In a brilliant move which will undoubtedly attract hordes of overseas tourists to Townsville and inject millions of bucks into the economy , the city's memorial fountain marking 50 years after Victory in the Pacific has been secretly converted into a copy of Rome's famous Trevi Fountain . As film buffs know, the impressive Italian fountain featured in the hit American romantic comedy, Three Coins in the Fountain .
The S(h)ipping Reporter , the only one north of Sydney's Luna Park River Caves, was given exclusive access to the war memorial conversion on Thursday, February 1.
For some unknown reason , the fountain , #1 on Townsville's Civic Pride Trail, was not founting yet again ; revealed in the top chamber were three coins of the realm - five cent pieces . A jab away was a hypodermic needle with other stage props such as an empty glass bottle, twigs, leaves , a lump of chewing gum , stones of various sizes and a takeaway sauce sachet.
They certainly know how to look after war memorials in this garrison town. Thankfully , the roadworks witch's hat which had been bobbing about for days had been removed , probably worn as a sombrero by one of the many angry ratepayers who want to dunk the TCC in a pond .
The bottom chamber had a conglomeration of gunk , above , including a metal can which seemed to have been submerged for so long in there that it had started to corrode and break into pieces, part of a palm frond, stones, a length of white tubing , a cardboard drink container with eyeballs which had been sighted in the pool three weeks' previously and probably scared the daylights out of drunks at night , if the floodlights were working .
You would think that with both parts of the fountain about as dry as a nun's nasty and therefore no crocodiles lurking within , the Townsville City Council would have sent in a team to give it a good clean. No .
But wait , there was more to impress visitors . At the nearby grotty, graffiti covered bus shelter, with no rubbish bin , under the seats were drink containers rolling about on the ground and a mass of mushy, rotten bananas with black skins , a repulsive sight which might even have been an outbreak of the dreaded Panama 4 disease , in which case Bioscurity should quarantine the entire city and flog the Townsville City Council for failing to clean up the main national shrines and other important venues daily.
