Category Archive: AUSTRALIANIA
The Judges
Arthur Boyd’s The Judges, Adelaide University, October 2016. During the International Criminal Law Conference’s 30th anniversary (1985 being a banner year in many ways, like 1986) in Adelaide this year, the extremely hip organisers arranged, in their wisdom, a private viewing of Boyd’s series commissioned in 1967 by the Adelaide University. Originally to be a series of mosaics, this proved too expensive and time-consuming, so Boyd submitted his 12 pieces of oils on board, with lead frames to add ballast. As the lovely people from the University Collections apparatus told us, Boyd heightened his regular theme of frailty and shame in the hope…
Continue Reading →Lured Down to the Sea
Lure, Fleurieu Peninsula, Spring 2016. The Varnished Culture got in a jalopy, stacked a bunch of CDs in the player and set off under an early Spring murk, down south to Lure, a new Bed ‘n’ Breakfast on the Fleurieu Peninsula, an hour’s drive from Adelaide. It’s an easy-peasy drive: you take the main arterial road, imaginatively called ‘South Road,’ and turn onto the Southern Expressway (now a two-way road, thank god) which conveys you south expressly through the suburban sprawl, and tips you out near Reynella. From there, you can go inland and trawl through the great wineries of…
Continue Reading →Tickled Pink
Photo courtesy of the SANFL website
SANFL Under 18s Grand Final (Adelaide Oval, 18 September 2016) Pink! Unlikely name for a hero! And an unlikely way to win a game of football, kicking 6.20, but that 20th point will go into legend as did Barry Breen’s for St Kilda in the 1966 VFL Grand Final. Here, the winning point was even more unlikely…of which more later. Glenelg took on North in an old-fashioned tug-of-war in which both teams each held sway at various moments of the game. North enjoyed the biggest lead in the first quarter, although the Tigers found their mojo and narrowed the gap…
Continue Reading →Stalemate
"Okay, Professor, so we didn't beat Sturt...but Sturt didn't beat us." (Frederick Stuart Church's rendering of the Tiger and the Professor, after lunch)
Glenelg v Sturt at Peter Motley Oval, 27 August 2016 Major round contender Sturt led us all day. The Double Blues moved through their mid-field with a dazzling series of handballs, cutting our defences up and looming as big winners. Yet the home side squandered the best of the breeze in the first quarter, by over-use and inaccuracy before goal, yielding them leaders by 17 points despite having 11 scoring shots to 4. Beard and Evans looked dangerous up forward for Sturt. But for sterling work in ruck by Warwick McGinty and great defence by James Sellar, the margin would have been bigger. The…
Continue Reading →The Big Men Say “Bye”
Glenelg v Port @ Glenelg Oval, 13 August 2016 Port had a bunch of AFL stars back to bolster its attack on the finals and it looked in real race trim. After going the biff early, they discovered that the Tigers were more than equal to the hard stuff, so in the last half they broke free with superior football, outrunning and out-muscling the home side. The Bays missed 4 easy shots and blew the chance to impose some scoreboard pressure. But some Port ‘stars’ may have some explaining to do for the Match Review Panel. Certainly the umpiring review…
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