tell us about the turkey, Joe.

A lot of trendy inner urban types consider people in The Bush™ to be a collective noun of big sooky boys, always whinging about how tough life is and how valiantly they have to struggle to overcome a lack of services and so on and so forth. A lot of people in The Bush™ think that trendy inner urban types are a collective noun of smartarse over-educated under-experienced oxygen thieves who would have been better off being shot into a sock. They're both right. I'll start on the Urban Collective:

I had a problem with my internet connection. A dialogue box came up telling me that the satellite dish had probably shifted because the signal strength had dropped. Then it changed its mind and decided that the signal strength was ok after all, but the transmitter doodah wasn't talking to the network control doodah. I got up on the roof and could find nothing wrong, so I consulted the call centre experts in Mumbai or wherever it is (I've had to call them five times in nearly three years and each time it's been an Indian. The call centre must be over there somewhere. ) He sorted it out for me. It's his job, he's trained to do it. I'm not trained to do it, so I didn't try to tell him how I thought that it should be done. Yet most trendy inner urban types who wouldn't have spent more than a week in total on farms, most of which would be at B'n'Bs, don't hesitate to tell rural people how their particular business should be operated, how their sector of the industry has incorrectly positioned itself and how the industry as a whole should really be scrapped anyway, because the [...] industry just isn't feasible long term in this country. Without having a lick of experience, knowledge, understanding or empathy.

Then they will tell you that rural people are leaches, draining away their precious tax dollars in subsides and handouts, conveniently overlooking the facts that;

a) Australia has the lowest level of farm subsidies (both direct and indirect) in the developed world, and

b) Rural people pay the exact same percentage of tax in return for only a fraction of the services.

Which leads me to rural whingers. I've lived in a lot more isolated places than this, but I will use my present home as an example. It is 145ks to the nearest casualty room. It is the same distance to the nearest secondary school. It is nearly 500ks to an obstetrician. There is no garbage collection. No FTA television unless you invest in a satellite dish. Same for Broadband internet, and then it's slower than ADSL. Urban people pay for water to cover the cost of infrastructure. Rural people pay for water and provide and maintain the infrastructure.

You know what? I don't care. If you don't like it here, move. It isn't difficult. There is no law or moral compulsion that forces you to live where you do, or to make the rest of the community shell out for urban conveniences in a rural setting. Stop putting your hand out every time that circumstances change. Of course, all of this could apply equally to Aboriginal people who choose to live on tribal lands.

But anyway, on to the thing that inspired this little rant. For the last few days, there's been an old 4wd Toyota come chugging through here at about 5.30 in the morning and chugging back at about 7 at night. After some deft detective work (a.k.a. asking the boss) I found out that it's one of the neighbour's kids. They live a couple of properties over and the kid drives through them and leaves his ute in the bush at one of our gates. He gets a lift from there into Dirranbandi. In Dirran he catches a bus to school in St. George. The process is reversed at night. Makes for abot a fifteen hour day just going to school. If I were his Dad and I couldn't afford boarding school and the hostel in St. Geoarge was full, or closed, I'd be getting a job a bit closer to town. I know one thing, if I was the kid I'd be fairly pissed off if I got home from school and Mum wanted me to do the dishes or mow the lawn.