Just Humour Us

Geeks in Sport

Yes, two words that you wouldn’t normally put together, but the marketing gurus at the sports desk have worked hard to expand their product into this previously untapped sector of society. 

So, how does one get all the technology-fixated members of the general public to put down their computer keyboards and camp out on the lounge to watch a 5 day cricket test match? How do you make a golf tournament gripping, compulsory viewing? 

    M: Naked golf? That would work.
    S: Are you sure? You have seen what some of those golfers look like, haven’t you?
    M: Well, no, not really. It’s not exactly on my TV ‘must see’ list. Isn’t that the point of this conversation? 

Rather than funnelling technology funding into improved training techniques and new equipment, we have instead brought some of the slower moving sports into the computer age. 

Cricket – What did those commentators do for a week during a test match before the invention of The Pen? Want to see exactly which member of the fielding team will need to move, where he will need to move and what direction the ball is likely to travel in to avoid him? No problem. Draw a circle around him and lots of lines with arrows. It all makes for fascinating viewing. Not to mention all those instant cricket stats and graphic displays of 4s and 6s. 

    S: I’m an old fashioned kind of girl. I still think that my favourite is the little duck wandering sadly across the bottom of the screen when they get out without scoring.
    M: You are so tragic. 

Swimming – There is certainly a lot more excitement poolside now that we have that line to watch in the bottom of the pool. For quite some time our children actually thought catching the line was the whole point of the event. We do love the flags in the pool to show which country is swimming in which lane as well. Much easier than trying to work out what colour caps everyone is wearing. 

Tennis – Does it get any better than knowing exactly how fast that ball is travelling backwards and forwards over the net? Being able to see exactly where the ball lands has done away with a lot of those disputes between the players and umpires however, which has probably reduced the entertainment value of the game. 

Lawn Bowls – The Pen is back. Lots of guessing just where the next bowl will go. Will it curve round to the left? Maybe the right? Maybe it will sneak through this tiny gap? All that hypothesising only to have a distracted player forget to check the direction of their bias and send their bowl into the neighbouring game. 

Ten Pin Bowling – Forgive our overt geekiness, but this is the big one. You actually get to watch the technology in action while you play the sport! Back in our early ten-pin bowling days (school sport ca. 1986) we were handed paper and tiny pencils to calculate the scores. We recall being very excited when we were allowed to use the overhead projector set up and the felt-tip pens. Now all the calculation is done instantaneously up on the big screen complete with animations and music.  It's like living inside a  Jetsons cartoon. They just need to let the bowling shoe manufacturers know that it's no longer 1953...

 

Bring out the leeches, Ma!

My kids brought home an Infectious Disease notification from school the other day. It was for Scarlet Fever, which surprised me, because I’d always thought that was one of those old-timey diseases that nobody got anymore. 

    S: “Old-timey”?
    M: You know – like the plague.
    S: I wasn’t questioning your information, but rather your insistence on inventing silly words.

Of course many diseases were just known by different names in the past. These days we like to sound knowledgeable. So ‘the ague’ is malarial fever, ‘dropsy’ is oedema, ‘green sickness’ is anaemia. Syphilis was known as ‘bad blood’, ‘Great Pox’ and our favourite – ‘French Pox’ – because when in doubt, blame France. 

Illness has lost its aura of mystery and romance. No longer can we harbour visions of people fading away with the rather vague sounding ‘consumption’. Instead we are aware at an almost cellular level of exactly what the process of each disease is and what treatments are available. 

    S: My grandmother had a ‘Family Medicine Almanac’, quite possibly printed during the reign of Queen Victoria, which she referred to for all illnesses. Talk about your doom and gloom. Just about everything, from chicken pocks and measles to ingrown toenails, was fatal. 

Nowadays we can just ‘google’ our various symptoms and let Dr Internet provide us with a diagnosis. Feeling tired and nauseous with a bad headache? You will find diagnoses ranging from chronic fatigue to vitamin deficiency. Surprisingly, your computer appears to be unaware that the cause is more likely to be the fact that you were out partying with friends until the early hours of the morning and that you managed to spend your entire weekly grocery budget on alcohol. 

Even the most benign of diagnoses sounds downright frightening on the net because all you get are the Worst Case Scenarios. No one goes online to talk about their wart that healed quickly and painlessly with the right medication. It’s all about the “and then it turned into a giant festy sore that consumed my whole right leg” stories, proving that Grandma’s almanac wasn’t far wrong. But at least on the internet you can download pictures to gross out your friends, and that is pretty cool.

Nicked for Six

 We’re coming into summer, which of course means cricket season. We are a little concerned about the Australian team this year. It’s their first test series since Warney, Langs and Pigeon retired. 

So far it seems to be going OK, but we still have a long way to go. There is a new breed coming. Youngsters are already stepping up and attempting to make a name for themselves as legends. And of course we have some advice to offer. Heartfelt and well considered advice coming from the depth of our love for the sport and wealth of cricketing know-how... 

Get some decent nicknames! The Australian team has been cruising along on talent for far too long, and it’s just not good enough! 

We are children of the 1980s, when Clive “Super Cat” Lloyd’s Windies scared the living daylights out of Kim Hughes’ sobbing pack of girls’ blouses. It wasn’t due to their prowess with bat and ball, but rather their fearsome nicknames such as the Master Blaster and Whispering Death. The long history of the Australian team has instead put forward rather pathetic offers - AB, Tubby, Tangles, Chappelli, Tugga - and the list rolls embarrassingly on. 

Eventually the world is going to notice that we are nowhere near as impressive as our match-winning record would have them believe. We want the kids of today to gasp in awe when our players stride onto the pitch. It’s too late for the old guys. They are stuck with Punter, Dizzy and Bing. But we can save the new recruits. So from now on Phil Jacques will be known as ‘Sledgehammer’,  Mitchell Johnson is ‘Crusher’ and Ben Hilfenhaus is ‘The Widowmaker’. That oughta do it.

 

 

 

A Happy Union

We’ve all seen the ads with the Liberal Party bringing to our attention the number of trade union members and supporters present in the current Labor Party lineup. No real surprise there. They are the Labor Party, after all. However, the ad got us to thinking. There are a few sectors of society yet to be helped or hindered by membership in a trade union. 

Preschoolers – What do they want? Better tasting playdough, shorter nap breaks, longer sandpit time. When do they want it? Now! Now! Now! Now! NOW!

Astrologers  –  Are insisting upon harmony and understanding. As well as sympathy and trust abounding. They want it when Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Bridesmaids – All they want is a ban on all fluffy taffeta ‘frocks’, mandatory involvement in colour choice and guarantee that all groomsmen will be good looking and available.

Gym junkies – These guys are asking for the compulsory provision of towels to all gym members – especially that big sweaty guy on the machine in front of them, plus step machines at service desk so that not one minute of precious gym time will be wasted.

Those women who spray perfume at you as you walk through David Jones – Rather simple – they just want mandatory supply of gas masks.

    S: What about romance novelists?
    M: Well, they might not have many members, but at least they would all be ‘throbbing’ with enthusiasm.
    S: Careful, we’ll lose our PG rating.

 

A Picture of Health

We applaud the recent suggestion that mammograms be made available in Myer Stores. It is a wonderful application of the ‘if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, take the mountain to Mohammed’ principle. In our view this is just the tip of the iceberg.

M: What’s next? Colonoscopies at Coles? Eye-tests at Ikea? HA! Get it? Eye-kea?
S: Oh for goodness sake. I was thinking more along the lines of the following:
 

Prostate checks at SuperCheap Auto and AutoOne.

Diabetes screening at McDonalds.

Childhood immunisations at Toys’R’Us.

Hearing tests at rock concerts.

Lung capacity measurement in designated smoking areas of pubs.

Family planning advisers in the back of taxis at 2am.

Marriage counselling at Blockbuster and VideoEzy. 

M: Now there's a plan! My husband and I have almost come to blows when deciding between ‘An Affair to Remember’ or the Rambo trilogy.
S: Who won?
M: We compromised.
S: By renting a good drama instead?
M: Better. I was allowed to rent 'An Affair to Remember' and he was allowed to live.

Snakes and Spiders and Parasites (Oh My!)

We live in a dangerous country. Whether you live on the coast, the bush, the outback, the rainforest or any other area, every time you set foot outside your own home you are taking your life in your own hands – redback and funnel web spiders, black snakes, brown snakes, sharks, blue bottles and other nasties abound. No wonder we are called the ‘Lucky Country’. You have to be lucky to get through the day without needing a trip to casualty.

To our mind, fears of these various beasties are well founded. It is only sensible to be afraid of a very small arachnid that can hide anywhere and kill you with a single bite. We don’t consider such fears to be phobias but rather common sense. Part of the ongoing struggle for the survival of the fittest (and most cautious).

Our modern world has brought about many fears, however, that previous generations never had to consider. So, not discounting the continuing threat of the funnel web that has decided to make your shoe its new home, here are some more contemporary phobias:

Fulltrolleyophobia – the fear of discovering that upon reaching the checkout with a large load of groceries that you have left your purse at home.

ATMophobia – the fear that you will insert your ATM card and then not be able to remember your PIN number. This can be a secondary phobia to fulltrolleyophobia (see above). Also known as EFTPOSophobia.

ATMMachineophobia – the fear of not understanding the many acronyms that now bombard us on a daily basis. Automatictellermachinemachineophobia is not to be confused with Automatictellermachineophobia (see above).

Muffintopophobia – the fear that you will be out in public before you notice that between the top of your low rider jeans and the bottom of your trendy crop top you have a large, bulging roll of stomach that the whole world can see. We believe that the world would be a better place (at least visually) if more people developed this phobia.

Outoftheloopophobia – the fear that you will mispronounce or not recognise common pop culture references. This often results in sufferers avoiding social gatherings for fear of missing the significance of oblique Seinfeld references (No soup for you!) or avoiding reading out loud for fear of mispronouncing Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings character names (Her-me-own? Herm-ion? He-r-my-one? Why didn’t she just call her Sheryl?)

Muttophobia – the fear that when questioned you will have absolutely no idea what breeds of dog have combined to result in your current family pet. These days everyone seems to know exactly what the heritage of their dog is, no matter how humble.

Ahoy there, matey.

It be International Speak Like a Pirate Day! So hoist the mains’l and shiver me timbers. Abandon yer landlubber ways and sail the seven seas in search of treasure.

Not sure how to join in the spirit of the day? Why not try these:
    • Threaten to make your children walk the plank if they don’t clean up their rooms.
    • Instruct subordinates to reply ‘Aye, Aye, Cap’n’ to anything you ask them to do.
    • Strap a toy parrot to your shoulder and walk around saying ‘Arrr’ alot.
    • Have a few drinks (rum of course) and share some pirate shanties with some friends (caution: the best shanties are decidedly salacious, so warn the neighbours).
    • Learn the hornpipe (both the dance and the instrument)
    • Put your friends in the scuppers with a hosepipe on ‘em. Fun for the whole family! Arrr!

(To learn more, check out: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html)

Holding Out For a Hero

It’s official. If we’re in a tight spot, we’re not interested in some muscle-bound superhero coming to our rescue. We wouldn’t call on James Bond, Indiana Jones or even Jack Bauer to get us out of a tight corner. According to a study by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, more people would call on 80’s science nerd secret agent MacGyver(MacGyver is favourite disaster hero - SMH 13/9/07). Give this man a penknife, a bag of cable ties and a box of bi-carb soda and he can resolve any situation from global warming to getting red wine stains out of the carpet. 

It’s time for the nerdy boffins among us to stand tall and proud.  They may not grace the covers of celebrity magazines, but when the going gets tough we want the guy who can take a few common household odds and ends to design his own getaway vehicle, not the Hollywood pretty boy in the flash car. The mullet is entirely optional.

Follow the Leader

It would seem that the Federal Liberal Party are about to encounter the type of leadership musical chairs problem that until recently plagued the Labor Party. In an attempt to avoid wasting many more years through in-fighting in both government and opposition, we have come up with the following suggestions. They seem to work quite well with infants students who suffer with the same ‘but you went first yesterday’ mentality. 

Leader for the Day
One person is selected at random to be the leader. They get to sit in the big chair.
    M: Looking at our next likely candidates for Prime Minister, we may need to supply a booster seat.
They can choose their own assistant leader. This is usually their BFF (BestFriendForever) of the moment. These two get to do all the important jobs that day. No-one can be leader two days in a row. 

Alphabetical Order
An old favourite. Everyone’s name is written down. Start with the ‘A’s’ and work your way through to the ‘Z’s’. Everyone gets a turn, no-one misses out. No favouritism. 

Pick a name from a hat
Totally random. You never know when your turn will come up, so you always have to be prepared. Cabinet portfolios could also be assigned this way - along the same lines as the family Christmas draw.
     S: And no redraws because you got Environment and Water Resources last year.
    M: Those darn greenies are impossible to buy for!
 
Star of the Week
Everyone gets to be the centre of attention for one week. They can design their own marketing campaign, they get to talk about themselves all the time, everyone else has to defer to them for the week. Next week, they are back to being one of the crowd.

We figured if these techniques work with the average 6-8 year old, they should be perfect for dealing with our federal parliamentarians.

Drugs in Sport

The many recent controversies about the use of recreational and/or performance enhancing drugs by sportsmen and women has led us to think about the sports that are not closely monitored for this significant problem. When was the last time you heard about questionable results from random testing of deep sea fishermen? Or speed chess players? If we are going to eradicate the issue of illicit drug use, tests need to be uniformly applied across the board – darts, lawn bowls, croquet. No sport should be overlooked. We may have to make a temporary exception for the crateloads of Codral Cold and Flu tablets and Lemsips making their way to racetracks around the country.