NO HOGWASH AFTER CAR WASH

The eager new Health Minister , Kon Vatskalis , will be put through a car wash-like cricketer Andrew Symonds- before he is allowed to enter the Royal Darwin Hospital. Health Department germ control honchos were horrified to hear the minister tell Stateline he is prepared to get his hands dirty in his new portfolio. Dirty digits can lead to the spread of golden staph , carbuncles, teenage acne , salmonella , warts, welts and Pauline H******’s Disease.

After emerging from the car wash wrapped in a towel souvenired from the Australia movie set , a recycled hospital toothbrush in his gob , the shiny new minister will be ready to tackle the Health Department which caused the previous minister third degree burns to most of his body.

Little Darwin can reveal that the scrubbed up new minister will order a dramatic change to bland hospital tucker. Wholesome Greek Glendi –type food such as souvlaki , dolmades and calamari will be provided. In welcome news for nurses, they will be allowed to blow the whistle on every day of the week , but never on Sunday.

A government source this morning told Little Darwin that arrangements are being made for the famous health expert, the Goddess Hygeia, to carry out a review of Health Department activities in the Northern Territory . Unfortunately , Dr Hygeia’s arrival has been delayed because she is busy treating people injured in riots over the lousy hospital and other community services in Greece. Staging the two week long Athens Olympics just about sent the country broke and the Olympic insignia is now regarded as the sign outside a pawn shop.

WHALES ARE BIGGEST LOSERS

The battle of the bulge is the hidden reason behind Japan’s slaughter of whales. Japan has discovered that obesity is such a major problem in the West that many celebrities secretly wear whalebone corsets to make them look trim .

These expensive corsets will soon be the leading must have fashion garment and the Japanese plan to corner the lucrative market. Whalebone corsets were all the rage back in great grandma’s day. Lace up corsets turn a blubber-gutted person into a skinny fashion model.

It is reliably reported that Nicole Kidman would look like a Japanese Sumo wrestler but for her heavy duty whalebone corsets . During filming of Baz Luhrmann’s epic Australia at Stokes Hill Wharf , Darwin, sweaty Nicole narrowly escaped being harpooned by a short sighted fisherman .

Nicole’s wedding trousseau consisted of an entire container load of state of the art designer label Nippon clip-on corsets . Spiteful Hollywood gossip writers said Nicole’s husband , country music star Keith Urban , went into shock when Nicole unbuckled her frilly corsets during their honeymoon. Urban was so rattled by the sight he reportedly began singing the whopper burger blues .

PONTING'S HABITS HIT FOR SIX

The Society for the Eradication of Repulsive Personal Habits is tonight expected to award Ricky Ponting its Grot of the Year Medal . Ponting’s repeated acts of spitting on his hands during tense moments in cricket matches horrifies the Society . This disgusting habit is undermining the Northern Territory Government’s campaign to teach kids to wash their hands after going for a splash. As a result, several hand pumping pollies have developed itchy palms

The Society relentlessly campaigns to eradicate breaches of personal hygiene from plasma screens throughout the nation. Another Ponting habit which infuriates the crusaders is his open- mouthed cud chewing, instead of shutting his cake hole.

Then there are those shuddersome moments when he is seen in close ups playing with his nasal hairs , or worse. In fairness, it must be pointed out that the average Tasmanian male toys with his hooter, despite childhood warnings from his mother. At least Ponting , unlike Prime Minister Rudd, does not nibble his ear wax during drinks breaks .

RUDD DISHES OUT MAGIC TUCKER

Every Australian will be given a magic pudding to help the nation breeze through the global economic disaster. Magic puddings are splendiferous creatures ; as fast as you eat them , they regrow and you can go back for seconds and thirds, even fill a doggie bag . Never, ever, do they reduce to mere crumbs, like some conservative political parties.

For a nation hooked on gluttony, most of it junk food, and chardonnay , Prime Minister Rudd has hit on the perfect way to make sure our never ending picnic does not falter and we become anorexic. In shape and appearance , a magic pudding looks like our PM’s angelic, well-scrubbed face . Admittedly, a magic pudding also looks a bit like a former PM, but overcooked.

As we poke our Chinese chopsticks into our free government pudding each day a mighty cry will surely ring throughout the grateful nation, “Thank Heaven for Kevin!” Mr Rudd has appointed Norman Lindsay director of magic pudding distribution and instructed him to watch out for those evil Banksia men in suits who might try to starve the nation of credit.

If Australians are not content with an endless supply of tucker thanks to magic puddings, Mr Rudd has another brilliant plan. In the junk mail , each household will receive a cute little Iggle. Iggles, once all the rage in America, will turn themselves into anything a person wants them to : money, jewels, popcorn, film stars, Cadillacs , mud cakes and boxes of chocolates with hundreds of soft and hard centres .

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.