Pricey column: Cyclone season makes great news for southern media, we’re all good here

“After all, we were all in thongs, shorts and a T-shirt, and he’s in clothes more suited to a Sydney to Hobart in a 60-knot gale”: Pricey’s take on southerners’ panic while North Qlders are just ready for anything.

Steve ‘Pricey’ Price talks cyclones.

These are the facts

they tell no lies,

black cockatoos

and very slow flies.

Long mango stalks,

white ants deep,

crocs nesting high

and green frogs asleep.

Dove orchids in bloom

the sunbirds will hide,

forget about Google

just look outside.

And that’s how we forecast up here.

OK, maybe with a little help from Wally, Nitso and the Bureau of Meteorology.

I remember well the days of forecasts that were best made with a spray of Windex, a flag pole, and someone with a pair of binoculars down the Strand.

We were lucky to have a few days’ notice back then, but they were great days, and don’t get me wrong, we handled it just as well.

You see, we were prepared no matter what. We didn’t sit in the dunny with the mobile and see where the rain was, we simply prepared.

Nowadays of course, it's the unbelievable technology that informs us about something so unbelievably unreliable – Tropical Cyclones.

Early on Monday I’m doing reports of gale warnings locally, which is fair enough. Then, in the afternoon when walking Bing, we could have rowed a coconut raft to the reef.

Dead calm, clear, even windows of sunshine painting the island in gold – what an incredible place we live in.

It is cyclone season, which makes great news for the south, except when a cyclone doesn’t … well, cyclone.

Cyclone Jasper crosses the coastline Wednesday evening.

Years back there was a tropical low way out in the Coral Sea, a long way away. Bing had taken me for a walk, and glorious it was. Not a cloud, calm, a warm breeze drifted over the bay.

My dog, Bing, remarked that there was a tele camera on the Strand jetty headland with a few people dressed rather strangely. I walked up, maybe it’s just my strange sense of humour, mixed with a liberal dose of cynicism, but there was the politician wrapped up in full heavy weather gear spruiking the oncoming devastation that he would single-handily save us from!

OK, I’m being naughty, but I laughed. The camera bloke and producer told me to stay away and not to say anything.

We were giggling. I couldn’t help it. After all, we were all in thongs, shorts and a T-shirt, and he’s in clothes more suited to a Sydney to Hobart in a 60-knot gale.

This panics people down south, especially family, and confuses new locals who look out their window at a comfortable seagull pinching a chip, not at all caring for the apparent wind that’s soon to blow him to Broome.

There’s been a few storms around the place this week.

One swept through the Premier’s office leaving scattered debris, broken chairs and promises, and an open knife draw.

There’s also one brewing in the Townsville watch house, and this looks like a Category 5.

Harry Bruce's take on the youth crime storm swirling around Townsville.

More importantly, we know it’s been touch and go with Christmas lights. Few ladders are cyclone rated, and we don’t want poor Dad doing a superman into the neighbour’s palm trees. Santa will understand if you’re late to decorate.

To all the Dads, those incredible Christmas light ninjas, Christmas light survivors, those who after decorating the garden and roof, could get a job easily in Cirque du Soleil, a merry Christmas to you all …. if the Kirwan fruit bats haven’t nested in your lights, a nicked car hasn’t knocked you off your ladder, and the inflatables aren’t racing a Qantas to Brissy.

There’s a little over a week to go.

This Sunday our big Christmas party is at Brothers, and your last chance to buy The Price Of Paradise book.

May you enjoy the magic of Christmas in the tropics!

Happy days, ’ooroo.

PS. Someone very close to me said of Cyclone Jasper: “Oh they named the cyclone after the ‘Friendly Ghost’. I said nothing for the sake of my health.

Originally published as Pricey column: Cyclone season makes great news for southern media, we’re all good here