Election betting has flattened out, but no matter how I look at it, I just keep coming back to one thing: the election result is all about Queensland. And the pollies know it as well. Queenslanders are still recovering from the Coalition’s launch on Sunday. Rarely have so many blueblood Liberals graced the Sunshine State. [Read more]
Harms Election Watch: Round 4
August 15, 2010 by 5 Comments
This election will be won and lost in Queensland. Simple as that. And Queensland is different sort of place, with its own understanding of the world. I lived there for 30 years, and if pressed, I would say I am a Queenslander. Not your typical Queenslander, but I reckon I understand the Queensland sensibility.
Harms Election Watch- Round 3
August 14, 2010 by 8 Comments
So Julia Gillard looks at the numbers and sees she’s caught a snake. It’s like watching Norman at Augusta. She sees Action Tony on the ladder. So Julia says she’s going to throw the rulebook out. Why did she subscribe to it in the first place? Julia Gillard sees that people have been reading the [Read more]
Election Harms Round 2- The Debate
August 13, 2010 by 1 Comment
Sunday evening used to be for watching Disneyland. You would always wonder which land the story would come from: Adventure Land, Fantasy Land, and the other Lands which have drifted from my memory. Then came Big Brother, and Sunday evening footy, and now Master Chef. I watched the end of Master Chef last night just [Read more]
Harms’ Election Watch- Part 1
August 12, 2010 by 25 Comments
As Director of Manning Clark House in Canberra, I am obliged to have a good grasp of Australian History, and at least pretend to have a good grasp of contemporary Australian day-to-day politics. I reckon I’ve got the nuts and bolts of the first one covered, but I’m less confident about the other. Not because [Read more]
Cats dealing with history
July 15, 2010 by 31 Comments
I am sitting at the desk of Manning Clark. It’s where he penned the six volume History of Australia, and many other books and papers, essay and newspaper articles. If I turn around I can almost reach the filing cabinets, which are full of letters from Patrick White and others for whom the life of the [Read more]
Cats keep out the Cold
July 8, 2010 by 8 Comments
It was a cold old day in Canberra last Sunday. Freezing in fact. With the kids bored out of their brain. And you kicking yourself for not having backed Serena to win Wimbledon. And sad with what the Uruguayans, and Fate, did to Ghana. Miserable outside and in. Although the fire and the Rice Bubbles [Read more]
Sport Talk Points To Julia
June 29, 2010 by 7 Comments
We live in interesting times: Julia Gillard is the national leader. She was born in Wales, the home of Bread of Heaven, which is what we’re all looking for really. They say rugby is the game played in heaven. It is certainly the game of the Gryffs and Myfs, but the Gillards immigrated to Australia, [Read more]
On The Question Of Race
June 19, 2010 by 14 Comments
When I hear the word ‘race’ I think of eugenicists and skull-measurers; I think of nineteenth century exhibitions at The Royal Organisation for the Conquest of Everything in London; I think of posses of white settlers seeking brutal retribution for stock loss on the frontier; I think of Indigenous peoples (wherever they are in the [Read more]
Geelong indulgence
June 17, 2010 by 4 Comments
When I was a kid in Queensland we only got to the footy in Melbourne on the rare occasions of a family holiday. We always went with great expectation. I never saw Geelong win. It was, after all, the (second decade of the) wilderness years: the 70s, a period which built a solid foundation of [Read more]
Poms Provide Prospective Punting Pillage
June 11, 2010 by 6 Comments
One of the many great things about using Betfair to satisfy your deepest punting needs is that you are betting with the world. The entire world. It would be brilliant to get a print-out of who your bets were matched with: fifth-at-Cranbourne wagers matched with the blackberry-using Telstra technician parked under a mango tree in [Read more]
Traversing the great divide
June 4, 2010 by 11 Comments
When I was about ten, we moved back to Queensland. I had been born there but then spent a few years in the footy heaven that is Victoria. I was footy nuts. We knew a little bit about rugby league: that they threw the ball and that there was mad tackling. Once or twice we [Read more]
How the Pies keep bookies in European cars
May 27, 2010 by 12 Comments
Friday night on a crisp Canberra evening. Greeting-card sunset. Chill in the air. The High Court and the National Library looking US-grand behind the autumn reds and yellows of the trees across the Burley-Griffin’s lake. In Melbourne, people bustle. A sense of happy urgency prevails. They are invoking their footy plans (which I’ve been cc-ed [Read more]
Dogs bureaucratic processes prevail at Manuka
May 20, 2010 by 9 Comments
When footy reports focus on the day, the weather, and the strength of the sunshine, the trees and the colour of their foliage, the state of the oval and the scoreboard, and the food and beverage preferences of those in the reporters’ company, you can usually draw a pretty good conclusion regarding the quality of [Read more]
Footy at Manuka: a preview
May 17, 2010 by 12 Comments
It’s a big weekend for Canberra footy fans. Yes, the Brumbies have the toughest possible opponent, away, in Christchurch. Yes, the Raiders will probably lead the Storm at half-time. And, yes they will sing ‘Abide With Me’ at Wembley on Saturday night before the FA Cup final. But when all is said and done, and [Read more]
On the footy punt
May 13, 2010 by 10 Comments
We all know that given the choice between working and not working just about everyone (with the notable exception of those who are related by blood to The Handicapper) would prefer the feet comfortably up, the computer fired up, the form guide opened up, and the races on the TV. This, sustained by a barrel [Read more]
The agon and AFL footy.
May 6, 2010 by 17 Comments
Every Saturday, around lunch-time, I do a spot on ABC Grandstand’s South Australian edition. It’ss a lot of fun. Roger Wills holds the show together in the way that only Roger can. He has a unique mind. It reminds of one of those rooms in an rambling old country dwelling; one that is full of [Read more]
Offsiders go at it hammer and tong.
May 3, 2010 by 14 Comments
For an interesting analysis of the Melbourne Storm issue, check out yesterday’s Offsiders program which includes some fairly frank and free discussion between panelists, especially GCJD Haigh and Rebecca Wilson. It’s available in segments at this link (you’ll work it out): http://www.abc.net.au/sport/offsiders/ Of the many worms that are released by the opening of the [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – Real Storm surprise is that people are surprised
April 29, 2010 by 18 Comments
It has been a most tumultuous week in Australian sport. Well, in Australian professional sport. You have to be specific because I reckon professional sport and normal, everyday, garden-variety sport are actually quite different. One is about commerce, the other is about the game. The tumult comes from the exposure of the flagrant salary cap [Read more]
Cats unfurl their flag for an old leader and a new.
April 21, 2010 by 18 Comments
I didn’t think I’d see it in my life-time. And now I’ve seen it twice. On an autumn afternoon that was more Kirra Beach weather than Kardinia Park, the community that is the Geelong Football Club raised its premiership flag. I wasn’t there. I was going to be there for the unfurling and the match [Read more]
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