Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The day innocence lost its innocence

Well, yesterday was ANZAC day, the most sacred day on the Australian calender. More sacred than Christmas, more sacred than Australia Day, even more sacred than Grand Final day and that's saying something. It's the day that - as every paper and news story will tell you - Australia lost its innocence.

Funny thing is, we've lost our innocence a few times since then. Just a few times I can remember off the top of my head: Cyclone Tracey hits Darwin in 1974; the Ash Wednesday fires of 1984 (I think); the Black Saturday fires of a couple of years ago; the Bali Bombings; the Indonesian Tsunami and, of course, 11/09/2001 - the day the World lost its innocence.

It might just be me but, isn't losing your innocence something you can only do once? And I would've thought that the day Australia lost its innocence would have been 26th January 1788; the day the First Fleet landed and started a massacre unrivalled in our time (Australia's time, not world time). Isn't losing your innocence like losing your virginity? Surely it can only be done once.

However, I've been proved wrong before and so it shall be again. Innocence can obviously be regained once a couple of years have passed and so innocence, like so many words before it, has lost all force and meaning.

In fact, just this morning I stubbed my toe after getting out of bed and it hurt so much that I declare today the day Tennyson lost his innocence.

9 comments:

Eric said...

Maybe the world goes 'to confession', and thereby is periodically absolved of its sins.

Eric said...

After a pennance or something?

tennysoneehemingway said...

Eric: I think you might be onto something here.

Kimberly said...

I once heard that if you don't have sex for a year you become revirginized. Actually heard that more than once. So if you lose your innocence in 2006 and nothing happnes until 2011 - then does that mean you're a super virgin?

BeckEye said...

Wait...did your blog get hijacked the other day? I came here from my following gadget and there was just a weird "welcome" message and the layout was different. Or was I following the wrong blog?

WHAT IS GOING ON????

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

Wait, what's all this about revirginizing? Who could really go 365 days without losing your mind? I'd probably end up humping a loaf of bread or something at around day 200.

tennysoneehemingway said...

Kimberley: I once went exactly that long without sex and, believe me, I still knew what I was doing.

BeckEye: Not that I'm aware of. After all, who'd hijack a blog that has only twenty followers? Maybe Blogger was playing up.

Dr. Ken: see my reply to Kimberley.

Anonymous said...

I had to look up ANZAC day, but I was provided with a nice summary on Wikipedia. I clearly know nothing about world history.

I kind of agree with you - Wasn't Australia initially where all the criminals were shipped to? In that sense, was it ever innocent? Maybe it was like one of those slutty girls who is still a virgin but gets down in other ways and ANZAC was the popping of the cherry.

I don't know; bad analogy. Happy remembrance?

tennysoneehemingway said...

Trix: I like it. I might use that next ANZAC day. Happy cherry poppin' everyone!