Queen does it for me, every time!

Flippin' low-life maggots!
Maggots in our kitchen tidies. Maggots in our wheelie bins. Maggots, if you live rough like I have for yonks up here in central Queensland, in our backyard thunder dunnies.
Masses of maggots everywhere. And there's no doubt we'll be seeing more and more of these slimy little bastards in the hot summer months ahead.
But let's leave the maggots for another time, okay? As I pen this particular column, my mind is crawling with an even greater danger to the health of this great brown land of Oz.
I refer, of course, to the pathetic attempt come Saturday to cut Oz adrift from the only two stabilising forces that has seen us prosper and stand puff-chested and proud as the greatest goddamned nation on earth – the mother country and our very own Queen, Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Australia.
Fair suck of the sav, has everyone forgotten that this referendum rubbish was foisted on us by that late-departed but seldom lamented leader of the Loony Left, that part-time pork producer Paul Keating?
Remember him? Shaming this nation in the eyes of the world by placing his hand on Her Majesty's Back, thumbing his nose at protocol, tradition and decency just so he could see if he could flick her bra strap open in one go.
Yep, he's the one. Always painting the big world picture with rough, crude strokes in the hope that average Australians wouldn't notice the fine detail on the home canvas - the disappearing jobs, the budget blowout, the fancy eyetie suits, the scrawny foreign missus, that cruel undertaker's nose, his not much better.
Fair dinkum, the slimy dirtbag almost got away with it, didn't he? Well, it took a mighty big man to give the great bullshit artist the much-needed brush-off and I refer of course to our very own Prime Minister John Howard.
Now don't get me wrong here. I've not always been a big fan of Mr Howard, even though a lot of people say he's locked forever in the 50s way of doing things.
And sure, that guns buy-back business was a flamin' disaster. But to be fair it was obviously foisted on him by nervous nellies in his party room as a knee-jerk reaction to the alleged killings by Martin Bryant.
Well, you've seen the same pictures that I have so we all know what really happened down there in Port Arthur. Blown out of all proportion by bleeding hearts with their own particular barrows to peddle. Well, the worm turns full circle, doesn't it, and thankfully, we've now had those hundreds of thousands of deaths of innocent darkies in East Timor to ram home to those bet-wetting hand-wringers the absolute stupidity of forcing Howard to make that guns-buyback decision just because some over-paid pollster said it was the right thing to do.
Gawd strewth, even now those basket weavers still won't admit to just how great a danger they've put this country at risk by not allowing ordinary citizens access to the weapons of self-destruction to defend ourselves with.
No, love him or admire him, you've got to admit John Howard's been showing good strong stable leadership for some time now, that early hiccup aside.
Crikey. Just look at those yellow bastards up in Indonesia. Haven't they all felt a little uncomfortable since they've had the tip of a little bit of persuasive Aussie steel on the business end of an Owen Machine Carbine up their collective chocolate-coloured cloacas over East Timor?
That nightly footage of those scruffy militants slinking off into the bush with their tails between their legs whenever our proud Anzacs sweep by in their APCs make me as proud as punch and reinforces that old adage that two wongs will never make a white, not in my book.
No, Mr Howard might have some short-comings, but he's standing tall in my estimation at the moment.
We're proud monarchists, Mr Howard and I, and not just because the Royal family has set a mighty standard for average people like you to aspire to in eking out your meaningless everyday lives.
Perhaps it's the time I spent in the military in the 50s that has shaped my love of all things English, but I don't give a flying fig for that. I'll be apologising to no-one; buck 'em all for the full seven seconds, I say.
Like a lot of other military people, I don't normally talk about my time in the service. But, yeah, if you must know, my marble came up and to this day, I'm proud as punch of my time in the green and bold.
The other veterans out there will know what I mean when I say a strong belief in what you were doing and who you were doing it for helped you get through all the tough times.
Like that first night of basic training, when the CSM had bawled me out for some minor indiscretion during our first drills session.
Even now I only have to close my eyes and there I am, alone on the company parade ground dressed only in my GP boots, hat and rifle and the skimpiest pair of leopard-motive undies; the rain pouring down.
So help me Gawd, after all these years, I can still smell his whisky breath close to my face after four hours in the Snake Pit, his face purple with rage as he threatens to drill me all night if need be, taking almost sadistic pleasure in screaming how much he's looking forward to seeing me crack.
Yes, in those early days at Cunungra Training Centre, away from my father and mother's bossoms, alone and afraid as any young nasho recruit can be, I'm the first to admit that I found comfort and solace just by thinking about what serving Queen and country meant to me.
Sitting there in the old six-man tent – you read right, you politically correct arseholes; it's a six MAN tent, always was, always will be – after lights out, my boozy mates already asleep in their cots, I'd absent mindedly work the bolt of my beloved .303 back and forwards for no particular reason. Back and forwards, forwards and backwards, as I chanted that newly-acquired mantra that also played a major role in getting me through those hard times unscathed: This is my weapon, this in my gun. This is for fighting; this is for fun.
I knew that if I sat there in the dark long enough, with the all pervasive smell of rifle oil in the air, the scattered gauze around my feet, then sooner or later the bolt would slip effortlessly from its carriageway to be replaced by the ritualistic tug, tug, tug of the pullthrough every other minute.
And, inevitably, the Queen would come to me in the darkness. Take this callow and frightened young man in her hands and provide some welcome relief from the alien surroundings into which I had been cast.
Not long afterwards, my commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charlton Peters's batman marched me into the CO's office.
"Stand easy," the CO said quietly. He cleared away some papers before looking up. "You know, Lavendar, there are some conscripts here who would bend over backwards to get out of this man's army. You're not one of them by any chance?"
I supported my indignant "No!" with the snappiest salute a three-day veteran could muster. One, two, three. One. Longest way up; shortest way down.
No. I served my Queen and country to the best of my ability in the two weeks I was in the Army.
And if I'm now a marble short because of that experience, so be it.
And I urge you to vote the same on Saturday.

Clarrie Lavendar writes exclusively for The Bug whenever the medication permits