Category Archives: Crumb bums of the day

Getting on the wrong side of the Maules is definitely right

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In these slippery times when a galaxy of inked fools parade like very special tools in social media, texting and bubbling their unmerry way into notoriety there are occasional great acts from elite players that restore one’s faith in what is possible.

David Pocock, openside flanker with the Brumbies and Wallies was caught exercising near, well actually on, a monster truck at the Maules Creek mine on the weekend.

Now every bum-heavy couch dweller knows that the Wallies run out of gumption and go in the last quarter of every match they have played this century. Whether it’s too many soft pillows and chardonnay showers I don’t know.  But here is young ‘Poco’, a player who is working long and hard to build his level of fitness to a higher level.  By climbing up onto a monster truck and lifting heavy chains to secure himself to same monster, ‘Poco’ has demonstrated that he is a man willing to go the extra yard.  But what happens? He gets a burn notice from the pin-striped pinocchios.

As the Clever Chronicle reported “My parents were always clear with my brothers and I when we were growing up that you have to have the courage of your convictions and that when you commit to something you must fully commit. That’s why, this weekend I travelled to the Leard Blockade,” Pocock said.

He wanted to raise awareness about the plight of the community of farmers and local Gamilaroi people in the Leard Forest region, whose land and sacred sites he said the Maules Creek mine threatened to destroy. 

The 26-year-old was one of nine people arrested at the protest and charged with offences including entering enclosed land without a lawful excuse.

The ARU Toady Unit issued the following press release shortly after.  They were obviously running out of ink or ideas at the time.

“The Australian Rugby Union has issued a formal written warning to David Pocock following his arrest yesterday. While we appreciate David has personal views on a range of matters, we’ve made it clear that we expect his priority to be ensuring he can fulfil his role as a high-performance athlete. The matter is now subject to legal proceedings and we will now let the legal process take its course.”

What a cart load of sanctimonious tosh!  At a time when a player texts a lewd, humiliating photo to a female employee of the ARU and then gets to play weeks later we get this piece of moral turpitude.  Look we all understand about breaking the ‘law’ so don’t use that flimsy given.  Here we are talking about enriching and newly defining the character of a sport that allows participants to express their personal view of the world without prejudice or fear.  In the end Australian Rugby, by trotting out meek lines of not bringing the game into disrepute, player responsibility to the code and other toad-like simpers is simply reversing the game into irrelevance for most thinking and passionate people.

And why should we be proud of this bloke?  Well quite simply he has shown great  courage in risking his playing future and possibly ‘devaluing’ his long term corporate ‘worth’ to do what he considers is right.  In a world that recognised players moral worth rather than their ability to simply conform to convenient and controlling codes of player behaviour then ‘Poco’ would be lauded rather than warned.

To the ARU, once gain you have shown a lack of courage, insight and imagination.

To David Pocock, well done fella, you have all of the above in spades.

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We need a ‘Chilla’ not a character killer

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I read Clothhead Fitzsimon’s article in the Clever Chronicle this week with interest.  It went beyond his normal fare of good journalism, reheated jokes and sideswipes.  A solid writer, amusing after chicken dinner speaker, who slopes in the coffee shops of Mossman crafting columns moated by his laptop and a sling of surl.  This weeks spray was a very effective, well-considered iron fist in glove piece on the very scrubbed and increasingly pinker Alan ‘Bloat’ Jones.  It appears that Bloat has been smacking his thick pursed lips at the thought of being a very important part of the new Wallies.  Like an autograph hunter who is buoyed by the chase of just another signature, Jones still believes he is of the time rather than out of it.

Some credit Jones as being the mastermind behind the Grand Slam win in the early eighties.  I don’t.  He simply had the horse power.  Any bozo with a vocabulary of twenty words and a lettuce whip could have shoved this talented bunch of boofs across the line.  What Bloat is very good at is taking the gold and leaving the tailings. He is great at the black board of history where he arduously scrubs out any other contributors as he underscores and bolds his “struggle street’ credentials.

Of course, Bloat is loved by those inside the tent, however as many have learned if you don’t toady to the Bloat then your stay in the tent is terminated.  Of course this is an extension of the ‘pick and stick’ philosophy that has spawned a rotating bunch of men who come under the spell of a very, very clever man.  Of course the price you pay for being part of this hubris hurdy-gurdy is that you apparently get the flick if you don’t stick.

FitzSimons article mentions Bloat’s criticisms of John Eales.  In a spurn on Triple M, Bloat allegedly called Eales an “overrated player” and admonished him for having both a media commentator role with Schlock Sports and being an ARU director.  Why so Mr Bloat?  Why the need?  Well it is interesting that John Eales was called to give evidence to support John Coates in a defamation case against Bloat some years ago.  I’m not sure whether this may or may not have had any influence on Bloat’s attack on Eales.  However given his ‘p&s’ philosophy one suspects that it could have influenced his words just a wee bit. The ABC reported back then:

A court hearing has begun in Sydney to hear defence arguments and decide damages in a defamation action brought by Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates against radio broadcaster Alan Jones.

Mr Jones commented on an incident in the women’s eight rowing finals at the Athens Olympics, in which one of the crew, Sally Robbins, stopped competing.

The jury found Mr Jones implied that Mr Coates had ordered a cover-up and bullied Robbins’s crew into saying what he wanted them to and that he was incompetent in the way he handled the matter.

A Supreme Court jury has previously found Mr Jones defamed Mr Coates during three broadcasts on 2GB radio in December 2004.

Mr Coates’ lawyer has told the Supreme Court that Mr Jones repeated the allegations, despite being told by former Wallabies captain and women’s rowing team mentor John Eales that they were not true.

FitzSimons also writes in the ‘Clever’ about Jones’s possible ambition, “one of your former charges called me on Wednesday and said it seemed as if you were going to get the Wallabies manager’s role.” Oh dear, how could that be true – you have so, so much on your plate Mr Bloat?  It is interesting to read the wonderful Mark Ella’s comments on the Tour Manager in 1984, Charles ‘Chilla’ Wilson.  Of this former Wallaby captain, Ella said:

“I couldn’t think of a better manager. I played for Australia for six years. Thank God I had Chilla Wilson for three of them. With Jonesy up there dominating everything, Chilla was the perfect foil. He was quiet, unobtrusive and didn’t make a lot of noise.”

So should Jones, the highly successful media man be brought back?  Oh don’t, please don’t bring him back or I’ll be forced onto the Drambuie Drip ..again.  We don’t need this dated windfarmer’s view of Wally World anymore.  We need more ‘chilla’ rather than killer and we need to be fairer and firmer with errant players.  Mr Bloat seems incapable of either.

Checks and the Flaming Edgar…

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I knew Michael Cheika was cut from a different cloth than the normal Rah Rah Royal Blue.  My heart soared when he bounded up onto the podium after the Waratahs’ win wearing beautiful bone slip-ons, baggie trakkies and a winter coat.  It was a strong statement. It was Gold Coast meets Lazy Bones.  It said it’s not what I look like, it’s what I do.

‘Checks’ obviously does not believe in the corporate camouflage stuff unlike some within the rugby hierarchy.  You know the stuff – the herringbone harrys and the busted brat boating hoes that seep of privilege without performance. These winter wonder skids that self-proclaim and herd together in a congratulatory conga line whenever the team comes out to play.  As these chinless charlies enter into never-ending spiral of pretentious conceit our man “Checks’ has no need to pretend.

This fella is not a one-trick pony.  Due to his language skills (French/Italian) he landed a job with Cullottes Dinnigan and later started his own business called ‘Live Fashion’. Yeah right.  I mean if anyone had a chance to put on the Armani it was Checks.  But he didn’t.

Born to Lebanese parents between Redfern and Coogee he cut his teeth playing for NSW and had coaching stints in France and Italy.  He is considered a thoughtful coach – a man of passion who can sometime border on the highly emotional without the Bundy drip. He is up now for Coach of the ‘Wallies’ and no doubt will head off on Friday.  He will not only make a fist of it but he will put his whole, thoughtful and honest body to the wheel.  However there is a lot of cleaning to do.

Bill ‘The Pill’ Pulver spoke of the “core values of our game” on Saturday night after the resignation of Ewen McKenzie. Oh please spare me the syrup.  I wrote some time ago that Ewie didn’t seem to be the man for the job. However I take no pleasure in his demise as I believe he has been treated shabbily.

While ‘The Pill’ blamed the media for all of the mess there is something very wrong here within ARU world. There is a ‘flaming edgar’ simmering at the door of the ARU.  The Pill and others have sat on their hands for far too long and have refused to put it out.

There are no ‘core’ values in the game if players can completely dictate the terms of engagement.  The petulant performance of Hooper and others within the team who blindly supported the disgraceful acts of text treachery by Beale need to be sent packing.  I don’t give a flying fruit bat about who may have or has not been converting behind the sheds nor do I care for those allegedly talented dicks who spoil then demand preferential treatment by the panderers.

Beale, Hooper and anyone else who cares to can toad-off overseas and play for any team that has the ego and cash capacity to contain them. These ego-enlarged players have lost the right to play for our country because they considered themselves to be more important than the team.

Good luck Checks and don’t lose the ‘bone beauties’ fella.

 

Rabbid Abbott – Saviour, Psychopath or Simple Shirtlifter?

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Within 24 hours of his statement that he was going shirt Putin,Tony Abbott has backed away from a blue by saying he was now going to have “a robust conversation, a very robust conversation”.  What a let down.  What a tool.  Another core promise broken.

I’d pay a bundle of bitcoins to see Rabbid Abbott attempted pantsing of Shootin’ Pootin and I bet most of you would too.

I could think of nothing better than these two having a round or two for a rouble or two.  A contest between two of the world leaders who love nothing better than to posture, poke and pan-handle politically.  They may not be the brightest surfing the world stage but they are certainly the most likely to drop duds and engage in physical pursuits.

It’s a promoter’s dream. If I was running the stink I’d stage it at Sea World during the G20.  I’d put a large chunk of ice from the Boondall Iceworld in the Shark Tank to create an iceberg effect.  I’d then have Rabbid and Poots coated in pig fat and lowered onto the berg to batter each other like two desperate, rutting stags.  The purse would be the automatic resignation of the loser from the leadership of their country.  Either way one country wins.

Predictably the usual suspects weighed in to support Rabbid. ‘Soups’ Newman, the tiny terrier premier of Queensland yapped his approval.  Obviously ‘Soups’ doesn’t have the frame to threaten Poots or anyone above twenty-four inches short so he has firmly placed himself behind the Big T.

“That is the thing about Tony Abbott, he has got the guts to do that and I would certainly welcome him making our feelings known to Mr Putin.”

Guts you say ‘Soups’.  Guts.  Is that what it is?  You know who showed guts in the last 24 hours you little toad?  It was not our alleged PM it was a Mr Paul Guard.

Who is Paul Guard?  Well Paul Guard lost both parent’s in the destruction of Flight MH17. In an amazing show of courage on last night’s 7.30 Report he showed why he is a young man to be deeply admired and why Tony Abbott is a disgrace and embarrassment to us all.  Paul Guard spoke clearly on a topic he could be excused for becoming highly emotional about. He said;

“It’s really plays into Putin’s hands in many ways if you were to ostracise him because he does tend to like to paint himself as a bulwark of Russian dominance standing up to the West, so, you know, it’s useful, I think, to engage him and to offer both incentives and potential sanctions, depending on Russia’s behaviour.”

“I don’t think there would be much achieved by uninviting him, not that Australia has that power anyway. But at the end of the day, dialogue is what’s needed and I think that dialogue is going to be useful at the G20 in terms of trying to send Russia a message that there are things Russia could be doing and should be doing to secure peace and to get to the bottom of what happened to MH17 as well.”

In absolute contrast Abbott’s statements and posturing are that of a person who is unable to come to grips with the subtleties of modern politics.  He struggles to form cogent arguments and simply states then restates slogans and grabs.

Paul Guard, like the others who lost family and friends, has been let down.  They all deserve to be represented in world politics by a person who is capable of expressing our national position on such matters with dignity and a higher level of thinking.  Sadly Rabbid Abbott appears to be incapable of both.

 

 

Please spare me – not another tosh sodden story about the Rusties

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It has taken a lot to get me back to the typewriter.   But the avalanche of rugby league tosh and bum-fuddle that has bloated the Daily Dread and the slim-line Clever Chronicle about the Rusties for the past week has finally done it.

Sure it was moderately pleasing to see the Rusties beat the Hasslers. If only that the lesser evil triumphed on the evening.

That there was a player stupid enough to play on with injury in such a match then that is indeed unfortunate.  However when a team’s management is desperate enough for an elusive title, that in this century, they allow not one but two players to play on with significant injuries then why should I stand up and say well done?  Why should I doff my lid to this errant disregard for a players welfare re-badged as courage?

And I don’t care if Sam Bully Beagle farts Walzing Matilda through a crack in his skull.  And I don’t care if the previously estranged George ‘Grumpy’ Piggins tongue kisses Al Packer.  I don’t care about the fucking Book of Feuds. But I do care for the players who in years to come will to be cruelly crippled because dickwits believe that the ends justify the means.

Frankly I just don’t care about simple Souths anymore.  Because they are, as I have said before, the new Manly and they stink.  The coach Mid-Carder Maguire imported from Dullcity South a bag of wrestling holds and throws that has quagmired the free-flowing game to the extent that every contested tackle is an exercise in grip, grope and grapple.  He had no problem with injured players playing on.  No worries. That he got Coach of the Year shows how little respect the NRL numbskulls have for the future of the game.

And of course both the Dread and the Clever regaled us with wonderful ownership tales about Rusty’s partner, Petro Hyphen selling out. Petro has wanted out even before Al Packer’s speakeasy started to sponsor the Rusties.  Petro apparently hated the Club to be so heavily associated with gambling. Of course it will not be a problem now with Al, from the big end of town.  As Grumpy says:

“It’s fantastic, his father used to help us and if James takes the role, and it looks as though he is, it’ll be fantastic. It’s fantastic for him to be there to help the club … that is the real big end of town. The [Crowe Group] said they were going to go to the big end of town, well, Packer is the big end of town, I’ll tell you. It means you can buy better stock, make sure everyone is content, that the fans get a fair go. It should be pretty special.”

So Grumpy is right – It’s going to be “pretty special’ in 2015 – the big end of town in control of Souths.  So get used to it folks, the Crownies are here to play and stay.
Step right up.  Double your money.  Not one powerful fat prick shrouded in a white bunny jacket but two – crowing from the balcony as their boys belt and bash each other into an early grave.

A contrast of clowns – The Bubbler and Bozo

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I believe that my innovative ideas for sport and society in general have been treated unfairly in the past.  For example, the idea of combating childhood obesity by having weighing scales and narrower gates at the entry of all our schools was summarily dismissed by the health nazis and civil liberty losers.  So what happens?  I get hung out to dry and the kiddies just keep adding the avois du pois as they stumble from one fast food joint to the XXL section of Lowes.

And so I’ll reheat another of my sporting strategies.  It is a gem. The objective is to eradicate dickheads from the game of league.  Obviously this has been prompted by the carnival acts of one, Todd Clown Carney.  This strategy is quite simple as it is for rugby league administrators. It is a test for all aspiring first graders.  It involves a range of real life scenarios.  Consider just a couple.

Scenario 1: You’ve had a great win and you’re celebrating with your team mates – Dicko, Mazza and Bumsy at a night club.  You go to the men’s toilet.  While relieving yourself, Mazza asks you to pretend to urinate into your mouth while he takes a picture. You take the following action.

a.  You urinate on Mazza

b.  You spin around like a sprinkler spraying other patrons because you like to involve everyone in the fun

c.  You comply with Mazza’s request and begin ‘bubbling’

d.  You realise you should not be in a night club and you leave immediately after telling Mazza he is a ‘homo’.

Scenario 2: You are in licensed premises and drunk.  You see an eftpos machine and your first instinct is to:

a.  Urinate into the tray because the toilets are more than 50 metres away

b. Try and phone your girlfriend on the eftpos machine

c.  Get out a $1000 from the machine and go to the casino

The test would go like this.  Once each player has answered the questions their results are tabulated and then adjusted via an IQ factor – that is the Ink Quantity – quite simply we measure the total surface area of the player and then measure the area of the player that is covered by tattoos.  The greater the percentage of area covered the less the player scores.

I know it’s not the total solution but I think we would weed out a lot of the undesirables in the game.  Sure we could lose a lot of players so we would need to ensure we have plenty of under 16s available to play first grade.  But wouldn’t it be worth it?  No knuckleheads clogging up the pages of the Daily Dread with their unimaginative circus acts.

I note that Clown Carney’s agent, David Riolo, an ex-player has hit out at the Sharks for terminating Clown’s act before he had a chance to showcase his talents in front of the Board.  May I suggest, ever so humbly at this time, Mr Riolo should be canvasing new opportunities for Mr Clown more commensurate with his obvious talents.  I would say any fountain manufacturer worth their salt would sign up young Toddy to appear at trade shows and the like.  Festooned with fairy lights as he went through his various bits of doodle work such as the ‘Petrol Pump’, the ‘Cascade’ and the ‘William Tell’ would allow the world to see the real Toddy Carney.

However as one clown exits the wonderfully entertaining clown, Liam Bozo Fulton, has been forced to leave the game through injury.  What a contrast in clowns!

Fulton, a real no-nonsense forward with West Tigers has played above his weight (96 kgs) season after season, carrying multiple injuries, he never gave up playing the game he clearly cherished.  The notion of Bozo playing above the bar started with the Greystanes Devils U/7s – he was only four at the time.

Fulton has a wry sense of humour and in the early days he would assume a range of characters and ring up the local sports talk-back jocks who fell for his colourful anecdotes. No one was spared, when the NZ import, Wade McKinnon turned up at the club he received a call from a man claiming to be the club’s marketing manager, asking him to ensure he wore a suit and tie on game day and to pen a speech on the club and deliver it to Tigers sponsors after the match.  He did both before he found it was Bozo at work.

Quite simply, Carney and his inked cohorts have no place in sport.  Whereas players like Liam Fulton are the sport. Their legacy of imagination and courage stays with us long after the other tattooed tumbleweeds have blown out of town.

Best of luck Bozo.

Swings and soft touches and an all-rounded education

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I was in a cafe at the pointy end of the suburb where I occasionally sleep last Sunday morning.  It’s Balmain – the suburb where ‘boys’ allegedly never cried.

After ordering a cup of get-up from the flash bloke behind the percolator I spotted a prosperous family of five.  They were happy.  Led by a chinless Charlie and a pouting consort they filled their sensible upper middle class mouths with flash food while the kiddies dined on exotic juices and dealer marshmallow infused caffeine.  There were no arguments.  No one spoke.  They were all glued to their various devices from iPhones to iPads.  No need.  Why bother? Time was up and running and the favourite was indifference.

I’m not saying the good old days of Balmain were all beer and skittles either. There was a time when a round or two for a pound or two was de rigueur for a relaxing Friday night. People talked, shouted and shoved. Granted the subjects discussed may not have been put options or periodontitis but they talked.  Like most inner-city suburbs you are now more likely to be hit by a SUV or a pram than one of Blood Roddy’s indiscreet haymakers.

And so next morning at the cafe while I watched the daily dull flow of blazered Herberts and Harriets heading to their private fun factories, I found myself in a bit of a funk.  This was not my time and some may say that it actually was never my time.   But then in a flash I had my mojo back.  I was swinging on the cherry chandelier. The inside back page of the Daily Dread’s sporting pages was all that it took.  A glimpse of the good old days.  A story of a weekend of ill-tempered stinks, slurs and a sex scandal –  all involving rugby league players.  What a joy!  The old values.  A bloke, a rugby league player having a good old Ronnie Coote in a car with an actress old enough to be his Mum.  Lordy it’s almost enough to make you believe in Amway.

But of course when a few lads go off the path some clown has to come out and say that this sort of behaviour is stopping parents from letting their kids play rugby league.  I beg your pardon.  This is exactly what these soft croissant-fed poor wretches need if they are to grow up Renaissance men and women.  They do not need an exclusive daily dose of ballet, oboe and tai chi.  That does not cut the mustard in educating the whole child.   Sure buy them a subscription to the New Yorker and let them play an instrument other than the pink piccolo by all means.  But at the same time let them get a bloody nose on the field of dreams and screams, walk to their local school and then reward them with a TAB account on their ninth birthday.

You see some may say that there is little evidence to support this idea of exposing our youngsters to the common man’s arts to help the holistic development of a kiddie.  Evidence you say?  Well I’ll give you a couple of examples of people who have sadly not had a rounded education  – ‘Peanuts’ Packer and ‘Gilligan’ Gyngell.

Now here are two men who attended the elite Cranbrook School and have lived a sheltered and incredibly privileged life.  Now in their middling years they wield great power and influence.  Fortunate lives some may say.  And like our rugby league bad boys who may be considered to have unfortunate lives, they have also not had the breadth of opportunities, for other reasons, of mixing parlays with Puccini but they still end up the same way. On a Bondi sidewalk fighting, frothing and frotaging like two large rutting stags.

The upside of course is that now very few mothers will ever want their sons and daughters to grow up the same way and become sad, narrowly educated persons of influence.

 

 

Diamonds are forever dull in this town Bud!

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I was having a quite time at the Club that time Forgot.  I saw him coming through the doors but he saw me first.  It was my acquaintance Freddy the Ferret who approached, dressed to spill, as if propelled by a mixture of dynamite and adrenalin. His attempted subtle whisper amounted to an injection of a small, unwanted cup of spittle in my ear.  As usual it was Ferret at his obtuse best. “The Major Leaguers are in the Emerald City and they are controlling the game.”   As usual I had little idea what the Ferret was on about or on at that time.  He hissed urgently again, “The NBL man…the big stick boys are here to play and I’m not in the same postcode pilgrim!”

It appeared Ferret was in a fix.  An occasional colour piece scribe for the Daily Dread, Ferret found that the NBL (NBL for those who don’t know or couldn’t care less is the National Baseball League) were trying to screw down local press to their Yanky squirrel grip media rules. You know the stuff – yes you print and publish what we want or you don’t get anything.  Apparently the legal eagles for the Dread and the Drone were playing home ground advantage but still Ferret couldn’t get a word in anywhere.

The Arizona Diamondbacks and the LA Dodgers are to play each other baseball on Saturday and Sunday in Sydney…..yawn.  They say 80,000 people have bought tickets. The dearest tickets are $498 (Platinum) and the penny dreadfuls in the Trumper Concourse – among the hot-dog wrappers and tats are a pricey $89.  That’s fine by me.  It’s important that stupid people pay a lot of cash to get an education in how stupefyingly boring the game of tip and run is.

Of course the Major League Baseball group and franchises need a dollar to pay the performers.  Clayton Kershaw who slings the bean for the Dirty Dodgers will earn a tidy sum of $93,150 and 68 cents every day for the next 2,556 days.  That seems reasonable to me.  You might argue that’s the equivalent of around 2,500 school teachers for a year but you would be missing the big point. Clay entertains.  Teachers teach.  Move on Madge.

Despite Ferret’s lean word count the other agencies have had no trouble in sycophantically spewing forth liberal column inches of froth and gee-whiz.  Stories about the game, the stats and how miraculously the hallowed turf of the SCG has been transformed into a baseball stadium crowd the front sports pages and lead television coverage.  Our young sports journos who have sucked on the teat of Fox Sports for far too long cannot conceal their tumescent wetness for a game of rounders.

However, just 287 kilometres down the M3 there is another game playing.  Our game not some dopey bunt, run and spit game. It’s the final of the Sheffield Shield between the NSW Blues and the Western Warriors at Manuka Oval.  A noble game. I know this for a fact because my mate Banker rang to tell me he was sitting down watching the game today.  He went on to say that it was an open gate affair so it it’s obvious none of the 22 lads were going to earn $93K for the day.

The final of the Shield has been sent packing to Capital Dulltown because some indolent fool at the Cricket Ground Trust thinks that the SCG must stand for Some Clever Gold.   Sadly the only person who will find gold in their pan is Munster Murdoch’s Fox Machine as this is patently a marketing exercise with little regard for growing the game here. Which in a way is a mixed blessing.  The only contact the Dodgers and Diamonds have had with kids was at a photo op at Bondi. Arhh the imagination of the PR machine and the complicity of a dumbed down media.

Instead of day at the SCG where every kid from across Sydney and surrounds could come into the SCG and feast on a day of cricket or two we have a couple of games of bunt and run between two overpaid bunches of backy chewing bumsters.  It just does’t add up.  In fact the players of this turgid game cannot add up themselves – former yankee catcher,Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical”.  

Howzat for a summer of fat and foolishness

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I was unlucky enough to be in the same room as Ian ‘Charity’ Botham in mid-November. ‘Charity’ was there to speak, for a fee I assume, to a gathered group of people who were there to support the fundraising efforts of the wonderful Randwick Petersham Cricket Club.  Apart from sticking the boot into one of Australia’s past cricket captains, ‘Charity’ was his usual pugnacious self declaring it was to be a 5-0 whitewash to England.  He wasn’t alone as many declared Poodle Clarke’s lot no chance.

Some seven weeks on the Australian press is full of praise for ‘our boys’.  We cannot get enough of the redemption of Stinky Ink Johnson, the Woman behind the Warner and the glory days of Box Head Haddin and rightfully so.  We don’t like the Pink Poms.  We actually don’t think the Barmy Army is actually that amusing anymore and most think despite Charity Botham’s ‘good work’ that he is truly a work of self-exploration.

But while I too was momentarily swept away on the tide of the good times I foundered on a reef of grief when I opened today’s Sydney Morning Chook.

Hadn’t these boys learnt anything from what had happened at Lords last August?  The Independent as did many other papers reported on, “Star players such as Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson reportedly queued up to relieve themselves on the strip while team-mates cheered wildly.”

So what do we see on page 2 of the Chook?  Well what you see is a photograph of the Australian players and support team on the SCG pitch at midnight pouring beer over each other.  You also see one distinguished player mid-ground on his knees with his strides pulled down with his freckle on display.   Beneath the Southern Cross he kneels.

Top stuff. This is how we celebrate.  Down on our knees with grog running down our crack.  Such models these boys.  Arhh just letting go after a hard 12 months.  Common cut us some slack. But it’s not the only way we celebrate is it?

Firstly we sing the amusing ‘Under the Southern Cross I Stand” on the strip after the last wicket falls so every impressionable kid can clearly hear the last line, courtesy of Channel 9, “Australia, you fucking little beauty”.   What poetry.  These Renaissance men clearly have the full quiver of arrows.  It’s the tradition you wowser.  Sure, however inane and silly the song is, that’s their choice – but in the shed dopey.

I wonder if Stink Ink, Box Head or Chunky Cheese Taylor would like it if some clown at the pre-school started to read slightly different nursery rhymes to their little ones? Nursery rhymes like “The Three Fucking Pigs” or “Thomas the Cock Sucking Tank Engine”?  How do feel you about that boys?  No just having fun chaps, you know, nudge-wink-wink…just a case of boys being boys.  Counter the first photo with that of Clarke and coach Boof Lehmann walking arm in arm around the SCG.  Boof with his beer and Poodle with his Frog Fizz.  A lovely photo of a moment of reflection.

So we can now enter on the plus side of the summer cricket ledger an incredible Australian Test Series triumph against odds.  Sadly on the debit side we now have to place in large, the increasingly turgid television burger that is the commercial television coverage of cricket in Australia.  The burger is seemingly composed of small slivers of cricket coverage smothered with cheap talking sauce that is sandwiched between excessive amounts of advertising for fat food and bad beer.

From our ledger we can also remove the opportunity of elite players to show some respect for the sporting public and to further show that the celebration of a victory doesn’t mean you have to act like some tatted yokel in a Kings Cross beer barn.

Stuff the Crackers Reg

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I’m going to throw my cards clearly on the table. I really couldn’t give a flying fart about NYE.  To me it’s just another lame excuse for people with too much hop juice in their flat heads to further illustrate the strong link between very low IQs and ink square inch.

To add to my bag of humbug I’ll go to the crackers.   I’ve had my fill of pyrotechnics.  With a cost of a butchers blade under $7M I think we deserve a little more.  Every Saturday night some dope at Darling Harbour celebrates some corporate misdemeanor by lighting the wick.  To me crackers say “I’ve run out of the smarts and I give up….I really don’t have that much to say.”

Each year there is apparently a need to present the crackers in a new light.  Why because fundamentally all your are going to get is noise and light. So this is achieved by the roping in of artists and others under the bullshit title of creative director.  It doesn’t improve the show it really only does one thing – it creates a new angle for the media feed to the parrots.  This year it was Reg ‘Mental’ Mombassa – a beautiful sort of subterranean rock creature with a head only a cheese grater can produce and a blind mother could love.  I like Reg.  I like a bloke who looks like a debt collector on ice.   But if anyone thinks the putting of a bloody big eye on the Bridge actually created anything other than a candle in the windstorm they are parlaying the ‘pud’.

If Reg wanted to really impress us with his credentials then his one minute display at 10.30pm required the personal touch.   I wanted Reg to drive his ute down to Foti Fireworks at Marulan and pack a few bungers himself.   In fact all of the bungers.  I don’t think Fortunato Foti would mind as Reg has a wide enough palette to be able to make the crackers sing and if he doesn’t there is enough information on the web to tell him how to.   But he didn’t.  He just copped his fee and fed the chooks.

But the disappointment I felt with Reg not putting in was nothing compared to slop bucket that was splashed across our screens for four hours by the ABC (allegedly).   I say allegedly because I only saw the last bit of the this dumb play.   So to quote SMH journo Neil ‘Mustard’ McMahon:

“Lawrence Mooney and Stephanie Brantz attempt to wrangle the annual harbourside celebration into something new, fresh and interesting. It was – in case you missed it and have only your own embarrassments to contemplate today – like watching a Quentin Tarantino remake of The Sound of Music.”

I came in at the bum end of the coverage to see Mooney and Brantz flanking some harmless clown with hair that looked as if a bunger had gone off in the middle of it.  It was mindless fill banter so inane that I thought the ABC must have been taking a feed from the Shopping Channel.  Moody has been defended by ‘Mustard’ as a man of “great and varied wit”  – well what I saw was a half-witted effort of a sinking man scraping his stomach across the cringe zone of poor taste.  To add to the sloppiness of the coverage was Brantz’s totally inappropriate plug for the sequined shimmy she was wearing.  This farce was of course the perfect starting flag for the frothing right to say ‘chop chop’ to the ABC.

In hindsight the same old crackers and the ABC cringe coverage cocktail were the perfect entrée into 2014.  The bad news is that there is more to come with an inept government in Canberra and a gutless one in NSW you’ll soon see the real crackers go off in this Year of the Rabbit – and that’s Tony Rabbit folks.

Belated Happy 2014 to all you poor lucky bastards.