h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, saw that, but was it a draw or a tie? It was reported in the 'Australian' as a draw, but the way I read the scorecard it was a tie.

...Dave the bookie, jet lag...

This is the first par of how a newsletter I get reported the game.

AUSTRALIA AND ENGLAND TIE IN PRACTICE

By Rick Eyre

It's not exactly the Ashes, and it's not exactly serious competition at all, but Australia crossed paths with England at the Simba Union Ground, Nairobi, yesterday for some match practice prior to competing in the ICC KnockOut. The result... a tie, 236 runs apiece.

Gooday Loonytunes,

Thanks for that. Pheroneous says your page is set to music. My 'puter doesn't play music, so I can't get to hear it. But what music is it?

Incidentally, Don Talbot was star of 'This is your life' last night and one of his sons was on. This lad apparently lives in and swam for Enzed in the just-past Olympics. Is this how NZ wishes to advance in the field of sporting prowess - appropriating dinky-di Aussies? Take care,

Walter

The music is the theme from The Pink Panther movies.

Behind every successful Aussie there is a New Zealander. Mrs Talbot is a Kiwi so it is hardly surprising her son chooses to live in Godzone.

Loony,

The ex-Mrs Talbot. Don may be without peer as a swimming coach but he does not come across as the brightest bloke ever: yet even he had enough sense to unload the Enzed sheila. He's married to a Canadian nowadays.

PS Xena is now on our small screen, although too early for me to catch it.

Walter.

Walter, Xena is a must-watch show. Do you know any Kiwis who could set your video recorder for you?

Loony,

Touche!! The only time my video operates in recording mode is when my daughter is down to visit. Even the beloved can't make it work.

Walter

Pressure For Rugby At Olympics

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Rugby union could be included in the Olympic Games of 2008, the International Rugby Board said on Thursday.

The sport last featured in the Olympics in Paris 76 years ago, but meetings between the IRB and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took place in Sydney last month with a view to its reinstatement.

Logistical problems mean a return in time for Athens 2004 is unlikely. Vernon Pugh, chairman of the IRB, said: "We are doing our best to get rugby back in the Games.

"The reception that we received from the IOC was judged to have been successful.

"I don't think it would mean overkill for rugby union. The Olympics are also less value without rugby."

still wouldn't add to your medal tally though Loony, if the last world cup is any indication

Ouch, I wish I'd said that.

Gentlemen, a radio station that must have been short of subjects recently sought an interview with me on some sporty topic. In honour of my presence, the programme host played a new song from the Australian balladeer John Williamson. He was, if you remember, the bearded little chap with the gravelly Ocker voice who sang Waltzing Matilda before the last two Bledisloe Cup matches in Sydney. This new song was called A Number On My Back and was subtitled The Wallaby Anthem. It was, in case the title didn't give it away, a paean of praise for the Australian rugby team. Intrigued, I bought the CD and, playing it during the Olympics, thought I'd discovered another reason why Australians are so proud of themselves and their country and so bloody good at whatever sport they try. We as a nation are generally conservative and reserved, especially when compared with our Aussie neighbours. We don't publicly sing the national anthem or anything else unless we're emotionally aroused or boozed. Ditto the haka.

You Aussies revel in your Australianess. We cringe from our own national characteristics. Singing or listening to God Defend New Zealand is a duty rather than a pleasure. Musical moron I may be, but it seems Williamson continues with the Slim Dusty type of Australian image, celebrating your past and keeping alive poets of 100 years ago such as Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, while at the same time introducing your own bush ballads into the Australian repertoire. You have a rich heritage which you're not afraid to celebrate. We too have a heritage - Thomas Bracken didn't just write the lyrics to God Defend New Zealand and others such as David McKee-Wright and Charles Thatcher who wrote tales of the early days in New Zealand. And in the early days they have largely remained. Some New Zealanders such as Dave Dobbyn have attempted to weave our history into song and while they've done it well, their efforts have largely escaped the national consciousness.

Williamson takes the Australian celebration a step further and he's solely responsible for a song, True Blue, which is, I'm told, fast approaching the status of your national anthem and your unofficial anthem, Waltzing Matilda. The words are not complex but the feeling is quintessentially Australian:
True Blue, is it me and you,
Is it Mum and Dad - is it a cockatoo
Is it standing by your mate
When he's in a fight
Or just Vegemite?

Simple but effective. Williamson writing about the Australian rugby team takes the bush ballad genre a step further by introducing songs about sport. It's galling to listen to an Australian sing about Australian rugby players. We, who think we understand rugby better than you do, have very little musically to celebrate our national game. There was On the Ball from the 19th century that seemed to peter out in the 1950s, there have been one or two other All Black-related songs that the All Blacks themselves sang self-consciously. And there was Howard Morrison with his Lonnie Donnegan parody, My Old Man's An All Black, which was more humour than any attempt to celebrate a team that we choose to celebrate in other ways.

It can't, and doesn't, compare with Williamson's tribute to Sir Donald Bradman, which is called Sir Don (not to be confused with an earlier song called Our Don Bradman). No Australian holds back when talking about Bradman and Williamson doesn't:
Hero of heroes, bold of the bold,
You dignified the uniform,
You blessed the green and gold.

That's not the limit of Williamson's praise of cricket either. He's also written The Baggy Green, which any cricket lover knows is how Australians describe the national team cap. Williamson even has the Australian captain, Steve Waugh, on one of the verses (an opportunity here perhaps for Todd Blackadder to join in on a New Zealand rugby equivalent). Within Williamson's lyrics comes a hint of the drive behind Australian sport, a drive that was evident in Sydney during the Olympics and a drive that is seldom as evident in New Zealand (to the tune of Click Go the Shears):
Don't give up, no don't give up,
Never lose the dream,
Better than a crown of jewels,
To wear the Baggy Green.
Batters take the centre,
Bowlers hit the seam,
You never take for granted,
The Baggy Green.

With the black singlet/jersey and the silver fern, we have an image as powerful. All we need now is someone to write about it. Then more to sing it.

I'm very impressed Loonytunes. Very. It's always something to hear your country analysed by others and this is no exception.

A slight twist to what you're saying though: one of the things a lot of Aussies have commented on for the duration of the games has been a sudden resurge in national pride. The description you've given for NZ is how we often see Aus - we usually see our national anthem as a chore ('our home is girt by sea'? good grief.) Being patriotic in anything other than a sporting event in which we have a good chance of winning is almost unheard of. As for songs of national pride... they usually lurk there under the surface but rarely poke their heads out.

The olympic games has made a lot of these things out into the open. Will they stay? Probably not I feel, but at the same time I don't think they'll go back as far as they were. I think that, as a nation, we've only lost our 'cultural cringe' in the last 15 years with a combination of (yes) sporting events - Brisbane Commonwealth Games, Expo 88, The America's Cup Win (huge deja vu with 'I Come From A Land Down Under' and boxing kangaroos featuring so heavily in the games). This is a great thing to see... but still the cringe lurks and comes out at odd times. We still feel that people have 'made it' if they are successfull overseas and this is a shame... but bit by bit this is being overcome.

I'd love to see the kiwis come up with some great national songs - but I tell you my heart always stirs when I'm watching Rugby and the haka is performed. It's fanbloodytastic mate!

Thanks for your time
Wowbagger

Hi Looney, Hi Wowbagger,

I agree with Wowbagger, it takes time to emerge from a cultural cringe, and events. Look how long it has taken people to accept "Advance Australia Fair". It probably took until the children that learnt it in grade one grew up accepting it.

As far as I know the haka is a war cry, and it fits very well in the sporting battle where the belief of invincibility is important. I remember a few years back when the NZ played the Aussies and they preformed the haka at the beginning, it gave me the shivvers.

We have a couple of very good years lately and it is easy to have pride in our selves when we are winning, the test will be when we start to loose again, which we will.

You are a man who knows how to throw words around. Start your own campaign, these things are done by individuals who have belief. You stand up and put your support behind New Zealand. Write your own True Black, or whatever. Many a tide of indifference has been turned by a bunch of dedicated few.

I will stand across the other side of the Tasman Sea and cheer you on.


Moondancer

Gooday Loonytunes,

What an evocative piece. Music and nationalism, singing and national pride, anthems and national fervour.

Eric Bogle's 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', Peter Allen's 'Tenterfield Saddler' and also of course his ubiquitous and now Quantas-appropriated 'I Still Call Australia Home'. 'My Island Home' is the most recent. The Olympics demonstrated just how potent and emotionally uplifting is 'Advance Australia Fair', even if eighty per cent of the population can't get past the first line. 'Waltzing Matilda', pure legend born of pure myth yet inexplicably there is perhaps nothing which so symbolises and typifies the Australian ethos, our approach to ourselves and our country. The irreverance and non-conformism that we love to ascribe to ourselves, celebrated in an outpouring of tradition and religiosity. Hymns ancient and modern, of the utmost spirituality. Anthems, battle hymns, stirring, inspiring, daunting and overwhelming. All rise, sing or mouth the words, in or out of time and tune, it matters not. Feel good about yourself, in yourself and your country. Only an Australian can do this, only an Australian can feel this, only an Australian can be this.

But it is not just us, is it? The Poms observe the proprieties with God save the Queen, they sing it respectfully if perfunctorily, but it is a dirge, the words are essentially meaningless and have been for decades: Liz to Phillip "Oh darling, they are playing our song," but no-one else really gives much of a toss. What does bring the Poms alive is their rich tradition of stirring music: hang on when they belt out 'Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' and 'Jerusalem'. 'You'll Never Walk Alone' sung by thirty thousand on the Kop isn't just awesomely moving, it is downright bloody scary. There isn't a dry eye in Cardiff Arms Park when the Taffs get underway with 'Men of Harlech' and 'Land of our Fathers'. Who hasn't wept like a bairn when some tenor gets up and does 'Danny Boy'? The Scots at Murrayfield, or Ibrox doing 'Scotland the Brave' or the more recent 'Scottish Soldier': Christ, how did they ever lose to the English?

And yet for all of that, one of my fondest and most enduring memories is our ship sailing out of Wellington Harbour one fine, crisp Spring morning, being farewelled as the band played and an impromptu choir sang 'Now is the Hour'.

Another wonderful piece of writing Loony, a real pleasure to read, and to think about. Good on you, cobber, and take care,

Walter.

In breaking news, a New Zealander has won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Mmmm, lets work it out. One Nobel Prize = ten Olympic Gold medals seems about right.

In Australia at the moment... not a chance.
Hope you've seen this week's h2g2life on that topic.

Email just sent to me:

Now that the Olympics are over and we are no longer the centre of the
universe (although we've always been pretty bloody close to it) it's time to get back to normal so:
1) You can stop smiling now.
2) Same goes for being nice to everyone.
3) People looking confused or lost whilst holding maps can be ignored as per usual.
4) People with foreign accents can be made fun of.
5) People wearing big ID badges around their necks should be told they look
like dicks.
6) Same goes for wearing the official SOCOG volunteer gear. It's finished, get over it.
7) The Sydney 2000 t-shirts that sold at the Olympic Park Megastore for $60 bucks last Friday are now being sold at Paddys Market at 3 for $10.
8) Chants of "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi" will not be tolerated. Police have sanctioned the use of violence against anyone who does. Expect to hear the frequent sound of Police gunfire a lot over the next week or two as those who have forgotten the Olympics are over are gently reminded.
9) Trains will again start derailing and City Rail staff can go back to being their normal surly selves. "Mind your step Ladies and
Gentlemen" will be replaced by the familiar refrain of "The 5:28 to Berowra is delayed by 45 minutes and will now not be stopping at this station. Cityrail apologises for the inconvenience but realises that as you have no real alternatives you'll just have to put up with it. Ha ha ha ha ha......."
10) Ditto for the planes
11) And the buses
12) All the homeless people who were trucked out to "hospitality camps" will start reappearing in the inner city now that all the tv cameras have gone and Frank Sartor & Bob Carr admit to everyone "Yes, of course we were only hiding them while the Olympics were on. Whaddaya bloody think?!?!"
13) All the new street plants will not be replaced.
17) There will be public hangings of anybody found wearing the following:
a) Australian flag capes
b) Australian flag caps & hats
c) Australian flag t-shirts
d) Australian flag flags
18) No one will use the Superdome, the Hockey stadium, the Baseball stadium,
the Equestrian centre or the Archery & Shooting ranges again.

For your reading pleasure.
Cheers
Wowbagger

PS - Obviously rules 14 to 16 never existed or have been censored by the person who sent me the email. Thank you.

Very good it was too Wowbagger

Loony, the whole John Williamson thing was in response to the Haka to try and take away some of the perceived advantage this gave the All Blacks before a match. Prior to this i had always felt we were outpassioned (if there is such a word) as the Haka versus our national anthem was no comparison...

Sydney Olympics Games cost $3.5b
The Olympic Games cost around $3.5 billion to stage, New South Wales Treasurer Michael Egan said today. Mr Egan said the NSW government will have spent $2.14 billion once the Paralympics are finished, the Commonwealth will have spent $180 million and private enterprise around $1.2 billion.

In a somewhat suspect related story, an expatriate New Zealander, Mr Brainy Boots of Bondi, who operates a chain of profitable clinics offering remedial learning courses for Australian school teachers, commented, "If Australia spent that sort of extra money on education we could compete with NZ in producing a steady flow of Nobel Prize winners."