The CHEF, the ABORIGINALS, the BLOND & the BULL

Translated literally from the German, Schadenfreude means shameful pleasure. More loosely it is joy in another's misfortune. Like watching a vegan being told the macrobiotic rice was cooked in the same water that rehydrated the beef jerky.

As I drove from Uluru to Alice Springs I encountered another Schadenfreude moment. In a separate vehicle I followed Aboriginal elder Alison Hunt and her grandson Damien. Out the front of Curtin Springs Roadhouse a stray bull was lingering on the highway. Damien slowed in case he hit the beast but the beast had other ideas. He rammed the car thus creating a massive dent in its side and in the process knocking himself out.

Now Curtin Springs Roadhouse has history with Aboriginal people so I had to go in and tell them they had a mad bovine lying unconscious or dead on the highway.

The owner wasn't there but a blond horsewoman and a Chinese chef came out to inspect both the damage to the car and the bull.

You've heard the expression ... charge like a wounded bull ... it's pretty much spot on. The still groggy animal was slowly rising from the tarmac when the blond and the chef joined us. For reasons best known to himself the very short Chinese man decided to take things into his own hands and examine the bull's condition. It is likely that the closest he'd previously got to a bull was a sirloin steak.

Within 10 seconds the enraged beast was chasing him down the embankment. Had it not been for a swift bit of footwork he would have ended up looking like the spaghetti bolognese he was preparing for lunch, before it was cooked.

People being chased by scrub bulls isn't rare in Central Australia, about on par with crocodiles chasing fishermen in the Top End. Thing is, when the Chinaman was perilously close to becoming chop suey, everyone laughed. The Aboriginals laughed, I laughed and the blond horsewomen laughed so much she risked internal damage to rival that about to be dished out to the chef.

I used to lead regular trips for walkers into the Blue Mountains. On one walk a large woman slipped into a freezing creek and her mates laughed almost as much the first time as when she slipped again and fell deeper in the second time, clambering out as gracefully as a 3-legged water buffalo on sedatives. It was my first clear awareness of Schadenfreud.

Was it particularly funny that it was a Chinese chef escaping? It think it helped. Something about being small, wearing a hat and with the flapping apron. Perhaps just the incongruity of it. Maybe the looming headline. Ling Low gorged by Raging Bull or an underlying suggestion of A Bull in a China Shop.

I know if it was me being chased, the blackfellas would have been beside themselves. Nothing funnier than seeing a whitefella run for his life.

Thankfully the bull couldn't match his prey's sidestep and the chef escaped behind the cattle grid. The horsewoman was still in stitches and then more so when the bull revived to send the blackfellas scrambling back into the relative safety of their bull-damaged Toyota.

I laughed as well but not as much as the chef whose hilarity was probably fueled by his still heightened adrenalin levels.

I like to think this blog attracts people with inquiring minds.

So can anyone illuminate me? Why does watching a near-death experience when its not yours tickle the funny bone. Why is it even funnier when it's another ethnic group? Because lets face it it is.

Anyway, the Chef and the Bull both survived. Our cars headed out to Alice Springs and drove through a dust storm, lightning strikes and torrential rain, arriving into Alice Springs whose roads were steaming with evaporation.

Electronic Swagman Big Lesson No 1 - always ... always ... have the video camera beside you. You just never know when a bull will chase a Chinaman.

PS. I drove back to Curtin Springs and took images of the Chef and the Blond. The bull had long since disappeared. Mind you ours was a LOT bigger.