You’ve heard it before - Australians are a sports-mad people. I know we’ve written it in this blog, and if you Google “sports mad Australians” you’ll get 229,000 hits (now 229,001 with this post). So I’m never surprised that a sports story is on the front page of the paper.
But last week was something else. Here’s what happened. A footy player, Barry Hall of the Sydney Swans, king hit another player in the middle of a match. “King hit” is Australian for “sucker punch”. Not sure why they call it a king hit. Maybe something to do with that famous pugilistic poobah, Don King? Or maybe Billy Jean? Anyhoo, it was captured live on TV and in lots of lurid photographs.
Since then both daily papers – The Age (lefty intellectual broadsheet) and the Herald Sun (Rupert Murdoch’s right wing tabloid) have had stories about Hall and his punch on the front page every single day, with banner headlines and lots of pictures. The stories do vary. Some are about Hall, some about the guy he hit, some about famous “king hits” in the past, sometimes they trot out a neurosurgeon to discuss possible brain injury, etc, etc. But come on people – isn’t there anything more important to write about? Australia have soldiers dying in Afghanistan, there’s a drought on, there are car crashes, and the police are having sex with transvestites in the station houses (no, I did not make that up). At a minimum, Brittany Spears must have done something in the last week!
But no, the king hit stories continued until Friday (a full week after the punch), when the Herald Sun finally led with a different story: they tracked down footy’s most famous female streaker somewhere in the bush of the Northern Territories and scooped an interview. You gotta give it up for the Sun, they found the perfect story: combine sports and naked women, and you can even splash a picture of the woman au natural on the front page to give us some historical context.
Good onya, Rupert.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
A Look at That Bike
Judging by our reader mailbag, the "Marlys Gets a Bike" story is the runaway crowd favorite. So here's a picture of Marlys and her new machine (Please pronounced the "ch" as you would in "charge"). Trust us - it has wheels.
Matt’s Quarterly Commute or How to Have a Layover
Judging by the “fan” mail, some of you noticed the dearth of new posts in the last month. Sorry to have disappointed our dear readers, but Matt was back in the States for a couple weeks and Marlys was busy entertaining guests. And oh, yeah - we have jobs, too. However, we do have some half-written posts we are going to finish and display as soon as we have a chance. But here’s something to whet your appetite until we can give you another stirring story of our Australian adventure.
Matt left the Twin Cities last Thursday and was due to arrive in Melbourne on Saturday morning. He had a 7 PM flight from MSP to LA, a two and a half hour layover, then the long flight to Melbourne. Matt normally takes the 5 PM flight from MSP because he doesn’t want to worry about him or his bags making the connection in LA. But this time the travel agent mistakenly put him on the 7 PM and he didn’t bother to change it. A critical error.
As many of you know, the weather in the Twin Cities was terrible that Thursday. Cold with a sort of rain/snow/slush combo precipitation. As a result: the airport was down to one runway for a couple hours, and they even closed for a time. The 7 PM departure became 8:45, and eventually, after an hour of sitting on the ground followed by nearly an hour de-icing, 10 PM. Matt finally arrived in LA at the uncivilized hour of 12:30 AM. (Question: 12:30 is written 0:30 on the 24 hour clock, which captures the late hour much better, don’t you think?). Qantas #94 to Melbourne was somewhere over the Catalina Islands by then.
The problem with missing the connection in LA is that all flights to Australia, whether going direct to Melbourne or Sydney or getting there via a connection, leave within a 3 hour window starting at 9 PM. So if you miss your flight, you can’t "grab the next one" or go "first thing the next morning". Matt faced the prospect of a full day in the City of Angels, no doubt in some cockroach infested fleabag hotel supplied (grudgingly) by Northwest.
All this sounds like the beginning of one of those nightmare travel stories, but thankfully it’s nothing of the sort. While still in the Twin Cities, but knowing there was no way on earth he was getting on his Qantas flight that night, Matt called our friend Anne, who lives in LA, and asked if he could spend the night at her place. And not only did Anne pick him up at the airport at 1 AM (01:00), she called the airline and got him confirmed on the next flight to Melbourne (tomorrow) while he was winging his way over the Great Plains.
So Friday, rather than being spent sitting in the El Roach-o Motel and desperately dialing to get onto a plane to Oz, proceeded completely differently. Anne lives on the beach and it was a gorgeous day in LA, so Matt slept in, got a few work projects done, took a long walk on the beach, followed by burrito lunch, a few hours reading on the beach, and then a Mexican dinner with Anne. (As many of you know, the dearth of Mexicans in Australia means there is absolutely no decent Mexican food on the continent, so the opportunity to inhale as many tortilla chips, black beans, and carnitas as possible is not to be missed). After a few cerveza and great conversation, Anne took Matt to lovely LAX, where he leisurely caught the flight to Melbourne and Marlys. Now THAT’s how an unexpected layover should work.
Thanks Anne!
Matt left the Twin Cities last Thursday and was due to arrive in Melbourne on Saturday morning. He had a 7 PM flight from MSP to LA, a two and a half hour layover, then the long flight to Melbourne. Matt normally takes the 5 PM flight from MSP because he doesn’t want to worry about him or his bags making the connection in LA. But this time the travel agent mistakenly put him on the 7 PM and he didn’t bother to change it. A critical error.
As many of you know, the weather in the Twin Cities was terrible that Thursday. Cold with a sort of rain/snow/slush combo precipitation. As a result: the airport was down to one runway for a couple hours, and they even closed for a time. The 7 PM departure became 8:45, and eventually, after an hour of sitting on the ground followed by nearly an hour de-icing, 10 PM. Matt finally arrived in LA at the uncivilized hour of 12:30 AM. (Question: 12:30 is written 0:30 on the 24 hour clock, which captures the late hour much better, don’t you think?). Qantas #94 to Melbourne was somewhere over the Catalina Islands by then.
The problem with missing the connection in LA is that all flights to Australia, whether going direct to Melbourne or Sydney or getting there via a connection, leave within a 3 hour window starting at 9 PM. So if you miss your flight, you can’t "grab the next one" or go "first thing the next morning". Matt faced the prospect of a full day in the City of Angels, no doubt in some cockroach infested fleabag hotel supplied (grudgingly) by Northwest.
All this sounds like the beginning of one of those nightmare travel stories, but thankfully it’s nothing of the sort. While still in the Twin Cities, but knowing there was no way on earth he was getting on his Qantas flight that night, Matt called our friend Anne, who lives in LA, and asked if he could spend the night at her place. And not only did Anne pick him up at the airport at 1 AM (01:00), she called the airline and got him confirmed on the next flight to Melbourne (tomorrow) while he was winging his way over the Great Plains.
So Friday, rather than being spent sitting in the El Roach-o Motel and desperately dialing to get onto a plane to Oz, proceeded completely differently. Anne lives on the beach and it was a gorgeous day in LA, so Matt slept in, got a few work projects done, took a long walk on the beach, followed by burrito lunch, a few hours reading on the beach, and then a Mexican dinner with Anne. (As many of you know, the dearth of Mexicans in Australia means there is absolutely no decent Mexican food on the continent, so the opportunity to inhale as many tortilla chips, black beans, and carnitas as possible is not to be missed). After a few cerveza and great conversation, Anne took Matt to lovely LAX, where he leisurely caught the flight to Melbourne and Marlys. Now THAT’s how an unexpected layover should work.
Thanks Anne!
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