Veterans Golf Club of Victoria

This is the fourth of Banjo Paterson's poems I've enjoyed. 

Saltbush Bill's second fight

The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large,
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge,
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh;
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away:
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country-side
For the wonderful way that he fed his sheep, and the dodges and tricks he tried.
He would lose his way on a Main Stock Route, and stray to the squatters' grass;
He would come to a run with the boss away, and swear he had leave to pass;
And back of all and behind it all, as well the squatters knew,
If he had to fight, he would fight all day, so long as his sheep got through:
But this is the story of Stingy Smith, the owner of Hard Times Hill,
And the way that he chanced on a fighting man to reckon with Saltbush Bill.

'Twas Stingy Smith on his stockyard sat, and prayed for an early Spring,
When he started at sight of a clean-shaved tramp, who walked with a jaunty swing;
For a clean-shaved tramp with a jaunty walk a-swinging along the track
Is as rare a thing as a feathered frog on the desolate roads out back.
So the tramp he made for the travellers' hut, to ask could he camp the night;
But Stingy Smith had a bright idea, and called to him, "Can you fight?"
"Why, what's the game?" said the clean-shaved tramp, as he looked at him up and down;
"If you want a battle, get off that fence, and I'll kill you for half-a-crown!
But, Boss, you'd better not fight with me -- it wouldn't be fair nor right;
I'm Stiffener Joe, from the Rocks Brigade, and I killed a man in a fight:
I served two years for it, fair and square, and now I'm trampin' back,
To look for a peaceful quiet life away on the outside track."

"Oh, it's not myself, but a drover chap," said Stingy Smith with glee,
"A bullying fellow called Saltbush Bill, and you are the man for me.
He's on the road with his hungry sheep, and he's certain to raise a row,
For he's bullied the whole of the Castlereagh till he's got them under cow --
Just pick a quarrel and raise a fight, and leather him good and hard,
And I'll take good care that his wretched sheep don't wander a half a yard.
It's a five-pound job if you belt him well -- do anything short of kill,
For there isn't a beak on the Castlereagh will fine you for Saltbush Bill."

"I'll take the job," said the fighting man; "and, hot as this cove appears,
He'll stand no chance with a bloke like me, what's lived on the game for years;
For he's maybe learnt in a boxing school, and sparred for a round or so,
But I've fought all hands in a ten-foot ring each night in a travelling show;
They earned a pound if they stayed three rounds, and they tried for it every night.
In a ten-foot ring! Oh, that's the game that teaches a bloke to fight,
For they'd rush and clinch -- it was Dublin Rules, and we drew no colour line;
And they all tried hard for to earn the pound, but they got no pound of mine.
If I saw no chance in the opening round I'd slog at their wind, and wait
Till an opening came -- and it always came -- and I settled 'em, sure as fate;
Left on the ribs and right on the jaw -- and, when the chance comes, make sure!
And it's there a professional bloke like me gets home on an amateur:
For it's my experience every day, and I make no doubt it's yours,
That a third-class pro is an over-match for the best of the amateurs --"
"Oh, take your swag to the travellers' hut," said Smith, "for you waste your breath;
You've a first-class chance, if you lose the fight, of talking your man to death.
I'll tell the cook you're to have your grub, and see that you eat your fill,
And come to the scratch all fit and well to leather this Saltbush Bill."

'Twas Saltbush Bill, and his travelling sheep were wending their weary way
On the Main Stock Route, through the Hard Times Run, on their six-mile stage a day;
And he strayed a mile from the Main Stock Route, and started to feed along,
And when Stingy Smith came up Bill said that the Route was surveyed wrong;
And he tried to prove that the sheep had rushed and strayed from their camp at night,
But the fighting man he kicked Bill's dog, and of course that meant a fight.

So they sparred and fought, and they shifted ground, and never a sound was heard
But the thudding fists on their brawny ribs, and the seconds' muttered word,
Till the fighting man shot home his left on the ribs with a mighty clout,
And his right flashed up with a half-arm blow -- and Saltbush Bill "went out".
He fell face down, and towards the blow; and their hearts with fear were filled,
For he lay as still as a fallen tree, and they thought that he must be killed.

So Stingy Smith and the fighting man, they lifted him from the ground,
And sent back home for a brandy-flask, and they slowly fetched him round;
But his head was bad, and his jaw was hurt -- in fact, he could scarcely speak --
So they let him spell till he got his wits; and he camped on the run a week,
While the travelling sheep went here and there, wherever they liked to stray,
Till Saltbush Bill was fit once more for the track to the Castlereagh.

Then Stingy Smith he wrote a note, and gave to the fighting man:
'Twas writ to the boss of the neighbouring run, and thus the missive ran:
"The man with this is a fighting man, one Stiffener Joe by name;
He came near murdering Saltbush Bill, and I found it a costly game:
But it's worth your while to employ the chap, for there isn't the slightest doubt
You'll have no trouble from Saltbush Bill while this man hangs about."
But an answer came by the next week's mail, with news that might well appal:
"The man you sent with a note is not a fighting man at all!
He has shaved his beard, and has cut his hair, but I spotted him at a look;
He is Tom Devine, who has worked for years for Saltbush Bill as cook.
Bill coached him up in the fighting yard, and taught him the tale by rote,
And they shammed to fight, and they got your grass, and divided your five-pound note.
'Twas a clean take-in; and you'll find it wise -- 'twill save you a lot of pelf --
When next you're hiring a fighting man, just fight him a round yourself."

And the teamsters out on the Castlereagh, when they meet with a week of rain,
And the waggon sinks to its axle-tree, deep down in the black-soil plain,
When the bullocks wade in a sea of mud, and strain at the load of wool,
And the cattle-dogs at the bullocks' heels are biting to make them pull,
When the off-side driver flays the team, and curses tham while he flogs,
And the air is thick with the language used, and the clamour of men and dogs --
The teamsters say, as they pause to rest and moisten each hairy throat,
They wish they could swear like Stingy Smith when he read that neighbour's note.

Saltbush Bill's Second Fight was first published in The Antipodean in 1897.

The following video is so off-putting with a monotone female USA accent, I couldn't resist including it.

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Guidelines to touring in China

A friend went to Beijing recently and was given this brochure by the hotel. It is precious, so she is keeping it and reading it whenever she feels depressed.
Obviously, it has been translated directly, word for word from Mandarin to English.

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Expensive cars

There is a web site reporting sales of cars as of April 2020. Here are a few of the cars and their prices

This Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa sold for a mere $16,390,000. I would have bought a dozen, but apparently there aren't that many left.

This 1995 McLaren F1 despite its wings could not fly, but the auctioneer still recorded $15,620,000 before dropping the hammer.

As anyone wold expect Ferraries are the most common brand in this class. $15,180,000 plus to beat the winning bid would have got this 1961 250 GT SWB California Spyder for you.

A real cheapy. Only $14,520,000 for this 1966 275 GTB_C and they'll throw in the trees in the background.

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Pam Ayres

I expect most of us are of a generation who have admired Pam Ayres and will have a feel for the cadence of her readings. With that in mind let's go.

They should have asked my husband

You know, this world is complicated and imperfect and oppressed,
And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed,
It seems that all around us, tides of questions ebb and flow,
And people want solutions, but they don’t know where to go.

Opinions abound but who is wrong and who is right?
People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light,
Someone they can turn to as the crises rage and swirl,
Someone with the remedy, the wisdom, the pearl

Well they should have asked my husband, he’s a man who likes his say,
With his thoughts on immigration, teenage mums, Theresa May,
The future of the monarchy, the latest Brexit shocks,
The wait for hip replacements, and the rubbish on the box.

Yes, they should have asked my husband, he can sort out any mess,
He can rejuvenate the railways, he can cure the NHS,
So any little niggle, anything you want to know,
Just run it past my husband, wind him up and let him go.

Congestion on the motorways, free holidays for thugs,
The damage to the ozone layer, refugees, drugs,
These may defeat the brain of any politician bloke,
But present it to my husband, he will solve it at a stroke.

He’ll clarify the situation, he will make it crystal clear,
You’ll feel the glazing of your eyeballs and the bending of your ear,
You may lose the will to live, you may feel your shoulders slump,
When he talks about the President, Mr. Donald Trump.

Upon these areas he brings his intellect to shine,
In a great compelling voice that’s twice as loud as yours or mine,
I often wonder what it must be like to be so strong,
Infallible, articulate, self-confident and wrong.

When it comes to tolerance, he hasn’t got a lot,
Joy riders should be guillotined, and muggers should be shot,
The sound of his own voice becomes like music to his ears,
And he hasn’t got an inkling that he’s boring us to tears.

My friends don’t call so often, they have busy lives I know,
But it’s not every day you want to hear a windbag suck and blow,
Google? Safari? On them we never call,
Why bother with computers when my husband knows it all.

Pam's website, naturally, has more like this. You can go to it here.

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South Pacific

Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific preceded Kismet into Melbourne to such an extent I never saw it live.

Hence I've cheated here and used Bryn Terfel to sing these three songs.

Rogers and Hammerstein - Younger than springtime

Not as popular as the next song, I still preferred this one.

Rogers and Hammerstein - Some enchanted evening

The classic and most popular song from musical comedy for many years

Rogers and Hammerstein - This nearly was mine

Bryn Terfel makes this so memorable.

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Golf - Why do we do it?

It been quite a while since these pages mentioned golf, so it's time to look at why we play golf.

What!!    Surely we know!

I'd never thought about it, but when I did, I wondered what the consensus was so I did a Google search.

Healthfully with its list of 10 reasons provides a starting point to ponder.

Naturally there is a description of each of these with an American bias and it seems as unreal as their President, so let me try again.

Get into golf only lists 5 reasons to ponder.

Some of these look a little suspect as well. Anyone could argue if you need to swear profusely or throw a club your stress level is not necessarily going down.

Lets look again

WiseGEEK simply writes about it with headers, so I had to imagine the headings they would have used.

Hmm - some of these look a little suspect as well. Could bowls in all its forms be better for social contact?

Lets look again.

Golf monthly found 15 reasons why golf is the best sport.

Enough is enough. I can't fully agree with any of them, although there are aspects from all of them which relate to me.

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Kismet (Fate)

Kismet was the dominant musical comedy in Meblourne in 1956

Borodin wrote the original music and Lederer and Davis made the adaptions to musical comedy and provided the words.

Borodin, Lederer and Davis - He's in love

Borodin, Lederer and Davis - Stranger in Paradise

This was the most famous song from Kismet and one of the really popular songs on radio at that time.

Borodin, Lederer and Davis - Sands of time

The Sands of Time was not only the finale of Kismet, but was also the music used at the closing of the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Although my memory of dates is hazy, I do remember Chilla Porter and Charles Dumas fighting out the final of the high jump which seemed to go forever into the evening - and I had tickets for Kismet that night.

Memory reprise

Two of my card playing mates Neal &John, of that era had jobs as lolly-boys at the Princes Theatre. From multiple exposure to Kismet both of them knew the whole show by heart and entertained us with repetition of storyline and jokes including:

Cast member, "Omar, tell me how you lived in the early days."

Omar, "When you got a girl in trouble in Baghdad, then get ye hence to Ninevah. When you get a girl in trouble in Ninevah, then get ye hence to Baghdad. When I was young, I was known as Omar, the traveller!"

Personally I was lucky enough to be a pie-boy at the MCG and so got to see all the events at that stadium, plus assist in eating the magnificent Four-and-twenty pies which were broken when delivered to the stadium. Ten to fifteen pies a day was par for the course!

White sports coats

These were a rage in Melbourne at that time, but for some reason had a hazy reputation. Hitch-hiking home from Melbourne one night with Neal who was wearing a white sports coat, every driver simply ignored us, or looked at the coat and drove on. After about 20 minutes of this Neal took the coat off and more or less hid it behind his body. We got a ride in the next minute!

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This is the third of Banjo Paterson's poems I've enjoyed. It was first published in the Bulletin on 16^th 1893.

A BUSH CHRISTENING

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten-year-old lad,
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened,

And his wife used to cry, "If the darlin' should die
Saint Peter would not recognise him."
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptise him.

Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin',
And he muttered in fright while his features turned white,
"What the divil and all is this christenin'?"

He was none of your dolts, he had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.

So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened-
"'Tis outrageous," says he, "to brand youngsters like me,
I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!"

Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the "praste" cried aloud in his haste,
"Come out and be christened, you divil!"

But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
"I've a notion," says he, "that'll move him."

"Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
Poke him aisy-don't hurt him or maim him,
'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I'll name him.

"Here he comes, and for shame! ye've forgotten the name-
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?"
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout-
"Take your chance, anyhow, wid 'Maginnis'!"

As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labelled "Maginnis's Whisky!"

And Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened "Maginnis"!

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More music

Rogers and Hammerstein - Hello young lovers

I've always thought The King and I had the highest percentage of memorable songs of any of the mid-century musical comedies. So let's start here with Hello young lovers.

Lerner and Loewe - Wandering Star

This singer is not Lee Marvin, hence there is a musical quality Lee could never make.

Leigh and Darion - Dulcinea

Man of La Mancha had only a few memorable hits including The impossible dream, but I've found Dulcinea instead.

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The Corona virus again!

As I'm sure you will have heard by other means, the Melbourne Metropolitan area has been locked down again for the next 6 weeks. It's likely that the rules will change in the next 6 weeks, but for the moment golf is still allowed.

It was reported

It can be hard keeping a straight face as a court reporter. These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by the court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were taking place.

• Lawyer: "What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?"

  Witness: "He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'"

  Lawyer: "And why did that upset you?"

  Witness: " My name is Susan!"

• Lawyer: "This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?"

  Witness: "Yes"

  Lawyer: "And in what ways does it affect your memory?"

  Witness: "I forget."

  Lawyer: "You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?"

• Lawyer: "Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"

  Witness: "Did you actually pass the bar exam?"

• Lawyer: "The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?"

  Witness: "He's 20, much like your IQ."

• Lawyer: "Were you present when your picture was taken?"

  Witness: "Are you kidding me?"

• Lawyer: "So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?"

  Witness: "Yes"

  Lawyer: "And what were you doing at that time?"

  Witness: "Getting laid."

• Lawyer: "She had three children, right?"

  Witness: "Yes."

  Lawyer: "How many were boys?"

  Witness: "None"

  Lawyer: "Were there any girls?"

  Witness: "Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?"

• Lawyer: "How was your first marriage terminated?"

  Witness: "By death"

  Lawyer: "And by whose death was it terminated?"

  Witness: "Take a guess!"

• Lawyer: "Can you describe the individual?"

  Witness: " He was about medium height and had a beard."

  Lawyer: "Was this a male or a female?"

  Witness: "Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male."

• Lawyer: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?"

  Witness: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."

• Lawyer: "Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?"

  Witness: "All of them... The live ones put up too much of a fight."

• Lawyer: "All your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?"

  Witness: "Oral"

• Lawyer: "Do you recall the time that you examined the body?"

  Witness: "The autopsy started around 8:30 PM"

  Lawyer: "And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?"

  Witness: " If not, he was by the time I finished."

• Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"

  Witness: "No"

  Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"

  Witness: "No"

  Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"

  Witness: "No"

  Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"

  Witness: "No"

  Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"

  Witness: " Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."

  Lawyer: "I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?"

  Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law."

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More music - Into the 'light classical' world

Liszt - Hungarian rhapsody 6

Most people will be familiar with Hungarian rhapsody 2, but may not have heard this one, which I prefer. It starts slowly, but gets more dramatic towards the end.

Sibelius - Finlandia

In earlier posts we had a couple of what I called inspirational songs. In the classical music world this takes the prize. As with the Hungarian Rhapsody it starts slowly, but gets more dramatic at the halfway mark.

Elgar - Pomp and circumstance march

Sir Edward Elgar made his best try for inspiration with the Pomp and circumstance marches. Number one is the most played.

Childrens' viewpoints

Childhood tends to be a time when honesty is not constrained by consideration of the subject, but may be a time when understanding is not quite right as shown below.

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: "Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?"

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, " If you don't remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six. "

STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. " I love you so much, that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window. "

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: "How does it know it's me?"

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. She said, "Please don't give me this juice again. It makes my teeth cough."

DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: ""How much do I cost?"

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: "Why is he whispering in her mouth?"

CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, "I don't know what'll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in?"

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked: "What happened to the flea?"

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for awhile and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face?"

The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday sermon..."Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. "Without you, we are but dust." He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little girl voice, "Mom, what is butt dust?""

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Golf rules update for Corona virus

To deal with issues relating to the Corona virus the R&A have published guidelines as to what is playing by the "Rules of Golf" and what is not. The guidelines can be read here.

Music

For much of my life I have been attracted to music. Taking the approach that all music is nothing more than noise, some of it appeals and some of it revolts. Everybody will have different opinions as to which appeals to them and which they don't want to hear. To some extent noise can be classified and it is likely most people will find noise in similar classifications will either appeal or not.

My major classification is, was it written before or after 1970! To me this was about the time when electrical amplication started to be incorporated in noise and volume became more important than anything else.

This could mean I miss some noise I'd enjoy, but as there already exists thousands of hours of nice noise pre-1970, much of it you would wish to hear more than once, I'm content.

Having said that I'm going to post some noises, or noise extracts from my collection fairly regularly over the next few weeks. There will be many you know and hopefully some you don't, but which you will like.

Let's start with something truly left field, Spike Jones explanation of Bizet's Carmen.

It lasts for nearly 13 minutes.

Naturally there should be some Australian content. In my view there are few better than Johny O'Keefe's Shout.

Another piece with similar structure of lots of repetition with rising and falling volumes levels, Hey Jude by The Beatles.

And lastly for today yet another piece with lots of repetition with rising and falling volumes levels, Golden Wedding by Woody Herman.

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Some thoughts on managing fire risk

In the pandemonium of dealing with the Corona virus we tend to overlook other issues. Bruce Pascoe shares his thoughts and experience at Mallacoota

Some good news

Today's Age reports a major breakthrough in hydrogen batteries. The batteries initially are of a household scale to store power generated from rooftop solar panels. The batteries which will be about 1.3m high can hold about 60kw-hours, 5 times more than equivalent lithium ion batteries. It is expected they will be available early next year.

The research work has centered at the University of NSW and it is anticipated all manufacturing will occur in Australia.

Installation should be fun as not only must the batteries be integrated with the solar panel installation, but they also have to have a connection to a water main!

This is the second of Banjo Paterson's poems I've enjoyed. It was first published in the Bulletin on 17^th 1892.

THE MAN FROM IRONBARK

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink, his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat:
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark -
No doubt it fairly took him in - the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! one hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "Murder! Bloody murder!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun-
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

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Butch the Rooster

John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.  He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced. This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover. To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Melbourne Show where he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

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