After Grog Blog

NUTTS!

Forget the Global Financial Crisis; ignore the heatwave; stick the Battle of the Front page (Barassi v. Dokic) up your gonga. Pissant bagatelles. There's a far more pressing problem.

Nuttelex has a new box.

Once upon a toast you could grab the Nuttelex out of the fridge, plonk the stuff down on the kitchen table, flick the lid off, stick in your k'nife, dig out a dollop, spread it.

Not any more.

Now you must grab the Nuttelex out of the fridge, plonk the stuff down on the kitchen table, search for the right side of the box, the side that contains the notch, fumble for the right grip, eventually flick the lid off, hoping you haven't broken the lid, stick in your k'nife, dig out a dollop, spread it.

A disaster.

Just to rub it in, at the Nuttelex site, they've labelled the picture hero-lite.jpg.

STUPID PUNT!

Terrific article by Patrick Bartley in today's Age:

How a high-flyer came crashing back to earth

MANY AFL footballers, especially in the off-season, relish the odd dabble on the races.

PSYCHO POODLE QU'EST QUE C'EST

Chien bites homme:

Clinically Depressed Poodle Mauls Former French President Chirac

The couple's white Maltese poodle, called Sumo, has a history of frenzied fits and became increasingly prone to making "vicious, unprovoked attacks" despite receiving treatment with anti-depressants

aussi, aussi, aussi.

DOWN TO DEARTH

Fine article by Jake Niall in today's Age.

Forget No.1s, we're winning in what counts

A dearth of tennis stars is a sign of a healthy country.

HERE HOUSE HERE

Want a tree-change?

For sale: the finest cottage known to humanity

Sleddale Hall, near Shap in Cumbria, featured in the film Withnail & I and is now on the market for £145,000. But how might Withnail set out its particulars?

UNORIGINAL SIN

Unoriginal sign:

1. We're all individuals

OK, SO you've got your centre-court ticket and, full of the joys of living, you sidle into Rod Laver Arena ready for a great day of international tennis action. The beer and food prices aren't about to get you down, and, for now, you're also ignoring the stifling heat and the fact that you've drawn that "blockbuster" match between Chris Guccione and David Nalbandian. "Nice to be supporting the local bloke," you think to yourself as a you arrive at your seats to find a seething mob in front of you. Yes, it's the so-called Fanatics Pty Ltd, or a version thereof. All bedecked in the same yellow T-shirts, all in the same hats, all singing the same chants, oh, and … all day. It's not that this phenomenon is unique to tennis, it's just that: 1. It's hard to imagine why anyone would get so worked up about a tennis match, and 2. There's just no escape from this sort of lunacy at a tennis stadium. Still, for every fanatic clad in the standard issue garb, there's always going to be one or two funny lines among the dross. The guy holding up this sign (pictured) has shown not only wit, but wisdom well beyond his seating position among the clones.

Two things:

1. Despite being spot on in all other sentiments, Andrew Tate, the compiler of High 5, needs to get out more. "The guy behind me can't see" is not as old as "John 3:16" but it's about the same age as "668: the neighbor of the beast". I first noticed it at the Pro Wrestling around 10 years ago. Since then it has often popped up at sporting events worldwide, and in Straya. Oh, and by the way.
2. Since Fanatic = Moron, what's the bet the sign holder claims the joke for himself, and then when filled in, concedes: "Old? Well, at least I thought of it by myself."

DEPRESS RELEASE

If you don't want to frolic with the Moronics, you could always get stuck into the two-buck chuck with Leaping Larry:

HOW FAR THE CHERRY?

ACCORDING to a media release for what now apparently glories in the name "Jacob's Creek's Summer of Tennis", at the Australian Open we can expect that:

"Each day, a group of supporters will be given Jacob's Creek black and white gear to wear, and chants to sing to support their Jacob's Creek Honorary Aussie, the 'against the odds' player, who will face a higher-seeded opponent."

This presents one major potential logistical problem. After witnessing this considerable entertainment extravaganza, we may need to build a bigger country to hold all the vomit.

ATOMIC

Just hogging a headline.

Teen hero: Tomic blasts his way into second round

Gold Coast teenager Bernard Tomic has won his first round match at the Australian Open defeating Potito Starace of Italy in four sets 7-6 (7-5) 1-6 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (8-6).

EAT THE PARENTS

And the Emmy for the best TV conversation of 1997 goes to... the envelope, please... Oz:

Lenny Burrano: Donald Groves, you killed your parents and ate them, right?

Donald Groves: I only ate my mom. I was saving my dad for Thanksgiving.

LB: That’s festive. So, what can you tell me about Dino Ortolani’s murder?

DG: I got in trouble for sneaking in the morgue.

LB: What were you doing in the morgue?

DG: I was just looking.

LB: And they put you in The Hole.

DG: Yeah.

LB: And you were in the cell next to Ortolani when he got burned?

DG: Yeah.

LB: You hear anything?

DG: No. Not a sound. He didn’t scream. He got set on fire and he didn’t scream. That’s balls.

LB: Anything else?

DG: I saw them carry him out. Looked like a roasted… chuckle… broiled chicken. His flesh was all brown and crispy. He looked good enough to eat.

St ISFACTION

Who knew the TV show Satisfaction was such a force for good:

Kestie Morassi visited brothels before playing Natalie and says talking to prostitutes and madams changed her outlook on the industry.

"The one thing that struck me the most was the dignity the girls had and, in a weird way, the dedication they had to doing a good job," she says.

"It was fascinating how many of them were carers - nurses or mothers - outside the brothels."

"There were a few where you felt sad for them - there was a sadness in their eyes - but when I started to talk to them they said they feel like they are doing a community service. These girls need to be there, the industry needs to be there, and it's a really hard job."

An idea: madams and hookers should take over ABC Learning.

THE DOGS & BOLLOCKS

Recently watched The Great Macarthy. You may have heard TGM is a classic Aussie fillum. You heard wrong. You heard right if your idea of "classic Aussie fillum" equates to "must be rubbish", which is not an unheard-of connection.

TGM is a mess: think Alvin Purple meets the Club.

During the commentary, Bruce Smeaton, who did the music, concedes that "every country has to serve its apprenticeship" before going on to compare TGM to the Ealing comedies, but only the bad ones: "We talk about the Ealing comedies, but not all of them were funny. Some of them were pretty terrible."

TGM, though, is not completely unwatchable. Not for me, a Melbourne boy and footy fan. While it's a dreadful balls up as a fillum, it's worth a squizz for the locations and faces. The Lake Oval, the MCG and St Kilda beach are three of the more obvious settings. I didn't know they filmed scenes at half time of the 1974 grand final. And there are numerous football faces. There is also a scene set in Albert Park in which a young HG Nelson appears as an onlooker at a Nazi Party rally. Really.

Then there's this exchange during the commentary between Sydney executive producer Richard Brennan and Melbourne film bloke Paul Harris:

RB: "They're playing Fitzroy, a team that no longer exists. That is Fitzroy, isn't it?"

PH: "Yep."

Later, Brennan - but not Harris - almost concedes he got it wrong:

RB: "The team I identified as Footsroy is the Western Bulldogs."

The team he identified as Fitzroy, then Footsroy, then the Western Bulldogs is Footscray. No doubt you joined those dots long ago. Fitzroy are gone, Footscray of 1974 have been replaced by the Western Bulldogs, and Footsroy only existed if you count the failed 1989 merger between Footscray and Fitzroy.

Coincidentally, look who showed up in TGM: post Footsroy coach Terry "Squirrel Grip" Wheeler, who has just grabbed a ball.

THE WORST OF St KILDA

The Worst of Perth takes a lash at Melbourne's recent Festival of Barassi:

Barassi, dumbarse or plonker?

I wonder whether the ludicrous Melbourne press coverage of a 72 Year Old Ron Barassi making a dickhead of himself contributed to Operation Overkill here in Perth.