s nostrils like prahna energy, changing brain wave patterns and opening previously unlocked corners of one’s mind. Several lucky folks have actually achieved Nirvana on inner city buses. The fact that they were mugged soon after did however somewhat mar the holy event. Nevermind.

Spot The Error!

But I hyperbolise! Public transport in Sydney is actually quite nice. You get to talk to and familiarise yourself with a variety of people you might not meet in ordinary life. A lot of good stories also come from public transport. Like how Darren from PR slipped over in a pool of Ouzo flavoured vomit last year and had to get stitches. Unfortunately the wound became gangrenous. Good times.

Cemeteries.

The perfect segue between these paragraphs would involve me saying that Darren died and had to go to a cemetery. I am however above these things. The next part of my post will concern cemeteries. Those cute little showgrounds of death and melancholia. There are lots of cemeteries in Sydney, and space is limited due to the city’s large population. People are practically dying to get in…

The biggest cemetery in Sydney is Rookwood. The Rookwood necropolis is home to one million people, most of whom are dead. Rookwood has it’s own postcard, and places cost so much, that only the most elite corpses can gain entry into its hallowed dirt. This lethal combination of features that means in the event of a zombie apocalypse would be one of the worst places to be in the Southern hemispheres. That of course depends if you’re dealing with a situation in which dead bodies come to life, or one where the living are infected. If the latter is true the worst place would probably be King’s Cross, where biting people and running around groaning are so common, that depending on the time of day, the outbreak probably wouldn’t be noticed.

The Tranquil Start of a Zombie Movie. (All Royalties To Wikipedia)

In conclusion. Nightlife, Public Transport and Cemeteries form an exceedingly vital part of the belonging felt by Sydneysiders to the urban environment and aides the capitalist system to exploit the individual. Nightlife provides a healthy distraction from the specialisation of labour symptomatic to capitalism as we know, while Cemeteries, now similar to an industry, provide a place to store the remains of the system’s discarded tool and facilitate in the decisively bourgeois and subversive “grieving process”. Public transport forms the last link in this unholy trinity, providing the means to ferry the lifeless worker to both Nightlife and his meaningless occupation, and then finally to his place of eternal rest. The cemetery. Truly the only way to end this endless cycle of oppression and listless destruction is a Zombie Apocalypse, in which the undead arise to create a classless, stateless and decidely equal society. The Decaying Worker’s State.

Deployment

To Whom It May Concern

As of approximately midday Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time I, Commandate ‘Oi’ Alvarez will be taken off passive duties and deployed to the dense jungles of Bungwahl for reconnaissance, training and other classified purposes.

Nothing fills my nascent revolutionary heart more than being at one with the wilderness and fighting alongside my eleven toed revolutionary comrades in the pursuit of peace, equality and procrastination. However these activities also mean that I may not be able to respond to communiques sent to me for an indefinite period, most likely the next few days.

The illegal occupation and repression of Bungwahl that communications are limited, and even then, are hardly secure. But do not despair, oh loyal comrades! My return will bring with it a detailed report concerning soft power projection and local foliage density that will no doubt have all of you in a state of utter rapture. But until that moment, rest assured in the knowledge that Whoopi Goldberg farted on live TV, and that the Kardashians have adopted a homeless man that has few if any teeth, and now keep him as a pet.

Sydney: Part One

Sydney? Me and you need to have a talk.

That’s sounds really stupid and passe and whatnot, but it is fundamentally true. I went down to Sydney last week, (as you may have noticed from one of my previous posts, if you pay any sort of attention) and it’s left me all contemplative and melancholy. Like my first, last and probably only failed relationship, I’m filled with things I feel I need to say, questions I need to ask, and I… can’t stop thinking about you. Sydney, I may have anthropomorphised your sprawling brick and glass, dirty, urban acres into an ex-girlfriend, but please don’t be offended. My intention was not to diminsh. Besides, me and my ex get on great.

Let me just set the scene. I am, at heart, a country lad. I’ve been living in this charming parochial backwater for five years now, and while I did spend some time in the ‘big smoke’ when I was a wee lad, I was born in said parochial backwater too. My English teacher would probably ask me to relate this back to the concept of Belonging but I’ve got better things to do. Like procrastinate with both hands.

So my return to the gleaming heart of capitalism which is Sydney’s CBD was like a sort of anonymous prodigal son/messiah figure returning to his place of ascenscion. The fact that I was with two hundred of “me mates” did however dampen the sombre mood. I will go through a number of topics which hit as I traversed through the urban landscape.

I Posed One Legged On Those Stairs There

Buildings

That was the first thing I thought of. Apart from sex. There’s so many of them. A lot of them are really tall and made of glass, and some of them are odd shapes (I’m looking at you Opera House). The ramifications of these simple facts are wide ranging. When I walk through the ancient streets of old Sydney Town, down George Street where my forefather’s got pissed and traded the stockmarket in an ever repeating cycle, down Pitt Street where my relatives still toil, I am affected with a certain feeling. That folks is apathy. The whole scene is so… big that my mind just goes ‘kewl buildings’ and blocks most things out. I walk zombie like through the place, guiding my compatriots to places I hardly knew existed, while a strange undercurrent runs through the back of my head, like a leaking septic line saying “Shit..”

People

Sydney people are weird. There’s two things you need to learn about Sydney people. There’s a whole lot of them, over four million, and lots of them are foreigners of the mustachioed and non-mustachioed type.

They also can be quite rude. One thing Sydney people could learn to do is be polite. Up hear in the sparkling Great Lakes, when one person sees another on the street the common thing to say is something along the lines of the cliched, yet still extensively used ‘G’day’, or at least a curt nod. When purchasing things in the local trans-national super conglomerate of your choice country folk use manners, and sometimes even attempt to formulate highly mundane conversation. Sydney folk don’t. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that curtly nodding at everyone you meet in the street on a trip from Martin Place to Darling Harbour would probably severly damage your spinal cord. Perhaps its the fact that everyone’s suffering from the building affect.

Admire the Wit and Artistic Skill of this Map's Maker

People (Part Two) Race

It certainly isn’t foreigners, no matter what Pauline Hanson tries to ‘exploin’ to you. Once my mum almost hit a Subcontinental woman over the head with an umbrella. The woman was neurotically cheerful about the whole situation, insisting that the whole affair was nothing, and that Jihad was totally unneccessary, banishing all of my stereotypes to the darkness of the Netherlands. Admittedly the whole Jihad question was a little stupid on my behalf, but I was younger then.

I don’t fawn over Multiculturalism like all those other neoliberal bleeding heart hipsters, mostly because I try to be an internationalist when I can, and am probably a closet Fascist, but I do value it immensely. It’s one thing I love about Sydney. An aspect of multi culturalism I don’t like is the phenonemon of ethnic ghettoes. An entire suburb overwhelmingly dominated by Lebanese, bordering one dominated by Vietnamese and then one dominated by Anglos reminds me more of Northern Ireland than a classless, raceless utopia.

But birds of a feather flock together, and although people aren’t birds, neither are ducks. I’m talking about the whole webbed feet business. Mercifully the CBD, as the hub of the entire city is actually an example of the ‘melting pot’ multiculturalism’s all about. Or is that assimilation? That’s bad. Refer to the Borg.

Here Endeth Part One…

Unmitigated Travesty in Wharf Street

With the civil war in Libya, the irritating machinations of various local political parties and that whole global warming thing, the truly important things in life sometimes slip underneath the radar. There is no better example of this than the disgusting, shameful and undemocratic fiasco going on in a certain section of Wharf Street, Forster.

It seems that a certain section of shop front along the hallowed street is STILL being held up by steel props, for more than a whole month! That is greater than either 30, 31 or perhaps even 29 days! 28 in a leap year.

These props, purportedly present to hold up certain sections of roof, pose an unmitigated security threat to the local community. Unlike other obstacles such as chairs, trees, boxes or large dogs. I, and most leading experts, propose another more nefarious reason behind this. That the Illuminati, working with their lizardman allies, have decided to turn the Forster CBD into a temple for their heathen alien religion.

Uberknownst To These Innocent Patrons An Alien Temple May Be Directly Underneath

Why else would these props still be up? There is either a dark temple far beneath the surface of the fruit shop, or there is an invisible temple floating above the roundabout, where invisible, or at least semi-transparent alien life forms, known as the Gregories, float up on coloured balloons to sacrfice rabbits with complimentary steak knives.

What we need is a Day of Rage. We need to mirror the efforts of those protesters at Wall Street and get out on the pavement ourselves. We need to protest against the Aliens and the elite who fund their existence! We need to attempt to find the invisible bonds that connect the invisible temple to the roundabout! We’ll probably need an infared light and a radar, and would have to search very closely, since the roundabout is covered in shrubbery.

If the temple is elsewhere however, we will simply walk up and down the street, yelling and all that, just in case the evil Alien overlords emerge from their preternatural dens.

Becoming “Oi Alvarez”

Analyising carefully the individual factors that make up the social situation in Bungwahl I have come up with a key assertion. Bungwahl needs a hero. Bungwahl need a revolutionary figurehead, a charismatic, emblematic, symptomatic and democratic embodiement of the core Bungwahlian values of Equality, Truth, Laziness and Incest (although the last two often fit together quite well).

I will be that hero. And to reach my full potential as egotistic and idealistic guerrilla leader I will model myself on perhaps the most succesful example that the world has ever had, one who is remembered and revered to this very day. I speak of course of Che Guevara.

There are several points to bear in mind, and so several steps to take if I wish to become a figure in the likeness of the great Che. These were all I could think of.

1. Hair

I must have hair like Che Guevara. As a revolutionary leader, who fights in a tropical wilderness it would make sense to have short cropped hair. On account of stress and bugs and sweat and whatnot. I read this in Frederick Forsyth’s Dogs of War, which is a good book. Four stars.

But the point to such hair goes beyond mere practicality. You hair must be wild and free, like a naked gazelle bounding through the steaming savannahs of Brooklyn. You must be a wild, charismatic and elemental force of nature, you must exude style and power. You must be the raw visceral personification of the revolution.

"I'm On A Mule"

In regards to hair I am succeeding. I haven’t cut my hair in months, and it is wild, free, matted and unkempt. My ex’s step-sister keeps telling me to cut it, but this is silly. I don’t tell her to cut her hair, and she’s a ranga, and everyone knows red hair isn’t half as nice as the smooth jet black hair I possess. Also when I get out of the shower I can make my hair all spiky like an anime/manga character. This also looks cool.

2. Beard

I am capable of growing a beard. This power comes with great responsibility, and I habitually choose to shave my beard as to not intimidate the meeker characters of my community. It is probably also out of a sense of self preservation. Pretty much all of the good famous leftist had/have beards, therefore having a beard broadcasts to the world your politics and intentions. The CIA once tried to slip powder into Fidel Castro’s boots to make his beard fall out. True story.

English Translation: My Beard Gives Me Power

Therefore for Revolutionary purposes I will let me beard grow, at least to the level of stubble possessed in the famous picture of him that’s all over those T-Shirts.

3. Learn Spanish

Pretty self explanatory. I’m learning French and German, but there’s no language for revolutionising quite like the old Espanol. It’s also quite a common and useful language given the whole colonisation of South America thingy. “Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

4. Get Beret

I have a black beret, but it’s more French Resistance rather than Che Guevara. This might be a nice and unique touch, and those Frogleg-munching cyclists where quite badass too.

5. Learn to Fight

I’ll go to Taekwondo to learn how to fight. My legs shall become steel bear-teeth, my arms, steel back scratchers, and my mind a steel trap. I will be able to kick the living shiz out of anyone I see. But only capitalists. In top hats. Their immense bulk will make for an easy victory, but their hired goons may prove a harder nut to suck, leading to my next point.

If I Learn Taekwondo In Spain I Can Kill Two Proverbial Birds With A Metaphysical Phone

6. Recruit Comrades

I already have these comrades. Good, solid, stoic men who can grow facial hair if the need comes. I shall preside over them with a sense of heart-warming charisma. We shall become a tight-knit band of brothers through our journey in tropical wildernesses, ritualised Greco-Roman wrestling and late night games of Yahtzee. That may seem homo-erotic, but what’s wrong with a little homo-eroticism? Besides will any of you homophobes be complaining come the revolution? No. And none shall stand in our way.

7. Wear Uniform

I need to wear an emblematic uniform. Not my school uniform. That’s just stupid. It’s too establishment and it’s not even that comfortable. Maybe something vaguely military. I’ll be wearing a beret already, so I won’t wear a striped shirt. Don’t want to be mistaken for a travelling Breton onion-salesman.

Note To Self. Resist Becoming Stereotype.

8. Get A Short Nickname

“Che” is a short vocal interjection along the lines of “hey” in Argentinian Spanish. The closest resemblance of this in the Bungwahlian dialect of English is “Oi”. So I will become Oi Alvarez. A certain ring nu?

Well that’s pretty much all of it. I could become so lost in my idealism that I come to lose part of my humanity and commit heinous acts in the name of “the Revolution” or I could die a symbolic and futile death surrounded by enemies in despair in some far off region of the world, but both of those will really interfere with my HSC.

A Routine Expedition

I have recently returned from Bungwahl to my secret hovel on the outskirts of Gotham City, and I must say I’ve had much success. Whilst the filming of the propaganda video was not undertaken, some valuable data was gathered and resources acquired.

It was a long hard journey, making my way across the Bridge of Sighs to Tuncurry. The Bridge was named by avid Stamp collector Giovanni Campelli, a man of Venetian extraction, after a bridge in his beloved home city of Miami. It is not, contrary to popular belief, named after the common reaction a potential traveller has when faced with the prospect of entering Tuncurry.

I toiled across that bridge in the fetid warmth of the sun. I had my swag and a keyboard. I was also forced to wear a jacket. It couldn’t fit in my swag, I anticipated cold weather. Like a shrew this one of my many talents. Eventually I came to a bus stop, and thanks to the disgusting corruption of our corporatist regime, was able to get on a bus to Bungwahl free of charge.

Many Bungwahlians Are Followers Of The Voltron Heresy. Here St Voltron Poses By Lord Jesus In Their Joint Conquest of the Aztec Empire.

Acquaintances, dyed red from the sun, and rolling around in alcoholic stupour joined me on my vehicle as the journey progressed. They’d recently come from the Harvest Festival, a lovely event in which Australian traditional culture is celebrated. Participants salute the flag, play the banjo, set up Arts and Crafts stalls then engage in a past time known as “getting totz maggot”, the direct translation of which is hard to explain to someone unfamiliar with Australian ethnic folkways.

So as the faithful vehicle wound further, and further into the tractless wilderness I wondered, is the browser Opera prounced “O-pe-ra” or “Oh-prah”, because some girl I was talking to said “Oh-prah” and I though it was kind of funny and picked her up on it, in a non-aggressive manner.

Eventually we reached the outskirts of Bungwahl, a tiny little bus stop surrounded by thick bush, and slowly, I made my way up to Rancheros del Gato. The Ranch of the Cat. Where boarding and lodgings had been arranged by those sympathetic to our cause. The rest of the afternoon and night was spend feverishly debating the plight of the average Bungwahlian, destroying alien scum and taking turns talking about our respective love lives. Mine was conspiciously short.

In the morn we arose and set about immediately to inspect the area. We recruited a kindly yet affectionate dog with promises of equal, fair, frequent elections and a rise in the minimum working age to 18 months. This is highly amusing as now, if any calls us “communist dogs” we can say something along the lines of “Yeah? What of it?”, and all previous arguments will fall to smithereens. Furthermore, the dog in question may or may not be a veteran of the Spanish Civil War.

I Have No Idea What This Is About. There's a Wounded Mouse/Dog with a Banjo, and Then There's An Alligator With... No. I Give Up.

Apart from this key achivement we discovered a key bagel deposit, which will prove valuable to the new society which we will shortly form eventually. I hear hipsters love bagels, and hipsters are always cashed up. I don’t know how they get their money, as working as mainstream, and something no self-respecting hipster would do. I suspect that all of them are extremely talented pickpockets.

We then made our way down to the Great Lake, where members of the Bungwahl Militia’s fledgling navy gave us an inspection of their new flagship, Bob. That’s not even a joke. It flies, for now, under the Ethiopian flag, and sometimes the Danish flag, as we do not want to be found and destroyed by the corrupt Australian regime. Though upon further thought, they could identify us either Pirates or Vikings and terminate us on those grounds. Not that I wouldn’t mind be a Viking. I do however abstain from joining their ranks for practical reasons. Firstly they have beards. I like beards but beards are confusing. I don’t like being confused. Or itchy. Secondly is the horns. I don’t know where to find a good set of horns, and I’d be too scared to buy them. It would be kind of like buying condoms. Well, a bit anyway. No the Viking life is not for me.

These Are Vikings. We Aren't Vikings.

But I do like semen. With the salt spray on our faces, and the ropes between our fingers we sailed across the lake, charting key positions and training a whole crew of sailors for our new navy. Considering Australia’s defence funding we should gain nautical superiority by late 2012.

And so after some further debate and sounding out of potential support, I left beloved Bungwahl incognito, bound for the people’s abode with cuts on my feet and smelling slightly of swamp mud. I force marched myself through the driving rain, and cracking lightning in the depths of midnight to avoid orbital surveillance from the regime. When I next return I am sure that the Revolution will occur, and that our resistance will garner the fruits of socialist utopia.