When Your Newspaper's Too Wet To Burn and So Are Your Hopes For The Sharks

Finn Seabrook | Local Correspondent | Sutherland Shire Gazette

13 September 2025

Local man Brendan, long-time custodian of unread newspapers and backyard pyromania, has been dealt another crushing blow this week after his weekly paper was delivered straight into the stormwater runoff of his driveway, leaving him unable to light the firepit for Saturday night’s Sharks v Roosters clash.

What should have been a crisp September evening of fire, footy and beer will now be reduced to Brendan sitting on a cold patio chair, staring at damp kindling and wondering if the gods of newsprint have abandoned him.

“This isn’t about the paper,” Brendan told The Sutherland Shire Gazette, arms folded in betrayal. “It’s about the ritual. Beer tastes different when it’s backlit by flames. The Sharks play better when they know I’m watching them through smoke.”

Attempts to salvage the paper for kindling were in vain. “It disintegrated in my hands like a wet tissue,” he said. “You can’t spark pride out of pulp.”

Neighbours report he even considered burning last week’s junk mail, but admitted that “a Harvey Norman catalogue doesn’t set the same tone.”

The disappointment cuts deep with the Roosters game looming. “I’ll still watch it, but it won’t be the same,” Brendan sighed. “What am I supposed to do - just sit there with a beer, in perfect silence, like I live in Bondi?”

As Burraneer braces for another weekend of biblical rainfall, Brendan has one plea to delivery drivers: “If you must drown my newspaper, at least throw in a bag of firewood. Or a dry carton of Tooheys. I’ll take either.”

Because in the Shire, a man without his firepit on game night is not just cold - he’s spiritually homeless.

wet newspaper