Step up, step up, ladeez and genulmun, and see the Townsville Bulletin’s Max the Amazing Diminishing Dog. No, folks, it is not a gimmick, you will see it with your own eyes – The Daily Astonisher living up to its name.

You’ll have to be quick, though, before it becomes the Vanishing Dog, a paranormal pooch!

And just for a bit of mid-week mischief, the story also contains proof that like most reporters, the author of this amazing story thinks that syntax is what the government charges for a brothel licence.

Overseas, the scandal of entertainer Jimmy Saville's decades-long abuse ... and probably rape ... of under age fans has revolted the entire nation. Naturally, it has prompted many a sick, grubby joke in an area where it is hard to find humour. But there is one exception that The Magpie is willing to share with you.

That, plus a couple of larfs and a couple of random observations in a bonus mid-week nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

This week, The Daily Astonisher has regaled with the continuing saga of Max, the dog who allegedly sprang a little too vigorously to his master's aid in a road rage confrontation. Indeed, Max made such a good fist of it that the bloke having a noisy chat with his owner was hospitalized with a number of injuries requiring surgery after Max’s doggy dentures had done their work.

Max was first mentioned last week, when it was learned that he might be facing a needle full of the green dream as an offending dangerous dog.

But then this week it was discovered – oh, praise be to St Roop, the patron saint of tabloids - our dawg had form, as Aussie wallopers say.  Or as reporter Kate Higgins put it in a low rent, borrowed-from-television Americanization, he had ‘a rap sheet’.  More on that in a minute.

So the story got an extra set of legs, and The Astonisher, presumably being denied a perhaps more relevant picture of the result of Max’s dental artistry on his victim, instead ran with this ‘you talkin’ to me’ pic of Max in the pen (another low-rent Americanization short for ‘penitentiary’).

But The Astonisher really had their teeth into this one, and were determined to maul it to death. So today, they ran another story of Max’s distraught owner visiting his doomed doggy, complete with plaintive laments from someone about to be left with a surplus of tinned PAL. But the startling thing was the pic that ran for most of today on the paper’s website (it is changed now, someone finally caught up with the hilarity). The initial pic seemed to indicate that wherever Max is, they’re not feeding him too well. The proof is in the pic.

That is Max, isn’t it? The caption say it is -'VISITOR: Michael O'Shea visits Max' - and it looks like he’s a cunning bugger, being able to shape-shift and all that. The only doubt cast on this conclusion comes in the last couple of pars of the story, foreign territory to even the most perseverant of Daily Astonisher skimmers.  Max’s owner apparently has a couple of other dogs (the inexplicable 'friends' in the headline) that he took along for a farewell to their playmate. Although the narrowed eyes of this pooch suggests he is remembering some unwelcome hanky panky by Max in the kennel after lights out, and would be willing to strategically stick the needle in Max himself.

Just as well they corrected the confusion, or else tomorrow, we might have been confronted with this update on the rapidly fading Max.

But back to Ms Higgin’s breathless story about Max’s dark past.

‘RAP sheet’ in FBI parlance, stands for Record of Arrests and Prosecutions, presumably written on a sheet of paper.  Actually, as you can see, Ms Higgins’ words were ‘ had a violent rap sheet’, which makes it appear that, like many of colleagues, she thinks syntax is the government charge for a brothel licence. (Yeah, yeah, orright, but the line is too good not to be used twice).

The ‘Pie has never seen a sheet being violent, it must be hell in those overcrowded filing cabinets at night. And it’s not clear that Max’s ‘arrest’ was violent or not. Maybe he just went quietly after being slipped a Schmacko Beefy Chew. And prosecutions tend not be peaceful affairs, but are rarely violent.

Ms Higgins is fitting nicely at The Astonisher.

Other matters.

The award for laconic Aussie humor of the week goes to the Channel 9 commentators at Moonee Valley last Saturday for the Cox Plate. In the idle chatter between races, the blokes were discussing this aerial view of the track, which is the green circumference and diagonal slash, not the white trotting  track in the lower half.

One suggested it was ‘sort of egg-shaped’ to which his colleague dead-panned ‘If you were a chook, you’d have a few problems’. Well, it was funny at the time.

Finally, the revelations keep coming about the late British TV star Jimmy Saville, who is now believed to have molested hundreds of underage girls over several decades. BBC executives are running for cover, screaming the Sergeant Shultz defence 'I know nothing'.

The 'Pie always thought the Poms were a bit suss for making this bloke a celebrity - he seemed neither funny, quick-witted, attractive (ugh!) or intelligent. A brief media meeting with him once in the 1970s made the word 'repulsive' spring to mind. We didn't know the half of it, as they say over there.

Matters like this always give rise to web-wide sick and very unfunny 'jokes', but there was one  photograph featured in the clever blog called Hugo's Weekly that The 'Pie finds funny because of the unexpected twist in the tail of the punchline - which demeans only one person.

One sick individual, now universally loathed by a nation for shafting the innocent.

Seen here with Jimmy Saville.

See you on Saturdee. 

T'S EASY - FIND YOUR VOICE AND A NAME

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The 'Pie will then do the rest - checking for legals, taste, language, idiocy - and then publish your gem.

ANONYMOUS IS SOOOOO BORING.