The school where I teach is closed today, 8 June, to observe the birthday of her Australian Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Be it noted, this is not the Queen’s actual birthday—that’s in April. Today is merely the observation of her Official Birthday. I don’t know what that means, precisely, but it does seem a pretty neat arrangement for someone, naming no names, to scoop in twice as many presents per year as non-monarchs would be entitled to.
Please understand, I don’t wish to make fun of, or cast aspersions upon, another country’s holidays. After all, I come from the nation that gave the world an annual celebration of a burrowing, meteorologically prescient rodent. Of course, Groundhog Day isn’t really a holiday, since no part of the US that I know of is depraved enough actually to give people paid leave from work to observe it. Nonetheless, it’s right there on most calendars in the US (not merely on the annual gift calendar from Rodent Fancy magazine, as one might wish), and I just can’t believe that its presence there gives a real boost to America’s prestige.
Never having celebrated the Queen’s birthday, official or otherwise, I did not know what to expect, and so committed to memory all three verses of “God Save the Queen,” in case I came across a public singalong somewhere. But I have been disappointed in that regard, unless some carolers turn up this evening. Australians seem rather ambivalent about the holiday. On the one hand they, like me, enjoy a day off and the excuse to uncap a few bottles of their excellent wine. On the other hand, they find it a bit contrived to celebrate the birthday of someone living half a planet away and to whom they are only distantly connected. But, as I say, a day off is a day off, so most of the Aussies I know shrug their shoulders and go watch a footy game or something.
But no Queen’s Birthday bar-be-ques this year: it is raining at the moment, which is always a welcome event in Victoria. But having mentioned bar-be-ques, I’d like to put in a plug for the superb bar-be-que facilities they have here—an under-reported part of this under-reported country. We have visted dozens of public parks here in Victoria since our arrival eight months ago, and I would guess that at least half of them have a number of free (or very inexpensive) gas bar-be-ques available for public use. These are formidable brick structures, topped by a solid, stainless-steel cooking surface that slants to a grease hole in the center. Push a button and a gas fire underneath heats them up in minutes for you to grill your steak, burger, or what have you. As I say, you pay a few cents to use some of them, but most are absolutely free. They are the most amazingly civilized public facility I have ever encountered anywhere, and I never had heard of them before I got here.
I don’t know what the traditional Queen’s Birthday dinner is, but tonight we are having kangaroo, ‘roo burgers, in fact. Kangaroo meat is as commonly available as beef here, and generally cheaper. My kangaroo mince, for example, cost AUD $5.00 per kilo (USD $3.96 per lb.), as compared with organic beef mince, which is AUD $16.00 per kilo. Moreover, kangaroo is extremely lean (less than 2% fat) with a good, subtle flavor, rather like heart—not gamey at all. Recently, it has been touted as well on environmental grounds. Kangaroos are evolutionarily adapted to thrive in the Australian bush and outback, so they tend not to over-graze, as cattle and sheep do. Kangaroo digestion also produces less methane (a greenhouse gas) than do other stock animals; one might call them the Prius of edible animals. As I say, I don’t know what the traditional Queen’s Birthday dinner is, but it does my heart good to imagine her Majesty sitting down in Buckingham Palace to a nice, fat kangaroo tail, smoking hot off the barbie, washed down with a flagon of good Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon.
I’ll leave you with that toothsome thought and the middle verse of “God Save the Queen.” It’s my personal favorite, though I do feel vaguely uncomfortable rhyming “our God arise” with “her enemies.” I don’t know why. “Frustrate their knavish tricks” is good though—seems to me the world could use a bit more knavish-trick frustration nowadays.
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.
--originally posted 6/2009
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