Extract

What does Kyle Sandilands have in common with The Bachelor? And cane toads? And Chiko Rolls? 

The answer, I am sad to report, is that none of these things is an urban legend. Just like Schoolies Week and selfie sticks and men with long, hipster beards, these are all actual, real-life things that you can find in Australia. Actual, real-life things that spread misery and social decay. There’s no avoiding them, unless you’re prepared to skip the country. Which, on balance, might just be a better option than having to sit down and listen to Kyle Sandilands. 

But cheer up, folks, and turn those frowns upside-down. For it turns out that a great many of the other bad things that form part of our great southern land are in fact just big, fat myths. Australia is simply bursting with stories that need to be taken with a spoonful of salt. With stories that people assure you are true and that you tell others are true in your turn. 

Stories like this: ‘Hey, did you hear about that BBQ chicken place down the road? (You know, the one near that pizza restaurant that’s run by the Mafia? And that mansion where the Masons meet and have orgies?) Well, they just sold someone a chicken from the late 1980s. And, get this, his whole family died.’  

So goes a typical urban legend, plus a few more details for extra effect. They’re usually something scandalous or silly or sinister or spooky, and they invariably happened to a friend of a friend.

 Great Australian Urban Legends gives you myths, misconceptions and bare-faced lies about real people and real places down under. These pages libel Captain Cook and slander Phar Lap; they will piss off AC/DC and David Boon. They ask if Harold Holt really died and if the bunyip ever lived, and which, if any, Australian now gets by as a ghost. They discover underground bunkers, and they find buried treasure. They wonder whether Crown Casino really has its own morgue. 

This book gives you hearsay and half-truths mixed up with fiction and folk tales, then it bakes the result in a big porky pie. If you think that anything sounds untrue, please remember that that’s because it is. This book is not called Great Australian Facts. Lawyers – kind, sweet, gentle, noble lawyers – I would urge you to please take note of this. 

And for God’s sake, please don’t sue.