This Week In Sydee

Two posts inside a week?  I'm just down at a kwikee-mart with internet gear to ask those coming in later this week to pop in and confirm that we'll be going to a pub which serves food, for those wanting to eat.  I have a couple of venues in mind - The Edinburgh Castle and The Metropolitan.  The big thing for me being drinkiness and both pubs fit the bill, the Metro probably has the better steaks, the EC has beer in jugs if you're that way inclined and for Doc Y they have Uncle Ted on tap.

Nat - I'll let you know the Thursday venue tomorrow.

Wednesday night I'm going to You Am I's recreation of Exile On Main Street at the Oxford Art Factory starring guests such as Nic Cester (Jet), Tex Perkins and others.  Should be tops as long as the tickets came through.

That's all for now, cop yez later.

Slackness and Being

Well folks, I know I'm slack.  Basically I'm fracked for getting into some blogs, commenting on others and doing fun stuff but that's all down to work computers.  Its also because I'm a neglectful and lazy fucker whose motivation centres on having a laugh, a drink and farnarkelling around.

So what's happening?  Doc Yobbo, Abe Frellman and maybe the Lermontovity will be catching up in my hometown of Sydee next week.  We'll have a couple of beers, maybe even with each other and then see who's best at tweeting the results.  Rules me out 'cos I don't be tweetin'.

Now that I've rediscovered this blog stuff I may even post something a tad more substantial.  And ya gotta know that the motivation for this reanimation of Therbs on line is due to the aforementioned pissup.  Hats off to Doc Y and Abe Frellman.

And Nat if you're lurking, hope you got my email.

Now if anyone wants to stir up Hav leave him be  I just sent him an email, part of which took the piss out of his cricketingness and wonky deck.

Shouts out to those mentioned above and also to Yankee Dog whose page I visit but can't lodge comments, similarly with Moko, Nat Spy, Doc Y, Mr Barnes, Bangar, GBob, NBob, Jennicki, Big Bad Al, and a heap of others.  If yez are in Sydney next Fridee come and have a beer with us.   Should be fuckin' tops, ay!

That's it, I'm off to the boozer to practice for next week.

Catch Up, World Cup, Tax, Bicycles and Booze

I'llget the booze and catch upstuff over with first.  Booze mainly because at JB'sgig in Sydney last Tuesday we started off at the 3 Weeds in Paddo, across the road from Ariel Books where the book gig played out.  There was beer at the book gig!  Fucking tops.  Then we had beer with plates of grilled bits of meat at The Balkan.  Then more beer at The Beauchamp Hotel back down the road.  I finished with a large straight up Makers Mark and that was me done.  It was a fine evening where I caught up with other Cheeseburger Gothic followers, namely Savo, AgeingGamer, Darkman and BondiBoy.  I'd met Darkman once but not the others.  Its funny how we managed to click at least at that superficial "hail fellow and well met" level.  I've previously split beers with Lermontov, Nautilus, Chaz (and Mrs Chaz), JB, Unicorn (where the fuck has he gone?) and Bedes.  It all ends up pretty well.  On Tuesday it was also good to see the merge of Burgers and Tweeters.  By the time JB puts out another book I don't think it will be groups of less than fifty coming along.  Wouldn't surprise me if his gigs become unmanageable in terms of doing the smaller scale feed'n'pub happenings.  That's what happens when someone's popularity starts hitting that next level.
Oh yeah, back at The Beauchamp Hotel I was when I realised it was the same pub in which David Ireland wrote "The Glass Canoe", his Miles Franklin Award winner about a bloke who drinks at a pub.  I read it years ago and found it again back at my mum's place when we weredoing some cleaning out.  Its a good read, giving what are now  echoes of a late 60's-70's life in a semi-industrial suburb of a big city in Oz.  Its mainly a series of vignettes but warms up to some good narrative.  And a lot of it happens in a pub which to my mind is sheer fucking genius.  Mind you The Beachamp these days is not really a pub having been well and truly renovated to cope with the pink dollar then more recently the boom of the Noughties.

World Cup.  Fuck it was a poor one.  Vuvufuckenzelas are The. Worst. Things. Evvaahh!  Santo Sam and Ed however were pure gold.  I seriously want the DVD to come out. Les and Foz were fucked.  They stink, big time.  They are so fucking insular it ain't funny.  I watched five minutes of the arseclowns before giving up on them.

Bicycles.  Tour de France.  Fuck it annoys me.  Its that thing of yeah, I'll watch a half hour and then go to bed.  Fucking bullshit.  End up watching a couple of hours and getting in a nice warm fug in front of the heater with a glass of something tasty by my right arm and daydreams of sick leave running through my mind.  So Cadel has the yellow guernsey today and this is his Big Chance.  It could be Cadel's Year.
Those fucking cobblestone bits early on were a laugh.  Well, I laughed anyways, especially when a large part of the Peloton went arse over tit.  You just gotta laugh at cyclists falling over and then wanting to go the biff.  Must be roid rage.

Tax.  Did it in record time.  Took me one hour to download it, fill it out on line and send it back via the interwbez to Mr Tax Refund Man. Did it just now as a matter of fact in this interwebz cafe.  If Mr Tax  doesn't argue with my reasonable deductions then its whoopee time!  Cigars and single malt plus a new bit of sound gear for the car. And maybe some new shoes.  Really, just threw that in for any chicks who may drop in.  Its really about the whisky and cigars and maybe  DVDs of the Cricket World Cups back in Seth Efrika (2003 when Punter went ballistic) and the West Indies (2007 when Haydos went crazy and Bob Woolmer tragically died of a heart attack in his hotel room). Maybe.  But its really about the whisky and cigars, hopefully in time to celebrate Cadel getting the winner'scheque in Paris.
Speaking of drinks, I'll be on me way now.

Ariel Gig

If anyone's going to JB's Ariel gig on Tuesday next week the plan is to meet at the 3 Weeds (Rose Shamrock and Thistle - the Paddo one, not the Balmain one).  I'll be there around 6.00, depending on bus times from the CBD most likely watching whatever sport they have on the plasma.  I'll be the one booing either Manly, Collingwood or Germany, depending on what's showing.  Ariel Bookshop is just across the road from The Weeds and JB's gig goes from 7.00 until 8.00.  No need to book a seat, just show up.  We will however need to book The Balkan for the post gig feed and I'll need numbers asap. The Balkan is this Croatian grill restaurant where you get chunks of meat, cooked Balkan style.  They also do a seafood grill which is very tasty. My advice is to skip lunch that day.

And remember that its Dry July so no drinkees 'nkay? Yeah, right. Poor joke I know but if you do get all self righteous about giving up the sauce for no other reason than some c-list git is trying to get numbers for their wanking attempt to expand their fading celebritiness then you can buy me drinks. Lots of them 'cos I'm the best fucking charity ever conceived.

 Doc Yobbo has done a good job on this nonsense  here.



Cheers!

Tahu's List

Just a quick observation on tonight's SOO.  I just noticed that going up against the State of Origin tonight is Schindler's List on Channel Seven.  Anyone see what I see here?  Okay then, on one channel we have the story of Herr Schindler who made good on his conscience by rescuing a number of Jews from the Nazi murder machine, the most extreme exponent of killing based on race hate..  On the other channel we have a premier Rugby League match set against the backdrop of racism espoused by Andrew Johns, the (now ex) New South Wales assistant coach.  Apparently he'd been calling players "black cunt", "coon", "nigger" for a while now and Tahu said "Enough!" and walked out of the team in protest. Timmy didn't wait  to be rescued from the well of bigotry by someone else, he clambered out of it himself.  He wasn't doing it because Johns slurred him, he did it to back other players of various backgrounds whose skin colour afforded the ignorant and bigotted Johns the opportunity on a number of occasions to bring out his nasty racist streak. And Tahu named those who had been targetted by Johns. Basically he'd had enough of it and drew a huge fuck-off line in the sand by withdrawing himself from the NSW team for tonight's match.  Johns subsequently resigned from the coaching role and has also been sacked from club coaching roles and his media gigs with News Ltd.  Channel Nine, you there?  Something going here which you may need to address in one big fuckingg hurry or are you too caught up in the blokey atmosphere of the Footy Show coterie?
Will this change anything? Most likely the NRL will implement an education program along similar lines to that which tries to teach footballers how to deal with women as human beings and won't that be a long drawn out process, trying to teach 18 year old blockheads some values and morals which their parents thought weren't necessary.

For those who don't know what NRL or State of Origin is, here we go.  The NRL is the current body which runs the highest level of Rugby League in Australia, similar to the NFL.  State of Origin is a yearly three-match series played between the two Rugby League states, New South Wales and Queensland.  It came about because in previous years the New South Wales team consisted of the best players from the Sydney rugby league competition (the big money league) regardless of from where they originall hailed.  It used to burn the Queenslanders something fierce that their players would be a part of the inevitable whitewash of Queensland.  So the Queenslanders got their wish and now select players who first played rugby league in Queensland.  The spirit of the Queenslanders embodies a typical Australian attitude of "we been done wrong", an attitude which never diminisihes, becuase if it did, so would the driving force of Queensland State of Origin Rugby League and most likely the series would fade away.

So tonight its gonna be a traditional footy night.  Meat pies, beer and whatever other booze I have lying around.  Unfortunatley Roy and HG don't do the commentary anymore since they switched to thebig bucks of commerical radio so I have to put up with people who take their sommentary seriously, and that's a big shame.

Popping Back In

Well, its been a while since I wrote here, over a month.  I've been sorting out the mum stuff and its been hard.  We're all in it and I'm glad of the family. Its a strong and close group of siblings and it makes a difference.  I also seem to have run out of blogsteam.  Aside from jumping in at JB's blog and his BT blogs I've basically become a lurker.  Ain't that fucking creepy?   Now that I'm actually bashing these keys here I'll be popping in and leaving a pile of doos at some other places.

While I'm here I'd like to have a small rant about the whole World Cup brouhaha.  Hi everyone, I'm Therbs and I played soccer as a young 'un. I also gave Rugby League and, surprise surprise, Aussie Rules a go.  My fave to play was League.  It incorporated most of the skills and more anticipation than soccer and had the added bonus of affording me the opportunity of going in hard.  Aussie Rules seemed softer, they really hated full on tackling.  Soccer was soccer, basically a kicking and running game with a ball which would generally travel in a predictable way.  That's my opinion and you won't change it, but feel free to flame.

The World Cup is basically politics writ large.  It was expanded to 32 teams as a tip of the cap to "3rd World" soccer nations (e.g. Asia, the U.S., Africa and Oz) and a realisation that politicking for the right to host the World Cup was reaching an Olympic standard.  More countries who feel involved, the better chance of being able to manipulate the votes.  Politics is what counts in world soccer with the money a recognised constant.

So back to the games.  I watched the U.S. - England and Oz-Germany matches and will probably watch the Kiwis tonight unless I really want to see what Gibbs is up to in NCIS. After that I'll be sticking to watching the Oz matches, maybe the semi-finals and final and occasionally a match starting at 9.00 p.m.  But I'm not really into it this time around, didn't go into a tipping comp nor did I buy the SBS guide.  Its partly due to an aging cynical outlook but also a realisation that the best quality soccer matches are generally found in the EUFA competitions.  National teams rarely provide the concentration of talent seen in Man Utd, Milan, Barcelona, Chelsea etc.  So basically I'll be keeping an eye on Straya and cherry picking a few other games.  Hell, I may not even bother with the final if Brazil don't make it.  When's the cricket start again?

Hey Schultz, There's No Strudel On The Eastern Front

Hiya folks, back in 2006 I did a comment article over at the Bulldogs Debate Page about the Warriors getting sanctioned over salary cap indescretions in the National Rugby League.  Below is the rejigged article bringing it up to date.  The italics are the major additions to the original.

In 2002 the Bulldogs were investigated for serious breaches of the NRL salary cap. After being found guilty they suffered a significant monetary fine and the loss of all of the competition points they had amassed that season (37). This killed them off for 2002; drove sponsors away and the drama fed the electronic and print media for months. This all was spurred on by a ‘dob-in’. The Bulldogs had previously been cleared after an audit of their salary cap expenditure by the NRL auditor.


In 2006 the NZ Warriors were investigated for serious breaches of the salary cap. They were found guilty and suffered a significant monetary fine and the loss of four competition points. This affected their Final 8 chances as they missed out by 4 points on reaching the mark. They would have slipped in on a better for and against point’s record ahead of Parramatta. They may have possibly won the Premiership; not likely but they were still a chance. Media interest was very light in this case over which none of the hungry scribblers of 2002 raised a smidgin of blotted sweat. This case was spurred on by the executives of the Warriors notifying the NRL that something was awry in the Warriors handling of their Salary Cap. It is speculation to suggest this was the result of a ‘tip off’ but it certainly wasn’t the result of some great sleuthing by the Salary Cap Auditor, Ian Schubert.

In 2010 the Melbourne Storm were found to have systematically rorted the salary cap over a five year period. Their penalty was to be stripped of two NRL Premierships, 3 Minor Premierships, 8 competition points, the possibility of gaining competition points in 2010, a fine of $500,000 and being forced to repay $1.1 million dollars in prize money.

There is a large disparity between the ‘crimes’ committed and the sanctions imposed. A 33 point disparity may seem too large. Fans will dispute the severity or otherwise of each club’s penalties and this will go on for years. A more reasonable penalty for the Warriors would have been 10 competition points which would allow the Warriors to avoid the wooden spoon and all but rule them out of Finals contention. Allowing them the chance (however unlikely) to win the competition after being found guilty just didn’t gel with some people. Also what doesn’t gel with Melbourne Storm's penalty is the farcical nature of teams having to compete against a team made up of players receiving illegal payments. Common thinking is that they should have been told to become immediately compliant under the salary cap taking whatever measures were necessary, lose the points accumulated up to the point they do become compliant and then be able to compete for competition points. The severity of the penalties will be a constant source of debate and will use up a lot of newsprint for the remainder of the NRL season.

In the wash up of the Warriors’ case another club was accused by one of its ex players of behaviour similar to that which led to the Warriors being penalised; offering post-retirement sinecures. Was that club investigated? Given its wealth of representative players were there any post – retirement deals made with any of its stars to circumvent the salary cap? Did Sergeant Schubert know? Not bloody likely, but that is a debatable point.

What isn’t in dispute however is that all three major breaches were not detected by the salary cap auditor, Ian Schubert.

Here I will use the comparison with Sergeant Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes who needs to be vigorously shaken by a prisoner and often prodded with his own rifle before waking up to the likes of Lebeau or Carter demanding his attention.  The offer of strudel always wins him over.  What he fears most is a transfer to the Russian Front.  Whilst I really like Schultz, the manifestation of his incompetence in real life makes me shudder.

Who’s to know how many tunnels have been dug by the wily Hogan under the sleepy eyes of Sergeant Schultz. How many supply trains have been blown up and how many bombs dropped on that ball bearing plant conveniently located just outside of Hammelburg and within striking distance of Stalag 13? How many nice German motor vehicles have been appropriated from the motor pool? Does Sergeant Schultz know? Ask him and see what he says. You remember his catch phrase. Shout it out loud and strong and within earshot of any NRL fan.

So here we have three very serious salary cap breaches and another alleged breach not uncovered by the auditor. So what purpose does this bloke serve? Sorry, it’s a rhetorical question so I won’t accept any nasty swearing in response. Schubert has to go. As does Gallop. While we’re at it lets clean out News Ltd from any management or executive roles within the NRL. They've screwed up NRL TV deals, are incapabl;e of managing a football code and should stick to "man bites dog" stories and taking photos of celebrity breasts. In the words of Havock, cap the fkn muppets!

Kinch, get on the radio to HQ and tell them Goldilocks has a plan.