I’m feeling newsy. I am. Stuff’s been going down, and new stuff has come to light, so I’ll try to get you all catched up and fully au fait with the goings-on and muckings-around west of the Richmond Range.
Christmas. Once again, we prepared our metabolisms, lest a dread, icy and starvatious winter should savage us in January, by going the fang on ‘festive favourites’ (read gutsworthy foodstuffs for food stuffing). We wisely balanced our diets by over eating from all the food groups.
Of course, prawns are a different matter. I know of no case in recorded Christmas history where anyone has died eating prawns (not counting choking), so we traditionally scoff them as a sensible preventative. They are also yum, so when two different prawn vendors actually made it out to Bonalbo we hit them both up for some King Tigers.
Who knew you could hot up and trick out a set of fence strainers? Well you can, and my boys gave me this luxe spring-loaded grabber to replace the jaws on my strainers. I rushed out and tensioned up the clothes line, and now you can pluck all sorts of tunes on it. What a top gift, and I was glad I’d taken the time to get them each some nice adhesives and duct tape.
The cracker/bonbons from Super Cheap never disappoint. This year after all the pulling and cracking I scored a bullseye level. Yep, a bullseye level. Now, I’m not into omens; they’re a bit too ominous to me. Nevertheless, it got me to thinking that perhaps 2025 might actually be the year when we get the Nissan Cedric Museum and International Spirit Level Display up and running in Bonalbo, in which case that little bullseye could go on display.
And a parcel landed from Paul Keating.
Dear Bullshot, (sic)
You’re fighting the good Cedric Museum fight up there and sticking up for Waxy Noggins beach architecture, so I thought I’d send you this French clock to raffle and raise funds. I mean these fat cat naysayers wouldn’t have a clue if you tattooed it on their tailbones, so go hard, son!
What a nice surprise. Just a real nice surprise. The French clock is digital, so I don’t think it’s one of his antiques. Still, it’ll sell tickets, for sure.
The Mallanganee Observatory project is officially a goer and all set to make Coonabarabran look like an astronomical backwater. I mean Mallanganee has one less syllable to get your tongue around for a start, and because it’s to be a BYO telescope affair we won’t face a queue for bookings longer than the dunny line at Bluesfest like they do out at Coona-waitanylonger.
A word of warning. Don’t fall for ads offering ‘Observatory site inspections’ and the like.
They’re a scam run by reality fugitive and jive turkey, Frenchy Fargas, in an effort to promote his ‘Paddys Flat Pyramid Plantation’. You’ll find yourself beaten about the head and shoulders with a prospectus and bundled into a Coles delivery truck to be driven to the wilds of Paddys Flat for a mad haranguing.
The Dulgigin Sphynx has healed over and totally expunged the defacious paint job that appeared in early 2024. No, Elder Crant Assertion, 35 of Leeville, it is not a Christmas miracle. It’s just a weirdass thing that has happened, like life on Earth.
And, finally, the bad news. Thieves stole the aluminium picnic tables and seating from the shade shelter in the park at Bonalbo. Mums and bald-headed preschoolers are crouching on the bones of their bums amongst the bull ants and blazing sun, dog walkers are desiccating, and alfresco birthday barbecues are tiring, stand-up affairs. The town is spewing. Spewing.
Theories abound, but it’s looking very much like it was stolen by an ayurvedic homeopath for use as an aura-chakral massage table at a bush rave dance doof organised by Friends of Lidia Thorpe and held near Bean Creek Falls. Police raided the event but all they found was a lot of rubbish and a jeering scarecrow figurine brandishing a ‘New Lobster’ brand shifting spanner.
Detective Sergeant Col Snifty, of the Quack Remedy Squad, is treating the spanner as a red hot lead, mark my words. In the meantime, if you should encounter a furtive homeopath, a New Lobster brand tool or an early model Subaru with an alarming roof profile, phone the cops, pronto.
A lesson to us all,
Bullgoose
More Bullgoose columns here.
