Sport

The Subcontinental Drift #1

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I used to have a love-hate relationship with India – I hated going and I loved leaving. But after 80 or so visits, with 1993 being the peak with nine, and about a year of my life spent there all up, I think I’m finally getting the hang of the place.

After a life snuggled up in the bosom of Western civilisation, my first experience of Madras as it was then called, was queuing up on the airport tarmac, patiently waiting for my turn at the single immigration desk. The door out of customs emptied us into the car-park where I was immediately identified by my then agent and now great friend who whisked me through the dark but crowded and noisy streets to a Taj hotel where I was introduced to something the Indians excel at – hotel bars. If you like subdued lighting, wood panelling and leather chairs, join the club. I always felt like I needed to be wearing a tux and smoking a cigar when sitting in one of these places, ordering my dry Martini, shaken not stirred. They are about as far away from the ubiquitous slums as it is possible to get.

But back to trip number one. I had decided that the food was going to kill me so during the ten or so days I was there, I subsisted on fried chicken, toast and beer, apart from the last meal. The last stop before going to the airport to leave was a revolving rooftop Chinese restaurant in Bombay, as it was then called. The Asian gentleman throwing up into a bathroom sink should have given a clue so by the time I reached Singapore, my body was the equivalent of a supermarket shopping trolley – it just wasn’t cooperating with my brain so all the way back to Brisbane I sat motionless staring straight ahead. If I moved my eyes above or below the horizontal I experienced what it must feel like riding a tumble dryer – rather odd actually. Mind over matter got me out of that plane and I have only ever once since felt worse, courtesy of a dodgy prawn in Seoul. That’s a story for another day. Incidentally I am now a slavish devotee of Indian food and have graduated to putting hot chillies in green salads. So I love hot food but will admit to being beaten by it twice; once in Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and once in Singleton in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. That night I had to saw the top of my head off to let the fire out and I swear my teeth and hair were sweating.

A friend once told me that you can tell how “civilised” a place is if you fly in at night and look down at the lights. If the streets and houses are arranged in reasonably predictable rows, you’re coming into a place with some semblance at least, of planning. If the lights appear to have spread like mold with just the occasional waving ribbon of flickering light, like a vein in cheese, you’re in for an interesting time. Not criticising here. Just saying. The culture shock comes in many guises. There’re the wash-your-eyes-out-with-bleach moments which I won’t go into right now (think of the children) and there are moments of incredulity like a hotel breakfast for three for the equivalent of $6. Admittedly that was before the ravages of 1990’s and more recent inflation, but seriously… I’m still expecting to be shirt-fronted by something entirely unexpected but the more mundane, like a man on an elephant patiently waiting for the traffic lights to change will be contemplated with a stifled yawn.

We won’t be restricting ourselves to India on this trip. Why fly over places when you can stop over. This doesn’t apply to the USA of course where the snobs living on the East Coast or the Left coast consider the rest of the place to be redneck flyover country. We don’t consider Singapore to be even a little bit redneck so will be stopping there to look at all of that glass. We wanted to go to the Maldives also so Sri Lanka gets a guernsey. And joy of joys, it’s not international cricket season although Australia has beaten both India and Sri Lanka recently so I would have bragging rights. I still expect cricket to come up in conversation but only every time we speak to the locals.

We’re on our way to Singers now so see you at #2.

Who is Jim and Why are my Knees Trembling?

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You’ll be pleased to know I’ve started going to the gym again. Not for the first time have I started again. It’s been a fairly regular occurrence over the last 20 years or so  but I keep falling off the treadmill wagon. And if this sounds like an alcoholics anonymous meeting or a confession, it sort of is. My name is Chris and I confess that I have been going to the gym for two weeks and two days – round of applause.

Actually its only 10 times over that 16 day period plus one bonus round of golf but I have to admit to noticing the difference already. I’ve lost a few pounds, mostly from round the middle so when I run (slowly and not very far) the shuddering mass round my middle isn’t causing a crippling backache and the shin soreness that feels like red hot needles are being poked into my legs is easing.

The best part about gyming is that I can listen to my music. This is one of two things I use my phone for. If you can’t think of the other one you’re too far gone. And I’m not into muscly thumbs.

Of secondary importance but nevertheless significant is that I don’t believe I have to change anything about my lifestyle. Superimposing a gym regime over my red wine  and beer soaked diet can only be a good thing right? Why take a double hit when one hit should be sufficient for a net positive result.

The worst part about going to the gym other than the physical pain, is knowing that I used to be a reasonably good athlete to the extent that I won a couple of cross-countries at school and played a variety of sports to a reasonable level of proficiency so why can I only bench a pathetic amount of weight and why am I completely knackered after running for about four minutes. The four minute mark is about when I start feeling like those runners who lose control of their legs at the end of a marathon. To be fair though I can walk for hours but a stop-start stroll with the dog doesn’t really count.

I’m reminded of the last game of rugby I played when I was about 40 years old. I was playing for a team of past students against the second XV at my old high school. This was the perfect opportunity to show off to all the adoring chicky babes on the sideline. Well, showing off to the child bride who was actually too busy checking health insurance policies to care. Despite the fact I was only up against a mob of pimply high school students this was the occasion I knew my athletic career was well and truly over and here’s why.

The brain retains its sharpness much longer than the rest of the body but knowing what to do, wanting to do it and actually doing something of athletic prowess, taken together are somewhat problematic. In this case I could see the defender one out from my position was advancing too fast so I figured if I could move my defender a little to the right I could slip past him and behind the outside defender, get into the clear and streak away for a glorious match-winning try.

So the ball’s coming my way. Pass it now, pass it now, the brain’s saying. I get the ball and the brain says step off the left foot and pivot on the right. My defender reacts and moves to my right. The brain sees the outside defender on the left come up too fast as predicted so now’s the time to explode through the gap I’ve created and away we go. EEEEEhaaa. But then the legs say, not so fast brain, we’re not going anywhere that involves more than a leisurely trot. End result – face first in the dirt without a defender laying a hand on me.

When the brain and the legs are in such dogmatic conflict the only compromise is sort of what I’m doing at the gym now.

 

 

A Master Stroke?

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I took up golf on a semi-regular basis about 18 months ago after playing intermittently for years but rarely in Australia. I spent so much time on the road I was playing more golf in Korea than here. There was this one time (not at band camp), early one morning in early spring, so it was still very cold, I hit a perfect wedge onto a green and it bounced almost as high as I hit it and finished up adjacent to the next tee. But that’s another story. Now that I am back playing it’s likely there will be more golf stories. Here’s the first.

The Masters finished recently and the Tiger is back. Will Augusta retain its aura or has the fact that the winner was someone who hasn’t won a major for 11 years, rubbed off some of the mystique. I suspect this says more about Tiger than Augusta but we’ll see.

Augusta National Golf Club is said by some, to be the most exclusive club in the world. Not as exclusive as the “Fell 30,000 Feet Without a Parachute and Survived” club or the “Olympic Medal for Underwater Swimming” club or the “Duelling Survivors” club but still rather difficult to get into.

When the Masters comes round each year I get an attack of the Groucho Marx’s. Most people (men mainly) would give their wives to be members of Augusta National. It’s not particularly expensive to join (if you’re reasonably well off) but it’s by invitation only and if you make it known that you’d be receptive to an invitation, forget it. In this vein, some of the rules and regulations are rather quaint which gets us back to Groucho.

Groucho once said he wouldn’t be a member of a club that would have him as a member and I’m sort of that way with Augusta. Not because they wouldn’t like me (said he, gazing into a mirror) but because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like them. Not least of these quaint ways is the “Fight Club” rule – the first rule of Augusta is you don’t talk about Augusta unless you’re the chairman. Fair enough I guess if we’re talking about secret men’s business (there are a few women in the membership of 300) but having the New Year countdown at 10.30pm is just ridiculous. And there’s no running, no cell phones, no sitting or lying on the grass etc etc.

So where does that leave us? Augusta will never invite me but if they did I wouldn’t join. No no, it’s no use begging. I’ve made my mind up. I’m more than happy hacking my way round Nudgee Golf Club’s south course or whatever it will be when the renovations finish. I’d rather be fighting off the midges than smelling the magnolias. Never did like magnolias.

 

Rule 1 – No Dick Heads

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We’ve all started new positions during our working life. Admittedly some people do it only once and these are generally public servants or Japanese although the job-for-life the previous generation of Japanese workers expected is not quite as ubiquitous these days.

Before you start a new position you generally have to negotiate your way through an application to get an interview, then fill in some questionnaires to make sure you’re not a psychopath or a sociopath. And here’s the rub.

Did you ever wonder, once you’ve got to know your workmates, how some of them jumped those hurdles. Some of them wouldn’t be able to jump rope if it was lying limp on the ground. How did these thoroughly unlikeable individuals slip through the fuck-wit filter? Were they interviewed by like minded people? Are they put there as a management challenge for everyone else? Do they know someone or have photos. Or are they simply the beneficiaries of the only job generating programme left-leaning governments throughout the world know – employing more and more bureaucrats. Because let’s face it, many of these people work in government. One of the few privileges private enterprise enjoys compared with government is the ability to fire someone. That person has to have committed an atrocity three times or three different atrocities before human resources will stop wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth long enough to risk a trip to the unfair dismissal tribunal. But such are the “rights” of employees over management these days.

Back to our work-place wankers. You know the type. They work to rule absolutely when it advantages them. Breaks are taken at exactly the time they are meant to be taken. This doesn’t necessarily mean one returns to work at the allotted time. One has to finish one’s cigarette, doesn’t one. They are the ones who loudly assert their rights at work. If there’s a union presence they will utilise it as often as my mother calls her local member of parliament. They will leave their workplace exactly at knock-off time even if it means leaving a nail half banged into a piece of wood. And they will gossip, maliciously.

There is an Australian Football club that famously implemented a “no-dickheads” rule which is a bit like the fuck-wit filter mentioned above. This meant that if you were up yourself to the extent that you disrupted the team’s cohesion, it didn’t matter how good you were, you weren’t welcome and you weren’t selected. And it worked because the club enjoyed considerable success.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it will work everywhere. Imagine applying it to an NBA franchise. Overnight you’d be down to about three players. And NFL teams would lose whole defensive lines – you know the ones who carry on like they’ve cured cancer after making one tackle. Unfortunately when you see an eight year old soccer player put on a Hugh Jackman routine when they score a goal, to the raucous cheers of Mum and Dad, you know the future supply of dickheads is secure.

When the no-dickheads rule is rolled out to all work places in the country we will have platoons of embittered ex-administration officers roaming central business districts all over the country, stopping outside their previous places of work, sucking on fags and abusing passers-by. In the US they will occasionally (rarely thankfully) return to their old workplaces with guns. Stringent application of the no-dickheads rule at the appropriate time could have nipped a tragedy in the bud. Or more likely simply shifted it to another location.

Unfortunately it seems we are stuck with these people and now that political correctness has sunk it’s cold dead claws into every facet of life, especially the fun bits, they can claim victim hood status as well. Best to just ignore them.

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.

 

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.

Back for My Birthday and The List

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The aftermath of 4 weeks in Europe.

After 4 weeks on the road (and on the sea and in the air to be more precise) and gastronomic, oenonic and beeronic overindulgences of the moronic rather than lessonic kinds you can imagine that our immune systems were vulnerable to attack so the child bride and I duly came down with catastrophic colds yesterday. Last night my nose, throat and lungs felt like Helms Deep under orc assault with Gandalf and the cavalry not due to arrive until about Friday. Consequently, on this my 60th birthday I feel like doing not much at all really. But this does allow the time for a degree of contemplation of something of vital importance.

If you have passed 60 already you will have received The List. No one knows where it comes from or who sends it or why. It does however provide guidance (as if any was needed, we’re 60 after all) for the twilight (zone) years of our lives. If you are over 60 you need read no further as you will have received your List already. If you are well past 60 you will have received it by post in an envelope with no return address. If you are well under 60 you will not know what I am talking about in that previous sentence (if you know what a sentence, of the grammatical not prison kind, is).

The List I received goes as follows:

1. Health
We, the human race, are living longer. For this reason we are apparently imposing an increasing burden on the health system. Now it stands to reason that if we are living longer we are actually healthier so there is an obvious contradiction here. Notwithstanding this, for the over 60’s the health system is a veritable pub smorgasbord of drugs and treatments to be taken advantage of at every opportunity. Over 60’s have lost all respect for the user pays system because we’ve paid and now it’s time to use. The younger “me generation” is going to have to come to grips with that as total economic melt-down looms because, as yet, they haven’t. Over 60’s won’t because we’ll all be dead, possibly from a drug overdose.

2. Education
a. English
English is about communication. This involves more than abbreviated texting and sexting (in the words and clothes departments respectively) via various devices. These are for making phone calls so people can speak to each other in well constructed sentences. Over 60’s understand this. They also understand that punctuation is not something you do in a colonoscopy bag.

b. Mathematics
Over 60’s can perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in their heads. They also know what these things are.

c. History
Over 60’s love history because they have more of it than the young. Stuff happened before the internet. You can use it to check.

3. Sex
For men over 60, sex can be likened to pouring your last can of petrol on the fire. This is a euphemism (for a metaphor) for attaching your superannuation to a fish hook, dangling it in a pool of pre-cougars, catching a trophy wife and going for it until the fire flames out in about 6 months. Then it’s over, assuming the money’s run out also. For married women over 60 this list item has no relevance.

4. Music
In our over 60s’ music, performers actually sing. More recently this has not necessarily been the case. Remember MC Hammer? “Thanks for talking us through that song MC. Now can you sing it and add a few musical instruments to that boring repetitive bass line? Oh…that’s it?” He’s got a lot to answer for. We of the Rolling Stones generation look forward to hoe rap clones scratching each other’s eyes out and the gangsta rap clones shooting each other into extinction. Either way the biggest con in musical history has a limited shelf life. Now leave us to our country and western heavy metal – a tuneless noise about hay – and dreaming about the hedonism of 60’s and 70’s rock.

5. Dancing
Over 60’s don’t or shouldn’t dance. Unfortunately some wish to retain this right. Fortunately the Dad Dance phase is well and truly over by 60 and if you must, it now involves anchoring your feet to the ground and swaying your arms to the music, generally with a small child attached to them.

6. Sport
All references to sport must now begin with the phrase “Back in my day…” as in “Back in my day these poofs wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes with Lezzy Boyd, Greggy Dowling and Artie Beetson.” All given names (we used to call them Christian names) must end with “y” or “ie”.

7. Injuries
The above sport reference applies equally to sporting injuries as in “Back in my day we’d play on Sunday and go down the mine with a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder and concussion on Monday”.

8. Religion
Most people don’t have any anymore but over 60’s reserve the right to a gradual return especially if the church is putting on free food or more importantly, free booze. The logical extension of this process is the death-bed conversion, just in case.

9. Free Stuff
We deserve it and the rest don’t. They have to pay for it. Simple.

10. Working
What’s that? Hahahaha

11. Fashion
Back in the day when today’s over 60’s were dedicated followers of fashion, it meant something if you wore jeans and thongs. It meant you also wore a flanno and had a mullet which were quite popular for a while there amongst a certain demographic. Some over 60’s now feel comfortable with fashion faux pas such as wearing socks with sandals, a crime for which you can be shot incidentally. And for the over 60 ladies the transition from frilly and filmy to industrial strength is now complete.

12. Drinking
Once you crack the big 6 oh there is no reason to ever buy a drink again. If you find yourself in a pub in a shout with younger members of the community it is likely that they will tell you to take your hand out of your pocket when it is your turn to shout. This behaviour should not be discouraged. In fact it should be actively encouraged by constantly complaining about the bloody government and its treatment of the backbone (sciatica notwithstanding) of the community and you can’t make the pension go as far as it used to blah blah blah. And anyone who doesn’t think we’re the backbone, may we suggest a headcount (see Health).

13. Birthdays
As a youngster, birthdays involve waking up in a pool of your own vomit with a new face tattoo. The older generation is satisfied with more material but no less cheap thrills. Like for the mature man a trip down memory lane with a “look but don’t touch” pass. May we suggest a particular place that unnecessarily interrupts football games with displays of….and…..and beer.

14. Gifts
Birthdays (if it’s yours) are about receiving gifts. Unlike the economy, which many youngsters of a socialistic bent think is a zero sum game, gift giving actually is i.e. every time one gift is given, one is received. We over 60’s know which side of that equation we want to be on.

15. Cars
Over 60’s know that as phones are for making phone calls, cars are for getting you from A to B. Unlike with phones however, we like the toys that come with cars. But we are torn between getting the GT super sport pack or going on another cruise. Convertibles are a particular dilemma. These are for very young people but because most very young people can’t afford a decent convertible, special dispensation has been given to the over 60’s to buy them. Looking ridiculous in a convertible is an issue for people who want “the look” but is irrelevant to over 60’s who revel in not giving a stuff about what they look like (see Fashion).

16. Aging
This brings special privileges which are called brain fades or mental blocks or senior moments or CRAFT as in Can’t Remember A F—ing Thing moments. These involve issues such as going into a room then having to contemplate the exact reason for going in there in the first place.

17. Political Correctness
Over 60’s don’t do political correctness. It’s for well norked celebrities with their climate off-sets and private jets and bureaucrats, academics and ABC types who think they’re distantly related to Evonne Goolagong. If you take offence then put the bloody thing back before the cows escape. Now, did you hear the latest Irish/Polish/Kiwi/Arab/Jewish/Catholic (insert ethnic/religious group to be ridiculed) joke?

18. Politics
This is not relevant. Over 60’s know all there is to know about politics. From one me-generation (baby boomers) to another (the young), don’t worry, it’ll all be fine. We’ll spend our super and you can spend the tax we contribute. Oh that’s right, we don’t contribute tax anymore. Hahahahahaha.

Looking Daggers

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A while ago I had a run in with a sharp pointed implement. The story is related here as a warning.

You would think it unnecessary to issue a warning against mixing football, comfy chairs, red wine and sharp knives. But it seems there is no limit to the rather unfortunate consequences which can arise when one considers the endless permutations resulting from the juxtaposition of those four variables.
Last night I settled into my favourite chair with a generous splash of red at my elbow and a steak dinner, courtesy of my lovely wife, on my lap (the dinner, not the child bride). A tough game of footy beckoned. Sometime later said wife returned to find me fast asleep with the now food-relieved plate still on my lap and the fork and (very sharp) steak knife clutched in my hand like a drowning man clutches a life preserver. As a consequence, she removed the plate and unknowingly (or was it??) left me and my eating implements to our collective fate.
At game’s end the cacophony which signals victory for the underdog, as happened in this instance, contrived to wake me up. At some point between the knife (the fork is now irrelevant to the story) being riga mortised in my hand and my waking, it had migrated down the side of the chair, nestling snugly, sharp side in as it turned out, against my side, just above the hip bone and just below the left kidney. On waking I swivelled to the side for some unknown reason and experienced a somewhat sharp (pun not intended) pain in my person. As you, dear reader, can imagine, this resulted in my awaking rapidly from my sleep induced torpor and I leapt to my feet.

On placing my hand on the area from which the eye watering pain was emanating, I felt the now located sharp implement protruding from my side. “That’s not supposed to be there” I thought, and proceeded to remove it. I can confirm that withdrawal is just as painful as entry. Fortunately it was only in far enough to not immediately fall out when I stood up as our steak knives are of the cheap variety and are therefore quite light. The upside is that I now have a cast iron excuse to not exert myself in the garden today.
As a consequence of last night’s misfortune (which wasn’t as bad as two Christmas Eves ago when 12 stitches in my arm was the end result) this morning I have been laughed at by my wife and my youngest brother. It’s a sad world when one’s adversity becomes the source of mirth for others although as the brother pointed out, his kids do it all the time. But then he has been raising them to be sociopaths.

Addendum

Another Friday night. Watching the footy. Dinner was pasta and meatballs (not steak) which has been despatched; spoon has been placed in the dishwasher before it attempted to do a King Lear on my Gloucester and no stab wounds to date. Will no doubt wake up with the red wine glass inserted in my forehead.
Visited my dermatologist yesterday to continue the ongoing crusade against the sins of the child visited on the adult (sun-baking as a 10 year old was not smart for someone with my complexion). She commented about the stab wound in my side and I told her someone has to protect the city and risk life and limb rounding up the bad guys. She didn’t believe me. My disguise remains intact.