UnNews:Australian nugget man has 'magpie's concept of gold'

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

19 January 2013

Kasprowicz, enchanted by a photographer's pocket watch..

FAIR DINKUM, Australia -- Bruce Kasprowicz, the amateur Australian gold prospector who hit headlines this week for finding a gold nugget weighing 5.5kg (177 ounces), has "a magpie's concept of gold," according to a state psychologist.

Dr Joanna Corey explained, "Aw look, Bruce has no real idea of an object's value, of what money is, or what the exchange of currency means. When I told him the gold he had found was worth $300,000 [conveniently more or less the same in US dollars] he said, 'The yellow shiny thing you mean?' He's a dolt. He's like a magpie. He sees shiny things and then he picks them up and hordes them. He came to one of my sessions with a broken CD, some old silver wrapping paper, and a door key which didn't belong to him."

Magpies are famed throughout the animal kingdom for their penchant for stealing shiny things and keeping them in their nests, and much of Kasprowicz's behaviour seems similar. Indeed, while his discovery made the headlines only this week, it is not known exactly when he found the nugget, and the story only came to light when his social worker saw the gold during a home visit, gleaming majestically from a dog basket, among Diet Coke cans, hologram stickers, and 99 cent bracelets.

The social worker immediately took Kasprowicz and the nugget to the police station, and Sergeant Bruce Waugh told us: "Aw look, he's a bit of a funny one. He came into my office with about the biggest hunk of gold you can imagine, and I was just sat there, looking at it. While I was doing that, he grabbed this little bit of foil from some Wrigley's chewing gum that was on my desk, just snapped it up like that, and pouched it. Then when he opened it up and found it wasn't shiny on the inside, he kind of squawked and tossed it away."

A source of the spokesman of the social worker told us, "Aw look, the most important thing here is that we protect Bruce. He's a simple soul, he never wanted all this media attention. I think the best thing for him would be if you just left the gold here with us, and we will look after it for him."

Sources

• Leverage, "Australian amateur prospector finds massive gold nugget" BBC, January 18, 2013