Stephen Altham

Albo called Chris Bowen into his office one day and said, ‘Chris, I have a really great idea — a vote winner’. We’ll take a trip outback and have a yarn with the yokels, they’ll love us.’ ‘Good idea Albo, how shall we go about it?’ asked Chris. ‘Well,’ said Albo, ’We’ll get ourselves one of those Driz-a-Bone coats, some RM Williams boots, a stick and an Akubra hat. Oh, and a blue heeler. We’ll really look the part. First we find a typical old country pub and show ’em we really enjoy the bush.’ ‘Yeah,’ said Chris. Days later, all kitted out, blue heeler on a leash, they set off from Canberra. Eventually they found just the right place, a typical outback pub. They walked in with the dog and breasted the bar. ’G’day mate,’ said Albo to the bartender, ‘two schooners of your best beer.’ ‘Good afternoon Albo,’ said the bartender, ‘two schooners of our best coming up.’ Albo and Bowen stood leaning on the bar drinking their beer and bullshitting, nodding now and then to whoever came into the bar. The dog lay quietly at their feet. All of a sudden, the door from the adjacent bar opened and in came a grizzled old stockman with a bloody big stockwhip on his shoulder. He walked up to the cattle dog, lifted its tail with the whip handle and looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the other bar. A few moments later, there came another stockman with his whip. He also went to the dog and lifted its tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and went back to the other bar. Over the course of the next hour or so four or five stockmen came in, lifted the dog’s tail and went away looking puzzled. Eventually, Albo and Bowen could stand it no longer and called the barman over. ‘Tell me,’ said Bowen, ‘why did all those stockmen come in and look under the dog’s tail like that? Is it an old outback custom?’ ‘Strewth no,’ said the barman. ‘Someone told ’em there was a cattle dog in the bar with two arseholes.’