CHARLES DARWIN AND THE WOWSERS

As we are soon to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin- our esteemed patron- one of the bookish simians who contributes to Little Darwin produced this apt item for the edification of swinging Territorians.

Travelling in the outback , sleeping under the entrancing canopy of stars, gives you a new perspective on life and an aversion to so-called civilisation. Such was the case when artist Russell Drysdale and naturalist Jock Marshall meandered about the bush in a l950s expedition which provided material for their book, Journey Among Men , Hodder and Stoughton , London, l962. For his part, Drysdale drove up from Sydney through the Territory to join Marshall in the Kimberley. At Tennant Creek , Drysdale stopped for the national dish-steak and eggs . He also heard the yarn about the “no hoper” in Alice Springs who convinced a storekeeper to sell him a bottle of methylated spirits, then complained that it was not cold .

Early in the text it announced the co-authors were glad be back in Australia among the cold beer and red dust on the fringe of a desert after years of exile in Europe. However , at the end of their productive and inspiring trip, the outskirts of the big smoke were encountered and they began to feel shut in ; people’s attitudes were not as friendly and open as those of the outback.

Arriving in Adelaide , it was described as the gateway of the wowser belt . A wowser, the book provocatively explained, was a gentleman who uses a contraceptive as a book-mark for his Bible. It went on to chide the wowsers of Adelaide and Melbourne who exerted an influence disproportionate to their numbers. In the two cities laymen as well as professional “ sin-shifters” still wrote rhetorical letters to the papers condemning “devotees of the fallacious doctrine of evolution.” It carried the interesting comment on the part played by the Press.

Quicker than you can say Darwin! these earnest ( anti evolution ) men cite in their support the opinions of l9th century “authorities” such as Herbert Spencer, not to mention those of the late Mr George Bernard Shaw . In these cities, newspaper editors who have worked previously in a wider world will, in compliance with local custom, cynically grant up to half a column of space to a single such Edwardian incongruity.


A surprise in the book is that Charles Darwin nearly did not make it aboard the voyage of the Beagle as the naturalist because the skipper, Commander John Lort Stokes , did not like the shape of his nose. It is therefore obvious that natural selection gave Darwin a superior hooter which enabled him to sniff out the secrets of evolution .

Creationists will appreciate this from the menu of an American cafe : Poached eggs on toast= Adam and Eve on a raft .

IS DRC A-OK?

On reading a piece in the Sunday Territorian written by one Peter Murphy, I noticed that it invited readers to view the DRC on the web. What does DRC stand for , may I ask? . It used to mean Darwin Reconstruction Commission which rebuilt Darwin after Cyclone Tracy . I was informed that DRC stands for the Darwin Research Centre , a bit like the right wing Sydney Research Centre conducted by Gerard Henderson, president of the Phillip Adams fan club .

Armed with this info, I decided to look at the DRC website as it would no doubt contain words of wisdom for all right thinking Australians. Alas , when it was Googled, up popped not one but two warnings that connection could damage your computer. My faithful old computer is steam driven , so I am very wary about connecting to URLs which could do it harm , as well as possibly opening the way for annoying SPAM , bulk offers of licorice flavoured Viagra and personal messages from lonely Russian ladies simmering in the tundra.

Puzzled, I asked a prominent journalist what he knew about the DRC site and he warned me that he had once accessed it and his computer had gone haywire. It would seem that the invitation by the newspaper for its valued readers to visit DRC could land it in a massive class action under consumer protection laws when computers all over Darwin erupt like a flummery based IED topped by hundreds and thousands.

Intrigued, I decided to call on the mysterious DRC in the CBD ASAP . Caught in a monsoonal downpour, I arrived at the advertised address of the Darwin Research Centre only to find it was locked up, the lights out, with instructions for couriers to deposit packets ( of what it did not stipulate ) in an adjoining office. As a result of my drenching, I now have the sniffles and could succumb to double pneumonia. Yours for a safer cyberspace and the eradication of viral infections. For obvious reasons , this post is aligned left.

FISHY OUTLOOK FOR TERRITORY

Treasurer Delia Lawrie today described as non-Keynesian and a wee bit uncouth a newspaper statement that the next NT budget will be tighter than a barramundi’s bum .

In the Sunday Laugh-In , Snot Gunmetal predicted a tightening of sphincters in Top and Bottom End economic circles. Like Rex Hunt, Gunmetal goes on lots of fishing safaris , kisses many fish and thus knows astonishing arcane facts about the anatomy of Nemo and his tasty mates.

Due to daily doses of castor oil for inner cleanliness , Treasurer Lawrie is more relaxed and has an opposite view to Gunmetal’s dire prediction. While agreeing national revenue from mining could be lower than a snake’s duodenum this calendar year, she says our fabulous NT lifestyle and the impact of the film Australia will plug the hole. Otherwise, the best selling author of 101 Ways To Cook A Banana , Paul Keating, will be called in to run the republic and things will become tighter and more dangerous than a spiny anteater's whatnot.

CHOIR OF HARD KNOCKERS

In an act of sheer desperation, Jimmy Barnes has been asked to help a dysfunctional group – the Federal Coalition- to sing along in unison. It is an extremely difficult task which if successful will earn Jimmy the Croix de Guerre, a sloppy kiss on both cheeks from General Charles de Gaulle , and the Royal Order of the Nepalese Albino Elephant. The coalition has been singing off key ever since their longstanding bandmeister , Little Johnny Howard, fell off the rostrum and jammed the conductor’s baton up his e-flat major, very painful.


His replacement, Brendan Nelson, favoured sea shanties, but his crew became seasick in the doldrums and Lord Nelson went down with scurvy . Up popped the promising troubadour , Malcolm Turnbull , a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music but, despite his credentials, he started to sound like a cracked recording of the Great Caruso . A prominent soprano fell off the back bench , tore her stockings , and called it a day . Another castrata, who nearly made it to the top of the charts, developed laryngitis and withdrew from public appearances and now passes his time writing exceedingly passionate Mills and Boons romances .


And to add to the deafening Coalition cacophony , hayseed National Party members have increasingly become noisier than a gumleaf band high on moonshine . A new Liberal Party choir boy from South Australia today described the squawks of the National Party as annoying as Jimmy Durante’s lost chord . Another prominent Iiberal who officiated at the North Australian Eisteddfod for many years , and thus knows talent when he hears it , said the Nats should buzz off and scare the Hillsong crowd during passage of the donations wheelie bin.

THIS TAKES THE TECHNICOLOURED CAKE

Aborigines have over the years been described as primitive, living remnants of the Stone Age and incapable of coping with modern civilization . Yet it seems they were nuclear scientists, probably carried out hydrogen bomb tests at Kakadu and composed the Chooky Dancers’ hit song , Mellow Yellow , long before Westerners climbed out of the bogs. How come ? According to the NT News obituary for former politician , Joe Fisher , he was a pioneer miner who “ found yellow cake in the South Alligator River Valley”.

This is an astounding revelation which has stunned anthropologists, scientists and archaeologists. Yellow cake is the product of uranium mining , so Territory Aborigines obviously split the atom aeons ago, taught Lord Rutherford all he knew about radioactivity and Darwin is sitting on an Aboriginal nuclear waste dump. Few people are aware that Aborigines set up a top secret anti-missile missile base at the dawn of time on Kwajalein Island in the South Pacific at which they developed the boomerang. Genial Joe actually found uranium ore deposits . May he be irradiated in peace.

PLAIN OLD EARTHA KITT

During the long struggle to obtain a community radio station in Townsville, a move strongly opposed by commercial interests and slowly handled by the Federal government, a test broadcast was made in l979 from what was then the Townsville Hotel, known as the “Sugar Shaker” because of its design. As the enthusiasts went about setting up their makeshift studio, an hotel guest, “ a plain looking woman”, sans make up and wearing a kimono, poked her head around the door and asked what they were doing. Told it was part of a campaign to get a community radio station, she wished them well. Who was that woman ? It was the fiery singer Eartha Kitt, described by Orson Welles as “ the most stunning woman in the world ”.

When she died in New York last month , aged 81, Greens Senator Bob Brown recalled she had visited Tasmania and supported the Franklin River protests of the l980s. A part Cherokee, she opposed the Vietnam War and in l992 called for Aborigines to form a political party to advance their cause in Federal parliament .

Unlikely to be branded the most stunning male in the universe, one of the supporters of the successful drive for the Townsville radio station, 4TTT-FM, was Chips Mackinolty , now one of the NT government’s politicati . Peg Havnen, involved in Aboriginal radio station ventures , was also connected with 4TTT-FM.

Deluded individuals who believe that under the much vaunted “ free enterprise ” capitalist system competition is welcome and big business does not act like the Mafia should study the following parable. When another test broadcast was planned for the l980 Anzac weekend it was warned that the public could not be told to listen in because 4TTT did not have a licence to broadcast to the public. As a result , an oddly worded classified advertisement appeared in the Townsville Bulletin general notices reminding members of the Townsville FM Broadcasting Society of the 3-day event commencing at 6pm on 100.7 MHZ (FM) . The successful event provided jazz, popular classics, big bands , folk and children’s music , and ethnic affairs covering three groups - Italian, Greek and Aboriginal/Islander.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY-OR BUST

This wicked Little Darwin scribe nearly fell out of his recliner when the busty blonde actress Sabrina made an unexpected fleeting appearance in the superb ABC TV film ,The Eternity Man .Why? Because Sabrina figured in one of the biggest let downs in my life right here in Darwin some 50 odd years ago. A callow youth , still suffering from teenage acne, I was driven to the airport, a tape measure in my pocket , to have an encounter of the close kind with Sabrina . If you get my drift, she was really big news in those days . Darwin based Melbourne Herald journalist Doug Lockwood had been tipped off that she was going to fly into Darwin from England and in a discussion at the old NT News office enlisted my help for a stunt to run the tape measure over Sabrina’s vital statistics for a photograph .

The plane arrived , I fidgeted with the tape measure , and out stepped –Sabrina’s buxom mother! Lockwood had been given a bum steer. Still, mum was a good sport , had a kind of gor’blimey accent , giggled , and apologised for not being her dazzling daughter .

I sat up late to watch The Eternity Man , about reformed petty thief and alcoholic Arthur Stace who wrote Eternity in chalk on footpaths and walls all over Sydney in a bid to save sinners . As I had seen Stace going about his work when I was cadet reporter in Sydney , I was eager to see how he was treated in the unusual film of an opera originally performed in London . The film version was a tour de force capturing the seductive seediness, glitter and destructiveness of the metropolis in which Mr Eternity used graffiti for God.

Directed by Julien Temple , it was an astonishing exposition of Australian talent and because of its content , unfortunately, was run at an ungodly hour on a Sunday night meaning not many people would have seen it. In l956 the Sydney Morning Herald published a poem about Stace who had served in WW1.

Many nights he walked, and early mornings of the week,
Treading with silent steps the silent town
Where none but drunks and whores were still awake,
His great word burning where he wrote it down.
ETERNITY he wrote, clear pure and pale ,
And underlined it with the y’s long tail.
Sometime’s when midnight chimed in Martin Place
Behind the arches of the GPO
A shadow moved, but was it Arthur Stace?
Some flickering thing perhaps crept soft and low
On the dark pavement of the Opera House
But was it hands that moved there , or a mouse?
No one could say ;only one knew for certain
That there and here in unexpected places
Somewhere that night the great word had been written
And Arthur Stace once more had left his trace.
That was –Arthur Stace.

Yea and verily, it is said God moves in mysterious ways. An article about Stace in Australia’s Outback Patrol, a Christian community service to people of the outback, said that Stace was the kind of person who reminds us that when God measures a man’s greatness , he puts a tape around his heart and not his head. This is exactly what I was going to do to Sabrina at Darwin Airport.

LAURIE OAKES BOOK DELIGHTS

Thanks to Santa , Little Darwin has had the opportunity to peruse POWER PLAYS The Real Stories of Australian Politics, by Laurie Oakes , published by Hatchette Australia. Consisting of weekly columns Oakes wrote from l987 to 2007 for the now sadly defunct Bulletin, it brings to life the political scene and its many characters.

They are all there : Captain Wacky (Paul Keating) ; Billy Bigears (Billy McMahon ) ; the self destructive members of the Democrat Party, ( thankfully nobody cares nowadays if a politician wears Doc Martens ); Bronwyn Bishop (Who?), the lady who from early coffee shop days in Angel Place, Sydney, averred she wanted to be PM of Australia ; mother’s battered baby, Alexander Downer ; Andrew Peacock , described by gifted political pundit Mungo MacCallum as having gone prematurely black after a whisp of grey hair disappeared mysteriously. And there are others : Kennett , Cheroyl who went feral, Gareth who made a nasty suggestion about what should be done to Amanda , the Mad Monk (Tony Abbott ) and many others jossling on the national stage.

It brought back many memories for this writer. I was in the media pack which chased Prime Minister jolly John Gorton and his principal private secretary, Ainslie Gotto, she with the wiggle that brought some grumpy old Libs out in prickly heat , when they came to Sydney seeking support from the NSW Liberals against those plotting to turf out the PM . A larrikin and his own man, it was said that Gorton, his face smashed due to a wartime fighter plane crash, injected some flotsam and jetsam into the swimming pool at the Lodge.

( Gorton was not your typical Liberal: he had real guts, clearly stated what he felt and stood up for Australia. He stood up to the Yanks over the Vietnam War, saved the Barrier Reef from being drilled by oil companies and tried to make the Commonwealth take a stronger role in other national issues. Joining in a stunt, he once announced from the steps of parliament house that he could not stand around answering Press questions because he was off to watch Count Down with Molly Meldrum.)

With my flapping journo ears, I stood close to Gorton and Gotto as they conversed outside the lift in a Sydney hotel on that fateful day. The PM spotted me, turned his battered pumpkin face to me, made waving gestures with his hand , and said, “Would you kindly go away. We are having a private conversation.” Later , in Martin Place, people crowded around him as he got out of a car , and one well wisher cried out, “ Don’t let the bastards get you down , John .” The bastards did . At a vote on his leadership it was fifty fifty and Gorton , having the final casting vote, removed himself as PM. Can you imagine Howard doing this if his jelly babies had been brave enough to issue a challenge ? In came the disastrous Billy McMahon.

He and wife Sonia flew off to America and she appeared at the White House in that split up the leg dress. A cruel, but inspired scribe described the PM and his lady as The Naked and The Dead. While Sonia was in hospital doing her bit for the nation having a baby, I was sent to interview the proud father at his home. He stressed how busy he had been all year and showed me a nondescript piece of lacquer ware he had been given during an Asian trip . A bemused look on her face, his mother- in - law looked on .

One Saturday night I was instructed by a newspaper to attend a small Sydney function at which Dame Zara Holt, she of the vanished husband, surrounded by gilded members of the Australian Ballet, held court. The one and only Sir Robert Helpmann was there; he told the fabulous story of having been invited to spend a weekend at the ancestral home of an English aristocrat. As Sir Robert strode up the huge staircase, paintings of ancestors with receding chins glared down at him. His Lordship was eventually located in an ornate room – entertaining a Shetland pony to morning tea !

On the Territory side, this writer recalls two colourful events involving Bob Hawke . Tired and emotional during a visit to Darwin when he was the ACTU kingpin, Robert James Lee did not know how close he came to being abused, even castrated, when he described a young Alsatian pup , owned by the ALP female hostess cutting up cheese, etc. with a sharp knife, in the most derogatory terms. She expressed anger at his fruity abuse of the animal and said she had a good mind to go over and give Hawkey a real piece of her mind.

The other piddling bit of gossip relates to the time Hawke was in a small aircraft which flew from Darwin out to Gove, a journalist or two aboard, with an esky full of grog for life support. After several mile high coldies had been consumed by one and all the call of nature made itself known , there was only one solution : the esky, the sloshing water colder than a nun’s nasty. The end result was an unusual coalition cocktail - printers ink and solidarity soda.

In the book Lawrie Oakes recounts the time John Laws and his wife were met at the door by a naked Bob Hawke. One wonders if Laws was , surprisingly, lost for words at the apparition , because I can remember an irate Italian barber once telling me the man with the golden microphone could babble under wet concrete . There are concise words of wisdom in the book for current politicians, especially here in the NT. On another occasion, perhaps, other recollections of old Parliament House and its Non Members’ Bar , may be aired by Little Darwin.

KING CANUTE, FAIRY GODMOTHER S.O.S.

Under pressure from the Country Liberals, the NT Government has buckled and rushed in two highly skilled and respected miracle workers to save the Territory from real life events. King Canute, complete with several changes of underwear, floaties and tinea cream for his toes , has been flown to the Barkly Highway washaway to order the floodwaters to retreat so that the roadway can be repaired and urgently needed supplies of catfood can get through from Brisbane to Darwin and Mafeking. The CLP had been demanding that King Canute be called on the hotline, but the government refused to dial- a - prayer. Then the CLP angry ant brigade declared Kon Vatskalis should sprint down to the Barkly like the marathon runner of ancient Greece , Phidippides, and stick his finger in the dyke . He was in charge of the fish and chips shop at the time, so could notmake the heroic dash. Finally , Delia Lawrie was sent with her bucket and spade ,and it it became evident from TV footage that no earthling could have prevented the road from being washed way. Hence the S.O.S.

Interviewed by Little Darwin, King Canute said he will be available for fancy dress balls, bar mitzvahs and late night Mitchell Street Morris dancing. He would also love to take part in parties held by the East Point rock sitters where his rare powers in hydraulics control and cocktail mixing would prevent revellers from getting overly wet . The King said it was a shame he was not called in earlier because he could have prevented the highway from being washed away . Forcing back massive floodwaters in mud cake mixture soil was a simple task, he said.

His travelling companion-"We are just good friends ”- the Fairy Godmother, with her famous magic wand, is available as back up in the event that King Canute has an accident and falls into the water like a well known person in the Goon Show. Meanwhile, she is busily turning mice into rissoles so that Darwin residents have something to eat , and is also using Cinderella’s loincloth to polish Dawn Lawrie’s jewellery which has gone a bit dull due to the high humidity.

BUSH JOINS CAFE LATTE SOCIETY

After moving out of the White House, George W.(the letter standing for either Woeful, Wanker, Wodent-if you lisp -Wicked or Whelan the Wrecker ) Bush will open a chain of coffee houses in Texas. His venture - called No Bucks Cafe – will offer el cheapo coffee and grits for the rapidly expanding unemployed and bankrupt market . No Bucks coffee will be served in bottomless economy mugs.

In his new life , he will wake up each morning, look under the bed for weapons of mass destruction , and give his wife a sickly double strawberry milkshake. Then he will drive to a McDonalds for a cup of coffee and a word waffle , or is a waffle word ? All No Bucks staff will be wet backs from across the border, paid a pittance and kindly allowed to take home the dregs at the end of a 12 hour day.

Little Darwin understands the well known Starbucks Café, which is exhibiting withdrawal symptoms, is considering legal action against Mr Bush for plagiarism

MERMAID LINK WITH DARWIN

The wreck of HM Schooner, Mermaid, used to chart large parts of the Australian coastline, including a portion of what became the Northern Territory, has been found off Cairns by an Australian National Maritime Museum expedition. After striking Flora Reef,13km east of Frankland Islands, the vessel sank 180 years ago. The cartographer and mariner Phillip Parker King circumnavigated Australia twice in the Mermaid . He mapped large sections of the coastline from Arnhem Land to Cape Leeuwin and King George Sound to the Great Barrier Reef between 1817 and l822.

Under command of another mariner, Samuel Nolbrow, the Mermaid left Sydney for Port Raffles (Cobourg Peninsula ) on May 10, l829 . Disregarding advice, he took the dangerous route through the Barrier Reef and ran aground. A detailed account of the discovery can be found in the lively Magnetic Island online newspaper at http://www.magnetictimes.com.

NOTE-King dined with Charles Darwin in Sydney before he set sail for home to later write his controversial book about the origin of species.

HOWARD FACES HAVANA HORROR

Former Australian PM, John Howard , has been placed on the hit list of the bumbling squad which has attempted to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro more times than Donald Bradman and Matthew Hayden made runs.

Mr Howard is the target of the month because he insisted on squatting in the White House grannie flat instead of allowing President Elect Barack Obama and family to move in and roast marshmallows. Little Darwin has been informed that the brutal executioners have drawn up 628 sure ways to rub out our beloved former leader during the next seven days.

Top of the list is a gift box of Bill Clinton exploding imitation Cuban cigars. If that fails, there is the old shrinking Akubra hatband trick which will suddenly apply the pressure of a randy octopus to his brain , causing it, and his eyebrows , to pop. Other fiendish methods include arranging for a statue of Amanda Twentystone to fall on him, presenting him with a rabies infected pet rodent and , most hideously, casting him adrift in a crowded , leaking refugee boat off the North Australian coast .
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DARWIN NURSING SHORTAGE EASES

A celebrity British nurse better known than Victoria Beckam flies in tomorrow to begin new age bedpan duty at Royal Darwin Hospital. She is Florence Nightingale who has been attempting to get a job at RDH for more than 150 years. During the bitterly cold Crimean War, Ms Nightingale heard about the fabulous Northern Territory lifestyle. “Bugger this ,”she muttered, shivering, despite a quick swig of rum from a hip flask, while the vinegary faced matron was busily waxing Lord Kitchener’s moustache . “ I’m off to sunny Darwin .”

On the back of a suffragette war manifesto, she scribbled an application for a nursing job in Darwin , addressed it to the Health Department , placed it in one of the empty gin bottles from under her bed and chucked it into the Black Sea.

Miraculously, the bottle quickly washed up at Glenelg , Adelaide , and was transported by Afghan camel, donkey , an Aboriginal runner with a cleft message stick and pony express to the Darwin Health Department IN tray . In those rough and ready pioneering days the department was located in a bush timber building shared with a sly grog shop. White ants promptly ate her application.

After nearly a half century wait , patient Florence enlisted Queen Victoria’s help to get a reply. The Queen , not amused by the absurd delay , threw another plonk bottle in the briny with a royal command to appoint Ms Nightingale. Unfortunately , prevailing currents carried the bottle north to Greenland where it was buried deep beneath the ice cap.

While waiting for the reply, Ms Nightingale knocked back at least 1000 marriage proposals , a job in Buckingham Palace shovelling dung in the Queen’s racehorse stables and a lucrative career as a chorus girl. It is also rumoured she had a dalliance with a prominent WW11 politician who, like Bill Clinton, loved cigars and made rude public gestures with his digits.

Thanks to global warming, the Greenland ice cover melted , the bottle floated free and reached Darwin after being plucked from the sea by an Iraqi refugee picked up by the Tampa. Eventually Ms Nightingale received a letter from the Health Department confirming her appointment, even though it was nibbled by termites. Filled with joy, she cartwheeled through the Chelsea Pensioners’ barracks in her best Mother Hubbard and several inmates died from shock when they spotted a naked ankle. Then she threw her daring neck to ankle bikini into a kitbag and booked a cattle class ticket for the fabulous Territory.

Before setting out on her flight to Darwin, Ms Nightingale graciously agreed to an interview by Little Darwin’s London based medical roundsman , Dr Jonathan Ripper. Dr Ripper says Nightingale, looking like a dried out mummy from King Tut’s tomb, needs a good rub down with copious quantities of whale oil and extensive cosmetic surgery . In other words, she looks like your typical overworked Darwin nurse. Our reporter strongly advised Ms Nightingale to put a new wick in her lamp to cope with Darwin’s blackouts .

Ms Nightingale is looking forward to the lavish residential accommodation for medical staff at the Royal Darwin Hospital which is affectionately known as the Black Hole of Sebastopol .

CROCNETIC MAULS SLUGGISH DARWIN

Queensland has pulled the rug from under Darwin with yet another catchy tourist slogan. Remember how Queensland successfully boasted about being beautiful one day and perfect the next-despite being ankle deep in cane toads ? Well, with all the publicity given to one solitary crocodile recently swimming about Magnetic Island, off Townsville, the lovely resort, under threat by developers with beer bellies and white shoes, now calls itself CROCNETIC .

This surely shows up how devoid of imagination we are here in the Territory when, if you believe the local paper, we are knee deep in saurians and have been so since Garden of Eden times . Yet nobody here in the NT has thought fit to devise a catchy slogan or suggested renaming Darwin to cash in on our superfluity of crocs. Just being known as plain old Darwin conveys the impression of a geriatric bloke who cuddles monkeys or that it is some kind of human zoo, not far from the truth. As annoying advertising denizens would say, brand-wise , Darwin is not very sexy .

Just imagine what changing the name of Darwin to CROCVILLE would do for the tourist industry. Country music unfortunates and jazz fiends would be attracted by the name CROC-A-BILLY BAYOU. The CROC POT would appeal to overseas gourmets wanting to sink their teeth into Down Under wildlife. And for all the huffing and puffing about Baz Luhrmann’s film , Australia, being used to promote Northern Territory tourism, it did not feature one crocodile in the script. What a blunder! As Napoleon would say, who is responsible for this faux pas, Josephine ?

The crocodile which inspired Magnetic Island was an unfortunate creature which had been transported by the Environment Protection Authority 1000kms from Cape York Peninsula and relocated near Townsville. Feeling lonely, it liked the look of Magnetic Island, so headed there and petrified locals and tourists. After a few weeks , it was captured and, sadly, died. CSI New York are looking into the suspicious death and are anxious to interview a woman seen running away in lizard skin shoes. The Queensland government has coughed up $40,000 compensation for the island to help it get over the croc attack , a clear indication of how close the next election will be in Bananaland .

During the island pursuit of the crocodile , the arty editor of the online newspaper, The Magnetic Times, George Hirst, even composed a lengthy poem along the lines of Banjo Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River. It was headed The Croc from EPA and opened with …There were many in the water / when the word was passed around / that the croc from EPA had got away / Wired to a satellite / they thought it could be found / But the croc had headed north for Cockle Bay.

Apparently editors of the NT News have never been poetically inclined otherwise they would surely have penned a ream of rollicking ditties like editor Hirst’s Nobel Prize effort . Some grumpy, unimaginative spin doctors and uncouth readers of this post will undoubtedly describe it ( and others ) as a Crock of S***.

SHOCK AUSTRALIAN SWIMMING LEAK

Once again, Little Darwin’s hyper-active sports department, its members regularly tested for substance abuse, can reveal an astonishing scoop about Australia’s secret new human fish who will dominate the next Olympics.

He is Bill Leak, the gifted Australian newspaper cartoonist, artist, parrot fancier , dog lover and now life member of the famed limp fallers’ club. After his recent stint in hospital following his nasty fall on his head , Leak has more lumps on his cranium than a humpback whale. And recent scientific tests have shown that whale lumps, rather than impeding progress through water, actually accelerate progress.

Furthermore, it has also been discovered that these same whale- like bumps on planes reduce the fuel bill by as much as 35 per cent - which will make airline companies very reluctant to reduce fares. Anyway , let’s get back to Bill’s bumps , as the actress said to the phrenologist.

In secret trials , Leak has been dragged behind a Manly ferry and performed like another show off Flipper . He frequently surfed ahead of the ferry and reached the destination in time to push the ramp into position for passengers to alight . Swimming Australia, planning ahead for the British Olympics , believes Leak is capable of rewriting the world’s swimming record books due to his bumps. There are, however, two major problems: his bumps could subside to mere pimples and the Japanese whaling fleet could harpoon him as part of their bogus scientific study of dogfood.

To make sure Leak retains his bumps, he will be regularly battered with a piece of four by two by his mate , John Singleton . The Australian Navy has been instructed to blow Japanese whalers out of the water if they come within 100kms of leak’s bathtub. A noisy Collins class sub will also shadow the whaling fleet in Antarctica and cause all sea life to flee and take shelter off Bondi . Dawn Fraser, who had a nasty collision with a midget submarine manned by Australian swimming officials some decades ago, is helping train Leak . This morning she told Little Darwin she will do something unusual with a Japanese flag if the whalers harm or impede lumpy Leak during training in the open sea . Naturally, this breathtaking report will win another Walkley Award for Little Darwin and bring a takeover bid from Singleton who knows a hotshot outfit when he sees one.

LITTLE DARWIN WORLD CRICKET SCOOP

The cricket world will be stunned this morning when it learns that former Australian PM and cricket tragic , John Howard , will coach the Pakistan cricket team . Howard impressed the Pakistanis during a visit to that country when he was PM and bowled several overs which no batsman was able to hit . On that occasion his balls performed a weird trajectory said to be a cross between a googly and Kermit the frog with a bad dose of Delhi belly.

The Pakistani batsmen were mesmerised by the PM’s deliveries and went in awe of him. They said his wrist action was stranger than that of Muralithuran . Baffled sub continent cricket writers at the time declared him a demon bowler. In an exclusive interview with Little Darwin at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Mr Howard yesterday said he is not fazed by the fact that a former Pakistani coach was found dead in a hotel room in mysterious circumstances. “I have nothing to fear in Pakistan , ” said he. “Some of my closest Coalition friends in Australia want to garrotte me after the election debacle, so what have I got to lose in Pakistan ?”

FOOTNOTE : Alert watchers of the Channel 9 Australia v South Africa coverage will have noticed that the ex PM had very bushy eyebrows when he was interviewed by Tubby Taylor. Little Darwin can reveal this luxuriant growth is due to Shane Warne’s exclusive hair treatment . With the help of KFC secret herbs and spices, the eyebrows will rapidly grow into a thick mop of hair and he will arrive in Pakistan looking like a lost Beatle with one of Warnie’s spare studs in his ear.

NT FIRES UP SASSY SHARPSHOOTER

Duck! Trigger- happy US vice president contender, Sarah Palin , is coming to the Territory on a Down Under shooting safari. She became interested in Australia when she heard that bucks never seem to stop in our political shooting gallery .

Right now, the Haneen buck, with more antlers than a herd of hatstands, is running free when , by rights, it should be shot, stuffed and turned into venison or a tasty dish of vindaloo. Recovering from the strenuous presidential election, during which she was repeatedly shot in the butt by comedians and gun totin’ Republicans , Palin wants to relax, culling our wildlife.

This morning Governor Palin told Little Darwin’s Alaskan correspondent , Juneau Junior , that Darwin seems like an ideal spot for a mild mannered hockey mom with an itchy trigger finger to chill out . She has been informed that the grounds of Darwin Hospital are overrun by rampant feral bucks. It would give her great satisfaction to plug some of these critters straight between the eyes like Annie Oakly or her hero, the late Charlton Heston, who now runs a shooting gallery for right wing angels on Cloud Nine. .

In another generous gesture, the Alaskan Governor says she will teach Country Party leader Terry Mills how to use a Winchester to cull out his restless herd to avoid being gored from behind by a fractious follower. She told Little Darwin she will advise Mills to perform a Dick Cheney shoot- your- buddy episode on any bellowing pollie who shows the slightest sign of becoming beastly.