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Come in spinner | Apr 26, 2003 10:31
Around the time the old Anzacs were coming to the end of their march down George St yesterday, the pubs were filling up. All across town young and old were gearing up for a few good sessions of two-up.
I went to the Sandringham (aka The Sando) in Newtown and after a promising start to go $50 ahead, ended $100 down. That put me about midfield among my mates with one losing $190 and another ending slightly ahead.
You can see why this game is so peculiarly popular in Australia – it's social, you can play while getting royally pissed, you don't need anything but a couple of coins. It's an egalitarian game – a game that can be played everywhere and everyone can join in. And it's so simple you can be a master in 10 seconds.
Also Aussies like to make a lot of noise. Two-up is all about noise.
According to my research the game originates from a British game called Pitch and Toss. Imported by the convicts this involved one coin. By the 1850s it had evolved into the peculiarly Australian two-coin game which was played with gusto by the Anzacs wherever they went.
The march itself is carried live on TV. Each unit passes marching behind their divisional banner telling where they fought. Mostly now the veterans are from World War II, so the names are Tobruk, Alemain, Borneo, Kokoda and Bougainville. There was only one Word War I veteran in the march here yesterday – one of nine left in Australia. Last year there were, from memory, 14. It is very moving, even if you can't quite drag your sorry arse out of bed to attend at dawn.
Then there are the traditional sporting fixtures – Essendon v Collingwood in the AFL. It was disappointing, though, there was no Australia/New Zealand test scheduled in any code.
Now, if you're like me you probably love a good magazine. The problem I've been having is finding one. I used to like the lads mags – Loaded, FHM etc but have gotten a bit bored with that lot. I still pick up a Vanity Fair from time to time. It's hard to beat.
But generally I look at the shelves and walk out of the shop empty handed. I want to buy, but can't.
Well, some magazine people apparently feel the same way. They've left their cozy lurks in the heart of the UK mag publishing trade and went out on their own with Word. The first issue, March, is now on the streets and it's not bad. I won't declare it a success just yet but there is some good stuff in here.
The editor says he didn't want to do a magazine by numbers, so they didn't do any reader research before launch. His aim was to produce the kind of magazine the Word team would like to read in the belief there were plenty of people out there just like them.
My only criticism is that while Word carries good coverage of music and figures a thirty-something would recognise (Nick Cave, John Peel, Neil Tennant) it doesn't really deal with whatever the "new new thing" is. In other words if you're under say 25 you might find it a bit crusty.
That's a shame because the new new thing isn't inaccessible even to thirty- and forty-somethings. I hope this will improve because the magazine I have been looking for is one that both understands where I am, like Word, but from time to time also takes me well outside my comfort zone.
Anyway, it's a brave launch and well worth a look.
Being mid-Tasman | Apr 21, 2003 11:26
In the Northern Hemisphere they have an expression, an expression that evokes the ultimate in urbanity and sophistication: mid-Atlantic. To say that someone is a mid-Atlantic person or that they have a "mid-Atlantic sensibility" is to say they have drunk deep of the two great troughs of Western culture, American and European.
Such people have probably lived on both continents; they will probably speak English and one other European language (preferably French even now). They will quote European philosophers and American popular culture interchangeably.
It has struck me how we do not have an equivalent term for someone who embraces both sides of the Tasman, a mid-Tasman person. This is of particularly importance to me, of course, because I like to think of myself as a prime candidate for the appellation.
As there is no such expression, the qualities a mid-Tasman person would have to display is up for grabs. But leaving that aside, I've come to realise there is one essential reason why the term will never catch on. Where up north there are two clear undeniable cultural power blocs, for Australians there isn't anything very important on the other side of the Tasman to start with.
To coin such an expression is, in effect, to grant New Zealand and New Zealand culture some sort of parity. There is absolutely no reason why Australia would do that, especially as whenever something worthwhile comes out of New Zealand it is simply co-opted as Australian. This week on TV, for instance, we were treated to The Horse Whiperer, starring "Robert Redford and Australia's own Sam Neill".
This blatant cultural co-option is a common kiwi complaint, so common I don't want to go on about it. Suffice to say it is particularly galling to the Girlie, who is still naive enough to believe in concepts such as decency and honesty.
But I do want to make a suggestion. In situations where there is a clear disparity of military power the classic response from the weaker side is guerrilla warfare. This can work in matters cultural as well. Guerrilla tactics worked for the Vietnamese, they can work for us kiwis too.
Sometimes the Aussies are genuinely surprised when you inform them Split Enz, Crowded House, Jane Campion, Sam Neill or Phar Lap are actually kiwis. If you mention Russell Crowe, though, they usually appear relieved.
What I do to liven up this ultimately boring and repetitive game is go one step further. I add Paul Kelly's name to the end of the list and wait for the inevitable reaction.
"What?"
"Paul Kelly."
"What do you mean Paul Kelly?"
"He's a kiwi."
"No he isn't, mate. He's true blue. He's from Melbourne."
"Brought up in Melbourne," I reply casually. "But he was born in Taranaki. That's not a tan, you know, he's one eighth Maori."
"No ..."
"Ngati Ruanui, mate."
This really slays them. The sudden insecurity on their faces is priceless. They walk off, head down, turning it over and over in their minds. "Could it be?"
So, I would now like to invite you all to join me in claiming Paul Kelly as a long-lost kiwi son. If we succeed, who knows, I may be able to start calling myself mid-Tasman after all.
A message for the deaf: LISTEN! | Apr 13, 2003 03:17
There's a certain bellicose right-winger who has taken offence at my last post, The Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge. I would like to assure NZPundit, and anyone else out there for whom English is a second language, that the post was written in a sense of deep, bitter and hopeless irony.
The neo-Reaganites have raised the issue of Saddam's slaughter of muslims on several occasions, seemingly to divert attention from their own mounting tally.
Let me shout for the hard-of-hearing: such statistics are ridiculous and immoral! Are we to accept that as long as George W Bush kills less muslims than Saddam that makes it all A-okay? How many less should there be? If there's only a few, is that still okay?
Saddam may already be in his rightful place, but devout George's chances of going somewhere different when the reaper comes a-calling are approximately zero.
Anyway, I went out to Newtown today, got a haircut and went to see 24-hour Party People, which I found surprisingly good. The treatment of Ian Curtis's suicide brought back some of the sense of shock at the time.
For those that weren't in the world yet, you had to listen to late night Hauraki to hear any of this stuff. I was working at an Uncles burger bar and used to hang a little radio from the handlebars of my bike to listen to Barry Jenkins on the way home in the wee small hours. (If there's ever a retro NZ movie there has to be an Uncles in it.)
Joy Division records weren't even being distributed here – you had to pick up small import batches or get someone to send them over. The record companies ended up screwing themselves though: when they finally relented and released Love Will Tear Us Apart, the pent-up demand was such it went straight to number one and kept the Rolling Stones out of their "rightful" spot for two weeks.
Maybe it's because I'm of a certain age, but I had to race home and stick some of my old Joy Division on. I did so only to discover Girlie has wrecked my stylus.
After bawling her out, she informed me it was our anniversary. She's been over here exactly one year. So, to kiss and make up we went out to dinner at Bronte, a quiet beachfront between Bondi and Coogee. Fabulous.
That post wasn't ironic, okay?
Who did kill the most muslims? | Apr 11, 2003 18:26
In the great post-war washup, folks, the neo-cons and rednecks are claiming a whitewash while the libs are cringing. Now I'm hanging with my man Mike - the jury is still out. But, you have to say the battle of the butchers is one that deserves some serious (see 9 April post) analysis.
It's George vs Saddam time, folks. Who really did kill the most muslims? Welcome to the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge! As an analyst by day, it's my responsibility to break out the Excel spreadsheets, throw up few pivot tables and bring you the scorecard!
First we need a methodology. Which dead muslims do you credit to which butchers? Okay, here are the assumptions. Whoever invades takes the points for anybody who dies – civilian, military, whatever. The invader gets the points. In this context Saddam invaded Kuwait, so he scores big-time for Gulf War I. George invaded in Gulf War II, so he gets all the points for that. Saddam was Johnny on the Spot for Iran/Iraq I. That's a huge slam-dunk!
But George only took up the challenge 22 days ago, while Saddam has been a contender for over 30 years. So, we need to work out who's got the best kill rate. Hang with me folks, this is where it gets exciting: we're going to work out who's killed the most muslims per day!
Now, by my reckoning, the current undisputed heavyweight champion killed around 1.3 million muslims over 34 years in the game (this includes civilian, military, Kuwaiti and Iranian, Swamp Arabs, Marsh Arabs and Peat-Bog Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Jews and miscellaneous peace-time executions, but not including deaths attributable to sanctions). Quite a tally by any measure, it equates to 104.9 deaths per day.
The challenger, ladies and gentlemen, has killed 25,000 in 22 days (this includes civilian and military deaths of any nationality or persuasion but still based on very loose estimates). That's 1,136 per day! A whitewash it is! If George had been in the game as long as Saddam, he'd have stolen this trophy every single year having killed over 14 million people in 34 years.
What a player! What a sportsman!
George, playing to the home crowd, has promised to stop killing muslims at this unprecedented rate, but we'll just have to wait and see. The meter is running. If he delivers, there is still room for a new challenger to emerge in 2003. So don't tune out just yet.
Now, you may want to know how Team Bush trained for the Middle-Eastern Despot Challenge. How did they get their lilywhite asses into such great shape? Here's the answer.
Meanwhile, George is totally magnanimous in victory and full of admiration for his talented (10 April post) opponents.
Oh what a day! What an event this has been! All the folks out there must be hoping they won't have to wait a decade for another rematch.
Sport, what is it good for? | Apr 10, 2003 15:09
Absolutely everything, here in the Lucky Country. The big news in Sydney, once you get past the war coverage, is the Federal Government's report on Soccer Australia and the rolling of George Piggins from Souths. It will never cease to amaze me how the politics of sports here can be as big as the politics of, well, politics.
An Australian team loses to New Zealand and what happens? They launch a federal enquiry. Sure, soccer is a mess over here, but if it were New Zealand it would just be allowed to go on being a mess. The government would never get involved.
The single biggest story of last year? The Bulldogs scandal. It won a coveted Walkley journalism award ahead of children overboard. Not just that, only in Australia would a breach of some arcane sporting salary cap rule lead all the way up to the cabinet of government and blossom into a political and business scandal with allegations of corruption and nepotism.
During Souths' battle to get back into the League you had to see the street marches to believe them. Red and Green all down George St, the Rabbitohs came in their thousands to reinstate the perrennial losers to their rightful position at the bottom of the table.
Of course that's the hard news. What do you get when in the mood for a bit of tabloid trash? You get more sport! This time in the form of one-time AFL king Wayne Carey shagging his team-mates missuses. When Girlie first arrived here she was engrossed in the Carey case. And it's a case that goes on and on with endless variations and developments. You just don't find that kind of relentless sensationalism back home.
As the league season heads into full swing, the anthem of the year is a remake of the Hudu Gurus' classic "What's my scene?" – this time round it's "That's my team!". Unfortunately my team, if I have one, is Souths, so there's not a lot to shout about. Despite living in the zone I can't bring myself to support Wests Tigers.
Anyway, to my inbox. SallyS has revived God's breakfast issue, suggesting firstly that "God eats whatever he wants for breakfast - he is eating what we all wish we could be if we didn't have to worry about cholesterol, fat bums, indigestion, liver failure etc. Bloody marys, honey bacon pancakes, all those sugary cereals, cold pizza....." On second thoughts, she suggests, maybe he just has Mary for breakfast.
ChrisB suggests wearing trousers 'neath my bottomless chaps was cheating. I replied I was building up to a great denouement, or maybe detrowment. He then coined the term "enchapment", which presumably has a matching "dechapment". I might have to take that one up to Taylor Square for a road test.
StephenS has also been out acoining. He asks if I think the term "blog-standard" will catch on.
It won't, Stephen, but thanks for the effort.
And finally a quotable quote from a man called Hemingway. They've just discovered some new letters between The Man and Marlene Dietrich, in one of which he writes:
"I've been in love (truly) with five women, the Spanish Republic and the 4th Infantry Division."
Oh yeah, that reminds me, the war's over.
Five minutes ago | Apr 03, 2003 18:10
The war is boring. I was just talking to a journalist on the media beat, and it is so. After the first few obsessive days, viewers are tuning out and turning off.
It's back to situation normal: reality TV, sitcoms, soaps. The ratings are soaring. In the words of a popular song, the war was "so five minutes ago."
It's hard to pick when this happened and it probably happened at different times and for different reasons with different people. Some aren't interested. Some don't want to know – it's all too nasty. Most are just bored, they've moved on.
It's so five minutes ago.
The troops are getting close to Baghdad and the inevitable result. Sure, there were hiccups along the way, but nothing too serious. That's one powerful war machine out there.
In the timeless fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates the troops are cleaning up. The shadow "civilian" administration is already ensconced in a hotel nearby, ready for a sudden collapse in resistance. It's a collapse that could come at any moment.
Most of the farmers in the valley have moved on, temporarily at least. It's not the first war that's been fought through there, far from it, and farmers have a long collective memory. They have a memory stretching back hundreds of years. Thousands of years.
Their stories are told, sometimes sung, around a fire or in a rough café after hard days in the fields. In this valley it is still, as it once was for farmers everywhere.
It's been a good year in the fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The tomatoes are ready. They're fat and they're juicy. The cucumbers are growing big. But you can't pick them too soon. You have to be patient.
Farmer Bakhat Hassan started harvesting his crop two weeks ago. His was going to be a good crop too. It needed to be.
But the war kept getting closer and closer and eventually the family had to leave. Hassan's father put on his best suit "to look American". They had to leave some of their crop in the ground, but maybe they could get back soon and harvest that too.
Near Najaf bullets ripped their vehicle apart. Lamea, Hassan's wife, saw the heads of her two girls ripped off by gunfire. Ten of the fifteen people in the old Toyota died instantly. Hassan's father died later.
Hassan and Lamea survived. They went back later, to bury their family before the dogs arrived. The soldiers gave them 10 body bags and offered some cash as compensation.
Maybe that was one of the stories that made people tune out. We always knew it was going to happen. It happened again two days later to the family of Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj, fifteen in all, after their utility was rocketed near Baghdad. It has happened in the working class markets of Baghdad too. It has happened in every war fought across and through the fertile valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It has happened in every war ever fought.
But the war is boring. It's official. We're tuning out.
And the family of Hassan and Lamea Bakhat and the family of Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj? Well, they were so five minutes ago.
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