And so this is 40

And so this is 40
Look at what’s done
Another year over
A new decade just begun

So this is 40
Is it really more fun?
Suddenly not a young one
Not old and not young

It’s right in the middle
Of an average life
I swear I’m still sixteen
I’ve got a cake, you’ve got a knife?

I’ve gone up an age bracket
In surveys and qs
Lookin’ at fifty
A scary breakthrough

They say it’s just a number
That age is all Mind
I forget the real saying
Just don’t call it decline

And so this is 40
Cross your fingers and wish
The party will be rockin’,
(She winks, all impish.)

…. with a hat tip to John Lennon, who died the year I was born.

A heap of amazing shit that happened in 1980

• KISS toured Australia for the first time (and Eric Carr played with KISS for the first time)
• State of Origin was launched in Australia
• John Lennon was shot and killed
• Rubik’s cube was launched
• Post-It notes are sold for the first time
• There’s a mini-gold rush in Australia’s outback
• John Wayne Gacy is sentenced to death
• An earthquake in Italy kills more than 3000 people
• US boycotts the Moscow Olympics because of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan
• The Empire Strikes Back is one of the most popular films
• Camcorders are available for domestic purchase for the first time…. in Japan.
• Pac Man is released
• The Great Barrier Reef is given World Heritage Listing
• Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip came to Australia to open the new High Court building
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love, by Queen, spent 7 weeks at Number One on Australia’s singles chart
• Australia’s first female pilot takes the helm on Ansett flight 232, from Alice Springs to Darwin
• Co-founder of Australia’s Nugent Hand Bank (merchant bank), Francis John Nugen, is found shot dead
• Bon Scott died, choking on his own vomit
• A royal commission into drug trafficking estimates that there are about 20,000 heroin addicts in Australia
• Australia’s population is 14.59 million
• The modem was invented
• The Magna Doodle first went on sale (MAN I LOVED THESE)
• Azaria Chamberlain disappeared, and a dingo was determined to be the cause of her death
• Women can join Australian surf clubs as full members for the first time
• The state of Victoria recommends closure of all country passenger rail lines
• The Turkish Consul-General and his bodyguard are shot dead in Sydney, becoming Australia’s first political assassinations.
• Woollies’ town hall store in Sydney is bombed (nobody was seriously injured)
• Celebrated Aussie film Breaker Morant is released
• Iconic Aussie TV show Sale of the Century is launched (itself a remake of the 70s show Great Temptation)
• SBS commences transmission for the first time
• The inaugural Vogel was awarded to Archie Weller for The Day of the Dog (he wasn’t the first winner… that guy admitted that his uncle wrote the book)
• The first 1 GB hard drive cost $40,000
• It’s the last year a white man has run in the 100 m finals of the Olympics
• Zimbabwe gained its independence
• … and I was born. Of course. 🙂

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