Author Archives: alcacted

England – a smaller land of dopes without glory

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Where does England begin and end? Does it start in Capetown and end in Dublin?  Is Scotland England?  I didn’t do geography at school but can someone tell me how can all these moaning, mincing  “You know what I mean?” types who flock here from the dull and blighted poly-country allegedly called England claim Andy Murray and the Lions as their own.

England is according to textbook definition a part of Great Britain that is in turn part of the United Kingdom.  Let’s get it straight you bunch of desperate toe rags– you Englishmen – it’s not the 19th Century. The sun has set on your Empire and it’s not very bright!

Fact One:  The Webb-Ellis Trophy was won by Wales boyo – not England.  You had fuck-all English players in the team.  And after having to endure 30,00 middle-class unimaginative wally wankers from FOUR countries, combined only by convenience, wail “Lions, Lions, Lions” for over ninety minutes you don’t seem very bright.  You seem to cling to the notion that you are a witty crew.  Good with banter are we?  Well I’ll be rogered by the Housemaster.  You have a premier league football team in London where grown men gather and sing, “I’m forever blowin’ bubbles”.   No wonder you emigrate here bringing your dubious IT and telemarketing skills together with your tinea you mob of unwashed bodeens.

Fact Two:  Wimbledon was won by a Scotsman.  Devoting the first nine pages of The Times to Murray’s win just shows how dull and devoid of imagination you are and how desperate you are to claim anyone as English.  Have you tossers heard of Hadrian’s Wall?  The Scottish Parliament?  I know why you think he is an Englishman.  Andy is a very very dull lad that had all imagination drained from his body at an early age. But deep down it must rankle you to see Andy ‘Hootmon’ Murray win because you Englishmen hate the Scots.  But I’ll tell you something for nothing old sausage – not as much as they hate you.

 Fact Three:  The only real thing you (England) have won lately is the Ashes First Test.  And you won that because you cheated.  Stuart Broad failed to walk despite having clearly hit a catch to slips.   He is just a horrible little spotty spoilt herbert.  He is now defended by that stupidly tattooed South African lump who once had a hairstyle reminiscent of a skunk, Kevin Pietersen who says he has every right not to walk.   And speaking of South Africans – how many ex-Boers do you have in your rotten cheating team?

To paraphrase the Australian Bodyline era cricketer William Woodfull, “There were two teams out there; one was trying to play cricket and the other was not.” So it seems the only thing you Englishmen have actually earned lately, you bunch of simpering Simons, is our continued and deserved contempt you horrible little people.

The language of violence – Just another conversation with Team Blood

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I’m not a wowser.  I’m quite fond of a ‘love-tap’ and a ‘squirrel grip’ when done to a Queenslander.  It springs from the time I injudiciously told an irreverent Bjelke-Petersen joke in that state and was subsequently knocked out.  What I don’t like is the Fairfax rugby league writers that seem to think they can save their sinking, shrinking paper by becoming even more violently tabloid than the Terrorgraph.

In today’s SMH the Fairfax Team Blood’s Michael Carayannis, writes that Blues player, Trent Merrin has said “I’m not going to pull punches if provoked.”  Dopey Merrin instigated a silly ineffective punchathon in Game II of the State of Origin series not because he was provoked but because he is obviously stupid and had no real impact on the game until that time.  Just in case we didn’t understand what stupid violent men do in league, Team Blood put a large photo next to Carayannis’s story of NSW captain Paul ‘Pig-Dog’ Gallen thumping Nate ‘The Defecator’ Miles in the gob.

Read further into the paper and you find, Andrew Webster (Chief Sports Writer) getting quite moist about the Origin I barney, ‘Pig-Dog’ v ‘The Defecator’.  Webster obviously has the scoop of what ‘The Defecator’ said to the ‘Pig-Dog’ – it’s along the lines of “Is that the best you’ve got? C’mon then. Let’s go.”  Pure Shakespeare.  But then Webster goes on to  talk about other recent indiscretions including Billy “The Skidmark” Slater’s elbow on Mitchell Pearce‘s cheek in Origin II. The paper is riddled with this sort of nonsense and very little serious analysis but they should not be singled out.

When Warriors played the Brisbane Broncos recently the television coverage by a New Zealand television station and shown on Fox Sports did little to restore anyone’s faith that the media were taking the violence in league seriously.  After a Warrior’s try they showed footage of a ‘fan’ in a Warriors mask dragging his thumb across his throat in a cutting motion.  Later that night when the Newcastle Knights beat the Gold Coast Titans it was reported as the “Knights smashing the Titans”. It’s not that the administrators, the players and the fans haven’t given the media enough violent incidents to write about.  It seems that a new wave of SMS hacks simply do not have a solid grounding in the sport they write about and therefore they write about easy stuff –  the biff, the blood and the bull dust.

And now in Sydney on this rainy Tuesday night we may even see more violence for the Fairfax Team Blood to write about.  Tonight the NSW Blues have been given the night off for a ‘bonding session’ by their extremely thoughtful and wise coach, Loz ‘Mad Eyes’ Daley.  So if you see a member of Team Blood hanging around the Cross tonight looking for a Bungling Blue or two.  Help him out.  Go up to him and give him something to write about – give him the best you’ve got – give him a love-tap.

Rugby Union – never heaven mainly boring

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So this is the game they play in heaven is it?  In that case the concept of heaven must have been drawn up from plans taken from Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’.

The glimpses of this special heaven have been on show for the last month or so  – though it seems longer – with the British Lions tour of Australia.  This rugby team representing the cream of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales came to us via a piss poor match against a sad, disheveled bunch of Barbarians (Baa Baas in rugby speak) who looked medicated in Honkers.  This match was staged before a braying bunch of Hooray Henrys and pissed expats at the request basically of HSBC who paid a shit-load of money to have the boys stop-off on their way to the colony.  You will not see a bogan beer sponsor anywhere. Rugby union sponsor land is the land of the wealth generators who hope to trap the high net-worth individuals who crave so dearly their dose of this incredibly dull game.

There is a sense in every aspect of rugby to suggest that this is a game for those who have attended St Bede’s of the Bleeding Buttocks or other such clannish private sector schools that nourish the inner child’s desire to be a merchant banker.  The old English saying, “Football is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians, and rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen” tends to suggest the sense of entitlement that drips from the game’s followers.  Say that the sport is an elitist light for attracting like-minded must-have moths brings scorn from the rugger-buggers who cite the number of Polynesian players now playing the sport as evidence that this is the game of the people.  The reality is somewhat different.

The record of indigenous players in Rugby Union is poor.  As the wonderful ex-Wallaby, Mark Ella commented in his Australian article in May 2013;

“Watching other sports speak so proudly of their indigenous athletes makes me feel disenchanted about rugby union. My sport likes to talk the talk but fails to deliver.

Rugby makes very little effort to encourage participation from those outside of the private school sector.”

What has been overlooked is that this Lions tour has simply highlighted the major emerging weakness of rugby union.  It is fundamentally a highly technical game and it is getting worse.  The stubborn refusal of the IRB to actually have rules that make sense and that can be consistently interpreted by referees is astonishing.  In the early 1800s, when William Webb Ellis attended the Rugby School, the alleged starting ground of the game, there were no formal rules.  Little has changed.  As Rob Gibson wrote in the SMH Rugby Heaven, “Casual viewers of last Saturday’s Test will have been baffled, as so many have over the years, at the constant packing and repacking of scrums by South African referee Craig Joubert, and his random allocation of blame for its repeated collapses and other misadventures.”

Of course the ‘purists’ will bang-on about the phases, the rolling mauls and other subtleties of the game as they clutch their moist groins bemoaning that we mere mortals cannot see the real game.  But I say bull fuck to you boyo – I see the game that could replace Mogadon.  You and your Gucci gang are like P76s – you are disappearing from the earth because you no longer have the capacity to be relevant in a time when fast, open, skillful play is what people want.

If you look at the statistics from the Second Kickathon played in Melbourne last Saturday night as stated in greenandgoldrugby.com you will find sobering stats.

“The Wallabies also carried the ball 459 metres to the Lions’ 140.  Israel Folau was a standout on attack once again. 90 metres from 11 carries with 6 defenders beaten and 2 clean line breaks.”

It tells the true story of heaven doesn’t it?  Heaven is a place where you really cannot run free unless you have had a grounding in less controlled sports.  Heaven is a place of constant whistle blowing – arh the bells the bells.   When you compare the 1328 metres made on average by a rugby league team in the NRL in 80 minutes you start to wonder whether union will end up a curio enjoyed by a smitten few over a tincture of sherry.

But still the smugness of the Barnacle Bill Pulver who now heads the game is somewhat overwhelming.  Pulver’s comments about NRL/AFL convert Israel Folau were like a cheap perfume that strangles reason after a brace of golden throat charmers.  Pulver was quoted in the press as saying that Folau would become a very good player once he understood the “nuances” of the game.  What “nuances” do you speak of Barnacle?  Catching the ball cleanly? Scoring tries?  Running the ball? Taking on the man and beating them?  All the things that most rugby players have forgotten about.

This is the sort of talk you would expect from the head knob of a game played in heaven as he looks down on the unwashed.  It is also the attitude that will continue to see the game serve the elite few and bore the majority of us into an atheist’s stupor.

Consultants equal whatever you want – it’s what they do best

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This will be a short post – I don’t really want to bore you but can someone tell me is the current definition of a consultant that I have match the one they have?  Mine is simply that a consultant is someone who is paid well above their worth and does stuff-all to tell the person signing the cheques that they are incredibly good.  Are we on the same page?  Yes that’s what a consultant would say – the same page.  Well in fact that’s what it seems the majority of consultants do. That is to ensure that the people who employ them are on the page.  That is that any so-called, independent report written by the top consultant tools around town reflect favourably on the client.  Hoot mon – it’s the old ‘who pays the piper’ riff isn’t it Jamie?

I read yesterday in that glorious piece of Sabbath freckle wipe (The Sun Herald) that Echo, the consortium who wants to polish the fading Star casino is taking on ‘Son of Goanna‘ Jamie Packer‘s Buggaryou zillion dollar casino for high rollers.  From all reports the Echo proposal is a thoughtful piece of work – pledging bridges and bouncers with backgrounds in bonsai, Liszt and the ballet.

The Freckle trumpets, courtesy of the new breed of investigative reporter, Tim Barlass, “Secret billion-dollar plans revealing key elements of one of the two bids vying to dominate the city’s casino business in the future can be revealed for the first time.”  Gosh, secret, really?  Perhaps Tim is a distant nephew of Bluey Bargearse – now that would make sense.  How else would Timmy get a “secret” report?

But wait there is more.  Super sleuth, Sean Nicholls from the Freckle has uncovered yet another “confidential” report done by PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper).  Yes that’s how they want it portrayed in print – the little “w” is obviously due to the devalued nature of the Waterhouse brand name after cousin Tommy let the side down.

Strangely the ‘little w’ confidential report trashes Jamie Packer’s claim that his Buggaryou Project would bring in millions of visitors to Sydney.  They (or Echo say as they are paying them) it’s a mere 10,000 visitors.  And ‘little w’ should know they have a “Private Business Barometer” on their site.  It is obviously a very good tool for developing slogans such as “What you can do today to realise and discover the potential of tomorrow”.  Well bugger me – that’s a deep crock.

 

Packer’s Crown mob employed Allen Consulting so obviously the ‘Big As’ are going to be glass half-full on Crown stuff.  No, it’s overflowing like a waterfall – growth of $440M per annum and an extra 1400 jobs.  But hold onto your Keno cards, Echo’s pencillers, the “little w”, obviously use a different slide rule as they say only 810 jobs and a paltry $90M!

 

But wait there is even more. Sunday night news was full of John ‘Lucky Starr‘ O’Neill* spruiking the benefits of the Echo/Star proposal.  Now Lucky has had more jobs than Warnies had roots but if he’s behind the proposal then it’s got to be good.  John’s no mug.

 

 

Come this morning the Freckle’s print partner, the Sydney Morning Herald put on a new face.  A wrap-around cover featuring – wait for it – The Star.  Now is it a coincidence that Freckle’s leak, Lucky and the wrap-around all came within 24 hours?  No that’s what integrated marketing is all about – you simple fool.  It’s about dangling the advertising dollar out there in exchange for pretty press puff pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

So what’s going on here?  Leaked, confidential documents going to the press.  Two large consultancy firms coming up with totally different figures that appear to match their master’s expectations. Can we no longer trust consultants? Can we no longer expect balance from the press?

It’s chaos, our complex world is spinning.  Do we really need a bigger casino let alone two? I need to have my compass reset.  I wonder if ‘little w’ could lend me their ‘ethical business barometer’ – I hear it was last used in the sixties.

 

 

* You will all remember Lucky Starr’s 1962 hit, “I’ve been Everywhere”. If not do yourself a favour.

 

The simple game played by some even simpler people needs a special solution

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So playing in the State of Origin is on top of Tweets Dugan’s bucket list is it? Well, knock me over with a six-pack of stupidity.  Was that the same bucket Tweets and Blake the Shake Ferguson were chilling the champagne bottles in at the 2230 Bar while the Shake was seeking love in all the wrong places.  And look call me old school, but slugging down directly from bottle, a couple of gallons of Merde de la Vigne in a public place, when you have been given the honour of representing your state is a bloody disgrace. 

According to the Illawarra Mercury Blake Ferguson was congratulating Josh Dugan on his return to State of Origin via twitter nine minutes after Dr George Peponis announced the team.  Ferguson channeling twin influences of Shakespeare and Snoop Dog, tweeted; “Congrats to big joshy Dugan very happy for you bra 🙂 @Josh_Dugan #wereback,” By 6.30pm the former teammates were at Northies, the popular nightspot in Sydney’s south, and were happily posing for photographs. Shortly after 10pm, they had made their way to 2230 Restaurant and Bar, where they were seen drinking champagne straight from the bottle. What then happened will be for the courts to decide and despite Blake’s obviously excited mood he deserves not to be judged until all the facts are in.  

What can be judged is the level of stupidity these two serial clowns have demonstrated over the last six months.  Is it simply a case of young, dumb and full of rum or is it more?  Is it a case of ingrained arrogance in certain players that is fed by sycophantic player managers and clubs and recruiters who don’t want to lose the chance of snaring a fallen player or alienating a talented one?

Apart from Shake and Tweets wine tasting adventures in the last two weeks we have had Cowboy and Blues player, James Toot-Toot-Tamou, without a licence and gut full of grog driving pissed in Townsville followed by George Beagle Burgess tossing the caber in public. The 21-year-old George Beagle, one of four Beagle brothers has been charged with two counts of wilful damage after he allegedly threw a street sign through the rear window of a vehicle following post-match celebrations in the Cairns suburb of Redlynch early on Monday morning. A contrite Beagle barked; “I acknowledge that I am a role model for kids and I will do everything I can to restore my reputation through working harder in the community.” One has to ask – what community would want any of these dumb, useless clumps contaminating their space and what could they actually add to the community? Perhaps they could be melted down to make speed humps?

The sport was in crisis. It was obvious then that the movers and shakers in the NRL had to come up with a solution. Wait. Wheels are spinning, cogs are engaging, there is movement as the mighty intellect of the NRL dices and slices. Yes and the winner is! BODYGUARDS. Well I’ll be slowly poked in the eye with a corner post. Why didn’t we think of it? The way to stop this bad bevaviour is to give players their own bodyguard. But where do we stop and don’t security guys have a rather poor record in the restraint stakes?

Manly chief David Smarts Perry was not at the club the last time the Sea Eagles hired a bodyguard to protect the players in public but believes security measures should be considered. ”I think the NRL should look at all options,” he said. Well Smarts, I think in the light of the Manly fans alleged racial abuse of Bulldog’s players and one family member last week I think it is reasonable that you look at bodyguards for everyone attending Fortress Brookvale.

Bulldogs boss and future NRL head of football Todd Lettuce Greenberg was a voice of reason, as usual, when he said bodyguards were not the answer. ”No, I don’t think that really addresses the issue, to be honest,” he said. ”I think it’s personal accountability. I’ve done that with the Bulldogs over a number of years, and it’s about holding our players to a certain standard.” Sadly there appears to be no standards.

Phil Gus Gould believes that errant players are far too easily able to sign up to another club in the same year after lapses of madness. I agree with Gus. Ditch them. There are plenty of other players willing to play the game rather than playing up.

So I have a solution that allows for redemption but imposes standards. It’s called the Urine Solution and it sets clear standards of expected behaviour. When an NRL player gets on the piss and gets pissed or pisses in public, drives pissed, treats people piss poor, they themselves will be pissed off. They will be pissed off to far flung places on the planet where local rugby league teams will welcome them with open arms. They will play a season for teams like the Tumubarumba Greens, the Bidgee Bulls, the Moree Porkchoppers, the Guyra Supa Spuds or the Berry Magpies. They’ll be paid match payments only and will have to have a full-time job locally for a year. And then – only then if they can actually behave like a decent human being they will be accorded the privilege of returning to play in the NRL.

It’s a simple solution. It has to be.

Tommy the Teeth kick-starts legislation as Cash Conroy swallows merde muffin

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The photo of Julia Gillard flanked by a taciturn Stephen Conroy in the Sydney Morning Herald told it all. Gillard was announcing new proposed legislation to ban the spruiking of live odds during sports broadcasts, two years after it had promised to crack down on the controversial form of betting advertising.

In the photo Cash Conroy looked as if he’d just eaten a merde muffin and it was no surprise when he came out later and said that television was struggling and “cannot give up betting revenue”. In The Age article written by Heath Ashton, Conroy is quoted as saying that “Labor has cut more than $250 million from the cost of doing business for television networks since 2010 but the industry can’t afford to forgo the advertising dollar of betting companies”. This revenue is estimated at $40 million a year. Cash went on to say that life had become ‘‘harder and harder’’ for the commercial free-to-air stations despite the government’s decision to halve the licence fees for them and award two free digital channels each.

All this is rather amusing. A Senator, allegedly a Labor Senator goes into bat for an industry that’s dished up a decade of simple news stew that has been heavily flavoured with proprietor prejudice and limited facts. Why would Conroy give them a break? Stuff them. Let them slip into the new media pond and if they cannot swim then let them sink. Would we miss another Current Affair or Footy Show? Perhaps Cash drives a Ford?

No, Cash Conroy has bigger fish to fry. Cash is of the right – a conservative – a big picture fellow. These are the ones who have read a few economics books and think the market with a little twist can be trusted to self-regulate. He is a catholic and was born in England. Enough said. He obviously doesn’t think imagination is an important character trait either as to listen to Cash speak on media matters is like listening to an accountant explain Section 79A of the Taxation Act on loop.

What is the most amazing thing here is that it took a short, suited spiv with flashing gnashers to get some federal legislative action on gaming advertising.

What sort of flimsy cheese-hearted politicians are these. According to a poll in the SMH 94% of people say that the restrictions are welcome news but a whopping 62% say they do not go far enough. Why would Gillard and Conroy go part of the way – why would they not drop their strides and get stuck in? Already the Chubby Checker of state politics, Twister O’Farrell has played them off a break by saying it doesn’t go far enough. Twister is calling for a blanket ban on gambling advertising during live sports events, as well as a crackdown on online betting, saying Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s reforms are ”far too little”.

So at a time when we see the Waterhorse brand trashed and struggling we see another brand struggling too. The Labor brand has been so watered down that it is unrecognisable. Once a value driven brand it is now purely poll driven. Tommy Waterhorse has the Liberal/National Party at tomato sauce odds of $1.05 and Labor, drifting and unwanted at $8. Labor is “off” and you don’t need Blue Tongue’s mates to tell you. The unregulated markets have spoken and told us that they have about as much chance as a bubble through a mincer.

Rugby league – a simple game played by (some) even simpler twits

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It was great news for St George rugby league fans when Josh ‘Tweets’ Dugan signed for the injury scarred NRL team. Well that’s how it should read. But in most people’s minds, those who have an IQ above their age, there would be a lingering doubt about Tweets.

There is a sense that he actually still doesn’t understand the implications of responsible use of social media let alone know how to spell it. Some may remember that Tweets Dugan was put under immense pressure for not getting the accolades he so richly deserves and then by telling a fellow tweeter to “end it”. Dugan got involved in tweets at twenty paces after he posted a photo of himself and a friend with their shirts off on photo-sharing app Instagram. The conversation went badly like this;

“I’d hate to be ya nuffie, At least my dog doesn’t speak up like you ya loud mouth … who are ya by the way? I could never play another game of NRL and I’ve still accomplished more than you. Haha righto Marky Mark: go get another Raiders Tattoo then end yourself. Your mrs is hot too by the way haha you obviously don’t read the news more the fool you haha your a joke. All my tats put together are better than your one rubbish one plus your bad head. Should call you don bradman ya batting well above average with her. Send her my way ill show her the time of her life.”

When exposed by mainstream media and ending the possibility of a $2M deal with the Brisbane Broncos, Tweets blamed pressure.

“I know I coulda handled myself better but things have built up!”

It’s not so much that Tweets doesn’t appear sincere to resurrect his flagging career. He just doesn’t seems that bright. But compared to one of his fellow tweeter twits, Tariq Sims he is pure Genome Project. Tariq plays for the North Queensland Cowboys and his parents gave him an Arabic birth name that apparently means “evening caller” or “striker”. But that is not apparent from his Twitter account where his profile proclaims that he is;

“part time rapper. heapppsssss into fishing Chuck Norris wannabe tha vill”.

Now I’m not sure what Tariq is fishing for or what bait he is using but he has captured the imagination of 7,359 followers. But I don’t think he is employing even a tincture of imagination here as he seems pure polyester. Now I know the conventions of Twitter allow most to spell as if they were shortchanged by being given only a 12 letter alphabet but this character has single-handedly reconstructed the English language.

Tweets Duggan has told the media that during his suspension he spent time on a building site and found that actually having to work for a living made him realise what he had given up. What he had given up were those sunny afternoons sipping cruisers with Blake ‘Fergo’ Ferguson and becoming involved in inane tweetathons with inked lumpoonies who love to act like faux gangstas from LA but who actually come from small breadbins like Cooma or Gerringong.

St George hierarchy see no reason to stop Tweets from using social media responsibly. Their CEO, Peter Doust says “There will not be a ban at the club for Josh however, he will be required to adhere to the Club’s comprehensive social media and communications policies and be involved in ongoing education in this area, in particular. We recognise that social media is a contemporary method of communication that can be extremely positive for communication when used responsibly, particularly for athletes in communicating with their fans.”

Well it is or indeed it could be a great communications tool for the Striker Sims, Fergs, Tweets and the wonderfully named Sandor Earl. Sadly the only tools here are the athletes. A sample of recent tweets from these great communicators;

Blake Ferguson ‏@fergyferg2 9 Mar
@tariqsims @chicko9 @josh_dugan @sandorearl @williams_297 thanks my bra! Miss ya head lad even tho I see it on insta modeling up 24/7

Sandor Earl ‏@sandorearl 10 May
Me and the man himself getting our supplement fix at elitesuppscanberra elitesuppscanberra… http://instagram.com/p/ZIX6LTJkNr/

chicko segeyaro ‏@chicko9 20h
“The wolf on top the hill is never as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill..true but wen the wolf on top the hill is hungry the food there”

Tariq sims ‏@tariqsims 9 May
View from my windo!! Notttt baddddd pic.twitter.com/AlbbXlEcoB

What a rich field of thought and language these chaps traverse. Apart from assisting Australian school kids to slip further down the OECD educational rankings these clowns do not want to use social media to communicate with fans in a thoughtful way. All they seem to want to do is spell badly, show off their tats on Instagram and indulge in banal fart-like social squirts.

The majority of NRL players are good solid young blokes who bash and barge each weekend and end up with bad knees. We don’t really want them to communicate. We just want them to play league well. They shouldn’t use social media to continually prove that they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. We need to stop them bringing the game into disrepute. My social media policy for these and other NRL lumps would be quite simple. It’s titled “Social Media for Clowns” and is deliberately quite simple.

“Every rugby league player has to pass a primary school ethics and a Year 6 spelling exam before they are allowed to have a Twitter account.”

Now that should sort the wheat from the chaff even though I know the resultant yield would make a very, very small loaf of bread.

Birds of a feather flock together until self-interest flies into the nest

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I am shattered.

Yesterday Randwick became more boil than royal as my dear, dear treasured racecourse icons indulged in petty squabbling in the enclosure, betting ring and stewards room of headquarters over the poor performance in the All-Aged Stakes of the More than Ready sired six-year old mare, More Joyous. The four who donned gloves were the Eastern Waterhorses ( Gaitor, Robbie and Little Tommy as some sort of equine tag team) up against the battler’s friend and conflicted multi John ‘Blue Tongue’ Singleton.

What was profoundly disappointing about this whole affair was the way our ‘treasures’ let the side down. Instead of heading to some ten-hatted restaurant to work out a minor tiff over a bucket of Bolly and gingered quail eggs they stood toe to toe flipping the bird at one and other. This was on the last day of the Spring Carnival before horses head north to Newmanville. This was to be a time of celebration of the winning horses and their connections but they were upstaged by this tawdry display of pique by Blue T. To many this seemed yet another self-centred act by a man who is so used to getting his own way under the guise of the good natured rogue, a knock about bloke taking on the establishment.

I think that from the television coverage of the fracas I saw Gaitor Waterhorse shift ground slightly to put a shoulder charge on Blue T as she huffed from the enclosure. Now this is a girl who was educated at Kincoppel-Rose Bay and has a Bachelor of Arts. She has such worthy screen credits as The Young Doctors and Doctor Who. This is not your usual Eastern Suburbs Sally who drinks a floatfull of giggle juice and lets her fascinator slip. Although can someone refresh my memory. Did Young Gaitor when she was cutting her training teeth diddle her stablehands by not paying award wages? Surely not. She is a lady.

But as Keato, the emerald city’s architectural taste tout once said, “in a two horse race always back self-interest because you know it’s trying”. Well what was going on here? Whose interest was being served? Not the owners of All Too Hard, the eventual winner of the All Aged Stakes yesterday, as they were relegated to middle pages as Blue T and Gaitor Waterhorse got front and back pages of the Daily Dreads.

Blue T is claiming that there was a potential conflict of interest between the trainer and the bookmaker when the bookmaker knows more than the owner or in fact the general public. The nub of Blue T’s argument as outlined in his statement to stewards is as reported in Chris Roots’ Sun Herald article:

“(He) was told this morning by a friend of mine, a close friend, who is (an ex) Group 1 jockey that he was with Tom Waterhouse, Gai’s son and bookmaker, last night with close friends of mine that are internationally known figures. Tom Waterhouse advised them last night that the horse had no chance. She had problems and that surprised him because I intended to have a six-figure sum bet on the horse because my advisers said it was a certainty.”

Well Blue T may have a case but what a wally wanker! Not only does Blue T has to tell us that he has a close friend who is an ex-Group 1 jockey, he now wants us to all know he now has close friends who are “internationally known”. Well I wonder what they are “internationally known” for? It now appears that one of them, ‘Robbo’, could only be internationally known as a clown. And he also wants us to know that he has buckets of cash too. He was going to have a six-figured sum on his horse. He is not your average John, Blue T is a classic big noter.

In the press the big noting Blue T is referred to as the “flamboyant Singleton”. One of manifestations of Blue T’s flamboyance is that at times of winning he likes to show his good bloke credentials by scattering sheckels on the bar and shouting the public shit awful drops such as Tooheys New when Belle du Jour won the 2000 Golden Slipper and in 2008 patrons in nineteen Central Coast and Newcastle taverns were given the dubious honour of having free Blue Tongue beer when Tuesday Joy won the BMW. In fact one of the joints that dished out the Blue Tongue beer, well dished out is a bit strong as each patron only got one beer, was Iguana Joe’s at Gosford – yes the same stamping ground, so to speak, of Mrs Della. Perhaps it was the Blue Tongue that made her do it. But I digress as usual.

The chorus for this equine opera was provided by Little Tommy and Robbie Waterhorse. Look they say bookmakers are a dying breed and in the case of these two one can only hope. You’ll remember that Robbie had a spell in the paddock after the Fine Cotton sting. I personally think he was the fall guy. I have no problem with any person who gets told that there is a dead cert cashing in on it. It’s a mere technicality that some clowns from Newmanville decided to henna wash and spray paint the substituted commodity while drinking cans on the morning of the race. Big deal. Move on I say. But with little Tommy there is something about him that everybody seems to hate. Do people dislike little Tommy because of his pervasive advertising presence or is there a touch of the unlikable spiv about him? I’m not sure. I’m keeping an open mind about the lad – for a time.

So in the coming weeks we will all have to endure these vain creatures as they sing and slug it out in the media and the stewards room initially and then possibly the courts as Little T rightly preps his lawyers to protect himself and mummy’s reputation. But then my interest will wane because ultimately I don’t care about any of these people. In fact I don’t like any of them. Because I’m a little weird. I don’t like these briliantined bar flies, celebrity trainers and faux larrikins that air kiss themselves before bed. I like the hard doers, the breadline trainers, the battling bush bookies – I like the real racing people.

It’s good news week and someone’s dropped a bomb somewhere contaminating the atmosphere and blackening the sky

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For those of you who aren’t familiar with the music of Hedgehoppers Anonymous the title of this blog will mean nothing and to most people the content will have a corresponding effect.

Hedgehoppers Anonymous were a British band of the swinging sixties and their big, well only hit was “It’s Good News Week” – a line of that song is referenced in the above heading. It was an apocalyptic tale of nuclear war set to a sixties beat with the catchy line “Someone dropped a bomb some where, contaminating the atmosphere”. The lads were from the local RAF at Wittering but after the one hit in 1965 the band broke up a year later. Singer Mick Tinsley had a great voice – somewhere between Gene Pitney and Eden Kane. Their star burned brightly for a transient moment then they were gone.

Well personality sports commentators are contaminating the air too but unfortunately unlike the Hedgehoppers these self-absorbed knobs are unlikely to fizz out of the frame any time soon. They are highly prized and respected parts of the media wheel and they do know how to self-grease that wheel.

The tragedy here is that some actually have the intelligence and knowledge to make a valuable contribution to the viewers’ understanding of the game. However some have abandoned the basics of the job and have become the flash Harrys – the white shoe brigade of sports journalism. They deserve our condemnation for what they have done to the job. The job in case you have forgotten in the mist of their self-lording sprays is to simply add something to the sports pictures that we have to watch on either Channel Nine or Fox. To add acute observations would be good and insightful analysis would also be greatly appreciated. But what drivel do these blowhards add – well lets just consider just two examples in the last week or so.

In the replay of the Sunday Rugby League match of the day (Saints versus the Tinks) on Channel Nine we are treated to eighty minutes of football with another forty minutes of ads or filler. You know the drill – ads from little Tommy Waterhorse followed by Joel Madden flogging KFC – the fatuous followed by the fattening. On that matter, how that tattooed log (Madden) got the Logie recently for Best New Talent (yes I know he’s got a Foundation but so has a toilet block) must appear in any new book of media miracles. If this purveyor of fatty food is the best new talent in this land we are seriously sausaged old chum and we should all turn off the halogens, get in a boat and leave for the promised land.

Look I do understand the concept of cross-promotion and advertising but I didn’t think that “serious” commentators like Phillip ‘Gus’ Gould would feel the need to contaminate their craft with endorsements of shit-awful dribble like The Noice even if the stupid old tool actually likes it. Phillip is a great insightful sports commentator even though he often repeats his Sunday comments in Fairfax on the Monday which might suggest he is either very busy or has Alzheimers. But there he was mid first half bantering on-air with Ray “Rabbits” Warren about the when and whats of The Noice. And of course on cue a banner ad for the same shit music show dribbled across the bottom of the screen. By the way I love ‘Rabbits’. He could call a cold. But somewhere along the way these sad, self-absorbed old blokes have lost it. They have allowed the marketing moles to undermine the integrity of the job they were put there to do.

So when the arm wrestle between the Tinks and Saints is revving up we have Gould and Warren dribbling like codgers on a park bench. That’s not what you are there for. It’s not the Sydney Theatre Company and it’s not Chekov. This is Rugby League. This is sweat and boils. This is bruise and barge. So if you cannot do us the basic courtesy of calling the game with experienced analysis you should get on the boat and leave it to someone who can.

So let’s look at just one of the new breed of commentators. Let’s start with Matty Johns and his new league show on Fox, ‘Monday Night’. Now this is a new talent worthy of a Logie. In what category? Well you be the judge.

Matty had an unsuccessful run on Channel 7 in 2010 with ‘The Matty Johns Show’ that was allegedly a “smut-free” version of the ‘Footy Show’. He has obviously learnt a lot since then.

I hadn’t been lucky enough to catch this new talents show until last Monday night. It follows Fox’s Monday evening match, so I normally turn the sound off so I don’t have to listen to “Brandy” Alexander whine for eighty minutes and then fall asleep. But for some strange reason I stayed up. The half-time on Fox’s Monday night league has been enhanced by the addition of celebrity sprinter, Matt ‘Sherve’ Shervington. Matt was the champion of something, possibly of the bleeding obvious over 30 seconds. He stands in front of a Don Lane special glass table at half-time and with Mark ‘Gaz’ Gasnier, the “fire-up” king of Origin. But his set-up statement to Brandy at half-time really became the bench mark for commentary.

“Brandy…arhhh the passing game from the Tigers…they’re….arhhh actually catching and passing…”. Gee, where do you go from there? So precise, so…arhhh insightful.

But I digress. The first thing we see of Matty is a pre-show cross towards the end of the footy. We see him wiping plates and allegedly asking Mr Murdoch how he’d like his eggs. See Matty is one of your wags. An irreverent knockabout lad in the mould of Hoges. Taking on the establishment. What Matty would have us believe is that he takes no instructions from bosses, after all he is a lad from the coal fields of Newcastle. But in reality Matty if Mr M asked you to wipe anything of his you probably would.

On a set that looked liked it was made from disused office Furniture Matty’s Monday Night crew consists of Gordon ‘Gordy’ Tallis, Nathan ‘Hiney’ Hindmarsh and guest Laurie ‘Lossa’ Daley.

So is it league we start with? No, Johns makes a reference to Hiney’s eyes suggesting he had been on the ganja. There are lot’s of giggles and Cheech and Chong references. It’s all jolly and matey. One couldn’t imagine that this is in the same week that clubs are under increased scrutiny about illegal supplements and the press is full of reports of calves blood and colons.

But it got better. Johns cuts to footage of a league photographer, called Col who is shown taking photos of teams coming out of the tunnel. Col’s mistake is to move between a couple of cheerleaders and squat on the ground to get his shot.

“Col I think it’s pretty illegal getting ‘pootie’ shots”. Lots of giggles followed by an “only joking Col”.

Of course it finally got on to league and the State of Origin with incumbent Blues coach Daley asked by Johns, “Where’s ya head at mate?”

So that’s our lot in League Land. Our game is full of jolly, chummy, matey blokes who think that what they have to say is more important than the game they are paid vast sums to commentate on and they are contaminating the atmosphere. What we need is a clean out. We need something to go off in the middle of this matey, blokey, self-centred world and when it does let us hope we have something to replace it that is close to intelligent commentary without the dribble.

Postscript: Yesterday the cross promotion reference on Sunday League was ‘The Big Bang Theory’ – Rabs reckons that Gus just loves it. Now doesn’t that make a good news week?

Well I’ll be beclouded if I am not a strategic purveyor of meaningless tosh

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There was a time when a truck carrying fruit was called a fruit truck. Now it is highly likely that a truck full of fruit and vegetables will have proudly emblazoned on its side “Herbaceous Plant Logistics”.

In simpler times a truck was a truck. This was a time when there were only a few careers available to you when you left school. If you were in one of the less academic classes of a comprehensive high school then there was a fair chance you’d be driving that fruit truck and if you were good at numbers but couldn’t dance you became an accountant. Simple.

So in these complex times there seems to be a requirement by many for an increased complexity in our language. We seem to crave words that heighten the importance of what we do and use words that make other people think we are important and therefore want us. Therefore every clown in town is either a Director, Executive Officer or Senior something and they are generally involved in something strategic or logistical.

The other day I went past a shop run by another eastern suburbs spiv that proclaimed he was purveyor of fine food. It made me smile. A purveyor – it almost sounded obscene and at the prices it was. I didn’t go inside because I knew I wouldn’t find any Black Cat Chocolate selection or Coon Cheese slices in the Purveyor’s pad.

It was on the same day that the very little man from News, Kimbo Williams used the term “chemical conversation” when Doogie Niven Cameron, trained fitter and machinist, ex-AMW secretary and now member of the Gillard graveyard shift had the temerity to question News about its lack of ethics. The carefully groomed Williams, who is increasingly beginning to look like one of the crew out of Dad’s Army, peered owlishly over his goggles and spat extremely smart words out at Cameron. That evening the bug-eyed MP Rob Oakeshott banged on about agnostic platforms in relation to the new media laws. I began to sweat. The room was swimming, I was bewildered and drowning in a tosh mire and the only way out was to turn everything off and sip from memories cup cheered on by the scarlet brew.

Don Watson’s wonderful site weaselwords is full of people’s attempts to inflate the importance of what they do or sell. Read the prose below from Watson’s site and try to imagine what they are talking about:

“The love for beautiful things, the knowledge of the functional and technical aspects of the product, the belief that domestic life is an individual space to conquer so that freedom of choice can truly nourish, in short, the determination to empower an authentic life style, unconditioned and untainted by consumerism, is the mission and goal.”

I was thinking a sex toy here – perhaps a Steely Dan. But no it’s the product description on the box containing three cheese knives.

Titles across the corporate world preen the egos of suited charlatans and generally have no connection with what they actually do. Why do we need senior strategic toads to orchestrate front-end schemas or deploy innovative content? I’d suggest it is because some of us feel the need to deliver a complex response to an increasingly challenging and complex work environment.

There is an increasing need to obfuscate (see it’s happening to me)? In Nerdland obfusciation or “beclouding” is used to refer to the practice of hiding the intended meaning and often the reason is a need to make code unable to be compromised. But in IT it has a reason to exist. Elsewhere it is simply the chosen language of misleading scoundrels.

Obviously sport is not immune from the habit of gilding the lily. The highly successful rugby league club, Melbourne Storm would have us believe that their Storm Advantage Payment “is not a membership package but a payment plan to make life simple”. Such is their concern for the fiscal prudence of their fans that they want to help them “manage their cash flow”. That appears to be a flow from the fans’ pockets into the fat News coffers particularly if you go for the payment plan for a “Sup-paw-tor” membership for your pet at just $35 a year.

In gaming the Punter’s Pal, little Tommy Waterhouse is trying to recruit a ‘high impact editorial manager’ who will be charged with ‘leveraging’ more media opportunities. In my day a high impact manager was a bloke who belted you for not doing your job.

Cricket Australia loves a good title too and in November 2011 appointed Pat Howard as General Manager, Team Performance. A fabulous yet curious title given that I thought the coach and selectors were responsible for team performance with simple performance criteria such as if you don’t get enough runs or wickets you’re gone. But no, they obviously need a bloke with a special title who owns a string of chemist shops to tell them or a press conference when a bloke is on the nose. It’s really even stranger when you find that Pat the Chemist was the General Manager of the High Performance Unit at the ARU – where his clowning achievement was “recruiting the current Wallabies management”. Now doesn’t that decision smack of high performance?

So where are we now? Well we are in a mess. What most say is not what they do or mean. We need to return to a time of plain English – a time of fruit trucks and bosses. But most of all we need to banish the turd bronzers.