A new take on the gambling habit of Australians. Biloela is a town in the far west of Quennsland, Australia. The name is pronounced BILL-A-WHEELER.

I suppose every nationality on earth has a bit of a gamble from time to time. It might be taking a punt on marriage or business or some other risky venture.

According to the last statistics that I heard, Aussies are amongst the most avid gamblers in the whole world. I'm not a betting man myself (unless I get a tip from the horse's mouth), but many of my friends like to gamble in various ways. The most popular forms are betting on the gallopers and buying lottery tickets.

When it comes to following the horses I'm a firm supporter of the term "mug punter". I agree with the words of wisdom once offered to me by a favourite uncle many years ago. "Paddy, me boyo," he said, "the only person who ever makes any money from 'following the nags' is the council worker who has the job of scooping up the horse manure in the main street of a country town!"

Just recently I was reflecting on those words after I read about an accountant who embezzled lots of Other People's Money (OPM) from trust accounts to support an addictive, expensive gambling habit.

I was travelling on an interstate coach line between Perth and Adelaide at that moment with many hours of time on my hands before achieving destination. I passed the time by mentally surveying the different types of gambling.

In the process I grinned to myself as I visualised a situation in which a gambling man, a card player, ran out of cash and in a desperate last bid to stave off penury offered his wife as a betting chip...and lost!

I never did get to work out a resolution to THAT bit of fantasising because another strong thought slid into my mind, evoked by the memory of an old melody titled, *I Wonder What's Become of Sally, That Old Gal of Mine?*

Don't know whether you ever heard the tune or remember it, but the melody came through loud and clear to me on that coach, alhough I hadn't heard the song for many, many years. I commenced to work on a parody of the lyrics and, just before arriving at the coach depot in Adelaide, was able to put the following final draft in the can:

*I wonder what's become of Sheila,
My old Aussie flame?
I lost her playing cards in Biloela*,
I ran outa dough,
So Sheila had to go.
I miss her bad somehow,
My life is all at sea;
If you've still got her now
Please send her back to me.
I'm sorry that I bet my Sheila,
my old Aussie flame!*

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not a gambling man and so I don't intend to enter the Euro Song Contest, that is, unless somebody gives me a shade of odds about my winning it!

*Biloela: an outback town in the far west of Queensland (Auatralia); pronounced *Bill-a-Wheeler*.

(c)2002 Patrick Talty