2011 Australian Legends

Today, as a lead-up to Australia Day, saw the release of the next set in this annual stamp series which commenced in 1997. This year we honour four women from the '70s with a set entitled 'Advancing Equality'. The four women so honoured are (L to R):

Eva Cox
Germaine Greer
Elizabeth Evatt, and
Anne Summers.

Australia Post has a paragraph about the achievements of each of them. The series honours living Australians who have contributed to our national identity and character. Before 1997, members of the British Royal Family were the only living people 'allowed' to be on our stamps. *Ouch*!

The series thus far has celebrated:

1997 - Sir Donald Bradman (cricketer)
1998 - Olympic legends
1999 - Arthur Boyd (painter)
2000 - The ANZACs
2001 - Slim Dusty (country singer)
2002 - Medical scientists
2003 - Tennis legends
2004 - Dame Joan Sutherland (soprano)
2005 - Fashion designers
2006 - Barry Humphries (satirist)
2007 - Horse racing 'identities'
2008 - Legends of philanthropy
2009 - Acting legends
2010 - Legends of prose

The long weekend

It is not often I have to use stamps nowadays. For a while now, I have been putting two stamps on letters, figuring the price to have gone up. Probably. But I ran out of my dwindling supply earlier this week. I was a smidge nonplussed to find that I had missed the last two price hoicks and that a standard stamp was now 60c.

So, thinking to future-proof myself, I bought ten of the blighters, and they came in this little booklet thing, with the title 'Long Weekend'. What sort of a country has a stamp series dedicated to the long weekend?

Bloody brainwashing, I think it is. In the City Circle (metro, tube, subway) there are billboards spruiking the value of taking holidays. All work and no play ... that sort of fiddling with the neurones. This new stamp issue is along those broad lines.

There seems to be 5 stamps in the series: Long Weekend 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Tweaking the old grey matter to the very end, they don't have a stamp for the Long Weekend 2000s ... 'cause too many people don't take them. Geddit?

I am at least grateful that they didn't include the ubiquitous apostrophe in their stamp subtitles.