Tintin and the rodent exterminators

No, it isn't a snotty punk rock band from the Valley, though it probably should be. It's a different bunch of Queenslanders altogether. The Rodent - known to his mother as John Winston Howard - has been exterminated. Not by the good offices of Rentokil, but by Kevin Rydd, a conservative Christian from Brisbane's northside with a disturbing likeness to Tintin (thanks v. much John 'Felafel' Birmingham), who speaks fluent Mandarin and is in no way Xavier Rudd's dad. And, irony upon ironies, the nation has been dragged out of its long bleak bigoted nightmare by the ballot-box actions of the heretofore eternally arse-backward-conservative folk of Tasmania (once responsible for giving right-wing Christian nutjob Brian Harradine veto rights over the entire nation's legislature) and of Queensland (the 'Joh For PM' campaign - say no more) - both states delivering Labor seats by the metric shitload, evicting the poisonous midget and his posse of elitist, racist, misogynist pricks out on their fat white arses.

Welcome back, Australia. It's good to see you again.

Others with more better use of words and stuff have already summated Howard's 'legacy', the reasons why he was hung onto for so long, and the reasons why he's finally been turfed out on his arse - in the SMH Paul Keating has written a blistering eulogy of his former rival - the title, 'Divisive leader who squandered Australia's hopes', should give you a fair indication of the tone of the piece: I come to bury Caesar... preferably under as much shit as the dumptruck can carry. It is bitter, twisted, acerbic and pointed. It is classic PJK. And it is absolutely, unutterably, point-by-point correct. As is legendary Australian playwright David Williamson, who offered the following to the Fairfax people:

The conservative commentator Andrew Bolt, who I rarely agree with, put his finger on why so many of us were hoping for an end to the Howard era. The Coalition over its years of rule has progressively abandoned any moral dimension in its quest to retain power. We saw racist dog whistling on every possible occasion, brutal treatment of genuine refugees, studied blindness over the Saddam bribes, shameless pork barrelling in Coalition electorates, obsequious deference to George Bush, and in what proved to be one ideological bridge too far, Howard indulging his lifelong hatred of unions by blatantly tipping the power balance towards employers, then calling it, in true Orwellian fashion, Work Choices. In fact, for many low-paid employees it was almost the total removal of choice.

However, as Williamson went on to point out, the night resulted in a triumphant rewriting of Don's Party, his seminal Australian play (and later film) based on the 1969 election in which another long-standing, long-stagnant conservative government were in power, and perhaps on the brink of defeat by the ALP. This time around Tintin and the exterminators delivered the long-awaited smackdown, as much on social and moral issues as economic, bringing a deserved demise to the government and the man who presided over nearly twelve years of some of the most cover-your-eyes-horrendous incidents in the long history of the nation of my birth. The rise (and mercifully, the fall) of Pauline Hanson. The fabricated fairy-stories of boat people throwing children (mainly their own) overboard. The sight of armed Australian defence force personnel marching into Australian townships to detain and subjugate Australian citizens in their homes (sorry, forgot to mention they were boongs, so who gives a shit?) The footage of migrants and bogans fighting pitched beachfront street battles in Cronulla and Maroubra, turning Sydney's southern beaches into Gaza-by-the-sea. And, more heinous than any of the above, the hideous, retina-scarring vision of Peter Costello doing the Macarena on Midday With Kerri-Anne Kennerley.

If I were Tintin, I'd send the lot of the cunts to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, and hope the hanging judge was in session.

Election night: special
Election night coverage usually raises more questions than it answers, such as 'What do the ABC do with Antony Green between elections?' Presumably keep him in some sort of hermetically-sealed stasis pod, to be cracked open every three to four years for the distinctly odd-looking electoral geek to pour forth earnest randomness that even rugby's Gordon 'Insert Random Player Fact Here' Bray would be proud of. A further question without notice: who does Antony Green actually vote for? Well, judging by the precedent of the rest of the ABC, if he's not voting Labor, he's probably running for office for them. Mad Max McKew obliterated the Rodent in Bennelong, astonishingly dull ABC News weatherman Mike Bailey had a goodly go at dislodging the odious Joe Hockey in North Sydney, and next election the ALP are sending Kerry O'Brien and his green pen off to run against Tony Abbott, Andrew Denton is measuring enough rope for a lynchin' of Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth, and B1 and B2 are on a joint ticket to fuck with Brendan Nelson's shit. FACT.

The Ministry of Silly Heads
Your correspondent spent several years living in the inner-south Sydney electorate of Kingsford-Smith, whose sitting member is now former Oils frontman and professional slaphead Peter Garrett. Despite the man's self-evident, hard-earned environmental and political chops, the concept of Garrett being one's local member still baffles and amuses - possibly because he looks like an enormous member as it is, but probably because the defining image of Garrett is him having the piss taken out of him ferociously in the D-Generation's Five In A Row video. Garrett is short odds to be the country's next Minister for the Environment, largely because although Garrett has the runs on the board, there unfortunately is no Ministry of Dancing Convulsively As Though Your Dodger Has Been Plugged Into The Mains.

Other electorates in which your correspondent has previously taken an interest include:
- Inner-western Sydney's Grayndler, home of Me Nan, stayed in the hands of Anthony Albanese, being a monumentally safe Labour electorate entirely composed of migrants, Abos, working class unionist types and various other life forms entirely foreign to John Winston Howard's affluent 1950s North Shore background, hence his concerted attempt to destroy them all.
- In Page, cantankerous old cane-farming prick Ian Causley finally fucked off out of politics, leaving former Mayor McCheese of Maclean Chris Gulaptis to hold up the National Party end. He failed spectacularly, and there was much rejoicing. Unfortunately for your correspondent's olds, due to some inconceivably stupid electoral redistribution, rather than staying in Page where any sensible person would have it, the Broom has ended up as the northernmost point of Cowper, an electorate which runs along a narrow coastal strip for a couple of hundred kays all the way south to Kempsey, meaning their local electorate politics are dominated by fucktards from Coffs Harbour moaning about whether the Wallabies are coming back or about the Big Banana being afflicted by Panama fungal blight, or whatever load of bollocks Coffs people are interested in. They appear to have re-elected a National goon called Lick Arsesucker or something, so their interests clearly include self-punishment (if not rimming).
- Speaking of self-flagellation, the Opus Dei operative who destroyed former NSW Liberal leader John Brogden's career (and in the process caused a desperate Brogden to place himself within about half a Panadeine Forte from the end of his own existence), former Young Liberals president and far-right stooge Alex Hawke, is now the Liberal MP for the blue-ribbon North Shore seat of Mitchell. We sincerely wish him cancer of the bollocks.
- St Lucia is still affluent-cunt territory, judging by the Libs retaining Ryan for the umpteenth fucking time. If only the students could be arsed re-enrolling at their uni address. And if only they weren't all snotty little rich brats from the leafy 'burbs or militant Young Nats from the sticks. Still, it gets them out of home so the entire top half of the state can vote Labor in their absence - apart from the yeehaas of central-western Qld who still persist in re-electing Bob Katter.
- Speaking of Young Nats, our favourite Young Nat will likely be fairly unamused with the prospect of loose-cannon independent Tony Windsor again keeping New England out of his former party's hands. Then again, that's Dawso's problem to deal with, not ours...

All that, and the World of Bollocks wasn't even enrolled to vote. Cheers for sorting your shit out in our absence, Australia. Even if it took most of my adult life. Embarrassing personal revelation time: along with the moment Australia finally qualified for the Real Actual Proper World Cup around this time two years ago, I would have to admit to being more proud of my nation and of my nationality today then at any point in the last dozen years, if not in my entire living memory.

Then again I could just be talking bollocks because Lucas said 'Dad' for the first time the other morning. Actually he said 'Dahd', indicating his Keanu Reeves impersonation skills are coming along well already.

'Dahd' is OUT.

Literature review with Dr Craigos

A late submission for our Research Paper Of The Weak comes from Chemical Communications, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), via our esteemed correspondent from the materials sciences, Dr Craigos.

Electrochemical synthesis of metal and semimetal nanotube–nanowire heterojunctions and their electronic transport properties
Dachi Yang, Guowen Meng, Shuyuan Zhang, Yufeng Hao, Xiaohong An, Qing Wei, Min Ye and Lide Zhang
Chem. Commun. 2007, 1733-1735

Metal and semimetal nanotube–nanowire heterojunction arrays have been achieved by sequential electrochemical-deposition inside the nanochannels of anodic aluminium oxide template with a layer of Au thin enough to leave the pores open.

So far so dull.

Heterojunctions of one-dimensional nanostructures have received considerable attention due to their unique properties [1–3], and potential applications in nanodevices [4–8]. Previous studies on longitudinally segmented heteronanostructures have mainly focused on two segments of nanowires (NWs) [9–12], two segments of nanotubes (NTs) [13], and one segment of NTs and another segment of NWs [14–17]. For NT–NW heterostructures, the NT segments are usually carbon NTs, which have been prepared by catalytic growth [14], chemical vapor deposition [15], solid–solid reaction [16] and surface attaching methods [17]. However, little has been reported on nanoheterojunctions with one longitudinal segment consisting of metallic or semimetal NTs, which might have potential applications in future nanotechnology.

You getting all this?

Here, we demonstrate a facile approach for the building of metal and semimetal nanotube–nanowire (NT–NW) nanohetero-junction arrays by sequential electrochemical deposition of two materials inside the nanochannels of anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) template. Herein we take metal Cu and semimetal Bi as examples.
The heterojunction arrays of CuNTs...

Ah. And suddenly, the stunt goes horribly wrong.

From that point on in the text, there are no less than fifty occurrences of Derek and Clive's favourite noun, not to mention numerous carefully diagrams, complete with arrows helpfully pointing out CuNTs of interest. In describing one of the figures the authors indicate 'It can be seen that the CuNTs (marked by dashed circle III) are quite uniform with smooth surface', which suggests to me they've been airbrushed like in Playboy - Hef won't publish them any other way.

We should at this point concede that maybe English isn't the first language of this group, given they hail from the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and that rationally there is no good a priori reason why an appropriate abbreviation for 'copper nanotube' would not be 'CuNT', aside from it being the foulest curse-word in the most broadly spoken language in the world. We'll give them a pass mark on this one; quite what the fuck the English editors of the journal were up to we can't say, but one thing seems certain - the Royal Society for Chemistry are a bunch of copper nanotubes.

The Doctor is OUT.

Literature review with Dr Yobbo

Our apologies for the preceding short breakdown in transmission.
We continue with a man with a stoat through his head.

Actually, we continue with a gratuitous shot of that chick from MythBusters in a lab coat and bugger-all else as some sort of flimsy scientific segue into...

















RESEARCH AND DESTROY
Dr Yobbo's Review Of The Scientific Literature
Yes it's time for you lot of knuckle-dragging Luddites to get yourself edumacated with our bluffer's guide to the latest groundbreaking findings in the world of research. If you're more likely to listen to Dr Phil over Dr Karl, think New Scientist is about the methodology involved in brewing generic lager or that Scientific American is nothing more than an oxymoron (which it is), you need to sit up straight, stop playing with what ever that is, and pay attention.

This may well be crap, but it's award-winning crap
No, not Silverchair's Young Modern, but the various bids for scientific immortality that were appropriately celebrated on science's award night of nights, the annual Ig Nobel Prize announcements. Described by Nature as 'arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar' (in the same way that Willie Mason is 'arguably' the most intelligent man ever to play rugby league), the Ig Nobels like their less prestigious Scandinavian knock-offs are awarded in a range of categories, by the editors of the august and learned journal of scientific endeavour, Annals of Improbable Research. This year's awards, the 17th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, saw the following researchers canonised for their contributions to their respective fields:

MEDICINE
Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects." Most of which being a lot of interesting questions being asked at airport metal detectors. "Sorry officer, must be something I ate."
"Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects," B. Witcombe and D. Meyer, British Medical Journal, December 23, 2006, vol. 333, pp. 1285-7.

PHYSICS
L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how bedsheets become wrinkled. Primarily by sleeping on them, you half-arsed Chilean fruit loops.
"Wrinkling of an Elastic Sheet Under Tension," E. Cerda, K. Ravi-Chandar, L. Mahadevan, Nature, vol. 419, October 10, 2002, pp. 579-80.
"Geometry and Physics of Wrinkling," E. Cerda and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, fol. 90, no. 7, February 21, 2003, pp. 074302/1-4.
"Elements of Draping," E. Cerda, L. Mahadevan and J. Passini, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 7, 2004, pp. 1806-10.

BIOLOGY
Professor Johanna van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for her compulsion regarding counting and classifying all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi found in bedding and mattresses. She strikes one as being just a tad on the OCD side of the ledger and would probably make for a really punishing one-night stand, so be warned next time you're off-chops at a dust mite research conference.
"Huis, Bed en Beestjes" [House, Bed and Bugs], J.E.M.H. van Bronswijk, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, vol. 116, no. 20, May 13, 1972, pp. 825-31.
"Het Stof, de Mijten en het Bed" [Dust, Mites and Bedding]. J.E.M.H. van Bronswijk Vakblad voor Biologen, vol. 53, no. 2, 1973, pp. 22-5.
"Autotrophic Organisms in Mattress Dust in the Netherlands," B. van de Lustgraaf, J.H.H.M. Klerkx, J.E.M.H. van Bronswijk, Acta Botanica Neerlandica, vol. 27, no. 2, 1978, pp 125-8.
"A Bed Ecosystem," J.E.M.H. van Bronswijk, Lecture Abstracts -- 1st Benelux Congress of Zoology, Leuven, November 4-5, 1994, p. 36.

CHEMISTRY
Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, developed a way to extract vanillin from cow dung. His neighbours have since stopped dropping by the house to borrow cake ingredients from him.
"Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction," Mayu Yamamoto, International Medical Center of Japan, patent pending (as is committal to the big house)

LINGUISTICS
Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. In a related study Dr Yobbo found that researchers from Arselona talk a lot of bollocks no matter what language they're speaking at the time, be it Catalan, Dutch, Spanish, English or gibberish.
"Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," J.M. Toro, J.B. Trobalon and N. Sebastián-Gallés, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005, pp 95-100.

PEACE
The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon - the so-called 'gay bomb' - that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other. Dropping the 'gay bomb' sounds like something one might do at the Wickham in the early hours of the AM (cue Electric Six declaring "I've got something to put IN you!")
"Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals," Wright Laboratory, WL/FIVR, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, June 1, 1994.

ECONOMICS
Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them. An attempt to submit 'prior art' intellectual property of ACME Corporation and a Mr W.E. Coyote was argued as inadmissable by patent attorneys.
U.S. patent #6,219,959, granted on April 24, 2001, for a "net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately."

AVIATION
Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.
"Sildenafil Accelerates Reentrainment of Circadian Rhythms After Advancing Light Schedules," P.V. Agostino, S.A. Plano and D.A. Golombek, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 23, June 5 2007, pp. 9834-9.
Somewhat ironic that this, um, hard-hitting research ended up being published in a journal whose abbreviation is PNAS.


Journal Club
Our favourite paper of the week is the following, the abstract for which we present utterly unedited as there's really no way we can improve on it. Yes, they're serious; and yes, they actually got this published.

Evolution and Human Behavior 28 (2007), 375 – 381
Ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by lap dancers: economic evidence for human estrus?

Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan
Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA

ABSTRACT
To see whether estrus was really “lost” during human evolution (as researchers often claim), we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap dancers working in gentlemen's clubs. Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and
tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model analysis of 296 work shifts (representing about 5300 lap dances) showed an interaction between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak. These results constitute the first direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary human females, in a real-world work setting. These results have clear implications for human evolution, sexuality, and economics.

And, of course, these results have absolutely NOTHING to do with three seedy, dateless male researchers' enthusiasm for writing off nine months' worth of 'working lunches' at Santa Fe Gold and Crazy Horse as research expenses...

The Doctor is OUT (to go write some better grant proposals, having now been inspired)

The Evander Holyfield Experience

Recently some Kiwi pissheads of my acquaintance got it into their heads to organise a Brisbane-based mate's bucks' festivities around the festival of tyre smoke, beer and boobies that is the Gold Coast Indy. Apparently, according to the least injured of the survivors, it all went rather well, though the ringleader did confess to doubting Your Correspondent when my (few) years of Indy experience led me to advise him before the mission kicked off, "Be warned, Indy is a fuckin' zoo". Judging by the survivors' accounts, along with the televisual evidence on the box across the weekend, as well as the mutinous outcry from Premier Bligh over the amount of boobie action on show from the various balconies on course, a "fuckin' zoo" Indy has duly remained in the five years since Dodgy Brothers United FC attended in person. It's still all about piss, promo girls and petrolheadedness, in that order, and if you're among the four percent of people who have actually turned up to watch the race... fuck it, you really should have set the VCR instead. You'll be lucky to see more than the beer queue and the shitbox R&B outfit at Shooters Island.













What the Gold Coast Indy is famous for, part 1





















What the Gold Coast Indy is famous for, part 2

However, to be fair, things have changed at Indy. To be precise, the 'Indy' part has changed. Largely because the 'Indy' series, which in fact has been legally prohibited from calling itself 'Indycar' since about 1998, is so close to death the Chaser should be writing a 'satirical' song about it. The Champ Car World Series and the Gold Coast Indy alike have both had their respective eulogies written a few times over the year, but while the survival of the event now looks pretty secure after the V8 Egostars were given dual billing on the programme, the series itself looks a bit sick, particularly compared to the golden era of Champ Car/Indycar in the '90s, when the grids were packed with A-grade teams and names like Mansell, Andretti, Tracy, Villeneuve, Montoya, Zanardi, Franchitti et al were steering the conveyances. However in the late '90s a Super League style turf war broke out between CART (the organisers of the series which became Champ Car) and the organisers of the Indy 500, who took the 'Indy' trademark and set up their own, oval-tracks-only, yeehaa-Cletus series which initially was about as impactful as hitting a box-girder bridge with a stale Vegemite sandwich which someone has sat on. However, as the Indy Racing League series gathered momentum, and as CART's endemic incompetence drove away teams and engine manufacturers in their numbers, we now have a situation whereby the IRL is dominated by all the teams which used to be in Champ Car - Penske, Ganassi, Andretti-Green (formerly Forsythe-Green when Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve and Dario Franchitti drove for them) - apart from Paul Newman's team who stayed loyal to the CCWS and are about all that is left of the decent squads, apart from 'Team Australia' (run by an expatriate Scotsman who has been based in the US for 30 years). Stars? None really, aside from Seb Bourdais who's won the last four CCWS titles consecutively and will be smegging off to F1 next year - and he's a charisma-free-zone. Ironically, the more ex-Champ Car teams and drivers which the IRL has taken on, the more like the 'old' Indycar series it's become, with more and more 'road course' races finding their way onto the schedule. This year's IRL series was a nailbiter, with Brisbane-born Kiwi Scott Dixon coming within half a lap of taking the championship, before running out of fuel on the last lap of the last race and handing the title to Italian-sounding Scot, and inveterate Ashley Judd shagger, Dario Franchitti - some kind of payback for losing out to Juan-Pablo Montoya in the '99 Champ Car series. The irony of all this is that despite the IRL finally 'winning' the war against Champ Car, they're both big-arse losers because the real winner is NASCAR. Most of the 'big' Champ Car/IRL teams now run NASCAR programs, and it's there where most of the 'big' names are headed now, including a lot of those names from the 'golden era' of Indycar - Villeneuve, Montoya, Franchitti, and quite probably Penske's Sam Hornish who won the both the IRL series and the '500 last year.

So why care? Unless you're in the 4% of punters at the Indy who do, you probably shouldn't. As the years go on, the driver names have become more obscure and the sponsors' stickers likewise, but so long as the Champ Car boys can turn up and present a glamourous-looking grid of loud shiny projectiles to provide background ambience for the piss-sinking and boobie-ogling, it doesn't really matter; the actual race fans are probably there to see Skaifey and Clowndes and the rest of the V8 boys. But the problem is that the CCWS is on the verge of not being able to actually provide a show at all - at their current rate of team withdrawal and IRL defection, they'll be struggling to present the contractually-ratified grid of 18 cars by next year. The Gold Coast deal with Champ Car is up for negotiation next year, and whether the Gold Coast Indy will actually have anything remotely 'Indy' about it is under serious question, as is the survival of the series, now populated almost entirely by no-name rent-a-drivers and two-bit teams with the arse out of their trousers.

Basically, CCWS and the Gold Coast Indy have three options:
- A merging of the ways between IRL and Champ Car, before both become more irrelevant than Britney Spears and NASCAR cannabalises the pair of them (this gets mooted every year but the various egos involved mitigate against it coming off);
- The CCWS and AVESCO (the V8 Supercar organisers) have actually talked about AVESCO taking over management of the CCWS, which would be a serious coup for the V8 boys - it'd mean more co-sanctioned international events for them, like the bizarre and redundant V8 rounds at Shanghai and Bahrain, but how it'd help Champ Car is anyone's guess;
- Or Champ Car could just do what Evander Holyfield should do: realise that their best days are behind them, that they've taken just a few too many smacks to the head, and that the only decent thing to do is to retire gracefully before they embarrass themselves further and sully the good memories so many people have of them - the insane debut race which everyone concerned tried not to win, the year Nigel Mansell ran out of fuel after the finish line and hobbled to the podium with his trademark whinging-Brummie limp, the race that ended in the dark with the street lights on and with Michael Andretti leaping over the chicanes like he was trying to cheat on Playstation...

At which point the GC Indy people would just need to get on the blower to Sheik Maktoum Maktoum El Maktoum With Hommus And Tabouli from the A1GP series, who would just lurve to get the gig to chase the V8s around the streets of Surfers. A more appropriate partner for Indy you'd struggle to find anywhere - A1GP's existing Australian event is a waste of time (apparently it's at Eastern Creek in February - why?), and they're a series founded on not needing to know anything about the drivers, the teams or the cars - just pick a country and yell for them - which is perfect for Indy's target demographic, i.e. pissheads looking for an excuse to party and hoping to see some carnage and/or titties. Let's face it, the crowd was already cheering for 'Team Australia' and someone called Will Power, who was clearly invented by a PR representative.

Make way for the Gold Coast A1GP, October 2009. You read it here first.

The Doctor is OUT.

Waiting to exhale

(Thanks be to Dawso.)

So the All Blacks are going home early (again) and the post-RWC blame-game is on for young, old and irrelevant across the New Zillund airwaves (again), with an orderly lynch-mob forming around the All Blacks and supercoach Henry, just as soon as they've finished metaphorically disembowelling the English work-experience kiddie who was in charge of blowing the pea on the night. Another world cup, another hapless sod to blame for the nation's misery. In '95 it was Susie the Saffer hotel waitress, the alleged poisoner of the ABs on match eve (who, unfortunately for the tale, was later proven to not actually exist); in '99 it was coach John Hart, who was gobbed on and had stuff chucked at him on his return; in '03 it was Georges Smith (late hit on Marshall) and Gregan ('four more years, boys'), though John Mitchell was the one who paid the price; and in '07, it's pretty much anything that moves and wears a black jersey. All pretty much as expected, although with one minor change of plan: the rabid media seem to be on their Pat Malone on this one. Unlike AB Failures Past, the great unwashed of NZ aren't joining the fourth estate on Operation Character Assassination this time around. Sure, a couple of thousand placard-waving Cantabs turned out to greet Air NZ flight AB-1-from-6 at Christchurch International Paddock, but to the massive disappointment of the foaming-at-the-mouth blamehound pundits, they primarly wanted to say thanks for trying, we still luv ya and stuff, and one shit day at the office out of every fifty is about par for the ABs.

Don't look now, kids, but New Zealand might have actually, finally, grown the fuck up.

Alas poor Norick, I knew him Horatio
It's been a fairly shit couple of weeks for '90s motorsport legends. Last month we sadly lost cheerfully insane rally exponent and comedy Scotsman Colin McRae, who lost his life, his son's, and some of his friends' in a helicopter endo. Now comes the news that the original Japanese kamikaze pilot Norifumi 'Norick' Abe, having like McRae retired from international competition, was taken out in an accident and is no longer with us. At a busy intersection in Kawasaki City, which sounds like a motorcycle dealership but isn't, Norick's scooter was cleaned up by a truck performing an illegal U-turn and the ex-MotoGP hero died pretty much instantly. Norick was Japan's two-wheeled hero of the '90s, having made his debut as a locally-entered, wild-haired 'wildcard' at the Japanese 500cc GP in 1994, and stupendously leading much of the race in a duel with Mick Doohan before dropping his Honda NSR500 on the last lap. Next year he was signed up by the factory Yamaha squad, where he spent most of his GP career, and while his results never quite matched his promise (he only won three races across his eight-year full time GP career), his lunatic riding style and rock star image ensured he remained a fan favourite.















Norick in '95, his first full GP season on the Yamaha

Abe rounded out his international career with a couple of years in world superbike, before returning home to the Japanese championship for a few more years in the sunshine, much like a Tony Vidmar or a Craig Moore have done in the A-League. He was third in the JSB1000 championship - still riding for Yamaha - when he was trucked over. Vaguely famous Italian person V. Rossi was a huge Abe fan back in the day, so expect some form of tribute this weekend at the Island - and knowing Rossi, if it's anything like the bullshit win he pulled out of his arse at Estoril in tribute to his fallen idol McRae, Our Case, Westy and the Mule might be pushing it uphill to score a home victory in the Aussie MotoGP.













Abe's last win was Brazil '01, with Rossi joining him on the podium; they were Yamaha teammates in Abe's final MotoGP season in 2003

Speaking of tributes, the Mule is apparently running a Barry Sheene tribute paintjob on his Suzuki this weekend, in honour of the backing and support Sheene gave the young fella on his way to MotoGP - presumably he'll go the whole hog and limp around the place gobbing off in a shifty-geezer Cockney accent, otherwise it won't be worth the price of admission.

And meanwhile...
On the drive home from the airport after his humiliating Chinese F1GP retirement, a dejected Lewis Hamilton decided to stop for petrol...












(Stolen from SniffPetrol.com yet again)

The Doctor is OUT, lap 31, parked in a gravel trap for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Them's the brakes

An instant karma smackdown. It's the only logical explanation for the Fordulent 1-2-3 which blighted an otherwise entertaining afternoon on The Mountain - your correspondent's earlier skiting at the expense of the hapless All Black Nation getting the response it deserved, i.e. my boys' blackest day on the big hill in my lifetime - Team Red haven't been wiped like that since the infamous factory Ford 1-2 in 1977. Meanwhile the HRT/HSV team pits were left strewn with discarded brake pads, warped disc rotors and puddles of fluid from bleeding the brakes on the Toll cars, the whole place looking like a scene from your local Midas (though without the massive overquoting and price gouging, obviously.)













Typical, you wait ages for a taxi and then three turn up at once

The Wallabies' loss was probably also my fault for laughing at an English postdoc who was wearing her nation's colours, shortly after their dismal game against Tonga. Clearly a karma get-square.

Mea culpa.

Which leaves just two unanswered questions from the weekend:

- Given all of the above karma-related reamage, how much of a pack of bastards must everyone in New Zealand have been in a previous life to deserve yet ANOTHER early flight from the RWC?

- Who the fuck would invest their pride and joy with Supercheap Auto Car Insurance?
(And if you make a claim, are you only allowed use cheap plastic parts from China for the repairs?)


The Doctor is OUT.

I predict a riot

CORRECTION

The World of Bollocks would like to correct an unfortunate error in a previous edition of this publication, dated September 9, 2007 and titled 'Community Service Announcement'. In this, we erroneously made the claim that the New Zealand All Blacks™ would 'choke' in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup, in line with previously established protocols of behaviour. We apologise unreservedly for our error, which was in effect to vastly underestimate the capability of All Blacks™ to 'choke', having not even made it as far as the semi before activating Plan A, a.k.a. Operation 'Early Mark'.

We however stand by our assertion that this will lead to nationwide chaos, declaration of a state of emergency, looting in the streets, overturning of cars, burning of effigies et al, and most likely the entire All Blacks™ squad being bought outright by that bloke from Alinghi, and going on to win the 2011 Rugby World Cup for Switzerland.

Oh yeah and the Wobbilies lost too, bringing much anguish and heartache to the Liberal electorates and GPS catchments of Australia.

Sucks to be you, rugger buggers - but given that it IS all about me, not such a angst-ridden issue given that no bastard will be overly interested in talking about the egg-chasing at the pub today for Bathurst, which was looking a bit punishing after the first semi...

The Doctor is OUT.

PS Seriously, you should see the anchor on TV3 right now, back-announcing the 'highlights' of the second half - he looks like he's missed his morning dose of Zoloft. It actually looks like TV3 are parked on the same Paris rooftop as Les Murray and Johnny Warren were for SBS's France '98 coverage - except that Les or Johnny didn't look like throwing themselves off at any stage as much as old mate here...

Bathurst Beer Bingo

At the World Of Bollocks, we're all about making your lives just that little bit more fun and fulfilling. It's Bathurst weekend, and while that in itself will be having buck-toothed ute-driving yeehaas in boganlicious hysteria up and down the big wide flat brown land of Straya (and its damp lumpy appendages to the east), you may be one of the many people who 'don't
get car racing.' Maybe you have ovaries, or are of lefty environmental leanings, or are a big poofter. Our sympathies; the rest of you softcocks have no bloody excuse and are expected to report either to the couch or to the front bar of your local well in advance of 1030 hours this Sunday. You have been warned.

To aid the non-racegoer in better understanding and appreciating the subtle nuances of Australia's Great Race, The World Of Bollocks Has Used Up All Its Capitals Already has put together the following guide/preview/drinking game entitled Bathurst 2007: Enjoying 'The Great Race', Or Getting Fucking Smashed Trying.

Pre-race preparation
Unless you're planning to be at the pub, get lots of beers in. Lots. Trust me. The last time I watched the race sober was 1998, and Jesus H. fucking Christ was it dull. Besides, there's something quite religious about the experience of legitimately cracking your first beer at half-ten on a Sunday morning, just as the lights go out and the field pitches itself into turn one - quite appropriately named Hell Corner. Though that's primarily because if you don't turn left there and keep heading straight you end up in Lithgow.

Practice and qualifying
Don't go too hard in any Friday or Saturday sessions you take part in. Remember the mantra of endurance competition: to finish first, first you must finish. And by six on Sunday you'll be fucking finished, don't you worry about that sunshine.

Race day: win on Sunday, be fucking hungover on Monday
Bathurst race day is a marathon, not a sprint, and through the generations many have gone too hard too early and ended up parked in the weeds wondering what might have been, or at least wondering why the room won't stop spinning. In order to deconvolute the highly complicated scoring system in use at Bathurst, this is how it works.

The following is a series of incidents or events that, once witnessed by any one of your race team, are deemed worthy of 'a vessel' - that is, you will be required by race organisers to drain your drinking vessel into an appropriate orifice, hopefully your mouth. This is where the advantage of the throwdown stubbie or the NZ pub-spec 7oz (200mL) beer glass comes into play; choose wisely, don't be let down by your equipment.

























Or the quality of your race fuel, for that matter.

You will be required to consume the content of your vessel on occasion of the following:

• The race start

This moment is to be savoured, as it will be recalled next day as the point where, as the Back Of The Y team would have put it, SUDDENLY, THE STUNT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG.

• Announcement of a safety car period

For particularly long safety car periods, at the organisers' discretion, further 'vessels' may be called for. As a result of this policy Paul Radisich, after smearing the Team Kiwi along the bridge supports after the Chase, has been judged responsible for a large proportion of my hangover from last year.














The world's first rear-engined V8 Supercar hatchback

• Gratuitous, awkward commentary references to Peter Brock

A bit of a gimme really.

• Mark Skaife swearing on race radio

Likewise. Last year it didn't even take half a lap.

• Todd Kelly getting the Sandown squirts again

Which will probably result in Skaifey dropping the F-bomb as soon as he parks himself mid-puddle in the seat after a pit stop

• Confirmed sightings of anyone busting out the race tape and/or sledgehammer in pit lane
  
• WPS team driver Grant Denyer being referred to as 'the dancing weatherman'

What a twat

• Some poor bastard in pit lane getting cleaned up by another team's tyres/tools/car
  
• Idiot commentator Matthew White declaring after four or five dull-as-fuck hours that 'The action is really hotting up now' (V8 Supercars' equivalent to Tony Greig's 'Ut duzen't git more excitung then thus')
  
• Dick Johnson looking really, really old when interviewed in pit lane
  
• Neil Crompton boring everyone to tears with punishingly detailed dissections of roll centre adjustments, fuel mapping, and dicking around with those interactive 3D CAD drawings he flogged from Tasman Motorsport
  (However, Cromptonian references to individuals or teams 'managing the race' are not a 'Vessel' offence as the organisers would like to see someone still upright and functional beyond the two hour mark)
  
• Someone giggling when the commentators mention Mark Winterbottom
  

Certain extraordinary circumstances of great significance, unexpectedness or importance, as determined by the organisers, may require a 'double vessel' - that is to sköl, refill, and sköl once more. These include:

• Greg Murphy ripping the fuel hose off with his car like a few years back and going off to sulk in the team Portaloo again
  
• Craig Lowndes not making a smug shiny-faced arseburgler of himself such that you just want to stove in his stupid munchkin face with a shovel and scream 'Brocky never loved you and your missus is hideous, chumblybum'
• Someone bunkering the Chrysler 300C safety car in the sandtrap
  
• Someone other than Triple 8 or HRT/Toll-HSV winning the race
• Anyone still being sober at the four hour race update (to the point of being able to read the clock on the wall and surmise that this is indeed the four hour update)
  

And finally, should any of the following occur:

• The Chrysler 300C safety car stopping up at the campgrounds on top of the hill to pull burnouts and/or deliver slabs of piss from Bathurst Liquorland
• The Nissan GTR (aka Godzilla) coming out of retirement Rocky Balboa-style to show these young Falcodore upstarts how things were done back in the day (later to be disqualified for using performance-enhancing substances)
  
• Paul Morris winning the race

Stop drinking immediately as you are clearly pissed as forty bastards and have begun to hallucinate. We recommend finding a Powerade, a kebab and a taxi home.

Good luck, and remember, when the flag drops, the bullshit stops. The bullshitting, however, has only just begun.

The Doctor is OUT, lap 28, engine.

Grand final special: neither grand nor special

A very punishing weekend of sport, in the way that people who talk loudly about themselves at parties are very punishing people. Which is why it's taken until first practice at Bathurst to finally extrude our 2007 Footy Grand Final(s) Report.

Saturday: Sup 'G
Saturday afternoon's stoush between the Port Power Tools and the Geelong Unemployed Engine Assemblers at the 'G was in fact the first AFL Grand Final (indeed, the first whole game of AFL football) Your Correspondent has sat through for many years, probably since the short-lived love affair between the Lions and south-east Queensland. This year's telecast was brought to me in association with Sky Sport, Choadafone broadband and figuring out how to delay the satellite signal just long enough to sync the pics up with Roy and HG's online call (a proprietary methodology involving a DVD recorder and a fair amount of arse). This even enabled enjoyment of the pre-match entertainment provided by Geelong's finest bogan exports Jet, though they seemed to be neither enjoying the festivities nor anywhere near in sync themselves. This probably had something to do with the astonishing level to which the AFL had whored its corporate arse to major sponsors Toyota, demonstrated by Jet's bass player Mark being obliged to apply a broad strip of the roadies' best friend, gaffa tape, over the Ford logo on his Cats jersey. The AFL's commercial reamage was further highlighted by the retiring players' parade which took place not in visibility-friendly open-topped cars, as you'd probably expect, but in ALL NEW KLUGERS (in case you misheard the forty-seven booming ground annoucements), i.e. big hulking 4WDs with tinted windows. Geniarse. Then again Toyota don't get a lot of love out of the week immediately after the Grand Final, that of Bathurst, with Ford and Holden conspiring to get a monumental PR free-kick out of their exclusive involvement in V8 Supercars (and if Toyota could find enough content in their trouser to build a decent rear-drive V8 sedan, they might even get an invite to play in that sandpit too) so it wasn't that surprising, just a bit embarrassing. Of course Geelong went on to balls up Toyota's big afternoon by winning the Big Cheese On Offer and their captain giving a very public shout-out to their sponsors' product on the victory dais...

We're focusing on the peripherals of the game for one fairly considerable reason: there was no game. In light of this, let me tell you the story of a football club called Port Adelaide. They stink. The End. It was for good reason that HG Nelson started calling them as the Port Adelaide Dickheads midway through the second quarter; they were less use than a busted arse on International Busted Arse Free Day. As bad as Port were, Geelong were stoopid-good. The Bartel kiddie appeared very much worthy of the Brownlow (and, to my way of thinking, the Norm Smith as well, though that went to Steve Johnson - the start of a busy week for him having to back up in his old man's Falcon at Bathurst). As for the Sons Of God, the Ablett boys demonstrated conclusively the important role played by good genetics in being a top-line AFL footballer. As well as the important role played by not being on smack.





















Propecia: about the only banned drug Ablett Snr wasn't on

Sunday: Insert 'Perfect Storm' pun here, pause for editing/lynching
The 'Night Grand Final' may still piss off the purists, but one thing's fo' sho' - it makes for a markedly less shitbox pre-match show. Amazing what can be achieved with a couple of projectors from Rentlo, some old bedsheets and a stiff westerly, though someone really needs to enrol Darren Lockyer in the Larry Emdur 'Price Is Right' School of Waving Convincingly On Camera. He looked about as comfortable as Todd Kelly's Sandown 500 co-driver on race morning, on finding out the Toddler (a) had violent projectile gastric and (b) was taking the first stint of the race. As Philthy Phil from Grinspoon would have said, it was a hard act to follow. Actually Phil would probably have nicked the HRT Commodore from around the back of the pits while Toddler was parked on the bowl and tried to hock it at Theft Converters for P money. What has this got to do with the NRL Grand Final? Two fifths of fuck all, naturally, but thanks for asking. As predicted, the battle between the two most keenly disliked teams in the NRL was dominated by the News Limited Storm who eviscerated the Sea Urkels 34-8 in the most one-sided display of a man kicking a dog seen in... about a day and a half. Earlier, in the most anticipated reserve grade final since ever, the Northern South Sydney Rabid Bears were twenty seconds from winning the cup before the baby Eelses had to go fuck it up for them. Still, old man Peachey's wonderful and emotive post-match interview was worth the price of admission in itself. But even watching North Sydney's murderers (and South Sydney's vanquishers) getting their deserved comeuppance in the Big One was difficult to enjoy, as it was at the hands of a soulless, supporterless, Murdoch-owned 'franchise' with the integrity of a Liberal party campaign strategist and the spirit of a dentist's waiting room.














The Panthers beat the Eels in the Flegg final, thanks to Jason Akermanis

All in all, a shit weekend really, really topped off by former Raiders ballboy Mark Webber getting fucked over when within a poofteenth of leading the Jap GP at Fuji International Aquajet. Despite coming down with a touch of the Toddlers and hurling inside his helmet in the first couple of laps, it was a different streak of sick who ended his tilt - one named Sebastian Vettel, his pseudo-teammate from the other Red Bull team, who somehow conspired to pile into Webber while tooling around behind the safety car while Alonso's prang was being cleaned up and Nando was trying to figure out whether he could pin fault on someone else so as not to lose his 100% no-claim bonus. What a tool. Vettel I mean, not Nando, though he's looking a bit tardescent after parking his otherwise functional MP4/twentysomething McLaren in the roadside furniture and effectively conceding the F1 title to race winner Lewis 'Not a Jewess' Hamiltron. Latest rumours have Nando moving to Scuderia Ferret next year, with Felipe Massa Attack supposedly being farmed out to Toyota (to drive an ALL NEW KLUGER perhaps?) in place of the recently released Half Schumacher. Nando's teammate would then be Look-At-Me-Kimi Raikkonen, who in unrelated news has been vastly and repeatedly underrated by this column for what he actually is: a lunatic pisshound of the highest order. He might be the most boring post-race-interviewee since Mika Hakkinen (who was usually taking the piss anyway) but you have to give kudos to a man prepared to spend his off-weekends copiloting his mates' racing powerboat dressed in a gorilla suit, or entering snowmobile races under the name of James Hunt (lunatic pisshound F1 driver of 30 years ago.)













Of course 'James Hunt' could just be rhyming slang

Again, what has this to do with the Grand Final? Less than two fifths of fuck-all, as above, but both games were fucking appalling so I've got to write about something yeah?

Actually I've made it to the bottom of the page so I can stop now. Bathurst in three sleeps, kids. Get your drinking caps on. The Doctor is OUT.

The correct collective noun for shout-outs is:

(a) A 'cacophony'
(b) A 'holla'
(c) An 'Oscars speech'
(d) A 'metric shitload'

Proper Engrish usage notwithstanding we gots lots of shout-outs to give this Weak, so share the love and witness tha fitness.

Big ups to the following upstanding lot of good bastards:

The North Sydney Bearitohs
So Manly, having made the NRL Grand Final, are now expecting the city of Sydney and the state of New South Wales to forgive and forget generations of entirely justified toxicity and get in behind the Sea Uglies for their Sunday night clash with the News Limited Storm. Because all that 'I support two teams, mine and whoever's playing Manly' carry-on is soooo pre-Super League. Manly's new generation of stars, including the likes of Anthony 'AVO' Watmough (thanks v. much HG Nelson) and fullback Brett Stewart, allegedly the Sexiest Man In League (who the fuck voted? His mum?) have declared the old ways dead, claiming that kids these days just didn't hate Manly the way they used to, and were even many young fans' second favourite team these days.

Arsebiscuits.

Manly may have had a wee bit of a struggle-wuggle since the Super League war, the only positive of which being the end to their mid-90s dominance, but we still remember enough of the dim distant past to know you lot are a bunch of cunts. We remember the 'bought' premierships, the lopsided penalty counts week-in week-out, the rorted administration of the league with Sea Eagle stalwarts like Ken 'Arko' Arthurson in charge. And we remember the North Sydney Bears. We have to remember them because they don't fucking exist any more, because you fucked them over, shotgun-marriage preceding gold-digging divorce settlement which gave you the entire North Shore and them a future in football oblivion.

Well, actually, not quite.

For in the Premier League Grand Final, curtain-raiser to the Big One at the Grand Old Girl, fighting from the red and black corner, give it up for the North Sydney Bears!

The mere presence of the Bears on the last Sunday in September would be reason enough for celebratory shout-outedness, but add to that the Bears' partnership with Southern neighbours the Rabbitohs, owned by little-known former Neighbours actor Rusty Crowe, and it all summates to an unlikely continuation of the Bunnies' Cinderella season after its untimely demise at the hands of the wicked hermaphroditic stepsister from the northern beaches. Half the Bunnies' regular squad are still eligible for Bears jumpers and have starred in their Grand Final run, including departing halfback Joe Williams, stoopid-good midget dummy half Eddie Paea and legendary rangy fullback David Peachey, who might even get the premiership sendoff he deserves in retirement.















Peach put in for the cause in the quarter-final against Penrith, pulling off a try-saving tackle in the last minute to keep the final score at 24-20. They went on to turn Balmain over 22-16 in the semi-final.
Wow, almost like a real sports report and stuff.

Up against the Bears are the Eels, who came within 15 points of getting all three sides into Grand Final action - their Flegg kiddies are going around against Penrith, their reserve graders ('Premier League' my arse) will be trying to poo on Norths' parade the same way they did to Newtown last year, and their NRL side will be... drunk at PJ Gallaghers and wondering what might have been.

Casey Stoner and the good offices of Ducati Team Corse
Stoner is the first Strayan to win the title since Mad Mick Doohan, he of the five-consecutive-world-titles and more recently nuding-up-in-Darwin-stripjoints; Ducati are the first non-Japanese manufacturer to win the title since MV Agusta in 1974. There's not much more that you can say about Stoner that hasn't been said already. He's six foot eleven, has a third nipple and can play the bagpipes underwater - that's not been said already.





















And yes, that sponsors' logo in the background is two people rooting.

Special commendation: in the spirit in which the MotoGP season was fought (i.e. the polar opposite of Formula One, with fairness, decency and a delightful lack of British tabloid bullshit infecting proceedings), a marginally smaller but no-less-worthy shout-out to Stoner's graciously vanquished rival Vale Rossi, for dedicating his ballsy Portuguese GP win the weekend prior to the memory of Colin McRae. Which brings us to:

Colin McRae
A legend and a hero, sadly missed. That 'McCrash' sobriquet doesn't get any less apposite though does it?

Henry Lawson
As in the former Australian and NSW fast bowler, Sydney optometrist and now Pakistan cricket coach rather than the rather dead bush poet, for turning what looked like the shitfight to rule them all into an almost-arsey-win over the Auld Enemy in the World Twenty20 final. Despite Henry's fine work, all is not well; as a result of the win, in much the same manner as the bridge-flag-flying bets between Premier Pete and Bob 'I don't drive a' Carr over the results of Origin games, India now own full rights over Kashmir. The remaining members of Led Zeppelin are said to be considering their legal options.





















Including finally catching up with this bloke and legally beating the piss out of him for defiling their song for a movie about a giant radioactive lizard.
Yeah. Uh huh.

Berrick Barnes
No relation of Jimmy, though this workin' class man and had the driving wheels to have the Welsh crying 'Lay down your guns, I surrender' in their recent France 2007 World Cup clash held in an unfashionable outer suburb of Paris called Cardiff. (On a related topic, what the hell was Barnesey The Elder up to with all that cheap wine and that three-day goat?) The stupid-haired twiglet is likely to see an arseload more game-time now that Stephen Larkham is crocked for the tournament with MRSA of the kneecap (exhibiting the sort of familial timing which saw his cousin, former V8 racer Mark Larkham, amount to bugger all in the sport other than a Formula Ford title in the '80s and a Bathurst pole in '99). Here the World of Bollocks would normally warn of the folly of putting too much faith in anyone with two surnames and no first name, but we choose to rescind such sentiments on the basis that Berrick is a pretty dumb surname and noone famous enough to be in Wikipedia has it, so it's a moot point, as well as being a shit one.

The Special One
Finally, English football is a little bit more shitbox this week for the loss of Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, who was levered out of his position by delusional megalomaniac club owner Roman Avanadashityabitch in order to give his off-sider Avram Grant a gig. Mourinho was sardonic, sarcastic, cynical, mercurial and arrogant, and those were his redeeming qualities. He will be missed by Chelsea players and fans alike, none of whom now stand a chance of winning much more than the club meat raffle on Thursday night, and the British media, who will now have to find their quotable quotes elsewhere.

Meanwhile, on a tacky game show set somewhere inside FIA headquarters...



















The Doctor is OUT like McLaren from the constructors' points table.

Community service announcement

Ah well. As feared, Souths got touched up like an Opus Dei choirboy, but at least the Broncs got molested even worse. Best of luck to the Sea Biggles hereafter; you may be silvertail scum from the insular peninsula but at least you and Parra weren't Super League turncoat fucks like the rest of the finals survivors.

As a service to our loyal World of Bollocks readers we present the following Mad Monday-related community announcement. For your own personal safety, here are a list of licenced premises to avoid on or about the week commencing the evening of Sunday September 9, on account of them being full of drunk footballers whose seasons have ended a bit earlier than expected:
SA residents: The Old Lion Hotel, North Adelaide
Qld residents: Anywhere within a ten mile radius of Red Hill
NSW residents: South Sydney Leagues Club, the Clovelly Hotel, the Coogee Bay Hotel, whatever pretentious wanker bar the Swannies hang out in, and that pub in Coffs which Their Russ had some strife with

For the week commencing the evening of September 16 we expect to update this list with further venues to avoid in south Auckland, the Canterbury-Bankstown area and Melbourne's inner eastern suburbs, particularly Hawthorn and Collingwood. (Yup, we're predicting more shot birds from the second round of AFL eliminations.)

Technically we can't call this a preview since the fucker's already started, but anyway
That puffing sound you may be able to hear in the background is the collective pride of New Zealand inflating itself to physiologically unsustainable proportions, which can only mean one thing - the All Blacks haven't choked yet. It's Rugby World Cup time again and that means another one of our potentially actionable previews (now with 95% less diligent research!)

The tournament
The Rugby World Cup is played each four years between whichever countries can be arsed sending a team. This is usually in direct proportion to the number of private schools per head in the leafier, more affluent, more heavily Volvo-infested suburbs of the larger cities. Though billing itself as a genuine World Cup, the RWC is at best the third most important of the major World Cup tournaments behind those of football and cricket. The RWC's status as the 'Third World Cup' is further emphasized by the third world nations which are permitted to compete, including Namibia, Romania, Tonga, Georgia and New Zealand.

RWC2007 is being held in France, in pretty much the same bunch of stadia which hosted the football World Cup in 1998, except that the IRB has been obliged to rope in Edinburgh and Cardiff as additional venues as the French can't be arsed rescheduling national league football games at the other grounds. As with everything, when the French can't be arsed doing something, they do it with panache. Actually they do it in exactly the same manner, but more haughtily, and often with random italics.

Pool A: England, South Africa, Samoa, USA, Tonga
South Africa: Contenders however harmed by their failure to resolve debilitating team selection issues which, in fairness, are entirely black and white. The white being coach Jake White, no relation of either of the White Stripes, who appears to spend his entire life sitting in press conferences in an astonishingly gay blazer.
England: Slow, ponderous and stupid.
Samoa: Currently the most in-form of the Pacific Islands teams. Gave both the Pool A bigs a scare at RWC2003. May do again this time out, but probably not consistently enough to outlast the English for the second finals berth behind the Yaapies.
USA: American.
Tonga: Tune in for the war dance then flip channels.

Pool B: Australia, Wales, Fiji, Canada, Japan
Australia: Can be charitably described as a fucking horrible excuse for a rugby side. However, will win the group based on their being noone else less incompetent then them. Game plan will revolve around the pick-and-drive, long kicking, and hoping like the Jesus fuck that Latham doesn't get crocked again. In the absence of Wendy Sailor, will rely heavily on Lotsa Tequilas to provide the all-important aimlessly-running-sideways factor, random spear-tackling of opponents, a large chest to bounce perfectly-catchable short balls off, and of course the after-match entertainment.
Wales: Oooooo. Rugby, shit weather and sheep, it's the New Zealand of the north. Pity they're crap. Like New Zealand, they peaked equidistant between World Cups, winning the Six Nations in 2005, and have done bugger all since. Home games at the Millennium will help, but they'll be staying there at home once the tournament gets serious.
Fiji: Would be really good if the tournament was seven-a-side, kava skolling, or 'see who can have the most military coups between world cups'. It ain't. Might scare the Welsh for a half or so.
Canada: About as much use as Candida, but given they've turned up to every RWC since day 1, equally persistent.
Japan: Toire wa doko desu ka? It's out there on the field in stripey red uniforms; not even All Black legend John Kirwan on antidepressants can coach this lot into not being absolutely shithouse. Soo desu ne. (And with that, our entire stock of Year 7 Japanese is extinguished.)

Pool C: New Zealand, Scotland, Italy, Romania, Portugal
New Zealand: In light of their national compulsion towards falling over hopelessly in the semis of any international sporting tournament, the All Blacks™ have employed Gilbert Enoka, not a Kenyan marathon runner but a pudgy Kiwi shrink, as their 'mental skills coach'. Judging by recent press comments from senior players, his approach to preventing the All Blacks™ from choking in the semi is to instruct them to stick their fingers in their ears and go LALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING whenever anyone brings the issue up. Predicted result: will choke in the semi. In order to avoid being lynched at Auckland Airport, the entire team will agree to be bought wholesale by Ernesto Bertarelli, and will go on to win the 2011 Rugby World Cup for Switzerland.
Scotland: Their moth-eaten new uniforms, like everyone else in Canterbury jerseys, look a total haggis. Despite playing like men who wear skirts as their national dress, will probably end up with the spare quarter-final berth after the All Blacks™ have finished defiling the still-warm carcasses of their pool-stage competitors. Team sponsor, the Famous Grouse, is in fact not really that famous and not really very grouse either.
Italy: Italians take to rugby about as well as cappuccinos after midday, organised traffic and uncorruptible football referees. Unsurprisingly most of their team are either Argies of Italian extraction, adopted Southern Hemisphere types, or lost.
Romania: Who? How? And more to the point, why?
Portugal: Divers. The lot of 'em.

Pool D: France, Ireland, Argentina, Georgia, Namibia
France: Oh dear. Despite neanderthal flanker Seb Chabal's boast that France had 'thirty Zinedine Zidanes' in their squad (useful only if things deteriorate into a nutting competition, surely?) the weight of expectation on the hosts has become plain to see, with coach Laporte coming out with increasingly lunatic claims about southern hemisphere drug testing and rule breaking (something about needing to change the rules because the All Blacks™ understand them properly?) and then collapsing in a screaming pile of number deux when the Argies asked a few tricky questions in the tournament opener. It's their party, and they'll cry if they want to: you would cry too if you failed to make the knockout stage, which they probably will.
Ireland: Irish. Best ranked of the Home Nations, though overly dependent in attack on New Zealand's favourite spear-tacklee Brian O'Driscoll, which is a bit of a pity as he's crocked. Entire team probably drunk right now.
Argentina: Tournament dark horses, even before creme brulee-ing the French on matchday one; have been in excellent form on their recent travels, having beaten England, Ireland and Italy. Most of their squad play for French clubs.
Georgia: Most of their squad play for French clubs too but it's not going to help them. Neither will fielding fifteen blokes with widows' peaks, heavy five o'clock shadow at two in the afternoon, and names ending in 'adze'.
Namibia: In the last world cup, they were beaten by 142 to nil, by a second-string Wallabies team 'boasting' the likes of Sludge Rogers and Lotsa Tequilas, in Adelaide. It doesn't really get more embarrassing than that, folks.

Nostrildramas busts out tha mad skillz once more with feeling:
Pool results:
(A) Saffers first, Poms squeak second
(B) The Wobbilies then the Welsh, boyo
(C) The All Blacks™, then daylight, then the Scots
(D) Argentina first, France second after some truly charitable hometown refereeing in the Ireland game, probably from Steve Walsh

It's A Knockout: (that's the name of the game, allegedly)
QF1, Oct 6 Marseilles: Australia def England
QF2, Oct 6 Cardiff: New Zealand def France
QF3, Oct 7 Marseilles: South Africa def Wales
QF4, Oct 7 St-Denis: Argentina def Scotland

SF1, Oct 13 St-Denis: Australia somehow def New Zeahhh.. can't breathe... throat constricting...
SF2, Oct 14 St-Denis: Argentina def South Africa, just for the hell of it

Kiss-yer-sister game, Oct 19 Paris: neither NZ nor RSA turns up having entered the Witness Protection Program to avoid being lynched by own rabid fans

Final, Oct 20 St-Denis: Argentina def Australia, after controversial match-winning try from Argentine number 10 who ascribes clear goal-line knock-on (missed by referee) to 'the Hand of God'


You read it here first. (Obviously, because no other bastard would bother plagiarising this rubbish and printing it elsewhere.)

The Doctor is OUT like red and green stripes in September.
SO last month.

Bollocks 101

As with any long-running series, milestones such as the 100th episode (or even the 138th) are contractually required to result in a clip-show style extravaganza of self-congratulatory onanism and historical- revisionist exclamation of one's significance, importance, legacy etc which would make even Nine's Danny Weidler vaguely embarrassed.
The World Of Bollocks hereby extrudes:

Bollocks 101
A Hundred And One Things I Learned From Writing This Rubbish
or We Re-Read These Fucking Things, So You Don't Have To

1. Roy Symonds was lambasted after Australia's ODI loss to Bangladesh in England, not for being too drunk to play, but for being un-Australian to lack skills enough to get away with it.

2. The non-selection of Billy Slater in the Qld Origin Team was the most controversial dropping of a player named Slater since a former NSW opener developed a debilitating powder-related nasal habit leading up to the 2001 Ashes tour and once there couldn't work out which of the three fluoresencent Andy Caddicks was supposed to be bowling at him. However, team management preferred to use less controversial phrases as 'unfortunate loss of form', and later, 'anklyosing spondylitis'.

3. Australians know what it takes to give quality crowd at a big game. And, Barmy Armed Forces, it takes knowing more than two fifths of fuck-all about the game and showing up thoroughly off-chops on Wankingbone's Old Incorrigible or some other room-temperature colostomy-bag supernatant.

4. This week's tips: Dragons over Tigers by 12-; Eels over Cowboys by 13+ (take the points start on NQ); Wellington over Canterbury by 12-; Swans over Eagles by a goal (plus or minus two); Chelsea over anyone and everyone one-nil (applicable for the rest of the season); Martyn over the hill, hotly pursued by Gillespie, Hayden and Langer; Symonds over Boonie's flight-home piss-sinking record by two cans; and Kate Moss over two lines of blow by lunchtime.

5. NOT being out in the streets bellowing 'Campione, campione, ole ole ole-o' the night Australia qualified for the World Cup would have been more un-Australian than being (a) John Howard or (b) parked outside Lucas Heights with a bootful of fertilizer.

6. Bloggers are a bunch of self-immersed, egotistical, whiny, desperate, look-at-me, try-hard sad cases. Pleading for the attention, credibility or respect they clearly didn't get as children, as their parents ignored them, their peers reviled them, and their latent ADD went unmedicated. Blogs give these pathetic, rightfully marginalised cretins a voice for the mawkish, irrelevant, cringingly ill-conceived sentiments that fester in the back of their tiny minds like virulent salmonella on three-day-old KFC remnants.

7. In most sporting teams, the coach carries the players. Except in the case of the Wallabies, where the players carry the coach.

8. South Sydney defeated the St George-Dapto Dragons in the Charity Shield, and in doing so managing to triumph over significant adversity: the battle for club control between Rusty and George Piggins; a fired-up Big Red V outfit who'd kept them scoreless in the first half; and finally, turning up to play in THE worst looking rugby league jumpers EVER. Including the Super League era. Seriously. Even Pro Hart phoned up to complain.

9. We're not about rewarding achievement here at The Weak In Sport. We're about slagging vaguely famous bastards off for no apparent reason.

10. Tub Girl has signed for the Queensland Reds; evidently their season couldn't become any more of a shitstorm than it already has.

11. Austraya: it’s un-Australian to be from anywhere else.

12. Kenrick Monk swam the 100m and 200m Freestyle events at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, replacing Ian Thorpe after his decision to pull out of the Games due to a mystery illness. “I'm not going to try and go out and be Ian Thorpe," said Thorpe's replacement. "I'm going to be Kenrick Monk." Which is good as he’s probably the most qualified (and only) candidate. His brother Bulletproof was not available for comment.

13. Compared with new Grand Prix racetracks like Turkey, China and Malaysia, Imola is the Bruce Ruxton of Formula One: a sad old joke. These days it's been completely munted by poxy Mickey Mouse chicanes inappropriately named after dead legends of the sport who had massive stacks in the ballsy superfast corners that were once there.

14. Tom Cruise is a fuckin' fruit loop. A couch-bouncing, placenta-eating, Scientology-dribbling nutbar who should be put in a sack and beaten with a big stick. Birth trauma my arse. (Though obviously the aliens told me to say that and I need to be audited post-haste.)

15. A shaman from Ecuador visited all 12 World Cup venues in Germany to banish evil spirits before the tournament started in June. Tzamarenda Naychapi - a priest who practises magic for healing, divination and controlling events, and definitely NOT a Scrabble clue - let out a loud scream to chase away evil spirits in the centre of the pitch at Leipzig's Zentralstadion. "I've come to Leipzig to purify this important place for the World Cup and to bring positive energy," said the 36-year-old. "I hope not to be locked up for being an absolute fruit loop," he added. "If I go down, Tom Cruise should go down as well." This marked the first time any of the Shamen had been heard from since their 1992 single 'Ebeneezer Goode'.

16. The rampantly xenophobic Fleet Street tabloids were out to get Sven-Goran Eriksson from the day he took the England manager's job in 2002 - sample quote "We’ve sold our birthright down a fjord for a nation of hammer throwers who spend half their lives in darkness" - but to their intense displeasure Sven turned out to be the best coach England had had in decades. As this was lousy for circulation they contrived to get rid of him by an entrapment sting involving a dodgy journo in a tea towel purporting to be lodging a takeover of Aston Villa and tapping Sven up as a potential manager; obviously, it's hugely unethical to go looking for a job when you're likely to be out of work in the next few months.

17. Argentine football has had a lot said about it, much of it derogatory, and much of it by the English tabloid media, given the long history of on- and off-field war between the two countries. To get a balanced, objective viewpoint it's necessary to put all this racist rhetoric aside, and look at the facts. The facts are these: they are nasty, dirty, cheating, stinking, diving, spitting, simulating, handballing bastards, every last fuckin' one of them.

18. When you want a job done right, do what the Americans do - give it to the Mexicans. That's certainly the case when the task in question is securing qualification to the World Cup; if FIFA World Cups were handed out on the basis of consistent attendance (like, for instance, 'Employee of the Month' plaques or PhDs), Mexico would be champion already.

19. Perennial MotoGP champion Vale Rossi decided to stick with bikes rather than going to F1 with Ferrari, as he was concerned that being an F1 star would completely fuck with his personal life, i.e. he'd be even more of a celeb and would find it bloody difficult to pick up in nightclubs, unless he wanted to end up with slop-bucket merchants like Paris Hilton.

20. Juventus FC are the Scuderia Ferrari of Italian football; they could probably win without cheating, but aren't interested in trying to find out.

21. Australia's first ever football international was played in 1922 against New Zealand, where else but on the Riviera of the Antarctic, Dunedin. Australia lost 3-1, beginning a long tradition of losing pointlessly to arseholes which has carried on almost to this day.

22. The entire nation of Sweden are a bunch of herring-pickling, Saab-driving, porn-obsessed weirdos.

23. It gets foggy in Christchurch.

24. Swiss football shares an unlikely parallel with Prime Minister for Life, John-Boy 'We hates faggots in these parts' Howard, in that both are looking desperately back to the 1950s for the last time they were in any way relevant. The 1954 World Cup final, hosted by Switzerland, was held in the dubiously named Wankdorf stadium, still in use today as the home ground of Swiss first division side Young Boys Berne. Indeed a recent UEFA Cup debacle where Young Boys shipped a bunch of goals at home was met with a now apocryphal headline on ESPN's Soccertwat.com: YOUNG BOYS WANKDORF SHAME.

25. Spain have spent the last eighty years trying, and failing, to win the World Cup. Having managed to turn up for a hell of a lot of tournaments without actually achieving anything, Spain are the IT nerds at the office Christmas party - they turn up on time, full of hope and cheer, they hang around all night, but they’re about as likely to go home with the hottie receptionist as they are of moving out of their mum’s house before they’re thirty.

26. Commentator Gary Bloom, late in the Sweden versus T&T game: 'Trinidad and Tobago's chances in this World Cup have been written off more times than the Mexican national debt.' Next week, Martin Tyler gives his position on the AWB wheat subsidies scandal in the context of the larger debate over the UN oil-for-food scheme in Iraq.

27. Tomas Rosicky of the Czech Republic was the first round clubhouse leader in the Captain Arse Award for most astonishingly bullshit goal of the World Cup, having hit his first goal of the tournament from the stadium car park.

28. Anthony Mundine deserves our sympathy because without even wanting or asking to be, and perhaps without the cognitive capacity or oratory skills for the role, he's become the leader, the idol, the mouthpiece if you will for a broken and troubled people who have been thoroughly ripped off by a massively corrupt governing body. Their resources stripped, their leaders vanished, their younger generations stolen, and their chance for redemption and glory cruelly taken away from them, Mundine is all they have left to remember better days by. That '99 St George team were fucking cheated in the Grand Final - penalty try my arse, that Storm guy dived like Greg Louganis in an Argentina shirt.

29. In addition to pre-tournament favourites Quim (Portugal), Fred (Brazil) and full-postal-address provider Vennegoor of Hesselink (Netherlands), frontrunners for the Stefan Kuntz Golden Nametag for the Player with the Most Unfortunate Name included Pizarro (Costa Rica), Oddo (Italy), Pantsil and Pimpong (Ghana), and Schweinsteiger (Germany).

30. How to turn a two-nil loss into a moral victory in three easy steps:
(1) Their first goal was off-side.
(2) They wouldn't have scored the second if they hadn't scored the first.
(3) Holding the Brazilians nil-all is undoubtedly a moral victory for the Socceroos.
Next week: we prove categorically that black is white, and get run over on a pedestrian crossing. And get sued by Douglas Adams' copyright lawyers.

31. Joe Cole took over as favourite for the Tasco Telescope award for most astronomical long-range shot with his 45 metre strike in the group stages. If Tomas Rosicky hit his from the carpark, Cole was halfway to the fucking train station.
And furthermore I got in trouble for this.

32. Australia vs Italy: Italy will win one-nil. Italy always win one-nil. One-nil is programmed so deeply into the Italian footballing psyche, it'll never be overcome, no matter how flashy or prolific their attackers seem to be. It's the sort of birth trauma not even twelve months' auditing by the professionals in the basement of Scientology HQ on Castlereagh St could deprogram.

33. 'Off-side' is defined as:
(a) The position Harry Kewell is in when he scores equalising goals [Surnames ending in 'avic' only]
(b) A player is in an offside position if "he is nearer to his opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second to last opponent," unless he is in his own half of the field of play. A player level with the second last opponent is considered to be in an onside position. Note that the last two opposing players can be either the goalkeeper and an outfield player, or two outfield players. And no, of course I didn't look that up on Wikipedia, what are you trying to suggest?
(c) The side of the field where all the gayest cricket shots are played - have a fuckin' slog across the line, what are ya a poofta or sumfink
(d) The opposite to 'near-side', which is the side of the car your girlfriend always dings when parking
(e) Being inside the ten at the play-the-ball
(f) Silverside that's been left out in the sun too long
(g) Your best mate's missus, unless you're Wayne Carey

34. Accusing an Italian of being a diver is like accusing a fish of being damp.

35. It was hardly worth getting pissed off over the Italy game; Australia were lucky to make it as far as that after the game against the Cros, where a dozen strong and proud young sons of Croatia battled like lions to defeat the best Australia could throw at them. Given that one of those strong and proud sons of Croatia was actually playing in goal for the Socceroos, it was a massive achievement getting away with an amazing 2-2 victory (as the Channel Seven news ticker at Federation Square reported it).

36. Portugal 0 France 1: One team turned up to play football, the other were apparently out to score 10s on the floor apparatus. All Cristiano Ronaldo and co needed were their streamers and their leotards and they'd have been shoe-ins for the gold in the rhythmic gymnastics.

37. Cristiano Ronaldo: "Everyone who saw the match could see that the referee wasn't fair. He should have shown yellow cards and I should have had a penalty [referring to one outrageously ludicrous dive he put on in the second half] but he did not because Portugal is a small country."
LESBN's Tommy Smyth With A Feckin' Y: "You might not agree with Cristiano Ronaldo's comments, but he got one thing spot on, absolutely right. He said Portugal is a small country. He's absolutely right, it is a small country."

38. You're the highest-paid professional footballer on Earth, captain of your national team, in the biggest game in the world, your last ever game of football, fifteen minutes from penalties, and some lanky streak of merda calls you a rude name. What do you do? Do you (a) ignore him; (b) tell him he has beautiful eyes; (c) tell him his sister fucks like a rogue elephant, largely because she's the size of one; or (d) nut him one and get yourself sent to the showers for a bit of a sob? If you answered (d), you are a fucking idiot and you probably have just lost your nation the World Cup. You may as well change your name to Herschelle Gibbs; at least you won't be a Scrabble clue anymore.

39. The Mayor of Hiroshima 'What The Fuck Was That' Trophy for Biggest Surprise of World Cup 2006: Dr Yobbo, for winning the office tipping comp after being mired in midfield for most of the comp and giving away buckets of points to the leaders until the semis and final. For this he received a moderately large sum of money in a brown envelope, and has promised to book anyone playing against Juventus next week.

40. The greatest sledge in cricket history:
Glenn McGrath to Eddo Brandes: "Why are you so fucking fat?"
Brandes to McGrath: "Because every time I fuck your wife she gives me a biscuit."

41. Zidane's car wouldn't start this morning.

42. We're back, we're bad, he's black, I'm mad. Seriously. I'm MAD. Mad as a cut snake. Crazy as, I'm tellin' ya. Not "I'm crazy and therefore I'll give you large discounts on Telstra-branded mobile communications products" crazy... no, I'm more "sink vast quantities of piss then try to wobble home down the coast road at a good 120mph, then offer La Polizia a free character reference on arrival, along with my incisive dissection of the Middle East crisis" crazy. I tell ya, son, the Jews are a lot of fuckers, they're to blame for everything. Wha?... I swear Drinkstable, I haven't had a cunt all night...

43. If overcome by the urge to have a bit of a crack at Hashish Amla, Deano-style, because he looks like Arsenio Hall with his head on upside down, one should just pause a while, take a breath, relax, and let the feeling fade. Do not, repeat NOT, call him a terrorist, even in jest; Muslim types are a little bit over-sensitive about that sort of thing for some reason. If you must say something, restrict yourself to asking the rhetorical question, "Whatever happened to the other members of ZZ Top?"

44. The Crocodile Hunter' funeral plans were announced, with the body to be turned into attractive handbag and matching shoes.
(Yes, it was too soon.)

45. Brock accident investigation report released - cause of death reported as 'crashing car into tree'. At press time it had not been confirmed whether the tree was stamped with a Ford part number.

46. The name of the new Gold Coast NRL team was announced as the Titans, beating out 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, it was assumed that the 'tit' in 'Titans' largely consisted of silicone.

47. Following the precedent of 'Dr' Shane Warne, 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.

48. Llittle Lleyton Hhewitt took to parading around Buenos Aires in the leadup to the Big Davis Cup Stoush vs the Argies surrounded by hired muscle, declaring himself 'at risk from physical harm' at the hands of the locals. 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 up the arse with a BB gun.

49. In the subsequent tournament Llittle Lleyton went on to prove he was (a) a loser, (b) a cock, and (c) never to be allowed in the company of foreigners again.

50. Former '80s Quoinsland and Strayan fast bowler Craig 'Billy' McDermott, these days a multi-millionaire Gold Coast property developer, recently had his big fuck-off boat into the shop to be detailed. A home-made videotape of himself and his missus on the job, which had been left on board, was subsequently used to blackmail Billy for tens of thousands of your Australian dollars. This is what is called 'Very GC'.

51. Pon-Tang Clan ain't nothin' to fuck with.

52. The national sport of Spain is football, closely followed by MotoGP. The national sport of Spain is not, in fact, stacking their Paralympics basketball team with tall wankers pretending to be 'tards.

53. Noel Gallagher is in his late thirties, seemingly still gets his hair cut by his mum with a pudding bowl and tin snips, and plays in a Beatles tribute band called Oasis. Yes, they're still not dead yet.

54. Almost everyone named Brad is a cock. Particularly Brad the ute-driving Cletus from Woombieland who tried to crash our one-dayer mission to the Gabba a few years back. You know who you are, choad warrior. We even HAD a spare ticket and there was still no fuckin' way you were getting it.

55. Our guide to playing the Blues Explosion Drinking Game:
1. Go to one of their gigs.
2. Every time John Spencer randomly bellows "BLOOOOOZE EXPLOSION!!!", drink.
3. Fall over.

56. Following their annual November shellacking at the hands of the All Blacks, the French Rugby Union have decided against scheduling further France-NZ test matches at that time of year, citing their national compulsion to honour Armistice Day by surrendering to anyone in a snappy uniform just out of habit.

57. Kevin Pietiersien is reputedly this England generation's answer to Tony Greig, not that Tony Greig is a question in need of an answer in this or any other generation (other than 'For the love of God, WHY?'); Andrew Fuckoff is reputedly this England generation's answer to Ian Botham, reputedly proving that this England generation is a piss-poor knockoff of thirty years ago; Geraint Jones's work behind the stumps habitually results in more forlorn byes than the departures terminal at Sydney airport; while Brett Lee does seven Weet-Bix for breakfast. Imagine if he ate them instead of defiling them with his night tools?

58. Rugby writers Greg Growden of the SMH and Peter Jenkins of the Terrorgaff were responsible for the successful campaign to get rid of Wallabies coach Eddie Jones in favour of Knuckles Connolly, a fat old clown with less clue than Inspector Gadget and a game plan about as coherent and well-executed as the voice-over dubbing on the Flight Centre commercials.

59. Far from just being a dreary slab of self-indulgent navel-gazing grunge whining on behalf of Slaphead Billy Corgan and his dysfunctional Pumpkins, 1979 was actually a period of 12 months that occurred in the late 1970s. As late into the late 1970s as possible, in fact.

60. In the past seven Ashes contests, more English wickets have been taken by bowlers called Shane than by bowlers with any other first name, resulting in Australian coach John Buchanan's selection of a First XI made up of Shane Warne, Shane Watson, Shane Bond, Shane Gould, Shane Kelly, Shane Heal, Pat O'Shane, Cheyne Horan, Shane Horgan, Shane Webcke and Shane St James (12th man: Twania Shane)

61. Nine's 'Hot Spot' thermal camera is the most stupid, vapid and pointless idea, object or concept since the invention of Kyle Sandilands.

62. The Barmy Army are the only travelling sports fans anywhere in the world, in any sport, who in times when their team are struggling and need a lift (to wit, for the English cricket team any time other than 2004 and 2005), choose not to shout messages of support or reassurance but instead start chanting THEIR OWN NAME in an astonishing orgy of masterbatory narcissism.

63. As England discovered on Day 3 of the Brisbane test, you don't get any points for hitting Billy Bowden. Five runs are awarded to the batting side if the ball hits his helmet, but it was a bit too far to the left for that.

64. THE WEAK IN SPORT with Dr Yobbo (and unnecessary capitalization) was relaunched as the ALL NEW (though still with unnecessary capitalization) Dr Yobbo's World of Bollocks. Well, partially new. We changed the font on the header. Oh yeah, we did a new logo too, but Eddie McGuire didn't let us use it. What a total funtcase.

65. 'Brangelina' is not a brand of high-fibre laxative. Although that is the effect they have on us.

66. Despite the likelihood that you will be surrounded by a dozen or so abundantly fertile women at the height of their reproductive prime, it is generally not appropriate to use your antenatal class as a place to check out other chicks. Nor is it wise to get their phone numbers 'just in case it doesn't work out with this guy'.

67. Most Bulldogs fans would be lucky to be able to tell Peyton Manning from Eli Manning, Bernard Manning, Bernard Fanning, Manning Clark, Manfred Mann-ing, Nelson Manningdela or the Manning Bar at Sydney Uni. Then again, many Bulldogs fans would struggle to distinguish their arse from their elbow without reference to an Anatomy textbook.

68. Can someone explain why the fuck anyone would listen to 22 year old Scarlett Johansson trying to sell you anti-ageing cream? If she was your grandma and she looked like Scarlett Johansson then you'd have a case for the product working two-fifths worth a bugger. Mind you if your grandma looks like Scarlett Johansson I'm coming along to your family Chrismas this year.

69. The record for the fastest Test hundred ever is held by English bowlers Ian Botham and John Emburey, who combined to score a century from 56 balls in the Fifth Test against the West Indies in Antigua in April 1986, with the help of local batting machine Vivian Richards. This marks the finest achievement by a bloke with a girl's name since Andrea de Cesaris claimed pole position at the 1982 United States Grand Prix.

70. It's Awards Season: gaudy coloured metallic trinkets are changing hands faster than ziplock bags of oregano and lawn clippings at Schoolies. Don't knock it, it's a legitimate way to make some holiday cash, and its not as though the little bastards can tell the difference.

71. Wouldn't you reckon the Israeli president would be famous enough to be able to pull a root without resorting to Rohypnols?

72. Channel Nine reichfuhrer and acclaimed knob Edward McGuire, not content with exorcising Skeletor from morning TV, wanted to bone Humphrey as well. Granted, Humphrey spends much of his time without any pants on, which could be construed as overly provocative and could potentially incite Humphrey being boned against his will (particularly in the opinions of high court judges from South Australia).

73. Irony is not, as many believe, a description of a substance which has a larger than average proportion of iron. Furthermore, the Pussytwat Trolls are all heinous slappers you wouldn't even root for practice.

74. While on a training retreat in Portugal last weekend, prior to the resumption of the Champions League Of Etc overnight, Liverpool nutter Craig Bellamy took two things: he took offence at ginger Danish centreback John-Arne Riise's refusal to sing karaoke with him while out on the turps, and then he took to Riise with a five-iron. Which Liverpool FC and their wholesome new US owners have not taken kindly to, oddly enough.

75. We finally found X. In your face, first-year calculus lecturer.

76. Despite Honda's green-tinged PR bollocks to the contrary, the much-hyped Honda Earth Dream F1 Car was no more fuel efficient than any other car on the F1 grid, or than, for instance the Space Shuttle. Not to mention the fact the thing will only go 1400km max before blowing up. Insert Challenger/Columbia joke here.

77. Proving our long-standing claim that he would amount to far more than your average Stoner from Kurri, Casey Stoner won the season-opening MotoGP round in Qatar in his first ride for Ducati. In keeping with company policy we considered some sort of hideous pun at this point, but after vegan punk guitarist Lindsay McDougall's efforts on national yoof radio, nothing we could come up with could possibly compare with the claw-your-own-face-off cringeworthiness inherent in describing Stoner's victory lap as a 'Qatar solo'.

78. Two billion of your capitalist-running-dog American dollars is the sum which manky-bearded Chelsea owner and seriously rich cunt Roman Abramovich has foregone in his divorce settlement with newly ex-wife Irina, a former flight attendant. The last time Abramovich paid ridiculous money in order to get fucked over was as recent as last August, though Shevchenko has at least started scoring goals eventually.

79. McLaren has the honour of being the only F1 team named after a dead New Zealander. At least until Tiger's caddie Steve Williams carks it, presumably by getting his head trapped up Tiger's arse and asphixating.

80. The Casanovas, All Night Long: Appear to be taking themselves vaguely seriously. This is not a good idea when you are writing songs that are cheesier than a cheeseburger with extra cheese at a fondue party. But, then again as the Good Lord said, what a friend we have in cheeses.

81. All music died after Definitely Maybe, Blood Sugar Sex Magik and/or A Man's Not A Camel. 'I know why dinosaurs became extinct; it's because they learned how to suck their own cocks'. That's philosophy, homes.

82. Only one Olympian has managed to avoid undergoing the compulsory genetic test for gender and still managed to compete in their chosen event. Unsurprisingly this was Princess Anne in Montreal 1974; unsurprisingly as she is actually a horse.

83. Liverpool FC goalkeeper Jose 'Pepe' Reina had his house broken into while he was slightly preoccupied saving his team's arse in the penalty shootout that decided Pool's Champions League semi against Chelski. Rumours have persisted that the culprit was in fact Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, as noone is able to vouch for his whereabouts throughout the duration of the game.

84. Some people like cross-dressing, some people like sniffing female cyclists' bike seats. Some people even like Gretel Killeen, or what's left of her.

85. 'Braith Anasta: fucking useless overrated fuck'. Discuss. You may use additional pages if necessary, we dare say you'll need to.

86. NASCAR's newest race winner and Eater Of All The Pies, Juan-Pablo Montoya, is Hispanic. Trust the Americans to know fuck-all about racing and yet still manage to make it all about race.

87. The Hi-5 theme does NOT actually go 'Five in the ass, let's do it together'.

88. There's few things funnier than watching Goths melt in the sun. Livid 2000: more liquefied mascara than a Kiss Army funeral procession.

89. If rock-dumb trophy wives of football players can't spout jawdroppingly off-beam and intolerant viewpoints on daytime television, THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON!

90. Even if Lewis Hamilton WAS Jesus Christ incarnate, after listening to one bleating, lickspittling hour of James Allen spanking himself purple over him, even the Reverend Fred Nile would end up cheering Satan in the red car. Although I understand Schumacher retired last year.

91. The name of the Queensland doctor who assessed Dallas Johnson as ready to play the second half of Origin III was suppressed by Maroons officials, however following some typically tenacious investigative journalism on the part of The World Of Bollocks we were able to EXCLUSIVELY REVEAL the identity of the medical expert in question:

92. John Butler Trio, Grand National: It's a John Butler Trio album. What the fuck do you expect it to sound like? Def Leppard?

93. Melbourne vs Brisbane, NRL Round 22: Actually watching this game may in fact be the dumbest thing you could possibly do short of cleaning your contact lenses with your own gob.

94. The point of Facebook appears to be twofold: (1) You can count up how many friends you have and use this information to compete with other people, just like you used to in kindergarten, and (2) You can represent diagrammatically how each of your friends knows each other. Which is good, because you might forget, given that you probably introduced the motherfuckers in the first place when drunker than George Best.

95. When struggling to come up with new content for your blog, try shamblesing-together a bunch of funny T-shirt ideas that someone else has already come up with.

96. Or just blatantly rip it off The Onion.

97. Talking absolute bollocks and selling bullshit to the public is probably how one ends up a successful multi-millionaire real estate agent in the first place.

98. How long can a trough monster can survive in its natural environment? A fair while. It could probably survive a decent length of time on those little yellow urinal cakes.

99. There's something about rock chicks, dammit. Sarah McLeod from the Superjebus wouldn't have been anywhere near as hot if she'd been a florist or a parking officer. (Is she the only McLeod who has yet to turn up on McLeod's Daughters?)

100. The NRL's recreational drug testing regime has been, up till recently, about as extensive and comprehensive as any collection of Willie Mason quotes which fail to represent him as an arse-brained fucktard.

101. There are more terrible things than musical comedies where everyone sings. There is something worse, and it really does blow: when a long-running series does a cheesy clip show.


The Doctor is OUT.

___________________________

PS If you're wondering, which you're not, but if you were, the top five Worlds of Bollocks according to their overly proud Creator in no particular order other than chronological are:

Worst. Decision. Ever. (33)
The disappointment of going out of the World Cup in exactly the dubious manner foreshadowed by office oracle Nostrildramus was successfully channelled into our World Cup Exit Survey.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust (57)
The only Ashes preview ever to reference Robert Smith from the Cure, the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority, busted-arse Valiants and Eddie McGuire wanting to bone Skeletor.

Dr Yobbo's Guide To Important Bloke Stuff, Volume 1 (66)
If you have functional testicles and a partner with maternal tendencies, you need to read this. Trust me.

Eff One Season Preview (81)
Does pretty much what it says on the tin.

Dealing with loss, industrial deafness and ludicrous queues for the slashers (88)
A nostalgic ode to one's youth, largely spend standing in a paddock getting drunk, sunburnt and deaf.