BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:39 AM

LtS - I'm pleased to hear my countrymen are doing something useful in the UK. As to your opinions on koalas, we'll grin and bear it.

Cheers - Sam

BTW, you'll be pleased to know I got your revenge on my 'Kuddly Koala' when I was a kid - it got piddled on more than once when I wet the bed - Yours Incontinently - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 06:41 AM

If you play cricket with a cricket bat, what do you play with a wombat?

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Gurney
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 06:50 AM

You've forgotten already....
Helen, when a NZ Prime Minister named Muldoon was chided about Kiwi immigration into Oz, he pointed out that "That should raise the average IQ in both countries..."
He had some other quotable quotes, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 07:16 AM

WOM, Hrothgar?

WOM =

1. Wild Old Man
2. Wife Of Mine
etc....

But, to me, WOM = Word of Mouth. He/she/it was a wee cartoon character I drew in the early 80s for Outdoor Education here in NZ. And yeah, there was a sketch of 'Wom' with a Wom-bat...

I do NOT want to remember that phase of life, but will try to find some "Wom" cartoons, and post 'em somewhere...

Now I'm turning into a "Sentimental Bloke", and being charitable to those who live to the left of the Tasman. Talking of wombats. Helen and Bob, remember "Death of a Wombat"? We had a replay on the wireless a few months back....

"Waddle and crump...." - Sam, who's misty-eyed, thinking of past times.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 07:57 AM

Gurney,

Wash your mouth with Sunlight. That quote was pre-Rob, goes back to Kiwi Kieth days, and it was an NZBC announcer, methinks...

Anyway.. going back to 'Robber Muldoon' - He's the only PM (or GG) that I haven't spun the bull with in the past 40 years...

I was at a party with him in the late 70s, I was bar-steward, and he was so short I didn't see him...;)

Sam(nobulent)

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 08:21 AM

G'day Hrothgar,

What the poms (did) play with a WOMBAT

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 08:31 AM

G'day Hrothgar, (as I was writing when the damned thing decided to depart)

What the poms (did) play with a WOMBAT was war games. It was the acronym for Weapon Of Mobility Battalion Anti- Tank ... an artillery-sized recoilless weapon firing 'shaped-charge' anti-tank projecttiles (now superseded by a MOBAT).

Billy: Death of a Wombat was an odious pile of marsupial droppings ... all that rubbish about poor lumbering wombat being overtaken by the fire. The author should watch wombats disturbed from their usual habits by fire or flood - but not stand in their way! They are capable of a spectacular turn of speed for such a solid animal.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 05:58 PM

Oi, us solid animals can be pretty nippy coming over there to slap you upside the head!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Helen
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 07:03 PM

The non-aussie 'Catters may have missed Bob Bolton's rather coy allusion so I, being much less coy, will spell it out for you.

Bob said: "(Oh yes ... the classic description of their diet is correct ... and its reapplication to ex-patriate Aussie blokes in Earls Court is apt.)"

Some Aussie males are described as wombats because a wombat eats roots, shoots and leaves. If you put an extra comma after the word "eats" and bear in mind that in Oz the word root means to have sexual intercourse (in a particularly macho context, i.e. it's never used, except in a joking way, in the context of intimate, warm relationships but aptly describes a one-night-stand, for example) then....

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 07:59 PM

Does Folk Roots (or fROOTS as they try to call it these days) get much of a sale in Australia?

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 09:52 PM

And then there's the "PADDY MELON"-------------as in Banjo Patterson's great poem 'Christmas In The Bush'. What are these close to??? And do they really make a good stew???

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 12:42 AM

The title of Paterson's poem is actually SANTA CLAUS IN THE BUSH.

aRT

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 01:37 AM

Art,

It's also spelled pademelon (but same pronunciation as Paddy Melon).

http://www.dpiwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/BHAN-5384X4?open
Tasmanian Pademelon
Description
The pademelon (Thylogale billardierii) is a stocky animal with a relatively short tail and legs to aid its movement through dense vegetation. It ranges in colour from dark-brown to grey-brown above and has a red-brown belly. Males, which are considerably larger than females, have a muscular chest and forearms, and reach up to 12 kg in weight and 1 - 1.2 m in overall length, including the tail. Females average 3.9 kg in weight.

The unusual common name, pademelon, is of Aboriginal derivation. It is also sometimes referred to as the rufous wallaby.

Oddly enough another site says that the name Paddy Melon comes from the English words paddock and melon because on first sight the animals looked like a PADdock full of MELONS. Don't know about that one.

They probably do cook up pretty well, although I've never eaten any sort of roo-related meat. Aboriginals dined well on roos, though. I think it was a large part of their diet when the hunting was good.

Kangaroo meat is being served in some of the best Oz restaurants as a new taste sensation.

There is a well known recipe for the raucous birds known as galahs. (To refer to a person as "a bit of a galah" is not very complimentary. It can mean loud-mouthed and flashy, or it can mean that they are not to be taken as seriously as they take themselves.) The recipe is: Boil an axe head and a galah until the axe head is tender. Toss the galah and eat the axe head.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 08:01 PM

Helen,

Thanks for your good info. I knew it was wallaby-like, but the details you posted pretty much let me see it clearly.

We have a similar recipe on the Illinois River here in Illinois. It is for the fish, CARP. You take the carp and wrap it in fresh horse manure. Dig a pit and put glowing coals at the bottom. Then the carp and then a layer of seaweed and a layer of gravel alternately until the pit is filled. Let that bake for several days. Then uncover it all, crack the dried horse manure off of the carp with an ax handle, throw away the fish and eat the dung.

It's interesting to folklorists that the AX survives in both tales. ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: raredance
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 11:26 PM

I take some issue with the statement in the link above that North America has only 2 species of endemic marsupials. If only the USA is considered and Mexico is relegated to Central America, then there is only one, the Virginia oppossum. If Mexico is included in North America then one would have to add to the list the southern oppossum, water oppossum, grayish mouse oppossum, Mexican mouse oppossum, Robinson's mouse oppossum, Central American wooly oppossum, and the gray 4-eyed oppossum (no it doesn't really have 4 eyes, just a couple of curiously placed spots)

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Hrothgar
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 04:44 AM

All sorts of possumbilities, aren't there?

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: JennieG
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 05:37 AM

Hrothgar,
I couldn't possumbly add anything further without making a galah of meself!

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: raredance
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 06:47 AM

Good one, Hrothgar!

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 10:57 PM

G'day Helen,

The Aboriginal etymology for "pademelon" is from probably from Dharuk (Sydney region Aboriginal) badimaliyan - assimilated with more familiar English words.

The "story" about a "paddy full of melons" is about as reliable as any other etymology that needs a 'story' to explain it!

The reason they make good eating is that they are more forest dwelling than the big 'roos of the plains - probably less muscular, and so, more tender ... but the songs have two bob each way ... they are going to tenderise the Pademelon by judicious stewing! (Maybe they are also easier to catch, rather than wasting ammunition trying to shoot them ... doesn't the settler in Paterson's poem send his son out to "run down a pademelon ..."?)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 04:18 AM

There was a group (herd?) feral on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire when I were a lad (could get there by tram and change from fourpence)but cold winters and roadkill has removed them all by now. I never did see one there.

RtS
(...the day war broke out....)

Subject: RE: BS: Question about wallabies and kangaroos
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 09:05 PM

G'day RtS,

I understand that there were populations of some of the smaller wallabies, such as the pademelon, established in England and France in the 19th century. The idea was for them to be a sort of extra-large "rabbit" for the poor to supplement their table fare. (Well, in France, anyway ... I'm not sure the Poms wouldn't have regarded them as the local Lord/Squire's property and had you up for Kangaroo poaching (Yeah! I know ... up before a "Kangaroo Court".)

I think the smaller forest species would have survived fairly well ... I'm not sure how well they would have held up against energetic harvesting - let alone the local weather. I also think that the spread of pet dogs in post-WW II years would have knocked down numbers. (I don't think the poacher's lurcher would have been such a factor by then!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton