Monthly Archives: January 2016

What has lamb got to do with Australia day?

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Another Australia Day, another Lambassador ad.

After a ten year stint, the irascible Sam Kekovich has been replaced by modern multi-cultural icon Lee Lin Chin. I’ll leave an analysis of the marketing implications of the swap to Gruen. Instead, I want to look at the central claim of these ads and ask why the heck eating lamb is supposed to be Australian. After all, it’s not as if they’re native to Australia. Although Australia Post seems confused on the issue as in 1938 in a series of stamps celebrating Australian native animals, the 5d stamp was of a Merino.

An ancient statue erected by prehistoric Australians to the lamb Gods.
An ancient statue erected by prehistoric Australians to the lamb Gods of old.
Credit: WikiWookie CC3.0

For better or worse (and often worse when you think of the environmental impact), sheep have changed Australia irrevocably. You have to wince through CEW Bean’s constant references to “the blacks”, but his 1910 book On the Wool Track offers an amazing glimpse into a land on the cusp of changing.1 Bean chases the slow disappearance of Old Australia in front of the steady roll out of Modern Australia; although his Modern Australia is basically our Old Australia and ours would be his Sci-fi Australia.
Natural. Totally natural.
Natural. Totally natural.
Credit: Tim J Keegan CC2.0
Although he doesn’t seem overly concerned about it, he reports on wide-spread ecological changes that had happened within the lifetimes of his interviewees: scrub being trampled into dust and pine forests taking its place, land turning so barren all the soil is blown away and deposited so high on abandoned shearing sheds you could drive a horse and buggy up onto the roof.

Not only that, but he reports on the men (and sorry, but it really is the men he reports on) that sheep made and broke. He talks about how boundary riders, a legendary figure to modern Australia, at the time of his writing, had only just replaced the “hatters”—slang for Australian shepherds. These men were apparently “almost wild” and “feared neither God nor man” (p. 53). But just as the sheep made those men, they discarded them. In quests for ever greater profits, great stretches of Australia were fenced off from dingos, removing the need for hatters. Wells were sunk and tanks erected in (often unsuccessful) attempts to drought proof the farms. Those who constructed these works brought civilisation with them, and left traces of it behind like a muddy footprint when they departed.

Herding them was a nightmare.
Herding them was a nightmare.
Credit: Yathin S Krishnappa CC3.0
In contrast with Australia Post’s ideas, the first sheep to Australia arrived with the first fleet, some 100 of them, from the Cape of Good Hope. For the first few years of the colony, the majority of sheep seemed primarily to be African and Indian breeds, slowly being interspersed with purchases from Europe. This seems to be about as multi-cultural as the Australian diet got until the 1950s.

It was the wide-scale introduction of the Spanish Merino that made the Australian sheep industry really come into its own and drove this expansion of “civilisation”. Although Governor Macarthur is often credited with the introduction of the Merino to Australia from South Africa, he didn’t import enough to have a great impact. Instead, credit needs to go to George Hall Peppin, who bought merinos from Germany and France to form on of the world’s most successful studs.

At this point, you may be wondering why, if the Merino is a Spanish breed, do all these sheep appear to be coming from anywhere but Spain? In essence, the history of the Merino is full of a surprising amount of subterfuge and espionage… For sheep.

One could almost say a wolf dressed as something it's not...
One could almost say a wolf dressed as something it’s not…
Credit: State Library of Victoria CC2.0
Up until the end of the 17th century, it was widely acknowledged that Spain produced the best wool in the world. Consequently, in spite of several flocks being given out as gift by the royal family (from which the Saxony sheep are descended), it was prohibited to export sheep from Spain. Like an upstart teenager, upon knowing they couldn’t have any, Britain immediately needed to have some. This involved smuggling sheep overland from Portugal through continental Europe, sending sheep back as spoils of the Napoleonic Wars, and even allegedly a sting operation involving the Spanish ambassador’s wife.

Nevertheless, after laying his hands on some fine quality merinos (and, controversially, possibly some other breeds) George Hall Peppin and his family set about breeding a finer class of sheep for Australia. They were astonishingly scientific in their approach, considering Mendel was only just doing his punnet squares at the same time, and a thorough theory of genetics wouldn’t be discovered for another forty-odd years. This exacting patience led to what many seem to believe is nearly the perfect sheep. Amazingly, one of the factors that was most important about the Peppin merino was that its wool was long and bulky, and so perfect for the mills of Europe. Consequently, the merino sheep is arguably the first industrial animal.

I've just spent about half an hour watching industrial era spinning machinery in action.

Which I suppose gives a nice sort of symmetry to this entry—it turns out we created the merino just as much as it created us.

(Assuming you’re reading this from Aus)

Academic Sources

Bean, CEW 1910, On the wool track, John Lane Company, New York.

Parsonson, I 2000 The Australian ark: A history of domesticated animals in Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Clayton.

Lee, T 2011, Wanganella and the merino aristocrats, Hardie Grant Books, Richmond.

Verhoeven, D 2006, Sheep and the Australian cinema, Melbourne University Press, Melborune.

  1. That’s a link to a beautifully preserved, scanned, full-length copy of the book. I haven’t made it the whole way through yet, but it’s definitely worth a read. ↩

The Olympic-sized problem of cheating in sport

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They could have at least won something.
They could have at least won something.
So, I’m an Essendon fan. Needless to say, I’m unhappy about 34 players being suspended, but I’m even less thrilled about the doping happening in the first place. The problem, as far as I can tell, is modern professional sports. People much smarter than I have pointed out that as a society we worship these athletes, who do little of use for society. They destroy their bodies in their quest for glory. And when the inevitable cheating and fall from grace occurs, the scandal can literally stand as a token of their shame for hundreds of years. These critics, for the record, were: Xenophanes, Euripides, Galen and Pausanias. Considering that the most recent died in 180 AD, perhaps we shouldn’t use the word “modern”.

The scale of ancient athletics is difficult to grasp. Firstly, although the Olympics are the most famous of the ancient games, with 40,000 plus people attending them at their height, there were actually four key events held in Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and the Isthmus of Corinth. Apart from these, there were many other local games. The origins of the games are unclear, but they were held regularly from 776BC. They ran for over a thousand years until about the turn of the fifth century AD. To put that in perspective, it would be the equivalent of the modern Olympics running until the year 3066.

Yes, this is definitely more rewarding than a giant golden statue of my likeness.
Yes, this is definitely more rewarding than a giant golden statue of my likeness.
Much is made of the ancient tradition of competing not for money but for olive wreathes. This is a lovely ideal, and something to be aspired to, if it weren’t for the fact that not only could athletes expect monetary prizes at all the other games, but an athlete who won at the Olympics would likely be greatly paid and possibly set up for life once they got home. Surprise, surprise, where there was big money, the temptation to cheat proved just that bit too hard to turn down.

Doping, it must be admitted, wasn’t really a big deal. There are all sorts of stories floating around the internet about the various potions athletes were supposedly taking in order to improve performance, but I can’t find much academic evidence for most of them.1 Additionally, the idea that “doping” is wrong is a relatively recent phenomenon, but I’ll save that history for another entry when the next doping scandal rolls around.2

Instead, when it comes to cheating, it seems good old fashioned bribery was the most popular form. In fact, the first recorded conviction for cheating was of Euopolus of Thessaly in 388BC for bribing his opponents, so bribery might literally be “the oldest trick in the book”. Though first, Eupolus was far from last, and many athletes were subsequently convicted of cheating, almost universally bribery.

Strangely enough, giant piece of bronze didn't exactly linger a long time in the ancient world...
Strangely enough, giant pieces of valuable bronze didn’t exactly linger a long time in the ancient world…
These athletes were fined large amounts of money, which was used to build bronze statues of Zeus outside the stadium, each bearing an inscription of the name of the athlete and their infraction.3 According to ancient accounts, there seems to have been quite a number. Curiously, even if convicted of cheating, the athlete got to retain their wreath and title for those particular games. So much for “Cheaters never win and winners never cheat”.

Other offences included one competitor who arrived late to the games. He provided the excuse that he had been delayed by pirates and so was allowed to compete. Subsequently, it was discovered that he’d actually been making a few extra drachma on the side at the Ionian games. Sarapion, from Alexandria, has the dubious honour of being the only Olympian to be immortalised for his cowardice. He was due to fight at the Olympics, but was so afraid of his opponent that he fled the day before his bout. In fairness to Sarapion, he was due to fight in the pankration. This was a mix of boxing and wrestling which had exactly two rules: no gouging, no biting. If I found myself due to fight in that event, I’d probably rethink my decision to compete.

Of course, the fiddle hadn't been invented in Nero's day, which rather ruins the whole saying.
When it comes to ridiculous things done in world history, this man crops up a lot.
Possibly the most spectacular case of cheating was by our old friend Nero, Emperor of Rome. Firstly, in 67BC, he managed to have poetry reading added to the competition, as he thought this would be his strong point. Then, not content with this, Nero entered the four-horse chariot race with a 10-horse chariot. In spite of falling off his chariot and nearly killing himself, Nero was still awarded the wreath for the event. Of course, his magnificent victory was short-lived, as Nero was dead the next year and had his name stricken from the victors’ roll. And the judges were forced to repay the bribes they accepted.

As far as I can tell, it’s the ancient equivalent of having a movie made about your corrupt practices and inevitable downfall.

Academic Sources

Crowther, N 2002, “The Salt Lake City Scandals and the Ancient Olympic Games”, The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 169-178.

Euripides, Ancient Olympics, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/sourceEN/D180EN.html.

Hyde, WW 1921, Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington DC.

Kotynski, EJ 2006, The athletics of the ancient Olympics: a summary and research tool, University Vanderbilt, Nashville.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by WHS Jones, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias5B.html.

Perrotet, T 2004, The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games, Random House Publishing Group, New York.

Xenophanes, Ancient Olympics, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/sourceEN/D179EN.html.

  1. Lizards “prepared a certain way” (without specifying what way) crops up everywhere. Also, “the rear hooves of an Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil, and flavoured with rose hips and rose petals” was supposedly prescribed by Galen, but considering he’s on record as being quite cynical about ancient athletics, I’m somewhat sceptical of this story. ↩
  2. Isn’t it sad that I can just assume there’ll be another opportunity? ↩
  3. When I said “literally”, I meant literally. ↩

The ideology of North Korea: What drives the “Hermit Kingdom”?

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We may all be wiped out one day, but it'll look insanely cool while it's happening.
We may all be wiped out one day, but it’ll look insanely cool while it’s happening.
So you may have seen that last week North Korea let off a hydrogen bomb. Or maybe it didn’t. Or maybe we’ll never know. Whatever the truth may be, as this journalist points out, rather than take them more seriously, we’ll probably continue to treat North Korea as light entertainment. Which makes sense, as they are hilarious.1 Nevertheless, in our mockery, we often fail to ask ourselves “Why does North Korea behave in a way that seems crazy to the rest of the world?”

Nope. I don't see anything religious about this.
Nope. I don’t see anything religious about this.
Credit: yeowatzup CC2.0
The short answer is juche. This word translates roughly to “self-reliance” and is an ideology that revolves around total and utter independence for North Korea from other nations. Juche is such a strong ideology that it is often referred to as a “quasi-religion,2 with North Korea as a theocratic state.

To understand juche and its absolute desire for self-determination, you need to consider North Korean history, specifically its history of being stuck between rivalling powers. Apparently many Koreans like to boast that their country has been invaded over 900 times in recorded history (p.35). Whilst I don’t quite see how this is a matter of pride, it does offer an insight into how a country might become paranoid about their neighbours.

Japanese troops marching near Pyongyang during the Russo-Japanese war. It was honestly one of the least depressing photos I could find of the occupation.
Japanese troops marching near Pyongyang during the Russo-Japanese war. It was honestly one of the least depressing photos I could find of the occupation.
Juche finds its formative years around the Japanese occupation. Whilst the Japanese might have lacked Europe’s experience at running oppressive colonial states, they proved to be quick learners, building a thoroughly oppressive regime in less than 35 years. At this early stage, juche was basically anti-Japanism. Kim Il Sung, the first Supreme Leader of North Korea and credited as the creator of juche,3 was a renowned guerrilla fighter in WWII. It is difficult to separate the truth from propaganda, but considering Japanese military records have them placing a $100,000 bounty on his head, it seems this reputation might actually be deserved (what a surprise!). Either way, it is here that we can see juche’s earliest emphasis on avoiding the influence of other nations.

After WWII, in the eyes of North Korea the United States easily slipped into the mould of “oppressor” shaped by Japan before them. Whilst I’m not trying to say that the US stationing of troops on the South Korean Peninsula was as oppressive as the Japanese occupation, the fact that the US dropped more bombs during the Korean war than in all of the air campaigns of WWII combined means this fear might not have been entirely unreasonable.

Furthermore, North Korea has always been afraid of atomic weaponry. Kim Il Sung appears to have been certain the US would drop atomic bombs on North Korea. The subway in Pyongyang is between 70 and 100 meters deep4 and probably designed to be bomb shelters. Apparently almost every village in the country has its own bomb-shelter. In a turn of logic eerily reminiscent of the US gun-ownership debate, North Korea seems to believe it exists in a nuclear filled wild-west, in which the only way to be safe is to “pack heat”. A lot of heat, in this case.

For North Korea, this isn't satire, it's a documentary.

What might be more surprising is that juche also served as a way of gaining independence from both the USSR and China. Although both states have been sponsors of North Korea, the extreme antipathy between the two regimes, and North Korea’s position bordering both, left it desperately not wanting to antagonise either. Hence, when North Korea speaks of juche, they truly mean self-reliance from all other nations. This allowed them to be an unironic member of the Nonaligned Bloc during the Cold War, in spite of being a central member of the Soviet Bloc as well. History has by and large shown North Korea that the only one it can truly rely on is itself.

All of this goes to show that the scars of history take a long time to fade, for nations as well as for individuals. Whereas most of the world seems content to leave the Cold War behind, many North Koreans consider the height of the Cold War the “best of days” for their country. Few know this now, but until the 70s, North Korea was by far the richer and more industrialised of the two Koreas. This is believed to be a large part of the apparent recent efforts of the regime to return to a more hardcore version of juche from the 50s and 60s. They’re trapped. For a nation that considers “self-reliance” a fundamental goal of any nation, modern globalisation must seem a nightmare. So instead, the regime would prefer to return to a time when their very existence was under nuclear threat, but the place of Korea in the world was clear. Cha calls this “back to the future” thinking.

Of course, the architecture completely fails to reflect North Korea's desire to return to the 60s...
Of course, the architecture completely fails to reflect North Korea’s desire to return to the 60s…

That’s generous. To me it sounds more like a sad middle-aged man trying to recapture his youth. A sad middle-aged man with nuclear weapons, that is. It certainly gives more of a thrill than a convertible.

Academic Sources

Harrison, B 2007, “Through the Eyes of the Hermit: The Origins of North Korea’s Quest for the Bomb”, Stanford Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, accessed 11 January 2016 from: http://web.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal71/Korea.pdf.

Cha, V 2013, The impossible state: Nort Korea, past and future, HarperCollins, New York.

Jonson, R 2012, “Juche’s Transformation from a Tool for Ethnic Nationalism to a Quasi-Religion in Divided Korea”, Stanford Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, accessed 11 January 2016 from: http://web.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal121/Korea3.pdf.

Park, HS 2002, North Korea: the politics of unconventional wisdom, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder.

  1. I like Cracked.com, ok? It’s not a crime. ↩
  2. For some reason I could never get it to show page 7. If you can, please let me know. ↩
  3. Actually, it was likely formally written up by Hwang Jang yop, but that’s a story for another time. ↩
  4. Can you imagine climbing the stairs? ↩

Atlas shrugged while Rome burned

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CFA Fire Station Nathalia
When you consider all of human history (and a bit too much recent history), this is actually a rarity.
Credit: Mattinbgn CC3.0
We’re in bushfire season again. I’m sure you noticed. With huge bushfires raging along the Great Ocean Road, quite a number of locals had what I imagine was a less-than-merry Christmas. Nevertheless, when they’re not leaving adorable notes, the CFA and fire-fighters around Australia are doing a pretty amazing job of saving lives and property on behalf of anyone and everyone. We take this for granted; however, public fire brigades actually haven’t existed for the majority of history.

Ayn Rand fans will be thrilled to know that the first serious fire brigade seems to have been a private affair. It was established in Ancient Rome by a charming gentleman named Crassus.1 He established a force of some 500 slaves. At the first sound of alarm they would race directly to the blaze and, once they had arrived, do absolutely nothing. Whilst they waited, Crassus would seek out the owners of the property, and possibly nearby properties, and buy them up cheaply. After all, what was a building worth if it was about to be burnt down? After purchasing the property at a steal, Crassus would have the fire put out and the enterprising capitalist would be left with a property whose value was far more than what he paid. Although not really an appropriate historical source, I think this is best summed up by Wilson and Wilson:

You're telling me you wouldn't trust this face?
You’re telling me you wouldn’t trust this face?

Crassus had collected his fortune by inventing both the fire brigade and, simultaneously, a legal extortion racket.

Surprisingly, this was too overtly rapacious even for the Romans, and a few different ways of organising fire response seem to have been tried. In 6AD Augustus got fed up with this and established the vigiles urbani. This was one of the most extensive fire brigades ever established. It began with 3,500 men and was later doubled to 7,000. By way of comparison, the current London Fire Brigade consists of just over 5,000 personnel.2 In fact, it seems that the vigiles had more fire fighters per square acre than any other fire brigade in history.3

These numbers aren’t entirely surprising. As is pointed out repeatedly by Rainbird, if you don’t have modern technology to deliver water, you have to make up for it with man power. According to the previous source cited, bucket chains can deliver about 180 litres of water per minute, pushing up to over 500 in the initial burst. Additionally, the Romans had actual pumps at their disposal and even ballistas. If you’re wondering what this last item was for, until the invention of modern pumps, the only way to fight any real conflagration was to simply demolish anything in its path. I imagine local home-owners would have been thrilled.

Someone once looked at this and thought, "I can fight fire with that!"
Someone once looked at this and thought, “I can fight fire with that!”
Nevertheless, what seems to be the primary reason for the large numbers is the need for a quick response. When your only strategy for dealing with a large fire is demolishing large swathes of the city, it is fairly understandable that the priority is catching fires early. To this end, the vigiles kept regular night patrols and enforced fire safety regulations.

Yes, the Romans had fire safety regulations. The primary ones seem to have been ensuring your fire is not being kept negligently, and to keep supplies of water upstairs. There may have been other regulations around maintaining other fire fighting equipment on the premises. These men were not to be trifled with. If you were found to be negligent in your duty, the vigiles had the authority to beat you. This is something I’m sure all fire fighters will have wished for at some stage.

Whilst there were several disastrous fires under the watch of the vigiles (they operated under Nero, for example) Rome seemed to have suffered fewer fires than other major ancient cities, and the fact they were maintained for over four-hundred years is likely good evidence of their effectiveness. Score one, publicly funded services.

Of course, the fiddle hadn't been invented in Nero's day, which rather ruins the whole saying.
Of course, the fiddle hadn’t been invented in Nero’s day, which rather ruins the whole saying.
Nevertheless, proving the need for this blog, no one seems to have learned from this experience. There was no formal fire fighting service in London prior to the Great Fire. So after 1666, what form of fire fighting service was introduced? Private fire insurance companies, of course. I suppose this is so that instead of one large, publicly funded, inefficient mistake from the past, they could all have a series of smaller, efficiently allocated, private mistakes.

Academic Sources

Dickson, PGM 1960, The Sun Insurance Office, 1710-1960: the history of two and a half centuries of British insurance, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Plutarch 1st century AD, “The Life of Crassus”, Parallel Lives, sourced from: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Crassus*.html, accessed 4 January 2016.

Rainbird, JS 1976, , doctoral thesis, Durham University, sourced from: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7455/, accessed 4 January 2016.

Robinson, OF 2003, Ancient Rome: city planning and administration, Routeledge, London.

Wilson, C & Wilson, D 2015, An end to murder: humans beings have always been cruel, savage and murderous. Is that all about to change?, Hachette, London.

  1. Sorry, I promise this blog isn’t going to all be about Rome, but I keep picking topics, and Rome keeps cropping up as the oldest antecedent. ↩
  2. Referencing Wikipedia. I know, I feel dirty. ↩
  3. Yes, I know that’s a doctoral thesis. But you should read it. It’s genuinely a fascinating read and a crime it wasn’t picked up to make a book. ↩