ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
“What’s going to catch on fire here? This building is made from Diamantina sandstone,” he laughed.
“I pay my rates, I pay my taxes. I get my franking credits and I use them to stimulate the economy. I’m not a bad person. This total fire ban across the state is just silly. We’re in the middle of the Simpson Desert!”
Dennis Hart is a 64-year-old confirmed bachelor who recently downsized from a four-bedroom Betoota Heights display home he purchased just before the Sydney Olympics.
While he had no family to fill the bedrooms with, he kept things such as golf clubs, firearms, soil samples, barrels of crude oil, canned food, a full-size HO scale mock-up of Brisbane’s Roma Street station as well as every single copy of The Betoota Advocate since 16 March 1996.
There is a total fire ban in place for the whole Diamantina Shire today until Monday but Dennis is under the impression it doesn’t apply to him simply because he lives in a gorgeous two-bedroom worker’s cottage in the Old City now.
However, our town’s fire crews say they’ll be looking out for people ignoring the fire danger over the coming days.
“People who have a barbecue or burn some leaves think there’s no way in hell they might cause a bushfire to start – until it happens,” said Captain Roger Dalton.
“So let it be known if we catch you with an exposed flame, even if it’s under a hot plate, I’ll personally get a length of poly pipe and hit you with it until you see visions of every God that’s worshipped on Earth. I’ll whip you until your ancestors wake from the dead and beg me to stop,” he said.
“Just do them in the oven, fuck’s sake!”
Dennis said he’s looking forward to the human contact, should he be caught barbecuing today by the authorities.
More to come.
