Bullgoose is not a deranged AI but a really sick person – so Alice fills in

Bullgoose’s brother is trying to think of something to get Bullgoose out of bed. Should he mention a Cedric? Or a good sized termite mound out Ewingar way? Maybe a bit of Steely Dan will cheer him up. Photo: Done by AI without the permission of Bullgoose.

Bullgoose is sick. You know that. I know that. But this time it’s covid. I have been prevailed upon by my alleged husband, Wes, to issue the following bulletin on Bullgoose’s behalf. I don’t know why I have to do it. I really don’t, but here we go.

(Reads) I know Indy readers are desperately missing the Bullgoose column (as if), but he has gone down with a particularly dread strain of covid that has laid him lower than a LiLo in Death Valley, as fevered as a phonebox tryst with Barnalby Joyce, as weak as Putin’s conscience, as deranged as Trump’s moral compass. He was shocked to discover with scalding clarity that men could get UTIs too. (Aww, poor diddums, getting in touch with your feminine side, hahaha.) Bullgoose is fairly certain that he became infected after shaking hands with a parson. He doesn’t blame the godbotherer. “I just let my good manners get the better of me and stuck out my hand. Live and learn.”

At the height of his fever Bullgoose suffered a savage bout of delirium during which he became convinced he was in fact renowned Hungarian double bass virtuoso, Aladar Pege (there is an amazing look-alikeness).

It’s his twin. Photo Wikipedia

For hours he could be heard crooning “Pege, it will come back to you. Pege, it will come back to you!

Fortunately, Bullgoose’s febrile persona switched to Jeanne Little, and finally Buckminster Fuller before he could book the Sydney Opera House for a bull fiddle recital.

Then, after an interval of sobbing, Bullgoose took to bellowing out cricket statistics from the Bodyline era, court summaries of “nightclub incidents” involving NRL players, alternative recipes for Anzac biscuits, the names and breeds of Queen Isabella of Spain’s lapdogs and the Sunday and Public Holiday train timetable for the Clyde-Carlingford line.

The infection has seen him contagious for a week, and outrageous for a fortnight. He has been placed on a strict diet of pancakes and flounder, because that’s the only food that can be slipped under his sick room door. Unfortunately, his body’s insanity system has been severely compromised. He is unable to come up with anything wild and wiggy to write and has retreated to a world that is literal and sobby, and therefore of little interest to discerning Indy readers.

Desperate and quivery, the Indy Editor threatened to go AI for the Bullgoose column, but the first two efforts produced a haiku about an idling lawnmower and a Holden propaganda pamphlet paying out on “Jap cars such as the Nissan Cedric”. She gave up and swanned off to a soiree on the lower Richmond.

Bullgoose had hoped to recover in time to fly to New York to heckle Trump outside the courthouse, but this was not to be. It looks like he’ll miss out on a refund for his flights, at least for the Bonza leg of the trip.

But please don’t despair. The worst has passed – along with other things of alarming colour and consistency. Bullgoose has plans for some crackerjack announcements and exposes, including good news for lovers of Nissan Cedrics, and aficionados of the spirit level (both tubular and bulls-eye!) He will be back before you know it.

A lesson to us all. Apparently, I have to say that.

Alice Piddens

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