Actually I was in Christchurch. It's just like Adelaide except without the V8 Supercars or the serial killers.
Yachting: sport of the common man
For those who still think a boat race involves the furious sinking of piss in a competitive context, Television New Zealand would like to tell you about an event they own the rights to which is called the 32nd America's Cup. According to TVNZ, the nation of New Zealand is on tenderhooks, strung out like a junkie on International Methadone Free Day, unable to sleep, eat, speak or shit for sheer national obsession with the adventures of Emirates Team New Zealand and their undying deathmatch with the evil, EVIL Swiss syndicate Alinghi (see, it even SOUNDS foreign) led by evil, EVIL Swiss billionaire Ernesto Something-Woggy. Emirates Team NZ's race two win to equal the best-of-nine series 1-1 was breathlessly, yet straightfacedly declared to the nation with reportage along the lines of 'our long national nightmare is over'. Uh, yeah. Let the nation rejoice that a team of (mostly) Kiwis bankrolled by a Middle Eastern airline isn't losing to another team of (mostly) Kiwis bankrolled by a loopy Swiss-Italian moneybags. As a great philosopher once said, whoopee fuck. It'd be funny if it wasn't for the Kiwi media's desperate attempts to make the fucker interesting by trying to turn the hordes of Kiwis working for Syndicates Other Than Emirates Team NZ (either because (a) they like money or (b) they couldn't get on with the various megalomaniacs in the Team NZ tilt) into filthy, no-good, treasonous, bile-worthy traitors. When it comes to destroying their own sports idols, noone touches the Kiwis. They'll be busting out the Pakistani skills big time should the ABs fail to reclaim the rugby world cup (probably by getting mugged by the Wobbilies in the semis again) - if so expect burning effigies of Graham Henry et al in the streets.
This is probably Ted.
Or it could be Bob Woolmer. Or Darrell Hair. Or Greg Chappell...
Naming rights... sorry, starboards
Emirates Team NZ's biggest problem might actually be themselves, judging by the rumblings over where the team would defend the Auld Mug should (or, as TVNZ would have it, when) they reclaim it. You see, while the NZ government were happy to tip twenty odd million into the tilt, they did so on the proviso that the Auckland waterfront would again be the beneficiary of all that lovely foreign money related to the challenger trials and cup defence races being based there, as Valencia is now. However, Emirates have mildly suggested that it might be preferable for the defence to be hosted out of Dubai. And given that Emirates have chipped in well over ten times as much coin as the entire nation of New Zealand has contributed - we're talking somewhere between Formula One and NASA budgets here - the air traffic controllers have a point. However, one predicts a simple, elegant compromise to win out, one which will keep all parties happy: keeping the cup defence here but renaming the country Emirates New Zealand. It's not as though they couldn't afford the naming rights.
Team New Zealand, so named because they have marginally more New Zealanders on their team than any other syndicate in competition
Motorcycle race team managers: for your attention
Want to win a world championship? Try combining an Aussie bloke and an Italian bike. No, not La Cicciolina - we're thinking something more along the lines of a Ducati, as flogged by Casey Stoner in the MotoGPs and Troy Bayliss in the world superbikes. Stoner has been making Rossi et al look vaguely stupid on his personal Bologna bullet, while following his nasty stack earlier in the year Bayliss has been proving that his little finger was indeed the ballast which was holding him back all along. Actually it's like 1989/90 all over again in the Grand Prix bikes - three Aussies in the reckoning (Stoner, Chris Vermuelen and monotonal moaner Ant West, in place of Doohan, Gardner and Kevin Magee), and the NSW government is again thinking about mounting a half-arsed plan to wrest the motorbike Grand Prix off Phillip Island. The last time they tried resulted in the construction of the sinuous turd that some call Eastern Creek International Raceway (and others 'that shitbox white elephant out on the freeway to Penrith'.)
Troy searches for his pinky, Donington race one
Don't change a winning team.
Corollary: don't not change a not winning team.
QED.
Unfortunately when that lesson was being dealt out in class the NSW selectors were truanting down behind the bike sheds having a wank over junior netball practice, because the same pack of busted arses which surrendered the Origin series in record equalling time (granted, it's hard to lose a three match series any faster than by losing the first two games) have largely been recycled for the Who Cares Fixture than constitutes Game 3 in Brisvegas. Mercifully, busted-arse-extraordinaire Braith Anasta has managed to bust himself sufficiently to be too busted-arse to make the trip up to the painted sand of Suncorp, to which the NSW brains-trust (who as ever seem to have far more of the latter than the former) has responded by persuading a bunch of thugs from the Shire to turn up in their Cronulla jerseys next Wednesday night. That'd be the same bunch of thugs from the Shire who got touched-up by the only 17 uninjured players on Souths' books last weekend. Our predictions: Queensland to win by a metric shitload. Gould for NSW coach. Dr Yobbo for an extended course of Prozac.
Them darkies is a-comin', Cleetus
Apparently the New Jesus of Formula One (TM and copyright all British media outlets 2007) , Choadafone McLaren Ssangyong's nominal number two Lewis Hamiltron, is black. Who knew? This fact, heinously ignored by pretty much every news oracle in Europe, has thankfully been underlined by the American sportsmedia. They've also been kind enough to point out that this 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. Unless there's a minority angle to push for the warm-'n'-fuzzy PC angle, why bother reporting it? Expect more motorsport coverage focusing on other oppressed minority groups in the US, such as gays, Democrat voters and people who believe in evolution. Coming up on Sportscenter: why ESPN only gives two good shits about IndyCars when a chick is racing in it. Even though Danica's a bit shit and crashes more often than a Microsoft beta-release.
Decorative, although not functional
We're sorry. Dr Yobbo's World Of Bollocks has suffered an unexpected failure and needs to close. Would you like to send an error report to Microsoft?
Didn't fuckin' think so.
Dr Yobbo OUT.
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