(how did this audiobook, read by the author, get onto YouTube? Does it infringe
copyright laws? I don't know! But what a ripper it is! Enjoy it while it's there!)
Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia. In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.
Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of "felony of sock," and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup.
Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt and True Girt proudly reclaim these stories for all of us. As the author himself explains, "Girt is a narrative history of Australia from when people first started calling Australia home about 60,000 B.P. (Before Peter Allen) to 1824, when this great continent was formally given its current name. It selectively mines historical facts, ignores inconvenient truths, and is more biased than an unloved billiard table. In short, it is like every other Australian history book. The Herald Sun gave it a lovely review, which ended with the words 'a tad culturally insensitive.' I would like those words on my tombstone, please. I wrote Girt because I wanted to tell stories about Australia’s past through the distorted lens of the present and because I thought I could do that in a way that would make people laugh as they learned. "
And it's all here for you to read just in time for Australia Day, together with some very interesting audio recordings on ABC's Radio National.
Girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime and off on a long weekend!
