Hope all you megabrainy wonderkids have recovered from my last article. Because the bell has rung and reality is comin’ out swingin’.

Do you remember me telling you about the Ancient Egyptian Mummy found by Mr. Wesley Byron Prufrock? Do you remember the deplorable actions of the scurrilous government agents (Media blackouts, meaningless explanations, threats, secrecy)? Do you remember me telling you everything would change? Well, gollygee gumpus! Cram a load of this up your cranium and tell me what you think:

Government strategists are laying square eggs over what they have now termed Mummygate. It seems I was right on the money. Human perspective and brute reality have gone into the ring together, and only one of them is coming out.

So in the left corner we have Pharoah Whoever-He-Is. 3000 years old, if he’s a day, inconvenient truth, and undisputed brute reality. And in the right corner we have us, with more problems than Lazarus with a triple bypass on an Al Quida bungee jumping expedition in Washington D.C.

The questions being asked by those oily eggheadded nerds in the government are: How does Mummygate fit into our web of knowledge? And what does it mean for us (the government of course, they’re not concerned with how it would affect the rest of us). And the answers, my fine caped heroes, are more confronting than seeing your Mum at an ‘abortions on demand’ rally.

Mummygate stands in direct contrast to everything we thought we knew. Simple as that. And what does that mean for the rest of us? Well, it proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the reality we live under is wrong.

Wallop! K.O. Here comes the ambulance!

Okay, okay, I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news.

Probably better get the bad news out of the way first. Mummygate has the government wondering why anyone should listen to them when they have as tenuous a grasp on reality as the rest of us. For centuries the model of government has been thus: The constituency is a madhouse and the government are its keepers. Mummygate shows them to be just another inmate, with absolutely nothing to justify the influence they exert upon us.

Now for the good news. Realising the impact brute facts have upon our ‘perceptions’ of reality we can now answer an age old Zen Koan once and for all. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it in fact fall? The answer is, ‘Yes’. Facts are facts, if a tree falls in a forest, it falls, regardless of what we might think.

From October first circus strongmen will be subject to random drug testing. “Circus strongmen, like footballers, are professional athletes,” says Melanie Tyler of Drug Testing Australia. “We (Drug Testing Australia) have been accused of concentrating our efforts on specific areas of professional sports, while neglecting others. It’s always been a case of, ‘the more TV time you have, the more drug tests you’ll have to undergo. However, Drug Testing Australia have had cause to rethink this strategy.”

“By all accounts,” continues Mrs. Tyler, “the strongman industry is rife with illegal performance enhancing drugs.” Because of their constant, and often unplanned, venue changes tracking the whereabouts of circus strongmen is something of a challenge. “Our organization estimate there are at present between three and five thousand practicing circus strongmen in Australia. All with zero checks.” Mrs. Tyler grimaces. “Until now.”

However, Drug Testing Australia has checks of their own. The locating of and travelling to thousands of circus strongmen presents a registerial, financial, and logistical nightmare. “We are applying to the government for a fourfold increase in our budget,” explains Mrs. Tyler. On the figures I have such an increase will barely be enough to register currently practicing strongmen. But we in DTA are prepared to tighten our belts.”

According to Mrs. Tyler the DTA has an agenda set to clean up the renegades within the circus industry. “The competition between circuses is fierce. And unscrupulous operators will stop at nothing to get the edge. Why should they? Asks Mrs. Tyler, “when there has been no one to hold them to account.”

The Yowie asked Mrs. Tyler in what ways this competitiveness manifested itself.

“Bearded women and testosterone. Clowns and hallucinogens. Circus fat women and steroids. The most entrenched problem, however, lies not with the carnies, but their animals. Our investigations have uncovered a widespread and systematic drugging of circus animals. This makes them easier to handle, train, and transport. It accounts for several hundred animal deaths each year. And it is, until now, entirely unregulated despite its illegality.”

It all comes down to competition. If this circus has the hairiest bearded lady and the craziest clowns they attract the largest audiences. Strictly controlled random drug testing will ensure parity within the industry

Having a level playing field, whether in sport or the circus, is important. But we at the Yowie wonder if it takes the fun out of things.

On trains fat chicks get to jiggle in ways that are truly seismic. All that eating finally pays off. It’s like the Jelly Monster of your childhood nightmares come to life. Furthermore, with space at a premium the social order is inverted. Space, on a train, is currency. So the fatter you are the the more currency you possess. On trains the fat chicks rule. Any dissention is brutally crushed as fat chicks, in a moving train, have physics on their side.

The question then is: If fat chicks are queens when it comes to train travel who are the kings? And the answer, my friends, is the druggy. Haven’t you ever wondered why druggies hang around train platforms? It’s not for the privacy. It’s sure as hell not for the safety and security. It’s because everyone looks as stupefyed as them. Hollow eyed, vacant from monotony, wrapped in their own electronic utopias. Train travel represents everything drug abusers strive for.

Footy fans love train travel because they don’t have to clean up the vomit. Better yet, they’ve a captive audience to torture with their boorish, loudmouthed idiocy. The only time a footy fan’s IQ is lower than at the match is when they’re travelling by train. Me, I think it’s from the lack of oxygen: Rail staff deliberately reduce airconditioner output in a doomed effort to send footy yobs to sleep. But the footers have four things in their favour: 1. A blood system full of alcohol. 2. Supercharged, post or prematch emotion. 3. A group of equally boorish, insolent, noisy mates. 4. And a carriage load of quailing victims. The combination of these four act as a stimulant to the rank, drunken idiots. While the restricted oxygen reduces their already pitiful intelligence.

Ever wondered why Rail staff are drawn exclusively from the Merchant Navy? It’s because they’ve got the ‘sea legs’ for the job. No landlubber could could stand more than two train journeys a day without losing their lunch. Carriage seats remind sailors of their old shipboard bunks. The unexpected power blackouts of times on an ocean becalmed. The rocking motion of both ship and train sets an erotic rhythm to each day. Rail staff, like sailors, are a very close bunch.

Sociology departments have long been mouthpieces for Women’s Right’s Issues. Factors affecting men are only addressed in so far as they affect women. Violence, alcoholism, Machismo etc form the core of male issues examined within tertiary university programs.

But all this is about to change. Bachelors in Australia make up a significant proportion of society. They are the most heavily taxed and the group that receives the least government assistance. In many ways, bachelors are the mules that drive the social wheel in Australia.

Because bachelors generally work longer while having proportionally less to spend on entertainment they are, according to Lynlee Peters of Greer University at a significant social disadvantage in the community. Her new undergraduate course seeks to draw attention to issues confronting bachelors and promote consideration for these oft-neglected backbones of society.

“The role bachelors are expected to play largely determines the social possibilities available to them,” says Ms. Peters. “Overwork leads to overcompensation in leisure areas. However, lack of free time and disposable income reduce even this small horizon. ‘Virtual Relationships and Today’s Bachelor,’ ‘Hygiene and Homecooking,’ and something we call ‘The Portnoy Complex,’ form the core of our degree. We also offer fascinating electives: ‘Dealing with Frustration,’ ‘Societal Expectations (Why you are a Loser),’ and ‘Bachelors: The Nerd/Macho Dichotomy.’”

Ms. Peters tells the Yowie the research for this program came from years of empirical observations within her own community. “I have an intimate knowledge of Australian bachelors,” says Ms. Peters. “They mow my lawn, fix my computer, and do my accounts, they serve me food and drinks, and fix my car, among many other things. I have seen them at work and at play. I know how the community perceives them. And I feel eminently qualified to give voice to this oppressed aspect of our society. In fact I would say I am as close to being a bachelor as any woman could be.”

We at the Yowie never doubted it for a moment.

Fish and chip shops

Greasy, fatty, brutal. Fish and chip shops are the abatoir of the ocean. The place reeks of senseless slaughter. Blood, guts, cold beady eyes staring at you accusingly, flayed bodies laid out in icy mauseleums.

And the people. I’m sorry, but fishermen do not count as sportsmen. Now if you killed a shark with a knife and a half nelson … Weathered skin, whiskered (even the women), self-justifying, callous, insensitive, throwbacks.
Just look at the fisherman posterboy, Rex Mossop. A fish kisser. Then a few months ago he admits to having an affair. We never did find out with whom. Me, I think he carried his fondness for fish to the logical next step.
Try explaining that to the missus.

The people you see in a fish and chip store reflect some of these traits. I once saw an old guy staring with wistful melancholia at a bay marie full of prawns. I could almost imagine a neon sign flashing ‘emasculation’ as he looked at the strong, virile members sheathed and firm before him.

Fish and chip shops

The worst are stores that sell fish and chips wrapped in newpaper. I once watched a kid getting three pieces of fish and three dollars worth of chips (obviously for his parents outside). The top ream of newspaper boasted a page three girl of magnificent proportions. The kids eyes popped out like those of the frozen dory behind us. I’ll bet the parents wondeered about the funny tasting tartar sauce they never ordered.

Awful

No I’m not kidding. Mad Cow Disease came and went. Bird flu threatened much, but delivered little. Horse flu has done some damage, but nowhere near the amount the various industries are claiming. Now we have bee flu. Or more accurately, ‘Israeli Acute Paralysis Bee Virus.’

Seriously!

The Americans (it’s always the U.S.) have accused Australian apiarists of introducing the bee virus into their country. The basis for this accusation comes from a ‘Nature’ article investigating Colony Collapse Disorder. This, rather dreadful, term refers to the seasonal collapse of hives each winter in America and around the globe. For reasons obscure to this humble reporter each winter colonies die off. Only the queen and a few worker bees survive to replenish the colony in the spring. Sometime colonies die out altogether. Some colonies emerge relatively unscathed. For whatever reason the seasonal fluctuations in colony numbers has been given this moribund name.

But what has the Americans running around in circles is the drastic collapse of colonies all over America during the last winter. This huge loss couldn’t be part of the natural order of things, goes the American thinking, because then they’d have no one to sue. And so this quaint virus was dug up from the dusty tomes of biological history and blame assigned to anyone who has a beehive.

All I wonder is how a virus got from Israel to Australia and then to the U.S.? Bees only live a couple of weeks, so they sure didn’t fly. Apiaries in the U.S. outnumber those in Australia twenty to one, so it wasn’t a problem of importation.

Maybe it was a B virus of another strain, like Hepatitis B that had nowhere to go. Viruses are smart, they adapt with frightening rapidity. And while hepatitis B is still prevalent in underdeveloped parts of the world the strain is making no head way in places like the U.S. So what was left? Rather than finding ways around ever more subtle medicinal cures the Hep’ B virus adapted to infect another species.

I know I’m going out on a limb here, and I’ve absolutely no data to back this up. But such a thing is theoretically possible. At least as far as I’m concerned. In any case it’s every bit as feasible as an infected Israeli bee flying to Australia and then to the U.S.

Well-known conspiracy theorist, Eugene X, today, accused the Federal Government of misleading the Australian people over illicit drugs. His attack comes after the staggering admissions of rugby league player Andrew Johns last Thursday night.

“The bottom line,” says Mr. X., “is that illicit drugs aren’t as bad as the Government make out.” Mr. X points to the pamphlet sent to every Australian household (on the same day as Johns’ televised confession) as exemplifying the Government’s lies. “In the pamphlet illicit drugs are purported to be addictive, physically and psychologically harmful, and financially draining upon the individual and the economy.”

Andrew Johns’ tell all admission came after his arrest in London for possession of an ecstasy tablet. Mr. X continues, “In an interview with Phil (Gus) Gould, Johns admitted to taking Ecstasy ‘three or four times a year’ for the past ‘ten years’. This has a number of consequences:
First, if Johns was taking Ecstasy only three or four times a year then Ecstasy is obviously not addictive.
Second, Ecstasty didn’t harm Johns, as he dominated one of the most physically and tactically demanding sports of his time.
Third, some of the people interviewing Johns (Footy Show) have come closer to financial ruin from gambling than Johns ever did from drug taking.
Fourth, Johns set out to be a footballer, not a hero. If people are disillusioned because he didn’t live up to the standards they imposed upon him it’s their problem, not his.”

So who should we believe Andrew Johns or the Gavernment? asked the Yowie.

“Well I’d take actual first-hand experience over self-interested speculation any day.”

Why self-interested?

“Because the Government can’t get a slice of the illicit drugs pie,” responds Mr. X. “Tobacco, caffeine, nicotine, pharmaceuticals of all shapes and sizes are readily available to the purchasing public because the government gets a little money from every unit sold. Not so with street drugs.”

So illicit drugs are better value for money?!

What about drug related deaths?

“According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Drug related deaths, in 2005, accounted for 0.8% of all deaths nationally. If the Government was serious about saving us from ourselves they’d ban automobiles, alcohol, fast foods, and cigarettes, in that order. But of course these items (despite their significantly higher contribution to per annum deaths) are taxed, so it’s not in the Government’s interest to restrict their sale.”

So we should all start dropping Eccy’s?

No! People should do whatever they do. If you’re a reader, read; if you’re a runner, run; if you’re a druggie, take drugs. Don’t do something simply because I’ve said it’s okay. Likewise don’t avoid it simply because the Government has said it’s not.”