Category Archive: AUSTRALIANIA
The Grail of Sport is to Beat Port
Glenelg v Port Adelaide (@ Glenelg Oval, 24 April 2021) A healthy crowd on a beautiful autumnal evening enjoyed a terrific tussle between the 2019 Grand Finalists. Port were up and about, emblematized by Sam Powell-Pepper (who was annoyingly like salt-and-pepper; i.e. everywhere). Although the Tigers actually won every quarter, none of them were by much, and the lead changed or closed throughout the game. It was (pardon the cliché) an ‘arm wrestle.’ In the Presidents Room, 100 years of memorabilia were arrayed, reminding all that the sum of a Club is so much more than its premierships. The team…
Continue Reading →Wings Clipped
(Glenelg v Eagles, Glenelg Oval, 10 April 2021) The Bays shook off their first round sluggishness in taking on the reigning premier on a cool, blustery late Saturday afternoon. Morning rain had been mopped up by the breeze, so there was no real excuse for a return for great effort of 1 goal nine points late in the first half. Still, the Eagles were struggling as well and by the last few minutes, Luke Reynolds goaled, with the visitors up by a solitary point at half time. As the skies darkened, Glenelg’s endeavour began to be matched by its aim….
Continue Reading →The Fair Good Friday
(Glenelg v West Adelaide at Glenelg Oval, 2 April 2021) On May 7, 1921, Glenelg played its first game, against West Adelaide, on Adelaide Oval. West won (18.10 to 6.5). The newbies were hopelessly outclassed but kept on punching (you can read all about it in chapter 3 of Pride of the Bay). The Tigers wouldn’t win a game until 1925, but now, in its 100th year, it has a fair bit to roar about. 100 years later, almost to the day, The Bays met its first foe, this time at ‘The G.’ At least the Tigers failed to lose…
Continue Reading →Prison Journal
(Volume I: The Cardinal Makes His Appeal) (by George Cardinal Pell) (2020) The story is notorious, and you don’t require the gift of faith or have to hold a brief for the real victim to find it shocking. Pell was the leading Catholic figure in Australia, of a conservative bent, and detested by many Australians, who considered him a monster. The reasons for this seem to be that he was the leading Catholic figure in Australia, and of a conservative bent. His conviction for historical sex crimes saw a ‘pile-on’ of a magnitude only comparable with the demonisation of Lindy…
Continue Reading →Parody # 10: Australia, 2021
(with apologies to William Wordsworth) Tony Abbott! thou shouldst be with us at this hour: Australia hath need of thee: she is a swamp Of stagnant waters; dust, and rising damp, Our wealth for toil and sea-girt bower Have lost strength, their inner steel doth cower – We now are selfish, addled, multi-gendered dopes: Please raise us up, do restore our hopes; Let us not scare easily with each passing shower. Thy words could quite embarrass, yet ring clear; But never weasel words, never insincere …
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