After Grog Blog

SUB TEXT

Speaking of "qualities", who was the restless MP, and what did the text really say?

A public life needs premier standards

LISTENING to the fine tributes paid in State Parliament this week to former Liberal premier Lindsay Thompson, one restless MP was moved to send a slightly despairing text message to an associate watching from the gallery. "If only this influences how we act as MPs," it said.

"If only this influences how we act as MPs"? Yeah, right.

IN YER PIPEDREAMS

Tony: "You can't park here."

Student: "I'm a plumber."

UNDERQUOTE OF THE DAY

Upon an umpire awarding a very long 50 metre penalty, you often hear a commentator say "I'd like to buy real estate off that umpire." You don't often hear the reverse:

West Coast v StKilda. The WC full back kicks out to a teammate about 8 metres away. The mark is paid.

Commentator 1: "That's not 15!"

Tony Shaw: "Chee, I'd like to buy real-estate of that umpire."

I'd like to sell real estate to Tony Shaw.

FOUR LEGGED FREAKS

The house next door was sold about two months ago. A bit of a dump (a $940,000 dump), last week the new owners appeared to start making it less of a dump. They hired a skip into which they piled all the rubbish that the previous tenants had allowed to build up: dead pot plants, dead trees, shed-junk, weeds, creepers, old furniture, stove, washing machine, dryer, bathroom fittings, tiles, lino, curtains, shower curtains, partitions, plaster, floorboards, cupboards, draws, shelves, bong, jar of Pablo, everything including the kitchen sink.

Since well before I moved into my joint in 1997 it had been a student share-house, but the new owners are going to live there, so they have started on the rennos. The correct term, apparently, is gut 'n' smeg.

Now, I don't mind that they are there all the time, banging away, knocking this and that to the sh1thouse. They have never made a racket during unsociable hours. All in all, their work has been highly efficient and considerate.

Until yesterday.

You see, they don't live there. They can't. There is no bathroom, no kitchen, no bedrooms, just a Georgian (the V or VI) shell. But rather than leave the place alone and unattended, they left two dogs. Two barking dogs. Two barking machines. Two barking-around-the-clock machines. All day. All night. They were delivered around mid-day yesterday and for the whole time I was home between then and this morning when I went to work they barked and woofed and barked and barked and woofed and fvcken barked. All. The. Time.

Barking Dogs

If you have a complaint about a barking dog you can register your complaint with Council by calling 9205 5063. Council may talk to the dog owner, issue a formal notice for the dog to stop barking, issue fines, or if the problem persists possibly take legal action.

You may be asked to keep a diary for a few weeks to record how often the dog barks and get support from other neighbours. For further advice on what to do about a neighbour’s barking dog contact the Dispute Settlement Centre on 9603 8370.

Dear Diary

Sunday night: Woof woof. Arf arf. Bark bark.

TURKEY SHOOT

All it needed was a pinch of Andrew Jarman:

Drew Morphett: "What a magnificent goal! Stupendous! It was great! Great, I tell you. I love this game. Love it. Great! Pete, how good was that goal?"

Peter McKenna [Up in the grandstand]: "Great."

Tim Watson: "Goal of the day."

Ross Glendenning: "Rubbish. Goal of the day goes to Michael Gardiner."

Don Scott: "Ooooo, I LIKE the boy!"

Peter Landy: "Who is the fellow in the Crows jumper?"

Bernie Quinlan: "Ask the Swan."

Dennis Cometti: "Back after the break, by which time Bernie will have finished coaching Fitzroy."

"I'M IN AWWWWW OF MYSELF"

And it all ended typically ever after:

BY ZHINGO!

Peking is not Bay-Jing. It is Bay-Zhing. Like Eduard Shevardnadze.

WHO BREAKS A BUTTERFLY ON A LIST?

The Times has gone list-crazy, but at least they know it:

Take your seats for the top 100 films

Another film list? The same old Citizen Kane? No — this one’s different, says The Times’s chief film critic James Christopher.

You may be suffering from list exhaustion. There are so many about, and especially on film. But this one is different. Yes, of course we’d say that. But having read endless Top 100 film lists, we felt short-changed. Sure, they’re definitive in their way, but they don’t have many surprises. This one aims to be all-encompassing, certainly, and authoritative. But it is also intended to cause debate and maybe consternation.

None of us — myself, my fellow critics at The Times and my editor Tim Teeman — realised how contentious this list would be to compile. We didn’t want simply to rearrange the furniture as other lists do. Nor to kow-tow to monolithic critical masterpieces routinely crowned year on year.

There are some spectacular casualties. Citizen Kane (1941) failed to cut the mustard. The genius of Orson Welles was not to be denied. But it was felt that his sour and seedy thriller Touch of Evil (1958) was not only equally audacious in terms of pure film-making, but also had greater resonance than Kane.

Some omissions are too painful to talk about: Groundhog Day, The Servant, The Lives of Others, Psycho, The English Patient. (All my choices naturally.) Tastes vary dramatically, and you would be amazed how few critics will fall on their swords when it comes to such a fraught subject. That said, the list looks far fresher and younger than any of us dared hope. The number of recent releases vying for places near the summit is a surprise. I shall be horrified if anyone agrees with every one of our choices. The point of The Times Top 100 Films of All Time is to stimulate argument, and sharpen your own thoughts about the ingredients that make great movies.

Christopher says the list "aims to be all-encompassing, certainly, and authoritative" but while individual Times critics reviewed the individual films, I can't find where it says how they all-encompassingly and authoritatively selected the list. I assume they injected a modicum of thought into the selection process, but Christopher seems to be tip-toeing around the "f" word: favourites.

100 - 91: From dinosaurs to life in a Florida work camp.

90 - 81: Moral corruption from Orson Welles and a wildcard performance by Al Pacino.

80 - 71: Banjos, babies, bodices and bad boys. Plus the first and best of the "spoof" movies.

70 - 61: Racial tension, sexual tension, paranoia and conflicting points of view.

60 - 51: Film plots with a twist - men who live as women and life in a fake alternative reality.

50 - 41: Brilliance from Brando and an ether-inhaling performance from Hopper.

40 - 31Which 70's film won all five, major Oscars? What was so special about Tommy Johnson's Tuba?

30 - 21: Four brothers, a bunch of Gangsters, a school outing that goes wrong and a naughty heiress.

20 - 11: Jungle warfare, jungle capers, red shoes and a shiny red mac.

10 - 4: Hitchcock's finest feature, Gloria Swanson's revival and some classic performances by Jack Nicholson.

3 - ET: The Extra Terrestrial: It happened, according to movie lore, at the first Cannes Film Festival screening of E.T.

2 - There Will Be Blood: Few films in recent years have made such an instant and dramatic impact as this.

1 - Casablanca: Of all the films in all the cinemas in all the world . . . why this?

Christopher concludes that "The point of The Times Top 100 Films of All Time is to stimulate argument, and sharpen your own thoughts about the ingredients that make great movies." Fair enough; it probably does that. It certainly stimulates argument; or what passes for argument on a "your films are crap / my films are better" level. But - and this will seem like Confessions of a Fathead - the more I think about films, about what ingredients make them great, the more confused I get, and the less I seem to like them.

Note: these days I prefer a "good" TV series to a "good" movie. But I suspect that's because I now watch movies on TV instead of the big screen.

If you want another line on what might constitute a good film, you could do worse than check out the following excellent exchange which evolved from a review of The Warriors:

Leapster

For what it’s worth, I’ve been reviewing movies for a bazillion years, and here’s how I break it down:

- How well does a movie achieve what it’s trying to do? (Obviously including “How well does it work AS A MOVIE.)

- How much worth doing was the thing/s it was ‘trying to do’? (Speaking to the ambitions and limitations of the movie in question, including its generic limitations, how it approached those, and such considerations as the limitations I mentioned in “The Warriors”. ) You could call also this approach: “Was this trip really necessary?”

- Do I think this movie would appeal to sections of the audience, and if so why, and maybe to a lesser extent, who?

- Did I like the movie and WHY? Without the why, it’s just like most comparisons about movies, TV etc in general conversation - which to me breaks down to everyone sitting around and saying, in not so many words, “But my farts don’t smell and yours do” or “Mine goes up to eleven.”

Any reviewer (most of whom erroneously call themselves ‘critics’) who refuses to get down in that bear pit of the mind and grapple full contact with any movie, putting preconceptions to one side - taking on what that movie is trying to be with no consideration for other things you might prefer it to be - is just not fit for the job. To give one example that comes, not so much to mind, but right up the nostril - Marge Pomerantz. By the time Margaret Pomerantz has said “I”, “But IIIII think”, “IIIIIIIIII have to say…”, “IIIII really felt that…” and “It just didn’t grab MEEEE” about 25 times apiece, in her opening 37 seconds of dissertation on some poor megaplex movie, I’ve already flipped the channel, got a sport score, been disappointed by an old Quickdraw McGraw cartoon, discovered a Saturday Night Live episode I realise I’ve already seen, and settled on “Law and Order: Initials in the Title”.

There’s not one thing that coffee-table magazine-headed person has to say about movies that I find convincing. I don’t believe for one second that she has any structure of thought - any consistently applied critical methodology - from which her opinions arise. I don’t care what she likes, nor if she feels that her farts have the aroma of lavender. To me, anyone could do what she’s doing - the corner milk-bar proprietor, the local footy team’s redoubtable half-back flanker, the slack-jawed guy behind the counter at the petrol station - anybody.

Criticism or reviewing is more than about what someone likes.

It’s a bit like the old fallback position in the pub or at a social gathering or whatever when movies or TV or music is being discussed and inevitably some drongo (who might otherwise be a lovely person) comes out with the old jocular brain- killer: “Weeell, it’s all a matter of opinion anyway, isn’t it?”

What any individual likes is a matter of opinion. Actually not even that - it’s mostly a baseline reaction, and not very much more. Did that music bounce off your eardrum in a personally pleasing manner. Did you have a nice night at the movies because everything blew up on screen in the right order and you had a nice night with your pardner away from the kids. Did that TV show provide the perfect time-filling chewing gum for your mind when you came home dog-tired and wanted something to half-watch while you were chowing down on tonight’s improvised ‘pasta a la whatever was left over in the fridge that wasn’t moving’.

All perfectly valid in its way, which is to say emphatically nothing to do with critical thought whatsoever. That’s the “mass-media as lifestyle adjunct”.

I remain unconvinced that “It’s all a matter of opinion.” I think there’s a difference between whether someone likes/enjoys a movie/album/program and whether that item is any good in any objective sense. Good is better than bad. Objectivity is a possibility. A critical hierarchy is possible where there is some sense of a medium’s history, an understanding of critical thought, a degree of intellectual rigour, not to mention the willingness to roll up the mental sleeves, get down in the bear pit and fight the artefact 2/3 brutal falls to a finish on its own terms. All that fun stuff like that there.

Anyway, that’s how I think about movies and reviewing them. I’ve kind of got lost on whether that was anything to do with what we were saying about “The Warriors”, although I think it kind of was.

Pokksey

Sorry, Larry, I just don’t buy all that.

Although your philosphy on the responsibility of criticism is honourable it just isn’t practical. Most people are interested (albeit a little selfishly) in the reviewer and not so much the movie. When viewers tune in to ‘At the Movies’, many do so because they identify with the host(s). They want a recommendation because ‘They like the type of movies I like’ - a kind of referral system. Or they get off on the irrascible David Stratton indignant over the latest movie employing the Dogma technique. Some just like to see them argue. And the same goes for countless other reviewers.

Surely, you must get the sense that people reading your blog reviews are reading it because of the allure of your personality. That is, how you react to a film, how you rationalise those reactions, and your deft comedic flourishes. This is just human behaviour - an entertaining form of quality assurance, if you will. Most movie-goers are simply trying to avoid wasting their time and money. The goal of the filmmaker is the last thing on their minds. It is impractical to expect more from the viewing public and therefore not feasible to expect reviews that practice ‘intellectual rigour’ as you put it. What you are looking for lies in the academic realm and can be found in published film journals, of which I know few. Maybe this is where the Critic/Reviewer distinction can be made.

Your criterion of “How well does a movie achieve what it’s trying to do” is a slippery slope. How do we know what is trying to be achieved? When do we agree it has been met? Must we do homework before seeing the movie? Should the movie improve the more informed we are? How does this function with comedy? Is the movie doubly funny because I laughed and it says ‘Comedy’ on the DVD spine?

Good filmmakers don’t focus on what they are consciously trying to achieve, rather they tap into their subconscious. This is why I find it easy to label directors who prattle on about their “goal” or “vision” as self-important. Even an intellectual director such as Kubrick was renowned for waiting for something “special” to happen on set, something only the subconscious can identify. The Coens’ art lies in their writing from the subconscious, picking up bits and pieces from people they know, movies they’ve seen, books they’ve read. Mike Leigh literally follows his characters around, listening out for the right moment. The planned goal is a moving target and anyone who thinks they can pinpoint it is fighting a losing battle. A filmmaker can ask, ‘Why did I make the character do that?’, but, ultimately, all the talk about themes and inspiration is nothing but retrofitted rationalisations on how important the movie must be. The correct answer is: it felt right and it was interesting for some reason. I find that the moment we consciously understand the filmmaker’s intention is the moment the movie breaks character and reveals itself as a limited construct trying to fool us. Where’s the art in that?

Comparing movie tastes is, like you say, comparing farts. But you are dismissing how interesting this process can be. Many of the movies we like are determined by what we project onto them, not always because of the artistic merit of the filmmaker. Being baffled by the unsavoury choice of another’s favourite movie requires further inquiry about that person. The type of world you are suggesting is one where the movie’s merits can be ‘proven’ and the viewer’s life experiences has no part in the cycle of life immitating art immitating life. I would suggest that you give more credit to the baseline reaction you speak of, because there is a lot more going on there.

ENTER SANDWOMAN

Speaking of unfair (or fair) dismissal, depending on your point of view:

A chippy with a rotary sander was putting the finishing touches to a reception area when the company idiot pulled out the plug at the power point; you know, by way of a prank. Ha. Ha. This happened a few times, at which point the chippy (let's call her Bronwyn) told the boss that the idiot was fvcking around, and asked him to do something about it. The boss did rock all apart from cheerily telling the company idiot to pull his head in. Naturally, as soon as Bron started work again, the idiot pulled the plug out again. Bron told him he better stop it... or else. Grist to the dill. Idiot did it again. Bron walked over, snatched the plug off idiot, plugged it back in, tested the sander, then sanded the idiot's leg. Sliced right through his jeans, gouged a big hole in his leg, left him squealing on the ground.

Idiot got the sack; Bron got a reprimand.

BARREL O' MONKEYS

Imagine, if you will, the press box at the Melbourne vs Footscray match:

~~ "Did you see Wheatley's kick-out?"
~~ "No, I was at the buffet table."
~~ "I missed it, too, I was at the bar.
~~ "Anyone see Wheatley's ball burster?"
~~ "Nope, I heard it was a bomb."
~~ "Uh uh, I heard it landed in the guts."
~~ "Not here, I heard it landed in the centre circle."

Peter Hanlon, The Age:

HOT AND COLD

Hot was Paul Wheatley, who wins the Malcolm Blight "save the torpedo" award with a kick in the last quarter that landed in the centre circle (with Doggie Dylan Addison, unfortunately).

Bruce Matthew, The Herald Sun:

WHEATLEY MAKES BIG IMPRESSION

No wonder Melbourne's Paul Wheatley is revered for possessing one of the most powerful right boots in the AFL. Wheatley loaded up with a monster torpedo punt from a kick-off following a behind two minutes into the last quarter. The ball landed at a marking contest in the centre circle, with the length of the bomb estimated to be at least 70m.

The kick indeed was a barrel, but while it landed parallel with the centre circle, it landed well away from the centre circle.

THE HISTORY BOYS

Mike Atherton, Ivo Tennant and Simon Barnes in the Times, on the Drawfeit.

Athers: in sparkling form, as usual.

Zimbabwe affair shows ICC has had its day

The ICC no longer has the moral authority to run the game. Given one final opportunity to lift decision-making out of the morass of self-interest, deceit and compromise into which it had fallen, it flunked the test. The outcome on Zimbabwe - self-censorship in return for the loot - was in many ways a triumph for Giles Clarke, the ECB's intelligent and forceful chairman, but it should signal the end for the ICC. Like flared trousers, string vests and the Bay City Rollers, what once seemed a good idea has had its day.

Tennant: elaborates on how the ICC's snivelling decision is even more scandalous than first thought, if that is possible.

MCC to challenge ICC over Pakistan ruling

MCC, which has responsibility for the Laws of Cricket, is to ask the ICC to overturn its decision last week to change the result of the forfeited Test match between England and Pakistan at the Brit Oval in 2006 to a draw. This verdict, Keith Bradshaw, the secretary, will say, contravenes the spirit of the game as well as the Laws. The club’s world committee is also opposed to any alteration to Law 21, which states that the result should not be changed. “Cricket is the worse for this decision and it was opposed unanimously by the ICC’s cricket committee, on which I sit,” he said.

Barnes: his article contains misdirected vitriol, dubious content, is willfully descriptive and the phrase "belabours the point" comes to mind. But apart from that...

Sport the loser after ICC's history revision

It is clear that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has been pondering long and fruitfully on this text from the great book. Certainly, it has decided that history can be undone and put together again in a new form. In a strange, and rather disturbing, precedent, it has said that the match between England and Pakistan at the Brit Oval in 2006 was not, after all, a win for England. It was a draw.

UNDEAD PITCH

Incisor Incisive texting with my brother during last night's England vs South Africa action:

RT: Smith. Dreadful decision. Least it's not us who sent England in.

TT: Edgbaston Has Risen From The Grave.

RT: Thought I saw Christopher Lee in the crowd.

TT: He sucked the life out of the pitch.

RT: Peter Cushing on the roller.

TT: Count Yorga on the mower.

THROUGH THE PAST DARKLY

Funny how things work out.

Looking through footy clippings to post on the AGB, I came across this photo of the 1986 Upper Great Southern Football League premiers, Narrogin Towns. The captain/coach in the front row with his left hand on the cup is John McGuire who played footy for East Perth, including the 1978 WAFL premiership. (Somewhere I have a Sunday Times photo of him taking a hanger in a match against Claremont. Coincidentally, his step-ladder in that photo is Rob Houwen, the coach of the GNFL side that won Westfarmers the following year. Rob's in the glasses at left.) John also played cricket for Mount Lawley (as did David Virgo, who is also in the Towns photo), and is the second highest all-time run scorer in Perth District cricket.

In 1988, John captained an Australian Aboriginal side to England that was part of the Bi-Centenary, and which sought to celebrate the famous 1868 Aboriginal tour of England.

He was a top bloke and while wondering what he might be up to these days I recalled that the coach of that 1988 aboriginal side was an ex-Shield speed merchant from Queensland called Ian "Rainbow" King. Several years earlier, 1981/82 to be precise, Rainbow had been terrorising batsmen when he played for Dampier Salt in the Pilbara Cricket Association. He gave me a couple of blacker-than-blue corkies that lasted at least a month. I then started wondering what might have happened to Rainbow when, almost on cue, I received an email from my brother:

Ian King. Played cricket against him. He played for Karratha I think. Nearly knocked by head off once but afterwards apologised.

Cricketer on indecency charge

A former first class cricketer has been remanded in custody after being charged with an act of indecency against a young person.

Ian Harold King, 65, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court this morning, after being extradited from South Australia at the weekend.

Police allege King committed the offence in Canberra in the early 1990s while he was a junior cricket coach.

The victim is now 30 and lives interstate.

King played Sheffield Shield and one-day matches for Queensland in the 1969/70 season.

He did not apply for bail, and will reappear back in the same court on July 23.

C CHANGE

Speaking of country matters, the picture below appeared in the most recent Melbourne Magazine, that glossy trendoid rag in the Age. Where is this arcadian panorama? Well, appearances can be receptive. It's not an idyllic Victorian country town; it's not even Taralgon. The photo, taken (probably) from one of the converted warehouse apartments off Smith Street, captures, in all its bucolic splendour, the Collingwood town hall, Studley Park, Kew and the Dandenongs... at Balwyn! Who knew a mountain range was so close to central Melbourne.

THE BEAR OBSESSITIES

Stump Woods: "Big history, this club, mate, oh yeah... 32 flags."

~~ Valentine's Day

The Sunday Age review for Valentine's Day, which aired last night on ABC1:

Now this is how you do feel-good. Aunty's had a couple of stabs at it this year but with Valentine's Day we finally arrive: gorgeous family drama that's funny, whimsical, warm-hearted and feels absolutely real. Rhys Muldoon is fab as Ben Valentine, the drifter manoeuvred into coaching a small town's footy team, but he's ably supported by a great cast of familiar and not-so-familiar faces. The equally fabulous Peter Temple provided the script, which snaps and sparkles. Peter Duncan (Children of the Revolution, Unfinished Sky) directs. The result is a package that perfectly captures small-town Australian life and the strange magic of Aussie rules football. There are too many highlights to list them all, but the choreography of the first footy match is worth a special mention.

Gorgeous - a hideous word.

Valentine's Day was OK. Not great, but easy enough to watch. It was certainly a far sight better than the dreary East of Everywhere and the cliché-laden quirk-by-numbers that was Bed of Roses. If you happen to stumble across it on ABC2, Foxtel or via an ABC1 repeat, give it a lash.

But.

You knew there'd be a but.

Footy details. I'm a stickler for details, and only a little bit obsessed.

The review above, and a few others I've read, not to mention Rhys Muldoon on an ABC Conversation Hour last week, referred to the show as "a package that perfectly captures small-town Australian life and the strange magic of Aussie rules football."

In essence, maybe; in reality, maybe not.

The thrust of Valentine's Day is this:

While passing through the town, Ben Valentine (Muldoon) finds himself on the wrong end of the law, but when the judge hears he has a sports background, he is given community service: to coach the local footy team, the Growlers.

(Strictly speaking, Rushworth are the Bears, but that doesn't matter, lots of clubs have secondary nicknames. I used to play for the Tooronga Malvern Panthers, but most of us called them the 'Biners, as in the Combine. In this case, the Rushworth Bears are also called the Growlers, which leads to a tidy, if ribald, sight-gag.)

Ben has been arrested, but while he's in jail the magistrate hears his name, puts two and two together, gets twenty-two, and assumes the Ben Valentine in his lock-up is the same Ben Valentine who once played "20 odd" games for "the Tigers". (The real nickname of the real Rushworth is the Tigers. Really.) It's never stated precisely which Tigers, but since Ben is referred to as "having played with the best", it's pretty obvious the writer's inference was that Ben played in the AFL for Richmond. The magistrate, who doubles as the big nob at the local footy club, then fixes the sentence so that Ben, instead of going to jail, has to do 200 hours community service coaching the local Rushworth Bears.

Got that?

Valentine's Day is based on a plot of mistaken identity. A drifter, thought to be an ex-league footballer, ends up coaching a team in Victoria... and no-one realises. No-one in a Victorian town spots that the Ben Valentine who now coaches their footy team is not the same Ben Valentine who once played "20 odd for the Tigers". On the other hand, the townsfolk DO recognise Tony Cosgrove, captain of the Tigers who comes to watch one of the Bears' games and who the real Ben Valentine had a fight with at the Tigers; a fact which popped up as No.2 on Google when a local lawyer - a hottie, naturally - does a search for Ben.

Elsewhere.

The Bears get blanket coverage on the local radio station. Now, I've played a lot of country footy in a lot of country towns and while there is certainly a call of the game on the local radio station, there is not much else; certainly not ear-to-ear talk-back.

Smokers are fake. Bet that's news! Fake smoking applies to so many television shows and movies, it's ridiculous. Surely it's well past time the makers of TV shows stopped trying to convince us their characters enjoy a gasper when quite obviously they would rather lick trees. Virtually none do the drawback, and most look about as convincing as a ten year old "smoking" a musk stick.

When is the last time any of you rocked into a small country town, rolled into the pub, and the local band didn't give you a headache?  Mel, a woman who is one of the biggest fans of the club, plays in a local band - that is not bad. Not that I've already been on the internet hunting down the soundtrack - although they do a reasonable version of the Sunnyboys' Alone With You - but it would have been much more realistic had the band been rubbish.

Mel also makes a footy mistake. The Bears need to win three out of the last four games to stay alive as a club in their own right or else they will be forced to merge with Lucan. Mel: "We need six more competition points. We gotta win three from four." Ignoring, with great restraint, the "three from four", a creeping Americanism that makes me mad, correct me if I'm wrong: the Kyabram District Football League have four points for a win. That would mean Rushworth only need to win two games. Maybe the writer, Peter Temple, is from a rugby league state; or maybe he is even from the bizarro world we call South Australia, home of two-point wins, one-point draws, and strange percentages.

Pretty much every time sport is featured in a film or on a TV show the people playing are crap. Complete scrubbers. Valentine's Day is no exception. Rushworth are awful, and I don't know why the choreography needs a special mention; unless it's a special mention, if you know what I mean. But that doesn't stop them beating arch rival Lucan in the last match, despite the Lucan players actually being able to play. They kick properly, hit targets, mark on the lead; they are proper, grown-up footballers. Rushworth looked like a bad Under 14 side made up entirely of unco fat kids.

Nor have I ever seen a player and/or coach walk down a street of a country town as everyone, not just the odd passer-by, cheers him, pats him on the back, and treats him like a rock star.

After the Great Northern Football League won the 1987 Westfarmers Championships First Division, smashing the South West 28.8.176 to 7.4.46 and I had my picture in the Guardian - the Geraldton Guardian - no crowds parted as I strode up the street.

Ungrateful bastards!

The mum of one of the guys I played with said "good win" in Coles.

DRAWFEIT

It's easy to take pot-shots at the ICC, so I will.

Once, if you broke the rules, got caught and lost a game, you wore it. You mightn't like it, but you wore it:

Forfeit a Test and you leave with draw

THE International Cricket Council is about to make Test cricket the perfect game - no team should ever lose again.

In a decision which would achieve even greater levels of farce for this hopelessly compromised body, the ICC is set to announce today, at its annual meeting in Dubai, teams can refuse to play and not lose the match.

England's Daily Mail reported from Dubai that: "Cricket's rulers effectively wrote a cheats charter yesterday when they wiped out England's controversial 2006 victory over Pakistan at The Oval and redesignated it as a draw."

Some consider the ICC a spineless pack of snivellers, kowtowing to Pakistan's squealing after the Pakis were caught cheating (the sit-in, not the tampering; although the latter reminds me of Blue Murder when Rogerson tells Neddy that it doesn't matter that he is not guilty, this time, he was guilty plenty of other times). Not me. The ICC is not spineless. The ICC has too much front to be considered spineless. They are, in fact, a rat-cunning, double-dealing, money-grubbing pack of spivs.

Serendipitous indeed that England and Pakistan - suddenly, after two years - have agreed to "declare The Oval Test as a draw to maintain the dignity of Pakistan in world cricket, especially after the ball-tampering charges were dropped" precisely when England needed ICC support to stop Zimbabwe from playing in next year's World Twenty20.

Hey presto:

Zimbabwe pull out of World Twenty20

Zimbabwe have agreed to pull out of next year's Twenty20 World Cup in England, clearing the roadblocks for the competition to be staged there, but will retain their status as Full Member of the ICC and receive funding as usual. They will also receive their full participation fee for the tournament.

The Indian voting block on the ICC can't cut Zimbabwe loose entirely; they need the Zimbo's tainted proxy vote to stump up their twisted aspirations. And the Zims need India:

"We have consulted and exchanged notes with everybody, including our Indian friends, last night," Chingoka said. "We are now looking forward to more tours and international cricket with our Asian friends, especially India."

Cosy.

Thus, the ICC is kept in a dysfunctional state so the richest constituent member can, with the convenient allocation of funds, keep the Zim's vote in their back pocket. 

ICC forced into paying Zimbabwe to stay away

THE International Cricket Council has been forced into such an embarrassing backdown over Zimbabwe that the disgraced cricketing nation will be paid for not attending next year's World Twenty20 championship in England.

Attempts by South Africa and England to have the corrupt Zimbabwe removed as a full member of the ICC at this week's sometimes heated ICC annual meeting in Dubai floundered when India refused to back the move.

Instead India wanted to retain Zimbabwe's vote to continue dominating the ICC with the help of the other Asian countries and the West Indies.

WE LIKE MIKE

Holding quits ICC in protest at disputed Test ruling

ENOUGH is enough, according to West Indies fast bowling legend Michael Holding, who has resigned his position on the International Cricket Council's cricket committee in protest at the decision to change the result of Pakistan's forfeited Test against England at the Oval in 2006 to a draw.

"I have just written my letter of resignation to the ICC Cricket Committee because I cannot agree with what they've done," Holding said during his Sky Sports commentary in England. "That game should never, ever be a draw. When you take certain actions, you must be quite happy to suffer the consequences.

"A lot of things are happening today that I don't want to be involved with, so I've moved on."

THE SWEENEYS

Mike Sweeney is a cop whose wife has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and whose partner has just been killed. For a new start, the Sweeneys move from Toronto to Durham County where two teenage girls have just gone missing.

Bad move for Mike: the bloke who lives across the street is Ray Prager, a nutcase from Mike's past, and possibly a serial killer. Good move for a television show: the first episode of Durham County on Tuesday night was a corker.

Since I've only seen one episode it's impossible to say whether DC is worth sticking with, but that episode set up a raft of interesting scenarios. Ray Prager, for instance, is not your typical prime-suspect, trying to keep out of the limelight; he is a complete wanker who heaps sh1t on his wife, torments his son and is loud and obnoxious to everyone he meets. Even if he isn't the serial killer, he's still an obvious nutcase.

Not that DC is perfect; there is the odd cliché. Naturally, Mike's teen-angst daughter is trouble, his youngest daughter all quirk. It doesn't stretch the imagination to think they might fit into the frame serial-killer-wise. And Mike is having an affair.

Still, check it out.

If you are a fan of high tension electricity transmission - HV lines, Stockbridge dampers, insulator strings, corona rings - you will get an extra kick out of Durham County.

Fact: Australians call an electric shock a "boot"; Canadians call an electric shock a "poke".

MAKE CANNABIS HISTORY

Ian's not here, man.

THE LONG LEGBYE

Would you like to read a crime and cricket novel in blog form? Of course you would:

The Curly Situation
An online novel

What is this?...
It's a blog novel (or "blovel" if you must blestroy the blingo). It's also an experiment. I write, you read, and we all get a laugh along the way. The story centres on Curly Gibson, an Aussie cricketer whose talent for accidental sporting success is surpassed only by his talent for getting shot at.

POLAKSED

Richmond's Graham Polak was hit by a tram on Saturday night. But things are looking up since he woke from a "medically-induced yesterday".

Liam Pickering: What about the sad news of Graham Polak overnight?

Danny Frawley: Pretty disappointing... he's in a self-induced coma.

~~ Sunday, half-time, Melbourne vs Brisbane