It can’t be much fun living in Australia. One minute you’re pegging it from overly aggressive forest fire the next you’re being beaten up by an angry local mob for ordering a side salad.
But this week things became even worse for Australia with the announcement that the MotoGP race at Phillip Island has been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. What a blow for our lovable, drunken chums down under.
The Aussies love motorcycle racing – who can forget all the above average Australian riders of the 500cc era? Wayne Gardner, Daryl Beattie and probably someone else that I can’t remember. These mullet wearing swagman raised the bar in GP racing right up to the point where they were soundly thrashed by Wayne Rainey.
The announcement that their race has been cancelled was obviously a blow for all MotoGP fans but especially the locals who probably have now nothing else to look forward to.
So to lift the dampened spirits of our favourite denim wearing halfwits MPGN has put Australian in our hearts and compiled a list of the five most dangerous things down under.
1. Spiders
Nearly all of the most dangerous spiders on the planet freely roam around in Australia. Why? Evolution – that’s why!
Over many thousands of years the standard Australian human male has unknowingly evolved their livers to cope with the ever increasing amount of alcohol consumed after 9:30am. This has forced nature to evolve too by creating more and more concentrated venom for the spider to take down these cumbersome enemies. An average Aussie spider now has enough venom in one bite to paralyse a thousand elephants or to make an Australian feel ‘a little crook’ for an hour.
And it’s not just the poison either – these tiny critters are sly too! Take the cheeky Funnel Web spider – a particular nasty little shit of an arthropod that enter people’s homes when they’re looking for a mate. Like a drunk guy on Tinder with a bottle of poison.
2. Utes
A ute is a weird vehicle that’s essentially a terrible hybrid of a saloon car and a pickup truck and would only be deemed acceptable, let alone massively popular, in a nation of people with dreadful taste. The word ‘Ute’ is an abbreviation of ‘utility’ and was soon adopted for the vehicle as it only had one syllable and therefore was easier to say when intoxicated.
The ute itself is not dangerous – unless you have an allergy to smirking at things that look ridiculous. However most utes are driven at speed by men who have had a skinful of Victoria Bitter and are rushing home to knock their Sheelas around for not recording the Aussie rules football on the VHS. It’s estimated that you can be anywhere in Australia at any time and be hit by a drunk driving a ute.
Worse still if were to be run you over the owner would probably not notice until the morning.
3. Kangaroos
You may think that kangaroos, or ‘roos’ as they’re known locally (again for one-syllable simplicity), appear fun but have you actually ever seen how muscular they are?
Do these steroid abusing marsupials look fun to you? No. They’re a bouncing nuisance that terrorise the entire island and would kick your face in at the first opportunity.
4. Formula One at Melbourne Park
It’s almost impossible to explain how dull this F1 event, that for some reason has run for over a quarter of a century, is.
Imagine liberally drinking from the chalice of eternal life only then to find yourself trapped in a grey box for the rest of eternity. That infinite encapsulation would feel like an adrenalin-fuelled zip-wire run above a piranha tank compared to sitting through just a handful of laps of the Australian F1 parade.
5. Food poisoning
You may presume arachnid venom is the worst poison you’d encounter down under but in actual fact you’re far more likely to cop it from some rancid seafood.
Most people know and regularly quote the old “throw another shrimp on the barbie” slogan made popular by that guy from Crocodile Dundie before he became unfamous. And it’s true.
Nearly all food is cooked on the BBQ because it’s easy and doesn’t take much brainpower. This is not a nation of fine-diners. Meat, seafood, veg, desserts, shoes – it all gets slapped on the grill with a healthy dose of cross contamination.
Not too sure about the sausages cooking in the raw chicken juices? Concerned about the shrimps being burnt on the outside but their ‘poo pipe’ still being raw? E-coli not something you fancy? Well don’t say anything or you’re likely to get repeatedly punched in the neck for being a cry baby.