Threads of history

Previously in other media commitments I made the observation that the history of mankind - of specific kinds of men anyway - can be told by one's T-shirt collection. If you are a man, and you have a lot of T-shirts, every T-shirt you own has a backstory and a provenance, which captures something of your past, or something of your essence. Those shirts, the ones cluttering the wardrobe, the ones on the floor next to the wardrobe, even the ones stuffed into the old suitcase on top of the wardrobe which your significant other constantly threatens to hurl into a St Vinnies bin - they don't just tell your story, those shirts very likely ARE your story.

Mine is in here. Somewhere.











































Oh, and one more.


The Doctor is OUT.

It's cool to hate

I hate the jocks and I hate the geeks
I hate the trendies but I also hate the freaks
I hate your band and I hate TV
I'm only happy when I'm in my misery
- 'Cool To Hate', The Offspring, 1997

I hate the Offspring - well anything they've done since the '90s anyway - but the point remains: it's cool to hate. Or cool to be hated, in sporting terms, at least. Last night the two most broadly despised teams in the two premier Australian football codes, Manly and Collingwood, both won their way to their respective Grand Finals after out-hating opposition teams that would on an average day be the neutral observer's punching bag of choice - the hated-south-of-the-Tweed Brisbane Broncos and the hated-because-of-Jeff-fucking-Kennett Hawthorn Hawks. Meanwhile, across the ditch, the Wallabies saw off both a plucky-but-clueless Septic rugger side and a hometown Kiwi crowd who paid very good money to turn up in hastily-smeared red-white-and-blue and boo the shit out of their ANZAC brethren. Which brings us to our point of order: how much is too much when you're on the death-riding bandwagon?

For it seems to Your Correspondent that the modern sporting universe takes more pleasure in watching a despised team fail than seeing their own team succeed. Being a South Sydney supporter I have no frame of reference for the latter, obviously (although being a Souths supporter means one actually has a legitimate reason to hate Manly, for 40 years and counting of being absolute pricks... Johnny Sattler's jaw in the GF, strip-mining all the talent from the 1971 and 1989 teams, yada yada yada.) But Souths fans don't have a moratorium on hating Manly, just like no AFL team has exclusive rights to death-riding the Pies - even those with little to no interest in AFL know from birth to hate the Pies with their legion of toothless fucktard supporters and their ubiquitous shiny fuckface of a president. Just like the number of Man United fans worldwide are dwarfed by the number of Anyone But United fans. Baseball? Anyone but the Yankees. Doesn't even need to be a team sport. Tiger Woods in golf. Schumacher in F1. You don't need to be particularly knowledgeable or even interested in a sport to know who you're meant to hate. And given they're usually the successful 'franchises', the chances of them being up the pointy end at podium time is probably better than for whichever other outfit you've sellotaped your affections to, so they'll be there or thereabouts in the finals, ready and waiting to be hated.

Why all of this is the case - what underlies the deep-seated psychological issue at work which drives us down the path of schadefreude for our sporting jolls - is beyond the scope of this discussion. My question is just this - at what point is it just a little bit sad? I dislike Manly a lot. I hate the Broncos, for that matter. But I wouldn't cross a busy street to watch either of them play - just to hang shit on them from the sideline, laugh at Lockyer's misshapen head or sledge AVO Watmough for being special needs. Let alone shell out a couple hundy for me and mine to go to the game in oppo-team-colours-du-jour and bellow my ring out for whoever they were playing, just for shits and giggles. My question is, would you? Which brings us back to Westpac Wellington Regional Stadium last night, where most of the punters who'd paid the price of admission were very evidently backing the Septics - which is entirely their right and privilege, and if they've got that sort of disposable cash available the NZ economy must be doing alright. Although had the dearly beloved Sons of Uncle Sam turned up at the docks on the deck of a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier signing up enlistments for the War on Trrrrr, one wonders if they'd have been so warmly received by the New Zealand people.

Probably, as long as they didn't have Quade fucking Cooper playing for them.

The Doctor is OUT.

Shotgun no challenge

I don't get driven around much, least of all on long road trips (or as long as New Zealand's superconcentrated geography allows.) However all that changed last weekend, when a long and tedious state of affairs most aptly described as 'losing my wallet in a taxi while unfeasibly drunk on second-label Gibbston Valley pinot' resulted in my being not legally permitted to operate a motor vehicle the day of the drive back from Queenstown, home of the unfeasibly drunk, to Dunedin, Riviera of the Antarctic.

Thing is, as far as trips to end up riding shotgun on, Qtown-Dtown isn't a bad one. In a country heavily endowed with great driving roads, the trip across the width of the South Island is a particular bringer of awesome, as much for its ever-changing scenery as for the bendy-cornery bits which mainly appeal to the person actually applying force to the tiller in the big chair. Let me explain with words in picture format.

11.06am. Gibbston Valley, about 20km out of Queenstown. Home of awesome pinot, that bungy bridge that stupid backpackers pay $180 to hurl themselves off, and serious vertical scenery.

11.45am. Along the shores of Lake Dunstan, between Clyde and Cromwell.

1.07pm. The road out of Alexandra. Which is the prettiest thing about Alexandra, although to be fair the Monteiths pub does a good feed.

1.19pm. Middle Earth country approaching Gorge Creek, between Alex and Roxburgh.

2.33pm. The fruitgrowing plains of the Teviot Valley.

2.55pm. Bridging the mighty Clutha at Beaumont. The road pretty much follows the same watercourse from Queenstown to here, before leaving it shortly after.

3.01pm. Somewhere between Raes Junction and Lawrence. Possibly.

3.26pm. Manuka Gorge, the last bit of significant twisties before the run to the coast.

3.46pm. On the run into Lake Waihola. Not literally though. That could be damp.

3.53pm. On the Taieri plain, passing D-town airport and on the home stretch.

4.04pm. The 'Giel. Do not exit. That is all. (And yes that is a pretend Hollywood sign on the hill.)

4.12pm. Following an old '57 Chevy past Carisbrook. One is tired, haggard and long past its best. The other is a car.

So that's Qtown-Dtown from the passenger seat of someone else's rented Toyota Highlander-slash-Kluger (Klugerlander?) Which, for the record, is not a car you need to seriously consider owning, unless you have a hankering for the sort of driving experience which results from a Camry being forcibly mated with a Prado. Admittedly, if I had been driving, the trip would have been conducted in a Mondeo at pace, would have taken a shade over 3 hours and would have turned the passengers a shade of green.

And no, the bastards haven't found my wallet yet either.

The Doctor is OUT.