OK, this weekend is the Queen’s Official Birthday in Australia. Sadly, we’re here in Southern California, missing the announcement of the Birthday Honours List. Particularly sad, since our new Prime Minister has announced that the country is returning to the Medieval Ranking of the Awards: Knights and Dames, etc. How exciting, I guess. It’s only appropriate really, given that most of the PM’s other policies are similarly backward looking. For anyone who knows Canadian politics, our guy is at least a shade to the right of Stephen Harper. Or as the Guardian recently put it: Carbon tax, refugees, economics: the Canadian and Australian governments have been reading closely from the same page. Or as I would put it: have been attending the same Tea Parties.

This is worth a look:Harper and Abbott

Oh and I forgot to mention about today’s walk. It was along a cliff top and we enjoyed the flowers, and the dark birds flying in the sky, or are those surfers in the ocean or maybe they’re sharks.