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RISE UP, WERIB STREET!

Caz emails:

Don’t know if you’ve seen Leunig’s cartoon today. He’s dissing your old hood! Only he can’t spell “Werribee”. It only has one “r” in it now:


image

Typical of Leunig; he’s all about the plight of the common man, but don’t expect him to actually be familiar with where they live.

Leunig survived his angering of the Arab street. The Werib street’s fury, however, is a whole other deal.

Posted by Tim B. on 01/31/2007 at 10:41 AM
  1. Misspelling aside, what’s the point of the cartoon?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 01 31 at 11:41 AM • permalink

  2. Ever notice that “Evian” is naive spelled backwards?

    Posted by mojo on 2007 01 31 at 11:47 AM • permalink

  3. #1: I’m with Rebecca; that was completely over my head. And is that supposed to be a French waiter? What, Leunig can’t draw and he can’t do accents?

    Posted by paco on 2007 01 31 at 11:56 AM • permalink

  4. BTW, I hope the restaurant patron orders duck.

    Posted by paco on 2007 01 31 at 12:02 PM • permalink

  5. IIRC, from other references to this locality… it is a not very attractive suburb/location/burough which features a notoriously insalubrious sewage treatment facility/holding pond.

    Posted by SgtMom on 2007 01 31 at 12:15 PM • permalink

  6. #1 RebeccaH: No idea.

    Whatever it is, drinking water from the bowels of anything is not an attractive proposition for me.

    Posted by SandiM on 2007 01 31 at 12:40 PM • permalink

  7. When I was a kid, we had a good joke about Werribee.

    We used to say “werribee stings, it hurts”.

    Used to crack us up, us Sandy & Beauey kids

    Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 01 31 at 12:46 PM • permalink

  8. For the West Australians, Werribee is something like Balga. For anyone else in Lyon, it’s like the 7th.

    Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 01 31 at 01:26 PM • permalink

  9. Hello. My name is Professor Paco, President of Professional Analysis of Cartoons Online.

    While it’s true that any joke, whether verbal or visual, automatically depreciates in increments of amusement (technically, “Larynx-Activated Units of Gross Hilarity”) when it has to be explained, most people still like to know its meaning, if only to avoid appearing dull-witted or out of touch with current events.

    Having subjected the above cartoon to laboratory analysis, our technicians have determined that there is a 95% probability that the cartoonist is attempting to convey the idea that residents of Werribee drink recycled piss. Interestingly, there appears to be a 100% chance that the cartoonist will be subjected to rude gestures, vulgar speculations concerning his ancestry, and physical violence, if he ventures into Werribee.

    Posted by paco on 2007 01 31 at 01:37 PM • permalink

  10. Honestly Tim, where are the ululations?

    There really should be ululations.

    Posted by 68W40 on 2007 01 31 at 03:24 PM • permalink

  11. Penn and Teller this week on bottled water - ‘Bullshit’. They may want to base a future episode on Leunig’s cartoons…

    Posted by bad santa on 2007 01 31 at 03:28 PM • permalink

  12. Leunig? Pssshh. Not funny. This is funny (scroll down to the YouTube Video under, “And Now, A Message from Monsanto”).

    Posted by paco on 2007 01 31 at 03:38 PM • permalink

  13. It’s a common sledge from Melburnians who don’t live in Werribee, that residents there are a bit loopy from living inside a sewerage treatment plant, plus you know, there’s that awful smell. Which I never experienced after a number of years in Werribee, but popular myth is rarely disturbed by fact, so the idea remains.
    Used to shoot at Werribee about 25 years ago, when it was a small country town with lots of farms. Now it’s a suburban disaster.

    Posted by Ozwitch on 2007 01 31 at 04:18 PM • permalink

  14. #9 paco.  Your powers of deduction are absolutely amazing.  I, like RebeccaH, initially wondered what this was all about… but I’m from NSW and not Victoria. 

    Then I thought for a moment… Werribee ... ah yes the Werribee Sewage Treatment Works near Melbourne!  And here’s a map that you can even edit!

    At the moment here in Australia there is a lot of discussion about managing water and the ‘big topic’ is whether water should be recycled.  My guess is that Leunig is against that, as are many uninformed people.  Funnily enough what is not acknowledged in this debate is that outside the major cities, along the river systems towns draw off water, treat the water and distribute it for all uses.  Then the returned water, i.e., grey water and sewage is processed through local sewage treatment plants and returned to the river for use by the next major town downstream.  Only in the major coastal cities is water collected (in dams), treated and distributed once from where it all ends up in the sea.

    So what’s the point of Leunig’s cartoon?  I don’t know so I guess I may consider myself sane.

    Posted by Wand on 2007 01 31 at 04:23 PM • permalink

  15. All water on Earth is recycled.  Anyone thinking he drinks new water is an idiot, or a leftist.

    But I repeat myself.

    Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 31 at 05:19 PM • permalink

  16. People tend to put Werribee down, but the place has improved markedly since the African refugees moved in.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 05:22 PM • permalink

  17. Werribee schmerribee!  What matters is that ‘Evian’ and ‘Bisleri’ are spelled correctly.  Imagine the shame of Lord Love-a-Duck if he’d got those wrong.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2007 01 31 at 05:56 PM • permalink

  18. Leunbat seems to be sneering at the prospect of people drinking their own piss.  He is damaging his Green cred.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 01 31 at 06:05 PM • permalink

  19. No, #16, these African refugees live in Werribee.

    Actually, they are the second best part about Werribee. The best part is the Maltby Bypass.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 01 31 at 07:12 PM • permalink

  20. Werribee - its not shit, its slightly better than shit

    http://werribee.blogspot.com/

    Posted by bondo on 2007 01 31 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  21. Werribee is a fine address, by any measure, but it does have its share of people doing it tough.

    I once saw someone from Werribee kicking a can down the street. I asked them what they were doing and they said, “moving”.

    We shouldn’t forget there is a rich neighbourhood in Werribee where people have houses. But if you ring the doorbell, the people inside say “ding!”.

    I’m not saying that these people are poor or anything, but let’s just say some of them eat their morning cereal with a fork to save milk.

    Then, at dinner time, they visit KFC to lick other people’s fingers.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 07:29 PM • permalink

  22. Vote 1 for Man-boobs Habib

    Today’s news is sponsored by


    Islamic Austraeilian pensioners Insurance for over 55 year old Jihads. Get some today!

    .......................................

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 31 at 08:12 PM • permalink

  23. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21151217-23289,00.html

    Could be very true indeedy..

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 01 31 at 08:13 PM • permalink

  24. Mildly off-topic but here’s a nice piece by Reliable Andrew sticking it to Fairfax Fuckwit, Lyin’ Ted, (as picked up by ICJS Research.)

    No doubt Over To You Landeryou has it on his blog. Ah yes. Here it is right here.

    OK. That’s my “free plug for the good guys” mitzvah for today.

    Posted by geoff on 2007 01 31 at 08:24 PM • permalink

  25. Further OT, another day, another terrorist plot.

    No names so far, but this would appear to be yet another chance to test out the theory by expert criminal profiler, Mark Steyn, that:

    These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 08:34 PM • permalink

  26. Wonder if Kevni Ruff has an opinion

    Posted by Rachel Corrie's Flatmate on 2007 01 31 at 08:35 PM • permalink

  27. As I was saying, Werribee is as fine a locality as you might ever stumble upon, but I hear some of the locals have been known to marry because of the free rice.

    Also, I hear environmental awareness is so high amongst the locals that youths have been known to use buses for drive by shootings.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 08:48 PM • permalink

  28. #27 - LGEMM

    (large guffaw exiting my mouth)

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 31 at 08:53 PM • permalink

  29. Steve—What I like are the homeopathists, who claim that water offers health bonuses from minerals and herbs it has simply been in contact with, while overlooking the fact that if that is true they’re drinking and bathing in every dinosaur turd ever shat and every ebola virus ever hemorrhaged…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 31 at 09:18 PM • permalink

  30. Props to Leunig.  At least this time he doesn’t have his characters sitting in bean bags

    Posted by Ted Schuerzinger on 2007 01 31 at 10:01 PM • permalink

  31. I hear some of the locals have been known to marry because of the free rice.
    What are you saying? The locals are allowed to keep the rice? What kind of a big sook, namby pampy, welfare nanny state is that?

    There are parts around here the locals hide the rice with the Centrelink cheques. In the workboots. To starve out the visitors from Byron Bay.

    Posted by geoff on 2007 01 31 at 10:20 PM • permalink

  32. When you’re Loonig
    Selling scrawl
    When ducks are in your heart
    We will pluck them all

    Ev-i-an snob
    in times of drought
    Your toons just aren’t profound
    In a lake of recycled water
    You should lay face down
    In a lake of recycled water
    I would see you drown

    Watch this clown insult
    Plebs from Weribee
    With blue collar jobs they are
    Too common for him

    Just like his ducks
    In Melbourne’s dams
    We should piss and excrete
    In his glass of Bisleri water
    there is much less shit
    In a glass of recycled water
    Than this guy emits

    Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 31 at 10:21 PM • permalink

  33. One of the many reasons people - as well as ducks - flock to Werribee, is the outstanding educational opportunities the region affords.

    But what to choose? The school with the motto “One term at a time” or “Harm minimisation is everyone’s business”?

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 10:29 PM • permalink

  34. Adele Horin should move to Werribee. She recycles shit all the time.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 01 31 at 10:33 PM • permalink

  35. #21 & 27 - ROFL. Ahh but then if you’d ever been to Balga here in WA you’d know it’s far worse.

    Why just the other day I was there and saw a poor fellow hobbling down the road with one shoe on. I enquired if he’d lost a shoe and he replied “Nope, just found one!”

    If burglars from out of the area come to Blaga, they end up leaving money on the kitchen table.

    But worst of all is wash day. All that toilet paper hung out to dry…

    Posted by RexW on 2007 01 31 at 10:38 PM • permalink

  36. The third good thing about Werribee, apart from the Werribee Open Plains Zoo (which is an animal refuge for lions and tigers to escape Weribee’s feral bogans) and the Maltby Bypass, is the contribution its name has made to the English language.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 01 31 at 10:46 PM • permalink

  37. #35 Sounds like a tough neighbourhood Rex. But I understand Werribee is renowned for being the only place to have a town library with a sign that says “Shut the fuck up.”

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 10:47 PM • permalink

  38. According to the customs of cartoon outrage, the Werib Street will not rise up and violently demonstrate, burning Leunig effigies, until several months have passed and Tim Blair visits.

    At that time he will brandish the cartoon at several backyard barbeques and make impassioned speeches about the gross insult to Werribee.

    Only then will the “spontaneous” uprising occur.

    The Age will then refuse to publish any more Leunig cartoons on the grounds that it is an unneccesary provocation.

    That’s what it says in my copy of VRWC For Dummies.

    Posted by Penguin on 2007 01 31 at 10:53 PM • permalink

  39. Werribee has always been a centre for innovation, what with its first ever combo drive-through Centrelink and bottle-o, the maternity wing of its methadone clinic, the only Bob Jane T Mart in the country that sells Mickey Thompson Pos-a-Tractions pre-soaked in old sump oil and a public transport system which is attuned to the needs of locals, operating just before opening and just after* closing time.

    Truly a shining example of what community can be, if given the opportunity**.

    *Allowing 20 minutes or so for furtive, drunken knee-tremblers in the bushes behind the car-park.

    **Like when a state government plonks a big whiffy shitworks in the middle of town, and moves a great horde of bogans into the surrounding caravan parks.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 01 31 at 10:56 PM • permalink

  40. #35 - Balga real estate now has a median price of $415k. There’s nary a better place to be poor. It has become somewhat gentrified, although they forgot to tell the residents.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 31 at 11:08 PM • permalink

  41. O/T Levity

    Little Johnnie’s neighbour had a baby.

    Unfortunately, the baby was born without ears. When mother and new baby came home from the hospital, Johnnie’s family was invited over to see the baby.

    Before they left their house, Little Johnnie’s dad had a talk with him and explained that the baby had no ears.

    His dad also told him that if he so much as mentioned anything about the baby’s missing ears or even said the word ears he would get the smacking of his life when they came back home.

    Little Johnnie told his dad he understood completely.

    When Johnnie looked in the crib he said, “What a beautiful baby.”

    The mother said, “Why, thank you, Little Johnnie.”

    Johnnie said, “He has beautiful little feet and beautiful little hands, a cute little nose and really beautiful eyes. Can he see?”

    “Yes”, the mother replied, “we are so thankful; the Doctor said he will have 20/20 vision.”

    “That’s great”, said Little Johnnie,

    “Coz he’d be f*cked if he needed glasses.”

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 31 at 11:15 PM • permalink

  42. My apologies if I have made Werribee sound a little rough around the edges, but it is truly a land of opportunity.

    Just ask the Mayor.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 11:16 PM • permalink

  43. The motto of our local high school is “Give Me Ignorance Or Give Me Death”

    The motto of the local surf club: “Who Do
    You Think You Are Looking At, Fuckface?”

    The motto of the local visitors’ association: ” Well You Can Fuck Off For A Start”.

    The motto of the local police station: “Really? That Bad, Huh? Well You Better Ring Sydney.”

    Posted by geoff on 2007 01 31 at 11:17 PM • permalink

  44. #44

    I understand the Werribee Chamber of Commerce will soon be announcing winners of the Mind Your Own Fucking Business Awards.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 11:24 PM • permalink

  45. Bah, numbers.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 11:25 PM • permalink

  46. Mu uncle was from Werribee: on his headstone he had engraved “What are you looking at?”

    And Leunig better not wander down to the suburb of Reservoir - apparently if they hear you pronounce it ‘reser-vwah’ instead of ‘reser-vorr’ you get your head kicked in.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2007 01 31 at 11:25 PM • permalink

  47. Werribee Optometrist: What are you fuckin lookin at?

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 31 at 11:26 PM • permalink

  48. I hear that Werribee Hospital has installed a pool room at the maternity ward in an attempt to get more fathers to attend the births of their children.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 31 at 11:50 PM • permalink

  49. #48- I thought that was the birthing suite- you get a voucher from Maccas if you can pop lil’ Taylah-Schapelle or Bevan-Lleyton into the corner pocket.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 02 01 at 12:54 AM • permalink

  50. Anyway, by the time the baby is born, the father was three boyfriends ago.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 02 01 at 01:42 AM • permalink

  51. #50- only if the mother’s been on remand.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 02 01 at 02:08 AM • permalink

  52. Father’s Day is a mite confusing for everyone. Easiest just to put a couple kegs on at the footy club.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 01 at 02:18 AM • permalink

  53. Werribee locals recently had a plebiscite on a new national flag, but couldn’t coose between this one and this one; Age scribbler Traceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee “Rabbit” Hutchinson fears the flag issue may be divisive, but most locals prefer to handle the debate in a mature fashion.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 02 01 at 02:28 AM • permalink

  54. that should be “choose” BTW.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 02 01 at 02:30 AM • permalink

  55. A talentless turd.

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 02 01 at 04:32 AM • permalink

  56. A talentless turd

    And that’s just Fairfax Fuckwit, “Lyin’ Ted” O’Loughlin.

    Leunig? A pompous, grubby minded, supercilious, social class snob who has never done an honest day’s work in his life and who retches at the very thought of hard working people from ordinary tough neighbourhoods doing their best by themselves and their families and is overcome by waves of nausea at the imagined stink of stale sweat at the very image. The antisemitism goes without saying of course. It’s a Melbourne thing.

    Also a talentless turd.

    Posted by geoff on 2007 02 01 at 06:21 AM • permalink

  57. Centrelink sent an auditor down to <insert struggle street suburb of choice> to verify the credentials of a supporting mother who was claiming the sole parent allowance, and support for 10 children - all apparently named Wayne. The auditor was surprised to see that the story checked out, and asked Mum whether having 10 children named alike was confusing. No, she assured him, it actually made it easier - you only had to call once to get them all to come to dinner, or to bed.

    “But what about when you only want one of them?” he asked.

    “You just use their surname” she replied

    Slink slink slink ..........

    Posted by PeterTB on 2007 02 01 at 07:09 AM • permalink

  58. #53: The only thing better than Habib’s prose is Habib’s prose illustrated. Thanks for the laughs!

    Posted by paco on 2007 02 01 at 09:02 AM • permalink

  59. This is no laughing matter. After years of State Government neglect, the once pristine Werribee Sullage Ponds have been declared unfit for swimming, fishing and family recreation.

    Well, that’s not good enough.

    Governments create this kind of pollution. Governments should clean it up.

    Join the people of Victoria this Saturday* for a protest march through the main street of Werribee and then on to the front bar of a pub around the corner. Support our fight to make the Werribee sewerage wetlands safe for the environment, safe for our children to play in and safe for future generations of Australians.

    * Bring a giant inflatable duck, get one free!

    Posted by splice on 2007 02 01 at 09:39 AM • permalink

  60. You guys are killin’ me!

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 02 01 at 11:16 AM • permalink

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