On Sports That Aren't, part 2

“Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

Those cats were fast as lightning

In fact it was a little bit fright'ning

But they fought with expert timing”

~ ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas

from his album “Kung Fu Fighting and Other Great Love Songs”, 1974

A while back, I pondered a bit about the difference, in my mind, between a sport and a game (you can read that post here).  It seems to me that many games seek to see themselves as elite sport when really, they are not.  Elite sport is the very apex of physical and mental competition.  I argued, at the time, that activities such as horse racing, golf, fishing and hunting cannot be seriously considered part of the pantheon we know as sport.

It was on the topic of hunting that I admit that I was challenged.  As a pacifist, I don't like guns.  I understand the need to have them and use them in remarkable circumstances, but I am not a fan.  A gun is a weapon; weapons have no place in elite sport.  Mixing guns and with any other activity (such as skiing, as in the biathlon) does not make it a sport either.  If it did, then anything added to legitimate sport could be considered likewise.  What's preventing some enterprising soul from adding knitting to running and calling it a track and field event?

What then of Olympic pursuits such as the hammer throw, shot put and javelin?  The instruments of such competitions find their origins as weapons too.  Quite true.  It is perhaps amusing to note that the hammer throw was not always a heavy ball on a wire but an actual sledge hammer.  The javelin is essentially a spear.  The shot put was once either a heavy rock or a cannonball.  These facts, and that all the official measurements in the competition rules are expressed in imperial measures, lends these contests a faintly comical air.   

Yes, it's also true that the marathon has similar ancient origins to these 'throwing' sports, celebrating Pheidippides's fabled run from the site of the Battle of Marathon to Athens (whereupon he keeled over dead), but I doubt there's a fair argument against the marathon as indeed an elite activity, even if the exact distance (26 miles, 385 yards) is a rather odd one.

So, to sum up, any contest involving a weapon, ancient or modern, gets the big ol' thumbs down from the On Writing Blog.

Same goes for boxing, and other hand-to-hand combat contests.  I have very similar issues with boxing as I have with hunting; it's barbaric.  Boxing and its ilk have a unique 'quality' that other sports fortunately lack - the object of the exercise is to hurt your opponent as badly and as quickly as possible.  I'll have to cop to the inevitable accusations that I lack the stomach for such things.  As stated, I am something of a pacifist, and there is plenty enough violence in this world without adding to it in the name of sport.  Besides, I suspect that boxing is not dissimilar to horse racing in that it may very well find itself without much following at all if it wasn't for the gambling element, or indeed the pay-per-view receipts.

Another selection of sports that I feel lacks the merits of genuine sport are those activities that are synchronised, such as synchronised swimming or synchronised diving.  Has anyone else ever watched these things in the Olympics and wondered if they'd just stepped into the Twilight Zone?  They are supremely strange.  I'll concede that they take skill, fitness and training, but there is an inherent silliness about it all.  If indeed sports can be improved by merely doubling an element of it, then why not do this with other competitions?  Surely a second football added to an AFL or soccer match is no more a foolish idea than synchronised-anything, or reducing cricket to a mindless twenty tip-it-and-run overs for that matter?

I also take issue with the kinds of competitions where the contest is decided by subjective voting, usually by a panel of judges.  While there is plenty of subjectivity in the process of sport (ever yelled at an umpire who has a seemingly casual familiarity with the rules?), it doesn't take much of a stretch before the Ukrainian judge is making deals with the one from Turkey, and the next thing you know, the Olympics starts becoming the Eurovision Song Contest.  Sure, it may be entertaining, but the winner usually ends up being a cross-eyed hunchback drag queen from Kazakhstan.

I suppose that in the end, I prefer my sport to be a little more meat-and-potatoes.  A physical and mental test.  Sublime skills, gracefully executed.  An exciting spectacle.  True athletes, testing their mettle against each other, and sometimes even against themselves, exploits rising above the achievements of the common man.  And above all, let's call sports sports, and let's call games something other than sports.

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**

On The Biggest Loser

“Your butt is wide, well mine is too

Just watch your mouth or I'll sit on you

The word is out, better treat me right

'Cause I'm the king of cellulite”

~ ‘Fat’, lyrics by Weird Al Yankovic

from his album “Even Worse”, 1988

Reality TV is an odd beast.  Reality television shows are so named due to their lack of a script and outside of the hosts, the players are supposedly people just like you and I. That's the theory at least.  Since reality TV in most of its current guises doesn't resemble any kind of reality that I'm familiar with, I suspect that those two defining pillars are shaky at best.  Another factor would have to be judicious editing, which creates the strong suggestion of storylines, embellishes characters (both heroic and villainous), and designs dramatic tensions where little likely exist in isolation.

I've been suckered into watching more of these shows than I'm proud to admit.  My family too.  A particular favourite amongst my household, much to my chagrin, is The Biggest Loser (Channel 10).

I remember when this show was first announced, I assumed it was a show designed to humiliate the less fortunate among us.  I was never so naive as to think that reality TV would not slump to such lows, as shows of the calibre of The Bachelor, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Big Brother and Jersey Shore will attest.  It seems reality TV never ceases to find new and unusual ways to take advantage of the physically weak, the intellectually dull, the emotionally frail, and the morally bankrupt in the zealous pursuit of viewers’ loyalties and advertisers’ dollars.

 The Biggest Loser, for the uninitiated, has us follow a number of overweight and obese contestants as they attempt to lose as much weight as possible over a number of weeks.  They do this by altering their diet and exercising under the direction of team leaders, essentially personal trainers.  The trainers are suitable for the task, lean and muscular, both buff and holding an often informal relationship with the English language.  Shannon Ponton, in keeping with the show's custom of never allowing an opportunity for cross-promotion go begging, has released a self-help book entitled (I wish I was kidding) Hard'n Up.  Über-serious pseudo-drill sergeant Steve "The Commando" Willis wears camouflage pants and black boots, and is so tough he wears dark glasses indoors.  Tiffany Hall trains her "ninjas" in a groan-worthy "do-Jane" (as opposed to a dojo).  Never does an episode go by without these cartoon characters delivering some pompous pseudo-intellectual pop-psychology.

Worse still are this season's contestants.  While there have been some remarkable success stories in previous seasons in terms of weight loss and lifestyle changes (mainly consisting of getting jobs hawking weight loss products in the ad breaks during latter seasons of the show - how's that for pop culture eating itself?), it seems that this year's contestants have assumed that they will have similar success by virtue of merely appearing on the show.  Hardly any of them have been willing to allow the trainers to seriously push them to their limits in order to achieve significant weight losses.  The trainers are constantly claiming that they can "sense that something is wrong", that so-and-so is not "doing the work", that they will confront them with some "hard truths", and then breathlessly advise the viewing audience afterwards that the contestant has "really turned a corner".  The contestant is usually just as half-arsed the next day.

Of course this just adds to the incessant, maddening drama of the whole thing.  Given that the contestants are largely secluded from the outside world at "Camp Biggest Loser", supplied plenty of healthy food, educated in regards to their lifestyles and given access to state-of-the-art gym facilities, there is no earthly reason why they shouldn't lose weight hand over chubby fist.  The truth is that these people often have significant psychological baggage associated with their immense size, none of which is helped by appearing on what is essentially a glorified game show.  I've come to a rather stunning conclusion that lends some sense to what is an increasingly bizarre exercise.

The Biggest Loser is not about weight loss.  Not at all.

Consider first the main theme of this year's series, Biggest Loser - Singles.  All the contestants are without partners, ranging from the "never-been-kissed" to the lonely to the divorced, which the show has promoted heavily.  The show’s host mercilessly interrogates the contestants as to their longings and heartbreaks and presents their breakdowns in vivid high-definition technicolour.  The message writ large is that if you are overweight, you can abandon all hope that anyone will ever love you for who you are.  The contestants’ stories are the entertainment, and when two of the younger contestants this season began to show affection towards one another, the production was all over them like white on rice.  The young man involved, a twenty-year-old named Hamish, became a favourite of my kin, due to his propensity to tantrum and bawl at the merest of provocations.  The show pushed his relationship with twenty-four-year-old Michelle hard as the discovery of love between two mature young people, when in reality it seemed more like puppy love between children.  When an exercise-averse Hamish was inevitably given the boot, the producers found several excuses to bring him back into the show.  They did something very similar in the first season when public favourite Adro was dumped near the show's conclusion.  The show's producers created a ludicrous contrivance for Adro to re-enter the show and he went on to eventually win the grand prize.  

Furthermore, consider one of the show's staples: the element of the contest known as Temptation.  Temptation is where the contestants are offered treats in the form of calorie rich foods, the acceptance and consumption of which allows them to compete against each other for immunity from eviction from the show.  Contestants will often gorge themselves stupid during Temptation only to lose to another contestant who was willing to go just that little bit further.  Young Hamish was a frequent player of the Temptation game, his eyes lighting up gleefully every time another tasty morsel was offered to him.  It can't possibly be argued that a show that is dedicated to weight loss would assemble such a group of people, with all their frailties and proclivities and offer them rewards of that which got them to the state they're in to start with.  At best, Temptation is morally suspect.

It's really all about the drama, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.  This season's been positively obese with it.

The current season of the show is ending very soon, and I doubt this year's denouement will see the examples of extraordinary weight loss that previous seasons have. There just hasn't been much spark with this bunch, no fire in their oversized bellies.  There is often a discernible shift in the mental attitude of the contestants during the season when the lifestyle changes they embark on 'click'.  Not so much this year.  The nature of the current series appears to have delivered participants with more baggage than previous seasons.   Perhaps this is also a conceit aimed at delivering more visceral drama than ever as escalation is needed to maintain the audience's attention and avoid the apathy that comes with familiarity.  This baggage has been more than the beefcake trainers have been able to overcome and, using the show's parlance, the contestants have repeatedly failed to "pull big numbers".  The show is unconcerned; as I said, it's not at all about weight loss.

I'll not be sad to see this season end.  It's also likely I'll rue the day when another season is announced and the overwhelming barrage of cheesy advertisements begins to assault us next year.  I'll be looking for ways to distract the family from engaging with the show.  I'll try, and maybe even succeed.

In the meantime, doesn't this next season of Masterchef look promising?

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**

On Why I Love Movies

“I don’t need no superstar 

‘Cause I accept you as you are

You won’t be denied

‘Cause I’m satisfied

With the love that you can inspire

You don’t have to be a star, baby

To be in my show”

~”You Don’t Have To Be a Star (To Be in My Show)” by James Dean & John Glover

From the Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jnr album I Hope We Get to Love in Time, 1976

It all started with a scathing Internet article written by a blogger named Zack Carlson.  It was Mr Carlson's premise that the use of computer generated effects is the bane of modern cinema.  There's a degree of merit in his arguments.  In a follow-up article, he instigated fans of cinema to "foam" and "gnash" at why they hate movies, even though in his discussion he manages to find virtue in those things he claims to despise.  This was countered by another writer on the same website using the handle Hulk.  Hulk, who bizarrely insists on maintain his chosen avatar's voice by referring to himself in the third person and yelling in all caps, discussed what he loved about the movies (click here to read it).  Eric 'Quint' Vespe from aintitcoolnews.com took Hulk's baton and ran with it, openly aping his style, and challenging movie lovers everywhere to continue what he describes as a "geek chain letter" (Quint's article can be found here).  Hulk's article and Quint's continuation of the same thought has inspired me, as a lover of cinema, to follow their lead.  So with a tip of the hat to Hulk and Quint, I will add my link to the chain.  Why do I love the movies?

I love the movies...

Because when Legolas kills an oliphaunt, it only counts as one.

Because those aren't two pillows!

Because to this day, in every student protest you'll find someone carrying a 'Save Ferris' placard.

Because the Stonehenge monument at the back of the stage really could have been crushed by a dwarf.

Because of the awesome nobility and dignity Gregory Peck brings to Atticus Finch.

Because when this baby reaches eighty-eight miles per hour... you're going to see some serious shit.

Because no matter how many times I see the montage of Carl and Ellie's life together it brings me to tears.  Every last time.

Because what we do in life echoes in eternity.

Because of when Arcee and Springer take the time to teach Daniel how to use his father's old exo-suit.

Because they're going to need a bigger boat.

Because of the way Jack Sparrow runs.

Because of the sheer heart-in-your-mouth shock of Kane's death during breakfast.

Because of how Holmes sums up his opponent's weaknesses and discerns every step of his downfall in mere moments before executing everything exactly as he foresaw it.

Because of Sharlto Copley.

Because of Michelle Pfeifer's meow.

Because Jessica's not bad, she's just drawn that way.  And because she loves her husband because he makes her laugh.

Because of Gollum and Sméagol's conversation.

Because fish are friends, not food.

Because of 23-19! 23-19!

Because when Leia tells Han she loves him, he replies "I know".

Because of the perfect use of an unlikely remix of In the Hall of the Mountain King during, of all things, a rowing race.

Because I can't decide if Inception is unfolding in eight layers of reality at the same time, or only seven.  And because I wish so desperately that the film went for just another three seconds just so I can see if the spinning top falls over.

Because sometimes you need to run before you can walk.

Because of how Gene Wilder sings Pure Imagination.

Because of how Indy shoots the guy with the sword.

Because Vincent never saved anything for the swim back.

Because you can't stop the signal.

Because Rusty thinks they're going to need eleven.

Because of every James Bond theme song.  Except the Madonna one.

Because the kids used to call him Mr Glass.

Because they're on a mission from God.

Because of Sam's unswerving devotion to Frodo.

Because of Roy Batty's beautiful and tragic monologue:  "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain. Time to die".  And then he very quietly does.

Because you wouldn't like him when he's... hungry?

Because Dr Venkman got slimed.

Because Henry Snr slaps his son for blasphemy.

Because of the way Phil wakes up to Sonny and Cher singing I Got You Babe... again and again and again and again and again and...

Because of the way Sam Gerard wants is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in a six-mile radius.

Because Number Five laughs at the joke about the Priest, the Minister and the Rabbi.

Because of Sam Rockwell.

Because of the brilliant moment when Neo realises his potential and sees the code in the Matrix for the first time.

Because if Superman's got Lois, who's got Superman?

Because of John Rambo's devastating monologue at the end of First Blood, delivered by Sylvester Stallone with sensitivity and pathos.

Because of the slow-motion shoot-out on the railway station stairs.

Because of the Joker's disappearing pencil magic trick.

Because of Woody's "YOU! ARE! A! TOY!!" rant at Buzz.

Because of the way all the toys join hands on the way into the furnace.

Because of the moment Dave Kujan deduces who Keyser Söze really is.

Because of Tyler Durden's distorted vision of the future, hauntingly explained as the picture fades in and out of black.

Because of the moment of complete anguish when Bond's heart irretrievably breaks as Vesper drowns.

Because of the way the men in the queue at the employment offIce slowly start dancing to Donna Summer's Hot Stuff.

Because of the moment when Optimus declares "Today, in the name of freedom, we take the battle to them".  And almost everything after that moment.

Because of Gandalf's slow smile when Aragorn asks him "What does your heart tell you?".

Because of Helen Parr's parenting.  And because of how the Parr family reminded us to celebrate what is truly special, and not just the mediocre.

Because The Shoveller and his teammates have a date with destiny... and it looks like she ordered the lobster.

Because Andy Dufresne crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.

Because of every single solitary line in The Princess Bride, every last one of them eminently quotable.

Because of Heath Ledger's extraordinarily nuanced performance in his penultimate movie appearance.

Because Josh Pence's performance in The Social Network is one of the best you'll never see.

Because you should never, ever feed your Mogwai after midnight.

That's only some of the many, many reasons why I love cinema. I'm aware that some of my reasons have been similarly expressed by Hulk and Quint before me, but isn't that one of the great things about movies?  Even though what you like and what I like may differ in places, there's great beauty in shared passions, a joy you feel when something that jazzes you also jazzes others.  You've read my reasons.  You may share some with me.  No doubt you have many more of your very own.  If you love movies, why not consider making a contribution to the geek chain letter yourself?

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**

On Sports That Aren't

“It’s more than a game, more than a game

All the fortune and fame, it’s more than a game”

~ ‘More Than a Game’, by Darren Sanicki & John Albert

performed by Chris Doheny as the theme song to The Footy Show (AFL), 1994

In the last On Writing Blog I wrote about the difference between a sport and a game.  To my mind, any contest where overweight and/or middle aged individuals can be competitive at the elite level is not a sport, it is a game.  Sports include football (of almost any variety), rugby (ditto), tennis, cricket, many Olympic sports, that sort of thing.  Games include Monopoly, Scrabble, chess, tiddlywinks, golf, and the like.

Golf, anecdotally described by Mark Twain as "a good walk ruined", is very much a game.  Many players have supreme strength and fitness, I grant you.  Professional golfers are frequently dedicated to improving their skills and can certainly be considered elite athletes.  And then there are blokes like John Daly.  John Daly is a hard-living chain smoker who drinks like a fish and has a girth that would bring a Biggest Loser contestant to tears.  I likewise point you towards Jack Nicklaus, who played his last major tournament at the age of forty-six, after which he joined the senior’s tour.  Examples such as these gents go a fair way to proving that golf well and truly sits within the realm of a game rather than a sport.

Other similar games-not-sports are darts and pool/billiards.  Tremendous skill involved, for sure, but as long as you're pretty good at geometry and basic physics, you're already half way there.  Darts, much like golf, can lend itself to those with physiques on the rotund side as an activity of choice.  In addition, you can actually actively participate in darts while holding (and not spilling!) your beer.  While we're on that subject, what kind of game has participants flinging sharp objects around indoors, and not just any old indoors, but the kind of indoors where alcoholic beverages are often a fixture?  When does that particular idea start getting clever?

Another activity that is in serious need of a shift from the sports section of the newspaper is horse racing, for several reasons.  Firstly, it would cease to exist entirely if the gambling component was to stop - that is to say, horse racing is unable to sustain itself on its own merits.  Secondly, there are two primary human competitors in horse racing: trainers and jockeys.  It can be confidently argued that it takes some serious skill and discipline to ride a race horse, but let's face it, the horse is still working much harder than the rider.  Black Caviar would still be winning races even if it were me in the saddle.  That leaves us with the trainers, of which there would be one less if whichever geriatrician who is keeping Bart Cummings alive was slightly less skilled.  On balance, therefore, horse racing fails the sport/game test.  Thirdly, the largest proportion of the live Spring Racing Carnival audience are overdressed Kath and Kim wannabes who care far more about celebrity spotting, swilling bubbly and drunkenly disposing of their dignity than admiring horse flesh.  This audience does nothing to promote the activity as a worthwhile and substantial pursuit.

Anything where shooting a gun is an element is not a sport, because putting guns in the hands of most civilians is just usually an idiotic excercise.  I would suggest this is the case regardless of whether you're firing the weapon at an inanimate object or not, but let's run hunting under the microscope a bit shall we?

Have you ever seen those car stickers that read "I hunt and I vote"?  They are second only to those mind-numbing "My Family" stickers on my list of dumb things to display on your car (here's a thought: who even remotely cares about the members of your family while one is stuck in traffic and forced to stare at your car's back window?). Let's get one thing straight: the fact that you hunt does not make your vote any more valuable than anyone else's, rendering your moronic little sticker as witless as the act of hunting animals for 'sport'.

Let me explain.  There's a comic book story I love*, in which a character is being mentored at gardening by an older man in her father's employ.  As it turns out, the man was an assassin in a civilian resistance during World War Two.  When the young girl accidentally kills a sapling, the old gardener is distraught.  She asks him why, since he has no issue killing weeds, he would be so upset over one small tree?

"It is a living thing and it is in our care," he says.  "We kill the weeds, but we are careful not to take any pleasure in it."

Hunting is bloodthirsty and barbaric.  I can appreciate the need to kill for food and I understand the need to cull animals that become pests and a hazard to ecosystems.  I have experienced firsthand the need to euthanise animals to ease their suffering.  We kill, but ought to take great care not to enjoy it.  The mindless slaughter of animals for entertainment is not in any way, shape or form a sport.  Not only does it fail the sport verses game test, but it's ridiculously one-sided.  First camouflage and arm the animals and then we can talk.

Fishing?  Not a sport, more of a diversion and an excuse to not clean out the garage, or perhaps the means by which one acquires the perfect complement to hot fried chips.  Big game fishing?  Certainly it takes a great deal of knowledge and skill, but fails the sport verses game test once again.  And, as with hunting, it's got barbarism written all over it.

Novelist George Orwell is quoted to have said: “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting”. I beg to differ.  Sport can be taken too seriously, to be sure.  However, sport, real and genuine sport, can also be the thrilling pursuit of physical and mental excellence, the search for outstanding human achievement, where men and women look to find their measure and often uncover the extraordinary.  Whether you win or lose, first or last, the achievement is not just in the result, but in the act of competition.  As such, sport is far too important a pursuit to be lumped in with the silly, the pointless, the simple and the cruel.

* The story is found in Wolverine, Volume 1, No. 102, written by Larry Hama, published by Marvel Comics in June 1996.

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**

On Cricket

“I don’t like cricket, oh no

I love it”

~ ‘Dreadlock Holiday’, by 10cc

from the album “Bloody Tourists”, 1978

Ah, summer is upon us, the cicadas are chirping, the television is uniformly terrible and people whine on Facebook about the weather, whether it is hotter or colder than their personal ideal.  Actually, that last one happens pretty much year round.  Seriously, if you want relatively uniform weather, perhaps Melbourne is not the town for you.  For the most part, summer brings good beach weather, although I don't get out to the beach as much as I would have liked in recent years (WonderWoman has a bit of an aversion). I do rather enjoy that summer also brings with it the joys of the cricket. 

Cricket is a wonderful sport.  It has all the hallmarks of a great sporting endeavour.  While I have a little difficulty with comparisons of sport with war, or even gladiatorial duels, I would say that the contest of cricket can indeed be epic.  The game is viewed by some as long periods of dull nothingness as the batsmen await the next delivery, with brief flurries of activity after the ball is delivered.  It is in these periods that plans are made, mind games are played, and men are sorted from boys.  Exquisite skills are essential, likewise endurance, but both can be rendered inert without a depth of focus that few possess.   

For the record, I should make my definition of sport clear, as opposed to games: essentially, any competitive activity where overweight, middle-aged individuals can hold their own at the highest level is not a sport, it is a game.  Football, cricket, rugby - sports.  Scrabble, tiddlywinks, darts, golf - games. *

Cricket is far better watching than that other sport that pervades our airwaves in January, tennis.  I have nothing against tennis, and can enjoy a good match as much as the next blogger, but it seems to me to be the domain of the over-privileged and spoilt at the elite level.  Perhaps that is more a perception issue than fact, but there you are.  What I can't stomach is women's tennis.  Just can't tolerate it at all.  With all the grunting that goes on, it's often like listening to asthmatic wookiees wailing on each other.  It's just unnecessary and distracting and frankly selfish of the players.  Further, one only needs to listen to one self-important "Me, me, me" press conference from a Williams sister to have a bad taste left in one's mouth.

But I digress.  Where was I?  Cricket.  When I say cricket, I am not including the fireworks, froth and pseudo-excitement of the twenty over version.  I'm unsure why they don't just call it baseball and be done with it.  Why is it that they insist on altering the very essence of a game in order to make it acceptable to the MTV generation? It seems to me that those in charge of cricket have so little faith in its appeal that they feel the need to dumb it down to such a degree.  Perhaps such people ought not to be in charge of the game at all.

It's the five day test match cricket for me.  It's the only sport that I can think of that allows time for meal breaks.  At times, five arduous days of play is unable to separate the weary combatants.

  I would happily watch every delivery of all five days of play, if it weren't for the banal dullards that barely pass for a commentary team of the television broadcasters, Channel Nine.  Half of them were employed in the Kerry Packer days of World Series Cricket in the 'seventies, and seem to have it written in their contracts that  the only way they can be extricated from their jobs is to switch the commentary box for a pine one.  Some pundits may suggest that Richie Benaud has the look of a cadaver about him already.  The addition of younger types has done nothing but decrease the depth of the shallow talent pool that already exists.  Mark Nicholas has appears to have swallowed a thesaurus, with everything being amazing, fantastic, stupendous, and incredible.  James Brayshaw, surely the least capable commentator of any sport in the country (have you heard the Triple M football commentary? It's nigh unlistenable), is jingoistic and sadly uninteresting.  As for former test cricket greats Michael Slater, Mark Taylor and Ian Healy, as astute and insightful commentators go, they make fabulous cricketers.

The commentary on the radio, specifically the ABC is often derided as "Dad's Army" type stuff, the cruel nickname of "Tobin Brothers" sometimes being unfairly bestowed on them.  I beg to differ.  It is rich and entertaining, descriptive and absorbing.  It comes, I imagine, from the medium the commentators find themselves in - when the picture that speaks a thousand words is lacking, actual words must fill the void, and the creativity, humour, knowledge and intellect of the commentariat must come forth.  It does so on the ABC.  It dismally fails to do so on Channel Nine.  Without the need to fill a space, Nine's commentators have become lazy, hurling pointless platitudes, urging viewers to spend money on useless memorabilia ("Endorsed by Cricket Australia!" as if that is some kind of selling point) and committing the worst possible crime for a commentator - stating the screaming, bleeding obvious.  It's turgid stuff.  Worse still is the television network's arrogant penchant for delaying their telecast by some seconds in order to make listening to the far superior radio commentary whilst watching the TV broadcast difficult.  Difficult but not impossible, thankfully.

I would imagine that Cricket Australia has a degree of control over the broadcaster's choices.  If they wish to appeal to a wider audience, perhaps they need to make a few prudent decisions about those who form the face of the cricket telecast, other than the players themselves.  But, as stated earlier, those in charge don't always seem to have the very best interests of the sport in mind.  More's the pity.  I really hope they don't kill the sport entirely.  Summer just wouldn't be the same without it.

* There is far more to say about what is and isn’t a sport, and more controversies to be had no doubt. I will expand on it a bit further next time…

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**

On New Year's Resolutions

“Let’s turn over a new leaf

And baby let’s make promises

That we can keep

And call it a New Year’s Resolution”

~ ‘New Year’s Resolution’, by Randle Caltron, Willie Parker & Mary Frierson

from the Otis Redding & Carla Thomas album “King & Queen”, 1967

A new year has turned over and the time for resolutions is upon us.  You know, those promises we make to ourselves and others that usually last about three weeks into January.  Things that we are going to achieve in 2012, come hell or high water.  Let's hope the Mayans were not right about the whole end-of-the-world thing, because if they were, boy, ain't we going to look silly?

I'm not sure why one needs to resolve to do anything much starting on the exact date of January 1st, as if the changing of the year is any more significant than any other day.  In truth it's much like birthdays, where you make a big fuss simply because the Earth has gone around the sun once since... the last time you made a big fuss.  It's been suggested to me that the one-two punch that is Christmas and New Year is a period of holidays and hence a time of reflection and introspection.   Personally, I find being a part of a twenty-four-hour-a-day, three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-a-year industry means that holidays are no more associated with the end of the year than any other time.  Mind you, making August 23rd resolutions doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I happened upon a list of resolutions belonging to an American left-wing folk singer/songwriter by the name of Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), written in 1942.  They're amusing and quaint, sometimes even a little profound, and certainly worthy of some consideration.

(For the sake of clarity, Woody's list is in bold, copied here exactly as he wrote them, minus the small diagrams he drew on each line of the original list.)

1. Work more and better

2. Work by a schedule

I would very much have liked our Woody to start gently, but on he dives, straight into some real toughies.  I would dearly love to "work more and better" but really fear I'll have to settle for one or the other.  Both may be a bit of an overreach.  Not that overreaching isn't a worthwhile pursuit, but I think if you're going to make a list of things you want to do, it should at least be achievable.  Best keep the overreaching to yourself.  I've never been really good at that.  Maybe this year.

Schedules are all well and good and I have been recently keeping the diary/calendar a bit more comprehensively.  Next is to increase the whole twenty-four hours in a day to twenty-eight or so and I'll be all set.

3.  Wash teeth if any

4.  Shave

5.  Take bath

I certainly hope to end the year with the same number of teeth as at the start.

Shaving is overrated, and I would do it much less than I do already if it wasn't for the fact that I get somewhat less smooches from WonderWoman when I'm going the hedgehog option.

And for all those who question my sense of personal hygiene, I say this - I will continue to have a really good wash once a week, whether I need it or not.  Best not find yourself downwind.

6.  Eat good - fruit - vegetables - milk

7.  Drink very scant if any

Goodness me but my eating habits are appalling.  If they only stopped making fattening, artery-hardening foods so darn scrumptious, it would make 2012 just a little bit easier.

Other than the odd Bailey's, I rarely drink.  Too easy!

8.  Write a song a day

Woody Guthrie must have been an awfully prolific songwriter if he came anywhere near success in this one.  For myself, I will be content to write just one song.  One really, really good song.  My dear brother has suggested a collaboration which sounds to me like a capital idea.

9.  Wear clean clothes - look good

10. Shine shoes

11. Change socks

...and desperately avoid wearing clothes with whopping great brands on them.  I've noticed that my clothing selections are becoming more conservative as I get older, possibly because I'm realising that high fashion is a colossal waste of time and resources. 

12. Change bed clothes often

Embarrassing confession here: I'm so very, very bad at this one.  Maybe this year I'll be more regular. 

Who are we kidding?  No improvement here in 2012.  Bigger fish to fry.  Move along!

13. Read lots good books

14. Listen to radio a lot

Once the day is extended by a few hours (see resolutions 1-2), I'll be in with a fighting chance with reading more books.  I read more in 2011 than in 2010, but it's still an embarrassingly small amount.

Radio would need to get an awful lot better (especially commercial radio) for me to listen to any of it at all.  Let's not hold our breath.

15. Learn people better

I've said it once, I'll say it again: the world would be a better place if people just did what I wanted them to all the time.  Even when I'm wrong.

16. Keep rancho clean

See resolution 12.

17. Don't get lonesome

Surrounded by my family and friends?  How could I possibly fail?

18. Stay glad

19. Keep hoping machine running

20. Dream good

Clinical depression is a curse.  I wish, oh how I wish that staying glad was a choice.  I do know, however, that being content is a far better gift than being happy.  I will search for contentment and with it, peace.  With peace as the fuel, the hope machine runs smoothly and the dreams are indeed good.

21. Bank all extra money

22. Save dough

They say money doesn't buy you happiness.  I say I'd love at least one opportunity to give it a good shake.

The key to making really good money, it seems to me, is to be good enough at something that people will give you lots of money to do it.  I'm not sure I'm quite that good at anything.

Perhaps, it's all just a question of realigning my priorities and defining success differently to the way most people do.  See resolution 24.

23. Have company but don't waste time

This is a big one for me.  It was catching up with a dear friend that I hadn't seen for around fifteen years that prompted me to start writing the On Writing Blog in the first place, and for that, I'm eternally grateful.

People around us are so very valuable.  There are reasons that old friends are still friends even after circumstances mean that you don't see them as often as you would like.  Facebook has proven useful in maintaining contact, but I'm after more.  Be warned: if I haven't seen you or spoken to you in a while, I may be looking to catch up in 2012.

Even though the New Year is only days old, I've already caught up with a great friend I'd not seen for a while and one of the On Writing Blog's biggest supporters.  The result?  I was enriched, learned some new things, and a new idea for a blog post was born.

To "have company but don't waste time" is a noble goal indeed.

24. Send Mary and kids money

I'll swap this one for something more akin to "send more money to those less fortunate than myself more often".  I will do this since I am, along with the vast majority of my friends and family (along with the rest of Australia), amongst the wealthiest handful of people on the planet.

25. Play and sing good

26. Dance better

Can't dance.  Not quite to the same standard as, say, Peter Garrett, but dancing has never been a skill I possess.  I'm OK with that.

I would love to have more time to practice singing and guitar more, but once again, limited hours in the day means practice time is not always easy to find.  I'll do my best this year, but I don't like my chances.

27. Help win the war - beat fascism

Woody had a sticker on his guitar that read "This Machine Kills Fascists".   Perhaps I should get one for my computer keyboard.

Couldn't agree more, Woody.  I'll continue to do my best to remind folks that the kind of political neo-conservatism that is promoted by the likes of Tony Abbott is a mere few heartbeats away from fascism.  I'm sorry, but I refuse to embrace the obtuse ignorance and cold-hearted cynicism that the Liberal Party of Australia is peddling.  What's more is the party desperately needs to rename itself to once and for all cease its continual abuse of the word 'liberal'.

28. Love Mama

29. Love Papa

30. Love Pete

31. Love everybody

"I love you Mama! I love you Papa! I love you Pete!".  It sounds like a line from a Will Ferrell movie.

Since Mama, Papa and Pete would also seem to fit into the category of everybody, I'm wondering this list isn't three items shorter.

Seriously though, I've decided that I don't want to leave any of my nearest and dearest unsure of how much I care about them.  I want to make saying "I love you" more of a habit.  I'll be saying it more in 2012, and to more people.

32. Make up your mind

Seriously! And get a damned clue while you're at it, will ya?

33. Wake up and fight

I think there's something in that for all of us, don't you?  

Thanks Woody.  Happy 2012 everybody.  May it be a better year than the one just now past, and may you see your resolutions reach February intact.

**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**