STOA Newsletter #210
Armadildo: Shitty Living, Bumpkin Style
Welcome to another edition of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter.
This week we launched our brand new companion newsletter The Shit List, and so far we’ve reviewed space, Schindler’s List and The Great Emu War, with a whole lot more to come. If you’d like access to our premium content, and to help us keep this whole thing going, you can do so for just $5 a month:
Shit Town: 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.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, out now in stores and online.
Shit Towns in Parliament
Throwback to that time an MP quoted our review of Armadale in Federal Parliament (and got in trouble for it).
Shit Town Power Rankings
Bairnsdale, VIC — Mad woman goes on 4-man stabbing spree
Geelong, VIC — Woman strolls through CBD naked; woman denied compo after slipping in human poo in Coles
Tamworth, NSW — Pair of feral teens charged after man stabbed in supermarket; gronk jailed after dancing naked in driveway while drunk
Gold Coast, QLD — Bogan with 11 kids sentenced after firing taser at cops; man narrowly survives after taking end-of-life drugs meant for his partner
Port Macquarie, NSW — Massive kangaroo tries to drown man in floodwaters
Melbourne, VIC — Ranger-driving road rager rams victim multiple times while his feral kid yells obscenities; cops seize 50kg of explosives and bomb making materials from townhouse; burglar caught dancing on CCTV while robbing school
Kalgoorlie, WA — Meth head tries to ram cops in ATV before leading them on chase to his home where they find a stolen bobcat
Strathlea, VIC — Gronks steal $12,000 worth of sheep
Bridgewater, TAS — Hoons do burnouts on brand new bridge
Cairns, QLD — Gronk fined for keeping wild croc as pet; gronkess caught driving on meth twice in one day
You guys are some of the funniest cunts on substack