Hi Toni,

Well, that's what our family story has been: once you get across the Red Sea, turn left and head up to this other big sea, keep going along the shore to Beirut, ask for the only bookshop there, and then get your maps from that bloke. He even had maps in Neanderthal, for my mob !

That story has been passed down absolutely unchanged for at least fifty thousand years. My grand-dad assured us that it was true, just like we were each born under a cabbage. Well, boys under cabbages, girls under strawberries.

Conservative groups were right to have left Africa Greens and always kept turning right . This only leads to Darwin , a country party and shooters and fishers with lever action woomeras. Everyone else had to buqa off.

//Well, that's what our family story has been//

Pictographs or it didn't happen.

//once you get across the Red Sea, turn left and head up to this other big sea, keep going along the shore to Beirut//

*Translated from the original languages*

Fisherman 1: Hey, you see that weird guy over there?
Fisherman 2: Yeah, he seems to be looking for something. [shouting] HEY, DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
Joe's Ancestor: [shouting] BEIRUT!
Fisherman 1: What did he just say? It sounded like bayroot. What the fcuk is a bayroot?
Fisherman 2: I dunno, man. I'm not sure he's got enough waves to make a tide. [beckoning, shouting] COME OVER HERE, DUDE.
Joe's Ancestor: [approaches, shouting, gesturing wildly] BEIRUT! BEIRUT! BEIRUT?
Fisherman 2: No, bayroot is too far. Have some water and shade, and find bayroot when you feel better....

Thousands of years later...

Farmer 1: Hey, do you see that weird guy between those two houses?
Farmer 2: Yeah he seems to be looking for something. [shouting] HEY, DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
Joe's Ancestor: Beirut.
Farmer 1: Well, you're standing in it. She ain't much of a town, but she's better than some. Would you like a drink, friend?
Joe's Ancestor: Drink? No! Drink later. First bookshop.
Farmer 1: Bookshop?
Farmer 2: [shrugs] I dunno. [slowly, loudly] WHAT IS A BOOKSHOP? BOOOK-SHOPPP?
Joe's Ancestor: Bookshop! Shop that sells books! [mimes flipping through books]. BOOKS! MAPS!
Farmer 1: I think the power of almighty sun as addled your brains. Have some water and shade, and find 'bookshop' when you feel better...

//My grand-dad assured us that it was true, just like we were each born under a cabbage.//

Nah, I don't buy it. How's a stork going to manage to fly underneath a cabbage?

Denier !

Scribble on white paper is undeniable and out of Australia.

Tracing the origins of songbirds - Australian Geographic
www.australiangeographic.com.au/.../the-worlds-songbirds-island-hopped-out-of-aust...
Aug 31, 2016 - The world's songbirds island-hopped out of Australia ... new estimates about when and how songbirds spread and diversified across the globe.
-

The first bird shown looks suspiciously like an Indian myna which took over India . Uluru was a human origin from where Chinese and Irish learned to sing.

Hi Nick,

You might be right about Chinese history: there seem to be great gaps between 2000 BC and 500 BC, perhaps filled with fascinating myth. As well, strictly speaking, China was ruled by outsiders for most of the last thousand years - Mongols, perhaps the Mings from western China, then the Manchus (a branch of th Mongols?). Much of what the current Chinese government claims as part of 'their' empire was really part of the Manchu Empire.

Of course, 'our' empire good, 'their' empire bad. Perhaps, to follow the Manchu/Chinese example, England can demand to get Ireland 'back', and demand the recognition of the Irish Sea as domestic territory, as China plans to do with the South China Sea.

God knows who could claim Syria on those shaky grounds.

Cheers,

Joe