The Big Breakfast

Australia is a wide brown land which may or may not be girt by sea. We have the worst reality tv, the best beer and the most average footy teams in the world.

Way back when, colonial settlers decided that Australia needed some kind of drawcard (they obviously hadn't been to the Tuggeranong Hyperdome) to get tourists and abalone farmers to come to the great country. So they had an all night thinking session (aided by copious amounts of beer - see above paragraph) and came up with an idea to build useless tourist attractions that had no other qualities other than being big.

The Big Merino












The Big Banana








Canberra is lacking in the BIG things department. Wait, that sounds rude. Let me try again… Australia is well-renowned for its BIG things. That still sounds rude. Ah fuck it. Anyway, Australia has a lot of BIG erections. There, that’s not rude at all. They bring in billions of tourism dollars and are a general treat to look at and admire. The best thing about the BIG things is that they can be admired from a long way away. I’m admiring the Big Surfboard in Perth from here. (note: Perth is quite a long way away. See pic)

Sure, Canberra has the Big Flag at Parliament House, and the Big Manky Lake in the middle of the city, and (if you've had a few and are on top of Mt Ainslie) the big R2D2 (War Memorial) and the big chessboard (all of Canberra), but these aren't quite recognisable enough for my liking. And frankly, it's my liking that's important around here. Crestfallen, I was planning on moving to Melbourne to be nearer the Big Pile of Toilets when I stumbled across this sign:

To those with little to no attention to detail, this may seem like a normal "Watch out for kangaroos" sign, which are quite common in thriving metropoli such as Canberra and Goondiwindi. But look closer.

Skis.

Stocks.

A kangaroo.

This sign is quite obviously announcing the site where Canberra's greatest tourist attraction will be located - THE BIG SKIING KANGAROO. Imagine walking through the city and seeing a group of tryhard goths carrying Big Skiing Kangaroo toys, gangs of teenagers in Belco who have discarded their shiny Fubu tracksuits for Big Skiing Kangaroo t-shirts and grannies looking fondly at the Big Skiing Kangaroo snowglobe that sits all pretty-like on their mantle. I can see swarms of tourists flocking to Canberra not just for the largest tulip display in the southern hemisphere, not just to see the guy who won ‘My Restaurant Rules’ a few years back, and not even just to see Parliament in session, people will be fighting to get the best glimpse of… the Big Skiing Kangaroo.

The Big Skiing Kangaroo. I have seen the future, and the future looks sweet.

I can't wait. I'll be able to tell people that I'm from Canberra, and instead of them saying, "Is that near Sydney? I'm a fucking moron," they'd say, "Wow, have you ever been to the Big Skiing Kangaroo? I want to go there, but my sister has already seen it and wants to go to Disneyland." And then I'd say, "Disneyland? You ARE a fucking moron." And I could cause some violence between siblings, and I like that.

And thus ends August, thus ends Mister Evil Breakfast's Canberra Appreciation Month. And yep, this one is late, but I couldn't post on Friday, so here it is today. Stay tuned for more shit in September. If I could be arsed.