It was the most wonderful time of the year. Good tidings and good cheer spread across the Northern Territory over the Christmas season, along with alcohol-fuelled riots. Rocks, bottles and iron bars forced a police retreat in Mutijulu, rocks, machetes and spears called for extra cop back-up in Wadeye, and a crossbow was seized after a raid in a Darwin housing complex . For Yule by numbers, there were 140 cop calls in Alice Springs over 16 hours and 14 house break-ins over 48 hours. Territorians were ding donging merrily and high.Fortunately, the crocs took a bit of a backseat over the break, perhaps due to a record breaking number of captures this year. In their place, snakes. A 2.5m snake burrowed into a wall at the Mitchell St Childcare Centre, where it gave birth to 23 snake babies and was met with “lots of squealing, laughing, running about and taking photos.” A toddler was even offered the chance to hold one. Soon after shock jock Peter Davies captured an olive python (her name was Ellie) in his home on his own. “My son yelled out to me to call the snake catcher,” he later reported, “but I said ‘Nah, that’s for soft cocks down south.’”Here are the rest of our highlights:- Staffy owners have launched a petition in protest of Qantas’s refusal to allow the breed on its flights. Qantas defended the ban by explaining, “certain breeds are not permitted to travel on Qantas flights as they are traditionally known to be aggressive or highly agitated animals.” That doesn’t seem to include Shrek, the 4.4m crocodile who was shipped from the NT to Brisbane a few weeks ago on a Qantas flight. Just last week, he became aggressive and highly agitated when he delivered a hairline cheek fracture to his keeper.- The NT had a relatively tame New Years Eve this year, compared to the Christmas season and just about any other time of the year. A drunk man towed his boat into a power pole and an even drunker man, four times over the legal limit, made the rookie mistake of hitting up a drive-in bottleshop. Bonus points go to the guy who was caught doing burnouts in front of a police station.
- Meanwhile, Dave ‘Darwin’s Biggest’ Arnold copped a tongue-lashing from mum after police were forced to spend two hours breaking up his out-of-control New Years Eve party in her absence. Dave elaborated with, “This is her place and she is ripping arseholes”. Later, after being yelled at mid-interview by said mum, he announced to reporters, “I’ll be holding my 21st in a few weeks – open house”.- NTNews turned to its readers for a roundup of suggested hangover cures come New Years Day. Our favorite, “Scull water and vomit till the yellow bile comes out and you can hold down the water then have black coffee and panadol.”
- Territorians bragged about the behaviour of their public servants this week after it emerged that government bureaucrats are mainly using their internet to download Home and Away episodes, not porn. We’d feel more comfortable if it was porn.- Public servants are off the hook, but NT barristers aren't looking too good. Jon Tippett QC is being taken to court by his mother-in-law over claims he's been squatting in her house for three decades. Also in the crosshairs is Tippett's wife, who was once accused of conspiring to kill East Timorese president Jose Ramos-Horta and is now believed to be abusing her mother. This comes just three years after Tippett's ex-wife attacked a man with a ceremonial samurai sword.
- Lightning struck stonemason Tom Finlay’s Venus de Milo sculpture, destroying everything but its 30kg pair of tits. One nipple was damaged in what remains of Tom’s tribute to Territory women. Tom says he’s considering mounting the resilient rack. He might put it on a wall too.@TobyFehily
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