AFL Grand Final Brisbane 18.14.122 d Geelong 11.9.75

Note: I use 'AFL' to refer to the Australian Football League and not the game of Australian Rules football; although other people increasingly use the term 'AFL' to refer to the sport.

I went to the Southern Football League Premier division grand final here in Hobart last weekend. Clarence upset Lauderdale (Clarence are coached by Grant Fagan, brother of Brisbane Lions' coach Chris). It was a great occasion, a packed crowd at North Hobart Oval, Tasmania's traditional "league headquarters". I should write a post about that instead, really.

I realised during this week, the lead up to the AFL Grand Final, that I am pretty fed up with the AFL. Every week here there is another twist in the saga of the new Hobart stadium which has been mandated by the AFL. We don't need it, can't afford it.

There was so much that was great about the local 'granny' that AFL just doesn't provide. Affordable tickets, food and drinks. The freedom to move around the ground to different vantage points. A PA system that was feeble and only in action when there was actually an announcement, so you could chat to your mates. And a program of three games; colts, womens and then mens.

AFL is a big business in Australia, yet pays no tax. It is a loud voice on social issues of countering racism, fostering respect for women, condemning use of illegal drugs and acceptance of all sexual preferences and gender identities. But it fails its own proclaimed standards constantly (eg Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.was paid between 2 and 5 million A$ to play at yesterday's grand final).

The league dominates news reporting, and has made an art form of dropping distracting news tidbits any time another sport gets a bit of traction. Once all newspapers in footy states (WA, SA, Vic and Tas especially) had big rosters of football journos. Now the AFL itself employs a lot of those people; which means criticism of the league tends not to come from the mainstream.

Anyway, back to me. I was feeling shirty and when people asked if I had big grand final plans I said no not really. I had a lot of negativity and didn't want to impose it on anyone else. So I dodged the entertainment and breathless excitement of the lead up; and switched on for the first bounce with the TV on mute and ABC radio synced up. the ABC panel were unanimous tipping Geelong.

I have a natural dislike of this Geelong team so I was backing Brisbane. Coco sat on my chest and started chewing her blanket. And… I slept through the first half. Scores were low and level at half time, seems it was an old fashioned arm-wrestle with pressure through the roof and no-one able to break free. Which is great for the purists but my unconscious brain said very clearly to me "you do not need or want to watch this".

I watched the third quarter, which was again very even for most of it, until Brisbane kicked a few unanswered to get out to 19 points up at the last break. I took the radio off for a run; in that time Brisbane kicked more goals and by the time I got back in front of the TV; Geelong were gone. There is nothing in sport like a massive occasion that is dead as a contest yet must roll on because it's on the clock. Brisbane were ecstatic, Geelong were pathetic.

Bailey Smith is a flashy young Geelong player who left the Bulldogs last year to play in a better team. He appeared to love the limelight then had a mental health crisis where he hated the limelight but now again seems pretty keen on the limelight. He has limelight issues. Anyway he's a star of the side and played badly and his team lost – and I am not proud of this but it made me happy. Get a haircut son.

Seeing the handshakes after a game, especially a big one, is really important to me. As soon as they cut away to an interview the TV was off.

I'm happy for Chris Fagan the coach, he seems to be a good guy and he's from Queenstown in Tasmania like two of my best mates. It’s nice that the brothers both won against the odds.

That's it for male footy until next season. But AFLW (womens) has been going for the last six weeks and continues today. I feel much more positive about it. Go Tiges.

Suburban footy grounds of Tasmania

 A companion piece to the Country Footy Grounds collection. The text links take you to Google Street View, and the images are captured from there too. If you enjoy roaming around Google Maps like I do you might enjoy this.

Claremont (SFL Community League)

Pontville Oval (home of Brighton Robins)
(SFL Community League)

Anzac Park, Lindisfarne Two Blues
(SFL Community League)

Geilston Bay Oval, OHA Football Club

(Old Scholars Football Association)

Cadbury factory at Claremont

This film from 1966 was part of a series, on Australia's cities, designed to entice mostly Brits and other northern Europeans to come and raise a family in sunny Australia.

There is a section about the Cadbury factory, which shows the workforce arriving on a red suburban train. I was dimly aware that there was a train line out to the factory but seeing the train go right past the entrance is quite arresting (at 6 mins 17sec).

I did some research to work out where the line was; as it's not the there now. The arrow points to the white building the train is passing in the film. This is late 1940s.

And this is what's there now. The train line and the smaller buildings on that side are gone. The next scene in the film shows staff walking towards the building; that seems like they are coming from the train on the south side of the factory. But they are actually approaching the north side of the factory. This facade is all built in now but I think you can see it in the satellite image.

 

Here's some beautiful images I found in Tas Archives from 100 years ago. The story of the chocolate factory is pretty interesting but although I like chocolate I haven't paid much attention to it ever.

Winston dream

I had a vivid dream that Winston visited me. All I remember is holding his huge head in my arms, and getting the full Winston experience. Floppy, squashy, wet, jowly and smelly. Silky hot ears, massive rubbery nose. Bad breath and gloopy saliva. I was conscious in the dream that this was just a visit, that he's actually gone, and that this was a special treat.

Evening stroll above South Hobart

I really love South Hobart. I worked from home today, knocked off before it got too dark and went for a walk. Up on Huon Rd you get different perspective on everything.

Earliest memories

Post-Publication Contextual Note: I was born in in March 1968.

In August 1970 Sally was born; I certainly don't remember that. But I remember the smells of baby formula and rubber Nuk nipples for milk bottles. I remember trips to the Clinic for check ups on The Baby; they put The Baby in a big bowl on a set of scales and calculated the weight by sliding different metal weights up and down. I thought it was very strange. I think this was the Clinic, in lower Alexander St.

1971 We had a concrete slab in our backyard in Burnie, behind the garage. I must ask why we had a concrete slab. I don't remember it being poured but I remember it being new. I was riding a blue Dinky tricycle around it while dad stacked firewood. For some reason I have always remembered this and being 3.

Mine was something like this.

The slab behind the garage.

This is mum and I years later, probably 1978 as I have a World Series Cricket shirt on. I think I got glasses in 1976 but I'm not wearing them, I was not a fan.

1972 I went to Child Minding which was in Charles Street close to Burnie Primary School. I guess Jacki was enrolled in Grade 1 there so it was convenient. I remember a girl named Stacey, I remember having a favourite quiet corner of the verandah, and I remember eating playdoh there.

1973 I went to West Park Kindergarten, next to West Park football ground and the Burnie bowls club on one side; and the train line and West Beach on the other. I remember many things about kinder.

This was the original Burnie High School, built in 1929. West Park Kinder operated out here in my day. It burned down in 2007.

• Flavoured milk in translucent white plastic sachets. Banana, chocolate, strawberry.
• Doing maths on a slate with chalk. The slate was green, in a wooden frame. I don't remember doing writing on slates, just maths.
• My teacher was Mrs Ingram and she was oldish and very kind.
• Excursions to Burnie Park over the highway. Mrs Ingram and another teacher would hold up traffic for us to cross which sounds mad but possibly there were no traffic lights then? Like everything when you are little, it just was.
• There was a (disconnected) olde tyme phone on the wall, the kind with a separate talking tube and listening piece.
• There was a collection of bikes with training wheels and scooters and we would parade around the path on these.
• I remember "painting the shed" - there was a playhouse in the yard and we would paint it with pots of water and big brushes.
• Car pooling. There were five kids, and our parents would take turns to collect us all and drop us off. There was me, Andrew McLaren and Julie Docker, Elizabeth from Paraka St and someone else. Julie's mother had a blue 2-door sedan and I often tripped over the seat belt when clambering out of the back. I think Macca's mum had a yellow Beetle.
• There's a photo of Macca and I and about ten other kids bouncing on a big tractor inner tube; and that has kept alive my memory of some of the kids who were there. Within a few years of starting primary school it was hard to remember wh0 you'd known before and who was new.

EDIT: I found the photo

Macca (Andrew McLaren) is front right, looking a the camera. I'm behind him in the stripes. 

Some early things that I can't really put a date on

• We also went to a sort of family daycare, just around the corner from home at the top of Bay Street. It might have been called Auntie Pat's or something like that.
• Baby Sally fell one storey onto concrete at the Health Glo squash centre, but she wasn't seriously injured. She was upstairs with other kids, a lady was supposed to be minding them while mum and dad played squash downstairs. There was a gate at the top of the spiral stairs and Sally just crawled under it and straight down through the central space. It must have been so dreadful for anyone who saw it.
• I also did a plummet and got away with it; off the steam train in Burnie Park onto the concrete surrounds.
• Hanging around the grass tennis courts when they were down in Avon St just off Burnie Park, while mum and dad were playing.
• Making friends with Andrea Viney while our fathers played for the Burnie High teachers' cricket team. There was a big ditch around the outside of the boundary and we were ditch pals. As we are to this day!

MND Animations

I have been making animations and illustrations for the Wicking Institute’s health education MOOCs (massive open online courses) since 2016.

This animation is a background for a clip I completed in January 2025 and I was really pleased with how it came out. Adobe After Effects has "fake 3d" in that you can take a flat item and rotate it any way in space that you like; but it’s still flat. And you can move a "camera" in three dimensions through a space. So this is a series of flat items arranged in the most complex way I can manage, and then a camera moves through them to suggest the interior of the motor cortex of the human brain.

It’s very satisfying to work on freelance jobs like this because it is at the other end of technical and design complexity to most of my day job, which is producing signage for Woolworths and BIG W. I do love my day job, but it's technically very straightforward.