Pride comes before a ball
“One of the disturbing features of the FIFA World Cup is the egocentric, even rude, performance of many of the goalscorers, often ignoring or physically repelling their celebrating teammates so that they alone get the limelight,” opines Chris Commens of Rosebery. “I Googled to see if there is a term for this behaviour. ‘Credit thief’ is one limp-wristed AI response. Did goalscorers carry on like this 50 years ago?”
Nola Tucker of Kiama joins the round ball pile-on: “Who needs acting classes when the soccer is there to show us how? Is there anything more convincing than the clutches, grimaces and writhing of a player as an opponent almost strikes him? ‘I am going to lie here groaning until the ref does something.’ Academy Award stuff.”
“Sad to hear of Bonnie Tyler’s passing,” notes Peter Cole of Narrabeen. “I once had a GPS device in my car that I named ‘Bonnie’, after her. It kept telling me to turn around, and every now and then, it fell apart.”
“As an opal buyer visiting Lightning Ridge in 1978, it was suggested I join the Australian Order of Old Bastards (C8) by local opal cutter Greg Pardy,” recalls Warwick Sherman of Huntleys Point. “Greg advised that to achieve membership, I had to put the word aardvark in a sentence. Almost without thought, I said ‘Aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles, my mammy’. I was accepted immediately.”
“Apropos of George Zivkovic of Northmead’s ‘Old Farts Ale’ (C8), for those other people who may annoy others after a couple too many. A few years ago I came across a stubbie of ‘My Wife’s Bitter’ at the local speciality bottle-o, which has a good range of obscure beer,” says Richard Jary of Waitara. “As I recall, it was an OK drop.”
George now has other issues: “I think we’ve all seen those ‘practice makes perfect’ ads on TV for a car insurance company, but who collects the balls left behind once the cars have been restarted and driven away?”
“One memorable scavenger hunt (C8) at the University of NSW back in the ’70s involved 1000 points for a police car with a policeman (the local cop shop happily obliged as it was good PR) and something like a million points for a hamburger with signed receipt from Harry’s Café de Wheels,” reports Dave Horsfall of North Gosford. “Hint – they don’t sell hamburgers.”
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