Congratulations to Armadale on being voted Perth’s Shittest Suburb for 2021! Armadale will represent WA in the poll for Australia’s Shittest Suburb later in the year. Honourable mention to Innaloo for being too shit to win a shit suburbs poll even with a name like that. Here are the final results:
Armadale: 23%
Rockingham: 18%
Midland: 12%
Fremantle: 11%
Balga: 9%
Kwinana: 9%
Innaloo: 6%
Gosnells: 5%
Burswood: 2%
Midvale: 2%
Belmont: 2%
Koongamia: 1%
To celebrate, we’ve reviewed Armadale in this newsletter.
Don’t miss next week’s newsletter (Tuesday 15th) to vote for Victoria’s Shittest Town! If you know any Covidtorians who’d want in on this vote, get them to sign up at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
Shit Suburb: Armadale
Originally built around a pub and named after a vodka brand, the alcoholic country town of Armadale has in recent decades been swallowed by urban sprawl to become an outer suburb of Perth. Consequently, its population is a mash-up of inbred country bumpkins and drug-addled urban deros, who have crossbred to create a truly terrifying subspecies of bogan. The suburb’s slogan is ‘City Living, Country Style’, which is a polite way of saying the inmates are adept at smoking meth with their webbed fingers.
Armadale’s streets are adorned with piles of broken booze bottles, rows of burnt-out cars and towers of shopping trolleys. Shops and bars usually sport signs imploring customers to don footwear, as most locals tend to get around barefoot due to the difficulty of finding thongs that fit six-toed feet. The area has recently become inundated with first home buyers, as there is a surfeit of houses available at a great price because people were murdered in them. After moving in, new Armadillos quickly find themselves praying for a civilising wave of gentrification or a tactical nuclear weapon blast, whichever comes first.
Armadale’s most famous feature is the Old Jarrah Tree, an 800-year-old eucalyptus in a car park that has survived numerous attempts at ringbarking by local residents, who are jealous that the tree is the smartest inhabitant of Armadale. Another popular attraction is Pioneer World, where locals can see the historical conditions that their convict forbears endured and hope that they too might commit a crime heinous enough to see them deported to the other side of the world. Armadale is also home to Cole’s Shaft, which he will be more than happy to show you around the back of Bunnings if you ask him nicely.
Throwback: Perth
Everyone knows Perthlings are a proud people, but no one knows of what—and no one cares. Perth is famously one of the most isolated capital cities in the world, complete with the exorbitant flight costs and lack of international entertainment that implies. Western Australia’s capital may as well be located on the moon as far as the rest of Australia is concerned. This has resulted in a chronic sense of FOMO and a chip on Perth’s collective shoulder, turning the local population into a bunch of whiny, self-entitled snobs. Like a petulant teenager who threatens to run away every time their mum bans them from Fortnite, Perth threatens to secede about once a decade.
Built by convict slaves on a wind-blasted and sun-beaten patch of sand, Perth is famous for its brutal summers, the only benefit being the annual purging of the elderly who fail to make it through another blistering January. The city’s sole purpose is as an administrative centre for Western Australia’s hole-digging industries. As well as subjecting Perth to the sort of rampant inflation common in shonky South American dictatorships, the mining boom has filled the city with cashed-up FIFOs and associated sex workers, who hang out at Scarborough bars and act all upper class with the money that they earned by shovelling dirt or pissing on people.
Other common Pertherts include planeloads of whinging Poms and white South African apartheid apologists, and hordes of dole-bludging, drug-addicted bogans who tend to live in suburbs like Armadale. When they’re not getting in fights at the traino, Perth residents enjoy weekend trips to Bali where they can lose 65 per cent of their skin in a scooter accident, or excursions to Rottnest Island where the only form of entertainment is punting endangered marsupials into the sea. Closer to home are a number of beaches that are popular locations for being eaten by a shark, Perth residents being some of the tastiest people on the planet.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia, available in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Adelaide, SA — Psycho bites off bit of man’s ear in random attack; 11-year-old arrested after allegedly crashing stolen car during police pursuit; bogan arrested after live-streaming gender reveal burnout
Hobart, TAS — Fuckwit fires gun at Macca’s drive-thru
Murgon, QLD — 11 school kids stabbed with used syringe by student
Townsville, QLD — Household has one car torched and another dumped in creek by thieves on the same night; samurai swords and cars stolen from house; bloke busted riding bike from pub with samurai sword
Penrith, NSW — Grub charged after allegedly kicking guide-dog-in-training
Shepparton, VIC — Maniac piffs rocks at business and writes message in blood on parked car
Perth, WA — Shovel-wielding gronk in undies rampages through people’s homes, escapes cops despite being tasered 5 times
Dunsborough, WA — Teen faces court for pissing on police car then leading cops on chase
Brisbane, QLD — Pilot flies 110km past destination after falling asleep
Port Pirie, SA — Shit-town mayor invites Shit Towns authors to shit-town picnic to prove town not shit, picnic cancelled
Whitcoulls Top 100
Last year, our book Shit Towns of New Zealand was voted the 60th best book of all time in a prestigious poll by NZ book chain Whitcoulls, proving that Rick Furphy and Geoff Rissole are better writers than wannabes like Stephen King, J.D. Salinger and Emily Brontë.
Voting is now open for the 2021 edition — you can help us gatecrash the list again by voting for our books Sh*t Towns of New Zealand, Sh*t Towns of New Zealand Number Two, Sh*t Moments in New Zealand Sport, or even Sh*t Towns of Australia if you’re so inclined. Can we knock that smug bastard Harry Potter off his perch? Voting closes 13/6.