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ockerish, adjective. ockerism, noun.
/'okuh/. Colloquial
noun
1. the archetypal uncultivated Australian worker.
2. a boorish, uncouth, chauvinistic Australian.
adjective
3. of or relating to an ocker.
4. distinctively Australian: an ocker sense of humour.
Also, okker.
[variant of Oscar, especially the character in the television series The Mavis Bramston Show (1965-1968) played by Barry Creyton, born 1939]
In August 2019 we returned to Turkey, after fourteen years, for a more encompassing holiday in the part that's variously called Western Asia or the Middle East. There were iconic tourist places we had not seen so with a combination of flights and a rental car we hopped about the map in this very large country.
We began, as one does, in Istanbul.
A couple of days ago a story about sulphur-crested cockatoos went semi-viral, probably in an attempt to lift spirits during Sydney's new Covid-19 lock-down. It appears that some smart cocky worked out how to open wheelie-bin lids. That's not a surprise - see below. What is surprising is that others are copying him and the practice is spreading outwards so that it can be mapped in a growing circle of awareness. The cockies are also choosing the red (household rubbish) bins that may contain food, disregarding yellow (cans and bottles); blue (paper and cardboard) and green bins (garden clippings). Yet, now they have also been observed checking-out other potentially food containing bins.
One has even been observed re-closing the lid - presumably to prevent other birds getting to the food.
Back in the 1950's I was given a pet sulphur-crested cockatoo we named Einstein. I was in primary school and I didn't yet know who Einstein was. My father suggested the name - explaining that Einstein was 'a wise old bird'.
Gough Whitlam has died at the age of 98.
I had an early encounter with him electioneering in western Sydney when he was newly in opposition, soon after he had usurped Cocky (Arthur) Calwell as leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party and was still hated by elements of his own party.
I liked Cocky too. He'd addressed us at University once, revealing that he hid his considerable intellectual light under a barrel. He was an able man but in the Labor Party of the day to seem too smart or well spoken (like that bastard Menzies) was believed to be a handicap, hence his 'rough diamond' persona.
Gough was a new breed: smooth, well presented and intellectually arrogant. He had quite a fight on his hands to gain and retain leadership. And he used his eventual victory over the Party's 'faceless men' to persuade the Country that he was altogether a new broom.
It was time for a change not just for the Labor Party but for Australia.