After Grog Blog

UMM AND UMMER

From the Green Guide, on Tony Delroy's midnight Challenge trivia shenanigans:

Cheating, Delroy says, has "become an issue" with the growth of the internet. "You'll know nine times out of ten in they're Googling because they'll be floundering and then all of a sudden they come up with the answer straight out of left field. When that happens, I'll quietly get rid of them."

Fortunately, it's not a big problem.

Not sure about that. Just last night Tones asked who directed Raging Bull, only for the caller to umm-umm-brainstrust it before bumbling "Martin, ummm, Sorcers?" TD passed it without a pause. Stand-in host Rod Quinn would have come straight out and said "No Googling; you're out." Rod's feisty. Tones, HTFU.

Tones recently had a lash at the cheats, calling them pathetic and sad for scumming to win no more than a book or a DVD. But there are a lot of low-rent dead-shits out there, so the issue won't go away soon.

GNOMIES 2009

Back by popular remand to build upon the outstanding success that was the 2008 Gnomies: The Melbourne Football Club Football Club awards night extravaganza that is The 2009 Gnomies!

This year with red and blue carpet; black suits with pointy white shoes: exclusive Youtube footage of Brent Moloney repeatedly thumping team-mates who won't sing the club song with enough gusto; and Sandy Roberts asking Tiger Woods whether he would like to meet Liam Jurrah. ("Of course I would.")

And now, without further undo, it's over to my brother, RT:

The Sir Robert Flower Best & Fairest Award – we all know. Was the pundits choice and he has pretty much sealed the difficult transformation from opportunistic, elusive forward to influential, creative on-baller. Can break a play open with his delivery and could well be our next and first ever indigenous captain. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, one decent season with a few flashy ones preceding does not a Sir Robert Flower make. We’ve got him for 4 more, so blaze on Aaron and create your own Demon legend.

The Allen Jakovich Best First Year Player Award – Liam Jurrah. Got a fair touch of the Jakos, a walking highlight reel. As someone else said when looking at some footage of him “he just makes me smile whenever I see him in action”.

The Guy Rigoni Biggest Surprise Packet Award – Bennell / Jetta double act. At picks 35 and 51 not much if anything expected 1st year but 15 or 16 games each in their first season were well over the odds. Bennell in the first half of the season, Jetta in the second. Cheney also surprised.

The Andrew Leoncelli Most Improved Award – James Frawley. I suppose being a 1st Round pick we had hoped he was a potential star but showed it’s not “hoped” but “definitely should”. Last round versus Reiwoldt was a great indicator. Played him beautifully. Jamar actually could have challenged for the award if he’d played more than 7 games, we’ve certainly called off the dump truck for him.

The Brent Grgic Most Disappointing Award – Paul Johnson. Had the first ruck there for the taking with Jamar, Meesen and Spencer all injured at various times. As we’ve said during the season, he should never handball, he should just head the ball given the turnover rate.

The Paul Hopgood Effort Award – Ricky Petterd. The guy has guts. Or no brains. That pack mark he took vs the Tigers and then sealed with a crucial goal was superb stuff. He could go either way next year but would be some story if he propers given the ’07 season lung buster.

The Stephen Tingay Young Player Potential Award – Stef Martin. His pick up, swivel round a player, then goal against Essendon showed he’s no dud ex-basketball klutz. He has the pace, height and importantly agility to worry plenty of sides. Disposal the key improvement factor with him.

The Glenn Lovett Established Player But Could Be A Superstar Award – Colin Sylvia. Some genuine glimpses of real Pick # 3 class. Multiple sweet 65m kicks right thru the centre of the goals mixed in with great link play. Just stay out of the drip trays thanks Col.

The Jeff Farmer Demons Goal Of The Year Award - Liam...over the head for 30m if you don’t mind.

The Shaun Smith Demons Mark Of The Year Award – Liam... one hander in Canberra sticks in the memory. Mainly because I was there in sub zero temp. But there were about 3 freaky ones and only 9 games in.

The Jeremy Nichols Blink And You’ll Miss Him Award – Rohan Bail. May be proved wrong but he could go back to Qld saying “I played one AFL game, got one kick, last one minute”. Who else can say that?!

The Nick Smith X-Factor Award – Simon Buckley. X-Factored himself right off the list. Hope he doesn’t come back to haunt us.

The Anthony Ingerson Older Player But Keep On List Until He Claps Out Award – Brad Green. Could well still play for a couple of years, as opposed to Junior and Bruce. Delivery always top notch, has steadily improved his workrate around the ground and tough in the clinches. Could also go back to the forward line as he hits his 30’s.

The Darren Cuthbertson Frustration Award – Michael Newton. 2nd year running. It’s safe to say he is Trans not On The Beach. He’s burning so slow, he’s out of lighter fluid. Hard to justify playing so many Casey games when plenty are being gifted Red and Blue jerseys.

The Darren Kowal Designated Kicker Out From Goal Award – who did do it this year? At least Trav is out of the picture and now trying to thread an impossible pass of a metho bottle thru his hobo mates only for it to land in the campfire and explode.

Spoon not a valid indictor. Ten times better than the woeful Tigers. Almost would have passed Freo and possibly the Kangas with the tanking lights off.

I saw a win! Weagles Rd 14.

Roll on Scully and Trengove.

Viewer awards section. Your input matters:

The Barry Norsworthy Keep Training Around The Outside of the MCG in the Vain Hope They May Call You Back Inside Award - '09 - Wobbo. No ability to keep your feet and / or apply defensive pressure in the forward line unfortunately makes you wedunant in the modern game. Let's see Garland do a Scarlett and snaffle 30 touches on him against the Blues.

ANDRE AGACKI

The only reason the ATP believed Andre Agassi's farcical excuse for snorting gack - "I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs" - is because they wanted to believe it. Better to let him off than have tennis soiled by having their top player disgraced by a drug scandal:

Andre Agassi: I lied to escape a ban for taking hard drugs

Andre Agassi makes the sensational confession today that he lied to the tennis authorities to escape a ban for taking hard drugs.

Agassi recounts sitting at home with his assistant, referred to only as Slim, and being introduced to the drug. “Slim is stressed too ... He says, You want to get high with me? On what? Gack. What the hell’s gack? Crystal meth. Why do they call it gack? Because that’s the sound you make when you’re high ... Make you feel like Superman, dude.

“As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, I hear these words: You know what? F*** it. Yeah. Let’s get high.

Is there another decade to rival the Nineties for gutless administrators?

SOUTH GERMANY

Thanks to Pete Tweet comes this excellent article on the lashings of lolly lavished on our Aussie times three Olympic campaigns:

Fool's gold

AUSTRALIA’s athletes set off for the Olympic Games in Canada in July 1976 in what were, even for the 1970s, horrible uniforms, but with high hopes. We had done well in Munich four years earlier, winning eight gold and seventeen medals overall, placing us sixth on the medal tally.

CLOWN MEMORY LANE

Talk-back callers' cherished personal memories. It's a stone certainty that as soon as the punters start reminiscing, their so-called cherished memories will be wrong.

Last week SEN callers were asked to nominate their favourite Cox Plate moments.

• The first bloke lovingly recalled the 1982 Cox Plate "when Roy Higgin's said 'Kingston Town can't win.'" It did. Roy Higgins didn't. It was Bill Collins.

• The next caller "will always remember when Taj Rossi won in 1971". 1973.

• Only caught the end of this one today. A bloke had called in to set Mark Doran straight about a match in which Mark Jackson and Tony Lockett played together: "I remember it well. Plugger kicked two goals from tight angles. Straight as a die." This moved Doran to consult his local internet: "Funny how time distorts. Jacko didn't actually play, and Plugger only kicked one goal."

I've got this theory. Talkback callers never actually see or hear their favourite moments; instead, they regurgitate someone else's favourite memory, or re-tell a story they were told. Just as there are usual suspects, there are also usual subjects.

Either way, it would improve talk-back radio immeasurably if they did away with talk-back callers.

WURST WORLD WAR

During World War One the royal family changed their name from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. On the flip side, in 1915 StKilda changed its colours to red, yellow and black. And, according to Boynton's research, what used to be known as German sausage changed its name to devon:

• New South Wales - devon
• Western Australia - polony
• Queensland - luncheon (which must make Bill Lawry happy)
• South Australia - fritz
• Tasmania - Belgium
• Victoria - Strasbourg or straz

Wiki says Victorians also called it devon, but I don't remember that. Anyway, while some of us have a fair idea about the change, and others know of the state variations, does anyone one why there are different names?

DON'T KNOW DICTUM

"Penny Wong will have to resign because her position is completely untenable, cos it goes against everything that she set down in her diatribe, which she, so, ahh, gave with such dictum."

So Virginia Trioli was sprung pulling faces and fingers at Bananaby Joyce. (As you can see, he was talking jibberish.) Can this be the only occurrence of interviewers mocking interviewees? Unlikely. I want to see all of it. Take Kevin Rudd (Please!) The last time the Worm Minister was on the 7:30 Report first blushin', fair shakin' and shit stormin, Kerry O'Brien put on a Barry McKenzie hat, slurped a Fosters and stuck his fingers down his throat. Show that, Mark Scott, for free.

What's good for the goose, is good for the goose.

POINTS OF ORDER

Good article by Tim Lane in yesterday's Age:

No stopping video umpire genie once it escapes the TV box

We saw, on the television, Tom Hawkins' kick brush the goalpost, so we know the goal umpire made an error in awarding a goal. The use of a video umpire would have overcome the problem. And had Geelong won the grand final by five points or less, the problem would have been catastrophic.

At the risk of further rubbing salt into StKilda wounds, there has been a key point missing in the continual revisiting of the Hawkins poster: it wasn't a five points or less situation; it was an eleven points or less situation.

Allow me to 'splain.

Hawkins hit the post. (Anyone notice the bizarre way he kicked the ball? Leg high, stiff and swinging sideways, as if he was trying to clear a ledge.) Goal given. One point increase becomes five. Then. The ball goes back to the centre. Geelong get another goal. Eleven point increase. It is reasonable to assume that, had St Kilda been awarded a kick-out, as they should have, they would have maintained possession of the ball and Geelong would not have kicked the second goal.

Fast forward.

Max Rooke marks on the final siren. The Saints players pull the pin. Rooke, with no one on the mark, dribbles through a goal. Geelong wins by 12 points.

Had the earlier mistake not occurred, and Geelong were five points behind instead of six points in front, Rooke would have been kicking for the win, with players on the mark, and the game on the line. He would not have been able to casually turn a six point win into a twelve point win.

Glad I got that off my chest.

GET YER JA-JA'S OUT

Is everybody ready? We're sorry for the delay:

Aaaand, here's what happens next.

On the outside chance a German opera sloppily dubbed into Swedish with Italian subtitles is not your linguistic long suit, try this.

CAULFIELD CARP

What goose ever says Caul?

Caul Blimey

Mispronounced words, and please, no more.

We're drowning in examples of linguistic lunacy.

Barry, for example, is bald from pulling his hair out at people referring to "Corfield" instead of "Caulfield".

Piss orf, Baldy.

BELITTLE PEOPLE?

Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield - "Hey, Wang! Don't tell 'em you're Jewish" - have made a motza taking shots at their heritage.

So why can't a short arse cash in on his height?

Dwarf jockey race slammed

A RACING stunt Down Under featuring dwarf jockeys riding on normal people has been slammed by equality groups.

Tiny jockey Jeremy Hallam said the group were paid to do a job like all other actors.

He said: "We were dressed as characters which were jockeys to be out there and have a bit of fun, entertain and do our job as an actor.

"I'm out there acting as a character. If members of the public cannot differentiate between the character and the person, then that's their problem."

The Pommy Sun getting all "Scandal!" over bad taste - now, that's funny!

Ol' BLUE CHEESE

Regardless of whether you think Hey Hey It's Blackface Day is a storm in a thimble, or a disgrace which reveals the hidden evil in the heart of all Australians, I'm sure you'll agree Alan Howe has nailed Harry Connick's singing:

A few stones from US sinners

Connick is a cheesy, half-talented copycat singer employing cliched Sinatra stylings while recycling jazz standards that have been sung better everywhere. You don't want to hear what he does to a decent pop song.

Half-talented copycat actor, too. Literally. As a serial killer in Copycat, Hannibal Lecter would have eaten him for dinner. (Dwayne Russell: They don't come any better than that!)

YOU DIG?

"I don't think Australians are racist. We just call a spade a spade."

~~ Caller to 3AW

TWELVE ANGRY MEN (AND WOMEN)

The court of public opinion has passed judgement on the following rumours:

1. Punched out Marc Murphy;
2. Pushed Rebecca Twigley to the ground when she tried to stop him attacking a security guard;
3. Sexually harassed a female journalist;
4. Was involved in an incident with Bryce Gibbs' girlfriend which left her in tears;
5. Put Adrian Anderson in a headlock (along with James Brayshaw);
6. Abused Warren Tredrea, and other high standing opposition players/officials;
7. Swore/abused Chris Judd repeatedly when he attempted to have words to him;
8. Exposed himself to Rebecca Twigley, asking her for oral favours;
9. Punched a Channel 9 producer;
10. Felt up Demetriou's wife;
11. Told Stephen Kernahan to f**k off when Stix told him to go home;
12. Kept stepping on the hem of the Twig's dress, hoping to expose her, ahem, upper torso.

FACE FACTS

SAME SHIT, SAME BUCKET

Pull the chain, gang:

"Hey Hey is devoid of any real wit."

"It's just the same old rubbish."

"It's desperate. It's toilet humour and it should be flushed."

~~ Kamahl

TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE GAY

EYE mean I. I mean, I don't know what I mean.