STORM IN TEABREAK

  EDITORIAL APOLOGY & MEA CULPA MAXIMUS    

Finally, a mere seven  weeks after the event, our  FNQ Editor-at-Large, Chip Le Mans Beauregard Jones- Smythe-LaCroix (ex Woodville Racing Quarterly)  has filed this on the spot report from the the scene. He assures us that this extraordinary delay was unavoidable because the piece required extensive polishing and further fact checking. We here at Alias Poor Yorick are not in the habit of harassing professional freelancers or questioning their bar bills, however it must be noted that the bulk of this polishing was done at the Byron Bay Hilton and involved interviewing forty-three known drug dealers I'm sorry I mean film production advisors, two palm readers, and a Reiki practitioner who nearly worked for the Bureau of Meteorology but turned down the job when they realised that BOM was a bit hung up on the science stuff and didn't listen to the secret true voice of the universe. I knew Chip in the old days when I was Sports Editor at the Otago Daily Times and he was covering the Rugby. What I knew about sport could fit on the back of a matchbook, and what Chip knew about Rugby was not clearly visible to the naked eye. He'd just finished his cadetship at the Montana Bugle and he was, well, an American. And he was 23 and he was keen. How we managed to hold on to those jobs I have no idea. I asked him what he thought about the 81 Springbok Tour of NZ . He had no idea the Springboks were from South Africa, didn't know what all the fuss was about, and was a bit surprised that anyone in Africa actually played sport, what with having all their time taken up hunting lions and fighting the British Army. I think it's fair to say that back in the day most of the actual newspapermen at the ODT were substantially drunk pretty much all of the time. C hip and I would head up to the Public Bar at the City Hotel, grab a few cleansing ales and ask the regulars how they thought the All Blacks would go against (  ) on Saturday and write down the guts of whatever whisky wisdom spewed forth. Column inches to spare.  All I had to worry about was  that look on Chip's face after that fatal tenth cleansing ale when he'd ask yet again " Why ?? Why is it called a try when you've obviously succeeded ? What's wrong with you people ?" I should have known then that scoring acid for Chip was a mistake.  Tom Robbins took acid in 1963 and it changed the course of modern American literature, I took acid in 1973 and it changed the courses I took at university, Chip took acid in 1983 and it changed the width of his trousers. Drugs are not for everybody. And let's face it, there's not much room for Gonzo journalism on the Sports Desk of a minor metropolitan newspaper.  Or the Woodville Racing Quarterly. Sorry about that Chip old bean.                           

 

Tropical Intense Cyclone Terrence Trent d'Arby was meant to be big and bad and bloody dangerous. Scheduled to hit Queensland on Friday and the NSW on Sunday with 4 million people in mortal danger and guaranteed property damage at apocalyptic levels. And just in time for a Federal Election. It was perfect.

There'd been weeks of planning, sponsorship deals were in place, and Peter Dutton already had at least two speeches written lambasting the Albanese Government for it's failure to control the weather.

Thousands gathered in crowds to be told by authorities that gathering in huge crowds was a really bad idea and they should immediately go to their homes and wait for instructions to the effect that staying in their homes was an even worse idea and await orders to evacuate immediately. Or at least quite soon. Once the mix-up with the buses had been sorted.  I mean who in their right mind organises State Secondary School Athletics Meet on the same day as a Tropical Cyclone is due to

reign havoc on property and threaten the lives of up to 4 million people . Just asking for trouble that is. 

And then dawn breaks, a nation braces for chaos & the weather's a no show. Bloody thing's just stopped. Having a breather somewhere to the left of the Timor Sea. Chaos. The cream of ABC Breakfast Television presentation team, hopped up on Red Bull, adrenaline, and dreams of Walkley Awards, are gutted by the news that the storm will be a day late and not quite as scary. They're left to wander round trying to avoid interviewing  the local SES Chief  who's obsessed with explaining  that there's more to making a sandbag than just getting a shovel and putting sand into a sack  Turns out ,no, that's pretty much it.  But it's better than talking to the ex-president of the Mullimbimbi Surf Lifesaving Club while he bangs on about the last Big One and how he and his mates were shitfaced on mushrooms when it hit back in '88.  Clearly these were mushrooms of extraordinary quality as there is no official record of a Big One back in '88. Nor for that matter is there any record of a Mullimbimbi Surf Lifesaving Club. 

Hoping to take advantage of the lull before the lull in the storm, Peter Dutton held a surprise press conference inside a rain gauge describing the government's response to the delayed weather event as piss weak and clear evidence of a conspiracy between the Lame Duck Labour Govt and B.O.M to discredit his attempts to discredit climate change. Asked to explain this, Mr Dutton said everything would become clear once the Coalition was voted into power but one thing at least was cvlear at this stage and that was the fact that the current government could not even handle a storm in a teacup, as evidence by their handling of the an actual storm in a teacup at the Wangaratta Presbyterian Church Fete the previousweek. Challenged to prove he wasn't just making shit up, the Opposition Leader assured reporters that oh it happened all right, obviously the Government's covered it up and what do expect when you've got a political party being controlled by the trade unions and rebel motorcycle gangs. 

Next minute Clive Palmer & his Flying Flugelhorn Fascists turn up & slap billboard size posters over every flat surface in town and every other populated area between Cairns and Townsville, claiming that this disastrous weather event is being caused by immigration and it needs to stop and this is what happens when the govt tries to control  natural disasters instead of leaving it in private hands. And what Albanese won't tell you is that Tropical Cyclones like this are a direct consequence of  high levels of immigration while tonight ten thousand Australian kiddies will go to bed hungry while living in houses that do not even exist because foreigners have bought all the real ones. Also climate change is a hoax and what we need is to teach children in schools how to pray and love God and Donald Trump and coal. You know it makes sense. Vote for the Flugelhorn Fascists. Doing the right thing since February 2025. 

By this stage the ABC Breakfast team have decided that morning drinking makes a lot of sense & are on their second round of Espresso Martinis with the Channel 7 Helicopter pilot and the Met Office Media Advisor when the ABC Feed cutaway to the sixteen-year old media studies casual they'd forgotten they hired in the heat of the moment

And in breaking news, this just in from BoM in Townsville West. The former Tropical Cyclone Alfredo Gracia del Nino has changed directions and is moving south east northwards in what appears to be a circular motion. The weather event has been reclassified as a Fairly Ordinary and Quite Frankly Disappointing Tropical Squall. The storm itself has signalled that it now wishes to be known as Vera, and, having applied for official gender reclassification, will be using the pronouns they, them, and fuck that's quite a wind.