In a Weak in which both slots in the NRL Sol Trujillo Premiership were reserved by two franchise united as much by their unlikeability as their ownership by News Limited, and in which Llittle Lleyton proved he was (a) a loser, (b) a cock, and (c) never to be allowed in the company of foreigners again, there was one little sliver of good news. The Hamster woke up.
According to the massively unreliable Gerbily Clarkson, Richard Hammond, having suffered a 'serious brain injury' in his infamous jet-dragster endo, and been in a critical condition (strike one) in intensive care (strike two) in a specialist neurological ward (strike three and you're fucked), opened his eyes, sat upright in bed and asked 'What happened?'
You've been in a car accident, he was told.
He thought about this for a moment.
'Was I driving like a twat?'
He then proceeded to stagger out of bed to go for a slash.
The Hamster is now out of danger and back in a general ward. He'll be back. He may be forcibly restricted to testing girly hatchbacks stuck in first gear in perpetuity, but he'll be back.
He's doing it in the Ryder Cup!
Some more good news. America: fuck nah. The Seppos were trounced by the Euros at the Special K Club, not even getting close to touching them in either the golf or the subsequent pissup at the hotel bar which allegedly proceeded until five in the morning. It was nowt but a shambolic clusterfuck from a Septic perspective - even Tiger's idiot Kiwi offsider managed to drop his nine-iron in one of the lakes on course. In his defence, there were 13 of the fuckers to choose from (lakes, not irons), and it's not the first time it's been suggested that those fucking ordinary Nike sticks of Tiger's be dropped down a well.
Yer not from round here, are yer
The spiritual home bases of the two premier footy codes will both play host to interstate interlopers in this weekend's Grand Final stoushes. In the NRL event, the Toowoomba Clydesdales will play Brisbane Norths, while the AFL final will again be dominated by people who aren't from Melbourne, with Sydney playing the Wessayeeed Coast. Of course this signifies the end of the world to the Sydney NRL or Melbourne AFL media mafia, who've decried the prospect of an interstate grand final as a sure sign of the likely demise of the 'traditional' teams of both competitions.
Here's a suggestion. Swap.
Melbourne were minor premiers, followed by daylight, the Dogs and more daylight. They might be cunts (isn't that a band?) but if either side deserves home advantage out of the unlikeable, unwatchable NRL grand final matchup it's probably the Strum. So play the game at the MCG already. As for Homebush, the Swans played their prelim final there against the Dockers (Melbourne VFL tragics please note: your beloved GF came perilously close to being a Subiaco Oval derby) so it's certainly capable of hosting the game. One of the Dockers even thought the game was going to be played at the SFS - prompting Paul Roos to suggest that he was welcome to turn up there but running into Big Pond Webcke at full tilt might be an unwanted side effect. So Melbourne-Brisbane in Melbourne; Sydney-West Coast in Sydney. Where's the problem?
Meanwhile in A-nother League...
Speaking of unlikeable Melbourne teams, you'd have thought that running into Stan Lazza's handy Perth side at the end of a Long Arse Flight would have knocked the smugness out of Kevin Bloody Muscat and his Malbun Victree. Hell no - nothing for the Glory, two for the Victory. Elsewhere, the NZ Knights continued to suck a suckload of suck, even though all their New Zealand players have long since fucked off to other A-League clubs and are stinking the place up there instead. They're not quite arse-last however - that honour jointly goes to the Marinaras and the Jets, proving that putting two A-League clubs within 100km of (a) each other and (b) the biggest and richest club in the league was an act of genius for which FFA supremo John O'Neill should be given the arse. What, he's already gone?
Skwarnewatch
Recent studies have indicated that prolonged use of hair dyeing agents increases the risk of brain tumours. Anecdotal evidence from the English county cricket final seems to also suggest it turns you into a clueless fucking lunatic, after Hampshire bogan-in-chief Shane Warne started bowling all sorts of rubbish (no, on purpose) including lobbing the ball 20 feet in the air from a standing start, as part of a bizarre protest about his opponents not declaring so his lot could win. Clearly Skwarney has become used to the English just rolling over and taking it while he's been in the country - but at least this time they didn't run to the papers with the disturbing hydraulic details. More recently, Warne proved the Clairol was really starting to permeate deep into the cortex when he decided to slag off his national captain and his coach in the media, and then declared England favourites to retain the Ashes, on the basis that they... um... won it last time. In related news, Warne also backed the Wests Tigers to win the NRL, and Simone to come back.
And finally...
Lleyton, we said don't come home. Are you fucking deaf, you little shit?
The Doctor is OUT.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Spoons, goons, and funbags. And the Hamster.
Best in a beaten side
Interesting fact. The wooden spoon has its attractions: the two worst-performed teams in Australia's major footy codes have produced players with the most productive individual seasons of the year. The mighty South Sydney RabbitOhChristWe'reLosingAgainFuckIt had a frankly hopeless season under Bomber McRae, who was doomed the moment he shaved off his awesome 80s mo', but their kickarse winger Nathan Merritt scored 22 tries in 24 potential games (you can tell I haven't even been arsed to check whether he actually played all two dozen possible matches), more than any other player in the comp. Further southward, fellow wooden-spoon artistes the Carlton Football Club, who I'm reliably informed are at least as bad as the produce of the beer factory that shares its name, have this guy called Brendan Favola or Crunchy Granola or some shit like that who kicked a goal 84 times in the regular season - and that doesn't even count the times he missed but got a point for at least having a go. In a bid to get more athleticism into their lineup next year, the team have announced they intend to recruit from within the organisation, drafting that bloke from the Carlton Draught Flashbeer ad. Geddit? Draft?
I did say it was interesting, not funny.
Dummy Spit Of The Weak (Warranted)
...goes to a Mr Eldrick Woods, c/- Press Conference Room, The K Club, County Kildare, Oyrelarnd, for his mission-critical sense-of-humour failure over a Dublin tabloid suggesting his lovely Sveedish wife got her funbags out for the camera, and worse (or better, if you're into that sort of thing), as part of a general slagging-off of the American team's trophy wives prior to the Ryder Cup. When the English footballers were copping the same treatment over their vacuous shopaholic bimbo division of significant others in Germany, they just shrugged, ignored the media chatter, and got on with the job they were there to do - failing to win the World Cup. The Seppos, however, are used to more compliant media, so when this hit the presses, Tigger hit the Tanty Button, declaring his wife had been 'a model prior' and had done a few 'bikini shots' but had never had anything to do with the magazine's assertion that Elin had, in the immortal words of Austen Tayshus, 'seen a cockatoo' and been videoed in the process. A pretty lousy thing to say about someone's missus. Unless you're Warney in which case you'll get a fucking PhD for it. So Woods' outburst was at least warranted. If factually inaccurate. Purely for research purposes The Weak has investigated these scurrilous rumours, and provides the following as photographic evidence:
To wit, a photo of Elin Woods. Topless. Not a stand-in, not a fake. Elin Woods. Funbags akimbo. What was that again, Tigster?
Of course there were other photos that were fakes and did use stand-ins... but we couldn't possibly comment on those and they are best discussed on other websites.
Dummy Spit Of The Weak (Completely Unwarranted)
...a.k.a. the Llittle Lleyton Perpetual Pacifier, and for good reason. The embarrassing little shit, fresh from being voted in Argentina's top five all-time hated sportspeople (finally, something we have in common with the Falklands-invading dagos), has taken to parading around Buenos Aires in the leadup to the Big Davis Cup Stoush this weekend surrounded by hired muscle, declaring that he considers himself at risk from physical harm at the hands of the Argies. If he'd seen five minutes of any World Cup game they played in Germany, he'd realise he was in very little personal danger; the moment he brushed past them they'd fling themselves on the floor and convulse hideously like they'd been shot in the arse with a BB gun.
Llittle with his goons, making him feel like a Big Man, instead of a snivelling little Crows supporting bitch whose vacuous trophy wife appeared in something far worse than girl-on-girl porn - several seasons of Home and Away
There seems there's something else we have in common with the Argies: guerrilla TV comedy shows which seek out examples of pathetic self-promotion and deflate it like a whoopee cushion. This was demonstrated by the local Argentine equivalent of The Chaser sending their ballsiest interviewer out to crash Hewitt's entourage, and succeeded in not only making Hewitt look a complete arse at the time, but inspired the South Australian (OK, that's enough insults) to do so on his own terms in a later interview, blasting the guy for being 'some clown' and suggesting 'you just don't know what his intent might be'.
Son, you know exactly what his intent was: to point out what a precious little arseclown you are. If we lose, don't come home.
Not so Top(s) Gear
And speaking of great TV shows... we can't let the Weak pass by without sending a shout-out to the shiniest teeth on television, Top Gear's resident midget Richard Hammond. The Hamster was going for the British land speed record in a jet-powered dragster on the runway of a disused RAF base (seriously, the government broadcaster pays for this shit as well - awesome!) when the fucker flipped on him and things went all kinds of ugly. Hammond's in intensive care in a Leeds hospital; his condition has improved from critical to stable, though the consistent references to 'neurological department' are a bit concerning. From all at the Weak we hope a speedy recovery is both possible, and forthcoming.
The Doctor is OUT.
Interesting fact. The wooden spoon has its attractions: the two worst-performed teams in Australia's major footy codes have produced players with the most productive individual seasons of the year. The mighty South Sydney RabbitOhChristWe'reLosingAgainFuckIt had a frankly hopeless season under Bomber McRae, who was doomed the moment he shaved off his awesome 80s mo', but their kickarse winger Nathan Merritt scored 22 tries in 24 potential games (you can tell I haven't even been arsed to check whether he actually played all two dozen possible matches), more than any other player in the comp. Further southward, fellow wooden-spoon artistes the Carlton Football Club, who I'm reliably informed are at least as bad as the produce of the beer factory that shares its name, have this guy called Brendan Favola or Crunchy Granola or some shit like that who kicked a goal 84 times in the regular season - and that doesn't even count the times he missed but got a point for at least having a go. In a bid to get more athleticism into their lineup next year, the team have announced they intend to recruit from within the organisation, drafting that bloke from the Carlton Draught Flashbeer ad. Geddit? Draft?
I did say it was interesting, not funny.
Dummy Spit Of The Weak (Warranted)
...goes to a Mr Eldrick Woods, c/- Press Conference Room, The K Club, County Kildare, Oyrelarnd, for his mission-critical sense-of-humour failure over a Dublin tabloid suggesting his lovely Sveedish wife got her funbags out for the camera, and worse (or better, if you're into that sort of thing), as part of a general slagging-off of the American team's trophy wives prior to the Ryder Cup. When the English footballers were copping the same treatment over their vacuous shopaholic bimbo division of significant others in Germany, they just shrugged, ignored the media chatter, and got on with the job they were there to do - failing to win the World Cup. The Seppos, however, are used to more compliant media, so when this hit the presses, Tigger hit the Tanty Button, declaring his wife had been 'a model prior' and had done a few 'bikini shots' but had never had anything to do with the magazine's assertion that Elin had, in the immortal words of Austen Tayshus, 'seen a cockatoo' and been videoed in the process. A pretty lousy thing to say about someone's missus. Unless you're Warney in which case you'll get a fucking PhD for it. So Woods' outburst was at least warranted. If factually inaccurate. Purely for research purposes The Weak has investigated these scurrilous rumours, and provides the following as photographic evidence:
To wit, a photo of Elin Woods. Topless. Not a stand-in, not a fake. Elin Woods. Funbags akimbo. What was that again, Tigster?
Of course there were other photos that were fakes and did use stand-ins... but we couldn't possibly comment on those and they are best discussed on other websites.
Dummy Spit Of The Weak (Completely Unwarranted)
...a.k.a. the Llittle Lleyton Perpetual Pacifier, and for good reason. The embarrassing little shit, fresh from being voted in Argentina's top five all-time hated sportspeople (finally, something we have in common with the Falklands-invading dagos), has taken to parading around Buenos Aires in the leadup to the Big Davis Cup Stoush this weekend surrounded by hired muscle, declaring that he considers himself at risk from physical harm at the hands of the Argies. If he'd seen five minutes of any World Cup game they played in Germany, he'd realise he was in very little personal danger; the moment he brushed past them they'd fling themselves on the floor and convulse hideously like they'd been shot in the arse with a BB gun.
Llittle with his goons, making him feel like a Big Man, instead of a snivelling little Crows supporting bitch whose vacuous trophy wife appeared in something far worse than girl-on-girl porn - several seasons of Home and Away
There seems there's something else we have in common with the Argies: guerrilla TV comedy shows which seek out examples of pathetic self-promotion and deflate it like a whoopee cushion. This was demonstrated by the local Argentine equivalent of The Chaser sending their ballsiest interviewer out to crash Hewitt's entourage, and succeeded in not only making Hewitt look a complete arse at the time, but inspired the South Australian (OK, that's enough insults) to do so on his own terms in a later interview, blasting the guy for being 'some clown' and suggesting 'you just don't know what his intent might be'.
Son, you know exactly what his intent was: to point out what a precious little arseclown you are. If we lose, don't come home.
Not so Top(s) Gear
And speaking of great TV shows... we can't let the Weak pass by without sending a shout-out to the shiniest teeth on television, Top Gear's resident midget Richard Hammond. The Hamster was going for the British land speed record in a jet-powered dragster on the runway of a disused RAF base (seriously, the government broadcaster pays for this shit as well - awesome!) when the fucker flipped on him and things went all kinds of ugly. Hammond's in intensive care in a Leeds hospital; his condition has improved from critical to stable, though the consistent references to 'neurological department' are a bit concerning. From all at the Weak we hope a speedy recovery is both possible, and forthcoming.
The Doctor is OUT.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Lyon 2 Status Quo 0
Twice in one day? That's right. We're repeating on you, just like a cut-price 3am mystery kebab.
They'll give any bastard a doctorate these days... uh, yeah
Shane Warne had a busy day today. It was his 37th birthday, which reiterates the fact that he's a sad, balding old eejit who should put it the fuck away already. However, the University of Southampton, noting Warney's indifferent performance in the latest batch of 'Yeah Yeah' ads, recently offered him the use of one of their stupid 'cow pat' hats to cover his receding bonce. You know, the kind of stupid hat you get when you get awarded a doctorate. Not necessarily earned, but awarded nonetheless. Looks like your correspondent could have saved himself four years of bullshit slog, working weekends and near permanent hangovers by just sitting on one's fat arse, eating baked beans, sinking piss, smoking Alpines, boning English slappers, sledging people at random and occasionally rolling the arm over. Cheers for that Warney - always the trendsetter.
Warney celebrated both birthday and graduation by elevating himself up to number three in his county side Hampshire's one-day innings. He proceeded to misjudge a hookshot, and copped a bouncer in the right temple. Blood and stitches followed.
Never in his 37 hilarious years has one man shown more capacity for heroic stupidity and comic injury. The Weak salutes Warney, the Steve Irwin of world cricket.
If you were a real doctor you'd do it yourself, you fat cunt
Real Madrid: real fuckin' ordinary
Led by the Weak's other favourite Fred (the Brazilian striker not the Spanish dude who just tore Schumacher a new one in the papers), French champions Lyon made the Galacticos of Real Madrid look like aging, fat, drug-addled '70s rockstars on one last reunion tour too many in this morning's Champions League group-stage opener. Lyon hammered in a couple of goals inside the first half hour then sat around waiting for Real Madrid's multibillion-Euro cavalcade of stars to actually do anything in response. Did Madrid hit back? Did they even look like gathering enough clue together to mount something approaching a decent attack? Did they bollocks. Even after picking the eyes out of the remnants of Juve over the summer (taking their captain Cannavaro and their coach Capello among others), they still looked as clueless as they ever had under random lunatics like Wanderlei Luxemburgo. Money buys you reputations, but reputations are based on what you did some time ago. In the case of most of the Real Madrid first XI, quite a fucking long time ago.
Speaking of expensively assembled clubs which are currently travelling like cold sick, Liverpool's recent form has been truly fucking horrible - losing three-blot to cross-town rivals Everton (actually they're just cross-park rivals - Anfield is only a couple of hundred yards from Goodison Park, within gobbing distance really) in the Liverpool derby, their worst loss in the derby in 40 years. Following this Rafa Benitez gave half the team pine-riding instructions for the Champions League opener against PSV Eindhoven. This time they didn't actually lose, drawing blot-all. As a spectacle it was abysmal, enlivened only by ESPN commentators Derek Rae and Tommy Fookin' Smyth never quite figuring out whether new Pool striker Dirk Kuyt's name should be pronounced 'Kite' as in 'high as a' or 'Coight' as in 'Russell'. Speaking of wackily named Dutch frontmen, perennial Weak favourite Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, the man who carries his own return postal address on his team shirt, scored on his Champions League debut for Celtic against Man U. The Scots lost to the Mancs, but at least they made a game of it.
Elsewhere in the world of football, in a move that will surely send waves of anguish through the morally bankrupt women of Sydney's east, Dwight 'All Night' Yorke has been enticed back to Engerland to play for Championship (old Division 1; even older Division 2) side Sunderland, now managed by former Man U teammate Roy Keane (that is if you can accept that Keane was anyone's team 'mate' at any club he's poisoned the locker room atmosphere at.) Yorke, even in his mid-30s, was a talismanic footballer as well as a man to make good women weep and bad women prolapse. Granted, he sent the club broke with his salary demands, but you can't have everything - and Anthony la Paglia made enough off those cheese-laden Amex ads to pay off Dwight's outstanding bar tabs (and they were outstanding all right). In Yorke's place Sydney FC are currently trialling former Premiership and Serie A marksman Benito Carbone. Carbone is also 35 and also used to play for Villa - apart from that he has as much in common with Yorke as your mum. But he's useful. At least he's more use than Sasho Petrovski - but then again, so probably is your mum.
Anyway time to head off to find out for myself - the Doctor is OUT.
They'll give any bastard a doctorate these days... uh, yeah
Shane Warne had a busy day today. It was his 37th birthday, which reiterates the fact that he's a sad, balding old eejit who should put it the fuck away already. However, the University of Southampton, noting Warney's indifferent performance in the latest batch of 'Yeah Yeah' ads, recently offered him the use of one of their stupid 'cow pat' hats to cover his receding bonce. You know, the kind of stupid hat you get when you get awarded a doctorate. Not necessarily earned, but awarded nonetheless. Looks like your correspondent could have saved himself four years of bullshit slog, working weekends and near permanent hangovers by just sitting on one's fat arse, eating baked beans, sinking piss, smoking Alpines, boning English slappers, sledging people at random and occasionally rolling the arm over. Cheers for that Warney - always the trendsetter.
Warney celebrated both birthday and graduation by elevating himself up to number three in his county side Hampshire's one-day innings. He proceeded to misjudge a hookshot, and copped a bouncer in the right temple. Blood and stitches followed.
Never in his 37 hilarious years has one man shown more capacity for heroic stupidity and comic injury. The Weak salutes Warney, the Steve Irwin of world cricket.
If you were a real doctor you'd do it yourself, you fat cunt
Real Madrid: real fuckin' ordinary
Led by the Weak's other favourite Fred (the Brazilian striker not the Spanish dude who just tore Schumacher a new one in the papers), French champions Lyon made the Galacticos of Real Madrid look like aging, fat, drug-addled '70s rockstars on one last reunion tour too many in this morning's Champions League group-stage opener. Lyon hammered in a couple of goals inside the first half hour then sat around waiting for Real Madrid's multibillion-Euro cavalcade of stars to actually do anything in response. Did Madrid hit back? Did they even look like gathering enough clue together to mount something approaching a decent attack? Did they bollocks. Even after picking the eyes out of the remnants of Juve over the summer (taking their captain Cannavaro and their coach Capello among others), they still looked as clueless as they ever had under random lunatics like Wanderlei Luxemburgo. Money buys you reputations, but reputations are based on what you did some time ago. In the case of most of the Real Madrid first XI, quite a fucking long time ago.
Speaking of expensively assembled clubs which are currently travelling like cold sick, Liverpool's recent form has been truly fucking horrible - losing three-blot to cross-town rivals Everton (actually they're just cross-park rivals - Anfield is only a couple of hundred yards from Goodison Park, within gobbing distance really) in the Liverpool derby, their worst loss in the derby in 40 years. Following this Rafa Benitez gave half the team pine-riding instructions for the Champions League opener against PSV Eindhoven. This time they didn't actually lose, drawing blot-all. As a spectacle it was abysmal, enlivened only by ESPN commentators Derek Rae and Tommy Fookin' Smyth never quite figuring out whether new Pool striker Dirk Kuyt's name should be pronounced 'Kite' as in 'high as a' or 'Coight' as in 'Russell'. Speaking of wackily named Dutch frontmen, perennial Weak favourite Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, the man who carries his own return postal address on his team shirt, scored on his Champions League debut for Celtic against Man U. The Scots lost to the Mancs, but at least they made a game of it.
Elsewhere in the world of football, in a move that will surely send waves of anguish through the morally bankrupt women of Sydney's east, Dwight 'All Night' Yorke has been enticed back to Engerland to play for Championship (old Division 1; even older Division 2) side Sunderland, now managed by former Man U teammate Roy Keane (that is if you can accept that Keane was anyone's team 'mate' at any club he's poisoned the locker room atmosphere at.) Yorke, even in his mid-30s, was a talismanic footballer as well as a man to make good women weep and bad women prolapse. Granted, he sent the club broke with his salary demands, but you can't have everything - and Anthony la Paglia made enough off those cheese-laden Amex ads to pay off Dwight's outstanding bar tabs (and they were outstanding all right). In Yorke's place Sydney FC are currently trialling former Premiership and Serie A marksman Benito Carbone. Carbone is also 35 and also used to play for Villa - apart from that he has as much in common with Yorke as your mum. But he's useful. At least he's more use than Sasho Petrovski - but then again, so probably is your mum.
Anyway time to head off to find out for myself - the Doctor is OUT.
Go you mighty Gold Coast Giants, Seagulls, Chargers and/or Titans
The new Gold Coast NRL side held a competition some time ago to come up with a name that was indicative of and in keeping with their local environment, not wishing to follow in the sprigmarks of their predecessors, the 1988-97 Gold Coast Giants/Seagulls/Chargers/Hapless Fuckin' Losers who had more names than finals appearances by a bloody long shot. The winning name was the Gold Coast Titans, a straight ripoff of a NFL franchise just like all their previous playing names (if you draw a long bow and count Seagulls as a Strayanization of Seattle's Seahawks). This unimaginative load of arse somehow managed to garner more public appeal than far more prosaic, eloquent and fitting suggestions such as the Gold Coast Developers, the Gold Coast Slumlords, the Gold Coast Bimbos and the Gold Coast Cunts. This being the Gold Coast, one would guess that the 'tit' in 'Titans' largely consists of silicone.
Latest tit in the rack is Sludge Rogers II who has decided to quit rugby after the 2007 World Cup, which he is now almost guaranteed not to get selected for, and return to the NRL to play for the Titties. Here's a photo of Mat looking really happy to be wearing the least inventive new jersey in the history of football. Blue and yellow? Why didn't anyone think of wearing that combination before? Presumably some marketing-led bollocks will be trotted out about the azure blue representing the Queensland sky and the yellow the golden sandy beaches... insert hurl here... but as argued above, if they really want their new local constitutents to accept them, the Gold Coast concern should have gone with a colour scheme which is a bit more appropriate or representative of the local environment. The Weak suggests a combination of fake tan and greenbacks. And they should definitely play in white shoes. Keith Williams would have been proud.
But back to Sludge II and his 'return' to the Goldie, where he spent his teenage years as a boarder at pretentious rugger-bugger production facility The Southport School. The real reason for Sludge II's departure from union is that it allows him a tactful departure from residing in the Shire, where he can't seem to walk down the street without some hapless local wanting to stop him to talk about his old man Sludge I. Fair enough. So Sludge II will pack up his family and move north - his family being former Jeans West clotheshorse and Channel V set decoration Chloe Maxwell, and their son, Max Danger Rogers. No shit... that's the kid's name. Yes folks, 'Danger' is his middle name, quite literally. Dual international father or not, that kid's going to have the piss taken out of him at school something fucking atrocious...
Cheats never prosper
Except in Formula Fun where they get multi-million dollar contracts from their employers and world titles gift-wrapped from the governing bodies. The Weak's Fred Alonso was thoroughly nobbled by dodgy Italian stewards at the Wog GP last weekend, when he was demoted to tenth place on the grid after allegedly 'blocking' Ferrari muppet Felipe Massa's final qualifying lap. The fact that Massa didn't actually get within 100 metres of Alonso during aforesaid lap didn't appear to faze the stewards in their quest to eliminate our Fred from contention. Anyone know the Italian for 'rort'? Alonso's Renault proceeded to blow up ten laps from the end of the race, handing the retiring (if definitely not shy) Michael Schumacher the perfect opportunity to score a bucket of points and close Fred's world championship lead to 2 points.
So did Fred cop it sweet? Did he bollocks. "In Formula One, there are commercial and political interests," he said. "We are talking about the most successful driver in history and a little bit of help has never gone amiss. "Quite often they go over the line of what is acceptable and it is inexplicable." He said he had briefly considered flipping off the race entirely, in protest at the stewards' bullshit decision to demote him. "You think about not racing, but it goes away quickly once you put your helmet on," Alonso said. "No-one is going to believe the penalty I was given for a long time to come. The excuse they (the stewards) gave was far from honest. It isn't good for our sport." He added: "I was 100 per cent sure that I could win the race from anywhere on the grid, to keep on scoring points and finish in front. What I'm sure about is that he who laughs last, laughs longest."
We'll see who gets to crank out the 'Muhahahaha' evil-genius-style' at season's end. Our money is still on the young fullah.
Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, you big-chinned wurst-eating tool
So to Schumacher's retirement and his likely legacy. He will undoubtedly retire with more wins, poles and championships than any man preceding him; he will probably retire with this year's title under his belt as well, the way the FIA are carrying on - not only with stunts like demoting Alonso in qualifying in Italy and Hungary, but banning the trick 'mass dampers' which Renault developed to combat the weird gyroscopic oscillations of the big balloon-shaped tyres F1 cars use as a historical anacronism (try and find another racing series worldwide which runs on 13" diameter wheels - even Brocky's fully-sicked-up Lada from 15 years ago had more impressive rims than that.) The FIA banned the mass dampers as they considered them a 'movable aerodynamic device' - slightly odd as they were not movable or aerodynamic, although one presumes they could be called a device - while when Ferrari were turning up to races earlier in the year with flexible rear wings that bent out of shape to produce less drag in a straight line, the powers that be were suspiciously silent.
So what can be objectively stated about Schumacher?
1. He was fast.
Self-evidently.
2. He made a lot of mistakes.
Much more than any 'great' of the past - mainly if Schumacher had been around in the '60s or '70s (or even the '80s) and had made as many mistakes in those days as he did in an average season these days, he'd have been dead and buried before his second world title.
3. He got by with a little help from his friends.
Not just his team - he had to have an entire team behind him to win, with a teammate hired solely for the role of Team Gimp - but as Fred has pointed out, the governing body is usually behind him as well.
In fact the only time Schumacher was ever in the wrong in the eyes of the governing body - aside from the slap with a wet bus ticket he got for trying to take out Jacques Villeneuve in the title decider in 1997 - was at Monaco this year, when Schumi parked his red council truck in the middle of the Rascasse hairpin to prevent Fred or Look-At-Me-Kimi from taking pole position off him in the last minutes of qualifying. Schumacher was widely accused of cheating and for once the stewards agreed, banishing him to the back of the grid. He had claimed that he had committed a driving error and stalled his car, but noone bought that fresh wheelbarrow of bullshit. "He's just a cheap cheat," legendary 80s F1 ace Keke Rosberg (father of the markedly less interesting Nico Rosberg of Williams) said. "He should leave F1 to honest people. I thought he had grown up. Does he think we are all fools and idiots?" Alonso's Renault boss Flavio Briatore, who guided Schumacher to his first couple of titles, added, "Someone who was seven times a world champion wants us to believe that he didn't do it on purpose - it's fairyland." And then Flavor Flav went back to spading supermodels.
Briatore has taught you well, my son
Schumacher's history of snotting into people in an attempt to win stuff is longer than Chopper Read's rap sheet and we don't have time or interest to go through it here. It's punctuated by the title deciders in 1994 and 1997, one of which worked out well for Schumacher, the other didn't. At Adelaide in 1994, Schumacher sealed his first world title by crashing his car into that of championship rival Damon Hill. Hill later wrote in his book which noone read: "There are two things that set Michael apart from the rest of the drivers in Formula One - his sheer talent and his attitude. I am full of admiration for the former, but the latter leaves me cold."
Oooohh. Cop that.
Now it's fairly easy and requires little trouser to slag someone like Schumacher off when you're safely retired and there's no chance he could, say, run you off the road at 300 kays into the shrubbery come next fortnight's Gran Pree. So what do the new generation of F1 stars think? And would they actually tell you what they think, in the modern age of bland, meaningless, platitude-filled, stage-managed, soundbite-strewn interviews and press conferences? Cue a man who has already been run off the road at 300 kays by Schumacher (lap one, British GP, Silverstone 2003) and probably doesn't give an arse anymore: we present once more for your entertainment, reigning F1 world champion Fred Alonso in Spanish sports weekly Marca, with our favourite quote of the year to date.
"Michael is the man with the most sanctions and is the most unsporting driver in the history of Formula One," Alonso said. "Even Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher."
We like Fred. Even if he does pick his nose in public.
No butts about it
And on the subject of Zizou (and ludicrous decisions from sports governing bodies), FIFA have decided that it would be fantastic to stage-manage a tearful reunion, or at least an awkward eyes-averted handshake, between Zinedine 'Le Nutter' Zidane and Marco 'Yo' Sista' Materazzi, on South Africa's Robben Island, where some black dude was in prison or something. Someone at FIFA, possibly dickhead-in-residence Septic Bladder, has estimated that a French bloke applying a Glasgow kiss to an Italian bloke's ribcage in response to a lewd inquiry as to the availability of the French bloke's sister is on a par in terms of international significance to the 27 years of incarceration which Nelson Mandela endured while waiting to be made President of Sarth Efricor. This, patently, is bollocks. The dumbest thing is, (a) bollocks or not, given SA's status as 2010 World Cup holder this bollocks will probably occur regardless of how bollock-escent it is, and (b) not even Mandela will complain about it; he'll even turn up and preside over the event most likely. These days Mandela would turn up to the opening of an envelope. Somebody get the man a permanent gig for Christ's sake.
The Doctor is OUT.
Latest tit in the rack is Sludge Rogers II who has decided to quit rugby after the 2007 World Cup, which he is now almost guaranteed not to get selected for, and return to the NRL to play for the Titties. Here's a photo of Mat looking really happy to be wearing the least inventive new jersey in the history of football. Blue and yellow? Why didn't anyone think of wearing that combination before? Presumably some marketing-led bollocks will be trotted out about the azure blue representing the Queensland sky and the yellow the golden sandy beaches... insert hurl here... but as argued above, if they really want their new local constitutents to accept them, the Gold Coast concern should have gone with a colour scheme which is a bit more appropriate or representative of the local environment. The Weak suggests a combination of fake tan and greenbacks. And they should definitely play in white shoes. Keith Williams would have been proud.But back to Sludge II and his 'return' to the Goldie, where he spent his teenage years as a boarder at pretentious rugger-bugger production facility The Southport School. The real reason for Sludge II's departure from union is that it allows him a tactful departure from residing in the Shire, where he can't seem to walk down the street without some hapless local wanting to stop him to talk about his old man Sludge I. Fair enough. So Sludge II will pack up his family and move north - his family being former Jeans West clotheshorse and Channel V set decoration Chloe Maxwell, and their son, Max Danger Rogers. No shit... that's the kid's name. Yes folks, 'Danger' is his middle name, quite literally. Dual international father or not, that kid's going to have the piss taken out of him at school something fucking atrocious...
Cheats never prosper
Except in Formula Fun where they get multi-million dollar contracts from their employers and world titles gift-wrapped from the governing bodies. The Weak's Fred Alonso was thoroughly nobbled by dodgy Italian stewards at the Wog GP last weekend, when he was demoted to tenth place on the grid after allegedly 'blocking' Ferrari muppet Felipe Massa's final qualifying lap. The fact that Massa didn't actually get within 100 metres of Alonso during aforesaid lap didn't appear to faze the stewards in their quest to eliminate our Fred from contention. Anyone know the Italian for 'rort'? Alonso's Renault proceeded to blow up ten laps from the end of the race, handing the retiring (if definitely not shy) Michael Schumacher the perfect opportunity to score a bucket of points and close Fred's world championship lead to 2 points.
So did Fred cop it sweet? Did he bollocks. "In Formula One, there are commercial and political interests," he said. "We are talking about the most successful driver in history and a little bit of help has never gone amiss. "Quite often they go over the line of what is acceptable and it is inexplicable." He said he had briefly considered flipping off the race entirely, in protest at the stewards' bullshit decision to demote him. "You think about not racing, but it goes away quickly once you put your helmet on," Alonso said. "No-one is going to believe the penalty I was given for a long time to come. The excuse they (the stewards) gave was far from honest. It isn't good for our sport." He added: "I was 100 per cent sure that I could win the race from anywhere on the grid, to keep on scoring points and finish in front. What I'm sure about is that he who laughs last, laughs longest."
We'll see who gets to crank out the 'Muhahahaha' evil-genius-style' at season's end. Our money is still on the young fullah.
Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, you big-chinned wurst-eating tool
So to Schumacher's retirement and his likely legacy. He will undoubtedly retire with more wins, poles and championships than any man preceding him; he will probably retire with this year's title under his belt as well, the way the FIA are carrying on - not only with stunts like demoting Alonso in qualifying in Italy and Hungary, but banning the trick 'mass dampers' which Renault developed to combat the weird gyroscopic oscillations of the big balloon-shaped tyres F1 cars use as a historical anacronism (try and find another racing series worldwide which runs on 13" diameter wheels - even Brocky's fully-sicked-up Lada from 15 years ago had more impressive rims than that.) The FIA banned the mass dampers as they considered them a 'movable aerodynamic device' - slightly odd as they were not movable or aerodynamic, although one presumes they could be called a device - while when Ferrari were turning up to races earlier in the year with flexible rear wings that bent out of shape to produce less drag in a straight line, the powers that be were suspiciously silent.
So what can be objectively stated about Schumacher?
1. He was fast.
Self-evidently.
2. He made a lot of mistakes.
Much more than any 'great' of the past - mainly if Schumacher had been around in the '60s or '70s (or even the '80s) and had made as many mistakes in those days as he did in an average season these days, he'd have been dead and buried before his second world title.
3. He got by with a little help from his friends.
Not just his team - he had to have an entire team behind him to win, with a teammate hired solely for the role of Team Gimp - but as Fred has pointed out, the governing body is usually behind him as well.
In fact the only time Schumacher was ever in the wrong in the eyes of the governing body - aside from the slap with a wet bus ticket he got for trying to take out Jacques Villeneuve in the title decider in 1997 - was at Monaco this year, when Schumi parked his red council truck in the middle of the Rascasse hairpin to prevent Fred or Look-At-Me-Kimi from taking pole position off him in the last minutes of qualifying. Schumacher was widely accused of cheating and for once the stewards agreed, banishing him to the back of the grid. He had claimed that he had committed a driving error and stalled his car, but noone bought that fresh wheelbarrow of bullshit. "He's just a cheap cheat," legendary 80s F1 ace Keke Rosberg (father of the markedly less interesting Nico Rosberg of Williams) said. "He should leave F1 to honest people. I thought he had grown up. Does he think we are all fools and idiots?" Alonso's Renault boss Flavio Briatore, who guided Schumacher to his first couple of titles, added, "Someone who was seven times a world champion wants us to believe that he didn't do it on purpose - it's fairyland." And then Flavor Flav went back to spading supermodels.
Briatore has taught you well, my son
Schumacher's history of snotting into people in an attempt to win stuff is longer than Chopper Read's rap sheet and we don't have time or interest to go through it here. It's punctuated by the title deciders in 1994 and 1997, one of which worked out well for Schumacher, the other didn't. At Adelaide in 1994, Schumacher sealed his first world title by crashing his car into that of championship rival Damon Hill. Hill later wrote in his book which noone read: "There are two things that set Michael apart from the rest of the drivers in Formula One - his sheer talent and his attitude. I am full of admiration for the former, but the latter leaves me cold."
Oooohh. Cop that.
Now it's fairly easy and requires little trouser to slag someone like Schumacher off when you're safely retired and there's no chance he could, say, run you off the road at 300 kays into the shrubbery come next fortnight's Gran Pree. So what do the new generation of F1 stars think? And would they actually tell you what they think, in the modern age of bland, meaningless, platitude-filled, stage-managed, soundbite-strewn interviews and press conferences? Cue a man who has already been run off the road at 300 kays by Schumacher (lap one, British GP, Silverstone 2003) and probably doesn't give an arse anymore: we present once more for your entertainment, reigning F1 world champion Fred Alonso in Spanish sports weekly Marca, with our favourite quote of the year to date.
"Michael is the man with the most sanctions and is the most unsporting driver in the history of Formula One," Alonso said. "Even Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher."
We like Fred. Even if he does pick his nose in public.
No butts about it
And on the subject of Zizou (and ludicrous decisions from sports governing bodies), FIFA have decided that it would be fantastic to stage-manage a tearful reunion, or at least an awkward eyes-averted handshake, between Zinedine 'Le Nutter' Zidane and Marco 'Yo' Sista' Materazzi, on South Africa's Robben Island, where some black dude was in prison or something. Someone at FIFA, possibly dickhead-in-residence Septic Bladder, has estimated that a French bloke applying a Glasgow kiss to an Italian bloke's ribcage in response to a lewd inquiry as to the availability of the French bloke's sister is on a par in terms of international significance to the 27 years of incarceration which Nelson Mandela endured while waiting to be made President of Sarth Efricor. This, patently, is bollocks. The dumbest thing is, (a) bollocks or not, given SA's status as 2010 World Cup holder this bollocks will probably occur regardless of how bollock-escent it is, and (b) not even Mandela will complain about it; he'll even turn up and preside over the event most likely. These days Mandela would turn up to the opening of an envelope. Somebody get the man a permanent gig for Christ's sake.
The Doctor is OUT.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
You killed Brocky! You bastards!
Okay. This is a square-up for Irwin, right? After last week's column, we really walked into this one. As distinct from driving into it, of course.
Brock accident investigation report released - cause of death announced as 'crashing car into tree'
By the way, did anyone find out whether the tree was stamped with a Ford part number?
OK, for those waiting for the inevitable hypocrisy of The Weak slagging off the Crocodile Munter for going off and getting himself killed pointlessly, only to pull a handbrake turn and go easy on Brocky for doing the same thing one Weak later... It's not the same thing. Brock is (was) 61, his kids are grown up, there's no two-year-olds tottering around Chateau Brock asking when Daddy is coming home. Once your kids have left home, they can look after themselves; you don't owe anyone anything. And attention media outlets of the nation: enough mentioning Brock and Irwin in the same sentence already. The Bradman of Australian motorsport (hyperbole courtesy Sky News) versus a novelty croc-wrestling sideshow act in khaki Ruggers? As Barry Sheene would have put it: Do me a faaayver.
Not sure why David Reyne from Getaway was worth painting a dodgy picture of, but nevermind
Dropping off the twig does wonders for one's legacy, as we've previously observed with guys like Ayrton Senna; all the regrettable and forgettable stuff gets shoved under the carpet and hurriedly trodden on to give the impression of smooth unimpeded floor coverings. However, that's the stuff which is really interesting - so in this spirit The Weak would like to present the following:
Peter Geoffrey Brock: Mad, bad and dodgy
In a testimony to responsible parenting, Brock learned to drive as a 7 year old, perched on a fruit case in the driver's seat of the farm truck. His old man, aside from farming, was the local Holden dealer, and supplied the fifteen or so early model Holdens which Brock managed to destroy once he'd actually been given his licence. On his national service up in Wagga, Brock found both an Austin A30 bodyshell and a wrecked then-current HD Holden, and hit upon the idea of bolting the overpowered 179ci six into the spindly Austin in order to give him something to go racing in (in the then burgeoning sports sedan class). Trouble was that Brock didn't actually know how to weld. He started at the back of the car and learned as he went, with the result being that by the time he reached the front of the car, he knew how to weld. This may explain the rather 'flexible' attitude to cornering which the device exhibited on hitting the track. And the fact that it appeared to be unstitching itself arse-first as he proceeded around Sandown.
The infamous Holden-powered A30, as built by Chook Shed Race Engineering Ltd
Despite or perhaps because of this, within two years the new Holden Dealer Team had decided to put Brock in one of their fearsome GTS350 Monaros for the 1969 Bathurst 500 (miles). He finished third on debut. Brock was made a full-time HDT driver and went on to win the '500' in 1972 (in its last incarnation as such before being metricified and lengthened to 1000km) single-handedly in the six-cylinder Torana XU1, holding off the V8 Falcons in the damp conditions.
Throughout the 70s Brock was pretty much the Warney of motorsport (Warney circa the mid-90s before he got fat and went bald, of course). Young, brash and cocky, in the society pages as much as the sports pages, sinking vast quantities of piss, smoking cigarettes, living off hamburgers and Coke, banging lots of gorgeous women (including a brief marriage to Miss Australia), and winning. Lots. He even had the audacity to flip off the works Holden team and go it alone as a privateer for a couple of years, winning his second Bathurst crown in 1975 in the V8 Torana L34.
And here's a picture (as Pate Biscuit would have said. C'mon, some of you fuckers have to remember the Big Gig. Ah fuck yers.)
Returning to the HDT (which he later took over as his own team), he then proceeded to dominate like noone before or since. Between 1978 and 1984 Brock won six Bathurst 1000s in seven years. With Jim Richards he won 1978 and 1979 in the Torana A9X (the latter winning by six laps, setting the fastest lap of the race on the last lap just because he could) and 1980 in the new Commodore; Dick Johnson won in 1981 after a pileup blocked the track and the race was stopped; then Brock teamed up with Larry Perkins to win 1982, 1983 (in his backup car) and 1984. The introduction of the international 'Group A' touring car regulations meant all the Euros came down with their Jaguars, BMWs and turbocharged Ford Sierras in coming years, but Brock managed one more win in 1987 after the leading Euro Sierras were thrown out for running on rocket fuel and having tyres an inch wider than everyone else.
That marked the end of Brock's magic run on the mountain - he was a full-time race driver for another 10 years but never again won the big race. However it wasn't really rule changes or increased competition that buggered him up - it was his own stupid bloody self.You see, in the late 70s when he was at the height of his heroism, living the life any man would give their least functional love spud to enjoy (i.e. winning Bathurst/sinking piss/banging Miss Australias/living on vast quantities of barbequed animal product et al), Brocky met a chick called Bev. She was into New Age shit - crystals, auras, veganism. And Brocky gave up all the cool shit which we've just outlined - particularly alcohol, tobacco and dead animal extract - in order to keep her happy. Anyone else see where this is going?
Fast forward to the heady mid-1980s, greed being good and all that. By now Brock, aside from his racing duties, has managed to build up a business around making Brock HDT performance Commodores for the road - basically what HSV went on to do in later years - and he and Holden are getting on very well, particularly as the new 'Group A' rules mean you need to make and sell 500 roadworthy examples of the car you want to race. Things went well until Brock started bolting onto aforesaid performance Commodores something called an 'Energy Polariser.' This was a box of crystals, mirrors and bullshit which Brock claimed would suppress the car's disharmonic vibrations, realign its chakras, optimise its aura, and would generally cause Cosmically Good Shit to occur. To which General Motors Holden, local offshoot of one of the world's biggest corporations and not really a company predisposed to new age beliefs, said "Okaaaaayyy... but there's one slight problem. See that Holden badge on there? That means we're supposed to provide our customers with some kind of warranty that this thing does what it's supposed to. Otherwise we can, kinda, get sued and shit if someone's Brock Commodore doesn't have a correctly aligned aura with respect to the direction of travel. So can we have this Energy Fertiliser thing checked out in the lab?" To which Brock's response was a hearty "Hell no" and furthermore that if Holden wanted him to remove the box of goodies from the new HDT VL Group A then he'd be removing his signature from the thing as well.
And it all went downhill from there.
The rights to the lucrative HDT cars business ended up in the courts, and the VL Commodore in which Brock won Bathurst 1987 had no Holden signage on it whatsoever. By 1988 Brock's team were running BMW M3s. One year later, to the astonishment and disgust of most of Australian motorsport, Brock had jumped on the turbo Sierra bandwagon; the Holden dealer's son, winner of nine Bathursts, nine Sandown 500s and three Australian touring car championships for Holden, was driving a Ford. Grown men wept in the streets. Mostly owners of Brock HDT Commodores who were seeing their resale value plunge faster than the '87 stock market.
Brock's journey from national hero to shambolic joke was complete when the remnants of his HDT business (no longer allowed to officially fully-sick-up Holdens as a result of the court battle - Holden set up HSV in 1988 in response) started fully-sicking-up other cars, like an asthmatic six-cylinder Falcon, and later, a Lada Samara. The latter was a horrendous Russian experiment gone wrong, a mini Chernobyl on wheels - 1970s engineering in a 1980s design (with genuine Iron Curtain build quality) for a 1990s world. You could not have found a car less worthy of the once-glorious Brock name than the Lada Samara, and you could not find a more damning indictment of how Brock's new age lunacy had sent him to the gutter and beyond.
For the love of God, make the man stop
All good stories have their redemption bit and here's Brock's. In late 1990 Brock got a call from ex-teammate Larry Perkins who had a team of V8 Commodores with no sponsors. Brock had sponsors (Mobil) but no team. They joined forces for 1991 - it didn't last beyond that, the Commodores were getting whipped by the Sierras and latterly the Nissan GTR ('Godzilla') - but the key thing was, Brock was back in a Holden.
Brock and Perkins with their '84 Bathurst winner, a performance which had inspired many young Australians to take up racing, and yet more to take up smoking Marlboros
Brock ran his own team again for 1992/93, again with Commodores and again with only minor success. Then, at the end of 1993, the new factory Holden Racing Team (like HSV, borne from the late-80s ashes of Brock's HDT) decided to dispense with the services of former 500cc bike GP world champ Wayne Gardner, and was looking for a new lead driver. Brock, Mobil and the hallowed number zero-five were back on the flanks of the factory Holden racer as of 1994. Redemption complete.
Redemption for the new age shit maybe, but not for being a fucking Liberal voter.
What a cunt.
Of course he didn't actually WIN anything from then until he pulled the plug on his full-time career in 1997, but he did manage to tutor his young teammate Craig Lowndes to a sufficient level of competence such that the kid won a bunch of stuff for Holden followed by a massive Ford contract for himself (and has never looked anything like as good without Brock as his teammate). And the other reason Brock never won again was... he'd run completely out of luck. Probably a concept a bit too old-school to fit into hisown new-age belief structure, but still valid. In 16 years (1972-87) Brock won Bathurst nine times, sometimes involving the most astonishing good fortune on his part or lack thereof on that of his opponents. His luck basically ran out in ensuing years. Case in point, his first farewell at Bathurst in 1997. He started the 05 HRT Commodore from pole, led for the first hour and a half, doing it comfortably. The crowd was screaming, the sun was shining, Brock was going out on top, and all was right in the world. He pitted and handed over to new teammate Mark Skaife. One lap afterwards the thing terminally shat itself heading up Mountain Straight.
Aside from a couple of abortive comebacks (one with a hideously old thing run by his own team, another with HRT a year or so ago where his idiot Pom co-driver crashed into one of Brad Jones' Falcons) and a triumph in the thundering Monaro in the Bathurst 24 Hour, that was all she wrote. In retirement Brock developed a passion for tarmac-based road rallies such as Targa Tasmania, which was his first. Targa West, last week, was his last.
"I haven't quite got to grips with it yet..."
So ends the story of Peter Geoffrey Brock, 1945-2006. The King is dead. Vale Brocky - a proud and true Aussie bloke, and a hero for the ages. Quite an achievement given he was a new-age Liberal-voting vegan teetotaller who once fully-sicked-up a Lada hatchback.
Brock accident investigation report released - cause of death announced as 'crashing car into tree'
By the way, did anyone find out whether the tree was stamped with a Ford part number?
OK, for those waiting for the inevitable hypocrisy of The Weak slagging off the Crocodile Munter for going off and getting himself killed pointlessly, only to pull a handbrake turn and go easy on Brocky for doing the same thing one Weak later... It's not the same thing. Brock is (was) 61, his kids are grown up, there's no two-year-olds tottering around Chateau Brock asking when Daddy is coming home. Once your kids have left home, they can look after themselves; you don't owe anyone anything. And attention media outlets of the nation: enough mentioning Brock and Irwin in the same sentence already. The Bradman of Australian motorsport (hyperbole courtesy Sky News) versus a novelty croc-wrestling sideshow act in khaki Ruggers? As Barry Sheene would have put it: Do me a faaayver.
Not sure why David Reyne from Getaway was worth painting a dodgy picture of, but nevermind
Dropping off the twig does wonders for one's legacy, as we've previously observed with guys like Ayrton Senna; all the regrettable and forgettable stuff gets shoved under the carpet and hurriedly trodden on to give the impression of smooth unimpeded floor coverings. However, that's the stuff which is really interesting - so in this spirit The Weak would like to present the following:
Peter Geoffrey Brock: Mad, bad and dodgy
In a testimony to responsible parenting, Brock learned to drive as a 7 year old, perched on a fruit case in the driver's seat of the farm truck. His old man, aside from farming, was the local Holden dealer, and supplied the fifteen or so early model Holdens which Brock managed to destroy once he'd actually been given his licence. On his national service up in Wagga, Brock found both an Austin A30 bodyshell and a wrecked then-current HD Holden, and hit upon the idea of bolting the overpowered 179ci six into the spindly Austin in order to give him something to go racing in (in the then burgeoning sports sedan class). Trouble was that Brock didn't actually know how to weld. He started at the back of the car and learned as he went, with the result being that by the time he reached the front of the car, he knew how to weld. This may explain the rather 'flexible' attitude to cornering which the device exhibited on hitting the track. And the fact that it appeared to be unstitching itself arse-first as he proceeded around Sandown.
The infamous Holden-powered A30, as built by Chook Shed Race Engineering Ltd
Despite or perhaps because of this, within two years the new Holden Dealer Team had decided to put Brock in one of their fearsome GTS350 Monaros for the 1969 Bathurst 500 (miles). He finished third on debut. Brock was made a full-time HDT driver and went on to win the '500' in 1972 (in its last incarnation as such before being metricified and lengthened to 1000km) single-handedly in the six-cylinder Torana XU1, holding off the V8 Falcons in the damp conditions.
Throughout the 70s Brock was pretty much the Warney of motorsport (Warney circa the mid-90s before he got fat and went bald, of course). Young, brash and cocky, in the society pages as much as the sports pages, sinking vast quantities of piss, smoking cigarettes, living off hamburgers and Coke, banging lots of gorgeous women (including a brief marriage to Miss Australia), and winning. Lots. He even had the audacity to flip off the works Holden team and go it alone as a privateer for a couple of years, winning his second Bathurst crown in 1975 in the V8 Torana L34.
And here's a picture (as Pate Biscuit would have said. C'mon, some of you fuckers have to remember the Big Gig. Ah fuck yers.)
Returning to the HDT (which he later took over as his own team), he then proceeded to dominate like noone before or since. Between 1978 and 1984 Brock won six Bathurst 1000s in seven years. With Jim Richards he won 1978 and 1979 in the Torana A9X (the latter winning by six laps, setting the fastest lap of the race on the last lap just because he could) and 1980 in the new Commodore; Dick Johnson won in 1981 after a pileup blocked the track and the race was stopped; then Brock teamed up with Larry Perkins to win 1982, 1983 (in his backup car) and 1984. The introduction of the international 'Group A' touring car regulations meant all the Euros came down with their Jaguars, BMWs and turbocharged Ford Sierras in coming years, but Brock managed one more win in 1987 after the leading Euro Sierras were thrown out for running on rocket fuel and having tyres an inch wider than everyone else.
That marked the end of Brock's magic run on the mountain - he was a full-time race driver for another 10 years but never again won the big race. However it wasn't really rule changes or increased competition that buggered him up - it was his own stupid bloody self.You see, in the late 70s when he was at the height of his heroism, living the life any man would give their least functional love spud to enjoy (i.e. winning Bathurst/sinking piss/banging Miss Australias/living on vast quantities of barbequed animal product et al), Brocky met a chick called Bev. She was into New Age shit - crystals, auras, veganism. And Brocky gave up all the cool shit which we've just outlined - particularly alcohol, tobacco and dead animal extract - in order to keep her happy. Anyone else see where this is going?
Fast forward to the heady mid-1980s, greed being good and all that. By now Brock, aside from his racing duties, has managed to build up a business around making Brock HDT performance Commodores for the road - basically what HSV went on to do in later years - and he and Holden are getting on very well, particularly as the new 'Group A' rules mean you need to make and sell 500 roadworthy examples of the car you want to race. Things went well until Brock started bolting onto aforesaid performance Commodores something called an 'Energy Polariser.' This was a box of crystals, mirrors and bullshit which Brock claimed would suppress the car's disharmonic vibrations, realign its chakras, optimise its aura, and would generally cause Cosmically Good Shit to occur. To which General Motors Holden, local offshoot of one of the world's biggest corporations and not really a company predisposed to new age beliefs, said "Okaaaaayyy... but there's one slight problem. See that Holden badge on there? That means we're supposed to provide our customers with some kind of warranty that this thing does what it's supposed to. Otherwise we can, kinda, get sued and shit if someone's Brock Commodore doesn't have a correctly aligned aura with respect to the direction of travel. So can we have this Energy Fertiliser thing checked out in the lab?" To which Brock's response was a hearty "Hell no" and furthermore that if Holden wanted him to remove the box of goodies from the new HDT VL Group A then he'd be removing his signature from the thing as well.
And it all went downhill from there.
The rights to the lucrative HDT cars business ended up in the courts, and the VL Commodore in which Brock won Bathurst 1987 had no Holden signage on it whatsoever. By 1988 Brock's team were running BMW M3s. One year later, to the astonishment and disgust of most of Australian motorsport, Brock had jumped on the turbo Sierra bandwagon; the Holden dealer's son, winner of nine Bathursts, nine Sandown 500s and three Australian touring car championships for Holden, was driving a Ford. Grown men wept in the streets. Mostly owners of Brock HDT Commodores who were seeing their resale value plunge faster than the '87 stock market.
Brock's journey from national hero to shambolic joke was complete when the remnants of his HDT business (no longer allowed to officially fully-sick-up Holdens as a result of the court battle - Holden set up HSV in 1988 in response) started fully-sicking-up other cars, like an asthmatic six-cylinder Falcon, and later, a Lada Samara. The latter was a horrendous Russian experiment gone wrong, a mini Chernobyl on wheels - 1970s engineering in a 1980s design (with genuine Iron Curtain build quality) for a 1990s world. You could not have found a car less worthy of the once-glorious Brock name than the Lada Samara, and you could not find a more damning indictment of how Brock's new age lunacy had sent him to the gutter and beyond.
For the love of God, make the man stop
All good stories have their redemption bit and here's Brock's. In late 1990 Brock got a call from ex-teammate Larry Perkins who had a team of V8 Commodores with no sponsors. Brock had sponsors (Mobil) but no team. They joined forces for 1991 - it didn't last beyond that, the Commodores were getting whipped by the Sierras and latterly the Nissan GTR ('Godzilla') - but the key thing was, Brock was back in a Holden.
Brock and Perkins with their '84 Bathurst winner, a performance which had inspired many young Australians to take up racing, and yet more to take up smoking Marlboros
Brock ran his own team again for 1992/93, again with Commodores and again with only minor success. Then, at the end of 1993, the new factory Holden Racing Team (like HSV, borne from the late-80s ashes of Brock's HDT) decided to dispense with the services of former 500cc bike GP world champ Wayne Gardner, and was looking for a new lead driver. Brock, Mobil and the hallowed number zero-five were back on the flanks of the factory Holden racer as of 1994. Redemption complete.
Redemption for the new age shit maybe, but not for being a fucking Liberal voter.
What a cunt.
Of course he didn't actually WIN anything from then until he pulled the plug on his full-time career in 1997, but he did manage to tutor his young teammate Craig Lowndes to a sufficient level of competence such that the kid won a bunch of stuff for Holden followed by a massive Ford contract for himself (and has never looked anything like as good without Brock as his teammate). And the other reason Brock never won again was... he'd run completely out of luck. Probably a concept a bit too old-school to fit into hisown new-age belief structure, but still valid. In 16 years (1972-87) Brock won Bathurst nine times, sometimes involving the most astonishing good fortune on his part or lack thereof on that of his opponents. His luck basically ran out in ensuing years. Case in point, his first farewell at Bathurst in 1997. He started the 05 HRT Commodore from pole, led for the first hour and a half, doing it comfortably. The crowd was screaming, the sun was shining, Brock was going out on top, and all was right in the world. He pitted and handed over to new teammate Mark Skaife. One lap afterwards the thing terminally shat itself heading up Mountain Straight.
Aside from a couple of abortive comebacks (one with a hideously old thing run by his own team, another with HRT a year or so ago where his idiot Pom co-driver crashed into one of Brad Jones' Falcons) and a triumph in the thundering Monaro in the Bathurst 24 Hour, that was all she wrote. In retirement Brock developed a passion for tarmac-based road rallies such as Targa Tasmania, which was his first. Targa West, last week, was his last.
"I haven't quite got to grips with it yet..."
So ends the story of Peter Geoffrey Brock, 1945-2006. The King is dead. Vale Brocky - a proud and true Aussie bloke, and a hero for the ages. Quite an achievement given he was a new-age Liberal-voting vegan teetotaller who once fully-sicked-up a Lada hatchback.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Croc Hunter funeral plans announced: body to be turned into attractive handbag and matching shoes
What, too soon?
Steve Irwin lived how he died. Like a fuckin' idiot. I'm sorry (actually no I'm not) but if you've got two young kiddies at home, stop fucking about with deadly-ass shit that will fuck you up. Up to and including the likes of stingrays, crocodiles, sharks, lions, tigers, baboons with Kalasnikov rifles, and even motherfuckin' snakes (whether on a motherfuckin' plane or otherwise). Irwin was the fourth-highest paid Australian entertainer worldwide (emphasis on 'was'). Now he's dead and his crappily named kiddies have no dad. They have plenty of money, sure, but they have no dad. Good swap, you safari suit wearing arseclown. And don't give me that bollocks about it being a 'freak accident'. You put yourself in those positions, you get fucked up. The only thing 'freak' about it was Irwin.
Oh but he would have wanted it that way...
Which brings us to the concept of celebrity death and the ludicrously empty platitude which is trotted out for personages of the ilk of the Crocodile Munter: 'Oh, he would have wanted to go out that way.' Aside from that being weapons-grade bullshit (how the fuck would you know how he wanted to 'go out'?), how does shuffling off the mortal coil in a supposedly 'appropriate' way make it any more acceptable? Regardless of the logic, this sort of tripe is pedalled every time an adventurer or sports identity drops off the twig in spectacular fashion in their line of work - for every mountain climber who loses his grip on the North Col of Everest, for every surfer lunched and/or munched by a shark, and for every extreme sports fuckwit who forgets to lace up his bungy cord, the same line is trotted out. To this day three-time Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna is considered to have died 'doing what he loved' - no, not that Playboy playmate he was dating at the time - rather than the less prosaic but possibly more factual observation that he died 'skewered through the scone on the end of a Williams FW16 right front suspension wishbone'.
Dally M shock: football team owned by News Ltd playing in competition owned by News Ltd dominates popularity contest voted on by News Ltd journalists
From death, to a long winter in Melbourne; pretty much even odds as to which would be more preferable. For the aptly named Storm (presumably Shitfight was already taken), the Melbourne winter actually had a point, judging from their profits out of last night's Dally M awards. Wayne Bennett protege Craig Bellamy skived off with Coach of the Year (narrowly edging out Souths' Bomber McRae), shortly before grapple-merchant hooker Cameron Smith nabbed the Big Cheese On Offer ahead of the Eelses' Nathan Hindmarsh and his comedy hair. He was presented with his trophy by Prime Minister and latent rockspider Johnny "I'd turn up to the opening of an envelope, so long as I don't have to shake hands with a boong" Howard. Smith joins a fine tradition of Rugby League's player of the year award being won by very, very mediocre footballers who have managed by some statistical miracle to have arsed a season's worth of decent games in succession. The roll call of Dally M and/or Rothmans medallists in the past 15 years who can be best described as very, very average is longer than you'd hope:
1991: Split decision. Ewen McGrady (Dogs) won the Rothmans and Michael Potter (Saints, I think) won the Dally M. Fucked if I can remember either of the bastards.
1994: David Fairleigh from Norths (remember them?) I seem to recall Centrebet suspended betting on the awards that year because the fix was in.
1995: Paul Green, apparently of Cronulla. Vaguely remember him. With him as their fearless leader in the halves, the Sharks failed to win so much as the meat tray at the Leagues Club.
2001: Preston Campbell, then also of Cronulla. Nice little fullah, all power to him, but seriously.
2004: Danny Buderus, The Newcs. Fuck he's overrated. Without Joey, he's a passenger.
2005: Johnathon Thurston, Cowlads. Again, nice kid, loves his mum and all that. But you tell me whether anyone remembers him in twenty years, for any reason other than the half-arsed way he spells his name.
2006: Cameron Smith, Melbourne. Never trust anyone with two surnames and no first name.
Sing when you're winning, bawl when you're losing
To tennis (yes, we must), and play in the 4th round of the US Open was suspended following a rain delay, caused by Andre Agassi losing to a random out of the crowd called Becker (not Ted Danson, nor that ginga Kraut tennis bloke from back in the day who got up that chick in that broom closet) and bawling like a little bitch for a good hour and a half. How to defile your heroic sporting legacy in one easy lesson: go out like a complete sook.
Then again, maybe Andrea had visions of this sort of stuff being dusted off as part of his career retrospective, and just couldn't deal...
I am Fabio, the most beautiful tennis player in the cosmos...
More? Of course there's more. Google Image Search in the house, y'all.
Proof that love is blind
As agitated Mexican dude Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine once spoke of that era: Back into '92 - still in a room without a view. Hopefully without a fuckin' mirror as well.
Bomber shot down
No, not Bomber Beazley - and what is it with fat guys with no leadership potential whatsoever being tagged 'Bomber'? - no, it's South Sydney supercoach Shaun McRae who's been downed and was last seen trailing an ominous pall of smoke from his tail (though that could have been from doing the Dance of the Flaming Arseholes as part of Souths' traditional Mad Monday celebrations.) Bomber McRae was given the arse as first team head coach on the eve of Round 26, in which Souths subsequently managed to distinguish themselves by losing to the Westie Bogans by about as much as they did last time they played, i.e. lots. 1996 Rothmans medallist (see, sometimes they managed to give it to someone who didn't suck) Jason Taylor takes over from next year. Which brings us to a magic moment of television from a recent episode of The Footy Show, car-crash TV at its finest. Perennially superfluous token ethnic Mario Fenech had crashed the North Sydney Team Of The Century party with a camera crew in tow and was doorstopping former Bears greats ref. their opinions on the big night. One of the Falcon's victims was Taylor, who looked absolutely thrilled about it.
Fenech: "Ah, hey, Jason Taylor, my man! We played together for the mighty red and blacks back in the day, didn't we mate!"
Taylor: "Ah yeah. Just because we played together doesn't make us friends, does it Mario?"
You broke the rules... now I'll rip out all your pubic Hair
OK so that's both a massively obscure Tenacious D reference AND an appalling segue, which can only but illustrate in tribute (ha! another one) the astonishing stupidity of former ICC umpire and freelance racist Darrell '$500K in unmarked non-sequential US bills in a suitcase behind the Lords changing sheds at midnight' Hair. Hair already has a reputation as a man who's not overly keen on what Roy and HG would call 'subcontinental wrist' - whether cocked at dubious angles a la Murali or when bent over a cricket ball directing fingernails into the seam as per Pakistan speedster Admiral Akhbar. So how to ensure that you're not run out of the game and derided as a delusional reactionary prepared to be bought at a (massive) price, Hansie Cronje style? (Cronje died when the cargo plane he was stowing away in, crashed into a big hill. 'Oh, but he would have wanted to go out that way.') Hey, why not write your boss an email offering to bugger off to the Maldives for $500K US and make the whole issue just go away? Irrespective of the fact that with global warming there shortly won't be a lot of the Maldives to bugger off to, it strikes us as a very slightly dodgy request on Hair's behalf.
Zidane's mom has got it goin' on
But not according to Marco Mattress, who's finally 'fessed up to what he sledged the lanky Algerian with on that fateful night in July. He admitted he'd been pulling Zidane's shirt for most of the game.
Zidane: Look, if you want my shirt that badly, I'll let you have it after the game.
Materazzi: I'd prefer your sister...
Materazzi further went on to point out he hadn't known at the time whether Zidane even had a sister. Presumably he's had that point clarified then.
We said it in July and we'll say it again now: Zidane is a wet sook who wasn't psychologically up to the pressure. This sort of sledging is so middle of the road these days it's been used to sell Snack Stops ('You know who else loves it? Yer mum') and the French should be thankful he's never been called upon to take block with Ian Healy over his shoulder and Glenn McGrath doing his teapot routine 22 yards down the strip.
Speaking of which... it's September, which means three things: finals football; Bathurst next month; and the summer of cricket is just around the corner. Which means the Ashes. Altogether now and practice, for any of you bastards who've actually managed to get tickets:
My old man
He told me
England will not bat till tea
With a nick-nack paddy-whack give-a-dog-a-bone
Barmy Army, fuck off home.
I think there's something in that for all of us.
The Doctor is OUT.
Steve Irwin lived how he died. Like a fuckin' idiot. I'm sorry (actually no I'm not) but if you've got two young kiddies at home, stop fucking about with deadly-ass shit that will fuck you up. Up to and including the likes of stingrays, crocodiles, sharks, lions, tigers, baboons with Kalasnikov rifles, and even motherfuckin' snakes (whether on a motherfuckin' plane or otherwise). Irwin was the fourth-highest paid Australian entertainer worldwide (emphasis on 'was'). Now he's dead and his crappily named kiddies have no dad. They have plenty of money, sure, but they have no dad. Good swap, you safari suit wearing arseclown. And don't give me that bollocks about it being a 'freak accident'. You put yourself in those positions, you get fucked up. The only thing 'freak' about it was Irwin.
Oh but he would have wanted it that way...
Which brings us to the concept of celebrity death and the ludicrously empty platitude which is trotted out for personages of the ilk of the Crocodile Munter: 'Oh, he would have wanted to go out that way.' Aside from that being weapons-grade bullshit (how the fuck would you know how he wanted to 'go out'?), how does shuffling off the mortal coil in a supposedly 'appropriate' way make it any more acceptable? Regardless of the logic, this sort of tripe is pedalled every time an adventurer or sports identity drops off the twig in spectacular fashion in their line of work - for every mountain climber who loses his grip on the North Col of Everest, for every surfer lunched and/or munched by a shark, and for every extreme sports fuckwit who forgets to lace up his bungy cord, the same line is trotted out. To this day three-time Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna is considered to have died 'doing what he loved' - no, not that Playboy playmate he was dating at the time - rather than the less prosaic but possibly more factual observation that he died 'skewered through the scone on the end of a Williams FW16 right front suspension wishbone'.
Dally M shock: football team owned by News Ltd playing in competition owned by News Ltd dominates popularity contest voted on by News Ltd journalists
From death, to a long winter in Melbourne; pretty much even odds as to which would be more preferable. For the aptly named Storm (presumably Shitfight was already taken), the Melbourne winter actually had a point, judging from their profits out of last night's Dally M awards. Wayne Bennett protege Craig Bellamy skived off with Coach of the Year (narrowly edging out Souths' Bomber McRae), shortly before grapple-merchant hooker Cameron Smith nabbed the Big Cheese On Offer ahead of the Eelses' Nathan Hindmarsh and his comedy hair. He was presented with his trophy by Prime Minister and latent rockspider Johnny "I'd turn up to the opening of an envelope, so long as I don't have to shake hands with a boong" Howard. Smith joins a fine tradition of Rugby League's player of the year award being won by very, very mediocre footballers who have managed by some statistical miracle to have arsed a season's worth of decent games in succession. The roll call of Dally M and/or Rothmans medallists in the past 15 years who can be best described as very, very average is longer than you'd hope:
1991: Split decision. Ewen McGrady (Dogs) won the Rothmans and Michael Potter (Saints, I think) won the Dally M. Fucked if I can remember either of the bastards.
1994: David Fairleigh from Norths (remember them?) I seem to recall Centrebet suspended betting on the awards that year because the fix was in.
1995: Paul Green, apparently of Cronulla. Vaguely remember him. With him as their fearless leader in the halves, the Sharks failed to win so much as the meat tray at the Leagues Club.
2001: Preston Campbell, then also of Cronulla. Nice little fullah, all power to him, but seriously.
2004: Danny Buderus, The Newcs. Fuck he's overrated. Without Joey, he's a passenger.
2005: Johnathon Thurston, Cowlads. Again, nice kid, loves his mum and all that. But you tell me whether anyone remembers him in twenty years, for any reason other than the half-arsed way he spells his name.
2006: Cameron Smith, Melbourne. Never trust anyone with two surnames and no first name.
Sing when you're winning, bawl when you're losing
To tennis (yes, we must), and play in the 4th round of the US Open was suspended following a rain delay, caused by Andre Agassi losing to a random out of the crowd called Becker (not Ted Danson, nor that ginga Kraut tennis bloke from back in the day who got up that chick in that broom closet) and bawling like a little bitch for a good hour and a half. How to defile your heroic sporting legacy in one easy lesson: go out like a complete sook.
Then again, maybe Andrea had visions of this sort of stuff being dusted off as part of his career retrospective, and just couldn't deal...
I am Fabio, the most beautiful tennis player in the cosmos...
More? Of course there's more. Google Image Search in the house, y'all.
Proof that love is blind
As agitated Mexican dude Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine once spoke of that era: Back into '92 - still in a room without a view. Hopefully without a fuckin' mirror as well.
Bomber shot down
No, not Bomber Beazley - and what is it with fat guys with no leadership potential whatsoever being tagged 'Bomber'? - no, it's South Sydney supercoach Shaun McRae who's been downed and was last seen trailing an ominous pall of smoke from his tail (though that could have been from doing the Dance of the Flaming Arseholes as part of Souths' traditional Mad Monday celebrations.) Bomber McRae was given the arse as first team head coach on the eve of Round 26, in which Souths subsequently managed to distinguish themselves by losing to the Westie Bogans by about as much as they did last time they played, i.e. lots. 1996 Rothmans medallist (see, sometimes they managed to give it to someone who didn't suck) Jason Taylor takes over from next year. Which brings us to a magic moment of television from a recent episode of The Footy Show, car-crash TV at its finest. Perennially superfluous token ethnic Mario Fenech had crashed the North Sydney Team Of The Century party with a camera crew in tow and was doorstopping former Bears greats ref. their opinions on the big night. One of the Falcon's victims was Taylor, who looked absolutely thrilled about it.
Fenech: "Ah, hey, Jason Taylor, my man! We played together for the mighty red and blacks back in the day, didn't we mate!"
Taylor: "Ah yeah. Just because we played together doesn't make us friends, does it Mario?"
You broke the rules... now I'll rip out all your pubic Hair
OK so that's both a massively obscure Tenacious D reference AND an appalling segue, which can only but illustrate in tribute (ha! another one) the astonishing stupidity of former ICC umpire and freelance racist Darrell '$500K in unmarked non-sequential US bills in a suitcase behind the Lords changing sheds at midnight' Hair. Hair already has a reputation as a man who's not overly keen on what Roy and HG would call 'subcontinental wrist' - whether cocked at dubious angles a la Murali or when bent over a cricket ball directing fingernails into the seam as per Pakistan speedster Admiral Akhbar. So how to ensure that you're not run out of the game and derided as a delusional reactionary prepared to be bought at a (massive) price, Hansie Cronje style? (Cronje died when the cargo plane he was stowing away in, crashed into a big hill. 'Oh, but he would have wanted to go out that way.') Hey, why not write your boss an email offering to bugger off to the Maldives for $500K US and make the whole issue just go away? Irrespective of the fact that with global warming there shortly won't be a lot of the Maldives to bugger off to, it strikes us as a very slightly dodgy request on Hair's behalf.
Zidane's mom has got it goin' on
But not according to Marco Mattress, who's finally 'fessed up to what he sledged the lanky Algerian with on that fateful night in July. He admitted he'd been pulling Zidane's shirt for most of the game.
Zidane: Look, if you want my shirt that badly, I'll let you have it after the game.
Materazzi: I'd prefer your sister...
Materazzi further went on to point out he hadn't known at the time whether Zidane even had a sister. Presumably he's had that point clarified then.
We said it in July and we'll say it again now: Zidane is a wet sook who wasn't psychologically up to the pressure. This sort of sledging is so middle of the road these days it's been used to sell Snack Stops ('You know who else loves it? Yer mum') and the French should be thankful he's never been called upon to take block with Ian Healy over his shoulder and Glenn McGrath doing his teapot routine 22 yards down the strip.
Speaking of which... it's September, which means three things: finals football; Bathurst next month; and the summer of cricket is just around the corner. Which means the Ashes. Altogether now and practice, for any of you bastards who've actually managed to get tickets:
My old man
He told me
England will not bat till tea
With a nick-nack paddy-whack give-a-dog-a-bone
Barmy Army, fuck off home.
I think there's something in that for all of us.
The Doctor is OUT.
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