Move FM Regional news

SYDNEY, NSW, Australia – Any publicity is good publicity, so the saying goes. However a pair of book authors are creating a storm over their book which goes on sale on Friday of this week.

The title of the book “Sh*t towns of Australia,’ says it all. Many of the country’s top cities and towns have come in for a spray, many of which have taken in their stride as a satire, while others are fuming.

In a similar book-launch across the Tasman, titled ‘Sh*t towns of New Zealand,” one mayor suggested the authors should be shot.

In Australia 60 towns and cities have been targeted with what some would describe as insulting, defaming, misleading and false descriptions, while others are saying the narratives are witty, send-ups and straight out funny.

Central West towns and cities have not missed the author’s venom. Bathurst, Dubbo, Lithgow and Orange are all named. So too is Penrith. The ‘sh*ttiest’ city is named as Melbourne, while Sydney also features in the top 10, and Penrith is in there too.

The authors Rick Furphy and Geoff Rissole have sparked considerable controversy across the nation but they claim it’s all in good fun. The idea for a book came from their Facebook page which has the same title as the book.

Following is the entry for Lithgow:

Lithgow: ‘Deader than a baby in a dingo’s den’

“Also known as Liffgow, grey and stranded in the Blue Mountains, Lithgow is deader than a baby in a dingo’s den.

The miserable ghost town is inhabited by packs of listless mountain people with pallid skin and dead eyes, all permanently adorned in track pants, otherwise known as “trackie daks” or “sex offender trousers.”

only daytime activities in town are sitting around, watching tumbleweeds roll down the main street and staring at people, while”night-life” consists of sitting around, getting smashed on cheap piss, watching the odd drag race down the main street and staring at people. If you do plan to visit, be warned that cracking a smile in Lithgow will get you beaten up.

Lithgow’s industry consists of numerous mines, mills, plants and factories, all closing down as fast as they can. The only things still operating there are a train station that does a roaring trade on departures and a maximum-security prison.

Lithgow was the site of the Small Arms Factory, a weapons plant manned entirely by people with small arms. The factory went belly-up when it became clear that its genetically challenged workers were significantly less productive than their competitors.

Lithgow’s premier event is the annual Ironfest festival, which includes a jousting tournament and a colonial war re-enactment, attracting virgins from all over New South Wales. A popular nearby attraction is the Glowworm Tunnel, which is popular mainly because it provides visitors with an excuse to briefly leave Lithgow. The disused railway tunnel is filled with glowing lights which are mistakenly believed to be glow-worms but are actually the illuminated eyes of Lithgow locals lurking in the shadows and staring at tourists. In Lithgow, it’s not just the bracing cold that will give you shivers.”

The authors of the book run polls on their Facebook page, and the number 1. power ranking for December, as indicated earlier is Melbourne. This is what they have to say about Australia’s second biggest city:

“Melbourne has long been considered Australia’s bohemian capital, a bulging flogatropolis full of hirsute hipsters, craft beer wankers, militant vegans and ‘entrepreneurs’ blagging on about cryptocurrencies and angel investors. Melburnians’ favourite hobbies include moaning about Sydney, munching organic quinoa served on a garbage bin lid, pretending to understand foreign films, blockading streets because hamburgers made them sad, heroin, and making dirty alleys sound quaint by calling them ‘laneways’.

Victoria’s capital also claims to be the country’s sport capital, as locals are all either obsessed with sport to a sexual degree or make a point of hating sport in order to appear different. The city is the epicentre of the national AFL epidemic, a game so stupid that it could only have been conceived by a convict with heatstroke and too much time on his hands. For those unacquainted with this rather esoteric sport, a ‘Sherrin’ is the ball, a ‘sausage roll’ is a goal and ‘the Brownlow’ is something that you might get after the grand final if your missus has had enough shiraz.

Melbourne was founded after a joker called John Batman swindled the land from its Indigenous residents and christened it Batmania. Today the city features a Batman Avenue and a Batman Park, which would be awesome if they weren’t named after a syphilitic mass murderer. For much of Melbourne’s history since, the city has been held by the gonads by organised crime groups that run massive drug, racketeering and assassination operations, but thanks to politicians and the media, locals are more afraid of fictional ‘African gangs’ tagging their fence.”

Following is the complete list of 60 towns and cities that make it in the book’s list:

• NEW SOUTH WALES
  Nimbin
  Byron Bay
  Lismore
  Casino
  Grafton
  Coffs Harbour
  Armidale
  Tamworth
  Port Macquarie
  Broken Hill
  Dubbo
  Newcastle
  Central Coast
  Orange
  Bathurst
  Lithgow
  Penrith
  Sydney
  Wollongong
  Nowra
  Wagga Wagga
  Albury-Wodonga

  AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
  Canberra

  QUEENSLAND
  Cairns
  Townsville
  Mackay
  Mount Isa
  Rockhampton
  Bundaberg
  Fraser Island
  Sunshine Coast
  Caboolture
  Brisbane
  Toowoomba
  Ipswich
  Logan
  Gold Coast

  VICTORIA
  Mildura
  Shepparton
  Bendigo
  Ballarat
  Melbourne
  Geelong

  TASMANIA
  Launceston
  Queenstown
  Hobart

  SOUTH AUSTRALIA
  Mount Gambier
  Adelaide
  Port Pirie
  Port Augusta
  Coober Pedy

  NORTHERN TERRITORY
  Alice Springs
  Katherine
  Darwin

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA
  Broome
  Kalgoorlie
  Perth
  Fremantle
  Mandurah
  Tuggabugga