Tennis Australia’s latest overreach has been to ban people at The Australian Open from wearing T-Shirts asking ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’ The resulting publicity and unanimous criticism about the heavy handed action by tournament security – including claiming that they have the legal authority to permanently confiscate banners with this burning question – has backfired …
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Has Perth Become Barcelona (minus the Culture of course!)?
Let me start by saying that some of my best friends are Sandgropers. There is Michael who lives in Williamstown, and Jeff who lives in Niddrie, and Bill who lives in Hong Kong. What do they all have in common? They were mostly born and raised in Western Australia, but decided to make their lives …
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What point is there in Melbourne hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games?
Let me start by reminding you, Gentle Reader, that I dislike the current name for what originated as the British Empire Games. I do not think there was any good reason to change the name to Commonwealth Games, and I would be much more enthused about the whole show if it were still called the …
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Eat The Rich? The Politics of Envy
We all are familiar with the stereotype of the angry leftist would-be revolutionary who wants to line the bourgeoisie and capitalists against the wall and shoot them. Or who, in a cuter and more harmless form, simply indulges their immature views by wearing t-shirts with slogans like ‘Eat The Rich’. A lot of those are …
Wouldn’t Star Peace be better than Star Wars? (Reflections on Space Opera and perhaps on Human Nature)
On Thursday I was discussing over text with a colleague the latest episode of the new Book of Boba Fett series on Disney+, when he said he could not wait for the Obi Wan series and season 3 of the Mandalorian. He then said: “So many Star Warses.” I had a lightbulb moment of mischievousness …
The Djokovic Debacle and the Clapham (or is it Footscray?) Omnibus
A strange thing happened to me this morning. I accompanied my elderly mother to Footscray so she could get her hair cut and buy a few things from the Greek Deli in the Footscray Market. Afterwards, whilst we were waiting at Footscray station for the 406 bus, discussing when the next bus was due and …
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Has Contemporary Cinema Lost It’s Creativity?
As I am at the tail end of a 3 month staycation, in which I have become rather bored with the remaining offerings on Amazon Prime and Netflix, I have started going to the cinema again. Summer is a good time to go to the cinema. Many years ago, I chose to watch the 4 …
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Australia Hits 1 Million Covid Cases
I was wrong, and not in a good way. Last week I estimated that at the then current rate of increase of covid cases, Australia was going to reach 1 million cases by Tuesday. Well, it’s Monday and we are already at a million. Happily, there is no need for any further lockdowns. Everyone is …
Should Tennis Australia Get Defunded?
In a land where sport is sacred Where the labourer is God You must pander to the people Make a hero of a clod – Henry Lawson I like to quote Sir Frank Lowy’s justification for his sponsoring of Australian soccer rather than just giving money to charity. He once dismissed his critics with the …
How Seriously Should We Take The Xi Variant?
The Xi variant, more commonly known as Omicron (there being no such adverb as ‘cowardlyLY’ in the English language yet to describe the relevant verb in this context, ‘cowardly’ itself being an adjective, and I have already sought to make ‘Roxy’ my contribution to the English language this month) seems to be going forward at …
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Lost For Words! 