Showing posts with label memory block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memory block. Show all posts

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Anzacs - homecoming from Gallipoli...







The Anzacs - Homecoming from Gallipoli...



The word Anzac is part of the culture of New Zealanders and Australians. People talk about the 'spirit of Anzac'; there are Anzac biscuits, and rugby or rugby league teams from the two countries play an Anzac Day test. The word conjures up a shared heritage of two nations, but it also has a specific meaning.



Anzac is the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. This corps was created early in the Great War of 1914–18. In December 1914 the Australian Imperial Force and New Zealand Expeditionary Force stationed in Egypt were placed under the command of Lieutenant General William Birdwood. Initially the term Australasian Corps was suggested, but Australians and New Zealanders were reluctant to lose their separate identities completely.



No one knows who came up with the term Anzac. It is likely that Sergeant K.M. Little, a clerk at Birdwood's headquarters, thought of it for use on a rubber stamp: 'ANZAC' was convenient shorthand. Later the corps used it as their telegraph code word.



The Anzacs first saw action at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The small cove where the Australian and New Zealand troops landed was quickly dubbed Anzac Cove. Soon the word was being used to describe all Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Eventually, it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier.



After Gallipoli

There were two Anzac corps on the Western Front from 1916, with the New Zealand Division serving in II Australian and New Zealand Army Corps until early 1918. During the Sinai–Palestine campaign the combined Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division was more commonly called the Anzac Mounted Division.



The term continued into other wars. A new Anzac corps was briefly formed during the campaign in Greece in 1941. During the Vietnam War, New Zealand and Australian infantry companies combined to form the Anzac Battalion.



http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/anzac-day/the-anzacs









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Monday, March 9, 2009

Getting rid of memory block...


Some Huttriver Fiction - All rights reserved



"Getting rid of memory block"...


Now if you asked me how to get started, I wonder what I would say. Indeed, but I have memory block. How do I get rid of it? How do I get started?


Should I do a bit of research? Look up some reference books - or perhaps go to Google and ask how to get started. Lets get all the technical things right first though. Turn the computer on, switch on the internet, off to Word and get the Wordprocessor going. New file and a new page. I'm ready to write, to write, to write...


But I've still got memory block. What on earth am I going to write about? How do I get started? I'll get up and make a cup of coffee. I'll feel better then. Ok. Mmmmm! That actually tasted pretty good. Right, back to the computer we go. Lets get comfortable and think...


Thirty minutes later and still not a word on paper. This is going nowhere fast. I need a break from this environment. Perhaps I should go for a walk and think on my feet. I'll turn the internet off, but leave the computer on. I'll go down to the shopping centre and see if something interests me - gets me going!


Well its another thirty minutes later and I've still got writers block. I can see a friend of mine over the street. " Gidday Joe,'' I yelled across the street. He didn't appear to hear me; must be deaf in his advancing age. I decided to go over, it was pretty busy, cars and vans whizzing back and forth.


I was half way over the street and a taxi came heading for me. " You crazy idiot, " I yelled at him." Did you get your licence in a lottery," I yelled again, sprinting for the sidewalk. Joe had actually walked on up the street, and was obviously beyond earshot. But I was angry, in fact I was infuriated, I was raging inside like a volcano, and I could only think about that damned taxi driver. And I no longer suffered writer's block - I could write a novel about taxi drivers. Yeah, and I'll start when I get home!