Fair Dinkum

Fair Dinkum is Australian for “Good, genuine, for real”. Thus all the bad news you hear on your telly is not fair dinkum, for most television news is neither good, genuine or for real. What we are told as being really bad news is not as bad as you may think. Really bad news is the disappearance forever in 1177BC of every advanced civilization of the Eastern Mediterranean, and no one knows why. Invaders? Plague? Space Aliens? In the 15th and 16th centuries Ottoman galleys roamed the Mediterranean unmolested, raiding coastal villages of Europe, selling the women and children into slavery and chaining the men to the galley rowing benches where the only release was death. Bubonic, pneumonic and unnamed plagues. Constant warfare. Death by sword, death by disease, death by the ineffable will of God. Things are better now. Muslims are still killing, raping and enslaving, but we could do something now we couldn’t do then, and that is kill all the neo-Ottomans any time we decide to do so. So I prefer to enjoy the good news, which is that summer is over and football is back.

Compared to ages past the news
Today is much too shallow
The churches all have empty pews
The moral mind lies fallow
No longer do the galleys raid
And take the kids and wenches
In rows dead men untimely laid
Survivors chained to benches
It’s better now, we do not die
Of hemorrhagic fevers
Though still the politicians lie
We still elect deceivers
A rising tide will lift all boats
A falling tide will sink ‘em
And with the sinking bad news floats
Away and all’s fair dinkum

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