The Aussie Humour Thread

[Blackwater 53393]

On 9/14/2025 at 9:48 PM, Buckshot Bear said:

Y’all obviously ain’t never encountered none of ‘em ridge runnin’ hillbillies from around middle Appalachia!!

 

Most of ‘em sober up a couple times a year just to get a buzz on fer a day or so!!

 

I heard tell a vampire bit one of ‘em and died of alcohol poisonin’ on the spot!!

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

12 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Y’all obviously ain’t never encountered none of ‘em ridge runnin’ hillbillies from around middle Appalachia!!

 

Most of ‘em sober up a couple times a year just to get a buzz on fer a day or so!!

 

I heard tell a vampire bit one of ‘em and died of alcohol poisonin’ on the spot!!

 

 

 

[Rip Snorter]

7 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

Just for the record - 

Showing results for banjo player in Deliverance

The banjo player in the 1972 film Deliverance was Billy Redden, a 15-year-old local from Rabun County, Georgia, who was cast by director John Boorman for his distinctive appearance, described as resembling an "inbred from the back woods".
 Redden, who could not play the banjo, performed the iconic "Dueling Banjos" scene with Ronny Cox using a special shirt that concealed a real banjo player, whose arms were slipped around Redden's waist to play the instrument.
 The scene, which features the song "Dueling Banjos" composed by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, became one of the most memorable moments in cinema history, though Redden received minimal compensation and no residuals for his role.
 After the film, Redden worked various jobs, including as a dishwasher and at Walmart, and later returned to acting in films like Blastfighter and Big Fish, where he again played banjo players.
 In 2024, a GoFundMe campaign was launched to help Redden with medical bills, highlighting concerns about the lack of recognition and financial support he received despite the film's lasting fame.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

3 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

 

Love the invo, thank you! Aussie's make the BEST beer in the World....I'll bring a case of two  

Not on my account.

 

I never did drink beer and gave up drinking alcohol of any kind 25 years, 9 months, 18 days, 20 hours, and 25 minutes ago....but thanks for the offer.

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

[Buckshot Bear]

1 hour ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:

 

 

OMG she is so cringeworthy...........please no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

On This Day

Monday, September 20, 1880. : Australian pioneer in physical therapy for polio sufferers, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, is born.

Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny was a pioneer in physical therapy. Born on 20 September 1880 at Kelly’s Gully, a township just west of the New South Wales town of Warialda, her family then moved to the small town of Nobby on the Darling Downs, near Toowoomba, Queensland.

An accident during her teenage years, in which she broke her wrist, sparked her interest in anatomy. Whilst recovering, Elizabeth keenly questioned her doctor and mentor, Dr. Aeneas McDonnell, about the workings of the human body. Though untrained, in 1911 she began working as a bush nurse in the area, even starting up a hospital in nearby Clifton. At the outbreak of World War I, she volunteered to serve as a nurse. Due to the dire need for nurses, the untrained Kenny was accepted to work on soldier transport ships, and the experience she gained in this venture earned her the official title of “Sister”.

Sister Kenny continued to work as a nurse after the war, and even improved the design of stretchers used in ambulances on the Darling Downs. Marketing the stretcher as the “Sylvie Stretcher”, Kenny gave the profits to the Australian Country Women’s Association who managed sales and manufacture of the invention. Her initiative gained the attention of a family on a cattle station near Townsville, who arranged for her to come and care for their daughter who had been disabled by polio. Her methods of care and treatment enabled the girl to completely recover. She gradually achieved acclaim for her methods by the many polio-stricken children she treated and cured, but criticism from the medical fraternity for her lack of training.

Unlike other methods of the time, Kenny’s treatment opposed immobilising affected limbs with casts or braces. She advocated treating children during the acute stage of polio and using hot compresses. However, doctors would not permit her to treat patients until after the first stage of the disease or until muscle spasms had ceased. Instead, she designed a programme of passive exercises to stimulate function.

Kenny’s pioneering methods were gradually adopted by more physicians as she travelled to the USA to promote them. During her 11-year stay in America, she opened numerous Kenny Treatment Centres. Although her processes were criticised by many doctors, her dramatic results in affected children spoke for themselves. Her lasting legacy is her methodology for rehabilitating muscles, which formed the foundation for physical therapy, or what is commonly known as physiotherapy.

Kenny returned to Australia in 1951, and died on 30 November 1952. Her grave lies in Nobby Cemetery.

 

[Alpo]

I thought magpies had white on them.

 

Is this an albino magpie? (Obviously, in a place like Oz, where the seasons are reversed and people walk around upside down, an albino would be solid black. Right?)

 

[Blackwater 53393]

On 9/18/2025 at 8:22 PM, Buckshot Bear said:

 

 

Attair is one o’ them city guys what tried ta’ hang with the mountain Williams!! 🤣

 

If ya’s ain’t used to it, the stuff ‘round these parts ‘ll do that to ya’!!!

[Buckshot Bear]

14 hours ago, Alpo said:

I thought magpies had white on them.

 

Is this an albino magpie? (Obviously, in a place like Oz, where the seasons are reversed and people walk around upside down, an albino would be solid black. Right?)

 

 

 

Looks to be a Satin Bowerbird to me. 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Alpo]

13 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

 

Looks to be a Satin Bowerbird to me. 

I was going solely on the pissed off expression on his face. Every picture you have ever posted of a magpie has that same pissed off expression.

[Buckshot Bear]

59 minutes ago, Alpo said:

I was going solely on the pissed off expression on his face. Every picture you have ever posted of a magpie has that same pissed off expression.

 

 

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

15 hours ago, Alpo said:

I thought magpies had white on them.

 

Is this an albino magpie? (Obviously, in a place like Oz, where the seasons are reversed and people walk around upside down, an albino would be solid black. Right?)

 

Albino is all white, melano is all black.

[Buckshot Bear]

No one really knows the origin of neenish tarts, the bi-coloured pastries still widely available in Aussie cake shops. The first known mention of ‘nenish cakes’ is in an advertisement for the New South Wales Ice and Fresh Food Company in 1895. In 1901 a columnist calling herself ‘Housewife’ published a recipe in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. The recipe was evidently new, as she remarked that she hadn’t had time to test it.

There is a persistent legend around the invention of neenish tarts, involving one Ruby Neenish in the NSW town of Grong Grong. The story has it that she ran out of chocolate icing when preparing tarts for a kitchen tea, so used half chocolate and half white icing. These accounts, however, usually give a date of 1913 – clearly disqualifying the mythical Mrs Neenish as the inventor. In 2016, ABC journalist Rachel Carbonell tracked down the source of the story: it turned out to be a joke played by a former Grong Grong resident on one of his journalist friends back in 1988. The internet being what it is, the legend has since been widely circulated as fact.

The two-tone icing of a neenish tart is replicated in a cookie native to New York. At first glance, black and white cookies look just the same, but instead of cream-filled tarts, they are just cake-like cookies with half chocolate, half vanilla icing.

The first neenish tarts recipe

It seems that neenish tarts (or nenish cakes) were available from commercial bakeries by the turn of the century, but not yet commonly made by home cooks. When ‘Housewife’ published the recipe, she was responding to an enquiry from a reader identified as ‘Obadiah’. Her reply read:

I am glad to be able to send you the recipe for which you were so anxious. Very few directions, however, were forwarded me, and as I have no time at present to give the recipe a trial, I am afraid that in some of the details you will have to use your own judgment. I should try with only a quarter of the ingredients, so if your efforts the first time were not successful there would be but little waste.

Neenish Tarts : For the shell take 1 lb. ground almonds, ¾ lb. icing sugar, four whites eggs beaten to a froth, one handful flour ; mix these into a stiff paste. Have ready some plain patty pans about the size of a large teacup in circumference and 1 ½ in. in height. Butter them lightly, and with your fingers press in sufficient quantity of the paste to line the tins, taking care that the sides and bottom are quite even and about ½ in. thick. Place in a moderate oven and bake until the tarts are firm and of a pale brown. The details for the frilling [sic] are also rather vague. Take a little fresh butter and mix with it some thick sweet custard. On the top of the whole put the thinnest layer of icing made with white of egg and icing sugar, one half to be coloured with strong coffee. I shall be quite anxious to hear how you succeed. Will you let me know.’

Unlike later recipes, the key features of this version of Neenish tarts were a thick almond base and a custard, not a cream filling. The icing was coloured with coffee, not with chocolate. Over the next few years, the recipe reappeared with more detail on how to achieve the bi-coloured icing. A recipe in Launceston’s Daily Telegraph in 1903 suggested a yellow and brown combination:

With coffee, color one-half a pale yellow and the other half a deep brown. Ice the tarts carefully, having the top of each half dark and the other half light, without allowing the two colors to run into each other.

In 1906, ‘Housewife’ went into even more detail:

On the top of this [filling] spread a layer of icing, made with white of egg and icing sugar. For the coloured half, have ready some rather thin coffee icing. Take the tart in the left hand, dip a knife in the coffee icing, and as quickly as possible lay the knife half way across the tart, and pull it rapidly backwards towards the right. If this is done quickly, the coffee icing will go on with a straight line right across the centre of the white icing, and there will be none spilt during the process.

Neenish tarts and the A. B. C. Tea Rooms

‘Housewife’ made no comment in 1901 about the origins of her neenish tarts recipe. However, a column she wrote for the same newspaper 26 years later revealed that she obtained it from a ‘member of the firm’ of A. B. C. Company.

The Aerated Bread Company was founded in England in 1862 by Dr John Dauglish, who invented a way of causing bread to rise without yeast. From 1864, the company operated a chain of tea rooms, the A. B. C. Tea Rooms – an operation that extended to Australia. In Sydney, A. B. C. became a leading catering company, operating bakeries, a ballroom and tea shops.

Neenish tarts didn’t feature on the UK menu, but ‘Housewife’ emphasises the authenticity of her recipe. She mentions that she concurrently obtained recipes for Othellos and Desdemonas. These little biscuits represent a further variation on the two-tone theme, featuring brown icing (Othellos) and white icing (Desdemonas).

The recipe evolves

Over the years, the recipe for neenish tarts has gradually changed and exotic variations have been introduced. By 1929, a pink and white icing combination was an option, while the brown icing was chocolate rather than coffee-flavoured. The custard filling had been replaced by a mix of cream, milk, gelatine, sugar and vanilla essence.

By 1953, the pink and brown colour combination had made an appearance in recipes. In 1956 a Women’s Weekly recipe dispensed with almonds in the crust altogether and specified a filling of cake crumbs, egg yolk, condensed milk and flavourings. In 1963, in a travesty of the original recipe, Pineapple Neenish Tarts featured in the Weekly’s “Ten Menus for the Modern Hostess” by Leila Howard.

‘Neenish’ still a mystery

All this, however, fails to shed light on the origin of the name ‘neenish’. The recipe has been found in some cookbooks (including one from the CWA) spelled ‘nienich’. Are there German origins? Did the A.B.C. employ a continental pastry cook? Does the name derive from a Hungarian surname? Another theory that has been advanced is that it’s an anglicised version of Niniche – the title of a naughty French musical play (vaudeville-operétte) that was first performed in Paris in 1878. The play was originally banned in England, to the prim satisfaction of the reporter for The Sydney Mail. If we have Othellos and Desdemonas named after the Shakespearean characters, is the name neenish another theatrical allusion?

So far, no one can say for sure.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

How an Aussie icon dresses to meet the past British Monach.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

The 2 Ned Kelly's. Glenrowan Vic & Maryborough Qld. Such is Life!

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[DeaconKC]

Ordnance for distribution over Japanese occupied territory in the South-West Pacific being brought up on the low trailers to load onto the bomb racks of aircraft of No. 80 (Kittyhawk) Squadron RAAF at a forward operational base on Kamiri Airstrip.

[Buckshot Bear]

Can’t get much more Aussie than this legend

THE SOUVENIR KING — AKA "WILD EYES"

#OnThisDay 27 September 1917, Private No 2296 John (Barney) Hines of the Australian Imperial Force, 45th Battalion pictured with his "loot" after the fighting at Polygon Wood, Belgium.

'Barney' Hines was also a kleptomaniac who became known in the trenches as the "Souvenir King". But he was one of the bravest soldiers at the front and would have been decorated many times had it not been for his lack of military discipline.

He earned his nickname because of his incurable habit of hijacking medals, badges, rifles, helmets and watches from the bodies of the German dead - and, in some cases, of those he captured.

He brought the Kaiser's wrath down upon his head when a photographer took a picture of him on September 27,1917, showing him surrounded by some of his loot after the Third Battle of Ypres.

Prints were circulated among the Diggers and inevitably some fell into the hands of German soldiers - from whence they made their way to the infuriated Kaiser.

Born in Liverpool, England, in 1873, Barney Hines was always a rebel. Of Irish descent, he ran away to enlist in the army at the age of 14 but was dragged home by his mother.

Two years later he joined the Royal Navy and saw action during the Boxer Rebellion when he served on a gunboat chasing pirates in the China Sea.

Discharged the following year, he went gold seeking around the world and was in South Africa when the Boer War broke out. He served throughout it as a scout with various British units.

His lust for gold continued and he searched for it in the US, South America and New Zealand. But he was working in a sawmill in Australia when World War I broke out in August 1914.

Despite being in his early 40s, he immediately tried to enlist but was turned down on medical grounds. Undeterred, he haunted recruiting centres until he was accepted to serve in France in 1916 as part of a reinforcement for the 45th Battalion.

And, once in France, the legend of this huge, powerful man who never showed fear, began.

He generally disdained conventional weapons such as his .303 rifle, preferring to go into action with two sandbags packed with Mills bombs.

His commanding officer had a brain wave and gave him a Lewis gun, which was an immediate success. Hines was entranced by its spraying effect and announced in his broad Liverpudlian accent: "This thing'll do me. You can hose the bastards down."

Another nickname he earned was Wild Eyes and at a later date the commanding officer was heard to say: "I always felt secure when Wild Eyes was about. He was a tower of strength in the line- I don't think he knew what fear was and he naturally inspired confidence in officers and men."

One of Hines' pastimes was prowling around collecting prisoners and loot with enthusiasm.

On one occasion, annoyed at the sniper fire from a German pill-box, he ran straight at it, leapt on it's roof and preformed a war dance while taunting the Germans to come out. When they failed to comply, Hines lobbed a couple of Mills bombs through the gun port. A few minutes later the 63 Germans who had survived staggered out with their hands above their heads. Hines collected his "souvenirs" before herding his prisoners back to the Australian lines.

Another time he came across a battered German dressing station. Creeping in,he found the surgeon standing over the operating table and, on tapping him on the shoulder, Hines was amazed to watch him topple over - dead from a shell splinter in the heart. Only one man had survived - ironically a wounded Tommy who was on a stretcher on the floor out of the blast. Picking the man up as if he were an infant, Hines carried him towards safety but he died before reaching allied lines. Hines lowered him gently to the ground -then returned to the loot in the dressing room.

His booty wasn't confined to portable keepsakes. At Villers-Bretonneux he liberated a piano which he managed to keep for several days until he was persuaded to give it away.

On another occasion he scored a grandfather clock which he carried back to the trenches. But, after its hourly chimes were found to attract German fire, his mates blew it up with - what else? - a Mills bomb.

In Armentieres he came across a keg of Bass which he started to roll towards the battalion. He was stopped by military police and told not to go any further with it. Unfazed, Hines left the keg and went ahead to round up fellow Diggers who returned to drink it on the spot.

When the AIF reached Amiens they found the beautiful cathedral city deserted. It was too much for Hines. He disappeared and was finally sprung by British military police in the vaults of the Bank of France where he had already squirrelled away millions of francs, packed neatly in suitcases.

He was hauled off for questioning by the British who, nonplussed on what to do with the reprobate, returned him to his unit. Later he was to boast that the escapade had cost him no more than 14 days' pay and that he had been allowed to keep the banknotes he had stuffed into his pockets.

But for all his incorrigibility, he was an outstanding, if unpredictable soldier who managed to capture 10 German soldiers single-handed.

There were some near misses, too. At Passchendale he was the only survivor of a direct hit on the Lewis gun nest. Blasted 20ms. and with the soles of his boots blown off, he crawled back, got the gun working and continued firing until he fainted from wounds in his legs.

Hines was also renowned for the party he held at Villers-Bretonneux after he found a cache of 1870 champagne and tinned delicacies. His mates were all decked out in top hats and dress suits which he had also acquired.

It was to be his last party for some time. Just after it ended he scored a bullet wound over his eye, another in his leg and a whiff of gas. Despite protests, he was hospitalised at Etaples, being almost blinded.

A few nights later the Germans bombed the hospital, causing 3000 casualties. Hines hauled himself out of bed, found a broom which he used as a crutch and spent all night carrying the wounded and dying to safety.

After that he was invalided home and, in the ensuing years, despite his wounds, he worked as a drover, shearer, prospector and timber cutter.

When a new war broke out in 1939, he tried to join up again, aged 66, but this time he couldn’t fib his way in, he was turned down. So he stowed away on a troop ship. He was caught before the vessel got through the Heads and put ashore.

After a colourful life, Barney Hines died, penniless, in the Concord Repatriation Hospital, Sydney, on the 30 January, 1958, aged 84.

L E S T  W E  F O R G E T

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

Wine glass bay Tasmania

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

Errol Flynn - Died on this day 1959 – He shares his coffin space with six bottles of whiskey, a parting gift from his drinking buddies.

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th-greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City (both 1940) and San Antonio (1945).