A column about Iemma v Debnam

I don’t often have cause to say this, but politics is fascinating right now. Brian Burke, the infamous former WA Premier who’s known for his dodgy lobbying and even dodgier fashion sense, has Kevin Rudd in trouble for the first time, and is seriously embarrassing many a Liberal as well. Human Services Minister Ian Campbell has resigned because of Burke, presumably only until immediately after the election. Although I’m not clear whether his crime was having a meeting with the former jailbird or temporarily derailing the Prime Minister’s attack on Kevin Rudd.

The Rudd affair always seemed to me like a storm in a teacup. What, you mean pollies occasionally meet with dodgy lobbyists? Quelle horreur! So I wasn’t especially shocked that it’s largely backfired, with voters reacting by putting Labor even further ahead in the polls. I even feel a little sorry for Rudd, to be honest. Sure, he was at a dinner with Burke where he flaunted his leadership credentials. But really, do you think it’s possible for him to have a dinner with Kevin Rudd where he didn’t flaunt his leadership credentials? The opportunity to talk himself up is, surely, like crack for the Opposition Leader. I certainly wouldn’t have expected him to have been able to resist.

Really, if this is the best hit they can make on Kevin Rudd, then he’s got the election as good as won. So, Federal politics has been lively lately. As opposed to that other thing, what’s it called; ah yes, the State election.

The contest, if you can call it that, between Morris Iemma and Peter Debnam is the dullest I can remember since the last series of Australian Princess. And there isn’t even a narky former butler to put them through their paces.

On the one hand you have a government that should surely be voted out on its record, led by someone who was so obscure when he became Premier that Labor had to run an ad explaining how to pronounce his name. Below its bumbling head, the government has been absolutely decimated by scandal. And the best it can do for a campaign slogan is to virtually apologise, and claim to be heading in the “right direction”, wherever that is. If there was any viable alternative, the Iemma Government would be facing annihilation.

But instead there’s Peter Debnam, who, according to a Labor ad that seems to have been copied verbatim from one of the ones that worked so well against Mark Latham, couldn’t even run a squash court. (Although, come to think of it, could Morris Iemma?) He’s promised to cull 20,000 public service jobs, but won’t say which ones – meaning that absolutely anyone who has a family member in the public service won’t vote for him.

Then there are his crime policies, which seem largely to involve locking up people who are children, Muslims or both. It’s a cynical exercise in votemongering, only it isn’t working.

Iemma’s policies, by contrast, are extremely dull, and align with a ‘State plan’ which has been rightly criticised by Nicholas Cowdery, QC for blurring the line between governing and electioneering. And sold by a raft of publicly-funded ads in another trick stolen from the Howard Government.

Fortunately, the brief interruption that is the State election will finish soon, and we can turn our eyes back to what promises to be a fascinating contest between Rudd and Howard. I only wish Brian Burke had met both Iemma and Debnam, forcing them both to resign. It’s the only chance we have of electing an even slightly inspiring Premier.

A column about celebrity sumo

Australia’s childhood obesity crisis grows ever worse. And we can talk about the good old days when we used to play Test matches in the backyard after school all we like. The reality is that in the era of high-fat convenience foods, obesity’s inevitable. So unfortunately, what we really need if we want kids to get active is a sport that can be contested by the overweight.

Such sports do exist. Tenpin bowling has a special place in the cholesterol-clogged hearts of the morbidly obese, but it never made anyone stronger or fitter. The main point of bowling, after all, is to give us blokes a low-impact sporting diversion in between gulps of beer.

And then there’s the shot put, an activity which has been pointless ever since they invented the cannon.

But there’s one highly athletic sport where to succeed, you have to stack on the kilos. And that, of course, is sumo. I had the curious cross-cultural pleasure of attending a charity tournament on a recent trip to Tokyo, and from what I saw, every chunky Aussie kid should be encouraged to tussle with other flabby behemoths while wearing skimpy adult nappies. It’s fantastic entertainment. No, better still, it’s fat-tastic entertainment.

Whereas in most athletic pursuits, the chubbier kids are left sitting on the sidelines and made to feel inferior, sumo celebrates the gut. That’s why rikishi (wrestlers) wear such skimpy loincloths. Not for them an elasticised, gut-minimising body stocking. As every steroid-guzzling bouncer outside a dodgy nightclub knows, some things are all about size.

And there can be no better time for our tubbier athletes to consider taking up the ancient sport, because even though it’s steeped in centuries of Shinto tradition, right now foreigners are not only welcome, but dominant. The current yokozuna (grand champion) is a Mongolian called Asashoryu, and his closest contender is a Bulgarian, Mahlyanov Stefanov who wrestles under the name of Kotooshu. So a few Aussies would hardly be noticed.

The charity day went for a few yuks by pitting some of the larger sumo wrestlers against ten junior sumo trainees – it was a bit like Kanga Cricket during lunchtime at the SCG. Among the kids who got into the hallowed ring that day was, to my surprise, one blonde-haired kid. And I thought to myself – that little fella with the cheeky grin and the bulging gut? That could be Warney.

Which is not to say that the real Warney couldn’t still take up sumo. In fact, he should. His beloved meat pies would work just as well as the sport’s traditional hearty rice broth for gaining weight. And Warney may not have much sumo-specific experience, but he’s very well accustomed to wrestling with strangers in his underwear.

Come to think of it, it wouldn’t take long to put together an accomplished celebrity sumo league in Australia. What a fantastic format. Take some tubby retirees, put them through a training course, and instant reality television smash hit. It’d be like The Biggest Loser in reverse. And just think of the celebrity match-ups. Mal Meninga v Blocker Roach. Ian ‘Huey’ Hewitson v ‘Aussie’ John Symonds. And best of all, Boony v Beazley. In the words of the late, great Big Kev, who I just know could have been a sumo superstar, I’m excited.

And above all, Celebrity Sumo (to which I now own the rights, incidentally, having published this article) would teach our Aussie kids that they don’t have to stay thin to become sporting superstars. It would build self-esteem among our ever-burgeoning overweight youngsters. And that’s a good thing. Not as good as if they actually got fit, admittedly. But sumo at least will get them off their sofas and into the ring. For about thirty seconds, after which they’ll have to sit down again because of their ridiculous bulk. But still, it’s a sport. And they way things are going, it’s just a matter of time until it’s our national one as well.

A column about videogames

Regular readers of this column will no doubt have built up a mental picture of me that differs significantly from the caricature that the editors like to include alongside my work. You will no envisage me as dashing, debonair and handsome, and impossibly suave and svelte. Well, that’s true. Except, perhaps, that if I’m brutally honest, it would be fair to say that the svelteness thing has somewhat eluded me recently. Well, for a long time. Try about 15 years. And while the ever so slight thickening around my waist has certainly not damaged the considerable regard in which I’m held by ladies everywhere, let’s just say that there’s a little room to improve.

Like many guys, I’d like to get into shape, but only if it’s easy, fun, and leaves me with washboard abs. This is an annual New Year’s resolution for me, which I also annually abandoned on around January 4. Of course, I don’t actually intend to go out and punish myself in the gym – there are lifestyle considerations to think of. But if someone invented a way of allowing me to exercise without straying far from the couch, or even realising I was working out, then sure, I’d be up for it.

Which is why I was intrigued by the news that you can lose weight while playing video games. Now, playing video games is something I rather like. I’m rarely found kicking a ball around a park these days, but if it’s just thumb-twiddling that’s required, I’m quite the sporting hero. Perhaps this, then, was the answer I’d long been seeking for maximum fitness with minimum effort? Perhaps the cruel logic of no pain, no gain had finally been broken?

My research led me to the unfortunately-named the Nintendo Wii. Which I assumed referred to the need to supply urine samples after losing so many kilos so quickly, but apparently is supposed to mean ‘we’. It has a wireless controller that looks quite like a television remote, and do anything in the games, you have to move it around. Every system comes with a game called Wii Sports, which allows you to play tennis by moving around and swinging the remote as if it were a tennis racquet. It’s great fun, if you can somehow quell the lingering suspicion that you look ridiculous.

One of my cousins had proven quite the sensation on Christmas day with one of these machines. Apparently my grandmother tried her hand at boxing, and enjoyed it so much that she wanted to get a system of her own. I was mightily impressed. If this Wii thingy could convinced no less than my grandmother to get active – and, what’s more, throw punches probably for the first time in her life – then there could be no doubt that it would transform me into a vision of smoking hotness.

So I procured one of these magical weight-loss devices – no easy task, given that they were sold out everywhere, but The Glebe name always opens a few doors. And I set to work on the New Me. Or Mii, as the system regrettably terms it. Soon my electronic doppelganger had bested many opponents. I’d spent many happy hours pretending I was on centre court at Wimbledon, like Lleyton Hewitt during that brief period when he was any good. The kilos, I assumed, were surely dropping off. So I headed to the scales to check my progress, and discovered a major flaw in the system.

The guy who had conducted the experiment had a highly controlled diet, and played virtual tennis for half an hour a day. I had played tennis occasionally, but spent dozens of hours sitting down to play other games, snacking regularly all the while. So unfortunately the scales showed that I’d actually gained weight. Still, imagine how much more I would have stacked on if I hadn’t been playing tennis.

Video games are wonderful things, and I really enjoy playing them. So watch this space for another column about the remarkable fitness benefits of the soon-to-be-released Playstation 3.

A column about my 30th birthday

In his movie Born On The Fourth Of July, Tom Cruise plays Ron Kovic, a disabled Vietnam vet who campaigns against the war. But, folks, his patriotism is not to be doubted, because – with that trademark subtlety for which the American cinema is justly renowned – he was born on Independence Day. If he were Born On The Fourteenth of July, Bastille Day, by contrast, he’d be one of those cheese-eating surrender monkey fellows we hear about, and not to be trusted.

I mention this to show that birthdays are important as an indicator of national fidelity. I mention that because I myself was born on Australia Day. And sure, Born On The Twenty-Sixth Of January doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but it doesn’t matter – the important thing is that this fact makes me indisputably an Aussie Legend. You’ll hear about it when I run for Prime Minister.

Heroes like myself often face sceptics – it was the same for Kovic. Well, I’m not the only person who thinks I’m special because of my birthday. There’s even a special club for people like me called the 26ers club. And you can’t join unless you’re one of the lucky one in 365 of us who share an Invasion Day nativity, so there.

Unfortunately, the club is run by the Victorian Australia Day Council, so I’ve never actually attended one of its events. But according to its website, “Members receive a card and badge annually, and are invited to participate in the Melbourne events, including a birthday cake cutting ceremony.” That’s right, we’re talking about publicly funded birthday cake. Told you it was special.

The 26ers desperately needs a Sydney chapter, but unfortunately I don’t know anyone else privileged enough to share my birthday. Let me know if you do, and we can organise an annual get-together to lord it over everyone else at the taxpayers’ expense. You may even be given the chance to campaign for me.

This was a particularly poignant birthday for me, not just because it was the first one I celebrated as the member of an exclusive club, but because it was my thirtieth. I felt some trepidation about the end of my twenties, but so many people told me that “30 is the new 20” that by the time the day came around, I no longer cared. It worked so well, in fact, I am now trying to deal with another of my irritating signs of aging by promoting the idea that “thinning hair is the new thick”. You heard it here first.

Besides, I figure you’re only as mature as you act, so I’m safe for a good while yet. My only real concern is that there’s any truth in the somewhat desperate-sounding cliché that “life begins at 40”. If that’s true, I’m in for one heck of a dull decade.

But one’s thirtieth birthday is a major landmark, a time to reflect on where you’re at with your life, and where you’d like to be in another decade. So here goes. Life to date? Awesome. Potential areas of improvement? Nil. Mmm, that was rewarding.

So, where will I be by the time I’m 40? Well, as it happens I’ve already worked that out. By 2017, The Glebe will be the bestselling national daily newspaper in Australia, driven to the top position by this column, which will appear exclusively on its cover every day. Pages 2-9 will contain a selection of greatest hits from my earlier column-writing career, which will also break Harry Potter 15’s holo-book sale. Pages 10-13 will contain news about me and my wife, Lara Bingle (after all, she likes the stars), also doubling as the social pages. The rest of the newspaper will follow.

Newspapers are a one-way medium, of course. That’s why I like them. So rather than waiting for you to wish me a happy birthday, I will take the liberty of wishing myself one on your behalf. Thanks, that’s very kind of you.

Dominic would like to advise readers that gifts will be gratefully received care of The Glebe office. Please ask those delivering large objects (cars, etc) to ring in advance – our storeroom may already be full of birthday presents. Please include a return address so he can send a personalised thankyou note, or in case your gift isn’t good enough.

A column about Pinochet

We had a bit of good news in the paper last week – General Augusto Pinochet died. He was, of course, the Chilean tyrant who the US backed in a 1973 coup, and went on to systematically assassinate and torture thousands of his opponents. Most damningly of all, he was a good mate of Margaret Thatcher’s.

My best friend in primary school was Chilean and, I now realise, a refugee from Pinochet. We lost touch in high school, but I’ve been thinking of him as I’ve been reading read obituaries of the dictator. My friend’s father had been ‘disappeared’ in Chile, so he’d come to Australia as a small boy, along with his mother and sister. The family had to change their surname, choosing something generically Aussie that sat a little awkwardly with their Spanish names. (I won’t name them, because I’m aware that enemy agents regularly read this column as one of the leading indicators of what’s happening in Australia.)

We were great friends from the age of 6, constantly visiting each other’s houses to ride bikes and play computer games. I was always welcomed with open arms. And all the while I was magnificently oblivious to the tragedy that had displaced this family to a small apartment on the other side of the world. All I knew was that my friend’s mother had an unfamiliar accent and cooked more interesting food than we usually had at home.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how it must have felt to lose a father or husband, and not even to know whether he was alive or dead. Even in Australia, the family was threatened thanks to Operation Condor, a co-ordinated campaign by South America’s right-wing military dictators and the US Government which sent teams of assassins into neighbouring countries and even the West to take out political opponents. Le Monde Diplomatique estimates that under this programme, 50,000 were killed, 35,000 ‘disappeared’ and 400,000 imprisoned.

Refugees have been a political football for years now, but thinking back on my friend’s story reminds me why it’s so important to offer asylum to the victims of this kind of oppression. Even in Australia, the family were genuinely in fear of their lives. I can’t imagine what that must have been like – but imagine if they’d stayed in Chile.

We need to hear these stories to remember why it’s so important to keep taking people in, and also so we can feel good about ourselves when we do. I’m proud that Australia could offer my friend a better life, but I’d be even more proud if we increased the current intake, which is behind 31 other countries, according to TEAR Australia.

Looking back on Pinochet is also fairly depressing in light of Iraq. The Allende government that was deposed by Pinochet had been democratically elected, but because it was socialist, President Nixon ordered Henry Kissinger to remove it. The result was no elections in Chile for 17 years. America has unsuccessfully interfered with other countries’ policies in the name of freedom for decades. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to imagine that without American interference in Chile, my friend might never have lost his father. How many more kids are losing their dads to insurgents’ bombs in Iraq today?

Unlike so many other countries (most recently Fiji), Australia has never had a military coup. We’ve never had to watch what we say. Our fathers and husbands have never disappeared, leaving us doubting for years whether we’d see them again. Because we are so fortunate, we worry instead about minutiae like interest rates and cricket. But we should remember that there are still Pinochets in the world, and that we need to do something about them. And most of all, we should not be complicit in creating them. America should think very carefully before it meddles in the affairs of other countries, and we should think equally carefully before we help them do it.

A column about The Ashes

Is there any more pleasurable activity on this wide and bountiful earth of ours than watching an Australian sporting team beat England? If there is something that can put any more of a smile on your cheek and spring in your step, or any larger an overflowing cauldron of joy in your heart, then pray tell me. Because the sheer delight of watching our cricket team grind England into the dust in the First Ashes Test made it one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a very long time.

Which is another way of saying that I’m lazily writing this column in front of the TV, and I don’t care who knows it.

(Quick score update: England 2/58, Bell 9 and Collingwood 8 at lunch. This may, however, change by the time this goes to print.)

Even Ricky Ponting’s inept captaincy couldn’t spoil the First Test, but only because it comes coupled with his extraordinary batting. I’ll never understand why he didn’t enforce the follow-on, a decision which ultimately let England get some valuable batting practice in the fourth innings. But it ultimately didn’t matter. We won in a landslide. The old favourites, Langer Warne, and McGrath, answered their critics in the best possible fashion, and delivered like the champions they are. And, if I may quote God when he finished making the Earth, “I saw it, and it was good.”

Even during the 1990s when their cricket team was, in short, a joke, every retention of the Ashes crown still felt better than any other series triumph. And that’s because, as everyone who’s ever had a sibling knows, the closer you are to someone, the more satisfying it is to beat them. That’s what makes State of Origin matches so passionate, that’s what gives the Kiwis such pleasure when the All Blacks flatten the Wallabies with such depressing regularity, and that’s what gives us so much pleasure when we beat England. Our two nations are about as culturally similar as you can get. (Well, except New Zealand, which is only really a ‘fun-sized’ Australia.) In an echo of convict transportation, both countries export their drunkest, most annoying youths to one another in huge quantities.

And that’s what has in recent years added an extra degree of enmity to the contest. The Barmy Army are possibly the world’s most infuriating sports fans. They only seem to have one song, and it’s the least witty thing I’ve ever heard. “Everywhere we go/People want to know/Who we are/Where we come from.” Yes, but only so they can have harsh words with the immigration authorities.

Australian incoming passenger cards have a box you have to tick if you have a criminal conviction. There should be another one next to it asking whether new arrivals are “barmy”, and answering yes should lead to the tourist being put on the next plane back to England. Then the rest of us might actually get Ashes tickets.

No, really, an Ashes series wouldn’t be the same without the Barmy Army turning up in huge numbers. It’d be much better.

This competitiveness between those who are closest reaches its most absurdly passionate heights in football, of course. By which I mean soccer. The ‘Old Firm’ derby between Glasgow’s Protestant and Catholic teams, Rangers and Celtic, is famous as the world’s most hotly contested. People have been killed in the aftermath of those matches.

I’m not suggesting we should kill members of the Barmy Army. Judging by the amount they seem to drink, they’re doing a wonderful job of that themselves. But if we win the series, as surely we will, we must ensure that the remainder of their time in Australia is as unpleasant as possible. So we should make them go to an Anthony Callea concert, or attend a sitting of Federal Parliament.

Victory will be sweet, especially in light of the last Ashes and how much England gloated about it. I sat behind one annoying Englishman at the last Sydney Test who would not stop reliving the exploits of “Freddie and the lads” for the entire day, even though Australia were playing South Africa right before his eyes.

So when we crush them, find a Pom (and we’ll drop that term when they stop calling us convicts, Cricket Australia), and rub it in. Hard. You know they would.

A column about Kevin Rudd

Here Labor goes again. It's about a year before the election, or maybe even less if John Howard's feeling malevolent. They should be riding high in the polls on a wave of dissatisfaction about WorkChoices, interest rates and Iraq, the latter of which disasters has just carried their American equivalent to a comprehensive victory in the midterm election. And yet they're stuck with a leader who simply cannot land a decent punch on a man who's had their measure for over a decade.

The solution being promoted by several malcontents in the Party? Kevin Rudd. Why don't they just save everyone a whole lot of money and effort and just concede the next election already?

They did this last time, of course. Simon Crean wasn't getting anywhere, so they dumped him for Mark Latham. Who didn't have much of a profile or senior shadow ministerial experience, and was primarily famous for breaking a taxi driver's arm. And guess what? The electorate was just as scared of him as any cabbie. So in 2004, the Liberals didn't have to create a bogeyman on board the Tampa, or throwing children overboard. They found one on Labor's frontbench.

Terrified, Labor retreated to Kim Beazley, a man whose only positive quality was that people knew who he was – but only because they’d opted not to elect him twice previously. A decision they evidently don’t have much interest in changing next time around. In a truly timid leadership decision, they essentially elected to hope the Coalition would self-destruct, or run Costello, or most likely both. And guess what? The man who beat Beazley twice decided he had a three-peat in him, and no-one seriously believes he won't do it.

So. Kevin Rudd. I hope I make the extent of my scepticism perfectly clear when I say that he's no Mark Latham. I'd always thought, possibly foolishly, that the electorate might have warmed to the flawed Fury from Werriwa, if he'd had substantially more time and better health. There was a period six months before the election when he was creaming Howard like Beazley never could. But now the ALP desperadoes want to try and beat John Howard, the battlers' friend, with a guy who comes over like the guy who was just a little bit too keen about being a school prefect.

We had guys like Kevin Rudd at my school. Sure, they did well in the HSC, but they never won a popularity contest. And I went to a school for nerds. Other educational institutions would have flushed Rudd's head repeatedly down a toilet.

Admittedly, Rudd has intellectual talent like no-one in the ALP since Gareth Evans. (And knows it.) If politics was a pure meritocracy, he'd have been Foreign Minister for years already. I’d probably back someone that smart to figure out how to make the electorate like him, given a few years to take the know-it-all edge off him. But not now. Not with only a year. No way.

Labor's made its bed, and now it must lie in it. That bed is Beazley. And it means that after the next election they'll have to dust themselves off after an incredible fifth straight loss to John Howard, and then make either Rudd or Gillard leader. I have enormous faith in the competence of either of them – though I'd prefer Gillard, for the relative lack of smugness if nothing else. But they need time to win over the electorate.

So all I want to hear at this point is Kevin Rudd saying he won't contest the leadership before the election. Heck, he can say it in Mandarin for all I care. But he needs to learn that his ability to do that isn't going to win him any votes. And until he does, they may as well stick with Kim Beazley. With his steady hand on the helm, they will highly likely go nowhere. But as the last election showed Labor, it's possible to do even worse than go nowhere.

A column about greyhound racing

Since starting university, I’ve spent a lot of time in the suburb that gave this paper its name. I love it for its cafes, its bookshops, its pubs and its diverse, frequently bizarrely-dressed inhabitants. Just ducking my head in the door of Badde Manors to catch a whiff of freshly-ground coffee and noxious armpits takes me back to a better time. A time when the only things that mattered were essays, girls, the latest insignificant student political crisis and whether you had enough money in your pocket to pay for your cappucino.

But in all the years I’ve been hanging around in Glebe like the sad parody of soft-left university graduate I am, I had never visited its most nationally renowned attraction: the home of the NSW National Coursing Association, at Wentworth Park racetrack.

Even though it’s just a stone’s throw from the dilapidated student terrace where I spent my fifth year of university, somehow I’d always done things on Saturday night other than watching incredibly skinny dogs run at breathtaking speeds for a very short period of time. That was until last weekend, when my friend Dave nominated a night at the dogs as his preferred farewell venue to the life of a single man. A night with the boys, the beers and the bookies – it’s what the ANZACs were fighting for.

Greyhound racing is a predominantly male pursuit, and in fact I’d say the majority of the females at the track that night had four legs. But we soon realised, with disappointment, that this was largely because most of the other punters at the track that night were also on bucks’ nights. And worse still, of all the soon-to-be grooms who were boozing away their bachelorhood, our posse was clearly the softest.

One set of rivals, the redoubtable Ezza’s Bucks boys, had printed up a special t-shirt with all their names on it. Another group had forced the buck to don a dress – making him just about the only person there wearing one. Whereas we had just kind of turned up. We hadn’t even shackled our buddy to a novelty ball and chain as a witty comment on his approaching matrimony. It was a disappointingly un-blokey effort.

Then there was the betting. My friends made a valiant attempt to interpret the form guide, and one of them had even worked out what all the letters stood for by the last race. But apart from one bloke who made a motza on Tuscan Sun because he had Italian heritage, we all got absolutely clobbered.

I tried everything – backing the favourite, choosing by name even going up to the marshalling area and trying to guess which dog most looked like it wanted to tear a fast-moving piece of fluff to pieces. But I only won on one race all night, the “Everythinggreyhounds.Com Gr4/5 Stk”, whatever that means. I backed Powerful Lee on the strength of its witty adverbial pun, and was stoked when it romped home. But its comedic stablemates Outrageous Lee and Curious Lee were no good at all, costing me more than their Powerful sibling earned me.

All in all, I bet extremely Bad Lee, as a certain greyhound owner would have put it. The experience left with my finances and manhood in tatters. Why had I forsaken my poncey cafes for this den of gambling and canine anorexia?

At one point, after a particularly narrow loss, I was bitterly criticising the dogs’ intelligence, arguing they should realise that they could never catch the fake bunny, and they should just lie languidly down when the race starts and refuse to move. Then I realised I’d spent the night continuing to bet in every race even though it was blatantly clear I’d only lose more money every time. So by comparison, the dogs were much more intelligent than me – at least their repetitive pastime didn’t lose them money. And it kept them in shape.

Wentworth Park’s a great place for a night out, though – especially if, like me, you’re too much of a tosser to have been before. The racing’s exciting, and each event takes less than a minute out of your drinking schedule. What’s more, I’ve got a surefire way you can win. Just ask me for some hot tips – and then back another dog.

A column about global warming

I understand that global warming is a big environmental problem. I am not one of the few remaining oil industry-aligned skeptics who still insist nothing’s been proven. Sure, I haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth yet – recent trips to the multiplex having been designed more around a desire to escape reality than receive a harsh jolt of it. But I really, really intended to, and that’s got to count for something, right?

I don’t want the polar ice caps to melt, or the snows of Kilimanjaro to disappear. In fact, I’ll have you know that I’m a fully paid-up member of Greenpeace. Or at least, I was once, but I’ve changed address and credit card details several times since then. Details, details – the point is that I am nevertheless committed to the environment. And, for the record, I think pollution is bad. I just think that warm weather’s not such a bad thing, and that it would be better if Sydney had a little more of it.

So if we can manage things so that Sydney gets a bit warmer in winter, in particular, but that the drought isn’t worse and no low-lying Pacific island nations are wiped out, I for one would be delighted. Because I’ve come to realise something at about this time every year, as the weather lures us into our t-shirts with the occasional hot day only to give us frostbite after the sun sets. I suffer from seasonal affective disorder.

SAD (oh, and it is) is most commonly experienced by people who live near the Arctic Circle, in countries like Iceland. They get depressed because of the weather, and presumably also because they live bang smack in the middle of nowhere. Most people say the disease is called by a lack of sunlight, and treat it with a lightbox, although I think the disease is more likely caused, in Iceland at least, by over-exposure to Björk.

Obviously the weather in Sydney, recently voted by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler as their preferred tourist destination, doesn’t cause depression. My condition is the reverse condition: warm weather makes me inexplicably happy. After going through the colder months in a fog of grumpy cynicism, I spend November through to March in a bizarrely blissful daze. My highly-developed frowning muscles take the summer months off, and on occasion, in spite of myself, I can even be seen smiling.

Maybe it’s the high frequency of social events, from Christmas parties to barbeques? Maybe it’s the annual influx of the expats, whose endless tales of how great their lives are in New York or London rally us to throw extra-lavish and debauched parties to pretend that we Sydneysiders have more fun than we really do for eleven months of the years. Or maybe my body just really likes being sunburnt and sweaty. But whatever causes it, it’s started already.

Over the next few months, I’ll find it almost impossible to care about things like politics or principles. Already I’m finding myself shrugging off things that I know I should be concerned about, like the recent media law changes and the sale of Telstra. I’m even indifferent about the long-overdue steps taken by our leaders towards finally recognising that Iraq has been a failure and that the Coalition of the Willing should become the Coalition of the Pulling Out Immediately Before Any More Of Our Troops Are Killed. Screw it, I tell myself. I’ll just go to the beach.

Perhaps this explains why people who live in Queensland put up with Joh for so long, or why the Thais didn’t seem to mind that whole coup thing so much?

So while everyone’s getting on the global warming bandwagon – something I’m theoretically committed to as well – I know I’ll be largely thinking to myself how much I’d like it to be summer all year round. And while I’m happy to help fight the good fight, at least through the medium of whiney opinion-writing, I’m afraid I’m going to take a raincheck until autumn. Because from now until April, I just know that the only thing I’m going to genuinely care about will be the Ashes.

A column about karaoke

Every month or so, my friends somewhat suspiciously gather in dimly-lit, underground rooms. The cigarette smoke is thick in the air. Empty bottles and beer-stained serviettes litter the low tables. It could be the headquarters of some nefarious criminal organization. But the only murder on the agenda in these dingy subterranean lairs is of songs.

Multiculturalism has brought us many wonderful benefits, but few rank next to the ability to croon Frank Sinatra standards while being accompanied by crappy 1980s-style synthesisers. So Australians have adopted Japan’s favourite hobby no less enthusiastically than we’ve taken up sushi and Astroboy. And where the right to perform an even rougher version of ‘Khe Sanh’ than Barnesy’s original was once restricted to dodgy pub covers bands, now thanks to the magic of karaoke, anyone can conjure up the long-term psychological damage of Chisel’s fictional Vietnam veteran – and in so doing, cause short-term psychological damage to anyone who’s forced to listen.

Karaoke prowess is so important in parts of Asia that not only will the machine mark the accuracy of your performance, but people tend to get training for it. Apparently in the business world, the ability to bash out a killer version of ‘Hey Jude’ counts as a big plus, rather than the huge minus I’d have thought it would be. It may well be that Alexander Downer’s whale-like performances at regional political meetings are doing Australia’s reputation irreparable damage. But if Labor gets up and makes Peter Garrett Foreign Minister, the world of karaoke diplomacy had better watch out.

I’ve been in the first-floor bar at the Mandarin Club, for example, and watched the most heartfelt public renditions of sugary Canto-pop love ballads, sung brilliantly and with utter conviction. To my cynical ears, these kinds of performances are both wonderful and highly amusing.

But Australians have developed their own unique approach to karaoke, though, and as with so much of our culture, it’s all about taking the piss. When Aussies take to the mike, they mock these genuine expressions of emotion. One perennial favourite is ‘Wind Of Change’ – a truly cheesy song from the end of the Cold War, with one of the worst whistling solos in the entire history of recorded music. I’ve heard it sung dozens of times, but never, shall we say, with the same respect for the momentousness of the end of communism that The Scorpions had originally intended. Bon Jovi’s ‘Blaze of Glory’ and the heartfelt works of Richard Marx and Michael Bolton are often given the same treatment.

The real beauty of karaoke is that it simply doesn’t matter how good you are at it. Even the most tuneless of renditions can have a charm of its own. And sure, a truly brilliant singer can shine, obviously – but thanks to imperfect equipment and the continent of Asia’s overfondness for the digital echo effect, no-one ever sounds all that good. Karaoke is a great leveller. The only thing you can seriously get wrong is taking yourself seriously.

Whether you prefer to croon ’50s classics in a poor imitation of Robbie Williams’ poor imitations of the originals, or belt out mid-1980s hair-metal schlock (and there isn’t much else on many venues’ playlists), it’s a brilliant way to relax with friends. And for all the cultural difference that divides Australia with much of Asia, there is one thing we truly have in common: beer. Japanese and Australians alike love nothing more than a nice cold inhibition-lowering lager. And if you’re going to embarrass yourself in front of your friends after a few too many, better to have a microphone in your hand than anything else. And that is ultimately, the real beauty of karaoke.

A column about coups

Thailand is one of Australia’s favourite countries. It supplies us with wonderful holidays, delicious stirfried noodles, and Red Bull. So, like many Australians, I followed news of last week’s coup with great interest. While Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was addressing the United Nations, the Royal Thai Army rolled tanks into Bangkok and sacked him. In one of those classic developing country scenes, they promised to restore democracy ‘real soon now’, and accused the incumbent of forcing their hands through the sheer extent of his nefarious corruption. Same old story.

I’m not entirely sure how culpable Thaksin is – although you’d have to say that any country where the PM owns much of the media has a problem. (Imagine if John Howard owned TV stations here – it’d just be Bradman 24/7 on every network.) What I do know is that it’s pretty unlikely that something like that could happen here. Coups simply aren’t an option in developed Western countries – in fact, they’re unprecedented.

And more’s the pity. Because I can’t think of anything better for the Inner West right now that a bloodless coup d’état. It’s the most stridently left-wing area in the country, so after a decade of John Howard and the Labor Right in Macquarie St, a takeover by a socialist junta would be warmly welcome.

Plotting a coup is simple – they always follow the same formula. We’d just roll a bunch of tanks up outside the major political bodies, and hey presto, instant coup. It’d be so easy. Sydney Town Hall isn’t even in the area, and Clover Moore’s got so much on her plate that she probably wouldn’t even notice. While anyone who’s seen Rats In The Ranks knows Leichhardt Council’s a pushover, and you can’t tell me Marrickville’s Green mayor would put up any resistance.

Then we have to seize the region’s media outlets. Too easy. With the greatest respect to my colleagues at The Glebe, we wouldn’t need more than one tank to take it over, while a faintly aggressive look is probably all you’d need to take over Radio FBi. Whereas the ABC, which is on the edge of the Inner West, is already controlled by socialists. And that’s about it.

The first thing we would need is some kind of catchy name. Thailand’s junta has styled itself the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy. I would suggest that in order to win over the support of residents, the ideal name for our new junta would be the Inner West Democratic Reform Collective And Book Club.

'Collective' should get the hippies and ferals onside. And as anyone who's ever been involved in student or community politics know, a collective is where decisions are made by the most loud and self-righteous person in the group.

And those who aren't into the Collective, we'll suck in with the Book Club. First up for discussion is the new Noam Chomsky. Mmm, should be thought-provoking. The chai's on me.

Next we would need to appoint an interim leader. Ideally, we would need someone popular and charismatic who is widely respected throughout both the Inner West and the wider world. Obviously the mind turns immediately to the columnists within The Glebe. And while I’m sure Rebecca Le Tourneau would do a fine job, it seems clear to me that the ideal option would be myself.

Hey, it was my idea.

Then we need to seek retrospective permission from the head of state, as the coup plotters did with Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol. Actually, on second thoughts, it probably doesn’t matter – no-one even knows who the current Governor-General is.

Like all glorious coup leaders, I will gladly promise to restore democracy, but as with Burma, though, it might just take a few decades, during which time prominent opposition figures will be placed under house arrest. That’s okay – Paddy McGuinness doesn’t like to leave Balmain much anyway.

There’s only one problem I can detect with my glorious plan. King St and Parramatta Rd are so congested already that if we brought in a fleet of tanks to block them off, no-one would actually notice.

A column about deceased celebrities

As the remarkable outpouring of grief after David Hookes’ death showed us, the sudden, accidental death of an Aussie legend is the cause of much sorrow. His Test career had been brief, but his larrikin fame endeared him to everyone who loved cricket. So a week where two of our popular heroes die is, as the late, much-loved Steve Irwin might have put it, an absolute bloody shocker.

Steve Irwin and Peter Brock were both remarkable examples of Australian macho manhood. Irwin could wrestle crocodiles, and always prevailed. And, to the satisfaction of the more politically correct among us, he also translated that incredible enthusiasm into conservation, ploughing his television income back into buying land for wildlife sanctuaries and helping ban croc hunting in the NT. He was the real-life Crocodile Dundee, right down to the oversized knife in his khaki shorts and the sassy American wife.

Brock won the Bathurst 1000, the Holy Grail of everyone who’s ever done lappies down George St in a supercharged Holden or Ford, an unsurpassed 9 times. And he scored most of his victories in a Holden Torana. The only way you can get more Aussie than that is if he’d somehow managed to drive the gruelling 1000km of the race while sculling tinnies and playing two-up with his co-driver, all the while leaning his arm out the window holding a Winnie Blue.

The sense of tragedy we feel about both these deaths has been amplified by the fact that both were “doing what they loved” – meaning in other words that they had a rare moment of fallibility in fields where both were exceptional. Our sense of shock is as much because they didn’t prevail, as we expect them to. Both were as close as you can get to superheroes in our culture.

Irwin was remarkably brave, regularly swimming with sharks and playing with cobras, and had a remarkable way with animals. So for him to die while filming a sting ray, probably one of the least dangerous animals he’d ever encountered, for a documentary was an incredible shock. While Brock had conquered Bathurst so many times that he was dubbed “King of the Mountain”, but lost control in a rally he was competing in largely for fun. Again, it was the relatively light-on event that proved fatal.

As a stereotypical inner-city latte-sipper, it’d be fair to say that the blokey worlds of motorsport and crocodile handling haven’t exactly ranked highly in my consciousness. The Crocodile Hunter’s popularity within Australia was never as great as it was overseas, because the networks felt there would be a strong cringe factor. I watched several episodes of his work over the weekend as part of a non-stop marathon tribute, and it’d fair to say that the exuberant ockerness of his presentation probably plays a bit too closely to our stereotype for most Australians – as if a Frenchman hosted a show in a beret and a stripey blue shirt, holding a baguette and a roll of onions, constantly saying “Ooh la la”.

But like Brock – who will remain a Bradman-like legend in this country – Irwin was the best at what he did. In the episodes I saw, his bravery is just incredible. He steps into murky lagoons with crocodiles, and he leaps onto their backs and holds their jaws closed with his bare hands – and all so he could relocate them so they didn’t have to be killed. He was the real thing, and it’s fitting that all Australians are finally acknowledging this.

It’s hard to imagine a renowned painter or scholar being mourned like Brock or Irwin, even if their deaths had been equally tragic. The experience has shown us that Australia is still above all a larrikin country that likes its blokey heroes – and especially in the eyes of the world. But few people seem more deserving of so frenzied level of mourning than Brock and Irwin. It’s rare for two extraordinary, ordinary blokes to be so revered after their deaths. And rarer still that they so clearly deserve it.

A column about snakes and planes

Flying isn’t what it used to be. For years now, the security wowsers have been whittling back the enjoyment of what was once one of life’s true pleasures. They took our boxcutters and scissors – terrible news for those who need to complete inflight craft projects. They took our liquids, punishing anyone who needs to reapply hair gel over the Pacific. They’ve even taken away our laptops and iPods on some flights, forcing us to endure the built-in entertainment system – or, worse still, talk to other passengers.

I haven’t been reduced to listening to the Qantas inflight audio in years, thankfully, but when I last did most of it seemed to be hosted by Mike Hammond. Really, how much more of this we can take?

While the actual act of flying is becoming increasingly stressful and unpleasant because of these restrictions, aeroplane disasters are becoming a popular culture staple. Lost memorably begins with one, and United 93 and World Trade Center are only the latest in a long line of films to use them as a backdrop for drama. But all these stories have been unrelentingly serious. It’s been a long time since a comedy was set on what’s now our scariest form of transport – right back to Flying High, probably.

But now there is Snakes On A Plane, the movie with the most brilliantly literal title in cinema history. When you hear it, along with the fact that it stars Samuel L. Jackson, the movie practically writes itself. And that’s exactly what happened on the internet. Thousands of bloggers were so taken by the name, with all the cheesy B-movie goodness it promises, that they began producing sample dialogue, song, movie posters – even mocked up scenes. Never before has such a thin premise produced such an avalanche of content.

The studio, New Line, was initially worried that the project was heading too far down the camp road, mistakenly believing that the best marketing pitch would be that the film realistically evoked the scenario of a crate of snakes getting loose on an aeroplane. They changed its name to Pacific Air Flight 121, and reined the script in, aiming for a PG rating. The internet exploded in criticism, and so did the film’s star, who had decided to commit to the project purely on the basis of its schlocky title.

Sensibly, the studio gave into the baying of the blogosphere. They changed the name back, and added an extra 5 days of shooting – almost all adding graphic R-rated (in America) scenes. Jackson had made the excellent point that when hundreds of snakes appeared mid-flight, people might swear a little, and the studio even added the line that the fans had predicted must surely be in there, and hadn’t been, when Jackson exclaimed “I have had it with these mother&$%#^@ snakes on this mother%$#%$# plane!” Giving the film a dramatic turning point as deliciously obvious as the film’s title. And lo, the fans were happy.

Our jaded, media-saturated society can see through marketing hype. But the hype over this film came from the grassroots. So much of the internet is about large communities agreeing on what’s funny, and even though the studio initially fought against the self-conscious ridiculousness of their film, they guaranteed themselves an instant audience when they decided to embrace the corniest B-movie conventions.

Nowadays, we see potential aeroplane disasters on the nightly news as well as at the multiplex. So it’s no wonder that in an increasingly worrying world, we are crying out for self-consciously silly entertainment. While reality remains this dramatic, the market for escapist silliness will remain strong. Which is why I’m currently developing a comedy-horror movie, Giant Squid On A Chairlift. (Tagline: “It really sucks. You.”) I just hope Samuel L. Jackson’s available.

A column about bananas

Paul Keating once warned that Australia risked becoming a banana republic. While this dire prediction has not come to pass – John Howard's political nous having scuppered the republic, just as it scuppered Keating himself – the former half of his warning has just been vindicated. While we aren't exactly a tinpot military dictatorship, our economy does seem to be worryingly dependent on bananas. And recently, it hasn't exactly been smoothie sailing. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

I don't understand the complex macroeconomic relationships that the Reserve Bank takes into account when they determine monetary policy – I have enough trouble just doing my tax returns – so I don't know to what extent the banana crisis has pulpily trickled down into other areas of the economy. But we all know that Cyclone Larry devastated Queensland’s banana crop, meaning that not only has my local cafe has whacked a $2 surcharge on banana splits, but interest rates just went up. So not only have the repayments on my shiny, probably foolhardy new mortgage gone up for the second time since I got it a few months ago, but I can't even afford to cheer myself up with a delicious banana-based sugary treat. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

And that’s why you should support the many reputable advertisers in The Glebe, incidentally. I need this column, folks, and without it, I may have to resort to crime – dealing hydroponic bananas, for instance.

Is this how people in New Orleans felt post-Katrina? Well, not really, no. My home is still dry, and I haven't been left to starve by the US Government. But I bet I know exactly how people with a very loose economic relationship with New Orleans who were marginally inconvenienced by Katrina's flow-on fiscal effects felt.

Then there are petrol prices. I don't really understand how they've impacted on interest rates either, I'm afraid. Read a credible columnist if you want actual 'analysis' like that. All I know is that being hit by higher rates and petrol prices at the same time is a pretty painful double whammy for middle Australia. I'd worry if I was John Howard. Okay, that's not completely credible. I'd worry if I was John Howard and not running against Kim Beazley.

The problem we have is that affluence is addictive. We’re used to luxuries like being able to drive wherever we want and eat bananas whenever we want. And we resent being asked to compromise on anything. George Bush said that “the American way of life is non-negotiable” in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, and that’s why no-one in America would dream of giving up their gas-guzzling Hummers for a hybrid. (Still fewer are getting hybrid Hummers, like Arnold Schwarzenegger did.)

Even though American greenies are trying to equate reducing fuel consumption with national security – which you have to do with everything in the US, of course – no-one is giving any credence to the argument. Which is a shame, because the conclusion that America should reduce its dependence on oil because it gives the Middle East enormous leverage over it is almost obvious as the conclusion that the war in Iraq was kind of a dumb idea. The same self-defeating attitude pervades – to a less arrogant degree, admittedly – in Australia.

With the cost of living spiralling out of control, we are going need to tighten our belts a little. Not as much as we need to loosen them thanks to the obesity crisis, admittedly. But just as the banana shortage has forced us to resort to alternative forms of fruit, we’re going to have to start using alternative forms of transport. Public transport isn’t so bad. Well actually, it is, but we need to start using it and investing in it anyway. Whether we like it or not, our way of life will have to be negotiable.

So – pear split, anyone? We can walk it off afterwards.

A column about war

The perennial conflict in the Middle East always seems so far away. The ancient, bombing-riven desert landscape that we see on the news bears more in common with George Lucas’ fictional Star Wars landscape of Tattooine than the comfortable, urbanised Sydney we live in. Even further away for us predominantly secular Australians is the mindset that has fuelled this conflict. It’s hard to relate to bearing a massive grievances on the basis of territory and past conflicts. Most Australians only get fired up about land ownership issues at home auctions.

It’s even harder to imagine being willing to die for your religion. You’d have to imagine Hillsong Church’s huge numbers would drop away pretty quickly if they started asking their members to destroy themselves in a rain of holy fire rather than clap their hands and sing uplifting songs.

Most Aussies simply can’t understand why they can’t all sit down and work things out without avoiding such a fuss. Our solution would be for both parties to sit down, and maybe have a barbeque together. Everyone in the Middle East, Jewish or Muslim, loves barbequed meat, and no-one eats pork, so the catering would be simple. It’d be a whole lot better than the current situation, where everyone’s trying to barbeque each other.

But as we’ve seen this week, this conflict isn’t far away at all. Thousands of Australians were stuck in Lebanon needing urgent evacuations. And thouseands more numbers took to the streets last weekend to march against Israel’s bombing campaign. And Asaf Namer, a young Sydney man who had volunteered for the Israeli Army, was killed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last Wednesday. I know people who knew him at high school. In this increasingly interconnected world, we’re never more than a few connections from any crisis. As reluctant as I am to admit it, that loathesome Will Smith movie Six Degrees of Separation has a point.

No-one is without blame in this conflict. Lebanon has Hezbollah as part of its government, which was always likely to bring it into conflict with the terrorist group’s sworn enemy, Israel. Virtually all impartial observers agree that Israel has massively overreacted in the current campaign, and the Jewish state has alienated many supporters because of the high number of civilian casualties. Syria and Iran are connected with Hezbollah, and America’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s attempt to negotiate a ceasefire was laughable when her country had sold Israel a load of bombs only a few days earlier.

It’s hard to imagine anything we Australians would less like to do than get involved in a peacekeeping effort in Lebanon. Alexander Downer described the idea as “suicide”. But it’s hard to know what else we can do, because we can no longer trust anyone actually involved in the conflict to even try to resolve it.

The reality is that we as a nation already are involved. The war has dragged all of us into it to a certain degree. Israel has tried to teach Hezbollah the lesson that if it hurts Israel, the reaction will be dramatic. We need to teach Israel that if it hurts innocent civilians, our reaction will also be substantial.

John Howard said that an international deployment would need to be massive to succeed – 10,000 or more. But is there any way? International aggressors must learn that if they kill civilians, the world community’s reaction will be massive in both military and economic terms. It needs to be so inevitable that leaders are discouraged from acting by the inevitability of a fierce response. If they know they cannot achieve their aims (and really, someone should have pointed this out to new-boy Ehud Olmert), the point of a protracted campaign becomes more elusive.

As the world has shrunk, we were supposed to become friends and stop killing each other. We haven’t. Instead, one group of our friends – and more significantly, one country in which many of our compatriots hold dual citizenship – is killing another. Intervening will be highly dangerous and unpleasant. But less so, ultimately than allowing this situation to continue. The only thing you can predict in the Middle East is that the conflict simply won’t ever stop while the region is drawn up with the current parameters. So it will simply have to be stopped instead.

A column about marriage

I’ve thought a lot about marriage in the past few months. Not for myself, but because my late-20s and early-30s friends have been pairing off like the protagonists in a Jane Austen novel, and I can hardly avoid the topic whenever yet another invitation arrives. I’ve got half a dozen booked in before the end of the year, and if there aren’t a few dramatic break-ups soon I’m going to have to get a whole separate credit card just to pay for the presents.

My group of friends have had some lovely weddings so far, and I’m sure the next batch will be wonderful. But it’s also given me a taste of the enormous hassle that’s involved – although I suspect ‘distaste’ might be more accurate. Oh yes, everyone suddenly wants to be the computer nerd’s friend when it’s wedding time, because we know about tricky things like mail merging invitations, fancy fonts and design programmes. Still, at least they’re then obliged to invite me.

I was quite shocked recently when I spent an afternoon helping a friend choose between indistinguishable Norah Jones covers bands. My only strong view, though, was that the cost was obscene, and that I should give this writing lark away and just play music at weddings. I swear that if I ever get married, my guests will be entertained by one solitary primary school kiddie on a recorder.

Then there are the venues. Because so many lovestruck Sydneysiders are dumping most of a year’s salary on their nuptials, you have to book the good places months in advance. And then everyone has to find a venue that another friend hasn’t used, which is well nigh impossible. One ambitious couple has planned a whole weekend, which has led to my entire group of friends horse-trading over who gets to get which of the limited cheap beds in the rustic hamlet they’ve chosen. I’m on the verge of warning them that while I think a weekend away will be brilliant, if the bed thing can’t be sorted out, I’m going to be crashing on the floor of their honeymoon suite.

One sensible couple’s gone for a relatively simple solution, and booked a harbour cruise. Very picturesque, and everyone can put the inevitable wedding vomiting down to seasickness. Unfortunately that idea’s been used now, though, so I’ll probably have to resort to the pokie lounge at the Rooty Hill RSL club if I ever get hitched.

Alternatively I wonder if McDonald’s does wedding receptions as well as children’s birthday parties? The celebrant could be Mayor McCheese.

Most of these couples aren’t religious, so it’s been interesting watching friends wrestle with the question of whether they should tie the knot, and what difference it ultimately makes. Nearly all of them conclude they want to, because even though they understand all the patriarchal objections, it just makes a difference to their relationship. Certainly it gives everyone a wonderful day, and a wonderful hangover the following morning

Despite my increasing familiarity with the endless minutiae of marriage, one thing escapes me. I just can’t understand what particular aspect of the process means that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. Phillip Ruddock just overruled what was admittedly a fairly crude attempt by the ACT to legalise civil unions, but the UK and several other European countries seem to have managed it with minimal fuss. Celebrating love, making commitments and having parties are all fine things, surely, regardless of the sexuality of those involved.

I’m really looking forward to all of these upcoming weddings, and I’m sure they’ll be extremely happy, festive occasions. What a shame that none of them will be gay.

A column about football and multiculturalism

Like most of the planet, I’m unable to think of anything other than football at the moment. I’ve become so obsessed that I’m even typing this during the clash between those footballing powerhouses Ecuador and Costa Rica. So apologies to anyone who’s sick to death of it, and I promise I’ll write about something else next time. Well, unless the Socceroos make the second round.

And they might just. Because a strange thing’s happened to our football team. They qualified over Uruguay through determination and luck more than anything else, and I wasn’t expecting much more from them. But then they beat Greece and drew with Holland in the friendlies, and I started to suspect something was up. Could it be that despite the sport’s obscurity here, our years of qualification heartbreak and Mark Viduka’s innovative non-score approach to the ‘striker’ position, our football team is actually quite good?

The first match against Japan certainly silenced the doubters. At least, the last ten minutes of it did – their moans were pretty loud after the Japanese ‘goal’ in the pub where I was watching. I would have thought Australians would have been more likely to confuse the sport for rugby than Japan’s two forwards. But the controversy laid the foundations for an absolutely incredible finish.

What on earth has Guus Hiddink done to that team? The man is an absolute magician. Perhaps he could even save the Labor Party.

Speaking of which, let me join with the ever opportunistic Anthony Albanese by pointing out that dual goalscoring hero Tim Cahill is a Balmain boy. Yes, that’s right – he grew up here. Of course, he had to leave here and move to the UK to make it as a footballer, but let’s not focus on that. Let’s also not focus on his cynical tackle that might have conceded a penalty. Cahill is a genuine local hero. Let’s hope he drops by sometime.

But I’m hugely proud of the Socceroos, so much so that I went out to blow $130 on their somewhat garish shirt. And one of the things that make me proudest is how the team is showcasing Australia’s multiculturalism. Surnames like Culina, Schwarzer, Aloisi and Viduka demonstrate the diverse, harmonious society we’ve built. Finally, after Pauline Hanson and Cronulla, we’re projecting a positive image of Australia as a multiracial society.

I couldn’t help noticing what a stark contrast the Socceroo lineup made with monocultural Japan, which has always discouraged immigration – except, it seems, of Brazilians such as their one non-Asian player, Alex. Brazilian-born players are representing 4 other nations at the Cup, and I’m astonished we haven’t any. What’s DIMIA doing?

English football has been consumed by debates over nationality this year, with many commentators slamming Champions League finalists Arsenal for fielding teams without a single English player. The bottom line is that, as the fans increasingly are coming to understand, it just doesn’t matter. Most Arsenal fans don’t care where their team comes from as long as it plays well – and the adulation of captain Thierry Henry is an example of this. A Frenchman has surely never been so popular in London.

Putting its sometimes racist past behind it, football is increasingly becoming a completely global game. Ethnic origins are coming to matter far less than identification. And even though many Socceroos come from migrant families, and have themselves migrated overseas to work, they are distinctively Australian. And they reflect the wonderful diversity of this country, where ethnic backgrounds are celebrated, but ethnic divisions are de-emphasised. There could be no better representatives of the melting-pot that is modern Australia, and I hope they know that the entire country is behind them. At least until they’re knocked out. After all, we are Australian.

A column about gay families

Last week, a Tempe childcare centre was catapulted into the national spotlight over its use of a gay-friendly children’s book. The Rainbow Cubby House featured a family with two dads, and comes from a series, ‘Learn To Include’, which was created by a lesbian and her daughter to redress a lack of children’s books with families like theirs.

Premier Morris Iemma grabbed headlines in condemning it, saying “2-year-olds should not be dragged into a debate about gay rights.” And Federal Family Services minister Mal Brough said that the centre should stick to more innocent activities like “finger-painting and having fun”.

Debate over the issue consumed talkback radio and online discussion sites, as irate lefties defended the idea of actively promoting tolerance even at such a young age, and the family values lobby weighed in with their view that they didn’t want their children’s minds warped with pro-gay propaganda.

I’m not entirely sure this is the best way to promote tolerance. While clearly well-intentioned, a ‘Learn To Include’ series sounds somewhat preachy, and it seems a shame that rather than writing an inherently meritorious children’s book that happened to include a gay family in it, the series had to be so self-consciously educative. And it does seem a little peculiar to be explicitly directing social engineering programmes at toddlers.

But the outrage of the critics has been absolutely astonishing. Gay families are a reality in modern Australia, and particularly in the inner west. It’s hard to see what precise harm results from a childcare centre reflecting its demographic makeup in its choice of children’s books. The politicians suggest that these issues should not be allowed to disrupt the supposed innocence of kiddies at play – but the reality is that the issue is already there whenever these children whenever they talk about their mummies or daddies. The supposed choice between militant promotion of gay rights and fingerpainting is a furphy. Rather, the a choice between books with exclusively heterosexual families, and more diverse ones which reflect the children’s actual lives.

To contrast with a different kind of diversity, it’s hard to imagine our Italian-Australian Premier shoving his oar in and criticising the use of books that include migrant families as an improper pro-multiculturalism statement. And what, really, is the difference?

The major difference is that, as the Coalition’s ban on gay marriage proved ahead of the 2004 Federal Election, there are, sadly, still votes in gay-bashing in Australia. And that’s what this is about. Premier Iemma’s re-election depends on winning the electoral middle ground that John Howard so successfully took from Paul Keating, and who have remained with Bob Carr on a State level. So he does not want to look too progressive. Whereas Tanya Plibersek, the Federal Member for Sydney – a very safe, left-wing seat – was only too happy to commend the books when they were launched.

Ultimately, the incident is a sad one, because it shows how far acceptance of homosexuality has to go in our community. It’s tolerated, mostly, but a long way from being treated as so normal that it’s unremarkable. If a childcare centre in an area with a high concentration of gay families can’t use a book with two dads without it becoming a national issue, what hope this there of non-fictional families with two same-sex partners being treated as equal? A lot of grown-ups could benefit from having their minds moulded by the ‘Learn To Include’ series.

A column about football lag

For the past few weeks, I’ve been suffering from the debilitating symptoms of jet lag. I’ve been waking in the middle of the night, sitting in front of the TV. Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4.45am and couldn’t get back to sleep. And I feel like a wreck during the day – I can’t concentrate and keep drifting off to sleep at highly embarrassing moments. But this is not the result of glamorous intercontinental travel. Instead, I’m suffering from an entirely voluntary condition: football lag.

This is caused by being so obsessed with watching a live soccer match on the other side of the world that you subject your body to acute sleep deprivation. Your work, your family, even your ability to drive without swerving sideways as your eyelids involuntarily close are sacrificed in the hope of sharing in the moment of your team snatching glory.

I’ve been following the London team Arsenal as they reached the final of the European Champions League, which they narrowly, devastatingly lost to Barcelona yesterday morning. And I can tell you that the pain of losing the world’s best club competition to an offside goal is magnified substantially by it happening at 6.30am.

I love Arsenal because I spent two years in a rough, inner-city London school as a boy, and discovered that I got beaten up less if you supported the local team. (Note, I say ‘less’.) Whereas the boys who barracked for nearby Tottenham were bashed up by Arsenal’s hooligans-in-training after every local derby, I was bashed only when Australia beat England in the cricket World Cup final, which was almost worth it.

They were so obsessed that the greeting in the playground on my first day was not such trivial details as my name or where I’d come from. It was “Oi! What football team do you support?” And let’s just say they were underwhelmed to learn it was “North Sydney Bears.”

I also went down to a club in Bondi last week, to share in a West Ham-supporting friend’s heartbreaking FA Cup Final loss against Liverpool. It finished up at 2.45am, and there were only two screens, so all I saw of the game were tubby Cockney backpackers in unflattering claret jerseys, incongruously singing ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’. ‘I’m Forever Blowing Penalty Shootouts’ would have been more appropriate.

But despite the pain, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world, because watching football is addictive. No other sport contains so much tension punctuated by moments of sheer adrenalin. A team can almost always equalise in soccer, so you’re on tenterhooks until the very end – unlike AFL and rugby matches, which regularly result in blowouts.

I won’t be struggling with my addiction alone for long, though. Australia’s qualification for the World Cup for the first time since live satellite broadcasts means that the nation is about to know the unique pain of waking at 4am for a stupid sporting event. Even John Howard will probably wake up for it, albeit wearing his Wallaby pyjamas. Your stomach lurches, you get a headache, and sometimes you feel dizzy. But it’s always worth it, even when you lose.

We will be a nation of sleepwalkers next month, dozing off at our desks and smashing our cars into inanimate objects. But absolutely everyone will be talking about it constantly, and crowding into pubs at 4am to watch the Socceroos getting thrashed by the mighty Brazilians. As a nation of sport lovers, we’re in for an enormous amount of body-clock agony. But it will be an unforgettable experience, even though it involves cheering Mark Viduka.

So set your alarm clocks, Australia. We’ve got a World Cup to watch. And a sickie to chuck the next day.

A column about my rock music career

The other night I found myself wandering along what I’ve always considered Rock Central in Sydney – Parramatta Rd Annandale. There are half a dozen guitar shops along the strip, and I spent many hours window-shopping there during my uni days, carefully choosing the equipment I’d never buy for the rockstar dreams I wouldn’t fulfil.

I’m a bass player, so my favourite shop is The Bass Player, which has a nice clear name that we simple folk who play the low notes can understand. It’s Mecca for bassists, the only music shop in Sydney where my kind doesn’t feel like second-class citizens. They used to hand out car bumper stickers saying “Like other musicians you are following the Bass Player.” That’s the kind of thing us bass players find funny.

Don’t think that bass players are all simple-minded, though. Sting’s one, and he’s extremely profound. Actually, do knock him – he deserves it – but leave the rest of us alone. The old muso joke goes that the drummers are the dumb, unmusical ones. “How can you tell when a drummer’s knocking on your door? Because the knocking gets faster.” Which reminds me that Sydney’s best drum shop, Billy Hydes, is nearby as well – but don’t try out that joke there. Drummers carry sticks.

The rock purists, though, head to Jackson’s Rare Guitars, a wonderful emporium of gorgeous but unaffordable instruments. Every time I go there, I fantasize about being Jimi. The playing awesome guitar licks part, not the drowning in your own vomit part, incidentally.

But my rock dreams only got as far as one night in 1997, when I entered the Sydney Uni Bands Comp along with my brother and a few mates under the oh-so-ironic name The BeDazzlers, which we’d stolen from The Late Show. We only performed one gig, and it was definitely the most embarrassing night of my life that didn’t involve asking a girl out.

I couldn’t get there until the end, so we’d organised to play last. But then students being what they are, two of the four bands dropped out. So the drunk, rowdy crowd who’d come to see the quite-good first band were stuck there for over an hour until their mates could win, and spent the time angrily chanting “Where the #$*% are the BeDazzlers?”.

I arrived there breathlessly to discover that not a single other member of the band was there, ready to go, as they were supposed to be. Awesome. It turned out my brother’s car had broken down in the middle of Parramatta Road with all the gear, causing another half-hour’s delay. I think the crowd were actually throwing stuff at me by this point.

When we started playing, it only got worse. We started by murdering a song by my favourite local band The Clouds (two of whom are playing again, I’m glad to see!) and then went onto a bunch of incredibly lame, teenaged original compositions. Of mine. And no, I’m not going to reprint any of the lyrics. I do have some shame – nowadays, anyway.

The only good moment was when my extroverted brother grabbed the mike for ‘I will survive’ and improvised new lyrics that abused the hecklers who’d been giving us a hard time all night. I hung up my bass for good shortly afterwards.

We do talk jokily about playing another gig, as “BeDazzled: The Australian BeDazzlers Show.” We want to be Australia’s definitive BeDazzlers cover band, and I think we’ve still got the lack of talent to make it happen.

We won’t do it, of course. But at least I know where I’d buy the equipment.