anzac day is a public holiday in AU & NZ. it’s today.
i’ve been thinking of it as the equivilent to veteran’s day but after watching the news today, i think a better comparison would be dec 7, pearl harbour day. anzac stands for ‘australian new zealand army corp’ and, seems to only pertain to WWI & WW2 and even more specifically to a battle in gallipoli (which is in turkey) in 1915.
this morning i saw an interview with a turkish historian who has specialised in this battle. tonight there was a tv program talking about the history, how it was churchill’s idea, how it combined irish, welsh, british, kiwi & aussies and how they all fucked up big time in some way or another. the disclaimer is that ALL i know about gallipoli has come from these 2 tv shows but i’m shocked at how much of a disaster this was.
so i find it surprising that the day is celebrated to this extent. to what extent you ask? well there’s a dawn service at the war memorials as well as prob all local RSL (retired service league… something like that). there’s a parade in melb and all the other ‘capital cities’ (ie the state capitals). there’s a big dawn ceremony in gallipoli. there’s even a cookie named after it! (which i attempted to make the other night. they tasted fine but were more like crumbles not cookies).
tonite the tv was just filled with anzac stuff. 730 was 60 minutes with an anzac story and the ‘revealing gallipoli’ one i watched. following those were ‘love letters from a war’ and ‘anzacs’ (a mid 80s movie w croc dundee!) . tomorrow, until about 3p, 3 of the channels will cover the dawn services, parades, docos on soldiers and misc war movies. 
thank god they’re not interfering with passions!!
oopps… getting off track. i think the way and the spirit of anzac day is great though i find it odd such a failed battle is celebrated. failure isn’t a trait in the australian culture that’s celebrated. currently there’s a series running on SBS called ‘she’ll be right mate’ about the state of the aussie business world and one of their recurring mentions is how once someone fails in business here, they don’t recover. there isn’t any of the ‘well, you failed, you learned, get out there & go!’ mindset. it is definitely a cultural trait i’ve noticed.
ok. there’s more i want to comment on but i’m considering going to the dawn service so i should get some sleep. nite everyone.