Bob Brown’s greatest hit

One evening in 1983, Shane Howard and his Goanna Band did a one-night-only gig with other Australian pop-music luminaries to form Gordon Franklin and the Wilderness Ensemble.

The Ensemble released a single of their resulting protest anthem ‘Let The Franklin Flow’.

The B-side of the Ensemble’s single release was a spoken-word offering by The Australian newspaper’s 1982 Australian of the Year — who was then the director (and a founding member) of The Wilderness Society, and who is now Senator Bob Brown in the Australian Parliament.

Bob’s foray into pop greatness consisted in a rambling dissertation on Man-and-Science versus Arcadian Nature. (Bob seemed quite sanguine with then-prime minister Bob Hawke sending space-age F111 military aircraft over the Gordon-Franklin wilderness to spy on the Tasmanian state government’s nature-wrecking activities.)

My short video presented here is an excerpt from Bob’s Save-the-Franklin spiel, illustrated with images ranging from tranquil nature shots to vintage Goanna album artwork.

Bob’s spiel was bracketed with a mournfully untuneful kid belting out the chorus of ‘Let The Franklin Flow’, so in the video I’ve mercifully faded-in the Ensemble’s more melodious finale.

view at youtube

By the way, tech-savvy nostalgia buffs may find this link of interest.

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To order...

Shanks Greek style: decent white, olive oil, garlic, oregano, plenty of salt and cracked pepper, marjoram and - in this case - done in a Sunbeam electric skillet (on 2.5) for some four hours (potatoes halved and chucked in at the start)

A little Father Park reading in the background (a magisterial monograph on its third time through it must be said). The good Father gets to do some whilst the Lady Rectoress and the postulants holiday at Port Macquarie with the in-laws. I can only take so many... Christmas and April have seen that "many" reached.

So I cook shanks, drink black beer and read ancient history. How very strange....

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