THE ASHES AND SIX O’CLOCK

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27576, 5 February 1955, Page 6

THE ASHES AND SIX O’CLOCK

[By WHIM WHAM] Thousands of men and women crowded hotel lounges and beer gardens in Sydney on Tuesday night to celebrate 10 p.m. closing—the first day of late closing in New South Wales since 1916. Groups of family drinkers packed most of the suburban hotels.—News item. Over the Seas to Sydney, Where the Pubs are open till Ten! Who could care less that the Ashes Are safe in the Pocket of Len? There’s Beer in the Gardens of Sydney, There’s Peace in the Evening again. Gone are the panicky Guzzlings, The six o’clock Swillings of Booze. Shall we think of the Feelings, the Foibles Of Persons with contrary Views? Of the Many who temper their Pleasures, Or the Few who can’t help but abuse? An Idyll of leisurely Drinking? A Dreame of Ye-Olde-English-Inne? Such Humbug as curdles the Bloodstream And prickles the sensitive Skin? Not Such, the Beer-gardens of Sydney: But a Lesson in how to begin. Deaf Sid, when you’ve done with Formosa And put the U.N. in the Clear, Give a moment’s Attention to Liquor And how we consume it right Here: Have a Drink in the Gardens of Sydney (I’ll find you the Price of a Beer), And maybe you’ll find there’s a Moral, And maybe you wont, but I’m sure It will be an instructive Experience, It MAY even promise a Cure For the Cancer of six o’clock Closing, The Beastliness caused by such Closing, Which right-thinking Jokers endure!