Hi, it's Death of River Guide. This one colorful character, mildly famous for flicking her cigar ash and stub around, does things such as leaving a stub in a jar of jam where she worked packing jams. She said people shouldn't be eating such a poor product anyway "Sydney or Bust!" At a funeral, she interrupts the minister at graveside, finishes the eulogy, and flicks the stub into the grave. The narrator talks as if that says it all: "Sydney or bust. Life or Death. There are no other choices."

So I got the impression it meant there is only one best way to think, be, go, or do something, and then everything else.

Since I asked, I see it described in the "Macquarie dictionary of Australian Slang" as "gamble against the odds; all or nothing attempt; do or die," which is different than I had thought.

You're giving me the impression it's not a routine phrase.

Thanks


"Why had she put the butt in a tin of jam that would be opened b some poor housewife in the new and hyperventilating Australian suburbia? 'Sydney or the bush,' she would reply, burnishing the phrase with dark smoke as she spoke. 'The jam they made was shit. People ought not to be so foolish as to buy it. Either make good jam or don't eat it at all. That last cigar was my warning to the good Australian people on this matter.'"