Without a Clue
On the first of December 1948, one of the most baffling mysteries this side of Anne Wills’ popularity befell our fair state. The body of an unknown man was found washed up on Sommerton beach, beginning one of the most ridiculous investigations in the history of criminology. Inside the man’s jacket was an Army Club cigarette packet co...
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Banking on a Winner
The State Bank collapse of 1992 was one of the biggest financial disasters to befall out great state. In addition to immediately destroying our credit rating and plunging the State into a $7billion debt, the collapse also lead to the privatisation of ETSA. While the history books will cite mismanagement interest rate risks as the leading causes of ...
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Bordering on Catastrophe
Paul Kelly once stated that from little things big things grow, and this has never been truer than of the heated border dispute between South Australia and Victoria. In 1847 when the incompetent surveyor Henry Wade inaccurately proclaimed the South Australian border 3.6km West of where it should be, he had little if any idea that he would be settin...
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Dubious Adelaide | The Masonic Code
In the early 1800s, a committee of enlightened free-thinkers was formed to name the streets of the fledgling city of Adelaide. Consisting almost entirely of Freemasons, this committee didn’t just make the lives of 19th Century postmen markedly easier, but laid the first clues to a mystery that has baffled treasure hunters for generations. Un...
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Dubious Adelaide | High and Dry
On the 12th of February this year, our beloved River Torrens was drained, reducing our only metropolitan river to a stagnant bog. International guests were greeted with a rubbish and car infested mud-apocalypse, and a stench that one passerby aptly described as 'rotting flesh marinated in hobo vomit'. It was revealed a malfunction caused the res...
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Dubious Adelaide | Whale of a Time
At the turn of the 19th Century, the fledgling colony of South Australia began to embrace a pastime that would soon become Australia’s first primary industry, and serve as the foundation of our State’s economy. That past time of course, was whaling. South Australia was blessed with a population of whales that were ostensibly design...
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Dubious Adelaide | Willie Failure
When considering the more dubious aspects of King William Street, one’s mind usually turns straight towards the traffic-congesting tram extension. However the street that runs through the heart of Adelaide should perhaps be more notoriously known for the shortcomings of the eponymous King William IV. Through his short reign, King William (Wil...
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Dubious Adelaide | John Hindley, Swamp Thing
Located in the heart of Adelaide and founded on a putrid bog, Hindley Street was named for the inexplicably unremarkable John Hindley; a public servant whose only claim to fame is having drunk himself to death at the behest of his doctor, Robert ‘rum-legs’ Todd. The street honours its namesake every Friday and Saturday night, when A...
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Dubious Adelaide | Dunstan vs the morons
During the late 1970s, as Premier of South Australia, Don Dunstan helped usher in a new period of enlightenment and tolerance, transforming Adelaide into the arts capital of Australia. He decriminalised homosexuality, introduced equal rights for women, built the festival centre, and created Rundle Mall. Despite all of these endeavours however, D...
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Dubious Adelaide | Who was Robert Gouger?
Born in 1802, Robert Gouger would one day grow to become the most overrated public servant in the history of governance. Following a brief stint in gaol, Gouger became colonial secretary of South Australia, where he brushed shoulders with a relative who’s who of South Australian folklore: Wakefield, Hindmarsh, Colonel Light; and they all hate...
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