Arcadian Adelaide

Scottish actress Thistle Anderson’s firecracker of a polemic against her adopted hometown of Adelaide, published to roars of outrage and laughter in 1905, proves beyond doubt that people of the past were - just like us - fond of a good piss-take.

This barbed satirical spray reveals the City of Churches as ‘less holy than might be supposed’, with more opium dens and prostitutes per capita than Melbourne, wines that are ‘the worst ever made’ (!), the local men ‘caricatures’ with inferior facial hair, the local women ‘cats’. Thistle’s fondness is reserved for the fruit, the flour, the cabmen … and the return ticket to Melbourne.

This hilarious little volume, intended by its author as ‘a playful skit’, is to be taken with a pinch of salt … or perhaps savoured, stubbornly, with a glass of excellent Adelaide wine.