The PR Blog

And Why Trevor the Wallaby Is No Longer Allowed Near the Taj Mahal

An exclusive report by Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Chief Correspondent, Acting Editor and Unreasonably Brave Survivor of the Dusty Gulch Gazette Attack of '26.

There are moments in a journalist's life when he must decide whether to remain safely underground or risk everything in pursuit of the truth.

I have had several such moments. Most of them involved large cats.

The latest, however, involved the complete collapse of the Dusty Gulch Gazette, a gang of technologically sophisticated Honklanders, a wallaby with titanium knees, two Australian literary ghosts and a woman in India who apparently possesses powers far beyond those of the average government department.

It all began when the Honklanders decided that the Dusty Gulch Gazette had been allowed to exist for far too long.

For reasons that remain unclear, they attacked the website. They poked it. They prodded it. They hacked at it.

They generally behaved as though they had discovered a mouse in the pantry and had decided to dismantle the house to get it.

For nearly two weeks, the Gazette staggered around like a wounded wombat. The machinery groaned. The website sulked. The presses stopped.

And I, being the senior journalist of impeccable courage that I am, withdrew temporarily to an abandoned wombat burrow in order to conduct a detailed investigation.

I would like to make it clear that I was not hiding. I was conducting journalism from a secure subterranean location. There is a difference. For security reasons I had placed a chair against the entrance. I had also instructed Trevor to knock three times, identify himself and provide the password. The password was “cheese.”

This proved highly effective. Nobody got in. Mainly because Trevor couldn't remember the password.

Trevor. as you know, has titanium knees. This is the unfortunate result of a government policy that once decided animals should not be permitted to possess knees capable of jumping better than a platypus.

Nobody in Dusty Gulch understands this. Least of all Trevor. But the government had apparently failed to consider one important possibility. A wallaby with titanium knees is extremely difficult to stop. Especially when he is annoyed.

Trevor bounded into the burrow once I removed the chair and told him the password. 

“Whiskers!” I looked up. “What?” “The Gazette needs us.” I sighed. “The Gazette needs a miracle.”

“That's why we're going to India.”

I stared at him. “Why?”

He told me about Banjo Paterson. And Henry Lawson. The ghosts had apparently appeared beneath a gum tree beyond the black stump and the old water tower,  and provided directions to a mysterious woman somewhere north of the Ganges who could help us.

I asked Trevor whether he had been drinking. He said no. I asked whether Henry had. Trevor said he didn't know. That was good enough for me. We packed immediately. Trevor packed nothing. I packed everything. A journalist must be prepared.

My suitcase contained two notebooks, six pencils, a spare fedora, emergency stationery, a magnifying glass, a copy of The Man from Snowy River, three packets of biscuits and approximately twelve kilograms of cheese.

The journey to India was uneventful apart from the airport security officer who asked what was in my suitcase. “Cheese,” I said. “What about the other suitcase?” “More cheese.” “And the third?” “Emergency cheese.”

He looked at Trevor. Then at Trevor's titanium knees.

“What happened to those?”

“Government policy,” Trevor said.

The officer waved us through. Fortunately, our Dusty Gulch Diplomatic Passports aided in our swift boarding on to a Ratty Airways orange bi plane.

Ratty Airways is a highly respected international carrier. At least that's what the sign painted on the side of the aeroplane said. The aeroplane itself was orange, had one propeller, three dents and a door that was secured with what appeared to be a shoelace. Trevor was classified as sporting equipment. I was classified as “small mammal, journalism.” My suitcase was classified as “cheese - potentially unstable.”

We were delayed for two minutes when the pilot discovered that twelve kilograms of emergency cheese had shifted during takeoff and was attempting to overtake the aircraft.

Somewhere north of the Ganges, we found the sign.

It was nailed to a tree.

It read:

HELP HERE IF YOU NEED THE NEWSPAPER SORTED OUT

Underneath, in smaller writing:

AND IF YOU'VE RUN OUT OF TEA.

I knew immediately that we had found the right place.

We knocked. The door opened. And there she was. A lady from India. Calm. Composed. Entirely unimpressed by the sight of a dusty Australian rat wearing a fedora and a wallaby whose knees made a noise like two teaspoons being dropped into a billy.

She looked at us. “What is the problem?” I explained. The attack. The sabotage. The broken website. The silent presses. The Honklanders.

The fourteen days of technological misery. The state of the Gazette. And, naturally, the fact that I had been forced to live in a wombat burrow. After listening to Roderick explain fourteen days of chaos, she looked at Trevor. She looked at me. She looked at the suitcase. “Why have you brought cheese?” Trevor answered immediately. “Journalism.” She considered this. “I see.”

That was all. No committee. No inquiry. No twelve-month strategic recovery plan. No government taskforce containing 43 people and one person who understood computers.

She simply got to work.

And I watched. Things that had seemed impossible began to be fixed. Problems were found. Problems were solved. The Gazette began to breathe again. The website stirred. The machinery responded. Dusty Gulch began to return to life.

“There.” I stared. “The Gazette?” “Working.”“The website?” “Working.”“The newspaper?” “Working.”

The Honklanders had made one fundamental mistake. They thought they were attacking a website. They thought they were destroying a newspaper.

They were wrong. The Gazette was never the machinery. It was the people who wrote it. The people who read it. The people who refused to let it disappear.

I found this deeply moving. Trevor found it moving too. For almost three seconds.

Then he looked towards the Taj Mahal. “Do you reckon I could jump over that?” I stared at him. “The Taj Mahal?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Trevor considered this.

“Titanium knees.”

I decided it was time to go home.

And so we left India.

Trevor remained convinced that with sufficient runway, a favourable wind and a government-approved set of titanium knees, the Taj Mahal was entirely jumpable.

I have chosen not to discuss this with the Indian authorities.

The first restored edition of the Dusty Gulch Gazette rolled into the afternoon light. I stood upon the steps wearing my fedora. Trevor stood beside me. His titanium knees gleamed heroically. And across the front page I had written the headline:

THE GAZETTE IS NOT DEAD

IT HAS JUST BEEN TO INDIA

Then the bill arrived. I have seen some frightening things in my career. Honklanders. Government policy. A platypus with an unexplained sense of superiority. But nothing prepared me for the invoice from India. I had forgotten the currency exchange rate. US currency to Dusty Gulch dollars.  I stared at it for several minutes. Trevor looked over my shoulder.

“How much?”

“Don't ask.”

“That bad?”

“I've just had to cancel my cheese allowance.”

Trevor went pale.

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

He looked genuinely distressed.

“What about the emergency cheese?”

“Gone.”

“The biscuits?”

“Gone.”

“Can we eat the invoice?”

“No.”

“Worth asking.”

I have therefore been forced to make certain economies. For the next six months, I shall be dining on ramen noodles and baked beans, occasionally enlivened by the discovery of a forgotten grain of rice beneath the refrigerator.

Trevor has offered to share his rations. Unfortunately, his rations consist entirely of grass. I declined.

All staff expense accounts at the Gazette have consequently been suspended. Staff meetings will now be held beneath the floorboards at the Dusty Dingo, where we shall catch falling crumbs from chicken parmas and chip packets. This is not, as some have suggested, exploitation. It is cost-efficient journalism. I have also volunteered to cover the next Climate Summit in Fiji. There are rumours that they have an excellent cheeseboard.

I consider this a legitimate professional development opportunity.

Trevor has offered to come. I have declined. The last thing we need is an international incident involving a titanium-kneed wallaby attempting to jump over a palm tree.

The Gazette may be financially ruined. But we remain editorially independent. Which is just as well. Nobody can afford to pay us.

Yours in stubborn ink and residual cheese,
Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble
Chief Correspondent, Acting Editor, and Official Keeper of the Titanium Knee Chronicles
Dusty Gulch Gazette
(Still not dead. Just better travelled.)

Stay Twitchy out there.