It's official: Ballarat is so bereft of ideas of its own it's taken to grabbing whatever is happening up the road at the neighbours' joint.
Thanks to some B-town oldtimers in the Premier's Department the folks at Stawell got the "you're on your own, tiger" mail from the Guvmint, and approximately 35 seconds later a press release went out from the Shitty of Ballarat that they'd help by moving the whole lot to Sturt Street.
We're a bit excited about the Ballarat Gift. So much so we took to the streets of the interwebs and asked people what they thought the Ballarat Gift involved:
"The Ballarat Gift is being able to walk home from the pub and not be beaten to a pulp" - Len
"Will you be allowed to use a shopping trolley and beat anyone to death who gets in your way?" - Tim
"The Ballarat Gift will be the greatest public assembly in Ballarat since the last time an Adelaide footy team made the AFL finals" - Jamie
"A Ballarat Gift is where you get beaten up outside the pub, but they don't kick you in the head or steal your gold claim." - Matt
"I think the Ballarat Gift is something you're born with. Makes it easier to get Centrelink payments." - Tim
"Heh heh! I remember when high school teachers had to stomp out flaming bags of Ballarat Gift left on the porch." - Mick
"The Ballarat Gift: a winter's day above 10 degrees" - Jamie
"The Ballarat Gift: being able to kick on in the backyard at a party in a t-shirt no matter what season." - Steve
But what route will the runners be taking in Ballarat?
An early leaked report states that the Ballarat Stawellen Gift will indeed be run at night - along Lydiard Street, down Policeman's Alley, past Karova, through the carpark at Big W and Dan Murphy's, through the Mall, intothe Safeway carpark - an obligatory dimmie stop at the Hamburger Cart - and then in to the police station.
If you can make it that far without being beaten by vicious teenage thugs on a Smirnoff Ice frenzy, you get a souvenir hand-picked by Ballarat historical character Bendy Vendy.
The question we have to ask right now is: can you run a footrace holding a bunch of begonias?
Stay tuned - our Deep Sole has promised much more inside news from the depths of our elected representatives!
