Recently overheard in a federal government office

"The question will make people ask: why are you asking the question?"*

"...not until the last clown has been drowned in his custard bath or run over with his tiny car, will this nation know greatness. We must take back our country from the pierrots, punchinellos and funny men who spread across it like a smear of rancid greasepaint. I propose nothing less than a Banal Solution, a grinding of the amusing by the forces of blandness and beigeness. Let the 26th of March forever more be known as the Night of the Long Shoes! Let a thousand frowns curl across this mighty land!'**

"I'll see your Lithgow and Toowoomba and raise you Hobart and Adelaide."***



* true
** eh, not so much
*** but it has the ring of truth, no?