STOA Newsletter #41
Vote for Australia's Shittest Town + Melbourne Cup Review
Welcome to an important edition of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter.
This week, seven of the country’s cruddiest crapholes face off for the prestigious title of Shit Town of the Year 2021. Who will take the brown crown? Scroll to the end of this email to vote!
Note: if you’re wondering about the absence of perennial power rankings powerhouse Townsville, it will feature in the next poll for Australia’s Shittest City.
Also this week: we review the Melbourne Cup, revisit the Gong, and share some feedback from Daptoids.
If you have mates who are keen to vote in future polls or stay up-to-date with all our content, get them to subscribe at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
New Book
Pre-order Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip:
Booktopia (Australia)
Mighty Ape (New Zealand)
Book Depository (worldwide)
Shit Event: The Melbourne Cup
Australasia’s pre-eminent public horse-abuse holiday, the Melbourne Cup is the only iconic sporting event where you can eat the losers. Internationally renowned as ‘the race that stops a nation’, the trophy has been won by a slew of famous nags such as Phar Lap, Makybe Diva and Pauline Hanson. Most of the horses are owned by truly objectionable people like minor royals, oil sheikhs and property developers.
Despite its pretension towards sophistication, horseracing is basically bullfights for the bourgeois, an excuse for suburbanites to dress a bit fancy and watch a midget flog half a tonne of future dog roll while losing a week’s wages on a poorly constructed trifecta. The Melbourne Cup is traditionally marked with a massive orgy of public spewing and fighting, something it shares with other national holidays such as Australia Day and Russell Crowe’s birthday. Post-race news coverage is dominated by footage of half-cut slags collapsing into hedges and fishing piss-soaked fascinators out of the gutter. Another common sight is excited tradies who turn up in their best court suits, only to be disappointed when they find out that a handicap race doesn’t feature Down syndrome people doing hurdles. It’s the race that stops a nation’s brains working.
From our new book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, available to pre-order now.
Throwback: Wollongong
Wollongong is synonymous with most words starting with ‘un’: uncultured, unsafe, uninspiring, unclean, unsightly, undeniably unpleasant, unemployment, unprotected sex, unconsciousness and uncle-dads. Full of decaying buildings and relying on a raft of dying heavy industries, the crime-ridden industrial wasteland is essentially a rustier version of Newcastle.
Commonly called ‘The Gong’ because of all the bashings, Wollongong is home to a wide swathe of undesirable characters including drunken deros, strung-out needle fiends and an inexplicable number of personal trainers. Popular activities include getting caught in a coalmine explosion, getting glassed in Crown Street Mall, getting stabbed at the railway station and getting beaten up for having the wrong colour shirt or skin. Former lord mayor Frank Arkell once coined the phrase ‘Wonderful Wollongong’ to promote the city—then again, former lord mayor Frank Arkell was an alleged paedophile who ended up being brutally murdered in his own home, which somewhat undermines his slogan.
Aside from general violence and disrepair, Wollongong is famous for its beaches, which is fortunate because any length of time in town will leave you with the overwhelming desire to walk into the sea. Unfortunately, said beaches are all massively polluted by both local litterbugs and Port Kembla, the city’s primary cancer complex and coal export/heroin import docks. Wollongong features two lighthouses, each as shit as the other: Wollongong Breakwater Lighthouse, which doesn’t work, and Wollongong Head Lighthouse, which looks like a giant tampon.
Wollongong: Newcastle for people who have given up.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia, available in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Portland, VIC — Woman charged after allegedly stabbing man over $10 drug debt during Facebook live stream
Bunbury, WA — School leavers film themselves snorting coke off each other’s arses, smoking their pubes and rooting on footy fields
Townsville, QLD — Drunk L-plater crashes into house and runs away; dad takes 6-year-old daughter on crime spree; untreated sewage spills into creek
Kalgoorlie, WA — Gronk fined after running red light and crashing into pregnant lady’s car before threatening to shoot cops and run over pedestrians
Cairns, QLD — Bloke allegedly gets half his ear bitten off in brawl
Shellharbour, NSW — Methhead robs Domino’s delivery driver for cash to spend at McDonald’s
Heathcote, VIC — Raceway campers vandalise venue and suck each other off on the track
Ipswich, QLD — Drunk grub whips out dick and tries to piss in middle of busy shopping centre
Wagga Wagga, NSW — Cyclist does a big shit in stranger’s driveway
Port Pirie, SA — Sad Christmas parade to consist of spectators in cars driving past stationary floats; still shit
Fan Mail: Dapto
Vote: Australia’s Shittest Town
Click/tap on a town’s name below to vote. Voting closes and winner announced Monday 8/11. Only your first vote is recorded, so don’t fuck it up.
What is Australia’s Shittest Town?
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