Australia's Funniest Yarns Read online

  Also by Graham Seal

  Great Australian Stories

  Great Anzac Stories

  Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories

  The Savage Shore

  Great Australian Journeys

  Great Convict Stories

  Great Bush Stories

  ________

  Praise for other books by Graham Seal

  Great Australian Stories

  ‘The pleasure of this book is in its ability to give a fair dinkum insight into the richness of Australian story telling.’ —The Weekly Times

  ‘A treasure trove of material from our nation’s historical past.’ —The Courier Mail

  ‘This book is a little island of Aussie culture—one to enjoy.’ —Sunshine Coast Sunday

  The Savage Shore

  ‘A fascinating, entertainingly written voyage on what have often been rough and murky seas.’ —The Daily Telegraph

  ‘Colourful stories about the spirit of navigation and exploration, and of courageous and miserable adventures at sea.’ —National Geographic

  ‘… a gripping account of danger at sea, dramatic shipwrecks, courageous castaways, murder, much missing gold, and terrible loss of life.’ —The Queensland Times

  Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories

  ‘… another collection of yarns, tall tales, bush legends and colourful characters … from one of our master storytellers.’ —The Queensland Times

  Great Anzac Stories

  ‘… allows you to feel as if you are there in the trenches with them.’ —The Weekly Times

  ‘They are pithy short pieces, absolutely ideal for reading when you are pushed for time, but they are stories you will remember for much longer than you would expect.’ —The Ballarat Courier

  Great Australian Journeys

  ‘Readers familiar with Graham Seal’s work will know he finds and writes ripper, fair-dinkum, true blue Aussie yarns. His books are great reads and do a lot for ensuring cultural stories are not lost. His new book, Great Australian Journeys, is no exception.’ —The Weekly Times

  ‘Epic tales of exploration, survival, tragedy, romance, mystery, discovery and loss come together in this intriguing collection of some of Australia’s most dramatic journeys from the 19th and early 20th centuries.’ —Vacations and Travel

  Great Convict Stories

  ‘More than just a retelling of some of the most fascinating yarns, Seal is interested in how folklore around the convicts grew from the colourful tales of transportation and what impact that had on how we see our convict heritage.’ —The Daily Telegraph

  ‘With a cast of colourful characters from around the country—the real Artful Dodger, intrepid bushrangers … Great Convict Stories offers a fascinating insight into life in Australia’s first decades.’ —Sunraysia Daily

  Great Bush Stories

  ‘This collection is Graham Seal at his best.’ —The Land

  ‘Seal draws effectively on the rich Australian bush traditions of versification and balladeering … He takes us back to a time when “the bush” was central to popular notions of Australian identity, with the likes of Henry Lawson and “Banjo” Paterson serving to both celebrate and mythologise it.’ —Writing WA

  First published in 2019

  Copyright © Graham Seal 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright material. If you have any information concerning copyright material in this book please contact the publishers at the address below.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76052 845 4

  eISBN 978 1 76087 291 5

  Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

  Front cover photos: ‘Guard Bill O’Brien enjoying a chat with Victoria Walsh while Tea and Sugar train is at Karonic.’ National Archives of Australia

  Dedicated to the bull artists, jokers and yarn-spinners of the great Australian tradition

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION: An edge like a chainsaw

  1 BULL

  What a hide

  The split dog

  Drop bears

  Hoop snakes

  Giant mozzies

  Crooked Mick and the Speewah

  Dinkum!

  The exploding dunny

  The well-dressed ’roo

  Loaded animals

  The blackout babies

  The most beautiful lies

  The Pommies and the Yanks

  Aussie efficiency

  2 CHARACTERS

  The Drongo

  Cousin Jacks

  Tom Doyle

  The Widow Reilly’s pig

  The Convict’s Tour to Hell

  Make it hours instead of days

  Who was Billy Barlow?

  Jacky Bindi-i

  Jimmy Ah Foo

  Snuffler Oldfield

  Corny Kenna

  The Hodja

  Dad makes a blue

  Dad, Dave and Mabel

  Anzac characters

  How he worked his nut

  Tom ’n’ Oplas

  Three blokes at a pub

  3 HARD CASES

  The cocky

  ‘Hungry’ Tyson

  Ninety the Glutton

  Galloping Jones

  Christy Palmerston

  Moondyne Joe

  The Eulo Queen

  Wheelbarrow Jack

  Long Jack

  Diabolical Dick

  Puppy pie and dog’s dinner

  The World’s Greatest Whinger

  The Captain of the Push

  The Souvenir King

  Mrs Delaney

  Dopes

  Taken for a ride

  Bea Miles

  Doing business with Reg

  An unwelcome miracle

  4 DIGGEROSITIES

  A million cat-calls

  Religion

  Monocles

  Food and drink

  Army biscuits

  Babbling Brooks

  The casual digger

  Officers

  Birdie

  The piece of paper

  Parables of Anzac

  Baldy becomes mobile

  The Roo de Kanga

  Blighty

  Very irritated

  Thinking ahead

  Finding the ‘Awstralians’

  Please let us take Tobruk!

  Count your children

  Parable of the kit inspection

  The air force wife

  5 WORKING FOR A LAUGH

  The garbos’ Christmas

  A Christmas message

  Rechtub Klat

  The wharfie’s reply

  The union dog

  Working on the railway

  High-octane travel

  Railway birds

  Total eclipse of communication

  The laws of working life

>   Somebody else’s job

  The basic work survival guide

  Twelve things you’ll never hear an employee tell the boss

  Excessive absence

  The end of a perfect day

  Total Quality Management (TQM)

  Policy development

  The boat race

  Prospective Employee Assessment

  Specialised High-Intensity Training (S.H.I.T.)

  Early retirement

  Differences between you and your boss

  What do they really mean?

  The little red hen

  The airline steward’s revenge

  The boss

  After work …

  Meetings

  Prayer for the stressed

  The job application

  The boss’s reply

  Ode to public servants

  Jargoning

  The Jargon Generator

  Governmentium

  The surprise party

  The sex life of an electron

  Death of employees

  Workplace agreements

  Population of Australia

  6 A SWAG OF LAUGHS

  The Great Australian Yarn

  The Bagman’s Gazette

  A stump speech

  The phantom bullocky

  A fine team of bullocks

  Language!

  Droving in a bar

  Slow trains

  Service!

  Meekatharra ice blocks

  The redback spider

  The Great Australian Adjective

  Lore of the track

  Sniffling Jimmy

  The poetic swaggie

  Where the angel tarboys fly

  Bowyang Bill and the cocky farmer

  A good feed

  The Swagman’s Union

  A glorious spree

  The Dimboola cat farm

  A farmer’s lament

  What’s on, Cookie?

  The maiden cook

  The farmer’s will

  7 THE LAWS OF LIFE

  Rules for being human

  Application for Australian Citizenship

  Children’s proverbs

  To the citizens of the USA

  Signs of your times

  Facebook for the chronologically challenged

  Making a difference

  Go Aussie, go!

  25 lessons in life

  Why cucumbers are better than men

  Why beer is better than women

  Personal growth and development courses

  Lifetime horoscope

  A rotten day

  What they wanted

  The impossible examination

  Do not break the chain

  An invitation

  The army recruit’s letter

  Application for an Australian passport

  Take a running jump at yourself!

  8 MOMENTS LIKE THESE …

  Up, up and away!

  All’s well that ends well

  The Oozlum bird

  The black stump

  Yearning for yowies

  My boyfriend gave me an apple

  A seasonal guide to wives

  Henry spruiks Heenzo

  Spifler- —— -cate Him!

  Tough times

  Australian tourism

  The naked caravanner

  Roaming gnomes

  Her Majesty responds

  Tigga’s travels

  Running naked with the bulls

  You need Minties

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  NOTES

  PHOTO CREDITS

  Campfire in the bush with mates, some tucker and a good yarn, Victoria, 1920s.

  INTRODUCTION

  AN EDGE LIKE A CHAINSAW

  Australians traditionally like their humour irreverent, crude and with very sharp teeth. The ‘politically correct’ is out and the ‘isms’ of sex, race and a swag of other prejudices abound. Pretty well anything and anyone is fair game.

  Through the tall tales of the bush, the yarns of Anzac diggers, the antics of larrikins and workplace laughter, our jokes are often at the expense of others, particularly newcomers. Remember the one about the strange whining sound heard at airports as planes from Britain landed? It was eventually realised that this was the whingeing of ‘Pommie’ migrants dissatisfied with what they found in Australia.

  On the other hand, we are also adept at ‘taking the piss’ out of ourselves. One of the lampoons in this book is titled ‘Application for Australian Citizenship’, and it begins with this question:

  How many slabs can you fit in the back of a Falcon ute while also allowing room for your cattle dog?

  And it goes rapidly downhill from there, pillorying our prejudices and preferences.

  This tendency could come from the history of modern Australia. The need to deal with an unforgiving environment meant that those from the softer northern hemisphere had to toughen up very quickly to survive, never mind thrive. The fabled Australian lampooning of ‘new chums’ in the nineteenth century and our notorious jokes against ‘new Australians’, ‘reffos’, ‘boat people’ and so on are reprehensible, but perhaps explainable through these circumstances.

  Those who are the targets of such humour, of course, are unlikely to see things the same way. But they can and do get their own back through the same process of sending up, making light and generally turning the joke back upon the jokers.

  Apart from making us laugh—and, sometimes, cringe—humour can be a great leveller, a safety valve, a consolation or all of these things. It can also be a way to cope with difficult situations, from the everyday trivialities of ‘Minties moments’ to the often-grim realities of war, tensions at work or just with life in general. It is also something that works best when it is shared. Research shows that people laugh much more frequently when they are in a social situation. When Australians share a joke or swap a yarn, we are so pleased with sending things up that we include ourselves in the humour.

  And that humour comes in many forms—yarns, anecdotes, jokes, satires, parodies, cartoons, send-ups and even the ways in which we like to amuse ourselves. Even our fabled slang is not only colourful but frequently humorous in itself. ‘In a pig’s arse’, or simply ‘pigs’, is a well-worn expression of disbelief. Just what the rear end of the poor old porker has to do with truth or lies is a mystery, but the expression is inherently humorous. Other terms, such as to ‘perform like a pork chop’ or be as ‘happy as a frog in a sock’ or ‘flat to the boards like a lizard drinking’, like many other Australian idioms, use absurdity to produce the kind of humorous talk we find screamingly funny. At least, it is to us; others often find it incomprehensible, vulgar or just plain weird.

  Demanding a ‘fair suck of the sav(eloy)’—or the sauce bottle, according to some—reminds us of another important characteristic of Australian humour: it is fiercely democratic, insisting on a ‘fair go’ and ‘cutting down tall poppies’ at every opportunity. Our parodies and satires often undercut authority figures, whether they be politicians, bureaucrats, experts or just the boss, always fated to be an ‘arsehole’. We relish taking someone or something down a peg or three, particularly the prominent and the pompous.

  Most of the humour in this book comes from the rich traditions of Australian laughter. The yarns, jokes and sayings that have been handed down from generation to generation still raise a smile. Others are more recent examples of modern traditions of send-up and satire associated with working life or parodying some aspect of politics, economics or society. Some items are humorous anecdotes and stories that have been turned into literature, such as Henry Lawson’s ‘The Loaded Dog’, or literature turned into folklore, like the Dad and Dave stories based on the writings of Steele Rudd. Some are retellings of humorous incidents and events in history, official and otherwise. They all draw on the same native wit that delights in puncturing pretensions and generally giving anyone and anything a ‘bit of a serve’ or ‘stirring the
possum’ a bit.

  We begin with ‘bulldust’, or just ‘bull’. The American humorist Mark Twain was greatly impressed with the Australian ability to generate ‘the most beautiful lies’ when he visited in the 1890s. He was a man who told more than a few tall stories of his own and so was well qualified to judge. Whether Australians enjoy a good lie more than other nations is a debatable point, but we have an impressive repertoire of ‘bullshit’, and it is not all slung in Canberra! The country has been blessed with some prodigious liars and you will find some of their greatest works here.

  Australian humour is also populated with an amazing array of quirky ‘characters’. They range through the funny, the cranky, the weird and the wonderful. Some are mythical, like Sandy the shearer. When told that some lambs were for sale at five shillings each, Sandy complained bitterly that this was far too expensive. When the seller said that he could have them for three pounds a dozen, Sandy was overjoyed and bought the lot.

  The intelligence-challenged Drongo is another, hopefully, imagined character of this kind. But other figures, like Bea Miles, actually existed and brightened things up for years with her crazy antics. Memorable eccentrics of all kinds, they are a staple of our folklore.

  Another type of identity is the hard case. These types are often battlers, like the cocky farmer or the swaggie, though skinflint tycoons like the miserly grazier ‘Hungry’ Tyson are not unknown. They may also be stupendous whingers or ratbags, like the bloke who swapped his wife for a billy and a pup because the dog was an extra good one. Whoever they are, real or fictional, they demonstrate the very angular Australian sense of humour, with its sharp elbows and shouldering, four-square attitude. Tough customers all, their doings have delighted us throughout our history and still raise a laugh today.

  One of the distinctive elements of Australian humour revolves around the character of the ‘Digger’, the idealised soldier of the Anzac tradition. While most Digger jokes and japes take place on active duty, they follow the style of bush humour and reflect the biases as well as the delights of the Aussie at war. Digger humour reflects the famous larrikinism and anti-authoritarianism of the Anzacs, from Gallipoli and onwards.

  If most of us have to work for a living, we might as well have a laugh about it as often as possible. And we do. Whatever the trade, occupation or profession, there is no shortage of humour about working life, whether we earn our daily crust in the bush, in an office, in a factory or anywhere else. Some yarns and jokes are peculiar to certain industries, trades or workplaces, others are immediately understandable to outsiders. These may be told, suitably adapted, in other industries, like the yarn about the employee who is supposed to keep the workplace clean and tidy. When the boss makes an inspection, he finds the place in a mess and the surfaces thick with dust. He berates the worker, saying, ‘The dust on that table is so thick I could write my name in it.’ The worker agrees, replying, ‘But then, you’re an educated man.’