i quoted part of a passage by English writer Sacheverell Sitwell, in a panel in After the Snooter, and referenced an old photo for the drawing. Of course it's a statement to be cautious about, the kind that can be used to keep an underprivileged people in a state of underprivilegedness. But if we imagine all things equal, it interested me for what it said about the modern world in general:


That is, we are non-active observers of our culture. So it pleased me to to see today's desk diary quotation says the same thing but from the other side of the fence, so to speak. It's from a song by Ooodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993), poet , political activist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights:

No more corroboree,
Gay dance and din.
Now we got movies,
And pay to go in.

Finding the whole work online I see the wistfulness gives way to a taking-no-prisoners anger, though the melody jollies along (whether the words are best served by this 1960s folk club style singalong tune is another matter):

Lay down the stone axe take up the steel,
Work like a nigger for a white man's meal,
No more firestick that made whites scoff,
Now all electric and no better off.

and it ends where it all ends:

Lay down the woomera, lay down the waddy,
Now we got atom bomb. End everybody.