most shocking photograph of 2016

Long sufferer's...

Seen a million; but this is the worst, most shocking, horrifying, despairing photograph of the nightmare that was 2016, without a doubt.

Apologies.
Don't know what came over me.
So sorry to share it with you.

an unhappy man with a bad barber

Canine Fanciers,

And the moral of the story?
On winning the toss and electing to bat first, never, ever, declare yr 1st innings closed.
Make the bastards bowl you out.
Full stop.
The Poms learnt that lesson 10 years ago now at Adelaide Oval.
Haven't done it again.
Now it's Pakistan's turn.
Did note that during the Boxing Day Damp Squib Score As Many Easy Runs as You Like on an Eight Lane Freeway to a Miracle Victory Test in Mebourne, an on-line petition was raised calling for The Great Michael Clarke to be replaced with Andrew "Roy" Symonds on the Channel Nine commentary team.
Cruel game, cricket.
My Spy at The Ground says the last time he saw Roy, he was sleeping under a bridge in Darwin with a whole lot of busted fishing tackle.
The petition had raised a humungous 600+ signatures at last count.
Hard to work out if it was a joke, a scam, fake news, or what?
Was it really real?
Leaving that to one side side, it's clear that despite being arguably the greatest batsman of the modern era, Pup is still yet to find his niche after being forced to fall on his sword into an early retirement on losing the Ashes under his watch and being unable to put up with his chronic dose of Shagger's Back any longer.
I'm so sorry, Micheal, but your contract on a bloated stipend at Nine won't be renewed for the '17-'18 season.
It's not your game, sad to say...and that's free advice from someone who worked many years in the goddam business.
The poor kiddie is yet to come to terms with the fact that in television it's the pictures that do the talking, but the camera and the editing also lies.
While he is a fair average quality analyst of the game, there is little point in stating the bleeding bloody obvious when it's there on the crystal bucket in bright colour in plain view for all to see in super slo-mo HD micro-detail.
MJ seemed to spend most of his time in the box during Pink Stink III in Brisvegas telling Smiffy how to set his field, and didn't have much to say at all being rostered lightly in commentary after Xmas in Melbun; just directed, mainly, to make funny faces at The Great Warnie while they were together on the telly on the ground during the numerous breaks in play.
Doesn't even seem to have any humourous blokey stories from his glittering playing career to offer the viewer, either.
He could always start with "did I ever tell you about the one that happened that time when I shagged Miss South Africa..."
But, no.
Clarkey has other things going against him as a television commentator; he has image issues - chief among them being his mysterious and as yet unexplained deep unpopularity with the Strayan General Public, and his unique squeaky kind of whining little voice.
Even though allegations have been levelled against me re: loving the bloke to death in Fandomville; the sound of what comes out of his cake-hole even gets on my nerves after a while.
It's a ratings killer.
He certainly doesn't have Jim Maxwell's professionally soothing mellifluous radio "foghorn".
Which brings us around to the perennial question: what do you do with former Australian Prime Ministers and Cricket Captains?
There have been wild rumours circulating that Prime Minister Turn Bullcrap has invited Pup to captain or coach or captain/coach the PM's XI, in a game which has now been shamefully and sadly reduced to an afterthought; an utterly meaningless T20 caper at Manuka with no prestige whatsoever against a Ceylon XI right at the fag-end of the season on Feb 15.
But that's hardly a "job"
It appears being a published author is not Michael's long-suit either.
Reliably informed that his highly anticipated tell-all autobiography My Story was a miserable dud in terms of sales, despite is salacious content and it's magnificent 446 page coffee-table production with more than a hundred photographs.
The book, by rights, should take pride of place in any sports fan's library.
[However, it is true that The Good Lady Wife picked up my copy from a big stack of 'em on the remainder table at K-Mart, of all places, two days before Xmas at $19.95, after it was published in October at RRP $49.95].
Admittedly the lavish hardcover was in a crowded Xmas market with Dennis Lillee, Mitchell Johnson, Brad Haddin, Brad Hogg, and Jim Maxwell all penning half-truths about themselves at the same time for the same readers, but unconfirmed reports coming into the Stats Guru [who obviously knows everything there is to know about numbers] suggest Pup managed to flog only 13,000 copies of My Story in the month leading up to the pre-Xmas rush and the publisher Pan Macmillan has dropped well north of $700K on it.
Deary, deary me.
Unlikely to run into a 2nd edition, you'd imagine.
Compare that to the wealthiest man in cricket, Ricky Ponting, and his tome At the Close of Play, which sold 120,000+ copies in two months at full price, and easily topped the best sellers list by the length of the street.
Joisus.
Clarkey tried being a yachtsman last year, but after one day at sea in a leaky, broken boat in the Sydney-Hobart race, he decided that ocean racing wasn't for him.
Sensible move.
He didn't play many 1st grade games for Western Suburbs this summer, before quietly fading away from that scene with barley a whimper, leaving his sponsored Nepalese teenage leg-spinner in his place.
Perhaps the former Skippy could take up professional pigeon racing?
That'd keep you busy.
While there is no doubt that Clarkey is an astute and highly successful property investor, it's not really a "job" either - all you have to do is sit on yr fat/bony arse and the greatest free gift of all from the Govt - negative gearing - and lightly-taxed capital gain does the rest.
Ka-ching!
He scrupulously follows his sponsor's contractual obligations and is a worthy philanthropist also, doing much of it anonymously - but all rich people have a moral obligation to be one - and while he's done some good works as the 'ambassador' spokesmodel for Pain Australia, what he really needs is full-time work to keep him off the streets and out of dark alleys.
Kyly is busy down the Zen garden path off with the fairies pursuing her own career in the women's magazines, as Kyly, wife of Michael Clarke and mother of one.
Now that's a full-time job.
A chap can change only so many nappies, and Pup doesn't strike me as a man who would be content with being a house husband.
It all give me the shits.
What is to be done with the great man, dammit?
Instead of celebrating his stellar "after cricket" career 18 months on, it is my melancholy duty to report that heading into 2017, MJ Clarke, at 35, looks like an unhappy man with a bad barber.
How did it come to this?

on the Pink Stink, Pt II & III

Traditionalists,

When confronted with something like the Pink Stink, the first obvious question you would ask yourself would be "What would Clarkey do?"
But, Pup appeared to be just as perplexed as anyone on commentary duty on the telly.
If he wasn't getting paid a handsome fee to say that day/night Test match cricket is the best thing since bottled Scotch or a years supply of KFC, as a newly minted Honorary Life Member of the MCC, you'd hope that MJ Clarke would say "Disaster. Tremendous waste of time and money for no purpose. Abandon it ".
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Test cricket.
There used to be a saying "if it aint broke, don't fix it, and if it is broke, and you can't fix it with fencing wire, then it's not worth fixing".
The Stats Guru is scratching his head also, and while his abacus is having real trouble trying to make sense of the crazy numbers, he ventures to suggest that playing the crucial hour before sunset and the hour after the orb dips below the horizon could just be a matter of developing a new tactical element in a game already chock full of known unknowns.
But for the purist, there is obviously something wrong with the ball, and no amount of fencing wire is going to help.
Apart from the hue of this year's model of the Pinkie looking very gaudy indeed, at first glance it can wildly favour the bowlers in the twilight hours, or, it may not.
So, if you are the Captain, you really can't put a tactical punt on it.
Otherwise how do you explain Pakistan being bowled out cheaply on the evening of Day Two in Brisvegas, and yet comfortably batting their way through the dusk on Day Four to push the game into the hitherto unknown territory of Day Five, on their way to what could have been the biggest winning run chase in the history of the game, only to fall oh so short?
Weird as.
But it's obviously no longer about the game itself; bugger the survival chances of Test cricket.
Doesn't matter how many swimming pools, pool decks, beaches, cocktail bars you put in the ground, or how many punters dressed in stupid costumes come through the turnstiles to be seen and get pissed, it's all about how it rates on the crystal bucket.
And cricket television ratings, it seems, are already going sub-Antarctic anyway, if it's not T20.
With a generation that has the attention span of a gnat, and the way things are headed, the BBL will end up being the only thing Cricket Australia has left to sell, but it's franchised, so they don't even own it properly.
And what was the official attendance on Day Five in Brissy?
A Sheffield Shield crowd -- less than two thousand.
Same as it ever was.
Reports suggest Kookaburra turned out the MkVIII version of the Pinkie for the current summer, and they are already working on MkIX to serve up to the Poms next year.
They must be so utterly frustrated, given that there is nothing at all wrong with the traditional red ball - it's worked for a very very long time, well over a century - and yet they can't, for all they try, get the Pinkie right.
And who was the bright spark who dreamt up the insane idea of putting flashing lights in the bails?
Gawd save me.
Wassup?
To me, the tactics in a day/night Test match seem to hinge almost entirely on whichever side bats first and can produce a batsman who can simply survive a couple of hours of a wildly swinging, curving, spinning, wobbling, bouncing, practically un-playable invisible ball under lights, and then goes on to make a big hundred in the broad light of day, wins.
Simple.
Ipso facto, the Token Muzzie's 145 in Adelbrain, and Skippy Smiffy's 130 up there in the sub-tropics.
But is that what the people want; survival in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, followed by a dead-boring daylight saloon passage on a road of pitch such as the one at the Gabbatoir, which was more like a six-lane highway?
Is that the new, manufactured for television, drama?
The whole thing has just got me completely bamboozled, flabbergasted.
Been saying this for years -- if you want to go about taking Test cricket out of the Intensive Care Unit, then Tubby Taylor's call for Test matches to be reduced from five days to four makes absolutely perfect sense, for mine.
As it stands, watching or listening to the Boxing Day Test and the New Year Test occupies half of the annual leave of the ordinary working man if the matches run their full course.
And there's form for it - before the era of complete silliness and "timeless tests" [1928-39], Test matches were routinely played, more often than not to a result, over four, even three days.
But that was back in the day of uncovered pitches and when over-rates was very rapid indeed, compared to today's placid wickets and the god-awful mind-numbingly pedestrian over-rates.
For chrissake, how long does it take to set a field and bowl six balls?
Four days, four hundred overs, in the time allotted.
If Test cricket is to hang on for grim life, which is currently in grave doubt if the Powers That Be keep fiddling about with it the way they are, that's probably where it should be at.
But that's only my, and Tubby's, opinion.
Clarkey might do it differently.
But there's no difference of opinion about Uzzy; beautiful to watch, style and grace to burn, has all the shots, and his ton over three days in Adders will be the best by far of the summer and remembered for a while yet.
The old boys can just plod along, the rookies can keep looking over their shoulders, but having been shamefully and shabbily treated by the now former selectors, The Uz-Man is the real deal and he's here to stay with a glittering career ahead of him.
But please, please, let's just go back to the clear light of day where everyone can plainly see what the faark is going on, and for the love of Joisus, stop messing about with lunch and tea.
It is, after all, the most civilized sport in the world - the only game that stops for afternoon tea.
What's broken about that?

the interminable imponderables of the selector

Decision makers,

Forget about the small matter of the thievin' cheatin' Seth Efreakens and the breaking of Law 42 regarding "fair and unfair play", there once was a saying in Strayan cricket "it's harder to get dropped from the Test team that it is to get picked".
Not anymore, unless you have the negatives of the photographs of the selectors like Shane FIGJAM Watson did.
How many first class games did Mike "Mr Cricket" Hussey have to play before he got picked at age 30?
Just how it was...and that's in recent times.
The system had long history.
The Stats Guru is still manically whirring the beads on the abacus trying to work out when the last time was that six players were dropped in one fell swoop from a Strayan test team, outside the World Series Cricket era?
He's still looking for the answer.
After throwing RW Marsh MBE under a bus, seems like TV Hohns has been down to the local costume shop over the weekend and picked up the full Grim Reaper outfit.
Off with their heads!
You can say anything you like about it, but there's no doubting it's a gutsy call from the Interim Chairman and the Temporary Three Wise Men.
Always thought, to do their job properly, selectors should act like judges - shun the limelight altogether, be the Faceless Men, and should not necessarily be asked to give reasons, let alone volunteer them.
All Trev had to say...Madds "enormous potential", Renso "in-form", Chadds "plays good in Adelbrain", The HandyComb "made a double ton on the weekend", Bird's "just Bird" and Wade "can bat"; nothing at all to say about those dropped apart from the wicky Nevill - "unlucky".
No mention of one-test wonders Ferguson and Rennie having already put their Baggy's in glass display cases.
Back in the day when he was skipper, MJ Clarke got right jack of being a selector, quite rightly pointing out that he thought it was a conflict of interest.
But they forced him to be one anyway.
Then he dusted off his little history book and found out that up until the very recent past Strayan captains were never required to be a selector, except on tour, when the skippy, his deputy, and the team manager would pick the playing XI from a set-in-stone squad of players, chosen by the selectors.
Soon enough Pup told The Board they could "shove this job for a joke", and promptly resigned as a selector while retaining the Captaincy, home and away.
Clarkey said "just give me a team, piss off, and I'll captain it, OK?".
Of course he wasn't very popular in certain circles and found Boof, Pat the Freakin' Freeloader and a myriad of other hangers-on in his way, busy protecting their own patches and their own bloated stipends.
In the entire course of cricket history, "coaches" never used to have a role in the main game; yoof would learn, and learn hard, how to play a hard game from experience.
When they got over the utter nonsense that was the Amatuer/Professional pommie class shit, the proscribed method of team management worked - by and large - pretty well for a very long period of time; that's not to say there weren't unholy stinks, perceieved slights, accusations of favouritism, nepotism, sheer bastardry, vitriolic acrimony, fisticuffs and bar brawls, etc etc etc et al over who, or who shouldn't, be in the team.
That was all part of it.
But persistency and consistency were still valued.
What do we want? Gradual change! When do we want it? In due course!
Things are different now in the age of instant gratification, and yet, people still hate change.
Could very well be starting on down the road to losing it, but do find the current debacle all very confusing, perplexing.
Pup had nothing nice to say about the Rosy Ball last time out, so what will he be expected to bark on about on Channel Nine, who are fond of paying the piper and towing the CA party line?
As My Spy at The Ground was heard to say "imagine making your Test debut under lights in the Pink Stink at Adelaide Oval. No wonder Trev's asking everyone to be very patient".
Five days in the glare of the spotlights is a long time to be treading the boards - so, now for some Shakespearean oratory! Heroics! Comedy! Tragedy! and chin music in five acts.
Bring the fans flooding back through the turnstiles for five nights in a row.
That couldn't be too much for Marketing to ask?
Surely?
Wandered into the Front Bar at The Local for a quick mid-morning Monday cordial and found The Philosopher, as is his wont, in his usual corner nursing this week's favoured tipple [a strong bone dry vermouth and soda on the rocks], looking rather dazed and disheveled poking his bony finger into this photograph from AAP on the back page of the paper; so impressed was he by the Captain's quizzical visage, he decided to caption it:

"In the name of sweet weepin' Jesus upon the Cross! Who the Hell are you?"

Where's Jim Higgs when you need him?

I'm surprised Trevor Hohns is still alive.
Where's Jim Higgs when you need him?
Wasn't Greg Chappell sacked as a selector a few years back for being a rude vegan prick, and now he returns to the interim panel as if he was a knight in shining armour?
And, it seems, if you thump a ton in a single Sheffield Shield match, yr in.
"Go to the top order for Straya, son, and see if you can join the ever growing ranks of one-test wonders".
After committing the cardinal sin of being run out in a Test match, and with his 32nd birthday on Monday, CJ Ferguson has already put his Baggy in a glass case.
No matter, they'll be handing out baggy's like confetti, anyway.
Crisis?
What crisis?

bad moon rising

Fellow aghastee's

Nothing good ever comes from a Super Moon.
Straya get thumped in the test cricket by an innings and then some in 2.2 days by the Seth Efreakens on a lovely batting deck in Hobart sparking a full-scale crisis of confidence and calls for ruthless recriminations, the south island of the Shakey Isles only confirms why hardly anyone lives there with an apocalyptic size tremblor right bang smack on the full moon, and a member of a "prominent Sydney crime family", which turns out to only be the Mafia, cops it up the runter in a "hail of bullets" coming from a schmick Audi cruising past in broad moonlight on a street behind the Coles supermarket in the next suburb over from my gaff.
Just ask Smiffy, the good burghers of Christchurch, and Pasquale Barbaro Jnr...they'll tell you.
The Good Lady Wife also blames the bad moon rising, saying somehow, somewhere along the way the team got on the wrong side of the Cricket Gods, as they stare down the barrel of the first home series white-wash by Seth Efreaker in centuries.
There's a lot to be said for that theory, but it's a bit too superstitious for mine.
Maybe someone, somehow, somewhere along the way forgot about the concept of first class cricket.
It's as if Cricket Australia and the Board of Control have entirely neglected to remember and honour the great Lord Sheffield and his Shield.
>From one who doesn't mind a drink in a crisis, the knee-jerk solution is, of course, to sack the lot of 'em.
Swampy, Boof, and the greatest hanger-on in the history of Australian cricket, Low Performance Manager, Pat Howard, must all be GORN by Xmas.
The Chairman of the Board, The Board, and Mr Sutherland and his myriad of acolytes and cronies might as well all follow them out the back door without so much as a sausage.
The Stats Guru has been whirring the abacus, and the ancient abacus he uses never lies.
He has calculated that the collective batting average of the top six Strayan batsmen in the first two tests is, you guessed it, 23.70.
And if it wasn't for a couple of half-way decent knocks by Dave "Boy from the Burbs" Warner, Smiffy, and the Token Muzzie, it would have been closer to zero.
You can draw yr own conculsions from that.
Never mind that the previously much feared Strayan bowling attack is old, tired, injured, and/or underdone.
All power must be returned to the Captain, as it should be, and has always been, until the Honky Dollar [or more accurately, the de-monetised high-denomination Rupee] took over the game.
Having switched the telly off in disgust, never did see SPD Smith on interview after the match.
They say Smiffy went just about as ballistic as the skippy can go ballistic in public, but having read the transcript, his words seem to be rather more sober and measured to me:

Joisus, the Pink Stink dead-rubber in Adelbrain will be a whole lotta fun.
Needless to say, none of this would ever have happened back in the day when Pup was in charge...aaahhh...back in the day...

The Pup & The Tumor

Literature Critics,

Nothing quite like a tell-all autobiograpy for a noice bit of juicy summer reading if what the boffins down in PR are saying is anything to go by.
The Big W catalouge, along with half an old-growth forest, lobbed on my front doorstep on Monday morning last week, as usual.
Noted that Pup's new book...
Michael Clarke, My Story, [Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2016], 480pp.
...just a day after making sensational front-page headlines, had already been rudely cast out upon the remainder table at the Big Whoop at $28.
Shame on them.
RRP is $44.95.
But therein lies a business opportunity.
After hours of endless practice over the years; got his signature down pat.
Thinking about going there, cleaning out their stock, and flipping forged autographed first-edition copies on eBay at a healthy premium?
Certain money-spinner.
According to the screaming banners on the fishwraps, Shane Watson is a "tumour", ie worse than a festering sore; might have even been a cancer in a cluster-fuck of cancers.
Anyway - it's official - FIGJAM.
SR Watson - as everyone knows - had the negatives of photographs of all the selectors in compromising positions, and finished with jackshit averages.
The Stats Guru reckons that Shane - the selectors' great white hope of all-rounders [Australia really hasn't had a genuine one since Keith Miller] - finished with the world's record for getting out in the 40's and 90's in Test cricket.
At least Michael had the decency and sense to leave it at "tumour"...could have said a lot worse.
And of course after a giddy-up from Pup's people, Watto vehemently denied that he had, or has, any kind of tumourism about him.
If fact, Mr Watson reckons he's the nicest bloke you could ever meet.
That's until you're asked to believe Mitchell "Joke Johnno" Johnson's autobiography - called Resilient and in all good bookstores this week - in which he apparently claims Watto once flushed his head down a toilet.
By God, Fawlty, what fun these cricketer's have!
Thought that it was very honourable and humble of Pup to acknowledge, at last, that MJ Clarke called SM Katich called a "weak-cunt" before the now infamous dressing room attempted strangulation incident, saying only that it was 'inappropriate language'.
Simon says he was unable to accept the apology that wasn't forthcoming, and reckons his relationship with Pup has been "non-existant" ever since, despite Clarkey saying their differences have been 'patched up' and they are now best of mates.
Just goes to show that everyone who was in the rooms at the time the Super Kat tried to choke Pup to death will have an entirely different recollection of what happened - even though they all saw and heard exactly the same thing.
It's simply not possible that any one story will be the same.
According to My Spy at The Ground, Clarkey also admitted on interview in a 60 Minutes puff-piece - which passed me by - that he had been called "a dick" and a "dickead" on more than one occasion.
This is straight talk from arguably the greatest batsman of his generation; history, it seems, has already decided on his captaincy.
By all accounts, Pup could have been a top notch leader of men, but he says he just didn't much like being a middle manager.
Who would? When you're meant to be Number One.
Thanks Boof.
And in all the press reports and the odd book review, have not heard one single mention of the "L" word or of a woman being involved - Lara Bingle likely gets a scant mention, given that she was probably scantily-clad when they first met, but surely the outrageously expensive engagement ring down the S-bend and the team of plumbers' three-day search for it in vain would rate a mention because - an old journo speaking here - now that's a story.
So there's yr book review of reviews of a book that this critic hasn't read, and you'd have to suspect that not many will get through the ripping yarn either.
At almost 500 pages, you'd imagine it as more a coffee table number, something to flip through in a desultory fashion over mixed drinks and petit four.
There'd be a quotable quote on every page.
When it turns up in bloke's Xmas stockings, depending on their disposition, it'll either go straight in the wheelie-bin or up on the shelf in the trophy room with all the other sports books they got on Christmases past, but never got around to reading.
Shame on them.

But boy, Clarkey has been a busy boy, announcing a more or less full-time summer job on a pretty penny with the wonderful Wide World of Sports.
Turning out for Western Suburbs in this season's Sydney grade comp appears to have now almost certainly fallen by the wayside after two games.
The concept of a renewed career in T20 is long gone - dead, buried, and cremated.
Even though he has a very large cricket brain and is a pretty good analyst of the game, employing Michael - who, let's face it, failed to be wildly popular among the general public for reasons unknown and has a kind of whiney little voice which is not his fault - is ratings death for mine, not that that's my decision.
It pains me, nonetheless.
The Twitterati were all a twitter.
It was as if the world as we know it had ended.
'A shocked and horrified Max Cartwright declared “this is a dark day in sport” and “clarke?! u serious channel 9? obviously trying to turn viewers off. might have to just watch on mute and listen to ABC this summer” raged Michael Cavanagh' [probably a troll who forgot about the seven second delay - still, can't you get an app for that?]
If you actually go to the ground for any first-class game, Test or otherwise, none of any of the above actually matters; you get no official commentary at all - just the game, a few barrackers and the ground announcer on the Tannoy.
How easily people forget the thwack of willow on leather and the gentle ripple of applause.
And there's always time for afternoon tea and a snooze.
Bring it on.

and the flavour is tart

My Fellow Aghastee's,

Please excuse my apoplexy, but.
The Bullies didn't win the Grand Final.
The Swannies didn't lose the Grand Final.
Sydney were robbed.
Plain and simple.
Robbed blind by the Umpires.
Highway Robbery, in fact.
Something the national folk hero, Our Ned Kelly, would have been very proud of.
Now, if you think this is all starting to sound like a bit of sour grapes, then you are dead-set right.
And the flavour is tart.
Makes your lips curl into the shape of a cat's arse.
My Spy at The Ground was onto it early, as we all were, and pushed through a message on the Bush Telegraph machine at half-time saying "Bamfords give 12 free kicks + 2 x 50m penalties to Scraggers. Swans? 4."
Sydernee were lucky to still be in it at the main break.
The Stats Guru was quick on the phone post-match - you could hear the sound of the abacus whirring in the background building the prosecution case - saying the total free kick count went 20-8 in favour of Footscray.
And the Swans were worried they were the cleanest team in the comp.
That was just the plain stats, never mind the no free kick and no report for trying to break the Hannebery Kiddie's legs; K.Jack being thieved of a free at a critical moment in the last quarter, etc etc etc - the list goes.
Never knew that Bulldogs had been put on the protected species list.
And most of Footscray's 13 goals, apart from the outright gifts from the officials, came as a direct result of the passages of play from free kicks.
Everyone knows, in a game where kicks are hard to come by, every free one counts.
Admittedly the Bulldogs coach "Beery" Bevo was very clever, as he knew the only way to get their way through the Swans defence was to knock the ball to ground inside their forward 20m, and then pick it up quick smart, and snap it over your head in hope; and in the miracle of miracles, they all went through the big sticks
Must have been practicing that set-pay all week prior.
The Bulldogs didn't kick more goals than behinds for nothing, and they knew it takes more than ten maximums to win a Grand Final.
The Stats Guru also said something about the Swans being awarded no free kicks at all in the entire second and third quarters - none, zip, zero.
Also worked out that against the five interstate teams the Bulldogs played in Melbourne in this year's regular season, they got a free kick count in their favour to the tune of 111-70.
Even Blind Freddy could see the fairytale ending was not achieved honestly.
The most shameful display of downright biased Melbourne umpiring seen in living memory.
The Fraud Squad would have been through the Bamford's rooms looking for potato sacks jammed full of fat bundles of pineapples, if they hadn't been paid off.
It all smacks of an elaborate joint criminal enterprise, for mine.
My lawyer agrees.
And didn't they nick Our Ned on that charge [oh, and murdering a few cops as well, just by and by]?
And we all know what happened to Mr Kelly...hung by the neck, until dead.
The same fate awaits the umpires.
When the revolution comes.
After such a stellar season and winning the Minor Premiership, only to be shockingly shaken down by corrupt officialdom at the final hurdle, is insanely insufferable.
On interview after the game, asked about the standard of the umpiring, Super Coach Horse sensibly said he "hadn't seen the video" and would consider it in the "the cool light of day" [rather than go ballistic which he was perfectly entitled to do], and left it at that.
But, you can just imagine Horse fronting up to AFL HQ on Tuesday morning and asking ever so politely to see the Boss Cocky of The Bamfords.
When he was shown up to The Grand Poohbah of Umpiring's office, Mr Longmire would have gone utterly berserk; chuckin' chairs, overturning tables, smashing computer terminals, video machines; umpiring memoriabilia of all kinds flying hither and thither, leaving the place looking like a mad woman's breakfast after he'd finished with it.
That John Longmire, when he's in the mood -- Christ! can he break things.
However, when it's all said and done, you have to graciously but grudgingly allow that Footscray was probably the better team on the day.
Shame.
The Swans were carrying far too many passengers who were barely sighted all day, and Buddy got his kicking boot stepped on by a team-mate early.
Of all games for it to happen in.
Excuses, excuses.
But to add insult to injury, JP Kennedy had the Norm Smith Medal scandalously stolen from him by just two votes.
He was shattered.
We were gutted.
How can you possibly win, when you are playing against a pretty good young football team for the Premiership, and the umpires as well?
The odds are simply impossible.
Could go on, but won't.
The Stats Guru also had a cursory look for chinks in Sydney's amour in the season just gone - and found the most most telling of them to be the fact that of the five games Sydney lost in the regular season and the two they lost in the finals series - the Swans went 0-7 after trailing at three-quarter time.
Which suggests Sydney are first-class front runners in defending leads, but can't play catch-up football when it really counts.
A problem.
It's plain the Swans roster needs a good off-season shake-up if they are to stay competitive in the Brave New World, which starts next year, with the GWS Pygmies having "stolen all of Collingwood's money" well on their way - just as an example of the future.
Sydney are well supplied with juniors, but with retirements and de-listings to come, they need to pick well again in the draft, use their smarts to buy in the free agents market, and do a few shady swifty's on other clubs and pinch some of their really good players.
They have form in that regard,
Otherwise, SC Horse will stay as Mad As Hell for the next five months.
And that aint a pretty sight.
But, in the end, all things being equal, it will be - trust me on this one - it will be onward to victory in '17.
Us loyal, time-honoured, die-hards will go through all the joy and suffering, all the pleasure and pain, yet again, just to put that damnable thing - The Flag - in the dilly-bag.
You know it makes sense.

SYDNEY SWANS: 1.2, 7.3, 8.5, 10.7 (67). Goals: Kennedy 3, Mitchell 2, Parker, N. Smith, Rohan, Franklin, Hewett.
WESTERN BULLDOGS: 2.0, 7.1, 9.7, 13.11 (89). Goals: T. Boyd 3, Dickson 3, Picken 3, Cordy, McLean, C. Smith, Stringer.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 99,981.
Norm Smith Medalist: J.Johannisen [WB].

no banjo, no cigar

True Blue Bloods,

On interview after the Preliminary Final, Mr Longmire was asked by some blowie in the Press Gallery:
"Was it better to play three hard finals in a row or have a week off, win a game, have another week off, then...well, in Geelong's case, lose?"
Super Coach Horse replied "I don't know. I just don't know. I don't think anyone knows".
That's a lie.
Of course he does.
He's been a planning and a scheming for this for a whole season, and making a closer study of Sun Tzu's The Art of War in his spare time.
Lets face it - football - it's all about conflict.
Nothing less.
How best to strategically shove the tigantic tusk up the runter of the enemy.
Strengths and weaknesses, adaptability, the lay of the land, horses for courses, defensive arrangements, attacking with fire, heavy artillery, surprise, the use of spies...it's all there...has been since around the 5th century BC.
Horse has done it all this year - looked at it with an eye that's used to gazing out to sea down by the Magic Waters at Sunday morning smoko.
The Big Picture Man.
The Big Kahuna.
Having won the game at quarter time against Geelong, My Spy at The Ground pushed through a telegraph message saying "best finals coaching effort since '05".
Hard to argue with that.
Did SC Horse throw the Qualifying Final, so that his troops would be battle hardened going onto The Biggest Stage, safe in the knowledge they could beat anyone else left in the race?
Did Cleverman reckon on not playing the Pygmies in the Grand Final from Game 1 this season?
Also asked on interview after the game who he'd prefer to meet in the Grand Final, SC Horse said "Don't care, I'll just go out there and see who it is".
That's a lie.
He's planted spies all over the shop, especially at Puppies HQ, so he knows that they don't know that he knows what they intend to get up to.
When you've got the enemy's plan of attack slipped under the hotel room door, the defensive seige mentality is pretty simple:
"If a side can't kick goals on you, they only win rarely".
On that basis alone, they didn't take out the Minor Premiership for nothing.
Build the brick wall and they will come - to throw themselves against it, time and time again, hopelessly in vain.
Old Man McVeigh, Ace Aliir, the weirdest looking man in football, The Great Teddy Richards, Rising Star gongee "Saw" Mills, along with J.Laidler and H.Marsh, all know they're not certainties to be picked in the backline for the Granny.
It's that good.
Yoof and Experience is a two-way street.
Said it before, say it again, the Swans mid-field can look after themselves.
Do like how "Pearl" Papley seems like he's grown another leg in the finals series in the forwards, the way he gets out the 9 iron, swivels and chips through traffic, off two or three steps, and bang!
The pill sails straight through the middle of the big sticks, landing many rows back in the second tier.
The perfect rover for Franklin.
And it's very handy indeed to have that hugely expensive genuine marquee bull-in-a-china-shop up front; not only does Buddy kick straight from 70m through to 2m and throw his weight around like there's no tomorrow, he reads the game so uncannily.
No one man in any opposition team can mark the monster with a massive football brain.
Helps to have Heeney the Cardiff Zucchini, in form, and loitering with intent in the forward line, also.
Any number of Swannies can play in the ruck at a pinch, and have, through the year.
So why not have the tallest man ever to play for Sydney or South Melbourne in Big Sam Naismith at six foot ten in there?
It goes without saying, as it did last week - JP Kennedy can do as he pleases, he don't need no coach to tell him what to do - a major cog in the wheel, the key to the lock to That One Day in October, for mine.
Ring up the Stats Guru and he'll tell you the Bulldogs have far too many voodoo's on their plate.
Most people alive today were aint even born when Footscray won their last Flag [1953].
And for them it's been "bleak ever since".
That is, since birth.
Fairytales do come to an inevitable conclusion, and they mostly end in tears.
7th has never beaten 1st since the Hare-Clark-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis finals system was introduced.
No team ever has won four hard finals in a row, all of them sudden-death, to pinch The Flag.
Teams don't come out of being bashed up senseless in a cliff-hanger of a Prelim, and then go on to win the Premiership against a side coming home with a wet sail on the back of handing out two consecutive hidings.
The list goes on.
The Dogs have already played their Grand Final, and will continue to do so in their heads all week - a trap the Swans fell right into two years ago - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
And no club with a team song as bad as the Bulldogs 'tune' has ever won the Premiership in living memory.
Sorry Footscray - no banjo, no cigar.
Loyal supporters have long memories, so being beaten by the Bullies twice at the SCG in the last two regular seasons, and the Swans being unbearably ashamed after the 2014 Big Dance is like modern history to us.
A little birdy has been singing that Andrew Ireland - a living legend in own own right, and the Wise Old Man among the the Swans' long-serving adminstrators - having personally lost three grand Finals himself as a player at Collingwood - admits in private that 2014 "burns in our guts".
Failure is not an option.

GEELONG: 0.5, 2.8, 7.10, 8.12 (60). Goals: Taylor 2, Hawkins, Bartel, Selwood, Caddy, Dangerfield, Stanley.
SYDNEY: 7.2, 11.3, 14.4, 15.7 (97). Goals: Papley 3, Parker 2, Tippett 2, Franklin 2, Rohan 2, McGlynn, Heeney, Richards, Naismith.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 71,772,

"take pleasure in suffering"

Self-flagellators,

Nurse! Brandy!
After a frightful first-class floggling at the hands of the Pygmies the week prior, the truly magnificent win by Sydney on Saturday night to be one game out of the Grand Final begs the question -- for how long can we hold our breath?
Was it better to be a Hawthorn fan and go out in straight sets and resume a "normal" life until next year?
Why do we put ourselves through the fear, the anxiety, the tremors, the agony and the ecstacy?
For what?
Because football is much more important than the very minor issue of life and death itself, that's why.
To quote the introduction to John Arlott's How To Watch Cricket:

"Many different people, though, derive different pleasures from the game. Some, indeed, seem to take pleasure in suffering; the partisan, overjoyed by his team winning, is likely to agonize over their defeat. Everyone who even remotely understands the game will respond to its drama."

Applies to all sports and all crazed fanatical fans.
In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions of my life to spend the entirety of September 2014 - when the Swans also brought the The Curse of Minor Premiership upon on themselves - in north-western France, where they don't care for football and there are no scoreboxes in the back pages of Le Monde.
Best not to make any predictions or give away money to bookmakers, you have to see a Gypsy for that, because they are the only ones who know what the future holds.

SYDNEY 7.3, 10.5, 12.9, 18.10 (118). Goals: Franklin 4, Papley 4, McGlynn 3, X. Richards 2, Rohan, Parker, Hannebery, Mitchell, Heeney.
ADELAIDE 3.2, 4.4, 8.9, 12.10 (82). Goals: Betts 3, Cameron 2, Lynch 2, Walker 2, McGovern 2, Thompson.
At Sydney Cricket Gound.
Crowd: 38,136.

a lot of thinking caps

In the wake of the Sydney Swans appalling 6 goal loss to the Greater Western Pygmies in the Qualifying Final last Saturday,Tipsy and "Saw" Mills have both done themselves a mischief, and are out for the semi-final.
From the look of the rap sheet submitted to The Tribunal, Swans appear to be the only team that didn't play dirty on the weekend.
Fat lot of good that did them.
Here's a word cloud of some of Super Coach Horse's comments during post match presser.
Was he trying to say "beaten by a really good team on the day"?
He's got a lot of thinking caps to put on this week.

the Curse of the Minor Premiership

Eternal Optimists,

So, the Swans go top.
Much to the chagrin of the Mexican papers who grudingly put it on the back page in small print, while it barely raised a ripple in the Sydney fishwraps.
Go figure.
Everyone's confused in a mad, mad world.
Sydney win the Melbourne Strayan Rules minor premiership, while Melbourne win the Sydney rugby league minor premiership.
Go figure.
Back in the day when Super Coach Sheens was in charge of the Mighty Tiges in the rugby league, everyone remembers he kept a Coach's Ledger in the Club Secretary's office with one column headed "We'll take our wins", and the other "We'll learn from our losses".
He didn't really care how many you won, it was all about the ones you didn't.
So it pays to have a quick lookie at Sydney's five losses this season.
1. Rd4. Adelaide. 10 points. Robbed by partisan local umpires. A blip on the early season radar.
2. Rd8. Richmond. 1 point. A 40 second brain-fade allowed Richmond to kick a goal after the final siren. The little fish that got away - big time.
3. Rd12. Greater Western Sydney. 42 points. Beaten fair and square by the better side on the day. Complacency to blame. Swans only thrashing of the year. Only AFL game, most unfortunately, graced with my presence all season.
4. Rd15. Western Bulldogs. 4 points. The curse of the bye. Underdone. Super Coach Horse charged with telecommunications vandalism, after destroying the dial-up telephone in the coach's box in a fit of rage. First loss at home.
5. Rd17. Hawthorn. 5 points. A low-scoring ding-dong battle all day. Once again done in by a moment of madness just as in Rd8. Second loss at home.
On that record, they could have gone through the season unbeaten, if they'd really put their minds to it.
SC Horse is right onto it - Swans never lost consecutive games all year - and he would have been driven crazy by the last two beatings as he's a firm believer in the vital importance of winning at home.
Sydney has possibly, only possibly - how can you compare era's? - a better side than the ones that took the flag in 2005 and 2012.
Bloody good footballers, all of 'em.
You can't go top with any passengers on board.
And SC Horse was content to play around with the starting 18 all season until he thought he got it right.
Take Sam Reid, after a bad injury last year, played almost all of this year in the reserves - couldn't get a game under the big top when he'd get a game in any other team - just ask Keiran Jack's brother, Brandon - can't get a game either.
Swans have a genuine marquee player up front, a mid-field to die for, and a defence outfit full of hard nuts expert in building concrete walls.
Talls to burn, three out of four rookies all found a regular place in the side ['Saw' Mills won the Ron Evans Medal for the best rookie of the year in the AFL], and second year players like Heeney - well he plays with a white sea anenome perched atop his head - so he must be pretty good to be able to do that, and the Hannebery Kiddie, now incredibly in his eighth year with 150+ senior games under his belt, is only nearing the peak of his powers.
Mark my words, one day that bloke will win the Chas Browlow Trophy.
JP Kennedy appears to have been given a free rein by SC Horse "just play where you like, son, do what you think is appropriate" and he gets a thousand possessions per game, week in, week out.
The ultimate "loose man everywhere".
And talk about playing about with the ruck all season until Naismith - the tallest man to ever play for the Swans at 6 foot 9 - popped his head up late in the caper, after Sinclair did himself a mischief after Tipsy also did the same, and made it a new game in the hit outs.
Seeing him up against Mummy in the First Qualifying Final will be worth the price of the $35 walk-up pay-on-the day tickets to Cathy Freeman Stadium alone.
It's a home final for the Swans, and yet neither side has played at Cathy's Place all season.
Go figure.
Apart from assembling a top notch footy side, SC Horse [who is worry personified] is sensible enough to know that finals football is a different bottle of mussels altogether, compared to the regular season, and the only course of action open to him is to try to get the saloon passage through to the Grand Final, and you have to be very brutal to do that.
Finals football is as close to ugly all-out conflict as you can get, short of a fully-armed gun-fight.
And on a stray, but related, topic - the end-of-season bye was pure marketing genius.
If you are going into the pointy end of a war, to its chaotic, climactic conclusion, you'd want to go in battle-hard, because if you don't, you won't survive.
Simple.
Instead, football players and other ordinary men, and a lot of women too, were having the first and only Father's Day BBQ of the year on the only weekend when there was no AFL being played, at all, anywhere, all season.
Massive fail.
Go figure.
As my correspondent in the Colonies remarked "legions of men all over the country re-discover their backyards".
One for the text books in the course "How Not To Do It" in Marketing 101.
Of course the PR boffins will try to whip up some kind of cross-town rivalry shit for the derby final, which will fail...as did the miserable "Battle of the Bridge" promotion.
Sydney is not a "cross-town" city; it's more like six distinct cities, all quite different from each other, but in very close proximity, containing not much less than a million people each.
The rugby league has a team for each one, and then some, and tribal loyalty runs very deep here at a local suburban level.
But cross-town rivalry?
Anyone in the strange Eastern Suburbs, where a vast portion of the Swans fandom resides, would never dream of going to Greater Western Sydney [whatever that is - it's actually a hastily cobbled together moniker for another football team that means nothing to anyone - the place doesn't actually exist] and they wouldn't know how to get there even if the knew what and where it was.
Everything hinges on the No.1 showman, for mine, when it comes down to business time.
Buddy knows all too well now about redemption.
There is also fear to be expunged and instill in others, and revenge, where necessary, to be taken, cold.
That's why you would never want to meet Lance Franklin in a dark alley, and that's why the Swans never forgot losing by a bloody point to Richmond, and kicked a million goals on them in the very last round just to prove a point.
Didn't have to.
Just did.
Still, it was so close at the top, it was a shame SC Horse never really had the option to play ducks and drakes and do a bit of sandbagging to finish second, which under the Hare-Clarke-McIntrye-Duckworth-Lewis finals system used by the AFL, is the ideal place to be, because you never play the minor premiers until the Grand Final.
Over the years the Stats Guru has come to the firm conclusion that the minor premiership, on average, is a curse.
Just ask the Swans team that went 'round in 2014; we all know, and would prefer to forget forever, what happened in that year's Grand Final.
And it goes without saying, that is the only thing that counts.
That One Day In September.
Which now - in a world hurtling ever increasingly forward at a frightening pace - has become 1 October.

Meantime...over at the rugby league...the Mighty Tiges went to the bitter end, Round 24, to wait - up against insurmountable odds - until there were finally fully cooked for the year.
That's after an allegedly "gallant" comeback late in the season, after Robbie "The Best Leb in the Game' Farah was dropped to reserve grade, never to come back.
The great man was shoved out the back door without so much as a sausage to pay for promising youngsters inside the salary cap.
Club loyalty, it seems, is not worth a brass razoo.
In the end the Club Secretary has to be pragmatic and admit it's really all about the money.
Balmain again finished a disappointing ninth [they only had to win the last game to go 8th], going out with an awful 10-52 thrashing at the hands of Canberra at the Spiritual Home.
Dudded by a single Premiership point.
No-one listens to me, but Coach "Squeak" Taylor must go.
Must be sacked.
Bucks stops here, Jason.
Ninth [again] is simply not acceptable.
As if apparantly destroying Robbie Farah's career - just like Benji Marshall's career was destroyed, yet he plays on as a shadow of his former self someplace else because he needs the money - was not enough.
There should be more blame game going on at board level, for mine.
But there is hope for long suffering Tiges fans...if they can keep their young halves in Brooks and Moses out of the greedy clutches of shonky Silvertails, afford to pay the best full back in world, The Tedesco Kiddie, to keep him in the style to which he has become accustomed, and remain overstuffed with very fast over 20 yards oversized refrigerators on the wings, all they need are some quality genuine article forwards.
But, have they got the cash to buy a new pack, with Chris "The Try-Scoring Freak" Lawrence and that quintessential journeyman [everyone forgives him for being a Kiwi], Dene Halatau - the very last survivor of the glory days, having played for Balmain in the '05 Grand Final, the last one that they won - both being made Life Members of The Club upon their graceful retirements?
Who knows.
And then there's the conundrum of a new coach.
They looked a million dollars on paper this season, but the investment just didn't pay dividends.
Oh well.
Shit happens.
"There's always next year".

MJ Clarke reaches the pinnacle

Heroes & Flannelled Fools,

Amid all the brou-ha-ha surrounding the Olympics and the fevered frenzy in the build-up to the football finals, it was easy to overlook the fact that, in a complete surprise to everyone, MJ Clarke has reached the very pinnacle - Honorary Life Membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club.
That is way, way better than a knighthood; it's more akin to being admitted to the life peerage - you have to wait until someone dies before you get in.
Pup is certainly in rarified air up there at the summit, with MCC Honorary Life Membership currently numbering just 36 persons.
30 former cricketers [including one Lady cricketer], one former Umpire, one former British Prime Minister and four members of the Royal Family - Phil The Greek being principal among them, the Queen couldn't give-a-fuck.
However, always found it odd that Membership of the MCC is so prestige and so coveted and sought after [current waiting list for Full Ordinary Membership is 27 years], when Lords has always been known as a sunny place for shady people, and a drinking club with a cricket problem.
The MCC Membership is chock full of shysters, conmen, hucksters, outcasts, shonks, cads and bounders.
Just look at Thomas Lord, who made his fortune from gambling on cricket, and schemed and cheated his way to thieving control of the game off the Hambledon CC, back in the day.
[In stark contrast, Kennington Oval - the Prince of Wales' Own Ground - he happens to own the land which he leases to Surrey CCC - attracts a much more knowledgable crowd of cricket punters and has a decent respectable Membership].
But, suppose everyone wants in, because the MCC has clout.
They have clout because they make The Laws.
A power closely and jealously guarded by the club even in these days of the ICC.
No one does nothing in the game without the say-so of the MCC.
As the great man enters the Pavilion the doorman will say "Good afternoon, Mr Clarke", but he'll be greeted in the Long Room with "G'day Pup! Good to see yas cobber, my dear old chap. What's been shakin', mon? A G&T perhaps, Clarkey?"
Also, from a crippled person's personal point of view, very pleasing to see that Clarkey has also taken on chronic pain as a cause, recently being appointed an Honorary Ambassador for Pain Australia.
He now admits that he's been suffering from Shagger's Back since he was 17 [started early] and has come to realise that over the past six months or so he's needed help in retirement, as there is simply no point in grinning and bearing it, because it is eminently treatable.
Don't get me started about the sheer agony of just putting your shoes and socks on of a morning.
After 40 years experience, probably should give him a ring and let him and the chronic pain folks know that about 2 grams of Cannabis Sativa per day pretty much does the trick - bugger the opioids and all that shit.
But since Pup's been down to the clinic, he will likely be right into it.
The bloke has always been on drugs, without even knowing that all you need is the herb superb.
Sir Vivian Richards can't be wrong.
Bong or scoob on, and yes, you too, can live a normal life.
Onya, Pup.

not usually in the bailiwick

Not usually in the bailiwick of this blog-blog-bogitty-blog, but here goes anyway.
Some scribblings from Crazy Craves during the recent Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

once an Olympian, always an Olympian

Papua-New Guinea's only entry in the Judo, Raymond Ovinou?
His Games all over in 43 seconds.
By Ippon.
Gold.
Arrives on Easy Street inside a minute.
Living the dream, and living it large party-style back at the village for the next fortnight.
Goddamit - why didn't we think of that?
Once an Olympian, always an Olympian.

completely normal

Party Cone Pullers,

I'm a decrepit enough old sports journo to recall the story of Lisa Curry walking into the swimming dressing sheds at the Los Angeles Olympics, and her competitors being shocked and frightened by this massive, muscle-ripped, hugely imposing Amazon of a woman as she stripped off - and yet - she won nothing.
Everything old, is new again.
So, the Olympic pool in Rio is awash with every kind of snaky substance known to man.
Powerful pharmaceuticals of the go fast variety?
Surely not?
At least the Chinese media are on the money when they describe Australia as "on the fringes of civilisation":

The naughty one is on the right, although the one of the left looks like he's off his chops, also.
The bloke in the middle is completely normal.

struth, cobber

Metallurgists,

While I have the utmost respect and admiration for The Great Dr Charlesworth, and his storied contribution to Australian hockey over the decades, his stellar 47 first-class cricket matches and three Sheffield Shields, his fine ten-year career as a good pinko Parliamentarian for Perth, and his sideline as a General Practitioner - really, now...
It's plain for all to see that Rugby Sevens is soft.
Gold is soft; pliable, malleable, ductile.
Field Hockey is a cruel, vicious, violent game.
Anything else you want to tell us, Ric?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-09/womens-rugby-sevens-win-labelled-soft-by-former-hockey-player/7709610
Struth, cobber.
How about Gold! Gold for Straya! Gold! Norman May style?
Next time with a bit more patriotic fervour.
Don't over think it, me ol' mate.
Shut up, and go get some - any way you can.

no perfect tens for nothing

Fellow Martians,

Men's and women's Gymnastics is like some kind of strange, secret ritual, largely conducted and kept behind closed doors.
An arcane game peopled, as it is, by frighteningly driven folk and weird, kooky aficionados, who all know that nobody remembers who came second.
Maybe that's why they only allow it to be shown on the television once every four years.
And the intricate complexity of it all, the myriad of technicalities, and the chaotic scoring system almost defies the imagination.
That's why they have long-experienced highly-qualified judges and stewards who lay down the law and do their job very well, but over the course of a six-hour day on the judgin' bench, can't help but show their humanity, and play favourites.
Don't get me wrong, it's not as if it's not good to watch.
Most people know and enjoy when they see excellence.
The sheer strength, skill, agility, poise and grace required to do it certainly makes for a brilliant spectacle.
But, I don't need to watch anymore, for I am fortunate to be old enough to have seen in real time, perfection - Nadia Comăneci.
Find myself asking -- why do they carry on, when nothing more can be achieved?
They don't hand out perfect tens for nothing.

badminton will have to be banned

Never mind Dressage, looks like Badminton will have to banned from the Olympics, due to general political incorrectness and the unethical treatment of animals:

"Top level shuttlecocks are made from sixteen feathers embedded in a rounded cork base covered with leather. Goose feathers are the best. Duck feathers are sometimes used but they have a tendency to dry out and break. The feathers - nearly all from China, where the there is a strong taste for goose - must come from the left wing of the bird, and each wing provides only seven or eight feathers of the requisite size. They are easily bent and broken, so players may get through a dozen or more during the course of a match. Shuttlecocks also have to be used quickly; they cannot be vacuum-packed and begin to degrade after a couple of months on the shelf."

from David Goldblatt & Johnny Acton, How to Watch the Olympics, [Profile Books, London, 2011], 400pp.

Haven't done the math, but how many birds are sacrificed in the service of The Games and then burnt-at-the-stake?
BBQ'd to all their meaty, greasy goodness.
Pop 'em in a snack pack and watch the shuttlecocks fly!
Horrifying vegetarians since 1992.

the Green Pool and the Gold Vagina

Jacques Cousteau's,

By far the biggest scandal of the Rio Games, so far, must be The Green Diving Pool, for mine.
Reminded me somewhat of Kerosene Creek on the North Island of New Zealand.
Now, if you want really green water, go there.
Chock full of strange life forms.
It's remote and hard to find, but when you plunge in, it is warm, as the stream is bristling with pools of hot thermal springs at about 34 degrees, and yes, it does stink of kerosene.
But the chemical waters are renowned nation-wide for their healing and health giving properties, especially for the physically challenged aka afflicted.
However, there are warning signs that you are never, under any circumstances, to put your head under water.
Kero Creek is seething with weird amoeba, that get in through your mouth, yr nostrils, yr shell-likes, even yr eyes; which then start attacking the brain, and you end up with something akin to Mad Cow's Disease.
Appropriate, really.
Given the Olympic Games are a vast excercise in complete craziness.
And who knew that it takes 11 million litres of the finest water Rio has to offer, to drain and refill a competition diving pool?

Reminded again that the Australian accent and vernacular can get you into innocent, and no so innocent trouble, while overseas.
You are guarateed to have at least one faux pas a day in lands where English is not the mother tounge.
Got no idea who the second-string track and field commentator behind the great Bruce McAvaney on the Ch.7 coverage is, but who ever he is, he has an excellent Strayan accent.
My hearing is not what it used to be, but I swear the other night that when he was referring in Strine to some event, and said so-and-so "looked likely to win the gold for China", it for all the world came out sounding like "The Gold Vagina".
Odd thing language.
Little wonder that non-native speakers with 600 words of English, have simply no idea what Australians are talking about, let alone what they are on about.

the bloke who was running away from it

Lounge Lizards,

The Marathon?
Run only because it happened, once, back in the day - September 12, 490 BC.
Marathon?
Some run-down good-for-nothing of a town that just happened to be of critical strategic military importance on the day, when a couple of mobs in disagreement had a helluva toe-to-toe ding-dong brawl over it, by all accounts.
And at the start, it was the bloke who was running away from it, and was praying all the time to what ever God was his, that he'd never have to do it again, ever.
Yet, people still do.
Very hard to find anything more old-fashioned at The Games.
But why 26 miles 385 yards?
When, although no-one has ever quite bothered to get the tape measure out, the road distance between modern day Marathon and Athens is about 25 miles, more or less, in the old money.
In a state of exhaustion from too much sport is barely enough, found myself late at night slumped on the lounge being sucked into the vortex that is Women's Marathon.
In Australian Rules you often hear the commentators say "and it's a perfect day for football" - you never hear anyone saying "and it's a perfect day for a Marathon".
Hot, humid, no breeze to speak of and not a cloud in the sky is never perfect for anything, let alone a brisk stroll in the park.
That said, the lady from Kenya, Jemima Jelegat Sumgong, ran a perfect tactical race under the conditions, and knew it; saying gold was hers in her own head once she passed the 40km signpost from where she came from.
"I knew I was on the way to history.”
She knew all day the others would fade away, one-by-one, struggling in agony every inch of the way, with wildly different contortions of extreme pain and dreadful suffering written all over their faces.
In a race where there is no mercy, they all looked like they were in desperate need of urgent drug treatment; please, just a pinch of some of that Colombian Marching Powder, just to keep me going to the finish of it all, please, just please.
After plodding along brilliantly for all of two hours twenty four minutes and four seconds, Ms Sumgong won by a mere nine seconds - but she knew that was enough, she knew she would win - it was never in doubt.
She knew it might as well be daylight between her and silver, the margin back to second never counts, despite the appearance of it being a close run thing.
From the get go - a classic war of attrition - at its finest.
Good to watch

the Strayan Captain and the Marathon sex Session

Voyuers,

What's not to love about Anna Meares, the Strayan Captain and Flag Bearer?
She's old, tired, heavy in the legs and yet she still manages to win bronze! bronze for Straya! bronze!
To add to her already mightily impressive trophy cabinet
Four consecutive Olympic Games appearances is a grand achievement in anyone's language, all the more so in the super-competitive game of cycling.
They might as well have invented the derny just for her.
And she admits she didn't have to do Rio, she just wanted to, because she knew she could.
And despite her being famous from sea-to-shining-sea, she remains the epitome of humbleness, blessed that she was able to do it all, and proud to win for her country, not just for her alone.
Plus, while the shot putters and discus throwers would give her a run for her money, dear Anna must have the biggest bargearse in all the Strayan team.
Those big legs, those tight skirts -- just drive me right outta of my mind.

Speaking of which, ever since Melbourne invented the Athlete's Village back in '56 there's been all sorts of unspeakable hanky-panky going on in there.
Believe it.
The combination of adrenalin, testosterone, estrogen, booze, cocktails of powerful pharmaceuticals, and plenty of time on their hands, is bound to produce wild and crazy scenes beyond the imagination.
Did like the story of the Brazilian women's synchronised diving duo finding themselves in an acrimonious split over one of them, Ingrid Oliveiram, being involved in a "marathon sex session" with a male Brazilian canoeist.
The other one, Giovanna Pedroso - obviously insanely jealous of the other [according to the local gossip columns] - just couldn't handle it as she was told in no uncertain terms to leave their share room so Ingrid could get jiggy with it with Pedro Goncalves.
At least the rooter/rootee offenders kept it orderly and "in-house", and there was no cross-border fertilisation.
Hero's, both of them, in the Rio press.
The biggest scandal for mine, was that all this whoopee and living the dream happened the night before the pair were due to compete.
Outrageous.
Still, that never stopped Bob Beamon jumping out of his skin to the tune of 29ft 2½in back in '68 in Mexico City.
Needless to say with one of the girls on the work bench all night, and the other one as miffed as; they came stone motherless last in the synchronised 10m platform final.
Gold.

where all the money went out the back door without so much as a sausage

Would be freeloaders,

I'm calling it.
As The Games draw to a close, there must surely be a Royal Commission into what went wrong and where all the money went.
Tom Hughes QC, Counsel Assisting and Kitty Chiller as the star witness.
She'll be endlessly cross-examined about the wildly over-optimistic predictions on where Straya finished on the all-important Medal Tally.
"I put it too you, Ms Chiller, that Australia is a small fish in a very big pond, and yet, after over a century of trying to grow into a nice plate-sized one, and the vast amount of treasure spent in the pursuit, Australians still don't get it. Do you agree with that proposition?"
"Yes"
"In that case, do you believe Australia was - to use the vernacular -'punching above its weight' at the recent Games in Rio?"
"No"
That sort of thing.
Oh, did I mention money?
Forget Citius, Altius, Fortius.
As a news reporter covering Sydney 2000, I saw first hand and up close the astonishing graft, greed, corruption, magnificent riches wasted, and the exceptionally lavish fully-funded lifestyles enjoyed, maintained, and closely guarded by the 98 Members of the IOC.
In 2000, they ate their way through Australia's entire annual production of saffron in a fortnight.
The Gravy Train to end all gravy train's.
They think and live like they are royalty, entitled to endless entitlement [you only stop being an IOC Member on the day you die], and behave as if the sun shines out of their collective dirty arseholes, while everyone around them bows & scrapes.
So they are first class role models, always have been, when it comes to frittering away mountains of cash, no cheques please.
The Australian Sports Comission freely admits that we, that is, you and me, have spent no less than $376.7 MILLION on "high-performance" Olympic sports programs since London.
That's a helluva lot of pineapples thrown at it, with barely a brass razoo to show for it.
The Royal Commission will be onto the fact that the "amateur" athletes themselves saw very little of the brown paper bags stuffed with greenbacks.
They'll be imagining a scenario where all the coaches, trainers, physio's, witch-doctors, nurses, orthopaedic surgeons, massuers, cupping experts, sports psychologists & trick cyclists, performance algorithm crunchers, dieticians, acupuncturists, not to mention drug-peddlars, and the myriad of other hangers-on with grand titles, getting together in a meeting room somwhere in Canberra, and the Chairman saying to the meeting "now, we've got all this free money from the Government, so what should we do with it? Do we spend it on sets and costumes? Or pay ourselves handsomely?"
To which comes the deafening reply "PAY OURSELVES HANDSOMELY!!"

My Spy at The Ground in Rio, while fond of the non-Olympic sports of real football and cricket, is also a basketball nut and was scathing in his opinion of the sheer arrogance of the Opals [who were meant to have a saloon passage through to the gold medal match v USA, weren't they?], but, who like almost all of the other team sports' Strayan teams, went out in the quarter-finals or worse [in the "professional" as buggery Opals case, to Serbia. WTF?] and thus get shoved out the back door and sent home without so much as a sausage.
I have barely seen a frame of the yachting on the Ch7 coverage, but it is the sailor boys and girls who can always be relied upon to bring home the bacon late in the second week, to make the scoreboard look barely respectable.
Go figure.
Think Sydney.
I could go on, but I'll let the Bush Telegraph in the corner of the loungeroom do the talkin', for once:

*The too precious - Golfers and Tennis players who are too good to even go to the Games.
*The reckless idiots - Judo players who forget to build an attack on substance.
*The sugar-loaded dreamers - Rowers who turn up on a wild card and want us to believe they’re ready.
*The over-confident - with beliefs built on hope not results - Soccer players who believe miracles happen twice within one minute of each other.
*The spoilt brats – gymnasts and divers who have always been told they’re wonderful and Mummy gives them a 10 every time.
*The get rich quick mob – the whole damn lot of ‘em living it up on the sweat of workers without a care or threat of punishment when they fail.

My Spy is cynical & cranky, but has plenty of respect for the long-suffering taxpayer, with good reason.
It's been such fun and it aint over yet, but I'm through with commentary on these Games - the best ever, as they always are - same, same, only different - sayōnara Rio de Janiero.
I'll be seeing you all in Tokyo in 2020, where you'll find me heading straight out to the skateboard park.
And as always, remember that if you are not enjoying yourself, then it's probably your own fault.
Tally Ho!
Toot! Toot!

not usually in the bailiwick

Not usually in the bailiwick of this blog-blog-bogitty-blog, but here goes anyway.
Some scribblings from Crazy Craves during the recent Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

beneath my dignity

Armchair critics,

People have been asking me why one of my footy blogs hasn't appeared on the subject of Balmain coach Jason "Squeak" Taylor's gob-smackingly appalling treatment of one of the true legends and ornaments of the game and the second-last survivor of the "Magnificent Thirteen" who won the Premiership in '05 - Robbie Farah, aka The Best Leb in The Game - who, it goes without saying, is a scholar and a gentleman beyond reproach.
While folk are well aware that my position on the imbroglio is abundantly clear, they are saying they would like me to explore the issue further employing some of my trademark colourful language.
Decided that to write such a blog post regarding JT would be beneath my dignity, and there is also the fear that if my opinion was put into the public domain, there is the possibilty of being hauled before the Defamation Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales where my senior counsel would be asked to explain to the court the precise legal definition of my reference to Mr Taylor using the phrase "a two-faced, lilly-livered, 24-carat, card-carrying-cunt", under the Common Law.
Trust you will accept my explanation.

The Inglorious Bamfords

Reformed Highway Robbers,

If ever there was a worse display of umpiring in recent history than in last Thursday's match between the Swans and Hawthorn, please let me know.
Swans were robbed blind; plain and simple.
What an absolutely appalling effort on the part of officialdom.
Chris Donlan, Luke Farmer, Shaun Ryan - we know who you are.
The Inglorious Bamfords.
Yet again, the whole shebang, shat me to tears.
The Stats Guru, who knows of these things, reminds me that not a single free kick was paid to the Swans in the second quarter of the match -- which turned out to be the pivot on which the game turned - and while the umpires tried in vain to switch-on late, the free kicks tally still finished at an unbelievable 15-9 in favour of the away side.
Sydney could not buy a free kick, getting just 4 to three-quarter time, compared to the Hawks 13, which were mainly in front of the big sticks.
Outrageous.
What's more, the Hawks were trying every trick in the book to bend, bust or just break the rules as much as they possibly could, and that didn't stop short of plain deception by having players running around in ever decreasing circles like chooks with their heads cut off, or just acting the goat, in what turned out to be a very successful bid to distract the attention-deficient umpires from their appointed task.
Oh no siree!
Hawthorn was putting it all on - head high tackles, illegal shirt-fronts, Squirrel Grips, Christmas Holds, out-and-out scragging, holding the man left, right, and centre, tripping, scratching, stomping, blatant pushes in the back, knees and elbows all over the shop in the scrimmages - the full range of filth - but they'd read the rule book don't you worry about that, and were smugly contented to get away with blue murder.
In a game chock full of niggle, it's a wonder there wasn't an all-in brawl.
Often wondered why there has never been a send-off rule for Unconscionable Conduct or repeated professional fouls in Australian Rules, as there is in just about every other code of football known to man.
Just as a shocking example, whenever Lance Franklin went anywhere near the ball, Hawthorn flooded the Swans forward lines and had about about five blokes on him, all tugging at his balls and trying to illegally hold him back to stop him from taking a trademark speccy.
And they succeeded beyond their expectations, all without any sanction whatsoever from the umpires, who in fact helped them out whenever they could.
Buddy went without a single goal.
Astounding.
Even Super Coach Horse, under the threat of a heavy fine, made some thinly veiled not terribly favourable comments about the standard of umpiring in the post match press conference, before going outside and shoving his head in a bucket of cold water to stop the steam coming out of his ears.
Suggested to My Spy at The Ground that the Bamfords should be lined up against a wall and shot at dawn the day after the Swans win the Grand Final, but he reckoned by short succinct message from a super-jampacked SCG to the bush telegraph machine in the corner of my loungeroom "shootin's too good for 'em".
Still, against these odds, the Swans have only suffered one woeful flogging [which most unfortunately was graced by my presence] in the entire season, with six games to go.
Adelaide 10pts.
Richmond 1pt.
GWS 42pts.
W.Bulldogs 4pts.
Hawthorn 5pts.
There are some fish that got away there no doubt, most notably the serial losers at Richmond, but the Swans are still sweetly placed in equal third...and under the Hare-Clarke-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis AFL finals system, the last thing you want to do is go top.
You are much better off finishing second or fourth, still getting the second bite at the cherry, and tossing a coin for all it matters for a home game.
The ducks & drakes starts now.
Throwing matches won't be uncommon.
Note from the team lists in the 'not playing after last week' box, Heeney the Cardiff Zuccini was "managed" out of the side a couple of weeks ago.
The strange looking pretty boy with the sea anenome on his head looked rather bashed up, but it appears you now no longer have to go through the charade of having "foot soreness" to take a breather for a couple of weeks - you can now just be "managed" in and out at the stroke of a coach's pen, and the AFL no longer seems to mind that yr not playing yr strongest team right through to the very end of the minor Premiership.
On that form in that game, Sydney and Hawthorn are the obvious grand finalists; Adelaide really being the only rival for The Flag, given they are due for a loss, and the Crows, like the Swans, have a saloon passage through to September.
The Pygmies will give it a red hot go, and good on 'em, we have soft spots in this western Sydney household for that old lunatic hard-nut Stevie J, and the Toby Greene kiddie, who can play.
The other teams currently in the top eight are too flaky for mine, and won't take to the blowtorch to belly treatment very well.
After missing the finals last year under unforseen unfortunate circumstances, Lance Franklin has a long memory, knows about atonement, and is leasuirely taking the whole season to warm up nicely; could win the Coleman Medal by and by, just because he knows he's No.1.
The is no man in the whole comp who wants to win the premiership more.
Watch him go "bang!" when the opening whistle sounds in the first prelim.
Bugger the Bamfords.
Buddy's victims will feel very sore and sorry for themselves as he boots a bagful.
Mark my words.
Enough said.

Meantime, over at the workingman's game, rugby league, The Mighty Tiges have rocketed up the 16-rung ladder from 12th to 11th on the back of the two premiership points guaranteed for just going and having Sunday lunch with your mum during the second bye weekend.
Let's face it...be a man about it - they are struggling up Shit Creek with the paddles floating downstream somewhere nearby - despite being a million dollars on paper.
Said it before, say it again.
The Coach Jason "Squeak" Taylor v Robbie Farah long-weeping sore for some entirely unknown reason has still been left to fester...so while the Best Leb in The Game was the starting hooker for NSW in all three games in the just concluded State-of-Origin series [QLD 2-1]; he can't get a full game and starts off the bench for Balmain, and yet never has a bad game at dummy-half.
And worst of all, why the contretemps?
Go figure.
The Balmain/Western Suburbs RLFC board of directors remains a dysfunctional shambles, who won't sack the coach at this late stage.
They also have the best full-back in the game, and possibly the half-back/five-eighth combo also, mercurial wingers and a workmanlike bunch of forwards, and yet find themselves completely nowhere.
WTF?
As the Stats Guru whirs the ababcus to find try to find out how on earth they can make the top eight, he rationally explains it's simply because the Tiges have been the very model of inconsistency this season:
WWLLLWLLWLWLLWBLWLB.
Apart from the season opening promise, they have never been able to string two wins together all winter.
To mix a metaphor, the conundrum in a kernel.
For eleven long years now; a difficult team to follow.
As The Philosopher would say "Lord, help us."