Letter from Australia, 1990

… Meanwhile back here
things are pretty much as usual.
You know, open day at the crematorium…
Joan sang her swan song at Bennelong.
Lawrence shot his little brother
with his father’s shotgun.
It was an accident, his father said.
On the Gold Coast goats were disembowelled
by a satanic cult.
Police are investigating.
At Mootwingee they had twice the annual rainfall
in one afternoon.
Teenagers up the Top End have forsaken metho.
Now petrol and ant poison’s all the rage.
A man escaped from Vietnam
to a life sentence in Long Bay.
Another man jumped on a five-metre crocodile
and poked it in the eye.
It was trying to eat his mother.
Came into their tent
just like that dingo.

I suppose things are pretty exciting in Europe.

PS Nineteen chickens were disembowelled as well,
also on the Gold Coast.