Local newspapers are an essential and vibrant part of Australia‘s news landscape and their increasing irrelevance in the face of social and online media is a bit sad. They were once the primo way to source news about the local community, listings of local happenings, and letters from pensioners complaining about skate parks.
Central Sydney is the paper that services the most densely populated area of Australia – the location of which ought to be obvious from its title – and I for one am glad it’s keeping the energy and joie de vivre of the local newspaper alive. They certainly have with this yarn, which combines two areas ripe for journalistic interrogation: local pensioners and bongs.
Front page news in the newspaper servicing the most densely populated area of the country’s biggest city #STRAYA #news pic.twitter.com/BfhQdKYRhV
— Gary Nunn (@GaryNunn1) October 26, 2016
Behold:
Julia McCall may be a green thumb, but she’s got no time for grassheads – and after living in the Redfern area for 40 years, she knows how to spot them.So when small sections of her garden hose started disappearing, the retiree started asking questions.“My son said that’s what people did, people take them for bongs,” Mrs McCall said.
Contributing to the thriving dank economy in central Sydney, McCall decided the best way to prevent hose theft by local ne’er-do-wells was to provide a piece of complimentary hose:
This time, Mrs McCall decided to take action and fashion a device of her own – a noticeboard, with a sign reading, “Please don’t chop my hose again. Help yourself to this bit for your bong. Thanks, Julia”.“I thought it might bring a little shame to them, to stop pinching my hose like that, but it was also a bit of a joke, too, I suppose,” Mrs McCall said.The bit of broken hose is now “no use at all, so I’ve left it for them and maybe they won’t do it again”, she said.“I think in this day and age tolerance is a necessary component, isn’t it? We all have to live with each other and if we can ease it a little, so much the better,” she said.
God bless Sydney, and God bless our proud local papers.
Source: Central Sydney.
Photo: Central Sydney.
