Two B's Or Not Two B's

Next Monday's English Championship promotion play-off is between Reading and Swansea.  The winner will be promoted to the premier League and receive in excess of 50 million pounds for just being there one season.  The rewards are even more if they can stay up.  It's little wonder that the fixture is known as "The richest game in football" but spare a thought for the bottom three in the Premier League who will be moving in the opposite direction.

This year it was tighter than usual and with the title already decided, all of the interest was at the other end of the table.  With the exception of West Ham, whose fate was already sealed, the make-up of the bottom three was still unknown.  Five teams (Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool, Wigan and Wolves) were struggling to avoid joining the Hammers. Only three could survive. 

It wasn't planned, but last Monday morning I woke up at 2.04 am.  I turned on the radio and, sure enough, the brilliant BBC World Service sports show was on.  It was half-time in all of the matches.  Over the course of the next 45 minutes, as goals went in around the country, so the fortunes of these teams changed, at times within seconds.  The second-last slot was taken by the quixotic Blackpool who were gradually reeled-in by Manchester United.  Now only one spot remained.  As the coverage crossed-over to each ground, tumultuous roars could be heard at the news of goals at other grounds.  The tension was unbearable.  Eventually, an injury-time goal by Spurs consigned Birmingham to their fate.  Of the five teams, only Blackburn had avoided being in the bottom three at any stage of the 90 minutes.  Wolves had managed to drop into the relegation zone on two separate occasions before escaping.  For the record, for those of us with an alphabetical (i.e. trivial) bent, for a while there, all of the "W's" were going down before it was eventually determined that West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham were the unfortunate three.

This is the kind of drama, the glimpse into the abyss, that for all their wealth, finals, grand finals, superbowls and, ironically, promotion play-offs cannot create.  What great radio it made and what a great medium radio is to deliver that kind of excitement.  It doesn't much help the insomnia though.

One Way Love

Sport-wise, I've had a cracking 8 months.  Last October, St George, broke a 31-year drought by winning their first NRL Grand Final after five failed attempts during that period.  Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning last, I watched Manchester City break an even longer dry spell by winning the FA Cup.  It was their first trophy of any description since 1976 and their first FA Cup win in 42 years.  This is all great.  England even hold the Ashes.  By any standards, it's a rare alignment of the sporting planets in my life.

I appreciate that there are far longer suffering fans than me but nonetheless, the realisation that I was 14 when Saints won their previous Grand Final and only 11 when City won the League Cup in '76 quietly stuns me.  To think that the last time I felt this good about sport, I was only just at high-school.  When I try to picture myself back then, I do know that it would have not occurred to me to think, "Hold on to this; it's going to be a long time hereafter".  Whole decades of my life have past in which my sporting teams have not repaid my emotional commitment to them.  It's surely been a very one-way relationship.    

So, as joyous a week and an 8 months as it's been, it really does beg the question, "Why do we put ourselves through this?"  I'd be lying if I said had a clue, so I guess I'll just carry on celebrating!

Strange Recall

Filling in a spreadsheet today, in respect of risk probabilities  which is about as exciting as it sounds.  Perhaps this is why I found myself staring at the word "medium".  You know, if you look at a word too long, it starts to look strange and then you start to wonder if you've spelt it correctly. 

I was just thinking that there ought to be a word that describes this phenomenon and then I remembered the old Two Ronnies gag.  The one about the midget psychic who'd escaped from prison.  Police were looking for a small medium at large.  The link is to a different skit but you'll see they really don't write them like that anymore.

So my tip for today is forget about inventing new words.  Instead, try remembering old jokes.  It's better for your health.

KFC Noir

The other night, we finished our drinking with a mojito, which, by the way, is always one mojito too many.  That's perhaps why I next found myself in KFC.  Now, KFC after midnight is no oasis of salubrity and that's not just down to the food.  To say that the one on George St has a lamentably poor queueing arrangement would be overstating it.  It has no queue.  Nonetheless, it was still with some frustration that I watched two gorillas walk in past me and start ordering.  I made the mistake of expressing this frustration.  The guy turned to me and snarled "If it's between pushing in front of you and losing $4,000, I'm pushing in, and if you've got a problem with that, we can just go outside and I'll beat the shit out of you".  Hey, put like that, it was hard to argue with the guy's priorities.

Later, as I made my way home, it wasn't the rudeness, the all-too-common aggression or even how pushing-in ahead of me was going to stop this guy losing $4,000 that intrigued me.  No, the thought that kept running through my head was,  "Why were both of those guys wearing matching bright, white tracksuit-tops?"

It no doubt reflects poorly on my sense of self-preservation, and maybe it was because of that mojito, that my mind dwelt on the more sartorial aspects of the encounter but seriously, is this some kind of uniform for bogan gangster-apprentices?  Who makes these rules up?

Smaller Stack, Bigger Loss

There's a story in the paper today about the Fisher Stack building at Sydney University having nearly half of its books removed.  Now the name of that building brings back memories.  I would only venture into "The Stack" when the books on the recommended reading lists were unavailable.  Dark, confined and unwelcoming, it was not somewhere you chose to visit regularly.  In fact, stepping into it was quite an overwhelming experience.  There are few things in life that give you as much insight into your own mortality than gazing upon thousands and thousands of books.  Apparently there are 48 kilometres of books in there.  When you walked in, you instantly knew that in your lifetime, even if you devoted your life to it, you would only ever scratch the surface of the vast repository of knowledge sitting on those shelves. 

I remember taking notes from a history book and being impressed with its level of detail and then being taken aback when I reached the conclusion, where it stated that this Hitler fellow may turn out to be a very dangerous character who may well threaten world peace.  At the time I was exasperated that the book was almost older than what I was trying to research.  Ever since, having had time to reflect upon it, I remain impressed at what a scholarly piece of work it was and, with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight, noting the remarkable accuracy of its forecast.  While sadly, I can't recall the name of the book or the author, it is footnoted on an old essay lying somewhere in a box in my garage.  Given that this book will almost certainly be one of those cleared out, that might be the last remaining reference to it in my world.

Riddle Me This, Einstein!

I noticed a book on a colleague's desk today called "Einstein's Riddle".  Well you just have to Google that, don't you.  Having found it, you then have to wonder at what you would have done so before ye olde internet was invented.  

Anyway, Einstein's riddle is: Who owns the fish?

The clues:

1. The British man lives in a red house.
2. The Swedish man keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The Blends smoker lives next to the one who drinks water.

Of course, you could always Google the answer but where's the challenge in that?  And you never know; I might have changed it.

Unedifying 1 - 0 View

Watching all those people cheering the death of Osama Bin Laden reminded me of the distaste with which I watched people cheering at the footage of planes flying into the World Trade Center.

I remember thinking how simplistic their world view must be and being struck by what a disquieting sight the mob makes.