Freedom Day… frothy pokies… and segregation. WTAF?

As someone originally from Sydney, I followed yesterday’s so-called Freedom Day from a distance with some interest, hilarity and anger.

Blokes free to do blokey things

After 106 days in lockdown, it appeared Sydney-siders were desperate to queue up to get into a local club at the stroke of midnight to do their dough on the poker machines, cram into their local Kmart also at midnight to buy stuff they could’ve bought online at any stage in the past 106 days, drink copious amounts of beer and get a haircut… preferably simultaneously.

From the coverage I saw, it was men doing all of this. Weren’t the good womenfolk freed, or are they still back in 1953 doing the ironing Tony Abbott style?

There were joyous resurrection scenes of the new New South Wales Premier, fresh from a haircut (and possibly Kmart) rolling out the barrel at a pub, then drinking the contents while standing up, contravening his own government’s regulations… the standing up bit, not rolling out the barrel. The words “freedom frothie” were mentioned.  It was all very blokey, though there may have been someone with a uterus serving the beers, “I’ll have a schooner of cringe-worthy media stunts, thanks love.”

Premier Perrottet would have been better served doing his Freedom Day media bit from a hospital, thanking all the healthcare workers for their amazing and selfless work, but nah… a pub’s better for the telly and compulsory for Australian political leaders. 

Sadly and not surprisingly, yesterday didn’t mark freedom from fuckwits. 

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Anti-vaxxer nutjobs were out and about in force. Thankfully Freedom Day didn’t apply to them… the NSW government mandated that retail and hospitality could reopen, provided all staff and customers were fully vaccinated.

Some random dickhead at a café in Sydney’s inner west took exception to this and started abusing the barista how he was “walking implicitly into segregation”. LOL. If only he had walked implicitly into a fist.

“Segregation” must have been in the recent talking points faxed to anti-vaxxers, as Home and Away actor Sam Frost posted a tearful Instagram video in which she made the bizarre plea, “I hope that this segregation disappears and that people treat each other like human beings with kindness and compassion and empathy.” The world-renowned epidemiologist and soap star also listed reasons why people aren’t getting vaccinated, except her own.

Segregation? Seriously? Just FRO and get vaccinated. 

How’s the kindness, compassion and empathy?

©Steve Williams 2021

Abbott: There is nothing like a Dame (or Sir)

So. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is heading back to the future by dusting off the titles of knights and dames, which were last seen down the back of a lounge in Government House nearly thirty years ago.

Greg Chappell knights a streaker

Tugging his forelock while facing Buckingham Palace, Mr Abbott said the honour would be extended to Australians of “extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit”.

There have been howls of protest from the left-wing-socialist-climate-change-is-real types,
but I for one, am all for it.

My dear Prime Minister, may I be so bold to offer a few suggestions? From the realm of entertainment, Dame Kylie Minogue is a given — for “services” to music and hot pants and Dame Dorothy The Dinosaur (one for the kiddies and / or Wiggles fans) for services to alliteration.

It does not matter whether the medicine can be taken if suffering with following disease: Heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, case of heart attack , stroke , case of severe vision loss , stomach ulcer, Gastro-intestinal bleeding, leukemia, allergy, hypertension, distortion of the penis etc. generic viagra germany With erectile dysfunction becoming a common viagra 25 mg problem that affects approximately 1 in 5 men and even more so when considering access to orphan drugs. Thinks keep getting better for the Ohio State Buckeyes this week, after finding out on Monday that they had reclaimed the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft and had been named rookie of the year in his first season, soft viagra 1996-97. The cheap price of Kumara is another plus side to this system of filling prescriptions. commander levitra opacc.cv Sir George Lazenby is long overdue — Australia’s only James Bond (and fellow Goulburn boy) would take his rightful place among the other martini shaking and stirring knights Sirs Connery and Moore. What about Dame Lara Bingle for services to… um… there’s gotta be something…

Us Aussies love our sport (and not constructing sentences properly). Dame Evonne Goolagong Cawley is as easy a pick as a simple forehand volley, Sir Newk should get the nod purely for that moustache, and Sir Pat Rafter for services to “sorry mate”.

Cricket tosses up a few juicy full toss choices — Sir Warnie for services to texting and servicing super models, “arise, Sir Boof Lehman” (on bended knee in batting pads) definitely has a ring to it, and Sir Greg Chappell should be rewarded for circumcising streakers with a cricket bat.

Prime Minister, please take my advice rather than anointing the likes of Dame Gina Rinehart
and Sir Alan Jones. Though that would do wonders for the Australian Republic push…

©Steve Williams 2014

Not the very worst of election advertising #274

If you live in Australia, you would know there is a federal election on Saturday. If you don’t, you’re a moron and don’t deserve to exercise your democratic right, or left.

One of my favourite bits about the election is the advertising blackout on all electronic media, when the good people of the wide-brown land are finally spared the onslaught of moving images of earnest politicians begging for your vote, while simultaneously dumping a bucket of shit on their opponent/s.

In celebration of, or to mourn the advertising blackout (depending on your masochism pain threshold), here is a clichéd veritable smörgåsbord of random election commercials.

If only all election ads were as good as this one…

I don’t recall Kevin or Tony offering to make me angel hair pasta.

At least they haven’t attempted comedy — I’m still trying to decide if this one is…

Even the #huckchuckfacts hashtag is lame.

Never mind, here’s a patriotic, stirring number from Ukraine…

I like the old baba having a sneaky shot of rocket fuel. You would need it to be an extra in a political commercial.

Speaking of costumes…

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How about special effects?

I realise this was for a school board election, but it’s brilliant. I hope Christopher didn’t have his arse sued off by George Lucas.

The special effects budget for this next one was about $1.26.

Demon sheep! Run! Run for your lives!

Ok, sheep aren’t overtly sexual *insert hackneyed New Zealand line here* but Herman gushes sex appeal…

I hope that’s real. Vladimir has gone the sexy root route as well…

You would vote early and often. Though the piece of resistance is from the Australian Sex Party. Yep, we’re all f*cked…

words ©Steve Williams 2013

Thanks Amanda, but no thanks

Yeah, no, seriously Amanda, (can I call you Mandy?) we really appreciate you going into bat for us — especially against the Poms — but us blokes are good.

We’ve got it, we’re across it. We’ve got it firmly in hand.

In case you missed it, the former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone is taking up the good fight for the honour of Australian manhood against those bastards of Fleet Street.

Amanda models the fair dinkum Aussie bloke (photo via news.com.au)

Vanstone suggests that the scurrilous British press have been besmirching the fine reputation of the Antipodean male, “I am furious. It really is atrocious that they are making out Australia as a colony, a hick country, a back water where men guzzle beer all day and are rude about women,” she says.

She continues, “they are going on this misogynist thing as if that was the reason why she (Julia Gillard) was ousted.”

Hang on Amanda, so you think they think we’re all Foster’s-spewing extras from The Adventures of Barry McKenzie circa 1972 and anyone sans vagina is responsible for the death of democracy and the resurrection of Kevin Rudd?

Ok, so I drew a slightly long bow, but we really don’t need your help Amanda, and speaking on behalf of all Aussie blokedom, we’re a bit embarrassed by the thought you found it necessary to jump on a plane to London to “set the record straight” for the hounds of Fleet Street “perpetuating the myth”.

Don’t you see? That’s just going to make it worse.

It’s like your mum coming down to the oval after school when some kid had challenged you to a fight ‘cause you wouldn’t give him your Tommy Raudonikis or Kevin Sheedy footy card.

With Amanda putting her nose to the vanstone to recover our sullied reputation in the UK, can you see how confusing it is to be an Aussie of the male persuasion on July 8, 2013?

Everywhere you turn, you have to decipher more mixed messages and cryptic symbols than Tom Hanks in a Dan Brown film. Is it now OK to wear a blue tie? Or will I be eviscerated by malevolent stares from the Q&A faithful? Do you hold the door open to let a woman go through first? If so, will she think you’re a chauvinist?

Now “chauvinist” – that’s a word that hasn’t had a run lately. It’s been replaced by “misogyny” which only up until this year conjured in my mind the sultry visage of the hot French student teacher I had in year 11.

You look for bloke-ish role models to steer your path — you’ve got David Beckham, the poster boy for metrosexuality, until he opens his mouth, and then there’s Warnie — but what about his WTF come-to-sex selfie the other week? I would assume this would definitely be the cold spoon antidote to anything that old Golden Balls puts on the (bedside) table.

All of this is Hugh Jackman’s fault. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he makes all us other Aussie blokes feel totally worthless and inadequate, the bastard. I stand by my comments Madam Speaker.

This being confused business is ok — as long as you don’t totally f*ck it up.
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Radio 2UE in Sydney did just that on Friday with an appalling ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for their sports program. Really? “let her go shopping?” A stupid stunt.

You would have thought 2UE would have had more sense than going for a cheap shot like this, considering the dramas its mortal enemy 2GB has been embroiled in — think Alan Jones discussing chaff bags and how Julia Gillard’s father died of shame and so on. If 2UE want to continue promoting the station with lumbering dinosaur views like that, maybe it should change the frequency from “954″ to “1954″.

Even as I write this, a firestorm has erupted over the normally genteel strawberry fields of Wimbledon. Following Marion Bartoli’s win in the Women’s Singles Final, a BBC radio commentator suggested that it was always going to be tougher for her as she was “never going to be a looker”.
Again, rampant stupidity.

Though this is where that confusion rears itself like a pissed off scorpion — are the comments about Bartoli any worse than The Sun newspaper running an article about tennis player Jerzy Janowicz with the headline “Lankenstein” and photoshopping green skin and bolts on him? I don’t think The Sun is suggesting Jerzy is an avid Mary Shelley reader. Discuss.

So I’ve gone off on the occasional tangent here, but in reality as a man (and I use that only in the sense of gender) you’ve gotta be comfortable in your own skin — whether that’s regularly moisturised, plucked, and exfoliated, or merely sees a sporadic swipe of Coles Smart Buy soap every third day.

Speaking of Wimbledon and moisturiser, there was a hilarious back-and-forth exchange in the comments of Wendy Harmer’s post on The Hoopla website  Men. The New Vanity Units. It was a far more entertaining than anything we saw on Centre Court over the past two weeks.
You need to read them — Mick and Dave traded screaming crosscourt forehands, lobs and sneaky dropshots, all while inserting the delightful terms “letting fluffy off the chain”, “man cards” and “wank territory” into the vernacular.

So we get it, us blokes are works in progress, we’re doing our best, we’re across it, we fail as often as we succeed — but we stand together — even with our stupid imperfections like saying “gotta zip” and “fair suck of the sauce bottle” (though only one bloke in the universe says that).

It may, or may not surprise you that we understand, we actually listen, talk about and process all this stuff.

We live in times far removed from when Raudonikis and Sheeds were running around windswept suburban footy grounds. We know, respect and simply couldn’t give a flying whatever that the PM’s wife earns more than he does. We’re aware that Tony Abbott lives in a house awash with oestregen.

It’s all good.

The last bloody thing we want or need, is Aunty Amanda trying to help, by turning up at the front office at school brandishing our forgotten lunch, or stomping down to that oval in an attempt to defend us.

Like I say, we’ve got it all, firmly, in hand.

©Steve Williams 2013

*Originally published (with bonus amusing comments) here: thehoopla.com.au/thanks-thanks-amanda/