The internet is abuzz today of a fabled tale from down Frankston way, of a mysterious man whose shit-stirring capabilities were operating at god-like levels.
If you’ve gotten this far through your day without casting even a half glance at your phone, the story of this Prank King of Prank Kings went a little something like this:
A more glorious tale you are seldom likely to ever read. Bellissimo.
Though not to be content to simply bask in the gloriousness of a great story/well told, one particular internet user has taken it upon themselves to try and fact check the story to confirm whether it actually happened or not.
Carly Portch, a presenter for 997 Star FM in the central NSW town of Griffith, delved into the issue in a posting on her blog, Chatter and Squeak.
Portch’s arguments circle around a few key points of interest in the story.
First of all, the reliability of the narrator, and the veracity of the story’s source. Citing a cursory Google of the post’s original author, Chris Harrigan, Portch determines that Harrigan does have (at least a minor) history of being an online writer, with a bare handful of published articles under his belt.
Portch’s investigation then delved deeper into Harrigan’s backstory.
“According to his Facebook page he lives in Melbourne which is 48 minutes away from Frankston so geographically his story checks out because he is likely to have known someone who knows someone who may have been on that train.”
Next, on to the unnamed female “friend” who was the original source of the story in Harrigan’s post. Citing a Daily Mail article that confirms that women have a better sense of memory recall than men, Portch determines that she would indeed potentially have the ability to recall a memory as she saw it.
The timeline of events was also a point of contention, citing some dubious statistics in regards to the cooling of fried food in the open air (that fails to take into account the summer heat), Portch here casts doubt on the story, relying on the assumption that the incident occurred whilst waiting for a Melbourne-bound train on the Frankston line.
“Keep in mind she is waiting for a train it’s impossible to tell from the story what train she was waiting for but let’s say it was the Melbourne line.”
“According to the Frankston timetable give or take the wait for the Melbourne line depending on the time is around 10 minutes giving her enough time to witness this unfold.”
HOWEVER. Portch overlooks a vital clue in proceedings by ignoring the final line in Harrigan’s original story.
“The next train stop was five minutes away.”
On a Melbourne-bound train, the next stop after leaving Frankston Station is Kananook Station, a mere 2-minute train ride away. A glance at the PTV timetable reveals that no service leaving Frankston is scheduled to operate as express, thus rendering Portch’s 10-minute window of time a false assumption, based on the evidence in the OG story.
HOWEVER. On the Stony Point branch line, which operates a diesel service between Stony Point and Frankston, the next stop after Frankston is Leawarra Station which is, on some parts of the timetable, five minutes away.
With that in mind, it’s now safe to assume that the friend may well have been waiting for a Stony Point-bound train, which – owing to the fact that services run at roughly 2-hour intervals, and the fact that seagulls couldn’t give a remote fuck about whether food is hot or cold – would’ve given the mysterious man ample time to slowly amass his army of winged hellbeasts.
But, I digress.
Portch’s argument then delves into the actual event, positing several assumed theories about the positioning of the chip man on the train platform, his proximity to open train doors, and his throwing prowess. All of which end with no clear conclusion.
The argument itself has a red-hot look at the how – the
why of it all is a mighty philosophical discussion that should be held over for another day –
and spits out no definitive answers.
So did it actually occur? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s not out of the realms of possibility for either to be the truth.
But in this case, it’s potentially best to let the weight of story exist by itself.
If we never find out for sure, we can forever think of the story as being both real, and unreal, simultaneously.
Call it Schrödinger’s Seagull.
Photo: Fredrik von Erichsen/Getty.
