In the days of Beau Geste when the French Foreign Legion faced sand, bullets, heat, scorpions , maddening thirst and seductive mirages involving comely camels , there was a notorious place in Sidi- Bel- Abbes, Algeria, known as The Street of a Thousand Latrines. Nowadays, the way Darwin and its suburbs,especially its shopping centres, are going down the tubes , this could be a catchy new name for the place to attract tourists wanting to spend a sou or two.
The next time a cruise ship pulls into the new $5million terminal, we suggest the visitors be taken on a scenic bus tour of the crapital of the NT. First attraction , the busy bus stop outside Woolworths in Cavenagh Street to make the brave tourists feel like dashing Legionnaires , their Yank baseball caps passing for French kepis .
Overflowing rubbish bins, human and dog faeces, urine splashes , dirty marks along the wall , broken glass , enough black blobs of chewing gum to fill the cracks in the Great Wall of China. An added bonus- soiled nappies jammed into a bin , flies humming La Marseillaise .
A disgusted commuter recently rang the Darwin City Council to complain and was told it was not their problem –it is the bus operator’s . This response comes from the outfit worried about drunks being released from the CBD slammer at 6am and scaring tourists out for a croissant and a stroll along La Rue Beaucoup de Vomit . The antics performed around Woolworths often border on the Follies and the Danse Macabre with a cast that includes mangy dogs with a franchise for spreading hydatids and rabies.
The next time a cruise ship pulls into the new $5million terminal, we suggest the visitors be taken on a scenic bus tour of the crapital of the NT. First attraction , the busy bus stop outside Woolworths in Cavenagh Street to make the brave tourists feel like dashing Legionnaires , their Yank baseball caps passing for French kepis .
Overflowing rubbish bins, human and dog faeces, urine splashes , dirty marks along the wall , broken glass , enough black blobs of chewing gum to fill the cracks in the Great Wall of China. An added bonus- soiled nappies jammed into a bin , flies humming La Marseillaise .
A disgusted commuter recently rang the Darwin City Council to complain and was told it was not their problem –it is the bus operator’s . This response comes from the outfit worried about drunks being released from the CBD slammer at 6am and scaring tourists out for a croissant and a stroll along La Rue Beaucoup de Vomit . The antics performed around Woolworths often border on the Follies and the Danse Macabre with a cast that includes mangy dogs with a franchise for spreading hydatids and rabies.
Like typical cheese eating surrender monkeys, a suburban branch of G.J. Coles decided to close its doors because the area had reportedly become a setting for the insurrection in Les Miserables .
In the suburbs , the crapulous tour must take in the bus stop near the renal treatment centre at Nightcliff where the grot often looks like unseemly leftovers from a steak and kidney pie recycling depot . So too is the bus stop across the road. If the tourists are lucky they may see the naked , tottering apache dancer scraping excreta from her derriere at a bus stop in Progress Drive . Then there is the constant nose- twitching , aromatic effluvium in the Nightcliff Village , a branch of the street with a thousand flaming furies, where kiddies play and adults engage in Morris Dancing and pinning the tail on the donkey voters each sabbath.
The condition of the Palmerston interchange frequently looks as if Danny the Red and his student mates who put the wind up La Belle France have rampaged through it in a prelude to another bloody revolution . Palmerstonians from the left bank have written to the NT News and voiced disgust . The state of the Casuarina shopping precinct and Algerian aspects of its troubled interchange will be the subject of another Little Darwin report in the near future.
Anybody involved in decontaminating Darwin bus stops and bins should receive the nation’s highest decoration for bravery , at least one Croix de Guerre , oodles of dirt and danger money, and be kitted out as if coping with an anthrax outbreak or participating in French Mururoa Atoll nuclear bomb tests which spread Strontium 90 and other cancerous and mutating s**t throughout the South Pacific.
The condition of the Palmerston interchange frequently looks as if Danny the Red and his student mates who put the wind up La Belle France have rampaged through it in a prelude to another bloody revolution . Palmerstonians from the left bank have written to the NT News and voiced disgust . The state of the Casuarina shopping precinct and Algerian aspects of its troubled interchange will be the subject of another Little Darwin report in the near future.
Anybody involved in decontaminating Darwin bus stops and bins should receive the nation’s highest decoration for bravery , at least one Croix de Guerre , oodles of dirt and danger money, and be kitted out as if coping with an anthrax outbreak or participating in French Mururoa Atoll nuclear bomb tests which spread Strontium 90 and other cancerous and mutating s**t throughout the South Pacific.
