The Never Never / 16 days of activism against gender violence

Yesterday, I told Milbarge from Begging the Question in a comment that "you'll never never know if you never never go" - you know, after that ad from a couple of years ago featuring Daryl Somers.

So I got thinking about the phrase "The Never Never" and how it came to be associated with the Northern Territory.

And so hence begins the lesson...

The phrase "The Never Never" initially referred to anywhere in the Australian outback. It became associated with the Northern Territory specifically thanks to the book "We of the Never Never" by Mrs Aeneas Gunn, which was later turned into a movie. Both the book and the movie are considered Aussie classics, and are set in outback Northern Territory (though it wasn't called that back then), hence how the entire territory (no it's not a state, it's a territory) came to be referred to by that name.

And how the ads came to feature the phrase "never never" in them as a play on words.

Warning: blatant promotion of pet cause to follow

On a completely different topic, we are currently in the middle of the 16 days of activism against gender violence. Prevention of violence against women (especially in countries like Iraq, Afganistan, Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina) is a pet subject of mine.

I was surprised to see Canada on Amnesty's hit list though. You don't tend to think of a country like Canada having a sufficient problem for Amnesty to get involved.

I mean, I know Australia has it's problems, but you don't expect to see us getting active campaigning from Amnesty either. Apparently, we were the most progressive country in the world in terms of women's issues and prevention of violence against women in the 1970's but have slidden back somewhat of late.

Anyway, you can support this campaign by wearing a white ribbon (though White Ribbon Day in Australia was on 25th Nov). Or of course, by getting active with any one of a number of organisations around Australia, like Unifem (or it's international equivalent).

(/blatant promotion of pet cause)

And on yet another note, I've been a very social little being lately. Last night my upstairs neighbour at my new place came down to introduce himself. This has never happened to me before! I was very surprised. I've only ever had neighbours come over to introduce themselves before when I've done something wrong and they wanted to complain at me before I did it again. But this guy just wanted to introduce himself and let me know if I ever needed anything... He didn't seem to have any ulterior motive at all. Not even to meet the new single girl on the block since I think he's gay (big surprise in New Farm). It was really nice.

And this morning I had coffee with an old family friend. She's actually a friend of my parents who has known me since I was 18 months old, but, like many of my parents' friends, I have felt since late teenager-hood that they were equally my friends as my parents'. We caught up on the goss, discussed investments and travel (she's way cooler than my parents that way), and talked about the above pet topic. I haven't seen her in about 2 1/2 years, despite the fact that she and her husband live in Brisbane, so it was really nice to see her and I'm hoping to catch up with her again soon.

Listening to: Snow Patrol - Final Straw (told you I was going to buy it... *g*)