'Life's a real cow of a thing!'You can take five locals virtually locked out of their Outback pub by a bunch of city-slickers up from Sydney who, deep into the grog, start offering money for the best local yarn. You could take it that these five, gathered around Pop, are used to being virtually locked out of their pub even in the best of times, and have their own jealously-guarded places out on the back porch. So you might wonder why they have their backs up this day.The answer to all their resentment is not so much being kept out from their local by the up-'emselves city-ites, but is mainly because what tomorrow is going to bring is more than a man can bear... Tomorrow, the bulldozer is coming to tear down their beloved drinking-hole. And it's not the extra half-a-block walk to the next pub as you might think; it's the principle of the bloody cow of a thing... one of their own mates is going to be driving the bulldozer! If that's not total sacrilege, then it's still enough to drive a man to drink that he can't afford until next payday.And if that wasn't enough to get on a bloke's goat, the cold beer's running out on this last of all days to end days because of the great gutzing of the city slickers inside. How about that for coming the ruination of the environment? To come the raw prawn worse, what with all the city-slicker money being bandied about, Shirl the barmaid is turning her own tap off for the locals and turning it on for the Sydneysiders. Even the sacred bottle stash for tomorrow's breakfast isn't sacrosanct from their own selves' thieving hands. How desperate can a human being get? It's obvious as to what must be done: that tenner being put up inside by the city drongoes for the best yarn has to be collared.------------------'You'll hear shaggy dogs, yarns and bullsh as old as the hills and as warm as an outhouse's brick.' The Playbox Theatre
About the Author: Bill Reed is a novelist, playwright and short-story writer. He was born in Perth, Australia. His nine professionally-produced plays include Burke's Company, Mr Siggie Morrison with his Comb and Paper, Truganinni, Cass Butcher Bunting. His twelve novels have included Dogod, The 1001 Lankan Nights books 1 and 2, Me the Old Man, and the novel tetralogy Throw Her Back, Are Your Human?, Awash and Tasker Tusker Tasker. He has worked as editor and journalist both in Australia and overseas. In 1980 his novel Stigmata won the Fellowship of Australian Writers'ANA award. Since then he has won national competitions in all three categories of drama, novels and short stories. He now lives in Sri Lanka.