A Toe-Hold on Insanity

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No one has ever been able to convince me that mankind is creating a climate catastrophe. An alliteration catastrophe perhaps but not climate. For all of those people who “studied English” at school less than 20 years ago, alliteration is stringing together a number of words with the same first letter or sound. And by the way, you’re mostly to blame for encouraging the doom and gloom merchants perpetrating the biggest scam in human history on the world. Those of us who were taught to think for ourselves are waiting to see the evidence. If you advocate shutting a coal mine because parts of the Great Barrier Reef are bleaching, you are making a giant leap of faith with “faith” being the operative word.

We (mankind, that is) may be a minor irritant when it comes to the climate like an errant thread on a new jacket. We can tug on the thread and make a manageable situation much worse or we can snip it off. Similarly if the temperature goes up a tad (or down – ice ages anyone?) we can adapt as we adapt to night by turning on the lights although it has to be said that every day fewer of us have this privilege as the carpet baggers, rent seekers and thieves who run our parliaments and power companies keep imitating King Canute (or Al Capone, take your pick).

I’m not here to present a detailed case for sanity or debunk (much) the case for the prostitution. If there is evidence to support one side or the other go and find it for yourself. Incidentally, that’s part of the problem. Too many people, especially those with vested interests (looking at you Al Gore) don’t want to face facts because as mentioned above, it’s a faith thing and plus there’s the all powerful kaa…ching factor.

I can’t resist inserting a celebrity into the discussion here because as we all know, celebrities have the answers to everything. This allows them to hold a tune or be really good at pretending to be someone else. Or is it the other way round? I’m never sure. Anyway our favourite intellectual chanteuse Missy Higgins said this about the Adani coal mine (which is yet to produce a tonne of coal) – “This coal mine is so big it will tip our climate into environmental devastation”. It’ll produce 40 million tonnes a year. The world currently produces 7 billion tonnes a year. Enough of this stupidity.

No, I’m trying to find an analogy that presents the issue from an Australian perspective in an understandable light. There’re those pesky lights again. Yesterday I thought I had something really neat but when explaining it to the child bride I realised I had made a major mistake. But let’s enjoy ourselves and I’ll give it to you anyway. See if you can spot the error.

Imagine the atmosphere is the packed crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground which we’ll round up to 100,000 people. If 4% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide (NOT “carbon”), that’s 4000 people. If mankind is responsible for 4% of carbon dioxide emissions and nature the rest, that’s 160 people. If Australia is responsible for 1.3% of the world’s man-made emissions, that’s 2 people. Our government’s emissions reduction target is 26%. For the sake of argument we’ll ignore the virtue signalling idiots on the left who want an even bigger target and stick with 26%. So we will save the planet by disposing of one half of one person in the MCG crowd of 100,000.

Then I realised where I had made the mistake. Carbon dioxide isn’t 4% of the atmosphere. It’s 0.04% of the atmosphere – 100 times less than my original calculation. So instead of half a person in the MCG crowd we, in Australia, are reducing global emissions by a toe. So if you’ve had your power turned off because you can’t afford to pay your electricity bill anymore you can be contented knowing that those billions of dollars of renewable energy subsidies we pay every year are paying for a toe.

 

A Week in Honkers

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Of the many business trips I’ve done over the centuries very few have involved staying in one place, or even one country for the duration of the trip. Even conference attendances were usually combined with onward trips to other less salubrious places – give conference organisers their due because you rarely end up in (which country/city/race am I going to offend here) Caracas or Lagos or Port-au-Prince or Pyongyang or Adelaide. It’s always Bali or Paris or Cancun or Singapore. And when was the last time a save the environment conference was held somewhere where the delegates could see the problem they were pretending to be concerned about first hand? Rio de Janeiro could almost qualify if the delegate excursion to the favelas had been held in something bigger than a tandem motorcycle but I guarantee no one touched the ground more than two blocks from Copacabana or Ipanema.

Which brings me to Hong Kong where I was for a conference last week and stayed for the entire week. Hong Kong is a great place. It’s a love it or hate it place but in my book, I could live there. Having been there numerous times I know there’s traffic and it’s crowded and there’s smog and typhoons and expat bankers and the Chinese think we are barbarians despite them being the rudest people (with one or two exceptions, says he inserting the cowardly caveat) on the planet. And they’re the most numerous on the planet so big tick for me for offending the most people possible from one race in one sentence (no, muslims aren’t a race so they didn’t qualify). But you never tire of the view and the energy is electrifying. Unfortunately every time I go there the land bit has got bigger and the sea bit has got smaller as more and more land is reclaimed. Victoria Harbour is up there with Sydney Harbour and the Bosphorus as one of the most spectacular waterways in the world but I expect to be able to walk from Hong Kong Island (or the Southern Suburbs as it will then be known) to Kowloon without going through a tunnel or over a bridge or getting my feet wet in the not too distant future.

Speaking of bridges, the Chinese have just built one from Hong Kong to Macau – 35 miles long and the world’s longest sea bridge. As the Chinese are inveterate gamblers (that’s “inveterate” meaning hardened or incurable not “invertebrate” which is what I am after a skin full of sherbets), they now have something for the Hong Kongers to throw themselves off after losing the family fortune in Packer’s old Macau casino.

The object of the conference exercise was to promote a mining project to potential investors. This involved booth manning (I will not say “personning” even if Canada’s teenage girl prime minister wants me to) and spruiking the benefits of the project to everyone who stopped by. If we get to do this again I think I’ll round up a few of the Indian tailors who you trip over in Nathan Road. They’d be able to sell a coal mine to one of the drink waiters.

Standing up and talking for a few days straight is all very well but one needs stress relief and it comes in the form of evening functions that are attractive for one reason and one reason alone – free booze. The first one was an awards night celebrating the accomplishments of various industry high achievers. So we had a room full of miners and bankers being plied with free drinks and some poor sod at the front of the room trying to get them to shut up long enough to hand out a few gongs. Fat chance. Rudeness is an abundant commodity in the mining and money communities. Or deafness perhaps, which would have explained all of the shouted conversations. And here was me thinking they were shouting so they could be heard by their fellow rudees over the bloke at the front with the microphone.

My two colleagues and I eventually escaped to the more sedate, heaving pub precinct of Lan Kwai Fong and seated ourselves roadside to watch the world stagger by. It was a public holiday the next day and the rugby sevens was in town so the bar staff were busier than an octopus with tinea but still managed to keep the Heinekens flowing to our table at a most acceptable rate despite our being as far away from the bar as it was possible to be – take note all you bar slicks in Australia who only ever see the chicky babes lining up at the bar.

The bar entertainment was outstanding and entirely free. Well that may or may not have been the case for other revellers because the entertainment was, in fact, a ticket scalper who happened past advertising his wares while we were enjoying the view and the ice-cold beers. His accent was very familiar and it turned out he lived about a mile from my Manchester relatives and my parents’ old stamping ground. This guy really had the gift of the gab which I guess is rather fundamental to his chosen profession and once he got warmed up we went from the Winter Olympics to the Summer Olympics to the World Cup to the Rugby Sevens to the Commonwealth Games in about 45 minutes without a pause for breath. And all it cost me was a beer. Well played sir.

This was my first overseas business trip for some time and I’d almost forgotten what it was like to lie flat in an aeroplane. Those of you who have read some of my other travel epics on this blog will be aware of my pathological hatred of crowds. Especially when that crowd comprises economy class plane passengers. You will know that until about four years ago, I thought jumbo jets were only 10m long. I was never curious about nor cared where all of those people were going to after they passed through that curtain at the back of the plane – back into the terminal I guess. Before this trip I’d almost become a plebeian plane passenger again but a timely injection of silver-service snobbery brought me back to my senses. Phew.

 

Mekong Muster Part 6, Cruise

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Well we got back from our Cambodia / Vietnam adventure yesterday and as is the case with most holidays, the glow wore off about half a day after returning as the memories sunk inexorably into the past. We were jolted back to reality after the child bride went to pick up the cats who had resided at the cat motel for the past two weeks. Almost immediately there was a territorial stand-off between Charlie the dog and Kaos the cat and we woke this morning to a fir ball on a rug (not on the wooden floor of course) and something disgusting in the litter tray.

Oh to still be sitting in the Game On Bar in Saigon watching the NRL or the AFL or the rugby or the EPL of the boxing or the racing or the golf – TV’s showing sport everywhere you looked, local girls in tight shirts serving ice-cold beer and pub-food that doesn’t look back at you. We managed to get there twice in two days.

The first day in Saigon we explored a local market. Imagine the Baywatch girls, in beach uniform, attending a maximum security prison. That was the rather aggressive, noisy and touchy/feely attention a westerner generates in that place. It is rather intimidating but we managed to get out with the required shirts and dresses albeit with the wallet a little lighter and the bargaining voice a little hoarser than the parallel experience in Cambodia. Not to worry because it was only a 10 minute walk to Game On which was only a two minute walk from the tallest building in the country which had a viewing platform and……a bar.

Met up with our four Victorian mates in Game On and drifted from beer to beer for the rest of the day including dinner at a restaurant where a local entrepreneur (who was a boat person and made his money in Oz) ran a restaurant training street kids (chefs, front-of-house, waiters etc). The food was nothing like rat, very nice in fact and like the art school in Siem Reap, an admirable enterprise.

Day two in Saigon and we had to check out at twelve, and had our hotel transfers arranged at four. How to kill a few hours on a hot steamy afternoon? Here’s an idea, thought some genius. Let’s take a 10 minute, $3 cab ride to Game On. Done. And so the gentle transition back into Australian culture began.

Visiting developing Asia is a great and rewarding experience as long as you can experience most of it standing up rather than sitting down, if you get my drift.

Mekong Muster Part 5

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Well it’s only one more day on the boat then off to Saigon tomorrow. And not a day too soon for some, I think. The last couple of days have been absolute carnage with this place now resembling the aftermath of the Alamo. This is not in any way, shape or form a criticism of the cruise company. They have been scrupulous in their adherence to safety and health standards.

The karaoke excesses of a couple of nights ago plus the accumulated impact of different foods and breathing different air, especially in the open markets, have taken their toll I think. I was a mess yesterday but am fine now. But I reckon if it was possible to harness the power generated by the simultaneous sphincter clench of 78 people, you could drive this boat from Saigon to Brisbane without refuelling.

The markets in the Mekong delta have to be seen to be believed. People shop twice a day because apart from a few random blocks of ice and the fact that most of the seafood and assorted reptiles and amphibians are still alive, everything is out in the open. However to spare the sensibilities of the more fragile brethren, the rats are skinned before being put on display.

Last night was concert night when the various ship departments put on a show for the guests. Watching a bunch of Vietnamese and Cambodians pretending to be The Village People and doing everyone’s favourite, YMCA, had to be seen to be believed although I’m not sure they all comprehended the significance of the arm movements.

And after that finished some of the guests who had “volunteered” the night before, had to get up and perform. Apparently I volunteered but I’m pretty sure I was volunteered. Had I been forewarned or at least been vaguely aware of what was coming, I could have prepared Not Garfunkel’s full repertoire. But my still alcohol fogged brain was only capable of a rendition of Hotel California on the only guitar on the ship. A Londoner got up and told a few jokes and as he warmed up, they got better and better if you know what I mean.

We are now wending our way to the last stop before leaving La Marguerite. I think it’s to see another bloody temple. Actually I can now see a massive bridge that I and a lot of other Australian taxpayers built about 10 years ago. I recognise it from last time we were here so we must be getting close to the end. The internet connection has been getting progressively better so it stands to reason.

Maybe one more travel blog to impose on you before we leave. We’ll see.

Mekong Muster Part 4

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We are now at the Cambodia/Vietnam border and it’s day something or other into our caravanserai  adventure as we watch the world slip by in air conditioned comfort. Thank you barman, you may indeed freshen up my drink and as the story goes, I have this medical condition which requires this glass to be replenished every half hour, on the half hour.

Yesterday, our second day in Phnom Pen was a great day, it has to be said. After trying to imagine what it must have been like (impossible) during the Khmer Rouge times the child bride and I decided to have the afternoon in. We were all pagoda’d out anyway. Then some of our party mates suggested a trip to a bar down town. No worries said I. Five of us piled into a tuc tuc and off we went. We found a place overlooking the river where happy hour went from 7.00am to 11.00pm, I kid you not. Icy draft beer for $0.75. We spent the afternoon there and the bill for five was less than $30.00. I am moving to this country and buying a Lexus.

Needless to say, last night (two nights ago, now) was either a write-off or a triumph, depending on how you look at it. We’ve pretty much commandeered the music situation so instead of middle of the road we now have Rolling Stones and Guns ‘N Roses and the place is jumping. It’s karaoke night tonight so that will be interesting.

It’s the morning after karaoke night and it’s been a struggle. My attention span could not extend to the intricacies of a spinning loom operated by a 12 year old girl I’m afraid. And vague memories of Wish You Were Here are swirling round my brain and bouncing off the insides of my skull. Fortunately we’re cruising this afternoon because I don’t think I need to learn any more rural Vietnamese life skills.

I decided to finish this story in the library. It’s the only public place on the ship where you can’t be tempted by alcoholic extravagance and it’s as far away from a bar as it’s possible to be.

Mekong Muster Part 3

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Just spent a very confronting morning at one of the killing fields outside Phnom Pen then the Genocide Museum which is in what was a school and was used by the Khmer Rouge as a torture venue. From reading some of the so-called confessions and listening to the guides relate stories of the time you wonder whether the Khmer Rouge ever questioned how the CIA managed to employ hundreds of thousands of agents including whole families. Being good Buddhists the locals eventually forgave the bad guys whereas most of us would have been sorely tempted to exact some form of retribution, with extreme prejudice.

You’d think Cambodia would be the most anti-communist place on earth after experiencing the most perverted version of an already perverted political philosophy but there can’t be too many places with both a North Korean Embassy (next door to the Prime Minister’s house as it happens) and a Cuban Embassy as well as a street called Mao Tse Tung Boulevard. I took a picture of the North Korean embassy but we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the US embassy. I guess if you’re North Korean this is probably one of the safer places in the world to be what with The Donald’s finger hovering over The Button. That reminds me, North Korea is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and under Pol Pot this place was called Democratic Kampuchea. The similarity is that no one gets to or got to vote.

Time to lighten the mood. If I asked you to name the place with the largest proportion of Lexus’s (or is that Lexii) on the road in relation to the other vehicles, you might suggest Nagoya, where Toyotas are made or Geneva (no, that’s Ferraris with Arab rego plates) or Manhattan. I guarantee you wouldn’t guess Cambodia but that is in fact the case. They are everywhere. It’s like some weird parallel universe. And I still haven’t received a satisfactory explanation as to why. It’s fated to be one of those unanswerable questions like why does a women stroke her chin when she drives or why does “change up” mean “slow down” or why can’t some people see the absolute logic of all of my arguments?

Mekong Muster Part 2

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Actually “Mekong” is a bit of a misnomer. We have been on the Tonle Sap River for the past 3 days and don’t reach the Mekong until this afternoon in Phnom Penh. The Tonle Sap River is highly unusual because in the dry season the Mekong pushes water north along the Tonle Sap and in the wet season there’s enough water flowing into the Tonle Sap Lake in the north to push the water south down the river. So it’s one way part of the year and the other for the rest. Wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood.

There are 172 floating villages round the lake. Everyone lives in a relocatable home and all are connected to the same sewerage system. Needless to say of the hundreds of fish species in the lake, the most prevalent is the brown trout. Fish and rice provide most of the sustenance but like an old mate of mine from Japan, they’ll eat anything with its back to the sun, tigers and elephants excluded. Tarantula sandwich anyone?

On a more serious note, Cambodia has an awful lot of catch-up to play after the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. There were about 10,000 doctors here pre-1975. By 1979 when Pol Pot and his mob were finished there were seven. SEVEN! Now families have eight or nine kids as repopulation continues apace. There are some inherent human skills that can never be eradicated even by the most determined scumbags.

This trip is quite unlike what you would imagine a river cruise to be if you’re thinking of Amsterdam to Budapest or the Loire Valley. It’s all very rural and life experience stuff. Yesterday we went for a ride in an ox cart which really loosened up the joints. I suggested to the farmer in charge of our transportation that he consider installing eight sided wheels as they’d be much more comfortable than his six sided versions.

But it’s not all killing fields and Old Macdonald’s farm. Back on the boat there’s a party group as you would expect. Yesterday was my birthday (thanks for all the good wishes) and we found a guitar so raucously worked through all of the songs I could remember. It’s amazing how good Wish You Were Here sounds with a bucket of Southern Comfort in the bag.

Off for a tuc tuc tour of the city soon. A tuc tuc is like a carriage for two or four people towed behind a vehicle with what sounds like a ride-on mower engine. Should be interesting. We’ll be stopping at some markets where the child bride will put her considerable bargaining skills to good use. So I’ll have to stop at an ATM.

Mekong Muster Part 1

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In August 2017 the child Bride and I visited Cambodia and Vietnam and took a leisurely cruise down the Mekong River. Following is a 6 part opus on that epic journey.

Well the Mekong Muster, Siem Reap in Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, is now well underway. We are on the boat – La Marguerite – and having done the unpacking and explored the boat the 40 degree heat and 100% humidity are doing their job. La Marguerite is very small – about 78 passengers I think – but has two bars. Having been on here all of two hours I think we’ve done well to befriend Jenny, one of the bar attendants who now knows our order. Jenny is here to mitigate the heat and humidity.

But let’s backtrack a couple of days. We flew out of Brisbane on Saturday afternoon in gorilla class but on Singapore Airlines – scant compensation I know but it could have been a whole lot worse. No….no it couldn’t – can’t think of anything worse after all of those years flying at the front on someone else’s dime. I know you’re all feeling my pain – thanks, that makes so much difference.

We had 8 hours in Singers airport and despite all of my previous travels I have never been asked to rate a toilet but there in the airport was this very opportunity. So I go for a pee and there’s a box on the wall in the loo that says “Rate our toilet” and you can tap a button of your choice. I was torn between shithouse and pissweak. But enough of that so let’s move along.

The rest of the trip to Seam Reap was uneventful but now it gets interesting. In this politically correct world we live in, if you believe cultures are unequal you are a bigot. Anyone who thinks Angkor Wat is the equivalent of a handprint on a cave wall or a poison dart blown through a hollow reed or an ability to build a mud hut that will withstand a light drizzle can call me a bigot – guilty as charged. And we’re not here to indulge in in-depth academic debates on the pros and cons of the noble savage vs the industrial revolution so let’s leave it superficial and flippant. Those temples – hundreds of them – are not only works of incredible detail and complexity but they were carved out of impenetrable jungle about 800 years ago. Of course elephants help, vis a vis the jungle bit but it still must have been an architect’s paradise.

Compare with the pharaoh’s chief architect:
“So your munificent, sun shines out of your sarcophagus, God-pharaoh, you want me to build you a tomb. May I remind you I built the sphinx, the library of Alexandria and consulted on the hanging gardens of Babylon, so it’s not another bloody pyramid is it? Oh, it is. It’s a big one, you say, with lots of secret passageways. Hoo-f..ing-ray.”

At Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat and all the others, the builders had an absolute ball it seems compared with the poor old pyramid builders.

The first day, after spending most of Saturday night in the airport, was zombie central but we did manage to drag ourselves away from the air conditioning for a few hours. Apart from visiting the aforementioned temples, a highlight was visiting a school where a program called Overseas Development in Art teaches art as well as English language, computing and a few other things to underprivileged and orphaned kids. It was started by a local artist and now extends to eight schools. He established all eight of them.

Compared to our whiney, the tax payer owes me a living, artists who produce bugger all of any redeemable or cultural value, like standing on one leg in a bucket of offal for six hours at a time, this guy is a saint and deserves the Nobel Prize. Think Mother Theresa without the leprosy. And he’s a bloke.

But last night after climbing all over a series of temples, we did what everyone does when visiting a provincial Asian city for the first time. We visited Pub Street (that’s what it’s called) and drank $1 beers in the Red Piano Bar. Well I did. Jan drank $3 wines. Secondly, I did what every male does in these places…..no, not that. I had my feet eaten. Yes, you read that right. I dangled my feet in a large tank of water and dozens of fish nibbled the dead skin off my feet.

Now it has to said, I have the ugliest feet in Christendom (which we weren’t actually in to be fair) but these little buggers gave it a red hot go and did an admirable job. But really. If you thought maggots or bacteria are at the bottom of the food chain, think again because I can’t think of anything that beats this in a disgusting race to the last link. Of course if you’re ticklish it’s almost unbearable. I lasted about 15 minutes. Another hour or two and I could have been a foot model.

For the next seven or eight days the most stressful decision will be which of the two bars to patronise, as in offer them my custom, not talk down to them. And when the intermittent wifi kicks in I’m going to find out where I can buy some of those fish.

I Went to See “The (chortle) Boss”

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Well I have to admit to being suitably chastened.

Bruce Springsteen was in town and while I like a lot of his music (notwithstanding the wankerish, farcical, working class pretence of a lot of his lyrics), it’s never been enough to make me want to go to one of his concerts. Why would I want to listen to a champagne socialist with a few hundred mil in the bank, houses all over the North American continent and who flies everywhere in a private jet and have to listen to typical social justice warrior hypocrisy on how we’re destroying the planet and did I mention that Trump is Satan.

Friends of ours had a spare ticket for his concert here in Brisbane and asked me if I wanted to go and naturally I jumped at the chance. Two can play this hypocrisy game. It was sensational – fair cop me! And there was little time for commentary because there were mostly no breaks between songs. Talk about relentless. His only vaguely SJW comment referred to a charity which collects unused food from restaurants etc to distribute to the homeless and they were fundraising outside the venue. He recommended contributing – fair enough. And it was Valentine’s Day so there was a massive plug for the blokes to buy flowers for loved ones even if it’s just a crumby old single rose. Incidentally, and I’ll give myself a plug here, when I was last in full time employment I used to buy a rose for the mothers on our floor on Mother’s Day. No one ever bitched about me (that I was aware of) – management in action. Oh, and being Valentine’s Day it was only fair that I be at a concert while the child bride was a home watching I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here.

Anyhow back to Bruce. He did a few things I have never seen in a concert before and I’ve been to a few. Firstly he got up close and personal with the crowd in that he actually waded into the crowd – the standing only part at the front. He let kids strum his guitar during one song. He crowd surfed – can you believe it – about 20m across the standing area back to the stage. As far as I could tell, none of the women tried to confiscate his cruet as he passed overhead. Maybe his wife’s presence on the stage as part of the band put a dampener on that. Then during “Dancing in the Dark” he inevitably (if you’ve seen the clip of the song) invited a girl on stage to dance. Then another, then another, then another, then a bloke (??) then a young girl who looked about 8. All up about nine people invited on stage with one dancing on his pianist’s grand piano (he looked a tad pissed). Then the 8 year old got to sing a few bars.

Only one word for all of this – respect. Bruce, you’re still a social justice warrior wanker but you sure can put on a show.

The AFL – Not Everyone’s Favourite Sport.

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I recently read an article in GQ magazine called “10 Wankers You Only See at the AFL”. They are, in order:
1. Eddie Maguire – if you’re Australian you know who this bloke is. If you’re not, don’t fret.
2. The bloke who immediately shouts ”baaalll” when an opposition player gets possession. This is like a rugby fan demanding a rugby player be penalised for not releasing the ball immediately he is touched by an opposition defender.
3. People who slag off at the huge banners the players run through at the start of a game. More on this later.
4. The up close and personal slagger – the bloke (or shiela) who’s hanging over the boundary fence screaming abuse at the nearest opposition player. More on this later also.
5. The branded stadium fan. Not sure whether the author of the piece is complaining about the fan who refers to the stadium as Drinky Cola Stadium or its old pre-branding name of Ponce Park.
6. The dodgy runner – this is the bloke who relays water and messages to the players during play and gets in the way. Easily fixed – ban it. Can you imagine trainers all over the field during a Manchester derby.
7. The light beer cry baby – they sit in the licensed area in the middle of a row and annoy the shit out of twenty people every 15 minutes when they have to squeeze past to get another beer. Not sure what the reference to light beer is though.
8. The box bastard is the bloke who gets to sit in a box because of connections and pretty much ignores the game.
That’s the end of the list. Now the most attentive of you will have noticed a minor inconsistency between the title of the piece and the content, specifically the number of separate bits that make up the content. That’s it – there are supposed to be 10 but the author could only think of 8. I guess he rounded it up. Or the GQ editor was asleep.
This is symptomatic of the massive susceptibility AFL has to the traditional Aussie piss-take. And I am not about to pass up this opportunity to take one.
Starting with banner-man (wanker number 3), there are many AFL people who spend every night of the working week either watching their team train (the ones that still train at night – old traditions die hard) or constructing massive crepe paper banners with stupid messages on them. They hold it up for about 10 seconds, the team runs though it and shreds the bottom couple of feet, it is then taken down and discarded. A week’s work gone in the blink of an eye. The term “get a life” was coined specifically for these people. Confession – I am banner-slagger-man.
The up close and personal slagger (wanker number 4) is a close relative of banner-man but spends his week watching re-runs of the last time his team won anything. This guy knows who won left half back flanker of the year for Collingwood in 1935. On match day he gets a skin-full and screams abuse at opposition players and umpires alike. He paid his taxes (when he worked a few years ago) so it’s his right, right? A certain well known cricketer would have evolved into this bloke if he hadn’t genetically stumbled on a dynamite right arm.
Now let’s look at this “game” more generally.
They refer to the dressing sheds as “rooms” as in “Lanky Longfellow must be really hurt because they’ve taken him into the rooms”. I have “rooms” in my house and there is not an AFL person anywhere to be seen.
They refer to teams as “playing groups”. That’s what we take our kids to when they are too young for school. They are TEAMS and collectively the TEAMS make up the club.
They refer to captains, vice captains and senior players as the “leadership group”. They also have multiple captains and vice captains and I think “senior player” is a title you can bestow upon yourself because there is no hard and fast definition. No, each TEAM has a CAPTAIN and a VICE CAPTAIN, that way there is no confusion as to who is responsible for running the play during the game if we can get that runner (wanker number 6) off the field for good.
The “F” in AFL stands for “Football”, not what you think I think it stands for. Listen to an AFL person talk and you will think it stands for “Footy”. I think there’s a competition amongst AFL types to see who can lever this word into a conversation the most times. So the ball is a footy, the game is footy, the players play footy, the spectators watch and worship footy, the hacks write about footy, footy is all over the news. In fact it is the only news in Melbourne where they learned about 9-11 in October because it happened during the footy finals.
Have you noticed how whenever a player has a milestone to celebrate or is retiring, they always run out carrying and/or leading a tribe of little kids? This has absolutely no relevance to the proceedings other than for the player to demonstrate to the world that not only can he play “footy” but he is a real man because here is the proof that he has sex……. with women.
After the game the players and assorted hangers on link arms in a circle and all sing “I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay” which I believe is the team (not the playing group) song for all of the clubs.
And last but not least, the AFL is the vanguard social justice warrior organisation in the country. The AFL is an organisation just like Qantas and the ABC and the Australian Workers Union are organisations. Organisations are defined by a few pieces of paper with articles of association written on them and maybe a certificate from ASIC. But apparently if the boss of the AFL says the AFL supports gay marriage or an ABC journalist says the ABC supports climate change then everyone at the organisation is tarred with that brush. This is bullshit not least because organisations as such, don’t have brains.
Extending this theme in respect of the AFL, every weekend there is a cause to promote. So we have the Multicultural round, we have the Indigenous round, we have the Women’s round we have the AFL executives shouldn’t have sex with adult women who also work for the AFL round. The actual “footy” is being crowded out by social engineering. But I’ll give the virtue signallers at AFL House a piece of advice for free. Up close and personal slagger (wanker number 4), who makes up at least 50% of your fan base, doesn’t give a shit.