22. The greatest fog ever barry C

A Tall Story

It was morning, but you wouldn't have known it. The fog was that thick, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. In some places, it was that thick that, even if you crossed your eyes, you couldn't see your nose.

That might have been the worst fog ever recorded in Australia. It was so thick, they had to close the weather bureau down, cos the meteorologists couldn't see far enough into the future to make a prediction.

It would have gone down as the thickest fog in history they reckon, except for the fact that the blokes who record such things couldn't write it down, because they couldn't find their writing pads or their pencils.Because the fog was too thick!

Down in the Big Smoke, the freeways had to be closed cos drivers couldn't see the front windscreens of their cars.

A couple of politicians were real grateful - they couldn't see their way forward, but they were able to back out of a few promises they'd made.

There were several near fatalities directly attributed to the fog. Elderly pensioner living in high rise flats in the inner city opened his window, and leaned out trying to see what was happening in the street, twenty floors below. Course, he couldn't see a damn thing. But being elderly, and a little frail, he lost his balance and fell out. Luckily, the fog was so thick, it held him up. But when he regained his footing, he'd lost his bearings, so he wandered around walking on the solid fog till he finally walked into an open window; trouble was, it was in the building opposite. Story had a happy ending, but … the elderly lady, whose flat it was, was blind. Didn't realise what an ugly old coot the fella was, and - human nature being as it is … Anyway, they're engaged now to be married.

'Nother tragic story involving a politician. He'd been going about his business, having breakfast, unaware of the fog - his place had been completely shut up for the night. And being a cautious fellow, he had a security system - so the for couldn't get in. But when he opened his front door, of course the fog all rushed in, filled his house up. Well, then he made a bigggg mistake. He stepped back inside and closed the door. Visibility in his house was reduced to zero, and the poor pollie couldn't find his way around. When the fog lifted outside, the poor pollie was fogbound. Survived on a diet of caviar and petit fours for months. Cos you see, no one missed him. The other parliamentary type just figured he was off on some fact finding mission to Paris or Rome.

Lot of hard luck stories come outta that fog. A farmer bloke up near Patchewollock, up in the Mallee, had got up at five in the morning to start ploughing his paddocks - about an hour before the fog settled. Well, of course, down she comes - he couldn't even see the glow on his cigarette. 'She'll be right," he says to himself, "I'll just keep on ploughing." So round he goes in circles. When the fog finally lifted - about two weeks later - he's dug a whole the size of Sydney Harbour, but twice as deep.

All worked out for the best, though - the fog, I mean. Couple of contractors up in Dubbo immediately saw the commercial potential. Managed to fast track an Innovations Grant through some government department or other. Then they got our with their chain saws, and started hacking great cubes out of the fog - each of them about half the size of one of them containers they carry on the ships. Stored 'em in huge refrigerated warehouse, wrapped up in gigantic sheets of plastic. After the fog lifted, they went into business with the farmer bloke from Patchewollock. Transported the cubes there and got a great bonfire going - they'd managed to buy a couple thousand tons of unwanted paper - turns out it was copies of Hansard - you know, the records of parliamentary proceedings. That stuff burns like a beauty, probably because it's fundamentally a form of highly concentrated bull shit, and it generates enormous amounts of hot air that further fed the flames. So they got this whopping great bonfire going that melted the fog and filled the great hole. They set up an irrigation system throughout the district - big farming boom in the area as a result.

Into the second week of Greatest Fog in Living Memory, people started thinking that it was never gonna lift - that the whole of Australia was gonna be like a Melbourne winter for the foreseeable future (or actually, the unforeseeable future!) It was about this time the government got involved. They established a subcommittee to draw up plans to create an enquiry into the Greatest Fog In Living Memory - or GFILM enquiry.

There was a lot of public debate. The Nationals reckoned it was the Communists who had put it there; One Nation blame dole bludgers, the Aborigines, the Refugees and Single Mothers; the Democrats claimed it was a result of government mismanagement, but its member cross the floor to oppose the GFILM enquiry because she didn't like the acronym. The Liberals decided to put a tax on it, that came to be called the PST - the Pea Soup Tax.

In the end, it was the Amalgamated Workers Union that saved the day. They got a whole lot of industrial jacks, managed to jack the whole fog six feet up off the ground, then got a great line of trucks to cart the fog, in convoy, out into the Nullarbor Plain - or NP - and dump it off the Great Australian Bight.

The Liberals were VERY suspicious. Saw the whole thing as an election ploy by the Labor party; said the Labor mob and the Unions were in cahoots and had come up with the fog as a way of distracting public attention from the policy vacuum. Nothing was ever proved though.

So there you have it: the story of the Greatest Fog in Living Memory. Most people have forgotten about it. I think the only lasting effect has been the PST - taxpayers are still paying it.