DRY WOWSER BASTARDS KILL BOHO STREET

MARGUERITE DERRICOURT'S WONDERFUL SCULPTURE OF FOUR PIGS - "TRUFFLES, HORATIO, OLIVER AND AUGUSTA - A DAY OUT" - IS A BIG HIT WITH KIDS AND THE FAT ELVISES, BUT IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE TO LOVE ABOUT THE BLEAK SMOKE-FREE CANYON CALLED RUNDLE MALL, FORMERLY THE MAIN DRAG OF LITTLE OLD ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA?

Prohibitionist Drones Kill City
Who The Hell Are These People
%@#&! Interferist Do-gooders
by PHILIP WHITE

There are three good things about Rundle Mall(1). John Dowie’s girl on a slide, Bert’s balls, and Jane’s pigs. Sculptures. The rest of it is either a pox on the creative intelligence of the lot of us, or a perfect reflection of it. Or maybe both.

BERT FLUGELMAN'S BALLS IN AN EMPTY RUNDLE MALL ... NOW A CUSTOMARY MEETING PLACE FOR THOSE WHO DARE ... COMMISSIONED BY PREMIER DON DUNSTAN IN THE MID 70s

I walked its length last week, all the way along that haunted jangle of a gully from the chocolate shop to Hungry Jacks. I kept my spending hands safe inside my jacket pockets, hunkered in as a sort of protective thing, but it was no comfort. The only joy was that splendid lace verandah of The Exeter (2), glimmering like Heaven way down there on the left. The place which Thinkers-In-Residence habitually attend to gather their lucrative ideas – mercenary touch-and-go missionaries paid great fees by the state which takes this money from those of us who think unpaid and unheard.

MILLIE DREW THIS POSTCARD WHEN SHE WAS ABOUT 13

The Exeter. Exactly where it has been since the day when it was erected and named after its contemporary temple of free thought, Exeter Hall on London’s Strand, where the suffragettes and the anti-slave movements held their meetings, and the enlightened documents for the South Australia Company (3) were drafted and signed.

EXETER HALL, THE STRAND, LONDON







The minute Don Dunstan (4) ripped the fountain out of Henry Ayer’s (5) front lawn, plonked it in the middle of that vile stretch and filled it up with champagne, I have always felt that Rundle Mall was no place for smokers and drinkers.

I learned about these carnal arts at a very early age: just after the war. They were the habits of admirable men and bachelors: the rakish Jimmy Clarke, my grandfather, A. J., and that golden Greek, Cockless Themostokolas. I knew they were one hundred per cent hellbound, and while I primarily loved the smell, I could see through my bright infant eyes that they were enjoying themselves a lot more than the Exclusive Brethren.

With the relentless march of the years, these glamorous tendencies gradually infested my soul, driving the god of those droll Johns, Wesley and Calvin, clean out. Before Dunstan took control, we would drive straight down that old Rundle Trundle from Terrace to Terrace in Threddie’s grey FX, pulling the odd smokey from the retreads while perfecting the wolf whistle and the drawback between slugs of Seppelts Sedna, that miraculous speedy brew of powerful alcohol and kola nut which one could buy from the chemist, even in school uniform.

When Donnie D decided to cut off our traffic, brick the street over, and devote it entirely to the pedestrian worship of mindless expenditure, the main public discussion focused on whether mall would rhyme with ball, as in Bert’s, or mal, as in malfunction. To the bemusement of the nasal whiners of Melbourne and Sydney, the plummy St Peter’s (6) throat of Adelaide won the day, and by the time we’d all got used to that new word, Rundle Street was cactus. Flugelman’s glistening orbs were installed to reinforce the pronunciation, and the whole mob got quietly down to the mindless greasing of the wheels of commerce.

It’s been downhill ever since. And now, as if it will save that decrepit wreck of a precinct from civic damnation, the hammy burghers, money-changers and Sadducees of the city council have declared it a smoke-free zone.





















THE WONDERFUL GABRIELLA BERTOCCHI WITH LEGENDARY EXETER PUBLICAN, NICK BINNS, IN 1996 photo VICTORIA STROUB autograph NICK BINNS - THE PERFECT PUBLICAN'S SIGNATURE: NEVER WASTED ON A CHEQUE! NICK'S RETIREMENT WAS CELEBRATED IN THE GRIEVANCE DEBATE IN THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT

The anti-smoker movement is precisely that: it is more a revilement of the person than their unfortunate habit. It the opposite of the enlightened philosophies that flowed from Exeter Hall, changed the world forever, and put Rundle Street where it is. It is essentially a wave of savage contempt for people who are hooked on nicotine: generally poor folk who pay more tax than just about anybody else whilst easing the pain of their addiction. This contempt thrives in the twisted souls of the wowser, the interferist, the sanctimonious and the pious.

There are still millions who find smoking a kindly twin of drinking. Many of us prefer these perfectly human pastimes to the droll compilation of the types of caucasian artefacts peddled by the businesses of the Mall. We should be reviling this determined erosion of our preferences by those who don’t share them.

The wowser bastards who revile the smoker are the same mob who impose alcohol bans. They are white and wealthy, the types who habitually attend church to eat their god and drink his blood. They have forgotten their idol was known as “a gluttonous man; a wine-bibber; a friend of publicans and sinners” as they bow to the same graven images he explicitly forbad.

Once we accept their ban of our pleasures in that most boring stretch of Adelaide pavement, it will creep malignantly to devour both east and west. It will ruin the Exeter Hotel and its like, and drive underground those of us who prefer such halls of determined enlightenment.

Last week I overheard the velvet tones of Theo Maris, the developer, soothingly re-assuring ABC listeners that he felt this prohibition would be a good thing for the precinct. Last time I looked, he owned the southern side of the East End of Rundle Street. One must surely presume his general consistency would assure that what he thinks is good for the bit he does not yet own will bring the same wave of profit to the bits he does. So there goes the stretch from the Stag to Frome.

From there, the whole of Hindley Street and the north side of Rundle Street must appear to be a cinch to this Nanny State.

Once they’ve driven great halls like The Exeter into extinction, and we’re all hiding at home, locked in the dark with our browsers, our smokes and our booze, where will the Thinkers-In-Residence learn what to advise the Premier?

NED MELDRUM PHOTO OF THE EX FROM THE BOOK COUNTER MEAL: RECIPES AND STORIES FROM GREAT AUSTRALIAN PUBS (FUNTASTIC, 2005)

FOOTNOTES

1. Rundle Mall. The main street of Adelaide, capital of South Australia.

2. The Exeter. Named the best pub in Australia by Mark Shield in the Penguin Guide to Australian pubs. A formidable boho haunt with an astonishing wine list and really good food.

3. The South Australia Company. A private company set up in London in 1835 to settle South Australia as a convict-free colony.

4. Don Dunstan. A gay, left-wing, libertarian graduate of St Peters College who was Premier of South Australia from 1970 to 1979.

SA PREMIER DON DUNSTAN WEARING HIS PINK SHORTS TO PARLIAMENT IN 1972









5. Henry Ayers. Patrician and highly influential early settler who built a grand mansion a block away from Rundle Street. Ayer's Rock - Uluru - was named after him.

6. St Peter’s College. Posh Anglican boarding school.

MADE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA: CHRYSLER VALIANT OUTSIDE THE EX.