Gherkin Street

By Red Dinger:

In news to hand, apparently Australia has become a “deadly” tourist destination with 2,433 visitors being killed over the last seven years.

This presumably does not include the backpackers who met Ivan Milat that we don’t know about.

That said, I would have thought there were more dangerous places in the world to visit – Afghanistan and Iraq for example. Mind you, in those countries it’s the tourists who do most of the killing. But still, its not like you’d enjoy kicking back by the pool in Baghdad with a few beers.

Then again, there are worse things than death I suppose. For example, that bloke who dresses up in the sheep costume really should never visit New Zealand. Nor should anyone ever visit relatives in Tasmania (unless they particularly partial to having sex with their uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews).

According to the statistics, most of the tourists that died in Australia “drowned”. Now there is nothing funny about drowning, unless the victim is a clown.

Nevertheless, perhaps then all that hullabaloo about mandatory pool fences was worth it. I confess that before we put the fence around our pool we used to find a dead tourist in there a good three or four times a week. The tragic thing is, because I don’t have much money, our backyard pool is nothing more than an old bath we found down the street on clean-up night. Mind you, our neighbours have a decent sized pool and they often complained about finding dead tourists as well.

You have to be very careful too. We found that tourists are much like funnel web spiders. Some of them can spring back to life even after appearing dead for days. The Irish ones are particularly noted for this, especially if they should find themselves into your pool after having been drinking Guinness.

Its well worth noting as there is nothing more embarrassing than to throw a perfectly good tourist in the garbage bin just because you thought they were dead. Especially when they ask for their wallet, rings and gold teeth back.

It can be very confusing though, it really is hard to tell which of the tourists are dead. I used to think all the German visitors were dead until I realised that they were just extremely boring. Italian tourists meanwhile may smell dead but you can tell they are alive by the way they throw their arms about in the air and/or fall to the ground clutching their shins claming a “penalty!” should you shake hands with them.

English tourists meanwhile, especially cricket followers, merely wish they were dead.

Interestingly, male tourists are three times more likely to die than female tourists. Presumably this is due to embarrassment due to their relative penis size. More likely however it is because they arrived here with a good looking woman and were promptly shown where to swim at the local beach by a few of the locals – right in the middle of a raging rip.

“Sorry about your boyfriend darling, can I cajole you in any way?”

Those lifesavers are such bastards. They are always doing it. Still, I suppose a little practical joke never hurt anyone did it?

Of course, I am a great believer in never believing what you read – especially if I wrote it. I simply do not trust those statistics at all.

For a start, its well known that a crocodile drowns its victim in the old “death roll” before eating it so technically the tourist “drowned”. The same goes for “heat stroke” (more likely a snake bite), “car crash” (shark attack) and “exposure” (being beaten up for behaving like a git).

Either way Australia is a dangerous place for tourists. So, if you are reading this and you are a good looking female tourist, give me a call and I’ll steer you clear of all of Australia’s hidden dangers. Starting with a bath … er, I mean a swim in my pool …