Palpable be the stench. A wretchedness, enthusiastically vile, wallowing in its own filth. The crowd gathers and the dust of the amphitheatre comports to another standard Wednesday. Out come the judges, a line of all the elder statesmen. The townsmen are led, of course, by the hair of their guts, cartin' beers a few too many. Settle down now, children, it's only that boring. You're in a small town after all.
Taking this year's crown, Connie the Connemara her owner Margaret Greene. Well done with a chew against competitive rigor mortis, downing and defeating Mavis the mixed-breed. Pity, emotes the sadness, a look on her owner, Ronald Greene.
Spectacle, oh spectacle, The Dog and Pony show to be rather imprecise and impolite about it. Sponsored by a defunct brand of oil lubricant that keeps the small-knit community together in the sticks of north.
Middling in red dusty dirt, the population is an arid parchment, wholly of a certain kind. You'd find no oppositions to a burqa ban here, solely on the fact that no pips squeak such the religion in the parts. It doesn't bother if it doesn't relate.
But this, this here showing of one rather domestic beast against another, this is what whoops and hollers a subset of the townsfolk.
Capping off a week long event of trials and tricks, the two finalists in the best in show took to the town centre. Parading their hides and stride, the prizes meet in the middle and, with a garnish and flavour bake, put on the rare but once a year spit take.
The ribbons blue, their fate ungraded, the food is champion.
This is Glen Innes, New South Wales. Where even a train station goes to die.
Written on Tuesday, 5 October 2010