Woodsdale footy ground

I took Michael up to Buckland, about an hour north, to go horse-riding. he went off on a trail ride so I went looking for the fabled Woodsdale football ground nearby. It was well worth it. Now grazed by sheep, the club is in recess but has not folded. Hopefully the sheep will be shooed away soon and the lines marked for a return to competition.

The view from Woodsdale Rd

The long steep driveway down. Its behind an unlocked gate.

Sheep graze around the 40 metres out from goal.
They have no chance of sinking one from there – they're sheep.

The clubroom, scoreboard and mini-playground.

Practice cricket pitch - they would erect nets around it in season I guess.

The view from the scoreboard. My real reason for coming was to
file a report for Scroreboard Pressure, the blog of record for Australian scoreboard lovers.

I am not a selfie-take but this is a a special for Chonk in Winterthur. Thanks for the beanie and scarf!

This is the final score from Woodsdales last grand final win, over Mount Pleasant in 2012.

I call the typographic style untutored but confident.

2018 World Cup

I am excited for the World Cup. Really excited. Everywhere you look there are epic possibilities and echoes of past glory, past ignominy.

Tunisia! Playing England in their first game! They were there in my first time cup in 1978. The prospect of them getting a result against England is quite tantalising, quite naughty.

 Speaking of which - Iceland! Less people than Tasmania! Playing Messi's Argentina first if you don't mind! And managed by a part time dentist!

 I pulled out Senegal in the work sweep. Remember the opening game of 2002 when their journeymen from the French 2nd division beat the champions France on opening night of the Cup? Football, bloody hell.

 My hopes for the beauty and drama of the football are boundless. Australia are quite likely to come home without a goal or a point. But ... what if on Saturday night they stun France, Senegal-style? And go top of the group? Nick a 1-1 with Denmark and then it's a 0-0 staring contest with Peru to WIN the group? Which would send them to a knockout game against 2nd rate Croatia, 3rd rate Nigeria or Actual Minnow Iceland?

 Yes, I dream big. See I've already got us into the Quarters (where we are going to meet at worst Uruguay) but enough of the football.

 My hopes for Russia, for FIFA, for racism, corruption, hooliganism .. are zero. This World Cup won't change a thing. They never do. And that's depressing.

 England's Danny Rose has insisted his family do not come to Russia for the Cup - their skin colour puts them at risk. German sports journalist Hajo Seppelt, who uncovered the story of systematic Russian doping, is not covering the Cup ... German security agencies have advised him he would be at risk if he travelled there.

 It's a collision of sports and politics, mad nationalism, individual brilliance and dogged team-first discipline, lurid despicable cheating, grace and generosity and rusted-on certainties and surprises. I hate it, I love it. Go Australia, go Iceland, go Tunisia, go football.

Opening up old photos

I have been training a documentary film-maker over the last few weeks, showing her ways to make good use of stills in her film. She is getting these amazing pics from the State Library of Victoria archives. It's her project, not mine, so I don't want to say too much about it at this stage. And just for my own clip I have protected the identity of these fellows (pointless really as it's not recorded who they are).

Anyway – this is one of 3 examples I have made for her to use in her film trailer.

• In Photoshop I separated the foreground layers from each other and the background
• faked up all the important parts that were hidden in the original (this is the hard part)
• used AfterEffects to move the layers apart in 3D space so it's like a wafer
• then rotated that wafer so that the 3D space is visible, with layers moving across each other

It's the most fun I have had at work in ages.

Twitter break

I am on a Twitter break. Day 6 of a planned 7 days. I might extend it, I think its doing me good. Look, I'm back here for one thing.

But, although Twitter is a bit addictive and a bit of an echo chamber, its a great place for the little one-line observation you just want to put out into the world. I have no place for those now – apart from sharing with family, co-workers and the occasional friend that I bump into.

Anyway here is what I would have  tweeted (that I can think of now) over the last week.

–oO0Oo–

Loris Karius - that's two of the worst mistakes I have seen a keeper make, and they came in one game, which happened to be the world's most important club game of the year. I tipped he would be playing for Port Vale* next season but Rimini in Italy's Serie C have offered him a job. *Port Vale's home ground is owned by a man named Norman Smurthwaite.

–oO0Oo–

I was designing a sign for Woolworths Ascot (QLD) today, with Ascot up top. I wanted to design it so it was reusable for other Woolies with longer names. In checking a list of all Woolies locations I was delighted to find that in WA is Woolworths Dog Swamp.

–oO0Oo–

Does all nail polish come from Nail Poland?

–oO0Oo–

OK that is honestly all the microblog content I can think of right now.

Teletubbies theory

Theory: The Teletubbies is an elaborate treatise on advanced chemistry. Po is obviously Potassium, La-La is Lanthanum [and the rare earths generally], and I think Tinky-Winky is a new alloy of Titanium and Tungsten.

 This alloy combines the lightness of titanium with the, er, heaviness of tungsten. We don't yet know what for.

 My theory is hampered or possibly helped by the fact I don't know the name of the other Tellytubby. But I am applying for funding to find out.

Memento

This is a memento of a happy moment. I sat here with Winston looking over the brewery while a flock of homing pigeons circled, flying over us every 20 seconds or so. It was very quiet, apart from the periodic flapfest.

Is it OK to be angry about more than one thing?

Yesterday Australia exploded in uproar and disappointment at the news our Test cricket captain had confessed to pre-meditated cheating in the 3rd test in South Africa. Later in the day a backlash developed as human rights advocates contrasted our national response to ball tampering with our national response to our mandatory detention of asylum seekers – which has resulted in untold misery, many deaths and life-changing injury and mental illness.

I am gutted about the gap between expectations and reality with the cricket team. Pre-meditated cheating, pushing young Bancroft out to do it, the shitty attempt at cover up after. The first I or most Australians knew about this was Steve Smith fronting a press conference, admitting the offence.

On the other hand, our government is carrying out an established policy (with tacit ALP support) that is grinding asylum seekers into the dirt every day. Every fucking day. And like millions of other Australians I have tried to hold our government to account.

I have written to ministers, to newspapers, signed petitions, attended vigils. I have volunteered for many many hours on an Amnesty International stall at the market where we try to convey the importance of these issues to people passing by. I was even pressed into taking part in a bit of street theatre in Refugee Week once [if you know me you will know this is waaay outside my comfort zone].  There are people like Ian Rintoul and Kon Karapanagiotidis who make fighting this fight their life's work. I have given time and money to help them but I cannot do what they do.

Occasionally particular events leap out of the continuum of officially sanctioned human rights abuse. The deaths of Reza Bharati, Omid Masoumali, and Hamid Khazaei and many more. And now the attempt by the government to stop a suicidal ten-year-old coming here for treatment. These are the headline events, when every fair-minded Australian agrees - hang on, this is not right. But then it slips from the front page but those innocent people are still in mandatory detention.

Yes, there are Australians who are blind to the injustice, and in fact say they support offshore detention, tow-backs and even more punitive action against asylum seekers who have committed no crime. But 45% of Australians want asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru brought here. Undoubtedly there are cricket-lovers and proud Australians on both sides.

Freeing people from offshore detention is an every-day fight. Concern about cricket or the environment or corruption or the possums getting into your carrots; none of this means you have stopped caring about and acting on behalf of asylum seekers.

Letter to the Mercury

Charles Woolley's column about Barnaby Joyce amounts to a whitewash. Most of the media focus has been on his private life and Woolley says, fairly, they need to get over it. 

But to say "He not a mass murderer, a terrorist … or even a crooked politician” is quite a stretch and amounts to a Joyce public relations manoeuvre. 

So, we can construe Woolley is OK with two taxpayer-funded jobs created out of thin air for Vicki Campion? 

Woolley is OK with the taxpayers millions spent on a ‘security upgrade’ of Joyce’s mate’s place in Armidale that he was staying in rent free? 

Woolley is OK with Joyce’s water buybacks at twice the market rate as Agriculture Minister? 

I agree, it’s time to lay off his private life and time to take a good hard look at his conduct as minister, and hold him accountable.