Beggars' Choice

The Australian Football League Grand Final was held last Saturday and is already being hailed as one of the greats but to be honest although it was close the standard of football wasn’t that great. For mine, the highlights were Leo Barry's match-saving grab and the excellent call by JJJ’s Roy & HG.

Sydney defeated West Coast, which goes to show that tough nicknames aren’t necessary to inspire passion. Unlike most AFL teams who go by nicknames like the Lions, the Tigers, and the Bombers*, Sydney have the more genteel nickname ‘”the Swans”. They also have a picture of the Sydney Opera House on their jumpers. Just to recap – they’re called the Swans, and they like opera. Swans. Opera. Football. Such is the way of the modern world, I guess.

*NB: Melbourne (Demons) and Hawthorn (Hawks) used to be known as the Fuschias and the Mayblooms, respectively. Haw haw! At the other end of the spectrum, now-defunct Fitzroy used to be known as the Gorillas. Now there's a nickname you can respect.

The Brownlow Medal count happened last night. The Brownlow Medal is awarded to the fairest and best player in the Australian Football League, and is televised almost live in Western Australia. To the uninitiated, it goes a little something like this:

1. Players arrive with model girlfriends. Players say something like "geez mate I feel like a dickhead in this tux" while girlfriends' frocks are commented on.
2. A SEEMINGLY NON-STOP ORGY OF MATHEMATICAL EXCITEMENT, where numbers are read out and added to other numbers.
3. Winner announced and is awared tiny medal. Winner says something like "geez mate I feel like a dickhead in this tux" while commentators wax lyrical on his eloquence.

So there you have it; kind of like the Eurovision song contest without the songs. Maybe next year they could invite Terry Wogan..

Well, the Ashes are gone.

The England fans, after a decade and a half of wearing Australian barbs, were determined to get back a little of their own. "You're only good at swimming," they taunted the Australian side as Pietersen, the man of the match, took the series away. (The Age, 14 September 2005.)

Fair point, that. (I think we can assume it was directed at the Australian nation as a whole, not the Australian cricket team who are probably no good at swimming either.) After the euphoric year of 1999 when Australia won World Cups or World Championships in rugby, cricket, netball, and tennis we seem to have hit a bit of a low. This is due to a combination of effects; it’s cyclical, and (particularly in the case of cricket) some of the other teams are starting to take things a bit more seriously. But consider this; Australia has a fairly small population and perhaps by spreading our sporting talent so thinly we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to mediocre performances on all fronts. I say it’s time to put all our eggs into one basket. Let’s get all Australian athletes, young, old, gifted and downright clumsy, playing the ONE SPORT, and then we might be able to be properly competitive on the world stage.

But which sport? Not swimming, because effusive English praise aside, the Americans have got that one sewn up. Australian Rules? No one else plays it, really, same with Rugby League. Curling? Gumboot throwing? Croquet?

Something to consider.

Supermarkets. Yes, what’s not to like? As we push our wobbly trolleys around, trying to gain access to an aisle blocked by a thoughtful customer so we can vainly search for items that aren’t there only to have someone walk backwards into us, it doesn’t take much to break the gloom.

And so it came to pass last Saturday, for at our local Woolworths they were engaging in some sort of fundraiser that compelled the PA announcer to talk like a pirate. It was quite good; “frozen peas are currently on special” became “vittels of the pea variety, practically walkin’ the plank at 1.99 dubloons” and “jantorial assistance required in aisle 5 “ became “yarr, and the deck in aisle 5 be needin’ a proper swabbin’, so heave to, cabin boy, before I flay ye alive with me cat o’nine tails and tie ye sorry bones to the mizzen mast to serve as a warnin’ to other like-minded scallywags”. Well maybe not quite, but you get the general drift.

The only thing that slightly soured the performance was the accent; it was more Welsh than Cornish. Try to imagine Tom Jones doing a half-hearted pirate impersonation: “It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone! Now walk the plank”.

Nevertheless, two thumbs up, and I can’t wait for next week when they do Mr T. “I pity the fool that passes up the chance to purchase Pine-O-Cleen disinfectant at $4.95 a bottle. Now cut the jibber-jabber and get to aisle 2!” Well, they would if there was any sort of logic to this twisted world.

In an industry mag, an ad for a new type of CT scanner reads:

After his VCT scan, Alan was spared hearing the words he dreaded most: "We're not sure."

What words do you dread hearing most? I'm not certain what mine would be, but I would say "I'm going to disembowel you slowly with this rusty, blunt fishing knife" would probably rank higher than "we're not sure".

AFP, 9 Sep 05: BEIJING: A restaurant in northeast China has been raided and closed for listing stir-fried tiger meat on its menu, a dish that turned out to be donkey dressed with tiger urine.

Well, extra points for lateral thinking on the chef's part. Good for him!

The worst thing I ever ate was at some restaurant in Singapore when, due to a slight misunderstanding, I wound up with a plate of ducks' feet. For the record, they were crunchy.

The fifth cricket test match between Australia and England starts tonight Australian time, and I'm predicting a win to England by 546 runs. I obtained this figure by banging randomly on my keypad, but it's a method that hasn't failed me yet.

I noticed on the news last night there is thought of including a fifth bowler, which means one less specialist batsman. Someone in the team (I forget who; Shane Warne maybe) thought this a bad idea because it exposes the tail (ie the lower order, supposedly less skilful batsmen). Since it was the tail who saved Australia's sorry ass in the third test and almost delivered unlikely victories in the second and fourth, I say good; expose away.

On Saturday our hockey team played in our division’s first semi-final. At one stage my opponent was a rather abrasive fellow who spent a significant part of the game mocking my teammates’ appearance, eg their lack of hair, shabby uniforms, excessive weight, wooden limbs etc. Now all this is perfectly understandable – I often feel like doing it myself – but the unfortunate thing was he looked (and dressed) very much like 70’s fitness guru, the late Richard Simmons*. This left me feeling not so much angered, but more honoured and humbled because I felt I had
actually been participating in some grand anthropological experiment. For the record, they won 3-2 but really there were no losers. Except our team obviously, because we lost.

*I’m assuming Simmons is dead; I really wouldn’t know and nor can I be bothered to check.

Some second-rate urban myths. Feel free to spread.

1. This guy once took his pants to the dry cleaners with $5 in the pocket. When he got his pants back it was gone.
2. A lady was driving along a city street when she noticed this car following her. Eventually it pulled up alongside her. The driver shouted at her angrily that she had changed lanes without indicating, and drove off.
3. A guy picked up a girl at a nightclub. They went back to his place where they spent the night. When he woke up the next day she was gone, and a few days later he developed symptoms of venereal disease.
4. The Ford Falcon does not sell well in Chechnya because there are no local manufacturers and it is expensive to import.
5. Sausages sold in Coles supermarkets contain traces of meat.

There’s a town in Western Australia called South Hedland and, according to my notoriously unreliable source, it was purposefully designed to look like a flower. I’m not convinced, but you be the judge.

The USA, which always does things on a grander scale than everyone else, has a better example.

Looks like it’s been designed with a Spirograph. Anyway, getting back to the original point, the flower design was apparently meant to inspire feelings of harmony and well-being, and, as people were forced further and further out of their way by a series of one-way streets and cul-de-sacs, a heightened community spirit.

The effect (according to my source) has been the complete opposite – feelings of despair and frustration have caused enraged motorists to ram through barricades at the end of cul-de-sacs etc.

The dissonance between the good intentions and the sheer rage it has caused is quite extraordinary.

Orkut is an online networking service. It’s quite good fun, although not without a few bugs (and by “a few”, I mean “a number so large it cannot even be imagined”). The frequent server errors are always accompanied by the message “Bad, bad server. No donut for you” which one can only assume was meant to be soothing and good-humoured.

It really makes you feel like driving your car through a cul-de-sac.