Brisbane Versus Sydney: Australian Rules Football Wins!

Over thirty years ago, I spent many months working in Dandenong. I was not really much of a beer drinker yet, but many people around me were, and the attitude was that products brewed by Carlton and United Breweries in Melbourne were the only acceptable beers we should consume.

Times move on, and whilst the Southern Aurora Hotel is gone, it’s bottleshop remains near Dandenong Station as an archaeological reminder of our beer drinking preferences of that time, particularly in the form of a mast which displays several of the key CUB beer brands of the era.

[Can someone tell me when Carlton Light Ice disappeared from the fridges? You can still see a reminder of its former existence on top of that bottle shop.]

I do not consider that we Melburnians are that parochial anymore, although I am not exactly sure of the provenance of most of the craft beers that we now consume, suffice that I am fairly confident that most of them are owned by either Asahi or Kirin, the two giant Japanese beer companies.

I wish our recently developed open mindedness about our beer consumption applied to our attitude towards Australian Rules Football. Every time we see an interstate team in the AFL Grand Final, let alone two teams (perish the thought!), Melbourne newspapers and the general mainstream media are full of the Fake News that this is a disaster and huge tragedy for Victorian Football.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In two days’ time, Sydney and Brisbane face off in the AFL Grand Final. I expect the indignant whining from some Melbourne football commentators to get really tiresome between now and the hangovers on Sunday morning.

As a matter of history, this will be the fourth time that two non-Victorian teams have faced off in the AFL Grand Final, the other times being Brisbane V Port Adelaide in 2004, Sydney V West Coast in 2005 and 2006.

It is extremely good for Australian Rules Football, and particularly for The Australian Football League for such grand finals to occur. These are a measure of the success of the AFL.

Since the VFL rebadged itself as the AFL in 1990, it has gone from strength to strength in its quest to become a truly national competition. West Coast has won 4 flags, Brisbane has won 3, Adelaide and Sydney have each won 2, and Port Adelaide has the one flag so far. Fremantle and GWS have also each made the grand final once.

Thanks to COVID, the 2020 Grand Final was played in Brisbane and the 2021 Grand Final was played in Perth.

As well, each of the surviving legacy VFL teams, with the exception of St Kilda, has won at least one premiership in the AFL era – including my own beloved Footscray / Western Bulldogs.

Club memberships, crowd numbers, and TV ratings are at all time historic highs. Everyone (except St Kilda) is enjoying the national competition.

Arguably, Australian Rules Football is the oldest codified form of Football in the world, and several of the AFL clubs are far older than any other football code clubs in the world. It is a sport which developed in the late 1850s out of the post Gold Rush wealth which blessed Melbourne.

So, as a Victorian creation, we Victorians should rejoice that it has been embraced by the rest of the nation to the extent that two non-Victorian teams are facing off in the AFL Grand Final again (although if you happen to wonder around both South Melbourne and Fitzroy tomorrow or Saturday, I am confident that you will see plenty of evidence that Sydney and Brisbane’s antecedent teams are still beloved down here).

Obviously I wish that the Bulldogs had not bombed out in the elimination final. But as they did not make it to the big dance, I am very happy that it is an exclusively non-Victorian final.

Whatever happens on Saturday, Australian Rules Football (a sport born in Melbourne) wins.

I am very happy with that.

Do We All Become Grumpy Old Men? Reflections On the Feud Between Daryl Hall And John Oates….

My mother always, in the AM days, used to keep her radio tuned to 3KZ, a station known for its golden oldies. It is no surprise that now that FM has been in the ascendency for over three decades, that 3KZ’s successor station, GOLD FM is playing constantly in her kitchen.

I’m Countdown Generation, so music from the 1980s has a special place in my heart. Hence I do not mind hearing songs from the 1980s and 1990s playing when I visit my mother most mornings.

The musical duo who insist on calling themselves Daryl Hall and John Oates rather than ‘Hall and Oates’ (which has always sounded a bit like a breakfast cereal anyway) make up a prominent part of the GOLD FM playlist. This morning I heard their 1981 hit ‘Private Eyes’ whilst sipping coffee with my mother. Frequently on weekends, their 1984 hit (probably their last really big song) ‘Out of touch, out of time’ replays every few hours.

These songs, aside from being in GOLD FM’s current playlist, are part of my teenage years, as are a lot of other songs by this dynamic musical duo who were so present in the 1980s.

Which is what makes their current legal feud over ruptures in their musical partnership so sad. Those two musicians were once like brothers, with a 55 year long friendship.

Look at the music video for their early hit ‘You make my dreams come true’. As they mime along to the lyrics, you would be blind not to see the sheer joy that radiates from their faces at having this chance to strike it big in the music world.

Or look a few years before that, when in 1973 they made an intentionally bizarre music video (featuring the devil and penguin flippers, amongst other things) for early single ‘She’s Gone’. They got a TV station so mad that they were threatened with being blacklisted from Philadelphia radio. Such reckless mischief making could only be the product of a strong and vibrant friendship.

But now they are suing each other. Their friendship is over. The only solace I have in that is that the last song they made which I or the general public noticed was ‘So Close’ from circa 1990. They have long since stopped making beautiful music together, and now they no longer make beautiful money together either.

Which leaves me wondering. Do we all become grumpy old men where the residuals of money making take precedence over a lifelong friendship? As I head north out of my mid 50s, I sure hope not.

Latest on the West Maribyrnong Explosives Factory Site

First when I lived opposite it in Maribyrnong, and now in Avondale Heights, this giant vacant site has been preying on my mind for the past 28 years.

However, it doesn’t look like anyone is going to do anything about it in a real hurry, at least not til the land value is way higher than the cost of decontamination of the site.

search.app/vQyrRycbRcAucHPR9

‘No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition’: Something Else Which No Pope Has Apologised For Yet….

Over 50 years ago, Monty Python did an episode called ‘Spanish Inquisition’, which has since then led to many memes along the theme of ‘No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition’.

Through ridicule, one of the more shameful chapters in the history of the Catholic Church is diminished.

However, I am not sure that the Catholic Church has apologised about this.

Not that it is a singular matter for which the Church should offer apologies.

There is also the fraud which was the Gift of Constantine, the lie on which the Church based its rule over Rome for 1300 years. Has any Pope apologised for that?

More seriously, given that I am an Anglomorph living in an Anglophonic country where English common and constitutional law prevails, is the reaction of the Catholic Church to the Magna Carta. This was, as readers of this blog are likely to already know, granted by King John to his unhappy barons in 1215.

This is, in its various forms from that time onward, the foundation of English constitutional law and the first significant codification of the doctrine of Due Process, which is taken so seriously within the Anglophonic countries.

Yet at the time, Pope Innocent, preoccupied with growing his own political power, declared the Magna Carta to be ‘not only shameful and demeaning but also illegal and unjust’. He stated that it was ‘null and void of all validity for ever’. He ordered King John to not observe it (an order which King John was delighted to receive).

Hence the Pope not only allowed King John to perjure himself, but he repudiated the rights set out in the Magna Carta in perpetuity.

Has any Pope ever apologised for this egregious wrong?

Hypocrisy On Parliament Hill…

The above story from the Canberra Times does trigger me, as to the irony and hypocrisy.

Basically, there is an employee of the diversity and inclusion team in Parliament House who is claiming that she was sacked for her disability.

Her employers are claiming that it was due to a restructure rather than her claim that it was due to her seeking a reasonable adjustment.

This will be tested in the courts.

The irony is that AFTER this woman was terminated, photos of her with her support dog were used on social media to promote the Department of Parliamentary Services’ credentials as an inclusive and diverse employer.

Sadly, this kind of faux pas is not unique to Parliament House. I have been supporting a friend who has been trying to achieve resolution of a sexual harassment complaint for several years which her employer (a private sector contracting company) mishandled. After the initial bungling of her complaint, her photo was placed on posters encouraging people to report inappropriate comments.

It just goes to show that a lot of employers in this day and age are continuing to claim to be inclusive and enlightened, but are anything but.

Dance Like No One Is Watching?

Screenshot

I will be honest – if deploring the excessive nationalistic tendencies and taxpayer funding for national sporting teams was an Olympic sport, then I would be a gold medallist.

The amount of attention which faux (or ersatz) break dancer Raygun has received for her rather underwhelming performance at the recent Olympics has got me thinking.

We often enjoy watching people fail.

For example, there are those sadly deluded people who make fools of themselves during the early auditions on Australian Idol, deliberately chosen by the show producers to entertain the home audience with their cacophony.

Then there are those appalling people who appear on the Australian edition of Married At First Sight, who are always hooking up and breaking up and feuding with each other. Who does not relish the moral and intellectual failings of those folk?

It seems to be something that has been with us as a social species for a very long time, given that the main entertainment in Ancient Rome involved either feeding people to wild beasts or gladiatorial contests.

Now Raygun has her, to borrow from Andy Warhol, 15 minutes of fame (or is it infamy?) as a breakdancer manque, and everyone is piling on. There are those, like the rather tiresome commentators on Skynews, who are going out of their way to denounce her. Then there are those who just make fun of it – the vast majority. And there are the woke ones who claim that she is being unfairly belittled.

What do I really think? The algorithm on Facebook is feeding me a disproportionate number of posts about the matter (I do have a cover photo of this event at the moment on my page), so I assume that artificial intelligence is trying to tell me what to think about it.

I’m very skeptical about the Olympics and about our win at all costs national obsession with gold medals. I’ve been like this for over 30 years, even since I was passing through Canberra at the time of the 1994 Commonwealth Games and saw the mania expressed in our nation’s capital. I don’t really care too much if we win medals or not.

For me, Raygun doing her act at the Paris Olympics is the greatest highlight in Australian Olympic history since the men’s 4x100m freestyle team played air guitar after beating the seppos in Sydney in 2000.

Or perhaps when Bradbury, the journeyman speedskater, fluked Australia’s first gold in the Winter Olympics when his competitors all tripped over themselves just before the finishing line and he went from last place to gold. Although of course, in this instance, there was no going from last place to gold.

As for Raygun herself? She seems to be someone who has a very strong love of life and who is very good humoured and fun loving. I hope she continues to love life, and that perhaps regardless of the joyless sour commentators like Peta Credlin on Skynews that she becomes a folk hero, complete with product endorsements and TV hosting gigs.

Screenshot

Double Breasted Suits Are Back, Baby!

Having recently officially retired (and getting a large payout yesterday of my remaining unused leave credits), you would think that buying a new suit would be the last thing on my mind.

After all, I hate wearing suits, and the two suits I bought from Peter Jackson back in 2002 (to celebrate a promotion at work) mostly hang in the wardrobe unused, maybe getting pulled out and worn once or twice a year. My usual ‘style’ is to wear jeans, Reeboks, and rugby tops – or a blazer and shirt in place of a rugby top (such as on those frequent occasions where I visit the Kelvin Club, where I have become a fixture in the past two and a half years).

But these are unusual times. Having retired, I need things to do to keep myself amused, and last week I was Elected to the Savage Club, the quirkiest of the Melbourne private clubs. The Savage Club enforces a strict old school dress code, where jacket and tie are always required.

Which means that I felt it was time to augment my wardrobe.

The two suits I bought back in 2002 were both double breasted, as was the suit I bought back in 1995. Double breasted has a certain dignitas to it which single breasted sadly lacks. Unfortunately, it has in recent years been rather difficult to find double breasted (I am not so cashed up that I am going to visit Henry Bucks to fill my wardrobe).

That seems to have changed. When wandering past Peter Jackson earlier this month, I saw a double breasted suit in the window for the first time in ages, and I knew that this was a sign from above – it was finally time for me to buy a new suit.

Oops….

search.app/PSRHc9fQR33M557d8

It’s interesting to see political incompetence in action so poetically.

Insiders know that Richard Shields is the brother of former Victorian liberal party state director Julian Sheezel.

Cain is not expected to be the keeper of Abel, but obviously one is much more capable than the other.

I think that the people who stopped Shields becoming a Senator last year did the Australian people a solid.

The Australian Olympic Team – Where Too Much Ain’t Enough

The Olympics are over, and I hope that we as a nation-state have sated our gluttony for gold medals for a few months at least.

After all, we did win 18 of those at these Olympics, the most we have ever won in history, coming fourth in the tally behind the USA, China, and Japan – nations which are far larger and more powerful than us in terms of population, wealth, and economic influence.

I tend to agree with the extremely cynical guerrilla rock band TISM, who have surfaced at various times over the past 40 years to amuse and entertain Melburnians with their unique satirical version of rock music.

Their savage Olympic focused song ‘Give up for Australia!’ wearily chants:
“Five metres! Four, three, two, one!
Gold to Australia! Gold to Australia!
Gold to Australia! Gold to Australia!”
Gold! Gold!

[Verse 1]
May all our young Aussie swimmers
Be resigned to failure
May our nation state
Be always second rate

[Sample]
“Five metres! Four, three, two, one!
Gold, gold, gold! Gold, gold, gold!”

[Verse 2]
May Timorese fishermen
Evade the Aussie sailor
May we do as history teaches
Die on Middle Eastern beaches

[Chorus]
Give up, give up, give up, give up
Give up, give up, give up, give up
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia

The ‘gold for Australia’ bits are samples from some actual sports commentator as one or other swimmer approaches the finishing line.

I have regularly and wearily commented over the years, both inside this blog and in person, about how unhealthy it is for Australia to obsess over the Olympic medal tally to the extent it does. This is the sort of attitude more suited to the propaganda motives of tyrannies and totalitarian regimes rather than that of a prosperous liberal democracy.

Let’s look at the top ten medal tallies from a few significant moments in time.

Berlin 1936

RankNationGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Germany*383132101
2 United States24211257
3 Hungary101516
4 Italy913527
5 Finland85619
6 France76619
7 Sweden651021
8 Japan641020
9 Netherlands64717
10 Austria57517

Melbourne 1956

RankNationGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Soviet Union37293298
2 United States32251774
3 Australia*1381435
4 Hungary910726
5 Italy88925
6 Sweden*85619
7 United Team of Germany613726
8 Great Britain671124
9 Romania53513
10 Japan410519

Montreal 1976

RankNOCGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Soviet Union494135125
2 East Germany40252590
3 United States34352594
4 West Germany10121739
5 Japan961025
6 Poland761326
7 Bulgaria69722
8 Cuba64313
9 Romania491427
10 Hungary451322

Seoul 1988

RankNationGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Soviet Union553146132
2 East Germany373530102
3 United States36312794
4 South Korea*12101133
5 West Germany11141540
6 Hungary116623
7 Bulgaria10121335
8 Romania711624
9 France64616
10 Italy64414

Paris 2024

RankNOCGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 United States404442126
2 China40272491
3 Japan20121345
4 Australia18191653
5 France*16262264
6 Netherlands1571234
7 Great Britain14222965
8 South Korea1391032
9 Italy12131540
10 Germany1213833

I have chosen 1936 because it was the last Olympic Games before the Cold War, where the host nation, Nazi Germany, clearly won the medal tally as part of their ideologically driven push to show their national superiority. I note that their allies Fascist Italy and Militarist Japan also did fairly well.

Next is 1956, both because it was hosted in Australia, and because the Cold War was in full swing by then. The Soviet Union, not a contender pre-war, topped the tallies, with other Warsaw Pact nations also making a decent showing.

Montreal 1976 is significant because it was the last Olympics for 12 years not to be marred by boycotts by either the Western Bloc or the Eastern Bloc. Both the Soviet Union and its ally East Germany did extremely well, and the top 10 was well represented by other communist regimes, including unlikely Cuba.

Seoul 1988 was the last Olympics before the Velvet Revolution and the end of the Cold War. Again, the Soviet Union and East Germany topped the medal table, with other Warsaw Pact allies showing much success.

And of course we can now compare those results to Paris 2024, where Russia is under a blanket ban from competing due to the discovery of what probably is a half century plus of drug cheating, but where Communist China is the new tyrant on the Bloc (sic), able to stand shoulder to shoulder in sport against the Western Democracies.

The moral of the story is that even if you are not rich enough, you can still spend a lot of money and similarly buy success at the Olympics. Fascist regimes did that in 1936, and Communist regimes did that for the entirety of the Cold War. It was simply a matter of redirecting resources away from the people and (temporarily) away from armament programs.

The propaganda value of doing that is high, which is why dictators have always placed such an emphasis on it, not all that far removed from the extravagant funding of gladiatorial games by the Roman Emperors.

And where does that leave Australia? Ever since the nasty shock of failing to Gold in 1976 (although to be honest, that probably has something to do with East German drug cheats who have not been retrospectively discovered and disqualified), we have placed a growing and unhealthy emphasis on funding elite sports, so that we can compete on the international stage.

A wealthy nation does not need to excessively fund sport – the amount of leisure time and aggregate public health standards means that our people are going to be more competitive without needing to pump the dollars in. And with a healthy democracy, we do not need to promote the propaganda value of sport as a nation building myth.

But we do and will continue to do so, and it is about to get much worse.

During the Olympics, London gold medallist Sally Pearson has been using the soap box of the Murdoch Press to argue for even greater funding. With the 2032 Brisbane Olympics looming closer and closer, she argues emotively for greater funding for sports stadia in Brisbane to replace the current ones, so that the nation will not be embarrassed. She also argues for greater direct funding to elite athletes, including in sports where Australia is not historically competitive, so as to offset the great personal sacrifices those aspirational Olympians make to achieve their dreams.

[I do not think Break Dancing figures in the sports she wishes to get greater funding. I did not find Sally Pearson’s comments on Break Dancing to be particularly coherent as far as any messaging went.]

I say that enough is enough. Our national gluttony for sports gold at virtually any cost is unbecoming to us as a nation, both as being unsporting, and reflective of values better suited to a tyranny than to a democracy.