TRUST NO ONE They could be on the sex-offender list, or Queenslanders

Ambition, betrayal, divided loyalties and frequent use of the word ‘filthy’ to describe an emotional state… no, it’s not the Australian Labor Party, it’s the Kangaroo team.

>>The overarching theme of this post is TRUST NO ONE   

In addition to trusting no one, it is useful to maintain a raging and uniform hatred of all human life, while reserving a particularly potent and highly personal loathing for Queenslanders. Sons of bitches.

That horrendous song of theirs that is too stupid for me to even attempt to reproduce here is irritating enough on an annual-for-the-last-seven-years basis.

BUT TO BREAK INTO THAT SAME SONG THAT SAME MAROON VICTORY SONG AFTER A WIN WITH THE KANGAROO TEAM WHICH FOR THE UNINITIATED OR THE IDIOTIC IS COMPRISED OF BOTH MAROON AND BLUES PLAYERS JESUS CHRIST IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE ANYONE EXPLODE INTO AN ITALICISED OUTBURST!

Cameron Smith has disappointed me. In the grimly parental ‘I’m not angry I’m just disappointed’ vein. This is similar to the ‘Clint Eastwood addressing an empty chair at the Republican National Convention’ vein. Just when I started liking the bastard. You see! Drop your guard for two shakes and people destroy it and any tenuous faith you may have allowed yourself to have for humanity like fuckwits stomping down crowd barriers at a Limp Bizkit show. That’s right Smith, the truth is out asshole. Again!   

People, pretty much whoever the newspapers can reach for comment who isn’t spread-eagled across a sun lounge or hunched over a craps table in Vegas including but not limited to highly relevant sporting identities like Steve Waugh and Ricky Nixon as he exits court facing various charges of assault (he threw up a peace/V sign! Like the President Nixon!) have said that Cameron and Billy are good blokes and that this means breaking into their inane Queenslander song can’t have been premeditated, because as we all and particularly Ricky Nixon know, good blokes JUST DO DUMB SHIT OFF THE CUFF THEY DON’T PLAN IT ONLY BAD GUYS PLAN IT.

Really when I think about the Maroon mentality it doesn’t surprise me. The fuckers know how to win a game but have never shown any awareness of the spiritual and moral bankruptcy that stalks them. So thanks, Queensland, for further substantiating my theory.

Anyways, how boring was that game. God. It rendered my usual state of watchful intensity totally redundant, I was in a slack-jawed stupor from about the 12 minute mark and I barely noticed anything at all after that; whether this was because nothing actually happened remains unclear although I do recall Paul Gallen getting a flick pass away and finding that vaguely entertaining in a zany kind of a way.  

The only thing that could have redeemed and actually made the whole affair awesome would have been a brawl breaking out during the singing of said song. Oh, the buttoned-down traditionalists may have objected but many others would have applauded the audacity. In any event it would have been an incredible end to the 2012 season. It would have taken me to my happy place. But no. Alls that happened was “one of the Morris brothers – Josh or Brett” was seen covering Robbie Farah’s mouth with their hand, and various Blue Kangaroos were described as being “filthy”.

I know that feeling.

>>This incident is indicative of the general decay eating away at the fabric of the modern world. Discuss.

Cameron Smith Making Me Say Wow Now

The Storm.

Sons of bitches know how to win a grand final.

What the hell kind of performance was that?

I don’t know. And critiquing high-caliber, clinical playing is not my forte what with the Raiders thing, you know…but I liked it, I loved it.  

It felt like a grand final. Last year’s was such an interminable affair that the only thing I can recall is Steve Matai’s bison- like head getting opened up right above the eye, a big scoop-n-split that sent blood flowing artfully down his face. Other than that I got nothing and I’m none the poorer for it. Let’s move on. Back to Sunday. To headier times.

To Joey Johns THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD behaving adorably even when ESPECIALLY WHEN being dispatched from a Blackhawk helicopter, fleeing from the Apocalypse Now-esque blade situation and fighting his way through the hurricane-strength wind that looked for all the world like it was going to tear away his suit pants and jacket in a spectacular wardrobe malfunction.

Speaking of tear-away pants how is this seedy photo of Channing Tatum from back when he was a stripper?

Anyway, the game.   

There was a good stink that caused Gus Gould to employ the words ‘brouhaha’, ‘melee’ and ‘fracas’, as well as the phrases ‘an allegation of biting’ and ‘they’re not exchanging Christmas cards’.

What he didn’t say was words to the effect of

“Allow me to give you a brief lesson in the human condition. Humans are about 70% water, and the rest is all guts, bone and minerals. But, although we are a highly evolved animal, we sometimes experience slippage and revert to raw savagery. James Graham appears to have suffered such a lapse by appearing to catch hold of Billy Slater’s ear with his teeth and appearing to tug at it with a good amount of force and barbarism.”

He didn’t have to say it. The implication was clearly there.   

There was the Storm being as clinical and cold of heart as ever. It would have been a harrowing, harrowing experience for Dogs supporters. They just didn’t get a goddam look in. Ever. It even depressed me for twenty minutes or so before I pulled myself together enough to revel in the splendour of the Storm and the stricken looks of the blue-and-white-wearing crowd as the experience became increasingly unbearable. Poor bastards. In football we try to grasp a feeling outside of ourselves and our tarnished existences. This is preposterous because very few of us, proportionally, follow a winning team. In reality, football, like life itself, is mostly about endurance and suffering.

Aside from or in spite of the cruel and awful nature of existence from which there is no escape outside of death my wish-list from a previous post was pretty well fulfilled. I take satisfaction from this, because if not this then what?..

1.Craig Bellamy got the Gatorade dumped on him. From behind. He shook his fist and grinned and looked a.) a bit like Mickey Rourke and b.) like he wanted to crash-tackle the culprits and grind them playfully into the ground. He looks so fun, what with his air of salaciousness. I would love to get loaded with him.  

- ‘Insiders’ who were at the Novotel after the game reported that Bellamy “was merrier” than any time they could remember, and that Billy Slater had “forgotten the bitten ear”.

2.Cameron Smith looked happy and relieved and gave a rousing, statesman-like speech. How can he be so laconic and so slick at the same time? He’s terribly talented. Authentic, too. This is where Cooper Cronk is lacking. His Clive Churchill medal acceptance speech sounded totally computer generated. When he addressed the team with a stilted “and to the playing group – you are my mates” it sounded exactly like those drooling aliens on The Simpsons when they had designs on becoming president and tried to talk as earthlings would.    

Anyway, Cameron Smith impressed me deeply and I really haven’t shaken off the sensation and it’s a little disconcerting but really, how good is he? Very, is the inevitable and undeniable answer. Very.

“I’ve been asked a few times whether this one would be sweeter,” Smith said after the game. “I guess there’s a small spot that says yes.”

Dave Taylor is Dense - Part 1, of many

Last week was a big one. Heavy. Between Katie giving Tom the slip and Origin putting me through the wringer and then the Raiders upsetting the Storm in fabulous fashion and my baby lamb having her tail cut off and given to the farm dog to run around with in her mouth as a chew toy for the next two days the damage to my nerves has been considerable.

Regardless, the rat-wheel keeps on rolling.

It rolled out a rude truth about Queensland and the Maroons. I needed something to ease the pain of the Blues’ substandard performance in game three, so this is medicinal – it is balm, soothing and smooth, a cool hand on a hot fevered forehead.

Even so, these Queenslanders, they are trying my patience.

Research (vague, sullen rumination) revealed to me that the players who have migrated to the southern states for club football seem to have rounded themselves out, as players and as people. Publically, definitely, and probably privately too, although in a world where ET can be exposed as a sordid philanderer you never know for sure do you? Anyway, these migrated players have grown gracious and civilised. They are in possession of their wits. Sometimes they even use them. Think Darius Boyd, David Shillington and the Big Three.

Those who have continued indulging in an alternative, soft-edged reality by staying in Queensland are charmless, devoid of grace. Their wits are slower, their vowels are flatter, and they play like dogs. Justin Hodges is a dog. Brent Tate, Ben Hannant, Sam Thaiday, Corey Parker: dogs! Mongrels, hurling themselves repeatedly against chainmail fencing and seeking to separate toddler’s faces from their skulls.    

The exception here is Dave Taylor. He went south, yes, but it didn’t exactly take, did it*?  As such, he will soon be returning to his shallow-end-of-the-gene-pool roots, having signed to play for Gold Coast next year. The rigours of polite Sydney society were obviously too much for this unreconstructed behemoth. This doesn’t surprise. He is a caveman. He looks like his concept of food storage does not extend beyond the hanging of a carcass within a cave. He also looks insufferably, unspeakably stupid. The fact that he signed a major deal with the Titans at the height of their much publicised financial meltdown, while they were reportedly struggling to pay their current players, is clear evidence of his dwindling cerebral resources. Here is some more:  

In the olden days, before the advent of emoticons, floriography was the go. People would exchange flowers to convey emotions. This went far beyond our unsubtle use of red roses, a tacky signifier of relationship-based guilt available to buy in well-stocked service stations. A tuberose, for example, signified voluptuousness, heather expressed admiration, and primrose said I can’t live without you.  

So, say I handed Dave Taylor scarlet geraniums. Scarlet geraniums indicate stupidity. He would probably eat them on sight but if he cared to respond he could hand me a daisy, saying “I share your sentiment” a general geranium, which would say “you are childish”, or a bay leaf: “I change but in death, bitch.”

Dave Taylor is so dense that he had to be told to take up a hobby. By a coach. He complied, because he is nothing if not dim and pliant, and bought a boat to catch fish from.

Dave Taylor is so dense that he fell out of bed at Origin training camp and sustained a semi-serious head injury. Or so the Maroons would have us believe. Even if he didn’t fall out of bed, even of this was an excuse that they invented to cover up evidence of mass team drunkenness, the fact that they allocated him an alibi involving falling out of a bed speaks volumes. Do you know what it says? It says ‘we believe that you will believe that this is a man too stupid to lie safely in a bed.’

Do you think they would have assigned the same excuse to Billy Slater, or Cameron Smith, or Cooper Cronk? Of course not. They would have said they strained their eyes in an all-night, three-way chess marathon or something.

Southerners will appreciate where I am going with this. Queenslanders will have snagged their slow-moving, sub-par minds on the mention of carcasses hanging in caves two paragraphs up. They will not make it this far.  Story of their lives.

*See also: Nate Myles. Combine a heavy team drinking session in Terrigal with unreconstructed ablution habits and what do you get?  An un-house-broken Queenslander taking a dump in a carpeted hotel corridor, that’s what.

- Johnathan Thurston is excluded from all of this for obvious reasons – these being that he is an unearthly being who transcends time, space, place and state lines.  He’s really good-looking, in other words. A stone-cold fox.  (Lillies, Calla – magnificent beauty)

Josh Dugan's Sweetness..& other stuff

Weird things are happening everywhere.

It’s a strange season. Cosmic aberrations abound.

Darius Boyd has taken to weeping in dressing sheds at half time, and probably at full time too, poor little pie.

Mitchell Pearce is picking up Pussy Cat Dolls and maybe (unsubstantiated) Nicki Minaj while on Blues training camp in Melbourne.

Luke Lewis has been stood down as captain; a masterstroke devised by Ivan Cleary and designed to simultaneously demoralise and galvanise while at the same time helping to keep Lewis’ self-esteem in check.

Des Hasler has nothing to maniacally rake his fingers through after shaving off his lion-like mane.

Krisnan Inu has abruptly been sold to the Bulldogs and may turn out to be coachable after all.

The Sharks have been winning games.

Jamal Idris has gained weight and grown so puffy that his edges resemble rising pizza dough that’s been set aside in a bowl on a windowsill. 

Todd Carney came down with a shocking case of the Yips during his Origin debut and made numerous strange and unhelpful contributions to the game.  

Brent Kite took over Billy Slater’s high-ball duties in Origin because Billy Slater couldn’t take one to save his life. His uncharacteristically tenuous command of a fairly simple skill was a welcome development. It was also totally disorientating.

The Bulldogs and the Eels have become my favourite teams to watch; for entirely different but equally rewarding reasons, including but not limited to Jarryd Hayne's lazy charm and Josh Reynolds' abrasive feistyness.

There are some unshakable certainties though.

Brett Stewart remains as aggressively petulant as ever.

Luke Lewis continues, despite his tribulations, to trail a vague air of menace and mongrel behind him.

Laurie Daly’s eyes still look like cornered rats.

The police have netted another Rooster in their wily civic net.

Chris Sandow continues to do his best imitation of somebody who can play.

Timana Tahu continues to do his best imitation of somebody who is not a psychopath.

Dane Tilse still looks like someone who is making good progress on his learn to read program but still has to move his lips to get through the longer words.

Queensland continues to win with a good amount of ease.

Josh Dugan’s sweetness and beauty continues to trouble the air around him.  

Cameron Smith is as irritating as ever.

Braith Anasta’s head is still magisterial and profound.

Dave Taylor’s head still looks like something on a spit.

Wayne Bennett’s press conference comments still have no chance of being mistaken for an author being interviewed on Radio National.

Daniel Vidot is proving to be just as much of a liability for the Dragons as he eventually became for the Raiders.

Hating on referees is now seen to be an even more legitimate and desirable pastime for players, ex-players, fans, coaches, journalists, children, livestock and judges on The Voice.

Willie Mason is still boss.

- All this is about all I ask out of life.

Billy Slater's Neck&Thighs: "thick all round"

Things are looking up down here in Victoria. Maybe it really will one day be “the place to be” like the inane number plates announce. My newsagent Carl was eager and very excited to tell me recently that my specially ordered Daily Telegraph is now delivered ON THE DAY, as opposed to a day later, and that he had been working tirelessly since Christmas to achieve this. “How many do you actually sell?” I asked him. “Oh, four or five…” “Yeh well maybe the suits in charge of programming at WIN will fall into line with you and acknowledge the existence of NRL – you could be a pioneer, Carl – you’re Burke and Wills right now!” This was met with an unblinking silence, a softly furrowed brow, and, finally, a low nervous laugh. AFL dimbulbs, what can you do? Actually, on second thoughts, Victoria still has a ways to go.

When the ray of light that is the All Stars game shone upon us and signaled the thawing of the off-season frost and the passing of the soul’s winter those fuckers at WIN showed Big Momma’s House. Astonishing. I actually watched the opening scenes wondering where Josh Dugan was and if he was possibly playing off the bench…

Well. Several weeks later, and who knew my shaken disgruntled fists and muttered voodoo curses could be laid to rest (transferred elsewhere, whatever) now that WIN has started showing Friday Night Footy on its digital sister channel?? Sometimes, life, you’re only seemingly sub-par. Let’s never fight again.

NRL on free to air television sparked the interest of my best friend, hence:  

WHAT CHANNEL I CANT FIND IT

-Got it

-And I thought I was the only one person to have shorts ride up in my crotch. These boys and their big thighs

Me - Note the Storms heritage collared jerseys, fabulous neck extension. Every team should bring them back. Need all the neck help they can get.

-Thick all round

Before I move on, I should point out that it took years of evolution for the human race to get to the point where our chins reside in lofty isolation, elevated from our shoulders by a vertical expanse widely known as “the neck”. Now to be fair, not every “neck” resembles the graceful nodding stem of a daffodil (see above). Tyra Banks understands this, which is why she is forever critiquing contestant’s photos on America’s Next Top Model with words to the effect of “YOU NEED MORE NECK”. The Morris twins understand this. Billy Slater understands this. NRL jersey designers do not understand this. To my mind this is the greatest flaw in the modern game. It is also the most easily rectified. Who gives a fuck about chicken wings, rolling pins, chin straps and crusher tackles, JUST MODIFY THE FUCKING JERSEYS ALREADY.

Apparently, teams are always looking for “the edge”, and despite the unfortunate current situation whereby the Storm have said edge over every team in the competition (but only just over the Raiders – GO RAIDERS) there is no doubt in my mind that their V-necked and collared jerseys provided additional ‘edge’ last night. The Knights looked second-rate in their collarless jerseys and they played second-rate football. Do the math. Kurt Gidley did the math, worked himself into a towering lather and eventually lost his shit entirely. He claimed he was screaming abuse at himself – “I CAN SAY WHAT I LIKE TO ME’SELF” – but the ref disagreed and penalised him for dissent. Of course, Gidley is one of the players who would benefit most from a collared jersey.  

It was a night for all the senses. Aside from the Storm’s elegant appearance I got to listen to Rabs and Gus commentating. Ok, so neither of them possesses the honeyed tones of Jeremy Irons. We have Brad Fittler on the sideline for that.  What they can do is emote. Goddamn are they emotive. Rabs is excitable and astute and Gus is full of bluster and hyperbole and they bitch and bicker at each other like a cantankerous old married couple and it’s the most awesome and entertaining thing ever and may they both live on eternally.

Gus was in good form last night; he said “wow” (Billy Slater, who else..), which is one of life’s great aural pleasures, and he also suffered some mental slippage and got stuck on the idea that the Storm were more soldier crab than human. I mean, who hasn’t?? He returned to the theme continuously over the course of the game, dreamily droning sentences such as “Like little soldier crabs, aren’t they – just marching up the field, marching marching…”  He also cast his gimlet eye over a Knights player, Zeb somebody, who knocked on for no apparent reason and under no apparent pressure, and ran right over Rabs’ sympathetic murmurings with the words “I KNOW, I FEEL SORRY FOR HIM TOO – BUT HE DOES PLAY THIS GAME FOR A LIVING!” Brilliant. Leave it to Gus to bring down the cold boot of truth.

Other stuff happened, like Cameron Smith berating his players lustily and at length after the final siren, despite them winning, and there was another game, featuring the fucking Broncos, as per, and they won, also as per, and the whole thing was very rewarding. You watch Friday Night Footy and feel the world disappearing. People say they experience the same sensation when a big gun goes off in their hands. I don’t know about that but I did have vague face-ache at the end of it all. Viva Victoria.

The Battle of Brookvale - Let's Get It On

The key to having happy and satisfactory times is in keeping your expectations low.
This was driven home to me with a certain potency this weekend, when I approached the Manly Storm game with a modest amount of anticipation after being in a 2 week long football void, and a hearty dollop of cold, weary distaste.

Well, shit.
Was that a game or was that a GAME?!
Astonishing. I have never seen anything better (or worse, depending on how you choose to view it or whether or not you're David Gallop). It was vigorous and aggressive as all get out  -and this was before the brawl. We really didn't need the brawl to demonstrate the intensity of emotion out there but wasn't it a lovely extra? Like free prawn crackers with your Chinese takeaway, only infinitely more entertaining. A little more brutal, too. Prawn crackers are a kind of passive. Also, they're pink.

The second phase of that brawl was deadset incredible. There are few things I enjoy more than a vigorous, muscular display of hegemonic masculnity. Buttered white bread is about the only thing that springs to mind to trump it. Anyway, those Sea Eagles flying 30 metres Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style to hurl themselves at Adam Blair was a glorious and blatantly destructive act and I just adored it. What a way to be welcomed home and enfolded once again into Australia's wantonly violent bosom.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Adam Blair and Glenn Stewart

"unleashed on each other after the Storm forward said to Stewart 'let's get it on' as they left the field"

"LET'S GET IT ON"???!! I die. I die of awesome. What marvellous use of a marvellous, no-frills phrase. And entirely by the way, don't those Stewart brothers have faces that would frighten babies?




who knew "let's get it on" could lead to the most vicious sideline brawl in league history? Blair did, bitch!


Additionally, I appreciated the confirmation that Manly truly are the embodiment of a fundamentally rotten and brutal team. I adore this, too. It's a lovely, soothing feeling; having your prejudices confirmed and justified. The refreshing rush of truth really adds to your sense of general well-being. Try it.

On the other hand, I had one of my pet irrational-hatreds shaken and challenged in the same game - i.e. Billy Slater came across as likeable. Again. Goddamn it Billy this has to stop happening. People will start to talk. But Billy ending up in an inadvertant Mills and Boon style full-body embrace with a floppy-necked and screaming in savage agony David Williams after tackling him was too too much, even for my rag and bone shop heart. He didn't so much hold him still, it was more like an intimate, post-coital snuggle while wearing a look so tender it was almost unseemly. I mean, there wasn't a trace of the shitlicking expression that he wears by default, and definitely no sign of the shitlicking grin.

Okay, so he's not a wholly repellant human being, well what of it? The truth of it is that every time I see a glimmer of humanity in Billy Slater I come out somehow diminished, slightly less sure of my identity. I was grateful when the medics arrived and allowed Billy to extract himself from Williams and the macabre embrace because had it gone on for much longer I could see myself having to stagger from the building to be sick in the bushes and I try not to do that so much nowadays. Billy Slater: positively destabilising.

I understand, by the way, that this says far more about the balance of my mind - and that it may be a tad skew-iff - than it does about Billy, who is by all accounts a stand-up bloke. Whatever. Let me have this orright?

Anyway, what is up with David Williams - why so flimsy? He's more fragile than Josh Dugan for chrissakes. Word to David - pioneers were made of strong stuff, so lose the bushman beard or toughen up. Alternatively, you could just lose the beard, although I kinda appreciate you hiding your hot under it - way to make us work for it, bitch! As for Dugan, well, he had Bambi legs. It's biological.

May or may not be the actual David Williams

Ditto for Josh Dugan

So. there was that fabulous game of flaming intensity that I watched pie-eyed, mopping my fevered brow with one hand and tipping clinkers into my mouth with the other. Then there was the Raiders playing the Panthers, to flaccid effect, and it was midway through this flabby non-event that I realised, with a barking laugh, that I was truly back and truly home. Mazel tov, bitches. LET'S GET IT ON.

Steady as She Goes

I want to write a coherent and lucid post, really I do, but I think it may be beyond me today. Nevermind. If what follows is at all jarring, it's because I've got the clanks. If you don't know what that is, interpret it to mean that I resent you, your existence and your rude good health right now.

According to the American Food and Drug Administration's list of withdrawal symptoms for this particular bitch drug, it also means that dizziness, nausea, vertigo, vomiting, headaches, tingling in the extremities, irritability, nightmares, anxiety, insomnia and excessive sweating are par for my course. There's a further, more cautionary warning that basically confirms what I have long suspected, ie. that I really am, for good or ill, a 1 percent-er, because  "In extreme cases, abruptly discontinued use results in confusion, a severe, constant irritable mood, and seizures." Well, two outta three 'aint bad, although I want to amend the list to include shaking legs and hands, pins and needles of the scalp, muscular pain, sensitivity to noise, light and sudden movement, and extreme eyeball pain. Seriously.  It hurts to do anything other than look straight ahead right now. Not good. Wimbledon's on.

A little context. Take the worst and most debilitating hangover you've ever had, combine it with the most toxic and potent chemical comedown you've ever had (if you've ever spent time at Rainbow Serpent, just count the 4 or 5 day long aftermath as your benchmark of suffering here), multiply it by ten or twelve, throw in some randomly occuring tremors, night terrors and a desire to rip the hair and scalp clean off your head and you get the general idea.

The thing is, I already find a huge proportion of life to be almost unbearably irritating as it is. There are annoyances at every turn, and if it's not one fucking thing it's another. Space does not permit a comprehensive survey of the singular grievances that get under my skin, but here's one just off the top of my head: salespeople in service stations who over the last few years have apparently been programmed to try and sell you things - king sized Cherry Ripes and the like - that you don't want and haven't asked for. I know it must hardly seems possible that I may wish to purchase petrol and petrol only, given the fact that I'm patronising a PETROL STATION and all, but, astonishingly, it is so. Anyway, I can't think about such things at the moment without getting a headache and homicidal urges so let's move along. 

To counter-balance the strong bitch, bitch, bitch elememt of this post, I should point out that, make no mistake, some things fill me with gratitude and wonder. Roadside produce stalls, those wind-sock men that sometimes blow around in front of car yards, horses rolling on their backs and kicking their legs in the air, lambs and polar bears, old ladies selling slice on trestle tables in the street, dogs on utes, blimps, daily newspapers, the Ganges, Bukowski, football - obviously......

See? It''s not all 'stop the world I want to get off'.

Also, I love more than anything when people split their pants. Nothing is funnier than that.


I suspect that if I ever make it to Leichardt Oval and get to stand on that hill under those Moreton Bay fig trees screaming and spraying beer around that the experience will make it straight onto my list of things of mystery and wonder as well. Nevermind the fact that I imagine I'll be there in my lime green, in all likelihood watching the Raiders being carved up like a Christmas ham by the Tigers, which is how their meetings tend to play out, let's be honest. No, nevermind that, because it will be incredible, and besides, you have to respect a good hoodoo.

I think it was the prospect of the Storm playing at Leichardt on Sunday afternoon that saw me momentarily lose focus - by which I mean I started watching 'Harry Loves Lisa' on the Lifestyle channel and missed the start of the game. For the uninitiated, Lisa is Lisa Rinna, she of the grotesquely over-inflated lips, and Harry is her hot silver fox husband Harry Hamlin, who played the evil Aaron Eccles in Veronica Mars. To great aplomb, I might add.

The episode's arc saw Harry, who as far as I can tell is what is commonly referred to in showbiz circles as 'washed up', reading for a part in an audition, thinking he nailed it and then receiving alarming feedback letting him know he not only missed out on the part but also "gave a bizarre reading and freaked everybody in the room out". His acting coach suggested he may be a touch too intense, which saw Harry decide to lighten up with a little stand-up comedy, and one of his proposed jokes went like this:

       "You ever tried to fuck on a waterbed - it's like fucking on a wave - YOU CAN'T DO IT!"

BoomTISH, right? As for Lisa, she is, aside from the monstrous lips, exactly the same as Kris Kardashian and until I see them in the same room together I will consider them to be the same person.

Anyway, I only watched a few minutes before I came to my senses and remembered that Austar will replay the episode every four or five hours over the course of the coming week and possibly for all of eternity too, should I wish to revisit it.


So. Switching over to the Tigers/Storm game the first thing that struck me was that every Storm player and their dog were carring head or face injuries and were not only wearing but fucking rocking an assortment of headbands and facial bandages. Except Billy Slater, who had no headband and was merely wearing his usual expression which - for the ignorant or the blind - can only be described as a shit-eating smirk. And Cameron Smith, he too was unadorned, lounging on the interchange bench and looking hairy as hell.

Meanwhile, Cooper Cronk was rushing around nailing multiple 40/20s and competing on every play and herding players around like a frenzied kelpie and just being his usual over-achieving self. Cronk is fierce. There is no denying this fact. Also, he is unintentionally halarious, and kind of awesome too. I'd elaborate but I really can't bring myself to say nice things about Storm players so we'll leave it well alone and I'll just post some pictures of his pretty self instead.

The interesting thing of it is that Cronk's intensity doesn't grate on me in the way that, say, Cameron Smith's does. Sometimes Smith's eyes burn like I imagine an angry God's eyes would and I physically flinch, that's how intense he can get.

On the other hand, Michael Ennis is one of the fiercest competitors in the game; he allegedly researches players' lives, gleans personal information and uses it against them during games via volleys of expletive-laden sprays and I have nothing but love for the guy. He also wears head-tape with rakish panache, so to me he's pretty much god's gift.

Did y'all see in Origin II when Sam Thaiday dropped the ball, I think early in the second half, and Ennis charged over, got right up in his grill and bellowed what I can only imagine was a string of choice, A-grade sledges into Thaiday's startled face? Sadly I'll never have the details of what was said, but I have a fertile imagination and, also, I have a thing or two I wouldn't mind screaming into Thaiday's face given half a chance, so I think I can fill the blanks.

So, yes, steady as she goes. Steady as Peter Garrett's dancing, or, say, Brett Stewart after an NRL season launch...