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Homelessness: a positive spin

Posted on by SW

Meanwhile in Australian politics, the Hon Luke Howarth, Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services was not so honourably attacked this week.

In a radio interview, Howarth appeared to downplay the homelessness crisis in Australia and even suggested the issue needed a “positive spin.” Of course it does. As I am always happy to assist a minister of the Crown, I have come up with a few positive spin talking points for your next media appearance.

A Marie Kondo poster child

Homelessness highlights:

*Back to nature. Ah, the great outdoors… be at one with nature. Communing intimately with Australia’s unique flora and fauna, you have a special relationship that David Attenborough could only dream about. Not to mention getting up close and personal to the Milky Way every night.

*The ultimate open plan office. No distractions from Trevor in the chair at your elbow banging on how epic his weekend was. No having to contribute to the leaving gift of Brian from accounts. No endless, useless meetings, no bullshit talk of synergy and digital transformation. 

*Lovers of architecture rejoice! You can admire the intricate cantilever design of a bridge while sleeping under it. 

*No more noisy, inconsiderate neighbours with wanky expensive electronic appliances. You don’t have to endure those annoying bastards in the upstairs apartment cranking the subwoofer up to 11. 

*Minimalist living. You are the Marie Kondo poster child, the envy of hoarders living among mountains of stuff. You have evaluated your one possession and decided, yes, it brings joy.

*Mortgage and rent-free. What an incredible weight off your shoulders. You never have to navigate a bank’s stupidly complicated customer service hotline ever again. Press 27 for ultimate financial freedom.

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*Your senses, reflexes, intuition and spacial awareness are highly tuned. You could easily join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

*Your days of being a slave to fashion are over. Create your signature look and own it, with zero f*cks given.

*Soup. By dining at all those soup kitchens, you have become a Master Chef style soup gourmand. Garçon! More de boeuf consommé s’il vous plait!

There you are minister, these suggestions are just as outrageous as your choice of words.

You may believe that homelessness “affects a very, very small percentage of the population,” but to those people it is a very real, devastating existence, there is no “positive spin.”

Nobody should be homeless.

©Steve Williams 2019

Viv Richards to Balls of Steel: Cricket World Cup Memories

Posted on by SW

So Australia’s Cricket World Cup campaign has kicked off (excuse the wrong sporting phrasal verb).

Guard the shiny side with your life

To celebrate, here are some of my random childhood cricket memories.

*Watching two blokes carry a polystyrene esky chock-full of KB beer bottles in front of The Hill at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1975, when the arse fell out of it. The beer shattered, they were shattered. The crowd roared, the players laughed.

*Foraging in a box of washing powder (OMO?) to discover a cricket card. That smell has stayed with me for forty years.

*The religious experience of buying a brand new Kookaburra cricket ball. Opening the box, unwrapping the paper, gently taking it out. Earnestly polishing (only one side) until you could see your beaming face, and never letting it touch the ground.

*The incredible experience of watching the World Cup and the Ashes in England live on TV from Sydney. I finally got to Lord’s a few years ago – a religious experience.

*My World Series Cricket t-shirt that I wore until it had to retire hurt.

*Tony Greig walking out to bat wearing a motorbike helmet to much laughter. Later sticking his car keys in the pitch while solemnly discussing the mythical “player comfort level” off the high-tech “weather wall.”

*The body-trembling / mind-numbing nervousness of approaching your favourite cricket player on the fence for an autograph, then the exalted glee as you float away gazing at the scrawled signature. I felt exactly the same way meeting Viv Richards when I was 37.

*Getting that first “cherry” on your new cricket bat (mine was a much-cherished SS, just like the great man above. That’s the end of the similarities).

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*Missing seeing a test hat-trick. A day at the cricket with dad at the SCG, who wanted to leave early because the car park “is a shitfight.” We heard the crowd erupt — three times — from said car park.

*The terror of facing a “rep” fast bowler who started his run-up in the next suburb, and was so fast he had to stop and rest before he actually unleashed the red missile.

*Inventing day / night cricket as a kid in 1977: playing backyard cricket until mum called you in for dinner, then resuming after turning on the single Portaflood light, until mum called “stumps.”

*Richie Benaud.

*The “Balls of Steel incident” of 1980. Bowling in a school cricket match, the ball slipped out of my hand and hit the batsmen on the full, in the, er, groinal region. He didn’t flinch. I raced down the pitch “Sorry, mate, are you ok? Good thing you’re wearing a protector.” — “I’m not.”

*Getting into fights for supporting the West Indies instead of Australia (I just preferred the way they played the game, and the understandable arrogance). Coruba rum is still a beverage of choice.

*The sound of the stitching of that new Kookaburra cricket ball whizzing past your nose as you missed a hoik over cow corner. Again.

*The image of Dennis Lillee flicking sweat off his brow at the top of his run-up, then that bouncing gold chain as he thundered into bowl.

*Walking into bat, being handed a still-warm protector (aka “Hector”) the just-dismissed batsman had just removed. Talk about player comfort levels.

C’mon Aussie, c’mon… (Google it)

©Steve Williams 2019

Election 2019: Crutching at Straws

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“There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian.” Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull uttered that immortal line what seems like several thousand kissed babies ago. Exciting? No, the Australian federal election on Saturday can’t be euthanised fast enough.

Loins girded until Saturday evening

What a time. What a campaign. So many highlights to choose from. Here are just a few.

*We’ve had two eggings (one broke, one didn’t), which politically, isn’t a new thing. Prime Minister Billy Hughes was egged in 1917. These 2019 incidents cracked the hashtags #EggBoy and #EggGirl, who disappointingly weren’t revealed as the latest Avengers recruits in Endgame. 

*Speaking of which, a “truth avenger” called Captain GetUp appeared in numerous marginal seats. Captain GetUp was dressed in a mock-superhero outfit, emblazoned with the names of the political parties he was protesting against. In this campaign that makes infinite sense. Captain GetUp was created by Advance Australia – a conservative group taking their name from the Australian national anthem that no one knows. He was last seen dry humping a poster of independent candidate Zali Steggall.

*Campaign buses for both major parties have been traipsing across the country. More often than not, they were sans the person whose photo is plastered on the side of the bus. Kind of a Mary-Celeste-drifting-aimlessly-vibe.

*Incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been rolling out his fair dinkum, bonza, you beaut, daggy dad routine. He’s been wearing caps, skolling beers, hammering nails, playing football, soccer, cricket and Ultimate Fighting Championship – ok, I made that last one up, but if there was a vote in it, he’d be climbing into the octagon. 

*Morrison also engaged in some sheep shearing for the cameras. As one does. Thankfully this stopped before the crutching and dagging. Those two ovine procedures are an apt description for the election campaign.

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*On a slightly serious note, does anyone actually buy this BS “everyman / woman” routine from politicians? “Sharon, I’ve voted Labor all my life, but I just saw the PM shearing a sheep, and he’s got my vote.”

*“Infamous” (that’s one expletive-free adjective) senator Pauline Hanson crocodile-tearing up on prime time TV after the implosion of the latest nutjob One Nation candidate, was absolutely hilarious. Hanson is my least favourite Barry Humphries character.

*A ridiculous number of candidates across various parties have resigned / been disendorsed / sacked / dumped in the recycling bin. Their transgressions have included groping strippers, making anti-homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Islamic comments, describing an opposing candidate as “a good bloke,” linking same-sex marriage and paedophilia, to “jokes” about having sex with a ghost. Yes, really. You can’t make this shit up.

*This week we had a work experience Lady Godiva in Melbourne, topless, with a hair bra, being led on a horse, to protest climate change. A noble quest. Knowing Melbourne’s weather, she would have been hoping for a change.

*The outpouring of emotion following the death of much-loved former Prime Minister Bob Hawke two days before the election has taken media fuel from the campaign. Hawke always had impeccable timing.

Who will shine through this clusterfuck of a campaign and emerge as Prime Minister? Unlike Melbourne’s Lady Godiva, all will be revealed on Saturday night. 

©Steve Williams 2019

Nine things that are easier to understand then Brexit.

Posted on by SW

Brexit is an absolute clusterf*ck.

Here are nine things that are easier to understand.

The attraction of these people is easier to understand than Brexit

1. The laws of cricket. Or simply, cricket.

2. The justification of anti-vaxxers (actually no, Brexit is easier to understand than these dangerous morons).

3. Donald Trump.

4. This: “Make use of the relation sec x cos x = 1 to find the first four nonzero terms of the Maclaurin expansion of sec x.”

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5. The plot of the movie Inception.

6. The meaning of the song Blinded by the Light. “Madman drummers bummers…” WTAF?

7. Explaining The Canterbury Tales to someone (no, it’s not about rugby or rugby league).

8. This: Do neutrinos have mass? (Hint: neutrinos are not a breakfast cereal)

9. Why anyone would watch a Kardashian doing anything.

©Steve Williams 2019