Presumptuous Titilations

Friday. Even with a contact schedule of seven hours a week that word induces a smile. For today as the English and Indians redraw their bows, Cadel celebrates his fifth day in heaven and Australia rub their eyes reading “Magnussen wins in Shanghai”, I enjoy presumptuous titillations of a win in Gosford. Far short of [Read more]

Cadel est de deux ans de retard! (Cadel is two years late!)

    by David Downer   The honeymoon was over. Literally. Well, almost. Just a single day remained on our post-wedding European jaunt. A stunningly blue Summer’s day on the Champs-Elysees would provide the final chapter. Yeah, there were worse places to be.

Cadel Evans victory: best Australian sporting achievement ever?

I don’t particularly like comparisons – they’re a bit of fun, but they don’t mean much. In the realm of sporting achievements so many achievements have merit and I reckon it’s better to appreciate all of them for what the are. There are many ways to become the subject of a trivia question – you [Read more]

Thriving on pain

They. Are. Freaks! Most all of them! I only started watching because of sleep problems. In the midnight, in the bush. And then I was interested, and then I was hooked. The cyclists of the Tour de France rolled and whirled across and up my telly every night. They pushed through pain, they went past [Read more]

A Heavenly Forum

Oppy and Mocky were chesting the bar, Looking down on the Tour from a heavenly star, “Doesn’t seem fair we’ve all fought so long, The Champs Elysee needs an Aussie Fair song.”   But things just don’t happen from man’s good intention, Just a small touch of luck – some divine intervention, So they called [Read more]

Tour of Thornbury

  by Matt O’Connor   If I can just hold my nerve, the Tour de France is mine for the taking.   Three more nights, including l’Alpe-d’Huez tomorrow and the time trial on Saturday, and I will be in a position to pilot my couch triumphantly down the Champs Elysees. Presuming of course that teammate [Read more]

In the saddle with Cadel

About 1.00am, Saturday 16th July.   Someone is ringing the bejesus out of a cowbell in my lounge room. People are yelling, cheering – ‘Allez!’, ‘Vamos!’, ‘Go! Come on!!!’ Phil Liggett is talking to me. He mentions something about riders pushing themselves to the limit, this is what they train for, Le Tour at its [Read more]

Johnny Hoogerland and barbed wire

Tour de France 2011 Photos; Stage 9: Issoire ? Saint-Flour, 208 km   Later in the stage, a French TV car swerved into the five man break up front sending Vacansoleil’s Johnny Hoogerland somersaulting off the road and into a barbed wire fence That’s quite a flogging. Someday a clothing manufacturer will invent something more [Read more]

Tony Hachem: no dud brother

I always like to keep up with what the people in my neighbourhood are doing. Tony Hachem of Northcote, our suburb, has just been knocked out of the biggest and most important poker tournament on the planet, the World Series of Poker, in Las Vegas. He has finished 37th in the huge field. The tournament [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Celebrating Darren Lockyer

Darren Lockyer still has a few games of football left in him, but when he stood on the stage after Queensland’s victory last Wednesday night, the whole of the maroon world paused to listen and to reflect for a moment with him. With humility in his face, he turned to the crowd, and in a [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – State of Origin 3

  byDavid Butler NSW go into tonight’s State Of Origin decider at Lang Park with a realistic chance of winning the series they have failed to win for the last 5 years. Even those like myself who have had only a passing interest in Rugby League after having been immersed in it as a kid [Read more]

Wimbledon 2011: Reasons to be cheerful

  by Peter Baulderstone There is always much to complain about in sport and in life.  The art critic and social observer, Robert Hughes, wrote a book about it some years ago called ‘Culture of Complaint’.  I suspect that the Dalai Lama’s relentless cheerfulness in one of the main reasons why he has become so [Read more]

Suddenly im craving Lindt…

So Roger Federer didn’t make it to the Wimbledon final, but after watching this video it’s a wonder he can even make it through air port security! In this advertisement Roger took his love as ambassador for Lindt chocolate to a very yummy level. (link to vid below)

Tour de Bush- and other places

The Tour de France is an event I look forward to every year. I adore the stunning scenery and it reminds me of the true joy of bike riding. Freedom and fresh air. It was one of my favourite childhood pastimes when growing up in country Victoria. Glorious independence on two wheels. I rode my [Read more]

Ranking Baseball’s Best Ballparks

By NATE SILVER <http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/> I’m working on an article about the New York Mets — but that subject is perhaps too depressing for a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. The article, in any event, will focus on the Mets’ attendance and whether there are any signals that the club’s off-the-field problems <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/sports/baseball/mets-fred-wilpon-puts-his-fans-cap-on-and-speaks-his-mind.html?_r=1>  have begun to hurt [Read more]

Snooker break

Photo by David Bruce Trevor Ayres breaking in 2007. This photo was accepted into the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery’s main annual exhibition, the South West Survey, in 2007. As a response to Adam’s comment, the best David could do was have Roger Waters pay a visit. Then he decided to take the tone a little [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Some Origin thoughts from an ecumenical fan

by Lee Carney Australia is a unique country when it comes to its sport and particularly the football codes, like fans of sport in all nations we follow our teams religiously, having our moods go up and down based on the fortunes, of what in this era of trades and free agency is really a [Read more]

Susie Q Ramadan – a boxing story

by Andrew Starkie The Reggio Calabria Club sits in a slight depression beside the buzzing freeway. It is West Brunswick in Melbourne’s north. On this Sunday afternoon in early May, the car park is full and the shiny main entrance beckons patrons through to the restaurant.  Most are passing by , instead entering a plain [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Granny’s five cents goes a long way (a late sixties boyhood in Sydney)

Sausage roll five cents, (sauce one cent extra); musk sticks, cobbers, freckles, milk bottles, musk sticks, bananas – cent each; bertie beetle, choo-choo-bar, both five cents. Shiny packet on top of the glass-topped bench: same as a snag roll (minus sauce); forget bertie, forget the black mouthed bar; bargain! Give over the echidna; Mrs Mineo [Read more]

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