The Supermercado Project

Sunday Bloody Sunday: Seven years late

2012-01-13T21:02:00.002+11:00

In 2004 budding radio tycoon Adam 2.0 was nice enough to invite me, completely untrained and never having been anywhere near a studio, to do a graveyard shift on SYN FM.

We called it Sunday Bloody Sunday as a tribute to Alan Partridge and made everything up as we went along. A lot of it was tripe and the two surving episodes are up and down like the proverbial but I think what's below is my favourite hour of the surviving recordings.

One day I'll get around to putting up the highlights of Episode 1 featuring borderline slanderous talk of Tom Jones cracking onto a teenage girl live at Caesar's Palace and a full, frank and quite possibly ABA licence cancelling discussion of the tit on the front cover of Cold Chisel's "You're Thirteen, You're Beautiful and You're Mine" live EP but this will have to do for now. Took me this long just to put this up good luck if the rest is done by the time I'm 70.

In the first episode we gave away glue to a Delta Goodrem fan and on Christmas Day that year 2.0 set out to indulge in the most ridiculous programming shift of all time - 24 hours straight on the air. According to a comment in this hour the world record was only 28 so it seemed fairly achievable that we could at least go close but sadly half the idiots who didn't confirm that they were doing their show that day turned up anyway and we spent most of the early evening playing cricket with some Indians in the grounds of RMIT where I kept being bowled attempting cavalier shots.

Sadly there's no surviving audio of the Christmas Day bonanza (and the shambles it rapidly turned into after midnight) or the fourth show and for some reason we stopped, presumably just seconds before being discovered by radio talent scouts and sent to do the breakfast program in Bunbury.

The music has been removed because frankly most it (which you'll realise from the announcing) was absolutely disgraceful and I'm not sure if we were being deliberately awkward or there was some higher reason for it all.

So, on that note allow me to present for the first time Sunday Bloody Sunday. Episode two, hour five, edited to remove the music because nobody cares about that slop. The Double B-Side edition - complemented by images that sort of match what is going on until the point where I got bored and just started adding images I had saved on my hard drive.

TSP's Top 50 of 2011

2011-12-07T18:24:00.007+11:00

It's that time again, when we gather for TSP to hand out the most coveted prize in world music - the David Lee Roth Medal for Song of the Year. A shortlist was compliled from 5 December 2010 to today, and in a year when I struggled to find much new music of any interest just 98 songs were put up for consideration. Is your favourite track missing? Well serves you right for not alerting me to it earlier.

History fans can see the full surviving countdowns from 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Sadly the Wayback Machine is unable to find the full '05 count.

Here's how the Top 5 ended each year;

2005
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter

2006
1. The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill
2. Giant Drag - This Isn’t It
3. Silvia Night - Congratulations
4. Lily Allen - LDN
5. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me

2007
1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!
2. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
3. The Teenagers - Homecoming
4. Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent
5. Jack Penate - Spit At Stars

2008
1. Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up
2. Neon Neon - Luxury Pool
3. MGMT - Electric Feel
4. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream
5. Fryars - Olive Eyes

2009
1. N.A.S.A - Spacious Thoughts (featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith)
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
3. Boy Crisis - The Fountain of Youth
4. Bat For Lashes - Daniel
5. Low Fidelity All Stars - The Good Times

2010
1. My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart
2. Goldfrapp - Rocket
3. Lena - Satellite
4. Keane - Stop For A Minute (featuring K'naan)
5. Paul Heaton - Even A Palm Tree

2010 proved to be the most controversial year yet for the countdown. Federal Police agents are still combing the bushes outside of TSP Towers looking for explosive devices and I'm often forced to retreat into a panic room when somebody leaps the fence with a butcher's knife and tries to do me in. So, how may I disappoint you today? Let's find out as we introduce our host for the second consecutive year;

(As always we are legally obliged to point out that the countdown is not actually endorsed anybody called Pete Smith

Also I cbf making these videos open in a new window so right click > open new tab. Unless you're using IE7 then you can swivel).

50. Herzog - Silence
A feedback fest opened by the sample of a football coach yelling at the crowd. That'll do as a start.

49. Beastie Boys - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win
Fight for your right to scrape into the top 50.

48. Miles Kane - Quicksand
Which is much better than any of the slop off this year's Arctic Monkeys album. 1-0 to the supposed lesser collaborator.

47. Aloe Blacc - Green Lights
Not the last we've heard from him I'd wager. But it is in this countdown. His other big song was already covered last year.
Previous Appearance - #41 in 2010 with I Need A Dollar

46. Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix
Warning - Has absolutely nothing to do with the race held as a Formula One championship round between 1986 and 1992.

45. Stevie Nicks - Secret Love
Community Service Announcement - The inclusion of this song has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I scream GRILF! every time she comes on TV. But it's true. It's a power ballad, what could I do? And yes, yes I would.

44. Keren Ann - My Name Is Trouble
Every possible chance she is actually mental.

43. Wolf Gang - Where Are You Now
In about 1993 by the sounds of it.

42. Kasabian - La Fee Verte
Previous Appearance - #25 in 2009 with Underdog

41. Boots Electric - Boots Electric Theme
Apparently the bloke from Eagles Of Death Metal is involved. I would rather jam skewers into my eyeballs than ever listen to Eagles Of Death Metal.

40. Wu Tang Clan - Black Diamonds
Listener advisory: They may have done this song about 75 times in the last 20 years. Still works but.

39. The Decemberists - Calamity Song
All Panamanian children hanging off the waist of a dowager etc.. Just your typical Decemberists song really.
Previous Appearance - #9 in 2007 with Oh Valencia

38. Toro Y Moi - New Beat
As 80's as buggery. All hushed male voices over electronic bleeps and blangs. And the last 45 seconds is just some guys saying "Don't forget" while more electro wobbles on in the background. Somewhere Fischerspooner are yelling "OI! Give us our gimmick back".

37. Male Bonding - What's That Scene?
According to YouTube they're a "noise pop duo", which almost caused me to throw them out of the Top 50.

36. Sparrow and the Workshop - Snakes In The Grass

35. Sons & Daughters - Rose Red
I was briefly under the delusion that this lot were from New Zealand, which was going to be as close as you'd get to an Australian act turning up. Then they were from Glasgow so bad luck.

34. The Suzukis - Back At The Factory
Do you like songs that shout at you and end at exactly three minutes, presumably so that they're still eligible for the Eurovision Song Contest? If so you'll like this.

Must have been a loud factory but you'll have to take my word for it considering I can't find a video/audio copy anywhere.

33. Drive-By Truckers - Go Go Boots
The master Southern Rock storytellers tell another one. Nothing they've done since has been as good as the 2001 Southern Rock Opera double album (Release date - September 12. Oh dear, goodbye sales) but this tale of sleaze, infidelity and smalltown gossip comes close enough.

32. Spank Rock - Car Song

31. M83 - Midnight City

30. Bleeding Knees Club - Have Fun
Like that bit in a One Day International when nothing happens for a few overs this is the section of the countdown where I can't be arsed doing a write up for some of the songs...

29. Nero - Fugue State
Practically instrumental. Deal with it.

28. Hank Williams III - Gutter Town
Grandson of the original Hank in "country as buggery release" is hardly the biggest shock you'll ever hear in your life. Ticks the boxes for my shameful love of classic country. Video looks as if it were shot on a mobile and then edited in Windows Movie Maker.

27. A Plastic Rose - Kids Don't Behave Like This
Yes they do, they're all little shits. Alleged to have been released in 2009 but it was re-released this year so under the arcane rules of the David Lee Roth Medal this is still eligible.

26. Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars
Massive chorus.

25. Database - Vice II
The sort of dance music that French people have a stroke over. Sounds like the soundtrack to a lost Sega Megadrive game.

24. YACHT - Paradise Engineering
Drips with hipsterism and loses the plot as it goes on but have I ever told you this year wasn't much chop for music?

23. Roxette - She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
Who doesn't love 80's pop revivalism for a new decade? About seventeen of us. And if this makes you want to garrot yourself you'll be shattered as to what just randomly happened to come up next in the list...

22. The Human League - Sky
Wouldn't have been out of place in their 80's pop heyday. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you, personally I think it's marvellous. If you have a problem with this I'll meet you in the carpark of Port Melbourne Coles at midnight for a knife fight.

21. Housse De Racket - TGV
If I spoke French I'd probably like this even more.

20. Young Knives - Go To Ground

Former #1 TSP Top 50 act barely scrape into the top 20. We want another Here Comes The Rumor Mill and we want it NOW. One thing I will give them is that the ability to stream the album through YouTube by clicking the video like a menu is a killer concept.
Previous Appearances - #24 in 2006 with The Decision, #19 in 2006 with Loughborough Suicide, #1 in 2006 with Here Comes The Rumor Mill, #23 in 2007 with Terra Firma

19. The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight

Touch of the Morrissey's about it. Well, if he's not going to do anything good ever again why shouldn't somebody else have a go?

18. Beastie Boys - Lee Majors Come Again

They did 'adult' ruminations, Buddhism and all that. Now this is a return to what they did best, sadly without the accompaniment of a 20 foot high penis on stage "for old times sake".

17. Beady Eye - Four Letter Word

If there were a fire and I could only save one Gallagher brother there's no doubt that I'd leave Liam to fry BUT unfortunately in year's first Brother vs Brother chart battle it's 1-0 to the prospective firewood. This is probably better than anything Oasis has done for years but that's not particularly hard. Sounds more than a bit like one of the lesser tracks off Definitely Maybe.

"Nothing ever lasts forever" he shouts over thrashing guitar. Was he referring to Noel? Do I look like a psychologist to you?

16. The Strokes - Under Cover of Darkness

It's generally accepted (around these parts anyway) that The Strokes disappeared up their own collective blurter somewhere shortly after the second album came out. It's been getting worse ever since, leading to this year's album which was decidedly ordinary in all parts other than this song.

Interviews show that they clearly dislike each other these days so might not be much longer for the world. Remember the good times, remember one of the great debut albums of all time and remember the odd cracking track like this one that came from their later work because in six months it'll all be noodling prog-rock solo stuff that nobody will have any interest in listening to. But.....

15. Kasabian - Turkish Acid Bath (Shelter From The Storm)

If the real Oasis are going to be all split up and shit then their understudies will just have to do. Even features the sort of orchestral flourish that Oasis didn't bother with in between Whatever and when we all stopped listening to them.

It's no Club Foot/Underdog/Fire mind you.

14. Justice - Civilization

Like dance music merged with Iron Maiden. Plenty of talk about beating of a million drums, firing of a million guns etc.. Thumping. Was it a success here? Should have been.

13. Luke Haines - We Are Unusual Men

Only one man could get away with making a concept album about the golden era of English professional wrestling. You or I could do it but it would be shit. In the hands of Haines it's magic. Contains the audio from the unmasking of Kendo Nagasaki. Fun fact - I have a picture of Kendo Nagasaki on my wall.
Previous Appearance - #19 in 2009 with 20th Century Man

12. Wu Tang Clan - Laced Cheeba

I think they did exactly the same thing 27 songs ago, just 27 spots not as good as this.

11. Twin Atlantic - Make A Beast of Myself

Ignore for a second that he has the most Scotch accent since Rab C Nesbitt and wait for it to really kick off. Magic stuff, more please.

10. Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Wait, don't start threatening to murder me yet. I would rather have boiling oil thrown over me than ever listening to any of the other gash songs that she put out this year AND would gladly take every copy of Someone Like You and throw it in the same giant sized landfill that now houses all the unwanted CD singles of Wise Men by James Blunt BUT I still can't help but feel that this was a cracker of a single.

As the first single off the album which would ultimately sell about 20 billion copies off the back of soppy, heartbreak singles it made me think "oh, this is actually quite good. Maybe she's not just the Cockney Duffy or Amy Winehouse without a .010 BAC". But then the rest of the singles came along and the only thing that differentiates here from the other two now is that a) she hasn't ruined her career by starring in a Diet Coke ad and b) she's still alive.

Just like how Lady Gaga has done nothing of interest to me since Poker Face I expect that now she's made millions with watery ballads that Adele will never doing anything that appeals to me ever again.

9. Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocco

It's no wonder that Haines can pull off a gimmick like this, afterall this is the man who got a whole album out of the Baader Meinhof gang. An album which, incidentally, is an absolute solid gold CORKER which you must listen to it night and day as I do.

8. Urge Overkill - Effigy

Mid 90's revivalism is sadly non-existent. Give it a few years. When it does come along and people start clamouring for the hits that they remember from that part of the decade it won't be Hootie & The Blowfish that they'll be calling it'll be Urge Overkill and I can't say I blame them.

This couldn't sound any more 1995 if it tried, and as somebody who owns an Urge Overkill single purchased in 1995 I'm comfortable with that. That this is their first single since that year says it all. It didn't chart, surely nobody expected to but it was a welcome comeback.

Trivia buffs will also be thrilled to learn that this was the first song I shortlisted for the countdown way back in late December 2010.

7. Portugal. The Man - Got It All (This Can't Be Living Now)

Like a non-disco, dance around your handbags, version of Scissor Sisters with some balls about it. They sound as if they're all off their chop. One of the great band names too you must admit, possibly connected to the general off chopness of the entire enterprise.

6. Yuck - Get Away

About as lo-fi as you can get but don't hold that against them. Or the fact that they were all about 15-years-old when it was released. If The Strokes had released this people would have whopped off over it.

5. Calvin Harris and Kelis - Bounce

How to get me to like a modern pop song.
a) Make it sound like 80's Italo Disco and/or the soundtrack to a long forgotten 80's arcade game.

And you're done. Also doesn't hurt that I've been hot for Kelis ever since she stomped down the street and yelled about how much she hated us right now all those years ago.
Previous Appearance - #24 in 2007 with Acceptable In The 80's

4. Dutch Uncles - The Ink

If I'd just seen the video without hearing this song I'd have succumbed to the 10% of my brain which says "I HATE THIS SONG" rather than the rest which has an irrational nature of it. In fact if you've never heard it before don't click on the above, download it, pretend it's a woman singing and enjoy it ten times more.

3. The Strokes - Taken For A Fool

... one last moment of greatness was on the agenda. Forget the dodgy video which seems to indicate that they briefly thought they were MGMT and was probably filmed with the band in separate rooms so they didn't kill each other. This is magic. Would still only just sneak onto Is This It but it tonks everything else they've done since then. If they removed head from clacker and made more tracks like this I'd be thrilled.

2. MEN - Credit Card Babies (Stereogamous Remix)

Usually I wouldn't have a bar of remixes but this is significantly better. Cracking track and political statement about gay couples having kids Key lyric "We got holes, places to stick our poles".

I expect if this was blared out across parliament during the vote on Same Sex Marriage then even Tony Abbott would rise to applaud and possibly crack a semi.

1. REM - Discoverer

It's not a going away present to one of the world's most popular bands (albeit one who were being thumped by the law of diminishing returns for the best part of 20 years) this is legitimately the best thing they've done in years.

Two of the songs off their last album were pretty good, and 2003/2004's Bad Day and Animal were fine songs but the balance of their output this century - and pretty much everything since they committed commercial suicide by releasing E-Bow The Letter as a single (top track but) - is well and truly tipped in negative balance. Ironically the rest of the Collapse Into Now album was a bit naff AND this wasn't even a single. Trust them to be wilfully uncommercial.

It makes absolutely no sense, but then again what REM song ever has? At least now you can understand what they're saying for what it's worth.

Ahh, the old "brief return to form then fold" manoeuvre. At least they'll always have the 2011 David Lee Roth Medal to comfort them. And millions of dollars.
Previous Appearances - #40 in 2008 with Accelerate, #10 in 2008 with Supernatural Superserious

Photobucket Shenanigans part four

2011-11-24T01:45:00.001+11:00

It's the series that has slowly been captivating all of Melbourne since April 2010. Where we trawl the archives of my Photobucket account and show the bizarre and downright disturbing images which were saved for future consumption before Facebook, Twitpic, Yfrog etc... came along and ruined it for everybody.

Today we're starting in early 2006. When the world of blogging was taking the world by storm and we were all trying to famewhore ourselves out for that inevitable moment when, as promised, blogging replaced real journalism. If we had been smart we'd have been in a shed somewhere designing YouTube but as the following images will prove we were anything but smart.

This will be the last edition of Photobucket Shenanigans as the use of the system died in the proverbial around 2007 when Facebook gave us a new place to pool photos that nobody else had half an interest in. Vale.

Many of these photos will require a right click > view image to get the full effect. Given that it's taken me 18 months to finish this series it shouldn't come as a surprise that I couldn't be bothered resizing anything. It is all delivered as it was originally uploaded.

2006

Sound advice for all potential employees. Later outlawed in Fair Work Australia.

Quality filth by sub-editors in the days when such things existed.

Almost certainly the greatest album ever made.

Still waiting for Rusty to deliver vengeance

Hard hitting opinions on local football from when I still cared.

Best defecating cat ever

2007

The bathrooms. A Bar Called Barry. Probably the worst restroom in Australia.

My attempt to trademark Supermercado which only failed when they asked for $500. For some reason not posted until three years later.

Somebody else's magic Wikipedia vandalism

One of the great supermarket classified ads. Good luck Jeremy, hope it ended well.

Turns out he was actually quite a prick.

Wither Bell and Biv?

Unfortunate casting moments

The man they called Harismidis. Famed for showing up at half time of local soccer games once it was free to get in then running up and down the touchline shouting instructions at all and sundry.

Quality messag from the local candidate

My poor car, broken into. The fuzz nicked the guy who did it about 20 minutes later and recovered every single piece of stolen property he'd lifted except for the camera pinched from my car. Theory is that it was so shit he just piffed it over a fence somewhere.

The Age make a desperate attempt to sell more than five copies a day by promoting Australia's least amusing comedy character.

I think we can all relate to the ACK man

2008

What everybody needs on Xmas Day.

The frankly baffling graffiti on the bridge outside my then home on Egan Street, Richmond

Maybe the best sports photo ever. Maybe not.

The first recorded plum gag

Cock and Ball Torture Holidays

Nobody ever successfully explained to me why this news story about wine wankers featured a topless woman.

Foul and offensive content slips through the censors at Kardinia Park.

Impossible to explain

A silent protest at them taking my colour printer at work. Got nothing.

The joys of living in Richmond

Grand Final bets that didn't go particularly well

Didn't we all want to make an exception to the Domestic Violence: Australia Says No campaign just for this woman?

Get up for the 1957 Olympics

2009

Kew Junction Dancing Man makes life worthwhile

Poorly thought out promotion

The most contentious name for a greyhound ever

Farce

Drunken bogans are arrested at the races. Still one of the great news shots of all time just for the nork angle.

Sound advice from American Psycho

Jubiliation at beating Freo. It had been a long year.

2010

Newspapers: where sex crimes can be funny.

Alleged bushfire starter and child pornographer in "no mates" shock.

Outright lies by the AFL website

Another contender for greatest sports photo ever.

The Fan Footy tombstone. The icon that means so much to so many.

One of history's great individuals

Nice rack

2011

Even I don't understand this. Art house.

The best banner ever waved at a footy match

Live from Occupy Melbourne (five days late)

2011-10-25T08:19:00.010+11:00

It was quite the slow morning last Friday, so when the word went around that the cops were about to steam in and liberate Green Square.. err the City Square.. I was down for a spot of rubbernecking. It's not often you get to see something in person that will be talked about for years, and to be entirely fair I've missed standing on the outskirts of a horse charge since they shut down the National Soccer League.

To be entirely fair in the grand scheme of things I was probably going for plod in this matchup. Afterall they did start as red hot favourites, and the occupiers had enjoyed a fair run where they'd achieved absolute doughnuts in the way of altering the way the world was run. They could have stayed until December 2015 and it wouldn't have helped a dot, so back to the steps of Flinders Street with your petitions and street theatre and let's all get on with our lives.

Not that there aren't things worth pinging a tent pole around a major city thoroughfare about, but I'm a fairly contented member of the supposed 'other' 99%. I could use easily available credit to buy a motorbike then fall off due to my own stupidity and have the government pay for my rehabilition plus most of my lost earnings. But I don't want to. I can go to a hospital emergency room with the most frivolous of perceived illnesses and somebody will eventually see me and send me on my way without a $10,000 bill. I somehow managed to score a decent job despite dropping out of Uni the day after enrolling and even if I stuff up after ten years and wind up sacked then the government will give me a few scraps until I find something else to do. Pretty good country this.

It's not without its flaws but call me when the budget is being taken to with a machete like Greece. When workers are being subject to vicious pay cuts, losing pensions, seeing taxes rise and having their collective bargaining agreements changed on them. That's worth at least yelling about. Maybe even waving about a placard for. Nothing is ever worth sleeping in a tent for no matter where you are.

It's not to say that I don't have sympathy with some parts of the utterly baffling range of causes that were on show. $5m a year for CEO's that are simultaneously shuffling half their workforce off to another country is undoubtedly scandalous, but what are you going to do to change it? Sitting in a tent yelling into a megaphone isn't going to make Alan Joyce suddenly stand up and go "Wait! You're right! I'm going to give up $4.9m a year and spend every third Monday helping passengers recover their lost luggage". It's not Minsk in 1918, we've come too far to turn around and go back to everyone working on the farm.

You could nationalise major companies left, right and centre and pay the CEO's what you want to pay them, but you're not going to manage that by waving pamphlets about your head outside the State Library. Any thought to perhaps mobbing up and making a decent fist at getting into parliament? Would be a fair test of whether the other 99% are even halfway interested or whether it's really about 3% after preferences. Here's an idea, if you hate the Liberal Party so much then join up en masse and mess with them from the inside. Imagine the comedy value when everyone turns up to their AGM tabling motions to smash the capitalist state? Would be a small price to pay for high comedy. And it's not like you're really funding them either, all the money raised from people joining up en masse would be blown in one TV commercial which they're going to show whether you like them or not.

Obviously there's no legitimate interest in joining the proper political process other than a few token efforts spearheaded by parties with names so ridiculous that only a handful of people will ever vote for them. You may be quite keen on a socialist alternative, and good luck to you sir or madam, but if you want anyone to vote for you maybe don't be so open about it. Try diversifying and offering some actual solutions instead of anguished wailing and beating of drums.

As much as they'd throw themselves out of a window to hear it this lot remind me a lot of the distant black sheep cousins of the grey power anti-carbon tax brigade. They're certainly both convinced that somehow we're living in a dictatorship despite that small matter of a parliamentary democracy going around. Forget 99%, I'd like to give them each their own 1%, hive the rich off with theirs and put myself into the 97% who don't really give a toss.

You can't say there wasn't diversity amongst the groups protesting, and no doubt there were some issues on offer than can be dealt with via the existing system. Same sex marriage and improved treatment of asylum seekers are noble causes (from my perspective anyway) so why not turn your attention to lobbying on their behalf. Write letters to the papers, stack the Herald Sun comments section (try not to call them filthy scum even if you sincerely believe it and if in many cases it's true), calling talkback radio etc.. They might not print the first one, they might not print the first hundred but they're going to give in eventually and you'll hit more people through the much hated 'mainstream media' than you will in a million protest marches.

So, I'm not a great believer that protesting solves anything. Maybe if you're planning on overthrowing the government of Tunisia we're on the same page but don't give me the 'poor old me' routine in a country which is so far from a properly repressive dictatorship that it's almost offensive to go around yelling about how it's a police state.

But sure, have your marches if it works for you. Do your own version of Ray's Tent City in the middle of Melbourne if it makes you feel like you're actually contributing to making society better but you're not really helping. No really, you're not. Neither are a lot of other people (including yours truly) but at least we're not pretending to be.

On that note back to the Square itself. For a start the process of clearing the square was hardly the freewheeling, swing for the fences, batons 'n gas bonanza that some would like you to think it was. By the time I got there they'd put up a fence around the square itself so nobody could get in, and pretty soon after they moved the perimetre (which is incidentally also the measurement that Nandos use for their sauces) back so that you couldn't stand on the footpath nearest the square. With the crash helmeted fuzz showing up at exactly the same time as the second level of the demilitarized zone went up it was fairly clear that the final countdown had begun and some people were about to get moved whether they liked it or not. If that didn't give it away the deployment of rubber gloves and anti-gob goggles certainly did.

I thought the cop tactics were initially pretty good. Put the fences up so there's only one way to get out, slowly advance on either side (and they were very slow) and force people out the middle. Is that what they call kettling? Quality buzz word that we've scored from England that is. Either way it was pretty effective in thinning out the numbers inside the square itself. Only problem was that obviously the people who left under their own steam weren't going to throw their hands up in the air and go home, they just moved outside and started rucking with the rozzers there instead.

In the initial phase of moving them out a few people were forcibly removed, including the guy who later appeared in a bath on Q&A whining about brutality, but the majority were pushed out by the full court press and wound up on the other side of the fences. Not that they were well pleased about it though. The first group out decided they'd sit down in Swanston Street and block the trams. Stick it to the man, those 1% commuters must have been gutted. That didn't last long because the moment a horsey ran at them they were back off to the pavement, launching a lengthy standoff and abuse session against a line of officers.

Eventually the more and more people who were squeezed out of the square wound up standing around Collins/Swanston along with the bandwagoners who'd shown up late, the abusive chorus watching from the elevated ground just up Collins St, schoolkids having the time of their life and slack jawed yokels like me who had just come to see a bit of tension. By this point quite the crowd of onlookers had turned up and it was starting to get hard to tell who was there for the protest and who was there just to take action footage on their phone. There was hardly a person in the crowd who wasn't taking photos or filming so it's to be presumed we'll be seeing highlights of Friday's events for years.

As the numbers inside the square thinned to just a handful a second shot by the displaced masses at taking the Collins/Swanston intersection was repelled by a cop baton charge. Didn't really help as by now there were too many of them and it only temporarily moved them back. Just as they were regrouping for another shot at it the Battle of Outside Starbucks kicked off inside the square and everyone's focus turned there instead.

According to the record of my tweets from the scene it was almost two hours between the start of the full court press and when the real wild scenes kicked off. More than enough time to leave if you felt that it was going to be a dangerous situation in there, and if you didn't you were either in denial or dying for it to go off so that the cops came out of it looking bad. There was certainly enough time to take children out of there so if the pictures of the mother having a nervous breakdown shielding her kid from the cops was taken during the final battle then she's clearly an absolute muppet who needs her head examined.

By the time the cops moved in properly the numbers inside the square were down to about five deep between the two lines of coppers. If you were still there then there's no doubt that you knew what was coming. Don't try and tell me anybody in there wasn't aware that they'd be forcibly moved out by that point. And don't tell me some weren't loving it.

If the police turned up at 3am and tear gassed the place I'd grant you it was an over the top response. I'll also concede that the action outside wouldn't have happened if they'd left the people inside alone but that's chicken and the egg stuff. No doubt too that some of the cops did go over the top, the guy who leant over the front row of protesters to biff somebody in the face amongst them, but the good news is that every man and their dog was taking footage of it so I'm sure we'll all get a good look at the shocking scenes eventually.

But let's draw a line between 'brutality' and brutality. Jumping across a line of people to punch them in the face is brutality, smacking shit out of somebody with a baton when they're trying to get away is brutality. Dragging somebody along the ground because they've dropped to the floor and gone dead weight is not brutality. That's self inflicted. Stand up and walk out and you'll be fine, fall to the fall like a wailing banshee and you'll get dragged. Quite simple. Run at or spit towards a cop holding a baton and there's a fair chance you'll get belted with it.

From there it was quite your good old fashioned Pyrrhic victory, the square was cleared and the cleaners moved in to mop it up but Swanston Street was necked for the rest of the day, much of Saturday and they've had to occupy the square themselves since to make sure people don't roll straight back in. And it gave people who didn't give a toss days earlier the chance to indulge in their "we hate the cops, we hate government, we hate everything" whinging.

With the square unoccupied and then reoccupied straight away again the battle shifted to a three front smackdown with action in the intersection, outside EB Games and outside the square itself. Eventually after both sides pushed and shoved each other a bit it settled into a stalemate and I finally gave up. To be honest it was starting to get a bit depressing watching obviously desperate people tearing into lines of cops, walking up and down shouting their little hearts out for no effect.

Did they really need to move people on? Of course not, they could have left them there forever if they'd really wanted to. "Why didn't they just leave them alone? They would have gone home eventually" has had a few runs since Friday's debacle. Really? You don't think that with only a couple of hundred people needed to man to the square at any given time that they wouldn't have gotten smart and started working in shifts? They'd be there in six months at that rate.

"What's wrong with that?" you may scream - although chances are if you've read this far you'd probably rather the fuzz had opened up on them with AK-47's - and with that you might have a point. Apart from the directly affected businesses there wasn't really any harm being done, but we're all given instructions that we're not keen on in this life and most of us find it fairly easy to follow them. They were given fair warning instead of suffering a surprise attack, the tactics initially adopted gave them almost two hours to clear off it they didn't want to risk the chance of being on the end of some of their beloved brutality and once dispersed they took the decision to hang around and risk being charged by horses, batons, etc...

So, tactical win (in the square at least) for the cops, propaganda win for the Occupy Melbourne organisers and let the good times roll when the Queen turns up tomorrow. Good luck getting within three suburbs of her if you're intending to have a crack at throwing yourself in front of the Royal Tram.

Disappointed

2011-09-22T23:21:00.006+10:00

Citizens,

In 2007/08 I six episodes for a TV show that predictably never went anywhere. Mainly because I was merely some peanut off the internet and not a celebrity. Nor was it called "I HAD MONKEY GLANDS INJECTED IN MY BUTTOCKS" so that the Lifestyle YOU channel would show it. Still, didn't actually turn out too bad.

Anyway, there was half-hearted interest from a source who shall remain unnamed at the time so I took them down. Needless to say nothing came of it and they've sat on my computer doing nothing ever since. Back then when The Hollowmen and Thick It Out were out it was deemed there were "too many political shows" on, which could very well be a neat cover for "wait, it's actually shit" but I'll ignore that possibility.

I'll add all six eventually when I've had the chance to go back and made necessary edits. For now, here's Ep.1. Enjoy. And if you're Gina Rinehart why don't you just buy it for Channel 10? I've got a mortgage to pay off.

For the correct flavour please watch/listen to the intended theme song first.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6

Photobucket Shenanigans - Part Three

2011-03-17T21:29:00.002+11:00

The longest running saga in blogging history continues. Every single post from now that isn't a countdown of some variety will be a continuing trawl through the eight years of my Photobucket account. We're somewhere around early 2005 at the moment.

The Fabulous Rougueu Brothers and Jimmy Hart in "greatest photo ever"

Remember when "blogging" was the next big thing? Before the Herald Sun adopted the title for their grubby live chats with shit journalists? It was a great era rich with hope of a new world. I offered to let rabid fans come and live in TSP Towers - Docklands edition and pay for the glory of living my lifestyle. Surprisingly nobody took the offer up.

Disgraceful but apt scenes after the final siren. Round 20, 2005.

The random flash of South Korea beating Italy from the middle of the music video for Someday by The Strokes.

Great moments in letter writing the day after Australia qualified for the '06 World Cup.

Die scum.

I'm not sure why I created this t-shirt design. Buy it anyway.

Unfortunately the image had to be taken from microfilm as the payoff to a long running joke, but here's Rachel McQuillan sticking her racquet where the sun don't shine.

The product that does what it says on the can

See, there was this ad in England where the annoying child would bounce out as somebody was about to get on the gear and start questioning them. I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere - nor can I now - but here's one of their other classics.

How appropriate, you fight like a cow

MS Paint tells the story of another Telstra failure

Greatest graffiti ever. Altona Beach - 3.30am.

Heather Mills-McCartney makes her advertising debut.

Incredibly retrospectively wrong ad from the early 1990's

FUCKING COP THAT. One of the great moments of my life.

I guess Beazley said something about drugs? Maybe something about what his colleagues were on for re-electing him so many times.

See you for another installment of this the next time I have to open Photobucket to look for an old picture.

TSP's Beginners Guide to The Fall

2011-03-10T18:58:00.003+11:00

To say The Fall are a hard band to get into would be the biggest musical understatment since the guy who said Paris Hilton's singing was "a bit shit". As of today, and be careful because another one is always just around the corner, Mark E Smith and his rotating cast of bandmates - and there have been plenty - have released 29 studio albums. I've not heard every track of all of them, I probably never will. He's been at it since 1976, I don't think I'll live long enough to hear the lot.

But as I was extolling the virtues of them today somebody said "where do I start?" and that's a bloody good question because not one of those 29 albums is, or is likely to, keep your interest the whole way through because the content on offer is so violently different from itself one track to the next. Even the Greatest Hits compilations are patchy and miss some crackers. So, for that person - and you know very well who you are - I present TSP's all-time top 20 Fall songs in chronological order.

1. Bingo Master's Break Out

1978 EP
In which a harassed bingo caller finally tips out at the pressure and tops himself.

2. No Xmas for John Quays

Live At The Witch Trials - 1979
Punky.. (feel free to sing it to the NZ PM if you see him)

3. Industrial Estate

Live At The Witch Trials - 1979
.. and punkier. For those who liked to be shouted at. If not you've come to the wrong place.

4. Music Scene

Live At The Witch Trials - 1979
This could be my favourite Fall track at the moment. Note the intense cynicism about the music industry that he's already got going two years in. If he'd known then that he'd still be kicking on in 30 years MES might have topped himself.

5. How I Wrote Elastic Man

Single - 1980
In which MES sings about the changes to his life that have been made by writing the song Elastic Man, despite the fact that he never actually wrote a song of that name. Later guest starred on an Elastica track off their shit second album called How I Wrote Elastica Man. Just because he could I suppose.

6. Prole Art Threat

Slates - 1981
Perversely made to be too short for the album charts, but too long to be considered as an EP for the singles charts. Song is 1.58, which is really all you need.

7. The Classical

Hex Enducation Hour - 1982
Legend has it they were on the verge of being signed by Motown Records (!?) before making the moderately poor choice of putting this on the record player during the initial meeting. By the time the lines "Where are the obligatory niggers? Hey there fuckface! Hey there fuckface!" had gotten an airing - right at the start of the song - the deal was off.

8. Hip Priest

Hex Enducation Hour - 1982
Scathing track about music journalists better known for being played in Silence Of The Lambs while all that unpleasant kidnap/murder business is going on.

9. I'm Into CB

B-Side - 1982
Go forward 19 years and change the lyrics a bit and he's effectively singing about Twitter.

10. Eat Y’Self Fitter

Perverted By Language - 1983
The song that asked the important question "What's a computer?" also features probably the cheapest, and therefore best, video ever made. 7.30 of glory.

11. Kicker Conspiracy

Single - 1983
The song that got me into the band in the first place. From the same article listing songs written about ~~soccer~~ football I also discovered Half Man, Half Biscuit who are also ace. Also the song that won MES his much vaunted reputation for saying "AH!" at the end of everything. Has any song ever nailed sports fan culture more accurately?

12. Spoilt Victorian Child

This Nation's Saving Grace - 1985
Rattling.

13. I Am Damo Suzuki

This Nation's Saving Grace - 1985
In which MES claims to be a member of Can which successful results.

14. US 80's-90's

Bend Sinister - 1986
A failed trip through US Customs in song. Top three all time for me with Music Scene and Kicker Conspiracy. I particular like "Tha copppppps, are toppppppps" and "I'm the big-shot original rapper. But it's time for me to get off this crapper".

15. Hey! Luciani

Single - 1986

16. Living Too Late

Single - 1986
Two tracks from Smith's play (!) about the death (!?) of Pope John Paul I (!!!?!why!?)

17. Hit The North Pt. 1

Single - 1987
Wait, another contender for my favourite track. A disrespectful look at Smith's north of England. Another classic video, worth it just for the video of The Band performing into front of a baffled audience of OAP's and the campest acting in music video history at 2.55.

One of the remixes on the other side starts with the line "My cat says ACK!"

18. Bill Is Dead

Extricate - 1990
A power ballad. The man can do nothing wrong.

19. Free Range

Code: Selfish - 1992
Where else do you get opening lines like;

In 2001
A Life code:
It pays to talk to no one.
Proliferating across the earth.
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Faction Europa
Free Range.

20. Touch Sensitive

The Marshall Suite - 1999
Smith always looks about twenty years older than he actually is. In this video it's about forty years.

Bonus tracks:

Mark E Smith reads out the football scores.

Inspiral Carpets featuring Mark. E Smith - I Want You

Shuttleworth featuring Mark E. Smith - England's Heartbeat

Photobucket Shenanigans - Part Two

2011-01-01T19:40:00.002+11:00

You might remember I started this in April last year promising to follow-up with the second, and subsequent, parts not long after. How does nine months work for you?

In case you'd forgotten this is where we trawl through my old Photobucket account from 2003 onwards and ask "why did you take that photo?" and "what are you doing to that frozen chicken" (image removed for violating terms and conditions of use). Sadly Photobucket has been made basically obsolete now by Twitpic, ImageShack and various other quicker and easier sites that allow us to post photos and have them destroyed seconds later. All hail the bucket and the way it kept the best part of seven years of my life history together. But just the farcical bits by the look of it.

No idea. I think the headline is from when we tonked Carlton by 100+ points in 2004.

A sacrilicious MS Paint moment from the same era. Please note how archaic that iPod looks by today's standards.

No fucking idea

A touching piece of vigilante reporting from a trip to Sydney

The exact location of where I used to live in St Kilda. Go there and throw stones at the window.

When I was young and stupid somehow this number off the scoreboard of a suburban soccer ground came to be in my possession.

Taken from my balcony in Docklands this is significant because it's now the land that Victoria Harbour sits on. Over to you National Archives...

More great propaganda from lamp posts

The night I wore a chicken suit and some bird (see what I did there?) treated my arse like a pin cushion all evening.

A great concept which never caught on for some reason.

History's cheapest gag.

Action footage from Wikipedia just hours after the Van Nguyen execution.

The lowest moment of the worst book of all time, Around The World In 80 Babes by Nigel Gohl. I won it on the radio but presumably there are still 5000 copies sitting in his parent's garage in Mt. Waverley waiting to be pulped a'la Bouncing Back by Alan Partridge.

Higgins from Magnum PI holding up a rubber chicken. What else do you need in life?

BELTER OF A FILM. Still looking for an English subtitle version of this or the sequel all these years later. Arise SBS employees.

2006's most baffling but accurate moment.

The sadly legally defeated Hot Dogs For Gold campaign which kept the "blogsphere" (as the kids said) and the Herald Sun ticking over for about 17 seconds before TV Weak's lawyer Kevin Lynch sent a cease and desist letter and we all adjusted our collars nervously.

Lucha Comrades.

The war against rubbish suburbs...

.. which led directly to this pressure group starting and failing. Not affiliated with the sadly defunct Greensborough Plaza blog.

See you in 2012 for the next thrilling installment.

TSP's 10 point plan to save the A-League

2010-12-13T20:30:00.002+11:00

First a declaration - my interest in the A-League is more as a dispassionate onlooker than a supporter. The standard of football is terrible, the rivalries are manufactured, the team I supported in the NSL weren't allowed in for being too foreign and the trophy they give out to the winning side appears to be a toilet seat.

Realistically I couldn't give a continental whether or not the league prospers or goes completely tits up and ends up bankrupting everyone involved, but recognising that playing "Fantasy Chairman" is far more interesting than doing actual work I've come up with my plan to at least arrest the violent decline that the competition is suffering.

It might not save a competition where ten of the eleven clubs are either financially bollocksed or well on the way but now that the loss of the World Cup bid has effectively harpooned their Plan A for the future (i.e surely people will get up and about for football sometime before 2022) and there doesn't appear to be a Plan B this might be as good as it gets.

Get your red pens and hate out because it's time to start picking holes in the plan.

1 - Make it look like people care
Where possible order every team in the competition to close the side of the ground with the cameras on it to 'fans'. It's no wonder that matches only have attendances of 3 or 4 thousand when people see highlights on television and there doesn't appear to be a single person in the ground.

Force everybody in the arena to be where the camera can see them, and if you have to change the setup of the place to achieve it then do it and do it quickly. There's a big loser vibe hanging around the competition at the moment and it'll be impossible to shake if it goes on too long. Then people will not only stop going to games they'll stop watching them on TV too, Foxtel will decide that it's not worth it and next thing you know it's Central Coast vs Melbourne Heart on Channel 31. On replay. At 3.30am on a Wednesday.

2 - Accentuate the positive
Start preparing for a long term plan to drop the obsession with gigantic stadiums and look for boutique 10k grounds to play in.

It's hard to pull a stadium out of thin air, and there's no doubt that there were a heap of long term contracts signed in haste during the first years of the competition but other than Victory, Adelaide and Perth you've got teams playing in cavernous stadiums that they're never going to fill regularly. Drop the pipe dream that you're going to get 30k to every single match, at least for now, and pump some money into utilising 'secondary' stadiums in each city.

Split matches between the main ground and the smaller venues as required. Make the state federations fund the creation of a 'home of football' rectangular stadium in each capital city which can be used by the A-League teams and for state grand finals.

3 - Put on games that people care about
Can all the midweek games wherever possible and replace them with a national cup comp - even if it's just the 11 teams + 21 of the top state league/New Zealand for a 32 team knockout. Seed it so the 11 A-League teams can't play each other and make them all play their first game at the smaller side's ground.

If you can't find enough state league teams of a decent standard invite the national sides of Fiji, Solomon Islands, East Timor, PNG etc.. to play, it's not like their players are doing anything else on a Wednesday that they won't be able to get out of.

4 - Take it to the streets
Play more matches 'on the road' in cities without A-League teams.

Wellington have got the right idea playing one or two games a year in Christchurch and Dunedin - they get bigger crowds there than at home. Can't believe they don't play more games in Geelong, Canberra, Cairns, Tassie etc.. If I was the Gold Coast I'd much rather play a game in Hobart and get 2000 people than 1700 at home. The main focus on the comp should be TV and good luck if you get a crowd.

There's building your 'brand' and then there's recognising that right now nobody in your city gives a rats and if they do they're almost certainly watching it on television. When the game is live the majority of people don't give a rats where they're watching it from. What it does give you is a chance to show why they should come to your next (heavily promoted on the coverage) home game.

5 - Know your role
Move the dates of the season so that it goes over the start of the footy seasons more than the end.

There's no point starting the comp during AFL/NRL finals and waiting for people to care comes Round 5, you may as well start it against round 1 or pre-season competitions. It's still not ideal, and there should be as little crossover as possible, but you cannot launch a season against the finals of the two biggest competitions.

More importantly drop the rhetoric about how it's the world game and how it should be so much more important than 'native' sports. Maybe it should be, but in this country it isn't - just like how it will never be in the US and their league is on a long-term upswing because they've been smart enough to target the right markets instead of annoying everyone else with a sense of entitlement.

Junior participation figures are all well and good but it means nothing if all your clubs are bankrupt and the kids chuck it in at 15 to play ping pong instead.

6 - Find teams people care about
Maybe this is an outrageous suggestion, but they could invite massive foreign clubs to field a 'reserves' side as the 12th team. Having 11 teams makes no sense, and they could invite a different side every season.

Even if it's Manchester City reserves playing out of Northcote they'll probably generate more interest and TV coverage where it actually counts than having a team in Townsville. Even if you invited some more money than brains freaks like Red Bull to field a different team every year they'd probably buy enough decent name foreign players to keep it interesting.

It's a grubby path to travel down, and it would be unfortunate to have to go in that direction, but the other option is to keep travelling along with teams being propped up by billionaires until they get sick of wasting their money and let the clubs die, leaving the competition with one or two solid, viable teams and a rotating cavalcade of teams from the same city changing their name and going broke every two years.

7 - Reunite with 'old' football
Don't be afraid of letting the state leagues play during summer. Instead of miring them in the winter in front of empty stadiums, treating them like second class citizens and then stealing their players at the end of the year for free embrace them. Play your reserves and youth teams in the state competitions. Kick out the clubs who are thinly veiled political parties and concentrate on the ones that are being run for the right reasons. Play a limited amount of games as curtain raisers to the A-League games in the same city.

8 - Rewrite the past
Shut the fark up about "the bad old days" and how the NSL was apparently a non-stop warzone of ethnic violence. It had its moments, and it's the fault of the people running the game for not doing better to stamp it out, but the majority of matches were conducted in a completely trouble free environment. I seem to recall them even playing the national anthem before every game, something they don't do anymore.

Next time somebody goes off on a rant about the 'bad old days' (i.e anyone who ever talks about the game on SEN) ask them to name off the top of their head their all-time five best NSL riots. Chances are that they'll struggle to get to three without just making something up.

Just because the so called 'football community' can draw a line between 'old football' and 'new football' it doesn't mean everybody else does and the outright lies that are told about what it 'used to be like' do nothing to get the people who think it still is like that to buy into the game.

9 - Plan for the future
A "B-League" with promotion and relegation might not be viable yet, and it might never be, but identify and nurture the best clubs outside the A-League in Australia and New Zealand. Set up a "Champions League" for the best state league teams to play each other, encourage pre-season friendlies between these sides and the A-League clubs. The league has to stop pretending that everything is rosy inside the tent and a complete nightmare outside of it because they're a couple of bored businessmen pulling out away from being in exactly the same situation and playing in front of cow paddocks.

10 - Admit where you've gone wrong
Don't rush to add any new teams.

Introducing a second team in Melbourne was probably the right thing to do, especially considering how many sides there are in NSW and Queensland, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of lost money for it to work. I've always said that they should have had two teams in Melbourne and Sydney straight off the bat from season one - there was very little to be gained in building one up and then (supposedly) cutting it in half to create a second team three or four years later.

It's clear that none of the expansion teams have worked. Wellington just about get away with it despite having ordinary crowds, but they were really just a straight swap for the failed Auckland side that fouled up the average attendances of the first season of the competition. Both North Queensland and the Gold Coast have been failed experiments that are either on their last legs or should be. Instead of adding new sides I'd merge those two teams, rebrand them as Queensland and have them play half their games in each location with an eye to television figures instead of crowd attendance.

The FFA have already given up the idea of adding a West Sydney team for now. Despite the success of the first Sydney side they can barely string a crowd together so it was never going to work except as a tax write-off. There are a lot of places in Australia where you could put a team but you wouldn't make a dime - instead of rolling the dice and hoping for the best pair teams up with these cities and have them share their games with them instead of expensive new sides with barely any support or financial backing.

If all else fails just accept that the whole thing is a massive waste of money and give up.

Frank Lowy, despite spending the last ten years trying to convince people that Chadstone: The Fashion Capital is better than anything Westfield has to offer I'm here to help. I'm happy to drop everything and come work for the league right now but I want to be paid up front.

How do you solve a problem like Christmas?

2010-12-07T22:21:00.007+11:00

For most of my life I've been Christmas skeptic. It's probably got something to do with rumbling the Santa myth at the age of four after laying a trap and springing out of bed to find my mother and grandmother pretending to be Jolly Old St. Nick. “AHA!” I probably didn’t cry, before forcing them to admit that the whole thing was a fraud. The good news was that I got the presents anyway after promising not to go straight out on the first day of the new school year and spill the beans to everybody else. Had it happened today I’d have been whisked off to therapy to the next day and wouldn’t have turned out the bitter, soulless, heartless human that I stand accused of being. Well, maybe not the soul bit. That went when I sold it to some guy in Albury on Ebay for $13.50 in 2001 but that's not important right now.

So, in the spirit of openness and tolerance which should guide everything we do no matter what, if any, religion you follow I'm writing this for everyone. But more specifically, at the risk of turning this into a My Chemical Romance song, I'm writing to the people who have been bullied by society into Christmas against their will and are seeking a way out. You, my friends, are not alone. Follow me and we'll create a world where people can no longer describe you as "Scrooge" in a borderline defamatory way because you don’t want to join their workplace Kris Kringle or drape everything with tinsel.

It’s the enforced gift exchange which troubles me the most. I'm not sure this aspect of the festival was ever explicitly stipulated in the bible. Perhaps it's deep inside one of those clauses that you have to read in Aramaic while hanging upside down from a tree to get the correct interpretation, but never in nine years of paying polite interest at Catholic schools do I remember the bit where they read us JB Hi-Fi 3:16 “thou shalt buy gifts for all or be cast into the fires of social hell”. What I will tell you for certain is that there’s nothing about having to send every person you’ve ever met in your life a card every year. Just like Valentine’s Day and the twenty pages of gushing, embarrassing and frankly hilarious messages between courting couples in the newspapers it’s an invention designed to line the pockets of merchants, keep the Hallmark company afloat and give us all a reason to coo over the fact that there's still some sort of civility in society.

This week alone I've been asked three times "have you done your Christmas shopping yet?" and three times I've said I don't do it only to be greeted with a look like I'd just admitted to butchering a Shetland Pony with a machete. This isn’t some sort of anti-capitalist protest and my next step isn’t throwing rubbish bins at riot police out the front of the G20 summit, I say spend money until you’re utterly bankrupt and forced to live in a cardboard box if you like just don’t do it because you feel that you have to or because you’re worried about social exclusion.

Nobody seems to care if you’re not interested in the religious side of things, which is odd but not as strange as how the 20% of people who identified as being non-Christian or nothing at all in the last census are somehow allowed to skip all the Jesus focused celebrations but are still required, as if by law, to hand over trinkets and Borders gift vouchers to third cousins and garbagemen. You can openly mock the concept of going to a Midnight mass to somebody in one breath and then be cut out of their will for not sending a card. That 20% is not even counting the 11% of people taking the piss and claiming stupid things like being Jedi. How many of us are just doing it to keep others happy? Maybe a majority generally enjoy it, or at least force themselves to, but what about people who don’t? Do you have the right to say no without being abused or having people say they’re “sorry for you”? Of course you do.

I'm as guilty as any child of taking the Sega Master System and running when I was young. I’m certainly not standing on any lifelong moral highground here, and even though I’m still concerned about the morality of telling your kids lying is always wrong and then lying to them about some fat porky climbing down the ceiling and stuffing the sack I can see how going along with the myths and mystical teachings of St. Xbox can be positive for kids.

At least it should be positive, I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where the split came pre-birth and I was never treated to the spectacle of arguments over the table on the 25th and the inevitable divorce-remarriage circuit leading to an interminable Tour De France style quest to fifty gatherings a year with yet more and more presents for half siblings, cousins and other various freaks that you barely know and barely tolerate. Imagine having to go through all that? Plenty of you probably do and if you’re sick of it just say no.

Last night I suffered the biggest grilling of all time about my lack of interest in the season. It was light hearted, but there was a tone of disbelief when I reiterated that no I really don't want to receive presents. Nor do I want to sing carols, put up a tree or drive around the suburbs trying to find obscenely lit up houses sapping the national power grid with their neon atrocities. First there was the suggestion that I’d been scarred by bad experiences with my family, then the idea that it was bad gifts in the past and finally budgetary concerns on my behalf. There’s nothing like people thinking you’ve blown all your money on the pokies to really make you really feel welcome in their holiday season.

But that doesn't mean that I don't want you to do any, or all, of the above. I'm not the December version of Richard Dawkins, hacking down Christmas trees with an axe and leaping out from behind trees to scream at children that their parents are lying to them about Santa. Call me scrooge if it makes you feel better about having maxed out your credit card for no reason, but a true Scrooge would want to ruin the season for everybody else. Not us. We just want to be on the margins, sitting on the kids table looking in this quaint, invented tradition.

If you're into it then you have my blessing to go mad for the season in any way you wish. But if you're only going along with it to please everyone else then I'm here to tell you that you're not alone and it's time to stand up and fight for your right to depart from Christmas.

"You have to give presents" I was told. Why? Is it so wrong to remove oneself from the whole thing? I don't want to be given anything, I don't want to give you anything and we're all happy. There's no need to trawl shopping centres at 3am on the Thursday before Christmas desperately trying to find me something that I might like but if I don't you don't really care because I'll plaster on a fake smile and pretend I do anyway.

If you say you’re not keen get ready for the standard arguments. You shouldn't have the same holidays, you shouldn't be allowed to go to the parties, you should be thrown on a similar bonfire to Joan of Arc etc.. Do they do the same to friends of other religions? Of course not. It would be borderline racist and you’d probably end up with somebody knifing you. I’d be more than happy to show up at work on the 25th as long as meant being able to exercise the democratic right to not go through the rest of the process.

There's a sickening falseness to the whole thing. Even if you're going to give and get with your closest family why do you need to wait until December 25? Surprise your mother with something nice on May 13. Do it again on August 2, hell fire up again on December 24th if you must but why wait until you're told to do it.

Now is the time for all of us who don't want to play the game to say so. No more anxiety about what Aunt Mabel or the guy in the chicken shop will think if you don't give them a gift. Tell them that they're wonderful people and that you don't want them to give you anything either. Instead I say give to charity. This isn't some sort of George Costanza "Human Fund" scam, do something positive in the name of your loved ones and if they don't appreciate it then tough - tell them to go to the Congo and recover their donated duck.

The world is not going to be saved in our lifetime but I'm here to tell you that the path to enlightenment isn't coming from a bag stuffed full of randomly selected crap from Chadstone: The Fashion Capital which you found only after driving around for three hours to get a car park. At the risk of ending up living in a panic room with Danish cartoonists I'm going to suggest that if the old JC chose December 25 to make his shock comeback (and wouldn't that completely ruin up the day for those of us who never believed in the first place?) he'd slap mankind upside the head for being greedy bastards who completely missed the point.

This December just say enough is enough. No matter what the power of commerce compels you to do you've got a choice to say no. See you in social hell suckers.

P.S - I am available to host any Christmas functions
P.P.S – Once you’re shunned by your family you’re welcome to come over to mine on the 25th and watch National Lampoon’s European Vacation. There’s a fit bit o’tit in it.

TSP's top 50 tracks of 2010

2010-12-04T02:23:00.015+11:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most prestigious night in international music. The TSP Top 50 for 2010. Which act will walk away with this year's David Lee Roth medal for song of the year? And here's tonight's host...

My lords, ladies and gentlemen. Before we start a quick recap of the top fives of previous years. Full counts from 2007, 2008 and 2009 if you're into that sort of thing and broken YouTube links.

Everything else was lost in the Great Blog Hosting Debacle of 2006. '07 was even extended to a top 100, the folly of which is now shown by the fact that nobody can remember how 3/4 of the songs from 51-100 went.

2005
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter

2006
1. The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill
2. Giant Drag - This Isn’t It
3. Silvia Night - Congratulations
4. Lily Allen - LDN
5. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me

2007
1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!
2. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
3. The Teenagers - Homecoming
4. Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent
5. Jack Penate - Spit At Stars

2008
1. Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up
2. Neon Neon - Luxury Pool
3. MGMT - Electric Feel
4. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream
5. Fryars - Olive Eyes

2009
1. N.A.S.A - Spacious Thoughts (featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith)
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
3. Boy Crisis - The Fountain of Youth
4. Bat For Lashes - Daniel
5. Low Fidelity All Stars - The Good Times

As we can see no artist has ever made the top five twice. Most of them have released a follow-up album of three but never managed to scale the heights of their TSP award winning performance. BUT, this year somebody breaks that trend. Who will it be? Sadly for all of us I can confirm that it's not Silvia Knight.

Before we begin, a short explanation of how we got here. Throughout the year tracks are dumped into one big f'off shortlist until December 1 when the list is culled of all the "how desperate was I to get something on the list?" selections and the remainder are pitted against each other in Thunderdome style combat to see what will crack the final fifty. This year's list opened at about 175 and was knocked down to 110ish before the final field.

The usual rules apply. Maximum of two songs per artist and no covers allowed. In the event of a chosen song later turning out to be a cover of an obscure track that nobody has ever heard of I reserve the right to leap from my 11th floor window. Alright Mr. Copperart, let's do it.

50. Savoir Adore - Sarah's Secret
Sounds like a $2 Shop Arcade Fire, but rattles by in 2.42. Given the amount of albums that their soundalikes have sold it's no shame to be the second division version.

49. The Vaccines - Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)
Even better, just ninety seconds worth. Coming on like a multi-gender, pop Ramones the Vaccines have been touted as the next big thing which should mean you never hear from them again.

48. Naive New Beaters - LA Trumpets
The sort of thing that you'd never get away with if you weren't French. Another ninety seconds worth. Prepare for 13 minute dirges later in the countdown to make up for this.

47. Everything Everything - Suffragette Suffragette
The song that brings us the immortal line "who's gonna sit on your face when I'm gone?" Who indeed.

46. SIA - Clap Your Hands
Forget Channel 10 buying the rights to this and then using it for every single promo for about six months and forget the fact that she's a seemingly insane Max Sharam for the 21st century. Most importantly try to forget the amazing similarity to 1979's Get It Up For Love by Tata Vega and concentrate instead on its undoubted pop qualities.

45. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - I Should Have Known It
He's still alive. You'll never get another Free Fallin' or American Girl though.

44. David E Sugar - Party Killer
David E Sugar is not a party killer. The Manson Family were party killers. There's a touch of the hipsters about it if you're touchy on that sort of thing.

43. Lissie - In Sleep
The first time I heard this it was dismissed in the first few seconds, but I got distracted and came back halfway through to discover I'd been dropped in the middle of a Fleetwood Mac reunion. If Stevie Nicks were dead I'd suggest that Lissie were her reincarnation.

42. Paul Weller - Wake Up The Nation
In which the godfather of Mod tees off on Facebook and advises Britain to fire up. Not without some justification too.

41. Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar

40. Gonzales - I Am Europe
Containing all sorts of bizarre metaphors for Europe. You'd think there was something sensible and artistic about the whole thing if it wasn't being sung by the same guy who once performed a track called Cum On You.

39. Minitel Rose - Heart of Stone
More French people. God forbid Phoenix could ever do anything half as good as Too Young ever again they'd wipe the floor with the rest of the Gallic contingent. Don't hold your breath.

38. Juliana Pasha - It's All About You
But for those of you who are bored of the French, here's an Albanian straight from this year's surprisingly quality song heavy Eurovision contest. After a few years of disappointment Europe delivered this season. Stand up and applaud Enver Hoxha fans everywhere.

37. Grinderman - Heathen Child
Nick Cave scares the children

36. Shit Browne - Artifice
You'd have to be French to get away with a name like that. Video doesn't show up anywhere on YouTube and you'd be advised to turn ON safe searching before looking for it on Google.

35. Janelle Monae - Tightrope
The video, and her hairdo, is baffling but the track is a triumph. 21st century soul without the need for Autotune.

34. Elton John and Leon Russell - It Wasn't For Bad
Yes, it's Elton but come back it's not fruity prancing on the beach a'la I'm Still Standing or playing a piano dressed as Donald Duck. Will almost take the taste of Candle In The Wind '98 out of your mouth. But not quite.

33. Cee Lo - Bright Lights, Bigger City
Ten times better than the more famous, filth friendly track that you know and love. Does not contain gratuitous obscenity. That would be shithouse.

32. Goldfrapp - Alive
It's not my fault that six months after I'd heard it and decided to like it that Channel 10 would use it in the promo for their new station. Get amongst it in its full version. Or watch SBS.

31. Comanechi - Crime of Love
The sort of low-fi as buggery, sung by women stuff that Kurt Cobain used to whop off over before topping himself. For added effect it ends with the young lady shouting WANKERS! WANKERS! WANKERS! at us for the last twenty seconds, and for that we are all winners

30. Plan B - Stay Too Long
Motown/rap crossover from a concept album about a man in prison. It doesn't end well for him. More news at 11.

29. Hera Bjork - Je Ne Sais Quoi
The other Iceland Bjork, as seen on Eurovision 2010 with her belting eurodance ballad. Have I ever told you how much I love belting eurodance ballads?

28. Egyptian Hip Hop - Moon Crooner
A bunch of English kids with what sounds like Casio keyboards coming on like a 21st century Happy Mondays. Achieves and suggests better is to come in the future. No actual hip-hop or Egyptian behaviour included.

27. Brandon Flowers - Magdalena
The bad news for the rest of The Killers is that this sounds exactly like one of their records but without any of the personnel. We wish the rest of the band well in their future endeavours on the Theatre Restauraunt circuit. Continues to tread the same faux-country path of the last Killers album but without the trouble of having to split up the money. Problem solved and it's hello Centrelink to old mates 1, 2 and 3.
Previous Appearance - #4 in 2005 with Somebody Told Me (as The Killers)

26. The Winter Olympics - Feeling European
Your standard English stodge rock but with interesting European metaphors for shagging and going through your nothing to declare aisle etc.. No passport required for EU citizens. No video available so here's an inferior single of theirs. Warning - he looks like he sort of hipser you'd want to kick in the plums.

25. Ali Love - Smoke And Mirrors
Italo Disco fever! MORE PLEASE.

24. Klaxons - Flashover
"Nu Rave" possible users of hallucenogenic substances add crashing guitar with surprisingly positive effects. Sounds like the Jonestown Massacre - the real one, not the band
Previous Appearance - #26 in 2007 with Golden Skanks

23. Hadouken! - M.A.D
The frantic sound of your car being broken into somewhere in the dodgy part of North London.
Previous Appearance - #73 in 2007 with Superstar

22. Grinderman - Palaces of Montezuma
Nick Cave's hirsuite new band give the world a tender love song where the spinal column of JFK is offered up as a token of affection. Everybody wins.

21. Chromeo - Night By Night
Proof that you can use distorted vocals and Autotuney shit without sounding like Believe by Cher or any of the 500 songs Kanye West has done since he stopped being good.

20. Chanee and n'evergreen - In A Moment Like This
Regular readers will understand my long held fetish for power ballads. Therefore I make no apologies for the Norweigan Eurovision entrant finishing so high in the list. It's like REO Speedwagon cloned as a woman and married to itself.

19. Big Boi - General Patton
The non-Hey Ya portion of Outkast meets what sounds like the Russian Army Choir in the world's foremost rap/choral mashup

18. Manic Street Preachers - A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun
Still angry, and despite diminishing results overall this is the standout from their latest album. Not much left in the tank I'd suggest.

17. Aeroplane - My Enemy
This year's Ghosts 'n Stuff. No lyrics required. Like waking up in a modern Sega Megadrive

16. Keane featuring K'naan - Looking Back
What's this doing here? I hate Keane. Roy, Robbie and the band. But sadly it's my duty to report that they released two tracks this year that were half decent and didn't end up on rotation in every wine bar between here and Western Europe. More to come.

15. Chromeo - Hot Mess
Hello, I've just gone into a Sam Tyler-esque coma and suddenly it's 1987. I'm absolutely thrilled by this turn of events.

14. Electric Six - The Newark Airport Boogie
You'd have gotten 1000-1 on the people behind Dance Commander ever making an appearance in one of my top fifties again last year. The only thing we'd heard from them since was a putrid cover of Queen's Radio Ga Ga, but against the odds here they are.

13 - Scissor Sisters - Night Work
I expect this is the sound of loading up on Amyl Nitrate and going for it openly in San Francisco in 1979. Would have been destroyed like all their other songs if it had been a hit.

12 - Plan B - Welcome To Hell
Right, so now he's in jail and to put not too fine a point on it is in deep shit. Thanks to the album shifting a few copies (which by today's standards was probably about 75) the story is scheduled to continue on the next album. Episodic music. Why not, nothing else is working for them.

11 - My Chemical Romance - Scarecrow
Previous Appearances #55 and #45 in 2007 with I Don't Love You and Mama

Ok, so I'm a moderately ashamed MCR fan. Wanna fight about it? Doesn't mean I'm going to see them in concert, sit on the steps of Flinders Street Station looking like a fuckhead or wear a black trenchcoat and kill my parents. And thankfully neither are they, because the poster children for emo have gone stadium rock and it's glorious.

10. Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Dance The Way I Feel

Feel free to ignore the messy end that came to the lead singer when he jumped off a tower at a Belgian festival (!?) and concentrate instead on what will go down as their crowning achievement, a perfect slice of pop that didn't even lose its appeal when the radio stations picked it up.

9. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

I might be the only person in the world not to have gone wild for their first two albums but there's absolutely no doubt that the latest is a solid gold cracker. This is the not the last of them you will see in this countdown.

8 - Angus and Julia Stone - On The Road

An album track that I heard quite by accident in somebody else's car. Sure the rest of the album doesn't stack up and the guy looks like he could do with a wash but this is sublime.

7 - Arcade Fire - Modern Man

This reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on despite having listened to it plenty of times in the last week. Whisper it quitely but there's something Hall & Oates-ish about it. Despite that, or in fact because of it, it dominates. There's something sinister about this, like there's a subtext to it that is only told in the music and not the lyrics. Consider me converted to their cause.

6 - Chew Lips - Karen

I have absolutely nothing to say about this other than that it's a top tune and whoever's house they filmed it in needs to put in new carpet.

5 - Paul Heaton - Even A Palm Tree (audio only)
In a year when I rediscovered the genius of The Beautiful South a new Heaton solo album came just at the right time. Against classic era South this would be practically undetectable as a new solo track, and that's a good thing.

4 - Keane - Stop For A Minute (featuring K'naan)

Well there you go. I never thought they'd make it into the top 100 let alone the final five, but finally after all these years somebody finally inserted a rap bit into their song which made sense and contributed positively to the overall project. This is no shonky K. Minogue Shocked By The Power rap section, it delivers the goods. In fact it steals the show so much that they should swap it around and have it as featuring Keane.

3 - Lena - Satellite

Even though I only had it second on the night, trying not to be populist, there's no doubt that this is the best Eurovision track since Silvia Night telephoned god and called him "dawg" in 2006. Almost the perfect pop song. So perfect that if it had been done by say... Kate Nash I'd probably have decried it as slop and kicked the television in. Her wonky German accent is what sends it to the next level. Deserved more.

2 - Goldfrapp - Rocket

Previous Appearances #3 in 2005 with Ooh La La, #46 and #39 in 2008 with Cologne Cerrone Houdini and Happiness.

The 'frapp did the right thing on her latest album and came over all Italo Disco.. and got nothing from the punters. This is a gem though. Perfect Eurodance magic which spent pretty much the whole year as favourite to take home the DLR before a last minute intervention knocked it out of pole position. Ladies and gentlemen, take up thy bottles and assorted garbage because I'm about to make what will undoubtedly be the most controversial #1 selection since Clive Waterhouse. I give you this year's winner *ducks*

1 - My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart

There are two reasons I almost didn't make this #1. Firstly I've spent the last twenty years mocking the Triple J Hottest 100 for always turning up top songs that were released about fifteen minutes before voting started, so how much of a hypocrite does it make me to say a song that I first heard a week and a half ago is my favourite for the year.

The second reason for concern is the blatant grab for stadium rock that they're going for. Usually that should be decried and they should be bottled from the stage a'la Daphne & Celeste at the Reading Festival, but in this case it is absolutely fantastic. Like U2 when they were good injected with glam Bowie and just the slightest hint of their depressive past.

I've got a good feeling that I'm not going to look back in a year and think "oh christ, what was I doing?" Now that the controversy is out of the way let's go back to our Master of Ceremonies.

A toast to the winners and we'll see you next year for 2011's glittering prize. With REM and The Strokes both threatening to release albums they go in as early favourites, but the prospect of a shock in-studio Libertines comeback could blow the market out of the water. Exciting times ahead. Pete Smith speaking*

* TSP accepts that the actual Mr Copperart had nothing to do with this countdown because we couldn't afford him. The role of Pete was played by the former Atlanta Braves pitcher of the same name.

20 to 1: Amusing Greek Terrorists...

2010-11-28T16:41:00.004+11:00

... AKA the episode that Bert refused to host.

There must be an art to coming with a name for your armed commando group. Once somebody has decided to step over the line and start pinging firebombs at TGI Fridays in protest at increased curly fry prices the next step is to come up with a catchy name that will strike fear into the hearts of capitalists everywhere.

In Greece left-wing terrorism is practically a national sport, but as you can see from this list they are also beset with a cavalcade of baffling group names.

I'm not sure if we're missing something in the translation from Greek to English but surely the last thing you want to do is to set off your dinky little bomb made from wires and ping pong balls then send the letter to the paper claiming responsibility with a name that will be laughed out of the room. Sadly it appears in Greece that this is not the case and their groups end up soundling like power ballads, ice hockey teams, events of the Decathalon and Belle & Sebastian album tracks.

So, here's twenty of the best. Try and guess which ones Phil Collins will name his new album after.

20. Solidarity Gas Canisters
19. Anarchist Attack Teams
18. Children of Fire
17. Anti-Power Struggle
16. Chaotic Attack Front
15. Consciously Enraged
14. Fires of Hell
13. Anarchist Faction for Subversion
12. Thus Far and No Further
11. Uncontrolled Rage
10. Fighting Guerillas of May
9. Knights of the Torched Bank
8. Revolutionary Torch-Bearing Run
7. Movement Against State Arbitrariness
6. Torrid Winter
5. The Committee for Promotion of Intransigence
4. Melting Nuclei
3. Nuclei for Promoting Total Catastrophe
2. Revolutionary Subversive Faction-Commando Unibomber
1. Anti-Authority Erotic Cells

* We do not endorse blowing anything up. I respectfully request that ASIO don't open a file on me just on the basis of this post alone, please at least take everything else into account.

Ranking the Bond themes without the aid of a novelty headline

2010-07-16T20:16:00.005+10:00

There's no point simply ranking the Bonds themselves, because every time I try and advance my theories about the genius of Roger Moore people start throwing bricks at my house and keying my car. So, power ballad fans, toss your REO Speedwagon records aside (gently, they'll be worth something one day)

Die Another Day - Madonna
Where they threw away the power ballad concept and went with synthpop done by somebody nobody had cared about for a decade. Then they went and gave her a role in the film as well. A well aimed knife to the back of the entire Bond genre.

19. From Russia With Love - Matt Munro
Exactly what you'd expect from 1963. Actually more like what you'd expect from 1953.

18. The Man With The Golden Gun - Lulu
One of the most underrated films (come on, it's got the murderous midget from Paradise Island in it, what do you want?) but the theme song is weedy. Movie also contains the slide-whistle sound effect that makes Bond purists want to stab people. I'm for it.

17. Tomorrow Never Dies - Sheryl Crow
She dealt with Lance Armstrong being short one plum, but not with being called up for the biggest job in soundtracks. We were therefore robbed of not only a Pulp theme, but an absolute belter as well. And Teri Hatcher was in it so you can cram the whole project with walnuts.

16. The World Is Not Enough - Garbage
Not withstanding the fact that I would cut off two limbs to go back in time and crack onto mid 90's Shirley Manson, this is bollocks. The only thing that can be said for it is that it's better than the film which is undoubtedly the worst Bond movie ever made.

15. Another Way To Die (Quantum of Solace) - Jack White and Alicia Keys
Film utter shite after a promising start to the Daniel Craig era, and theme song not much chop either. Not the worst but only because of some of the utter gash that proceeded it in the Pierce Brosnan (*spit*) films.

14. Goldeneye - Tina Turner
The only half decent thing about the movie that almost killed the Bond franchise.

13. Diamonds Are Forever - Shirley Bassey
Not nearly enough oomph from the Dame. Soundtracked a shock Connery return, and a return to form for the films, but even when she starts belting it out the whole thing sounds phoned in.

12. Licence To Kill - Gladys Knight
The last great Bond power ballad from the last half decent Bond film for more than 15 years. Effect somewhat ruined by having a different song over the end credits.

11. All Time High (Octopussy) - Rita Coolidge
The first theme to not feature the name of the film, and gee I wonder why, is alright but moves at a glacial pace. Maybe they didn't want to set the bar too high for Roger Moore to follow given that he was about 200 years old by the time the movie was made.

10. Live And Let Die - Wings
Oft cited as the best but I'm well over it. Still better than most, but effect somewhat ruined by every shithouse band in the world covering it. Axl Rose I'm looking directly at you.

9. A View To A Kill - Duran Duran
Marred by a shambolic early 80's video with visual effects straight out of student theatre, but quality new romantic action nonetheless.

8. You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra
A rare occasion where slow pace pays off. The orchestral bit at the start is a cracker and they nail the Asian feel without ever having to have daughter of Frank resort to Me No Rikey style accents and Aneka style chopsticks in the hair.

7. You Know My Name (Casino Royale) - Chris Cornell
Old Mate from Soundgarden being called upon to soundtrack a 21st century Bond had all the hallmarks of disaster but god damn it the boy pulled it off in spectacular fashion. If you have to drop the power ballad motif then this is the way to do it, with a meaty rock number that nearly washed the taste of recent crimes out of our mouths.

6. Moonraker - Shirley Bassey
The disco version from the end credits would push number one but I'll take this. Bassey returns and gives it what for in spectacular fashion. In space.

5. Goldfinger - Shirley Bassey
Who will ever forget Alan Partridge walking to the service station along the freeway singing his own version? Everyone but me presumably.

4. Thunderball - Tom Jones
Arguably done better by Ron Barassi on The Late Show, this is basically just Tom doing Welsh spoken word with a bit of bang thrown in but it's good stuff.

3. For Your Eyes Only - Sheena Easton
The ultimate Bond power ballad. How good is the bit where she goes "but you won't need to read between the liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines"?

2. The Living Daylights - a-ha
NORWEGIAN SYNTHPOP MAGIC. Take me to Bond karaoke and let's sing this mother right now.

1. Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me) - Carly Simon
Don't be fooled by the LJ Hooker ads, this is the real deal. From the piano bit at the start to the shots women swinging on giant lugers and spinning around with guns in the opening it's got it all. And the "Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby you're the best bit?" Chilling. Never seen the film? Let Alan Partridge take you through the opening.

Photobucket Shenanigans - Part One

2010-04-29T18:05:00.002+10:00

Plenty more where this came from. In years to come Twitpic may show up some farcical moments, but there's no way they'll keep their archives this long. The following photos from Christmas Day 2004 onwards, possibly creeping into 2006. We were young, we were stupid, and we had to carry actual cameras because phone technology was so shithouse. Onwards and upwards;

On-board shenanigans during a break in my 24-hour on-off community radio massacre with @somtum. We didn't know if other shows were going to turn up or not. When they did we pissfarted around on public transport, climbed statues and played cricket with some Indians. I was bowled by a fullish delivery that I tried to smash onto La Trobe Street.

My bookshelf in St Kilda. There's got to be something embarassing in there that I didn't consider. And look at the wild VHS collection. I think I numbered it for a blow-by-blow blog deconstruction on my life that has since been lost.

I won this tennis racket off SEN for winning a "what country is this arena in?" quiz. Came in at question 1 and ran the next ten non-stop. Didn't want it so decided to sell it on Ebay with a gimmick photo. Got me $160 you know.

Tsunami relief 20/20 cricket match between Melbourne and Collingwood. Why? I had a bonanza of a hangover I can remember that.

My ludicrous setup in St Kilda. Pure filth. That's what happens when somebody first moves out of home. Note the wildcard inclusion of Mario doing the Goatse man on the computer screen. You know that place was as big as my loungeroom but had 13 powerpoints. THIRTEEN. Why? I have no idea but you should have seen my power bill.

And here's what I did with all those powerpoints. This sat right next to my bed for 18 months and did untold damage to my brain.

The St Kilda wall. Magnificent collection of posters (all now lost sadly), but an absolutely disgraceful uneven placement. Young AND stupid.

Sadly lost graffiti at the corner of Gertrude and Nicholson Street, Fitzroy. Sound advice.

Ahh me and my first car. Poor old cubed Pierre. And yes, I already had an obsession with wearing masks but had not yet discovered the Mexican wrestling variety.

A really old one here. Scanned from a page in my year 7 school journal in response to homeroom arseclown Old Man Hale declaring himself "your bored teacher" after I wrote a scathing review of our bullshit school camp.

He's totally fucking that kid in the ear, but do you ever hear about that when they're discussing how bad a president he was?

The mini golf course at Wobbies World, taken when Somtum, Jelly and I jumped the fence to see what was left of the place fifteen years after it closed. The answer was everything. On the way out some ginger challenged us and refused to respond when I asked if he was Wobbie Jr. A few weeks later they bulldozed nearly everything. QUALITY TIMING.

You can tell how old this piece of blasphemy was not just from the fact that the Pope has died in the meantime, but because of that FUCKING ANCIENT IPOD! Another reason why I was loyal to the Creative Zen in that era.

Did I mention that I was obsessed with doing faux sinister posers?

In the good old days when people cared South Melbourne fans used to run to the fence in celebration when the side scored a goal. In a fit of contrary behaviour I decided to go the other way when they scored a winner from a spanking late free kick against St Albans.

Part two following... at some point in the next five years.

The Bigger The Headache, The Bigger The Pill

2010-04-18T21:22:00.002+10:00

Greetings to our friends from the north, former Roys and ex-Bears fanatics. I’d like to confess that I have a shameful love of Dare to Beat the Bear, but sadly we’re not here to do an in-depth dissection of theme songs – maybe another time. What I have been asked here for is to preview our side of next Saturday’s nights match. Now, you join the Melbourne Football Club at a very interesting time. Two wins a row, youngsters flying with confidence, equal with the ledger after round 4 for the first time since 2005. Roll on September eh? Well, maybe not. Strength of schedule is a stat that doesn’t get nearly enough coverage in AFL, and right now ours shows that the teams we’ve beaten are a combined 0-8.

When you’ve been belted from pillar to post for three years you’ll take a battling win over a team of fading cripples and a nine goal result against the AFL’s crisis club of the week but it’s nothing to rush to TAB Sportsbet and get excited about. Having said that there’s nothing surer than some muppet having a grand on us winning the flag during this week.

I can see how the United Nations of Brisbane are unbeaten at the right end of the ladder (though tell me you’re not at least slightly worried that it could all come crashing down like a house of cards at any time), and I’ll admit to having pangs of man love every time one J. Brown comes on my television, but if you’d told me after the round one DEBACLE against Hawthorn that we’d be facing off with you only outside the eight on percentage I’d have howled you down and tipped a table over in anger. Of course only sides who have won two spoons in a row (or are about to - hello Richmond!) actually care about ladder positions after four rounds, but still we’ve come a long way since the slop served up in round one caused some (mainly me) to dive for the record books to find out where we’d sit in the line-up of teams who had ‘won’ three spoons in a row. Now we sit a Ricky Petterd fingernail away from being 3-1 and there are positives all over the shop.

But can we take the positives shown against a criminally disinterested Collingwood and the two bottom sides of the competition and translate them into a decent performance against an unbeaten side with near unlimited scoring potential? Probably not enough to win, but I’m happy enough to go along next Saturday night in the knowledge that we’ll see more things to like for the future.

Obviously the major concern is the twin towers of terror Fev and JB. Luckily when coming up against a team with attacking options out the wazoo we’ve actually got a half decent backline. We’ve copped our fair share of poundings over the last few years but I’d argue that’s more to do with getting smashed in the middle of the ground than anything else. I shudder to think what would have happened to us without the likes of Warnock, Frawley, Rivers, Garland and – before his controversial conversion to a ruckman/forward/reserves player – The Stefan Martin Experience.

The Tiges didn’t do too badly against us last week, but if you take out the shots from free-kicks, the wildly speculative bombs that came off and a handful of crumbed goals they were pretty well held. This week, though, offers something different altogether.

At least Bradshaw is gone and won’t use us as his personal punching bag this year (lest we forget him ruining Nathan Carroll’s career so spectacularly that the buffoon with the rubbish hair went from All-Australian contender to getting arrested for punching on with the cops in a WA pub in just a couple of short years), though Fev is a fair replacement for the job. God knows what, if anything, is going through that man’s head at any given time but there’s no doubt that the one thing he’s good for is kicking goals. He’s fairly handy at stitching us up as well, even if you take out the seven he got against us when the tank was in fifth gear near the end of last year he’s plundered us for 29 goals in nine other starts. Even though he’s playing second fiddle to Brown so far this season I don’t like our chances of keeping them both quiet enough to keep you to a score we can match. I’d suggest Rivers might come back in for Garland and will tag in and out on Fev duty with James Frawley.

A look at Brown’s stats show that he’s played less games against Melbourne than any other club in the competition. In fact until he kicked six against us in R15, 2007 he’d never had more than one in a game. Since then he’s gone 2, 5, 5 and is playing absolutely out of his skin this year. It could be time for him to have a big day out against us and I’d expect Warnock to get him, but at the same time I’d love to see Frawley get a crack at the job. He slaughtered Brett Burton for the last three quarters of our game against Adelaide and is rapidly emerging as the best player in our defence. Riewoldt probably just had the better of him last week but if he’s going to step up to the next level he’s going to have to take on some of the big hitters eventually. Warnock on the other hand is the kind of guy that nobody has ever heard of unless you follow us but has finished 4th and 5th in the B&F over the last couple of years. Not much competition admittedly, but it shows how dependable he is. Not bad for somebody who was seconds from being out the door until Dean Bailey showed up.

As for our forward line I don’t think you’ve got too much to be worried about. This is the side that yesterday romped to eight goals in the first quarter for the first time since Round 20, 2000 and then followed it up by kicking none in the second. Between Ricky Petterd, Matthew Bate, Brad Green and Col Sylvia there’s the stirrings of a good attack but they’re not quite there yet. Needs one big bastard in the mould of Brown/Hall/Bradshaw to go up there and lead from the front. Petterd is trying his guts out, and getting some good results, but he’s not big enough to lead the line of a top eight team. It’s not inconceivable that we could kick another decent score, but

Meanwhile in a useless stat from Ridiculous Fact Corner, we have as many Queenslanders on our list now as we have had combined in the rest of our history. You can have Brad Miller and Jake Spencer back and Joel MacDonald (you may remember him) is doing pretty well but I’m quite keen on Petterd and Rohan Bail so you and the Gold Coast can stay well away from them thanks very much.

One place I think we can at least break even is the midfield. Mark Jamar has gone from world class spud to super stud so quickly I don’t think even he knows it yet, and for the last three weeks he has almost single handedly dominated the centre. Though having said that we’re in more trouble than the early settlers if he goes down during the game because we’ve been running with some very ordinary pinch hitters as back-up. At the big Russian’s feet lie the back from the dead James McDonald and a grunt work division consisting of Brent Moloney (pending the results of the Match Review Panel spinning their suspension wheel of fortune), Nathan Jones, Cameron Bruce (don’t be fooled by Supercoach scores, he’s struggling) and Clint Bartram. Jack Grimes and Aaron Davey give much needed class off the half-back line, and Joel Mac has fit in well without setting the world alight so far. On paper we lose the in the centre, but there’s enough in that lineup – as well as the emerging top end of the draft table duo SCULLGOVE – to argue that if Jamar can get hitouts to advantage we can get the ball forward. What happens when it gets there is the issue – and that’s where we’re going to be tripped up.

With the Lions playing in Melbourne for the first time this year except ‘humorous’ comments from the crowd on the subject of Fev’s many indiscretions. Take a drink every time one of them is actually funny and you’ll be stone cold sober by the final siren while Fev will probably have a matchwinning five goals. The other angle to watch is how Travis Johnstone is received. When we traded him there were murmurings of discontent and a bit of internet anguish but you won’t hear anybody upset with the deal now that Grimes – picked with the selection traded for TJ – is absolutely tearing it to shreds off halfback. Looks like the classic win/win for me, we’ve got a ten year player and future captain, TJ gets to play in a winning team and contend for a flag and Collingwood ended up getting stooged with Cam Wood. Everyone’s a winner except the Pies, and that’s to be celebrated.

Your wildcard player of the night to watch out for is young Jordie McKenzie – he turned down an offer to join the Crows in the off-season in order to stay on our rookie list and has delivered big time. Great tackler, great competitor and probably the happiest man in the world that he didn’t choose to move to Adelaide just to play in their worst side ever.

So, the Lions to win fairly comfortably but I’d like to think we’ll at least give you some anxious moments. Brisbane by six goals.

TSP's Top 5 real life entrances

2010-03-26T22:15:00.002+11:00

I've done my fantasy list, now how about the real ones.

With apologies to Flair and Fedor who I ripped off for my list, these are the wildest songs ever to be used upon entering the ring for any sport.

5.
'The Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase - Sing your own song despite having no discernable talent.

4.
Stone Cold Steve Austin - Start your theme song with a wild sound that is instantly recognisable and the crowd are sure to go bananas the moment it hits.

3.
Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filopovic: Wild Boys - The only person ever to seriously get away with coming out to a Duran Duran track.

2.
Wanderlei 'The Axe Murderer' Silva: Sandstorm - 90's teeny bopper club track used to wild effect by total killing machine.

1.
Georges St Pierre: Rohff - Dirty House - The costume kills me every time.

TSP's Top 10 entrance tracks

2010-03-24T19:13:00.003+11:00

When called upon to choose your entrance music it's easy to be boring and go straight for the Eye Of The Tiger single. But then you'd be a boring bastard.

Fact of the matter is that you're never going to beat Apollo Creed's entrance to his fight against Drago in Rocky IV so you're always one step behind;

But that's not to say you shouldn't at least have a crack. We don't all have to die in the centre of the ring after being pounded into unconsciouness by a communist superman. Rocky should have thrown in the towel, but there was nothing wrong with Apollo's entrance. In fact given the chance would you not go back in time and having James Brown sing you into the room? Unless he was busy leading police across three states in a harrowing car chase after threatening a room full of people with a shotgun because somebody used his private toilet.

So now, in the red and blue corner, weighing in at [FAR TOO MUCH] from Melbourne, Australia - fighting out of Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, The Mothership Connection will be appearing tonight to the following music;

10.
For mine one of the great openings, perfect to walk out and pose to. You've all heard this a thousand times, so instead we present the 8-Bit NES version that will play in the TSP video game.

9.
The only way you could get any more sleazy 80's would be to come out to Unskinny Bop, and that's just wrong. See also Kickstart My Heart, just for the line "skydive naked from an aeroplane".

8.
German terror concept album in tabloid entrance shock. Creepingly sinister.

7.
As used by Feder Emelianenko, this track is like the evil cousin of Sadeness by Enigma. One was the soundtrack to a million babies being conceived, this one is like the music from a child's nightmare. Terrifyingly awesome.

6.
Because everyone needs at least one gimmick song option, and where better to get one than from the best movie ever made. Also gives you the option of being introduced as "direct from hell..." like in the movie.

5.
American Psycho samples FOR THE M'FING WIN. Well, a soundalike doing quotes that aren't even in the movie, but close enough. Nobody will know, get amongst it.

4.
From the end of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. There's a reason that Metallica use this as a walk-on track - it's FUCKING EPIC. Could you get away with walking down the aisle to this? If so I'm reversing my previous views on marriage and aisles. See also Dance Of Knights by Profokiev.

3.
Famously used as the theme song of "Nature Boy" Ric Flair for almost thirty years you'd never get away with ripping him off, but by christ this is near perfection.

2.
Pure epic. Sure, it's Nazi music par-excellence and the man himself was an anti-semite of renown but forget that and let's talk about that scene in Apocalypse Now. So not only do you get the sound of the end of the world, but the sound of the end of the world merged with helicopters machine gunning people down with gay abandon. You can't get a more sinister combination than that. WINNER.

1.
Pure Rotterdam gabba hardcore injected with quotage from the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. One of my all-time favourite movie characters barks orders over a positively evil sounding track. Plenty of crowd friendly lines too. Good luck getting it past the censors but.

I'd like to say there should be more theme songs in the world. You should get to walk into your office, into a train, out of the shower to a song. But what happens when you give people a choice of what song they want to represent them? You get fifteen idiot cricketers coming out to Summer of '69, it just doesn't work. Just listen to somebody's phone when it goes off, the ringtone is basically a randomly occuring theme song that people choose to represent them. And what do we get? 200 people in a train carriage blaring out Get Shaky. Pox. Be epic with your ringtones I say.

Win a Motza

2010-03-20T10:30:00.001+11:00

Ways this video gives back to the community;

1. The black bars across his eyes
2. The dramatic flourish to get rid of it
3. The fact that he's wearing a tux
4. The farcical shower of cash
5. The way the thumping drums kick off the jingle... See more
6. The term "motza"
7. The clapping
8. The jaunty synth
9. The surprised look on his face when he gets thrown the ball
10. The random line up of games and the option to bet $500 in 1983 money
11. The ending of WIN A MOTZA

TSP's Corporate Love Day Spectacular 2010

2010-02-16T21:53:00.004+11:00

(Catch up with 2009 if you missed it)

Well, I wasn't going to it this year. How many times can you sit down and waste two or three hours furiously retyping the bizarre bleetings of hornbags, depressed bastards and long distance stalkers?

BUT, in a great 21st century "how good is the internet?" moment the Herald Sun have decided to waste precious bandwidth by putting all the messages online. You'll also note they kept the same trannie mascot as last year. You'll also note that the quality of spelling in this country has become worse than me on Twitter. So, two days late but here we go nonetheless.

To give you something to listen to you have the choice of the three of the most romantic songs ever;

Mystifying Messages
A CRYPTIC NOTE
Chickie Faye will and you Libby be were my 100km girlfriend? apart so Faye much was fun travelling kiss 100kmh kiss and frigme Libby 1 year! 25 kmh Bellagio if Bronx Faye steps stops ponytail halfway pretty. _ UTS xx.

AF
Howappy Balentine! I lub u wun hundered million. U are my beth fwen. Meith....Lub Alwayth and Foweba Cowatt, Sito ana Hebi. I tiyad. Hickle et. No not. [I'm not convinced that hasn't been run through faulty text recognition software - 1.0]

BRETT MOLONEY
My Gift from.. "LORD KING JESUS CHRIST" I Love You ETERNALLY My Mighty Man Of GOD. Your Wife For Life ANNA xxx

BUBBA
Careful! Water dwagons play on dis woad! I luv ya even though we grump sometimes! Luv ur Bunnynose with a Dino Bump!

BUBI
Happy Valentine's Day. Can't wait to the day it's just me and you on the dance floor.Love u forever and always your one and only bubz. MUSKELTEARS FOREVER XOXO

CAMERON
You are number 1. (heart) Cameron

DEANYYY
My turtle, my poodle, my chicken, dear boo boo .. I loves yous gutses to the moon and back .. MORE than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow .. You know you are my favourite person in the whole wide world .. Forever and ever, more than ever, I'm yours. Love, ME

DEAR LOZZA AND LEE LEE
I love you girls, I hope you love me me. Let's go out for dinner soon, just us 3. Maybe we can hang out& watch tv? Dahloo

GEORGE H
INDOCID - UR A PSYCHO baby! Surprise visitors for ya soon MF Cya GDH Love ya Sweetie x

GRETCHEN
Only 7 weeks to go babycakes to the wedding of the year! can't wait to make you my wife but today relax and enjoy the island with your manfriend, love davo

HAN HAN
I am as smitten today as I was the day I saw you standing outside the MCG in your Saints jumper and your blonde hair wavy from the rain. You make me feel lucky every day. I love you...in a forever kind of way. alicake

HAYAT
I love you for the qualities that make you so unique. - Murat.

HAYDEN
H is for Holmesglen Horse, A is for Albury, Y is for Yoghurt, D is for Diabetes, E is for Earlobes & N is for Nippy's. Happy Valentine's Day! Love U! Love Gav & Locky

JET BOY
U R STRONG, LOYAL, HAIRY, WELL MAINTAINED.................. BEST DOG EVER!! - BEAMA

KATIE BEAR
You are the pop in my corn, the bristle in my brush, the step in my ladder, the suds in my soap, you are the raisin in my bun and the pooh on my shoe. Will you be the Tex to my Johnny?

KING
My BFF I miss that first week we got together. All the sms's, flirting, the songs that meant so much to us (Lionel Ritchie) and the unit that holds all our memories (the skirt!!). We felt so safe back then. I hope that one day in a few years we can wake up together in the morning. Love always Queen.

KM
Love is like a lump of gold; hard to get and hard to hold. Of all the girls I've ever met, you're the one I can't forget. I do believe that God above, created you for me to love. He chose you from all the rest, because He knew I would love you the best

LEE
You smell like jam donuts and make me ROFL my face off! You're so adorable, I'm gonna wrestle and smoosh you :P

LEESA
It's taken 21 years for me to get it right, I hope you appreciate this when I see you tonight. 4 kids and lots of stress, our love always passes the test. I love everything about you, even your snoring, life with you is never boring.

LUKE
Baby, u mean to me what that carpark means to that volkswagon! Happy 1st Valentine's day spunk, the Cranklepot and I love u very much! hehe Love L

MASTER SINGH
Hey ya big poof. You've brightened up my life and you bring a smile to my face whenever I think of you. Happy Valentine's. - Donna Singh

MEGAN
Dear Megan, You continue to excite, interest and pleasure me after all these years. Lots of love PW

MIKEY MOOSK
Marrying my soulmate was the best thing I've ever done. I love adventuring through life with my baby bear. I ruv you, honey bunny. Lets add to our pack!

MUTTSTER - Mutt mutt you're so fine, mutt mutt you blow my mind, go muttster (clap clap, clap) go muttster (clap clap, clap)............ Love - Mutt

NANOOK
You are a goomba and a nuoko

PETER COOMBE
I love you so much. I know you can get back to training soon and finish Ironman South Africa with me. All my love Joey xxx

PETER WILLIAMS
Happy Valentine's Day to you and your family Love - Eileen Kimpton, Riverlea Hostel.

PIDDLYDAK
To my V, N and overseas H May piddlyDAK live long and prosper. Lkve _ your J. xoxo P.S. Wanna get some H.J's?

PIERRE
IF I HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN U, MIA & UR TIGER BLANKET I'D STILL CHOOSE U, BUT ONLY JUST. HAPPY DAY THAT WE DON'T CELEBRATE! ALL MY LOVE RULZ XX

SHANNON RYAN
Your happiness means the world to me. If that means I have to eat salad, I will eat salad. Your Buby. [DON'T EAT THE FUCKING SALAD YOU SELLOUT - 1.0]

SMID
The man who believes he has 22 Wives! 20 of them are Bi's 22-20 = #2 Ezzalenko.

TO MY PREMIUM BOAG MAN
When I first met you, we shook hands, instantly I thought, where have you been all my life? Then some months later, you said those exact words to me. I feel blessed to have had a special night with you. I know you're my Soulmate, it may be a bumpy ride until we finally hold each other every night. Let's be patient as I know in my heart, we'll be fine. Yes, You're hot !!! Love - Kaz

V
99 999

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I love you a zipillion percent

Sickening Nicknames
I'm retiring this section next year. These idiots come up with the same rubbish every time.

Alibaba
Angry Angus ("You tantalize my taste buds")
Anne of Greengables
Baby Boy
Baby Bunting
Baby Girl [+ about 5000 other variations on baby]
Banana
Batgirl
Batman
Beautiful Boombi
Benjamin Button
Big Dog
Big Fat Wombat
Big Nut Brown Hare
Bossy Boots
Bright Eyes
Bubby Giggle
Bumble Bee
Butthead
Carrot Stick
Chicken Bum
Chocolate Buddy
Chop Chop Hunny Bunny
Chubba Bubba
Cupcake
Darling Boof
Drummer Boy
Emmy Sunshine
Eve Hotpants
Fat Boy
Flicky
Flossy Bear
Freckles
Funkelbeanz
Golden Earring
Great Hunk of Spunk
Habibi
Hippo
Honey Bear [+ 5000 other versions of the honey theme]
Hotcakes
Iceman
Itchy Bumface
Jet Pilot
Kunta
Liquid Gold
Little Hummingbird
Little Peep
Little Pup
Luvabub
Marky Sparky
Marshmallow
Miss Stretchy
Miss Sunshine
Moo Moo
Mr. Big
Muffin
Mullet
Muppet
My Little Crawler
My True Penguin
Noodle
Oinky Lao Po
Peter Squishy
Pino King
Pipsqueaks
Plumpy
Poo Poo Head
Pootines
Potatohead
Princess Ballbreaker
Scarlet Pimpernel
Schnooks
Sexy Legs
Sexy Lil Spunkbubble
Smelly
Snapple
Snickers
Sparrow
Squelchy
Sugar Plum Fairy
Sweaty Cheeks
Sweetcheeks
The Roopracorn
Ticklish Tiger
Turkish Delight
Watermelon Man
Wee Monkey
Your Lady Gaga
Your Little Beyonce
Zippo
Zorro

Advertising Genius Section
Sadly doing this online means I can't see the advertising, which means I'll never know if they decided to run the NOTHING SAYS LOVE LIKE A HUMMER ad from 2009.

Celebrity Action
MORGAN FREEMAN
my handsome driver, eternally yours. Miss Daisy xx

Rotten Poetry
ANDY ADMIRAAL
Trucks, spiders & black goats, Gouldian's with blue dilute throats. Coffee, red meat & fire mouth fishes, crisp white undies & Koby's kisses. Head butts, bites & scratches from Hades, We'll have really cute babies. Happy V.D. My Honey Pot, I sure do love you a hell of a lot. Your betrothed Mandy XX

ANNMARIE
Til now you hold my heart. You're full of love, warmth and grace. You make the world a better place. You try so hard to make me see, the much better person I could be. For so long you have been my fiancee, I hope I haven't lost you from my life. I can see it all so very clear, things you thought I didn't hear. It feels you are so far away, wish I could hold your hand today. As I try to work things through, I realise how much I admire you. I will always love you

BABG
Yyou are truly my best friend
I will love you always till the end
These words include the usual junk
Except the promises I make when I'm drunk
Rest assured wherever we roam
It won't be long before our new home
A special world for you and me
Includes a bond only we can see
Love BABM

BETH - Interfamily weekend with your fam. A Valentine's poem from your man...oh damn. This can't be him, you're sure to think... No it's true, Al's poems they stink

BRENDEN - You are my tender vegetarian schnitzel. Your lovely red hair makes me want to whitzle. Lots of love - Your Scottish Thitzle

CAROL KUPSCH
I wish that you could see through my eyes, so then my pleasure would be yours, the rapture of our dalliance become the elysium of coverture. My Concubine divine, none other has the grace and wit, nor enchanting contours to compare.

CAROLYNN BERKMAN
If love was a minute, then I love you an hour. If love was a petal, I'll give you the whole flower. Love may not be an easy thing to define, But know in your heart, you are my only Valentine.

CHICKEN
Maxy is here right by my side, he's under my wing as my joy and pride, you are here too-right in the middle, I'm waiting for the next one so as to complete this diddle. [Surely they actually wrote 'riddle' - 1.0]

DEBBI
Getting older can be a pain, But with you along, I can't complain. Despite the things that we go through, I know I'll never stop loving you

ELIAS
Should any soul, this earth walk Imagine but a 10th of the joy Your love instills in me, Ever more they shall be doomed to live, but mortally wounded Knowing never to feel such pure delight. Jealous, even those who are jealous not. I will attempt to inscribe in ink, to carve and record that which feel, to cause such jealousy not, but to give hope for others, false as it is. For no being in this life, could do what you do to me. Most precious are those pre dawn moments, I watch you sleep. You are my dreams. Sleep drowsed, dishevelled, feet then touch and entwine. Held by you, encircled, flooded memories of that first embrace, you know the one I mean. To slowly wake together a new dawning day, feeling your touch I inhale you, your breath I breathe. Daily you are my rock, My knight, my rescuer, the other side of a formidable wall, determination, your battlefield skill, persistence your weapon, A crusade you will not lose and you rescue me literally. My dream giver, predicting all that I covet, all that I hope, toiling to deliver my every desire. My genie, the wishes you grant, infinite. I am happy, I am in love, and the day ends and we lay together again. Entwined falling into dreams together, time an irrelevance, it is then, it is now, it is always. Forever - Colleen.

EMILY
Times are tough at the moment that is for sure, We have two kids now and we're not having four. I know getting no sleep can bring you close to tears, But that's no excuse for drinking my beers. I'm sorry that I can't get you a brand new bed, But I promise you this - I'll get you a nice bottle of red Love - Red.

FETTA WONG
Roses are red, violets are blue, I've only been gone for five minutes, how about you? Will you be my Valentine?!

HELEN HI!
How Orion doth glow In nightly skies, Its stars The Hunter ethereal Of noble eclat Low o'er venery eyes Of fires Made in number eternal. Helen, thank you for making me realise what love truly is. Best wishes for this year.

JANE
You're my bestie and I love you so much, And you make me squeal when you grab my hand. Jane you're my soulmate and I love you to bits, And there's nothing better than sucking your toes. This Valentine's poem I hope makes you smile, Keeps me in the good books for a little while. Well here we are at the end, I love you Minty you're my best friend.

KAREN J
Loving you is like loving the sea thinking I am in control then finding the waves crashing over me I wonder if I should give up sailing before I drown in you?

KATE ADMIRAAL
It's amazing that after all this time, each day, my love for you is stronger as the wonderful length of time we have been together grows longer. And right now I want to tell everyone and make it official, that after all these years together, you are now even more beneficial! Love always! Mark

KEZ
You have a tattoo of my name on your rear, But of needles I have a fear, So I did the next best thing, I engraved your name upon my ring. My name's got bigger so to speak, And as it's romance that I seek, This verse is butt tongue in cheek

LHC
Roses are red Shamrocks are green Once again you and I Will make a good working team

LILLIAN
In my own romantic way, I just want to say, that I live and breathe you every day. The key to my heart was yours from the start, with loving bliss I give you this Kiss. Just by chance should you accept my advance, come with my for a life of romance.

LOUISE
Even though we are far apart, You are always in my heart. Soon in our igloo- just you and me, Happy Eskimos forever being silly mushy peas.

LOUISE
I see a distant tree next to a brook in a field of flowers. I see you from afar standing in your white dress blowing in the wind. You are the most beautiful person in all the world to me. I walk up to you and I kiss you softly and you smile and I whisper, I love you so much will you be my Valentine.

MAREE
Passionate lady, the queen, my Maree. Closer we are, more closer to be. Bright sunshine of love, star light of desire Inside I am me, beside you I'm fire. Love all ways. Mr Speechley

MOSES B
Unto my twin flame and our son Zadkiel whom awaits patiently with me for the veil of ignorance to lift. And unto Sarah for her assumption of what true love light and God's Will really is. Happy Valentine's Day to all that shine, force their light, that the blind may see that it's love that honestly conquers all, not lust, nor greed, nor jealousies or vanities. God Bless you all

RAKHAL
I never placed a loving ad for all the world to see: That's the incredible effect you have on me. I'm proud to be yours and to share our life together, Knowing our love will unite us forever. Happy Valentine's Day Honne!

SEXY PRINCESS
As our hearts bleed & our eyes weap, the aches and pains seem to never end, our dreams and goals are set in concrete, in our minds, and we wish to achieve them together. The future is in reach, it's an arms length away. That pot of gold, full of love and happiness is at that foreseeable day. Love you so much my special one. Your Knight xo

SHARON
Roses is violets, Reds is blue. If I sound confused, It's because I love you. What a good friend you are to me, and what a better person you have helped me to be.

SORTIE JADEITA
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. Only from the heart can you reach the sky.

TERRY H (Hairy Monster)
I just want you to know, I think you're grouse, For building us such a beautiful new house, It would be good if you could finish it though, And give me lots more money to blow. Nearly forgot your message today, Can you imagine what Gary would say. Happy Valentine's Day darling. Lots of love 6 days and 7 nights.

Pisstake Central
GREG AND SHERRI
To everyone who reads our messages each year, Happy Valentine's Day from us.

Stalkers Corner
AMANDA
I don't know why I didn't realise this earlier. I love you so much. I miss you. Let's reignite the flame we once had. I know it's not too late. There is so much more for us to accomplish together. I LOVE YOU - David

BRIAN R
I think I saw you at Southbank but not sure. It was Wed. Jan. 20th, 2010 at around 1.30 pm. The penny dropped when I walked on. I still think of you sleepless in Seaford - CATHERINE

CAPTAIN
I loved you from the very start and even though you broke my heart I will always love you - TRICKS

CHRISTINE VAN DE WOUW
U r my heart & soul without u i live in pain. Please dont give up on us we can get through this we always do. Things will b so much different this time i never want to lose you ever again love always James xoxo

DIESEL SEWELL
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I look forward to my final event later this year with you! [Sounds like he's planning murder - 1.0]

DONNA
No longer together, always thinking of you. Forever in my heart just a phone call away. - Scuba Steve.

DOROTHY LOUISE It's been a long time, but do you fancy a coffee. Reply by Public Notices. - David John [Nothing says love like a direct order - 1.0]

HELEN-MARY
My darling Helen, even after 38 years the sadness still fills my heart when I think of the day that you told me it was over between us. I am so sorry that I ruined 2 years of your life, and knowing that you would never want me back is something I have to live with morning and night for the rest of my life. You were my first Helen, my best friend, and the first and only girl I ever loved. Not a day goes past that I don't say that I love you. I will love you forever my darling Helen, I will love you until the day I die. Your perfume "Fidji" keeps you near to me always. _ Your loving Sweetpea G XXX

JACQUI
Although it has been nearly two years since you left after 30 years together, you are in my thoughts every minute of every day. I love you more now than I ever have and I always will. I pray every day that one day you may come home. I will never give up on you, Jacqui. All my love - Paul

JODIE M
I know that Jodie I've done you wrong, I send my thoughts to keep you strong. One day I still hope that we may be, As I love you and deep down I know you love me

LEIGH
Leigh at Broadford, please contact Claire at Doncaster East at niie at live.com.au

LIZ
We met at CHILLOUT on Sunday. You wore a suit and a man's felt hat. My senses must have treed away for my mind seemed not to see, this awesome lady, who held my coffee for me! Again I'll bring my whippet from Blackwood to the fair, then perhaps my Angel, please make sure you're there.

MY POD, BEKTAPOD, BEEPOD
I'm sorry I walked out on you, at the time I was angry, In my heart you'll always be, to remind me of my stupidity. Please call, your beast.

N
To the very hot one. Nice style. Can we talk please. Same place, time and day, or Tuesday? kxxk

PILOT MAN
Tall, dark, handsome, 5.2.10 @ 8.50 a.m. Hob - Melb. Be my Valentine!! You're hothothot and I'm cutecutecute. - Stripey Girl.

SCOTT
Bop, I miss you. Please call me. Bep xoxo

TINA
MISS OUR CHATS - Andrew.

Just Plain Creepy
Aaron (hearts) Rochelle
To the best Mummy and Daddy in the World, have a happy Valentine's Day - Love Abbie XO

ANDRE
Hope you get one today - Ros

ANDREW
YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY !! BUT I STILL LOVE YOU !! STILL WAITING FOR THE OTHER 6 INCHES YOU PROMISED ME !! JIM xo

ANTHONY PETER SHARPE
I love you - Your first wife Jo

BOO
Meet me all the way. I want you in my life forever. Forever is nothing without YOU.Love Always YOUR COUGAR.xxxxxx

CHERYL
You came, you overwhelmed. Your squeals and size will never be forgotten

CREEP NUMBER 2
Dearest Creep Number 2 - Happy Valentines Day - I love watching you creep on others. Next time I hope I get to share the bottom bunk with you - Much love x

DALE
`If you love something set it free, If it comes back it's yours to keep' and I'm back. Happy Valentine's Day. - Juliette. x x x

FLIC
I know your scared about the future. I believe it's meant to be. I hope time makes you realise what you want. I Love You. Always and forever - Jase xx

GERRY
You may not be my Valentine, but you sure are the best Dad in the world. - Lisa

IKROOP
You're the BEST son in the whole wide world. We love you. Love - Mum and Dad

JESS W
Little Ghost, when you accepted that ring upon which my loneliness is written, why did you not say... my love waits for me? Because, adored one, I wait for you.

KANE (DADDY!)
Youre still as gorgeous as the day I 1st laid eyes on you! Luv always! Mel xx Daddy lots of seal kisses for u! Luv u nearly as much as I luv Mr Spotty! :-) Zoe xx

MATTHEW JAMES
I love you more than all the history books I am so very proud of my gorgeous boy Happy Valentine's Day Lots of Love - Mum

MY HOLDEN V8 Man
WOW, "What's going on there"? We did it! More than 20 years since I left your side, we are back together as one and this time 4ever. See dreams do come true! I can't wait to get old with you as a diabolical couple truly made in Heaven! Kisses and lovin' in Paris and the Mile High Club, "BRING IT ON" Baby! Happy Valentine's Day my gorgeous man!! Love always _ "YOUR Holden V8 Girl" xoxoxo

NICOLA BOND
It is written

NICOLE NELSON
I'm sorry for all those vet visits Happy Valentine's Day. Love Sadie. (woof woof)

PJM66
Q. Am I your Lord? (Will you marry me?) A. Love is a slave to the heart not the soul. (Yes I will) - DHJ456.

ST KILDA
Flag for 2010 - Paula 5034 [She must have the most tragic love life of anyone on here - 1.0]

And that's it... Votes on your favourite are open until February 13th 2011.

It's A Grand Old (Put Away Your) Flag

2010-02-10T20:01:00.004+11:00

It has been my long held belief that nobody over ten should be allowed to wave a flag in a football ground. Security guards should be detailed to grab the things and snap them in two as the user is clearly not in any mental state to be carrying a metre long pole.

And so, from the media coverage of the Round 9, 1909 game against Collingwood;

Any person waving flags or banners inside the ground or stand enclosures will be expelled

Who said the world hasn't progressed in the last 100 years? I'd say they knew exactly what they were doing.

After the game,
The committee were commended for their decision with regard to the waving of flags. It was contended that the flaunting of flags is more likely to lead to a disturbance than anything else connected with football.

The supporter who considers it necessary to show his devotion to a club in that way is generally a weak-minded barracker whose support is rather baneful than helpful, or possibly one of a "push" deliberately inviting a disturbance.

This year the foolish fad is very noticeable, and leads sometimes to fighting but more frequently to abusive and foul language".

I invite you to direct 'abusive and foul language' at any grown humans you see waving flags at the ground this year. Whether or not you take this to heart and wade into the cheer squad throwing haymakers is your business, but remember this the next time some 40-year-old tosser almost takes your eye out while swinging one of these things around.

TSP's Top 300 of the 2000's - Parts four, five and six

2010-01-09T13:24:00.005+11:00

Because I totally forgot I still had to do this..

150 - New Young Pony Club – Get Lucky
149 - Hard-Fi - Cash Machine

148 - The Others - Stan Bowles
Other than this song they were probably the worst band in history.

147 - The Young Knives - Weekends and Bleak Days (Hot Summer)
146 - Black Box Recorder - Start As You Mean To Go On

145 - Giant Drag - You Fuck Like My Dad
And that was pretty much the end of them.

144 - The Subways - Oh Yeah
143 - York – On The Beach

142 - The New Pornographers - Jackie Dressed In Cobras
Don't be fooled by the name, there's no shenanigans afoot.

141 - Cam'ron - Welcome To New York City
140 - U2 - Beautiful Day
139 - The Rakes – Strasbourg

138 - Fryars - Olive Eyes
The sound of sinister

137 - Rufus Wainwright - Oh What A World
136 - Annie - Chewing Gum
135 - Fat Cancer Timebomb - The Flavour of FCT
134 - My Chemical Romance - I Don't Love You
As if the power ballad of the decade wasn't going to get a run.

133 - The Strokes – Soma
132 - Lily Allen – Smile

131 - Jack Penate - Spit At Stars
I have loathed everything else he's ever done

130 - Goldfrapp - Slide In
129 - The Streets - Has It Come To This
128 - Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch
127 - Miss Kittin and the Hacker - Frank Sinatra
126 - Deadmau5 - Ghosts 'n Stuff

125 - Le Tigre - Nanny Nanny Boo Boo (Junior Senior Mix)
I refuse to post a link to the non-mix version because it's shite.

124 - Zombie Nation – Kernkraft 400
AKA: the song played after every goal in last ten years of soccer.

123 - Gossip - Standing In The Way of Control
122 - Sugarcult - Stuck In America
121 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cheated Hearts
120 - Bloc Party - Two More Years

119 - Reverend And The Makers - Heavyweight Champion Of The World
Again, one quality song followed by buckets of slop.

118 - Electric Six - Gay Bar
117 - The Daniel Indart Project - Huepa Huepa

116 - The Ian Carey Project - Get Shaky
Face facts, this was thumping.

115 - Shakira - Whenever, Wherever
Small and humble breasts contained within

114 - Dirty Pretty Things - Bang Bang You're Dead
Ex-Libertine writes angsty song about former bandmate then completely runs out of ideas.
113 - Supafly Inc. - Moving Too Fast (Northwest Remix)

112 - TISM - TISM Are Shit
The last great moment of a rapidly crumbling empire.

111 - Waldorf - You're My Disco

110 - Razorlight - Golden Touch
Nevertheless I believe Johnny Borrell should be thrown into the sea.

109 - Fat Cancer Timebomb - Porn 2.0

108 - Metric - Monster Hospital
107 - CSS - Music Is My Hot Hot Sex
106 - Kings of Leon - Joe's Head
105 - Morrissey - First of the Gang To Die
104 - The Knife – Heartbeats

103 - The Virgins - Teen Lovers
Worth watching just for the video

102 - New Young Pony Club - The Bomb
101 - Gwen Stefani – Rich Girl

100 - The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
Jack White in "not as good as the White Stripes but not bad" sideline.

99 - MIA - Paper Planes
Winner of the Michael Winslow award for creative use of sound effects.

98 - Dogs Die In Hot Cars - Celebrity Sanctum

97 - Sneaky Sound System - Pictures
Off chops in sleazy nightclubs. Sold.

96 - Peeping Tom - Mojo

95 - Lady Gaga - Poker Face
One of the more blockbusting pop song openings of the last few years. It's almost certain that she'll never do anything this good again.

94 - Peaches and Iggy Pop - Kick It
93 - Paul Oakenfeld - Sex 'n Money
92 - Pink - Who Knew

91 - Princess Superstar - Bad Babysitter
Morally dubious would be an understatement.

90 - Boy Crisis - Fountain Of Youth
89 - AFI - This Celluloid Dream

88 - Limp Bizkit - My Way
No, fuck YOU. This rocked even if it was made by a world class douche.

87 - Mclusky - Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues
86 - The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations
85 - Gallows - Abandon Ship
84 - Fierce Girl - Double Drop
83 - Girl Talk - Once Again
82 - Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream
81 - Little Jackie - The World Should Revolve Around Me
80 - The Decemberists - O Valencia!

79 - The Ones - Flawless
So good that George Michael ruined it by putting pox vocals on top.

78 - Roots Manuva - Witness The Fitness
77 - The Young Knives - Terra Firma
76 - Bloc Party - Helicopter
75 - Lily Allen - LDN

74 - John O'Callaghan - Big Sky (Agnelli and Nelson Remix)
A field. Middle of the night. Is that sniffer dog trying to leap up my leg?

73 - Giant Drag - This Isn't It
72 - Pharoahe Monche featuring Showtime - Desire

71 - Test Icicles - Circle Square Triangle
Undoubtedly one of the worst band names ever.

70 - Louis XIV - Paper Doll
Warning: Video contains a fair bit of quality nork.

69 - Brother Ali - Watcha Got

68 - The Similou - All This Love
Another 3am sleazy nightclub favourite.

67 - Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
66 - Peaches - Fuck The Pain Away
65 - The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
64 - New Order - Crystal

63 - Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
Lily Allen cover declared a major failure when she insisted on pronouncing 'history' correctly.

62 - Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me
Such a great video. Plenty of knobs if you know what I mean.

61 - Babyshambles - Fuck Forever (Demo)
Demo significantly better than the real version.

60 - Black Kids - Look At Me (When I Rock Witchoo)

59 - Jaguar Love - The Man With The Plastic Suns
Apparently it's a man singing. You could have fooled me.

58 - Regina Spektor - Fidelity
57 - Boy Kill Boy - Suzie

56 - My Chemical Romance – Headfirst For Halos
Yes, I am an emo at heart

55 - Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body
Well, maybe not.

54 - Something With Numbers - Apple Of The Eye
53 - Ghostface Killah - Nutmeg
52 - Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
51 - The Strokes - Someday
50 - The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It
49 – Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

48 - Moloko - The Time Is Now
47 - MGMT - Electric Feel

46 - The Teenagers - Homecoming
NOT SAFE FOR ANYWHERE

45 - The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
44 - OK Go – Invincible
43 - The White Stripes - Hotel Yorba
42 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
41 - Neon Neon - Luxury Pool
40 - NASA - Spacious Thoughts

39 - Kings Of Leon - Red Morning Light
So much better than anything they've done since or will in the future.

38 - Justin Timberlake - Sexyback
The song that led to 72% of one night stands in the last decade. 0% involving me.

37 - The Decemberists - 16 Military Wives
36 - Kanye West – Champion
35 - The Twang - Either Way

34 - The Strokes - New York City Cops
Yanked from the US release post 9/11. Soft.

33 - My Chemical Romance - Helena
Again? Really? Fuck it why not.

32 - The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now

31 - No Doubt - Simple Kind Of Life
This track has everything, and promptly became their lowest charting single.

30 – Drive-By Truckers – Ronnie and Neil

29 - The Strokes - Hard To Explain
28 - Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
27 - The Libertines - What a Waster
26 - Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

25 - The Hives - Hate To Say I Told You So
And not just because it was the theme to Get This, which was by the length between here and Mars the best radio show of the decade.

24 – Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For
Meta references create probable best pop song of the decade.

23 - Loretta Lynn and Jack White - Portland, Oregon
22 – End Of Fashion – O Yeah
21 - Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage

20 - Good Shoes - Morden

Despite beuing relentlessly negative about the place, this makes me hanker for a return to South London... NOW.

19 - Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

18 - Beck - Sexx Laws

17 - Silvia Night - Congratulations

The greatest song ever to come out of Eurovision. The smelly Europeans missed the joke and knocked it out in the first round. Warning - features a phone call to god.

16 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion

15 - Sun Kil Moon - Duk Koo Kim

Sure, the album version goes for 14 minutes but what a 14 minutes. A spine + chill interface is certain.

14 – The Hold Steady – Chips Ahoy!

13 - The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill

12 - Electric Six - Dance Commander

11 - New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream

10 - Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up

9 - The Killers - Somebody Told Me

I swear the video version is different to the album/single version.

8 - The Cribs - Men's Needs

Even after bolstering their ranks with Johnny Marr there is no doubt that the poorly haircutted Jarman brothers will ever match this.

7 – Modest Mouse – Float On

Also did their best work before picking up the phone and dialling M for Marr.

6 – The Libertines – Up The Bracket

5 – Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure

4 – Morrissey – Irish Blood, English Heart

3 – Phoenix – Too Young

2 – The Strokes – Last Nite

Proof undeniable that sometimes lo-fi can triumph. New album this projected to be "Not as good".

1 – The Libertines – Time For Heroes

No explanation required. Unbelievable track.

TSP's Top 300 of the 2000's - Part Three

2009-12-29T20:19:00.002+11:00

200 - Franz Ferdinand - The Fallen
199 - The White Stripes - 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues
198 - Drive-By Truckers - Women Without Whiskey
197 - Deadmau5 featuring McFlipside - Hi Friend (Vocal Mix)

196 - Kill City - Hooligans On E
Libertines cover, but I'm letting it in.

195 - Chris Cornell - You Know My Name
Shock "Bond theme song is good" result. Didn't last.

194 - The Young Knives - Loughborough Suicide
193 - Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
192 - Heloise and the Savoir Faire - Canadian Changs
191 - MGMT - Time To Pretend
190 - Saliva - Click Click Boom
I'm almost ashamed. But not quite.

189 - Pink - U & Ur Hand
I REGRET NOTHING.

188 - Goldfrapp - Strict Machine

187 - Lady Gaga - Just Dance
I would like to touch her

186 - My Chemical Romance - Mama

185 - Kunt and the Gang - Fucksticks
NOT SAFE FOR ANYWHERE

184 - Ying Yang Twins – Wait (The Whisper Song)
Even less safe, but at least they're keeping it down.

183 - Alcazar - Crying at the Discotheque
Regretfully, in a full and frank look at the decade I have to admit that I thought this was a corker.

182 - The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button
181 - Dogs Die In Hot Cars - Godhopping

180 - Mason featuring Princess Superstar - Perfect (Exceeder)
What happens when a mash-up exceeds the quality of either song on its own.

179 - The Strokes - Take It Or Leave It
178 - The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
177 - At The Drive-In - One Armed Scissor

176 - Bob Sinclar - Rock This Party
Marquee. 3am. Smashed. Happy memories.

175 - Smashing Pumpkins - Doomsday Clock
174 - Rex The Dog - I Look Into Mid Air
173 - Arctic Monkeys - Riot Van

172 - Robbie Williams - Supreme
How I heart the goofy 70's F1 video.

171 - Little Man Tate - Down On Marie
Gig video features "crap singing at beginning" that the uploaded apologises for. Which is nice.

170 - LT United - We Are The Winners
Lithuania's 2006 Eurovision STORMER.

169 - Mylo - Destroy Rock n' Roll
I like how the guy names Patty Smyth and Scandal as if "The Warrior" was some sort of plot to take over the world.

168 - The Go-Betweens - Darlinghurst Nights
167 - Har Mar Superstar - DUI
166 - Mclusky - To Hell With Good Intentions
165 - Pulp - Bad Cover Version
164 - Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

163 - Belle and Sebastian - Piazza, New York Catcher
No real video, so take your choice of sad losers (even worse than myself) doing pox covers in their bedrooms before they cry themselves to sleep.

162 - Art Brut - Direct Hit

161 - Alf Poier - Weil Der Mensch Zahlt
Undoubtedly the greatest and most wildcard live performance ever recorded.

160 - TISM - If You're Not Famous At Fourteen, You're Finished
159 - Dizzee Rascal - Sirens

158 - Chris Korda - I Like To Watch
Video so unbelievably not safe for work that I direct you to their website and if you choose to download it.. Then you'll be on the same FBI hitlist as the rest of us.

157 - Gallows - In The Belly Of A Shark
156 - Yo La Tengo – Season of the Shark
Inadvertant shark double play!

155 - Le Tigre - TKO
154 - Fierce Girl - What Makes A Girl Fierce

153 - PQM - You Are Sleeping
Or "what not to do with a prostitute"

152 - Be Your Own Pet - Adventure

151 - The Hallows - Why?
Why the hell not?

Back tomorrow (!?) with 150-101. Are you excited yet? Didn't think so.

TSP's Top 300 of the 2000's - Part Two

2009-12-22T19:25:00.002+11:00

250 - Luke Haines - Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop
249 - LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
248 - Pulp – Wickerman
247 - Ladytron - Seventeen
246 - Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass
245 - The Sounds - Tony the Beat

244 - The Baseball Project - Broken Man
Featuring him out of REM. Not, not him. The other one.

243 – Elbow – The Fix
The only song about race fixing? Until somebody writes an ode to Hayden Haitana and his paintbrush anyway.

242 - The Long Blondes - Lust In The Movies
241 - NASA featuring Karen O, ODB and Fatlip - Strange Enough
240 - Belle and Sebastian - Step Into My Office Baby
239 - REM - Supernatural Superserious
238 - Morrissey - How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
237 - British Sea Power - No Lucifer

236 - TISM - Message From A Big Day Out Port-A-Loo
The last hurrah of Australia's greatest act.

235 - The Strokes - Between Love & Hate
234 - Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch

233 - Lily Allen - It's Not Fair
Extra points for subtle inclusion of profanities that are often missed when played at public events.

232 - The View - Same Jeans
231 - LMFAO - Yes
230 - Calvin Harris - Acceptable In The 80's

229 - Texas Lightning - No No Never
Australian sings country for Germany at Eurovision. Gets few votes.

228 - Flight of the Conchords - Inner City Pressure
The rarest beast. An amusing comedy song.

227 - Jamie T – Sheila
226 - The White Stripes - You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)
225 - Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
224 - The Decemberists - This Sporting Life
223 - Just Jack - Glory Days

222 - Coldplay - Yellow
From this, a great single, to the most BORING but popular band in the world. Ack. Don't look too hard for any of their other tracks in the next 221.

221 - The Dandy Warhols - We Used To Be Friends
Untainted by being used as the theme for My Restaurant Rules.

220 - Thicke - When I Get You Alone
Somewhat tainted by being the son of Alan Thicke.

219 - Lily Allen - The Fear
218 - New Young Pony Club - Hiding On The Staircase
217 - Grafton Primary - Relativity
216 - Peaches - Tombstone Baby
215 - AFI - Miss Murder

214 - Morrissey - I Will See You In Far Off Places
The opening track on Ringleader Of The Tormentors. Gave hope that it would be just as good, if not better, than You Are The Quarry. Hope founded about three seconds after this finished.

213 - REM - All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)
212 - Tom Vek - C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)
211 - Goldie Lookin' Chain - Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do
210 - Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme
209 - Neon Neon – Belfast
208 - The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
207 - Tomcraft – Overdose
206 - The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Psychosis Safari
205 - Republic Of Loose - All Mine
204 - Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops)

203 - Duk Koo Kim - Salvador Sanchez
No video. Boo.

202 - Low Fidelity All-Stars - The Good Times
Also no video. Boo again. Imagine I Want You Back for the 21st century.

201 - The Streets - Fit But You Know It

TSP's Top 300 of the 2000's - Part One

2009-12-21T19:55:00.004+11:00

A list ten years in the making. From a shortlist of over 600 songs we've halved it to an even three hundred. And if you think some of this is dubious then imagine what got left out?

THE RULES
* No limit on tracks per artist
* No covers (Cover of the decade = It's My Life by No Doubt) UNLESS the cover is more famous than the original and both came from this decade.
* No straight remixes. Samples ok.
* Please no coming to my house and attempting to knife me at least until you've seen #1.

300 - 50 Cent - In Da Club
Thumping track with lyrics that seem incredibly naff nearly seven years on post 50's brief rise and shithouse acting career but still a memorable track. Maybe better enjoyed as an instrumental...

299 - Ben Folds - The Bitch Went Nuts

298 - Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah
Cod Finnish 'metal' and Eurovision winner. Just crazy enough to work. Prepare yourself for a cavalcade of other Eurovision entries in the next 297 tracks..

297 - Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong - Lucio Starts Fires
296 - Black Box Recorder - The Art of Driving
295 - Pop Levi - Sugar Assault Me Now

294 - Eminem - Lose Yourself
Like its generation's Khe Sanh, a song that probably should rank higher but for being beloved by dickheads.

293 - Elbow - One Day Like This
Clearly made to be sung in a field at 3am in the morning. Would rank hundreds of places higher if I was into that kind of stuff.

292 - Kasbian – Underdog
291 - Chicks On Speed - We Don't Play Guitars
290 - La Roux - In For The Kill

289 - Limp Bizkit - Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)
Well screw you, Fred Durst may very well have been the douche of the decade but this still packed a punch. And we're not done with the Bizkit yet..

288 - Kasabian - Shoot The Runner
287 - Klaxons - Golden Skans
286 - The White Stripes - My Doorbell

285 - Daz Sampson - Teenage Life
Just ignore the slightly dodgy video. White man rap that came off surprisingly well on record, but less so in Eurovision 2006 where he scored bugger all.

284 - The Streets - When You Wasn't Famous

283 - Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat
Moderately tainted by being flogged to death on the ads for Channel 10's footy coverage all fking year.

282 - U2 - Vertigo
281 - Beyonce and Jay Z - Crazy In Love
280 - The White Stripes - Icky Thump
279 - Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs
278 - The Killers - When You Were Young

277 - Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit
There's no point in denying it. You got trashed. You put your hands up. You've never been to Detroit. We're all in the same boat.

276 - Outkast - Hey Ya
Absolutely butchered by overkill when it was the biggest thing in the world for a few weeks after release. Only now can we sit back, appreciate fully and ask the time honoured question - 'what's cooler than being cool'?

275 - Goldfrapp - Happiness

274 - Pink - God Is a DJ
Despite a late charge from Lady GaGa there is surely no doubt that Pink was the female 'pop' artist of the decade. Only Timberlake could face her down for the overall title.

273 - Yoji Biomehanika – Samurai
272 - Mia Dyson - Roll Me Out
271 - Pay TV - Refrain Refrain
270 - Junior Jack – Stupidisco
269 - Pixies - Bam Thwok

268 - Together - So Much Love To Give
The same thing over and over again for almost eleven minutes. Hit the gear first and you'll enjoy it.

267 - The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres
266 - The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight
265 - Yoji Biomehanika – Angel Of Death
264 - Pet Shop Boys - Minimal
263 - Robyn - With Every Heartbeat (Tong and Spoon Wonderland Remix)
262 - Goldfrapp – Train

261 – Ja Rule – Livin’ It Up
Much like 50 Cent he was a clearly detestable human being who managed one sample-aided cracker of a track before never being heard from again. At least had the good manners not to try a serious acting career.

260 - The Cloud Room - Blackout!
No video. Imagine what a song about a blackout might sound like.

259 - Junior Jack - My Feeling
258 - Art Brut - Moving To LA
257 - Hercules and Love Affair - Blind
256 - Maximo Park - The Coast Is Always Changing
255 - Rufus Wainwright - Rules and Regulations
254 - Neon Neon - Michael Douglas
253 - Cats On Fire - Higher Grounds
252 - Black Francis - Angels Come To Comfort You
251 - CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above

So, what's in store for 250-201? How many more times will you wail and scream "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY?" as another second division rap act nudges their way in next to Limp Bizkit? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT.

TSP's Top 20 albums of the decade

2009-12-17T20:06:00.004+11:00

20 – Peaches – The Teaches of Peaches
Middle aged Canadian filth, part one.

19 - The White Stripes – Elephant

18 - The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
The band who dominated the first five years of the decade before being distracted by side projects and other various shenanigans.

17 - The Libertines – The Libertines
For about five minutes they were the best band in the world. Then Pete Doherty upped his drug intake to Herculean levels, robbed his bandmate's flat, shacked up with a supermodel and saw it all go wrong.

16 - The Young Knives – Voices of Animals and Men

15 - Electric Six – Fire

14 - Lily Allen – Alright, Still

13 - Maximo Park – A Certain Trigger

12 - Peaches – Fatherfucker
Middle aged Canadian sleaze, part two.

11 - The Strokes – Room On Fire
In all honesty it wasn't THAT bad of a second album, it just didn't match up to the first.

10 – The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America
A Bruce Springsteen for the 21st century. If you ignore the fact that Bruce is still kicking.

9 - My Chemical Romance – Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
Yeah? And?

8 - The Libertines – Up The Bracket

7 - Lovage – Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By
Probably the best music to crack on to since Barry White's hey-day.

6 – Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts of the Great Highway
Try the lengthy Duk Koo Kim, a 14 minute homage to a dead boxer. Unbelievable.

5 – Kings of Leon – Youth & Young Manhood
So much better than the albums they got famous from.

4 – New Young Pony Club – Fantastic Playroom
Late 00's electropop fever. Early returns on the next album show it might be hard to match this.

3 – Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
A two disc concept album loosely based on the lives and deaths of Lynyrd Skynyrd. It shouldn't work. But it does.

2 – Morrissey – You Are The Quarry
A nine year hiatus shattered with a corker of a comeback. Next two albums declared "very ordinary".

1 – The Strokes – Is This It
Simply amazing. They'll never do anything like it again.

TSP's Top 50 of 2009

2009-12-01T21:48:00.003+11:00

A poor year in music. For almost everybody on this list who has "old stuff", I'd rather it than what they put out this year. But let's forge on regardless.

First, as always, the rules. Two tracks per artist maximum, no covers, re-releases only if 2009 was the first time I'd heard it. Guest appearances, duets and "We Are The World" style celebrity singalongs don't count towards the two.

And before we begin - a quick look at the previous top 5's.

2005

1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter

2006

1. The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill
2. Giant Drag - This Isn’t It
3. Silvia Night - Congratulations
4. Lily Allen - LDN
5. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me

2007

1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!
2. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
3. The Teenagers - Homecoming
4. Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent
5. Jack Penate - Spit At Stars

2008

1. Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up
2. Neon Neon - Luxury Pool
3. MGMT - Electric Feel
4. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream
5. Fryars - Olive Eyes

And now tonight's host
.

Speaking of old men, here's number 50.

50 - Bob Dylan - It's All Good
That guy is still alive?

49 - Lethal Bizzle - Rockstar
I was hanging out to see what last year's #1 artist would follow "The Come Up" with. The answer was 'nothing nearly as good'. It'll probably sell a truckload more.

48 - 1990's - Everybody Please Relax
A perfectly good song nearly destroyed by the use of the term 'chillax'. Even used with heavy irony it sounds shithouse. CEASE AND DESIST.

47 - The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die
They're still around, and with original members. Oh for something remotely approaching the sick menace of Breathe.

46 - Maximo Park - I Haven't Seen Her In Ages
WHITHER APPLY SOME PRESSURE?

45 - Simian Mobile Disco - Cruel Intentions (featuring Beth Ditto)
Not as good as her old songs, in a year that her band appeared with a set of songs that weren't as good as the debut.

44 - Julian Cope - All the Blowing Themselves Up Motherfuckers
Acid fried former Teardrop Explode frontman delivers his take on the art of suicide bombing in a song with no video. Thirty seconds worth here.

43 - Art Brut - Demons Out!
The same lyrics with a knowing smirk. Just not as good as before.

42 - The Rifles - Fall To Sorrow
Meh. About what you'd expect a #43 to be.

41 - Pete Doherty - Arcadie
40 - Pete Doherty - Last of the English Roses
Decent double Doherty. NOW REFORM THE LIBERTINES YOU DRUG ADDICTED GOOSE.

39 - Franz Ferdinand - Can't Stop Feeling
Oh Franz, can we please have another Take Me Out?

38 - Madness - We Are London
Awww.. Makes me nostalgic for London.

37 - The Gossip - Heavy Cross
Hah, she said heavy.

36 - The Broken Family Band - Please Yourself
Where they invite you to do just that.

35 - Noisettes - Don't Upset the Rhythm
It's an iron clad guarantee that if you haven't heard this soundtracking something from the government yet, you will soon.

34 - The Prodigy - Run With The Wolves

33 - New York Dolls - Cause I Sez So
Yes, they are still alive. Some of them anyway. Kind of like The Platters playing at the Dragonfly Restaurant in Tullamarine.

32 - Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls

31 - She Keeps Bees - Gimme
Reminscent of the Meg songs from the White Stripes (but sung properly). Major difference is the pure filth of the lyrics.

30 - VV Brown - Crying Blood
Moderately insane soul - 2000's style.

29 - Bad Lieutenant - Sink Or Swim
Bernard from New Order in a New Order-esque moment. Sure, he doesn't talk to Peter Hook anymore but this is about as N.O as you're ever going to get again.

28 - Young Jeezy - My President Is Black
Sounded a lot better in the immediate aftermath of the Obama inauguration when it was released.

27 - Mayer Hawthorne - Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'
White boy soul that isn't complete shite. What's next? White rappers?

26 - The Cribs - We Share The Same Skies
You will note that nothing off the new Morrissey album made this year's top 50. The only decent songs got in last year as singles - the rest are shit. This track should tell you everything you need to know about why Johnny Marr and Moz should kiss make up, get back together and FUCKING DOMINATE. The Cribs had one shining moment (Men's Needs), and have done nearly bugger all since but this gets pushed from purely average to good simply by the addition of Marr Magic.

25 - Kasabian - Underdog
Like them or not, and I'm undecided, there is no doubt that Kasabian are going to slot right into the space recently left by Oasis. All they need is their lighters in the air, bullshit Wonderwall-esque ballad and then it's world domination time.

24 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Softshock
One of three Karen O appearances in this year's chart. She qualifies due to a guest appearance.

23 - Peaches - Billionare
Where the middle-aged and hairy Canadian sleazebag suggests that she would like to "fuck you like a billionare"

22 - Lily Allen - It's Not Fair
Pop country for people who would throw up if you were suggesting that they were listening to country. "But there's lyrics about shagging!" you say. I say Loretta Lynn did it first. Still, not a bad song. Raising the spectre of Conway Twitty in the video was a masterstroke.

21 - U2 - Breathe
I vowed never to take another U2 song seriously until they did another "Beautiful Day" or "Elevation", but this is surprisingly good.

20 - NASA - Strange Enough (featuring Karen O, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Fat Lip)
Karen O appearance #2, from the debut album with the finest set of guest artists in recent memory.

19 - Luke Haines - 21st Century Man
Your standard Haines. Think The Auteurs or Black Box Recorder. Wistful looking back at British 20th modern history a speciality.

18 - Boy Crisis - Dressed To Digress
STORMING. And what a video..

17 - Golden Silvers - True Romance (No. 9 Blues)
Another track that will undoubtedly be used in an ad at some point.

16 - Camera Obscura - Honey In The Sun
In a less cruel world this would be considered pop and would storm into the charts at #1. But no, enjoy your Katy Perry instead kids.

15 - Connor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Roosevelt Room
Last year's Bob Dylan is at #50, the future Dylan is here. No video anywhere (!?), but more than worth a listen.

14 - The Virgins - Teen Lovers
Good song, quality video. Like a last minute draft smoky this rocketed from the mid 40's to 14th in the last week of voting. Congratulations Virgins everywhere!

13 - Basement Jaxx - Day Of The Sunflowers (We March On)
But enough self congratulations. Onto the best thing Yoko Ono has ever been involved with. Period.

12 - The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight
Orchestral emo for a mature audience.

11 - Metric - Gimme Sympathy
Canadians behind Monster Hospital, ask the eternal question.

10 - Cerys Matthews - Arlington Way

Former Catatonia singer in blistering return to form. Like Dusty In Memphis dragged into the 21st century.

9 - Lily Allen - The Fear

Depression about fame. Pulp did it years ago, and they even nabbed the song title. Still, the best chartbound pop song of the year. Additional bonus of getting a few obscenities in that are well masked enough to see the track played at family functions. Sold. And I would like to touch her, but that's beside the point.

8 - La Roux - In For The Kill

Somewhere deep inside the heart of this long lurks 1986.

7 - Dengue Fever - Tiger Phone Card

Our first ever American/Cambodian love song. Ever. Anyone willing to bet on another one?

6 - Deadmau5 featuring Rob Swire - Ghosts 'n Stuff

Reminiscent of Perfect by Mason, in that it worked amazingly without lyrics. Like when Princess Superstar met Mason, this is remarkable with words put to it.

5 - Low Fidelity All Stars - The Good Times
Skirts the fine line of just ripping off I Want You Back by the Jackson 5. Which, in this year of one of them carking it, isn't such a bad thing.

4 - Bat For Lashes - Daniel
A Kate Bush for the 21st century.

3 - Boy Crisis - The Fountain of Youth

This year's Empire of the Sun. Bizarre freaks with strange videos delivering the natural 21st progression of synthpop. Sounds like a version of MGMT who don't take themselves so seriously. Described by a Pitchfork reviewer as "the worst band in the world" they certainly look the part, but maigod the songs say otherwise. Besides.. in the world? What about all those Hillsong front groups who sing about how much they love Jebus?

2 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll

1 - N.A.S.A - Spacious Thoughts (featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith)

See you soon for TSP's top 200 of the 2000's. Explosive.

Dream Scenario

2009-11-26T23:14:00.002+11:00

Tonight on Lateline they advanced the theory that Malcolm Turnbull is deliberately careering towards destruction to martyr himself. I'm for it - here's my political dream team fantasy.

Malcolm agrees to an interview on the Alan Jones show. The moment AJ opens his mouth Malcolm slaps the taste out of it. He then storms out the door, pushes a couple of reporters over, gets in his car and drives it to Parliament House in a harrowing OJ Simpson style police pursuit. There he goes inside, knocks on Tony Abbott's door, says "Here's your leadership" and headbutts him. He then picks up a folding chair and starts decking members of his own party with it before stopping to repeatedly focus on Cory Bernardi. Finding that no matter how hard you hit him you can't make a dint in that ridiculous hair, he then turns around to see Wilson Tuckey and yells "Ironbar this you crunt" before dropping him.

Then, with police and security right on his tail he breaks the lines and makes it into the Senate public gallery where just as the doors have been locked and the division on the ETS has been called for he throws himself off the balcony and onto Bill Heffernan a'la the end of Thelma and Louise.

Any danger? Even climate change skeptics would vote for that.

Non-Eastern Block or Sporting Triumph Division

2009-11-19T19:06:00.003+11:00

YouTube. Top 10. No fat children, no shithouse beached whales.

Sadly the early 80's ad where some lounge singer advised you to "win a motza on the Footy Tab", in one of the great jingles has been removed as is no longer eligible.

10.
Fat man falls off chair. Killer.

9.
Tony White Nissan and his giant pencil. Never gets old.

8.
Tony Martin + Rex Hunt = Australia's #1 comedy goldmine.

7.
Pam Shriver startles self with ridiculous overacting in cheese ad. Is still kinda cute in an early 80's poodle perm way. Would later marry an obscure Bond.

6.
T-Shirt ad goes awry in comedy parody.

5.
Melbourne's worst theme park forsees Vermont South tram twenty years in advance in corny ad.

4.
A throwback to the days when a paper bag with a slide whistle could entice you into a supermarket. Hullo?

3.
Drunken football captain destroys country and western classic into the biggest microphone since Q&A.

2.
Peter Russell in "Fry the c*nt til it's black you prick" shock horror.

1.
Warwick Capper in "best song ever" result.

Communism is fun

2009-11-14T21:22:00.000+11:00

This service has been cancelled

2009-08-25T19:40:00.002+10:00

To be entirely honest it appears that after 5 1/2 years TSP is pretty much dead.

One off comeback specials a'la Wayne Newton aren't out of the question but really.. this is kind of it.

Ho ho ho, that's white man's electricity you're using.

Hysteria Central

2009-07-18T20:56:00.003+10:00

I'm continually irritated by these bollocks TAC road safety ads that the taxpayer are funding.

The latest one tells us that 20% of fatalities on Victorian roads have "some trace of drugs" in their system. Well that's wonderful. But what does that actually mean? 0.5 is the arbitrarily declared line where you cross from safe driver to dangerous pisshead, but what level is it that you're a deadly menace on drugs? Obviously somebody who has hoovered up 10 lines of gear is not somebody you're going to want to share the road with - but what about when it's in their system the next day. Are they still supposed to be seconds from disaster?

I've never had to do the maths to beat a drug test - and I've had a few - but everyone knows that this stuff stays in your system for days. How many of those 20% had used drugs on the same day that they had their accident - and how do they know? It's a sensible message wrapped up in the typical hysterical bullshit.

And what the hell is up with the ad where it goes on for a minute about people "smoking joints" but doesn't even bother to consider the fact that most people who are going to smoke and drive and probably ripping bucket bongs not smoking enormous Cheech and Chong style reefers.

Shithouse. I notice nobody had any great interest in stopping the guy who drove past me at about 120kmh on the freeway today.

Inappropriate headline behaviour 101

2009-06-23T10:31:00.000+10:00

The Royal Shaft

2009-06-21T10:14:00.001+10:00

Ever since the Collingwood fiasco all we've heard from the club has been about going hard and being competitive. Lovely, rosy stuff. Thanks to the split round two weeks of it. And so with the debut of another exciting youngster on the cards a great number of our fans went out to a stadium that is harder to get into at an Essendon game than Fort Knox and were served up something which was 9/10th's slop.

The subplots were there in droves as well. That is if you didn't just give up and go home at the prospect of having to stand in a queue for 20 minutes to get a 'seat' that you weren't going to use any way rather than just walking through the gate with your membership like any normal match. Watts 2.0, the debut of the Jurrahcane, Sylvia's continuing form, the emerging players in Jetta, Bennell, Cheney and Martin and crunch games for the likes of Miller and Robertson.

And after all that build-up we got smashed from the first bounce. Not only were we not getting anything on the scoreboard, but we were getting even less from the umpires. It took us until 25 minutes into the first quarter to get a free kick, by which time Essendon had kicked two from frees and another from a 50. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, or the idea that the free-kick count should magically align or it's a rort but for god's sake do they need to pay absolutely everything? Ok if a guy is on the ground and you do the Bam Bam Bigelow "Greetings From Asbury Park" onto his head then fair enough give a free, but am I the only one sick to death of players laying a decent tackle only to put a slight bit of pressure on the back and get pinged for a push? It's a farce.

Frawley was monstered by Lloyd early on and it looked as if we were going to see similar, or worse, to his 8 goals and a mark of the year performance in the MCG fixture last year. At least this time we weren't wearing that vomitous silver number as the clash jersey. The white one isn't that much better, and it does have that hideous bi-curious pirate logo, but anything beats the silver. And to think you actually see people going around in that to this day. Unbelievable. What was wrong with the old red alternative jumper we used to wear? Was much better.

The second quarter was one for first goals all round. Jack Grimes started it, Jurrah followed it up with a corker of a goal off the ground that sent our fans off their collective nut and then Watts bobbed up for his first just when I was starting to worry that he was going to get completely put out of the game.

More on Jurrah later, but Watts was interesting tonight. Once he gets it he's not bad, and he's obviously a great kick for goal but good god he's slight. Naturally greater bulk will come but for the moment it's like playing Cale 'Supermodel Diet' Morton as a key-forward. He's just getting swatted off the ball with the greatest of ease. Shows some wonderful signs but physically not up to it yet. Doesn't mean he shouldn't play the majority of the next ten games, but R1 next year with a full pre-season and half a year's experience in him is when we'll really start to see results.

Speaking of Morton, what the hell are we doing with him? A number four draft pick in his second year has got to be worth more than being used as a cheap kick collector Bowden-esque loose man in defence? We're not exactly playing to make the 8 here - can we throw him into a proper midfield position for the rest of the year and really test him out?

Now, the third quarter. I'm not turning on Bailey - it's far too early for that - but I am pivoting a bit and asking, rather stridently, WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON IN THAT QUARTER? We copped a couple at the end of the second after dragging ourselves back into it, but much like the last two games we came back from half time and were absolutely blown out of the water. Fair enough if it comes from being beaten by a better side, understandable even if you get the thing and stuff it up continually but when you just roll over and die like we did then you've got a lot to answer for.

I'm not claiming to be an expert in football, far from it, but what exactly does anyone expect to achieve by having 16 players inside the opposition's defensive 50, another two standing just outside and absolutely nobody forward of the halfway line? They kept kicking points and we kept not being able to get it forward because there was NO FARKING BODY THERE TO KICK IT TO. Jesus H Christ at least have one or two people down there. On a couple of occasions we finally got the ball out of the defensive 50 and had to bomb it forward to nobody because there wasn't a target. Shock horror when we went back to a 'traditional' set-up we started to look a lot more dangerous.

In the press conference Bailey tried to play it down like they were there to attempt to extract the ball, but I'd suggest that if you need 18 people get one football out then you need to find 18 new people. How many footballers does it take to extract a ball? (this is not awaiting a punchline, I really want to know) Surely one person, ONE OF 17 - 5.6% of the side if you prefer - could stay forward in case the ball goes down there?

Amusingly despite us having the Essendon forward line clogged with our entire team they still managed to kick inside 50 and pinpoint individual players on their own. Where's one of those FAIL pictures with our entire squad on it when you need it? We went the biff in the last few minutes but it was too little too late. Pickett and Neitz (pre-2006) aside when have we had anyone legitimately fearsome in recent years? Where are the big tough bastards who spend as much time suspended as playing? I wouldn't know where to start in realistically sourcing one from another club (oh go on, suggest we swap Miller for Daniel Kerr. Give us all a laugh) but it certainly beats throwing away ALL your picks on kids. Top 3 or 4 fair enough but if you can flog a third rounder for somebody who will come in, biff a few crunts and give the kids some belief in themselves then why not?

As happens so often with us the last quarter was a junk-time, garbagefest of the highest order. We got the first three goals but it was too far gone to mean anything. Jetta got his first and Bate got rewarded for being our only decent forward - save a short burst by Miller - with a second goal before the Stefan Martin Experience continued its 2009 world tour by landing in the forward line after a decent stint in the ruck. Didn't go too badly, and is going to be very handy as a pinch-hitter up there in the future, but will more fondly be remembered tonight for kicking a corker of a goal on the run from the boundary. His forward line excitement rating is high, having kicked 2 rippers from 3 career goals. Apparently got 99.5 on his VCE as well, so at least when he realises that we've made him hate football he can do something useful with his life. Sylvia missed a sitter that would have completely sealed BOG status for us, and Watts got a second but the sting was well and truly gone.

They got the last two. Nobody cared. The siren went. Goodnight and let's never speak of this again. I certainly won't be calling Name a Game to order my copy, and I doubt too many Essendon fans will either. The only re-watching of this game that's likely to take place in the next few days is by the tribunal to decide how long Mark McVeigh - who just ten short years ago was coming into the video shop I worked in to rent R-Rated adult features - will get for biffing Jared Rivers.

Speaking of Name of a Game, when I won the free DVD on Queen's Birthday the bloke at SEN said "somebody will give you a call" and I've never heard from anyone since. Maybe that's their scam? Don't say anything and hope the winner gives up. It's happened to me on there before - I got one question in the quiz, won some pissweak book that I didn't really want anyway and got hung up on before anybody could get my details.

As you would know if you saw the game tonight Liam Jurrah was a revelation. Having watched him play the last three games at Casey I knew what to expect, and of course he didn't get as easy a run as he did in the VFL, but what you saw tonight is raw talent. Sure, he can't handball all that well but do you think anyone is in the games he's grown up playing? Had a couple of good leaps, took some lead-up marks and for the sake of a few inches could have had three goals. Has the makings of the one of the biggest cult figures at the club, and in a group where there's not too many left since Davey stopped playing forward and THE CELEBRATOR got injured, we need it. My wildcard Jurrah highlight was his big thumping spoil in the last quarter. We were getting pumped but even that caused the MFC fans around me to shudder with excitement.

Amazing story too. Has anyone ever had to learn English to play AFL senior football before? Wouldn't have thought so. Several have had to learn to use cutlery, and a lot to stop punching taxi drivers in the head - but a whole language? Remarkable! Thanks to Collingwood for not bothering to pick him up, and well done to our recruiting staff for taking a punt on him. Didn't exactly fly under the radar tonight so it's not like they took it easy on him - will be a very interesting second game next week and somebody to look out for in the rest of the season. Oh, and whoever decided to call him THE JURRAHCANE should be given an award. I'm burning with envy that I didn't come up with it myself.

As for the rest of the year first players Bennell and Cheney were solid without being spectacular, but I'm still not convinced about Jetta. Was only playing his 6th game so I'm not burying him, and he was ok tonight, but I don't see what he really adds. Would rather see Maric in there for the rest of the year to be honest.

Underbelly's Kriminal Korner
Brock McLean was wearing a black armband for dear departed Tuppence Moran. Whatever, good luck to him but did he have to play like he was at a funeral as well?

Crowd Watch
Had headphones in all night. Couldn't hear a word any of them were saying. Glorious.

Koaching Korner
Rightly or wrongly this is the week where a bunch of people are going to start turning on Bailey. All I will say is CLARKSON. Talk to me at this time next year and we'll see if we're in Daniher mid-2003 anti-coach tantrum territory yet. Until then, sit back and watch the rubbish unfold. And don't tell me we should have hired Sheedy or I'll glass you.

Website Watch
The AFL website needs to be thrown off a cliff. First it laughably claims that Cameron Bruce and McLean were in our best, then it makes watching the post-match press conference impossible in Firefox. Cockheads the lot of them.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Colin Sylvia
4 - Matthew Bate
3 - Brad Green
2 - Paul Johnson
1 - Liam Jurrah

Varying degrees of apology to Davey (30 touches, hardly any of which did anything special), Miller, Moloney, Frawley (molested early, came back well), Whelan, Bruce, Grime and Martin (the ultimate troubleshooter - however now officially DQ'ed for the Seecamp Award due to his non-permanent defender status).

Leaderboard
19 - Aaron Davey
18 - Brent Moloney, Colin Sylvia
13 - Nathan Jones
14 - Brad Green
9 - Matthew Bate
8 - Brock McLean, Jared Rivers, James Frawley (CO-LEADERS: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Mark Jamar (LEADER: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
7 - Brad Miller, Cameron Bruce, Stefan Martin
6 - Cale Morton
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year),
4 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell
3 - Ricky Petterd, Russell Robertson, Matthew Whelan
2 - James McDonald, Jack Grimes, Paul Johnson
1 - Lynden Dunn, Liam Jurrah

Tank Talk
We've won one fucking game. It was hilarious talking about 'only' winning four after the Richmond game, and looked almost fanciful after the Bulldogs/Geelong matches, but the way we're going we'll be lucky to match the three wins of last season.

Next Week
Brisbane @ the Gabba. Gee, I wonder what's going to happen there? We'll get smashed and I 100% will not be writing a report as I've committed to something else and will - at best - be listening to patches of it on the radio, being anti-social on my phone reading Big Fotoy, or running in and out of a room checking the score. Therefore if you want to write either email me via supermercado AT demonblog DOT com, PM me on BigFooty or leave a note on the windscreen of my car. Last time I tried this, for the St. Kilda game, the crowd went absolutely mild but can someone do it this time at least for the sake of keeping some integrity in the votes rather than having to rely on the shaky as shit newspaper variety.

Who's Bradshaw going to kick nine on this year? I bet you he kicked a bin over in anger when he heard that we'd delisted him.

Final Thoughts
Sports are shit. Your suggestions on how I could have better spent a Friday night in the comments section please.

Contrast and Compare

2009-06-08T20:50:00.005+10:00

I'm not suggesting legalising soft-drugs (well.. decriminalising maybe) but tell me that we've got the right law enforcement mix in this city and we'll all have a good old fashioned laugh together,

First there's this;

DOZENS of party-goers have been arrested after police used sniffer dogs to detect drugs at a Melbourne Park rave.

The Winter Sound System dance party, held at Melbourne Park, was marred by paramedics having to treat four people for overdoses of potentially lethal drug GHB.

Other drugs found include cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine.

Wouldn't have thought there would have been much trouble inside though. Lucky for all you violence fans we've still got the rest of the city - where sniffer dogs and police officers dare not tread...

The stabbing was among a spate of knife attacks that have marred the Queens' Birthday public holiday and left three men hospitalised.

The assaults, including a stabbing with a broken beer bottle in an elevator at Melbourne Central, continued to highlight what has been described as Melbourne's growing "knife-carrying culture".

The 20-year-old Glen Waverley man was left with serious injuries after being stabbed while waiting for the elevator after leaving a bowling bar on the third floor of the centre just before 3am.

Two men, unknown to the man, approached him as he stood with his friend and girlfriend in a lobby and began arguing with the group, a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.

When the elevator's doors opened they pushed the man into the lift and stabbed him in his chest and stomach with the glass bottle before fleeing.

Just after midnight, another 20-year-old man was stabbed after being confronted by a pair of men near St Albans railway station.

The man was slashed across his neck and on his left hand after the men, aged in their 20s with dark skin, set upon him in Walmer Avenue.

And just after 7.30am three bandits targeted a pair of ravers returning from a dance party at Melbourne Park and forced the men to hand over their wallets and phones at knife-point.

The victims, aged 19 and 20, were walking along Swan Street after leaving the Winter Sound System dance party at Melbourne Park when they were approached by the group.

One of the men, who were all aged in their twenties, pulled out a knife and demanded the pair hand over their phones and wallets

Thank christ the cops were busy keeping the criminals off our street but having dogs sniff people's inner thighs just up the road.

Now, what do sniffer dogs really do? Three people overdosed on GHB - which is liquid and undetectable. You could take the viewpoint that people will be smart enough not to take something potentially lethal, or you can take the realistic viewpoint that people love getting off their nut and if they're going to get arrested for something that can be detected they'll switch to something that can't. Therefore people are bailed up for carrying relatively harmless stuff but can walk straight in the front door with a bottle of gear that can put them away in a matter of seconds.

Farcical. Oh, and if you've got a strong stomach for reading the ramblings of people who are fucked in the head then by all means read the comments on that story. For instance,

How sad has society become when so many people have to have stupid mind altering drugs to have a good time. What are these pathetic losers going to be doing in a few years time to have a good time, that's if they're not dead ???????? Losers, Losers and Losers, how else can you describe these fools ?????????
Posted by: " Concerned " of of the lawless state 5:21pm today

Yes, these new fangled mind altering substances. I can't believe that they suddenly appeared either! Cockhead.

What is a 'raver'? Oh, I know. It's a spoilt, obnoxious, selfish, spaced-out, irresponsible little mother-boy who thinks he's a superhero. They are a reflection of that god-awful doof doof noise they listen to. Memo to the police and ambulance service: let these oxygen thieves die in the gutter. It is what they deserve.
Posted by: Neil of basketcaseland 2:38pm today
Comment 73 of 81

Note, it's just guys apparently. Please also note that you can always spot a bitter late 40's married guy who is desperate to cheat on his wife but has lost all his hair and put on 50kgs by use of the term "awful doof doof noise".

Start letting them die when they overdose - refuse medical treatment warn them before that medical services and hospitals will not waste resources on idiots who shove ILLEGAL substances into their bodies. It might just take one death before it gets through their thick heads and the ones that die - tough luck at least the IQ of Australia will increase.
Posted by: Jackie 1:45pm today
Comment 70 of 81

Why not refuse medical treatment to people who botch their suicide attempt as well? Isn't that just wasting resources on somebody who wanted to die anyway?

Wake up, pro-ravers and smell the coffee. Possession and Use of these drugs is illegal, despite YOU thinking you're somehow special and above the law and it's OK for you to take them. You aren't and it's not. Posted by: Ryan of Cranbourne 12:14pm today
Comment 65 of 81

I'm not taking shit from anybody who lives in Cranbourne about what should and shouldn't be legal.

The moron market sector. Morons take drugs. Morons dance to bad music. Morons don't know how to have fun without substances. Moron DJs paid better than live artists. Morons too stupid to chat to each other so they just turn up the music to cover the fact they hold moronic conversation. Morons fascinated by UV and laser lights. Morons going home alone. Morons who'd do it all again next week.
Posted by: Steve 6:50am today

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's Steve - the barometer of all that is good and just in society.

Crusty Demons of Shite

2009-06-08T20:49:00.001+10:00

Disclaimer - I care not for most of what happened today, and I'm not even going to try and fake it

Well, that was a waste of a public holiday. Sure, on a day where it's pissing down constantly there aren't that many other options but couldn't we have collectively found something better to do with our day? If the crowd was anything to go by, it seems many did. Bollocks to theories about the weather, if we'd been winning there would have been another 15k there. Don't believe me? 78,000 people in 2006 says otherwise. We've lost the once a year crowd. Damn. Nice if they didn't come back.

Anyway, the game. We were 50 points down three minutes into the second quarter without having kicked a goal. Enough said. I'd somehow managed to get roped into the Cheer Squad first goalkicker prize just by walking past. God knows what the prize was but the fact that we were almost 9 goals down and I was still punting Brock McLean home was purely farcical. Sadly it wasn't the only moment of high farce in the first quarter - a complete inability to match up on any opposition player, the most one-dimensional forward line structure in history and Paul farking Johnson full stop were worse.

Once again there was a complete lack of crumb. What's new? Down at the other end the Pies were crumbing everything. It was only Didak's attempts to kick stupid Motlop-esque goals instead of kicking drop punts that saved us on a couple of occassions. Apparently Dick was doing well. I would never have guessed except for the woman sitting behind me who kept yelling out DICK! DICK! DICK! every time he went near the ball.

Meanwhile nothing has shit me more this year than the number of times an opposition forward will take a mark inside, or just outside, 50 and be able to kick short to a teammate. It's going to happen a few times every week but we're copping it multiple times every freaking game. The backline is still doing well, even though they were clearly beaten today, but at least get the simple things right.

It started pissing down in the second quarter and we were all set to find out how good we are at playing in the wet. Answer - not very. Comical slip and slide bullshit from all involved. Congrats to the players who decided that playing dinky little sexy football in the defensive 50m was a good idea. A couple of goals early on dragged it back to respectability temporarily but it didn't last long. Quite frankly we were shit and even if I remembered what was going on I wouldn't waste your time and mine writing about it.

One interesting moment was Harry O'Brien getting pinged for the biggest holding the ball in history AND giving himself up only for the umpire to wave play on. Cue a Pies goal. Get fucked.

Robertson was an interesting one. He responsed to criticism about his chase and defensive pressure by.. err.. chasing and putting on defensive pressure but I still fail to be impressed. It's not his fault that they kick it to him EVERY F**KING TIME, making it easy for the opposition to chop it off, but he's got to stop trying to milk free-kicks every ten seconds. Somehow he's getting away with it but that says more about the stupidity of the umpires than anything else. The two kicks he missed at the end were fairly damning. I doubt he'll get dropped again anytime soon but there must be questions about his spot next year, especially if Jurrah fires up when he gets a game later in the season.

Jamar was dominant in the ruck. Shame nobody could get near it when it hit the deck. Consider how Fraser stooged the Johnson/Spencer combination in Round 2 with how he was stitched up today. The last two weeks must represent the best fortnight of his career. At one point I even thought he was going to crack the magical 5 kick mark so we could all get our t-shirts made.

Then there was Watts. Serviceable performance from a debutant, but for god's sake could we put any more pressure on the poor kid? I understand the frenzy during the week because clearly we were trying to get people to come through the gate (oh come on), but did we have to have him on camera every five seconds before the first bounce as well? Will get better, hopefully well removed from the media and club wankfest.

The one bonus feature of the day was when Sylvia kicked the goal at the end from outside 50m and I won the Name a Game DVD off SEN for being the first caller. No need for them to know that I wasn't even listening at the time and just knew to call from memory of listening to other games. I chose R21, 1993 - Jakovich and Lovell go crazy against Richmond on route to a 120 point win. Happy days. Happy days.

Speaking of Mr. Jakovich, here's some votes we prepared earlier.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

5 - Colin Sylvia
4 - Mark Jamar
3 - Nathan Jones
2 - Jack Grimes
1 - Aaron Davey

Apologies to Moloney, Bruce and Bate.

Leaderboard

Davey wrests the lead back at the halfway mark, but the last month has all been Sylvia. Also in the last two games Mark Jamar has recieved 8 votes - before those games he'd scored 1 in his career. A big welcome to the leaderboard to J. Grimes for his first votes as well.

19 - Aaron Davey
18 - Brent Moloney
13 - Colin Sylvia
13 - Nathan Jones
11 - Brad Green
8 - Brock McLean, Jared Rivers, James Frawley (CO-LEADERS: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Mark Jamar (LEADER: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
7 - Brad Miller, Cameron Bruce, Stefan Martin
6 - Cale Morton
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Matthew Bate,
4 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell
3 - Ricky Petterd, Russell Robertson, Matthew Whelan
2 - James McDonald, Jack Grimes
1 - Lynden Dunn

Crowd Watch
I would have bet anything that Jones would have got booed by the filth elements of the Collingwood fanbase. Certainly none where I was sitting, but that's probably because - as usual - I was stuck in the middle of a bunch of kids.

Tank Talk
Does anyone seriously think we're going to win more than four games this year even at 100%? Winning two games would be nice. West Coast (MCG), Port (MCG), Richmond (MCG) and Fremantle (MCG - do you see a trend?) are really the only realistic chances we have for the rest of the year and would need to win the lot to 'avoid' the precious top two picks.

Kasey Korner
Jurrah and Dunn amongst the best - though not if you read the drug assisted 'bests' in the paper - and Miller not terrible in doing most of his best work in junktime. Casey won in a decent performance but there wasn't much to write home about, Werribee were fairly awful. Jake Spencer wasn't too bad, he's got to be a chance of tipping out Johnson soon. If you're gagging for football in the split round they're playing Preston at Princes Park on Saturday.

Next Week
Mercifully absolutely nothing. A glorious week off from this grim season before facing Essendon at Docklands in our one and only Friday night game in two weeks. With Ryder getting suspended and the rest all injured they have precisely zero ruckmen. With Jamar having dominated in the ruck in the last two weeks I expect that this means he will go absolutely coco bananas in the middle. However this will mean absolutely nothing when they cut us to shreds around the ground.

Final Thoughts
John Anthony looks like an alien.

Insert hillarious Kill Bill gag here

2009-06-05T17:42:00.003+10:00

David Carradine. Some guy who nobody 30 years or less understands. Dead in Bangkok hotel room, allegedly in a
">perverse sex game scenario. They're my favourite I must admit.

Thai police are investigating whether Kung Fu star David Carradine died during a sex game gone wrong.

The 72-year-old actor, who also starred in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films, was found hanging in a Bangkok hotel room wardrobe with a rope around his neck and other parts of his body.

Police first said his death was suicide because there was no evidence of a struggle in the room and no bruising on Carradine's body.

Err, anyway. Play Fantasy Coroner and ask yourself this question. Why in Bangkok, of all cities, would you have to resort to such shenanigans? If it turns out that he really died die trying to get one way then he must have been the keenest masturbator on earth.

Now, if you're trapped in Launceston of an evening and get a bit randy maybe but for god's sake man - it's Bangkok. If Hoover became the common name for vacuum cleaners and people can call photocopiers a Xerox then surely Bangkok is the brand name for sleaze. Can't be bothered leaving the room? Just call room service you goose, don't climb into the cupboard and neck up.

Enough political comment..

Golden Shower

2009-05-30T17:41:00.000+10:00

When it was announced that Channel Ten were covering the Fremantle vs Richmond dead-rubber of the century rather than our game I'll admit I had a whinge. "What's wrong with showing the top team in country against the 2045 premiership favourites?" I wailed. Now, I'd like to apologise wholeheartedly to Channel 10.

Not only was our game completely rubbish, but it turns out that the only long distance camera angle available at Carrara is akin to filming the game from the moon. On the other side of the country Richmond and the Dockers were playing out a classic with the additional side-angle of Ben Cousins return to Perth. Of course that was the more appetising game. Even if they had picked it this week rather than six months ago did anyone doubt that Ten wouldn't put Richmond on every week for the rest of the season so the vultures could show the footage of the kid crying every ten minutes. I turned over at the end of our game and guess what they were showing? Ten should just hire Craig "hiding in the bushes" Hutchison already and make a network out of being [deleted for legal reasons - editor].

It's also understandable why nobody else wanted to write the report for this. It was never going to be pretty. To be honest I wasn't even going to watch it until half an hour before the first bounce. With no Foxtel at home and the dodgy internet streams all showing the Freo game I was content to stay home, listen to the radio and be a crochety bastard in the comfort of my living room. The major advantage to not watching a Foxtel Saturday night game is, of course, not having to put up with the utter tripe that is Dwayne Russell as a commentator.

For the second week we managed to avoid copping a shot on goal in the first twenty seconds. The tide is clearly turning. In fact we scored first, the suddenly 'reliable on the run' Sylvia missing on the run. He did get another one not long after. We continually pegged them back when they jumped away to a break, even James Frawley wandered forward for a goal. This leaves Jack Grimes as the only player in our 22 who has never kicked a career goal - come on son, it's been five matches already. Fire up and kick a bag. Adrian McAdam had 29 in the same time after all.

Then after quarter time the game just died. I honestly can't remember what happened for most of the next three quarters other than it being horrible. And to think I was supposed to be going to this game before financial considerations kicked in. At least then I'd have been able to cheer myself up by going on a waterslide at Sea World tomorrow instead of watching reserves football.

Did we actually get a free kick in the first half that wasn't for out on the full? I'm not suggesting there were any rorts at work, and god knows even if we'd had them they would just have been botched, but I can't remember any. Oh, and the hands in the back rule has officially been removed from the rulebook. Ring Kevin Bartlett up on Hungry for Sport and ask him what happened to it. Shithouse. We got a handful in the second half

So, how bad was the second half? Well, put it this way I'd rather sit through two hours of the CGU ads with Susan the rapping providore than ever watch it again. In fact don't ask me what happened in the last quarter, because I spent the whole time on my friends couch reading Wikipedia on a laptop and telling him who North Melbourne had drafted in any particular year. I did look up at one point to see Whelan laying another blockbusting rugby tackle - I don't think anyone gives enough credit to how much he's going to be missed when he goes. Kyle Cheney looks like a successor at times but he'll need to learn how to produce killer tackles and get injured at inappropriate times if he's going to fill Whelan's shoes.

Also interesting was McDonald getting crunched in the knee and going off as if he was completely rooted. Came back on, but clearly wasn't right. Our midfield doesn't have a great deal of people knocking on the door to come in (Bell was so-so, Buckley is around somewhere) but if he were to cop a serious injury now would it be the end of him? Love the guy, and his tackling is a highlight, but it might be time to move over and let somebody else have a crack. Meh, whatever - we're shit let him go on for as long as he likes.

It's a credit to our backline that even with the ball spending most of the game inside the Saints forward 50 we didn't concede a massive score. It was also a credit to the fact that they couldn't kick straight most of the time, but go with my point. I'll say this every week until we are actually good but it's the backline that's going to be the foundation for our success. Now to find some semblance of a forward structure. The Stefan Martin Experience forward experiment (SMEFE?) was an abject failure, but then again so was our entire forward line other than Bate - who was doing all his work outside 50 - so it's not a great indication. I still don't think he's a natural to play down there, certainly doesn't look too comfortable with it.

To top off a great night I went outside to my car and realised that I'd totally forgotten to look at the street signs when I parked. Hello 15 minute zone, hello $57 fine. Not so bad considering I was there for about 4hrs longer than legally allowed.

Draft Watch
No need to talk tank, with Richmond's ludicrous win over Freo they're now a game and percentage in front of us. If we don't get this draft right then we'd may as well give up, Mulder and Scully or whatever the fuck these new messiahs are called had better be ready to dedicate themselves to a career of failure and disappointment.

Kasey Korner
Tomorrow against Geelong @ Casey Fields. I've got something else I'm supposed to go to, but frankly the prospect of standing on the hill alone and listening to the gloriously - and therefore great - 3SER amateur radio call is a much more attractive option. Besides there are so many interesting angles in the match that it's impossible to ignore. Will Robertson bounce back or is he rapidly sliding towards irrelevance? Does Watts do enough to get a Queens Birthday debut? Will Ricky Petterd get played in position? Should Lynden Dunn even bother turning up? Half-assed reportage later tomorrow.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
5 - Jared Rivers (Did well in defence, had precious little competition at the top of this lineup)
4 - Mark Jamar (my god, I never thought we'd see the moment that somebody with 2 kicks almost wins BOG)
3 - Matthew Whelan (the most underrated MFC player of the last decade)
2 - Matthew Bate
1 - Brent Moloney

Apologies to Grimes, Green, Maric, Sylvia, Frawley and McLean

Leaderboard
18 - Aaron Davey, Brent Moloney
11 - Brad Green
10 - Nathan Jones
8 - Brock McLean, Jared Rivers, James Frawley (CO-LEADERS: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Colin Sylvia
7 - Brad Miller, Cameron Bruce, Stefan Martin
6 - Cale Morton
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Matthew Bate,
4 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell, Mark Jamar (LEADER: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
3 - Ricky Petterd, Russell Robertson, Matthew Whelan
2 - James McDonald
1 - Lynden Dunn

Next Week
Queen's Birthday. Not her real one, but who's counting? Last week I might have claimed we were a chance, but after tonight I'm not so sure. Here's to them suffering a black death style injury plague in the game against Port tomorrow. At least we'll be able to finally answer the question - who would you rather throw into the sea, Cloke or Miller?

Final Thoughts
Tonight made me want to fill my pockets with rocks and walk into the ocean.

Triple AM

2009-05-28T21:40:00.006+10:00

At the risk of the first serious post on here for about five years there are some whinges that you can't fully develop in a 140 word Twitter update (Tweet? Get stuffed).

*start talkback radio outrage*

Everyone's got their views on the Matthew Johns/Cronulla Sharks fiasco. It would be charitible to say that 5% of people in Melbourne knew who Johns was before a couple of weeks ago (let alone his much more accomplished brother) yet in the last couple of weeks he's basically become the brand name for debauchery and dodgy behaviour. A tad harsh I'd have thought, but we all know Australia loves a bandwagon to jump on. Even poor Schapelle Corby feels so forgotten that she's had to do a bit of froth at the mouth nutbag work to get back into the papers.

Now, whatever you think about the Cronulla fiasco is your business. I'm not going to try and convince you one way or the other but think for a second how many hours were wasted discussing it on radio and television. How many newspaper column inches spent slaughtering footy players for being meatheads? Rebecca Wilson, probably the most pointless figure in Australian sports (a nose to Craig Hutchison), is making a living out of being outraged.

Now, once you've framed the amount of coverage that incident got in your mind then read this story. Buried on the "Victoria" page of the Herald Sun website and beneficiary of 20 seconds on tonight's news.

A CHILD rapist who broke his parole only 24 hours after being released from jail is being hunted by police.

Andrew Darling was released on parole last week after serving a nine-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl.

Nine years? Nine fucking years? Why isn't this the front page scandal. The fact that he's on the loose is bad enough, but how come nobody seems to care that he only served nine years? The news wasted an entire story on a widow of a man killed in an industrial accident having a whinge because the company only got fined $300,000. Tragic loss and all, but what does she want them to do - bring him back? Elsewhere somebody's life is effectively ruined at 13 and nobody really seems to care. Just give a

I'm no fan of capital punishment, and I'm for people who legitimately stuffed up being given a second chance but surely the various assorted freaks like this can't have any excuse. "Sorry your honor, I accidentally raped her". Get fucked. You get pissed, you stack your car and kill a family - you should do 15 years and get another go. You rob a bank and get busted, do 10 years and walk out. Fair enough. But this? My god. There are crimes that deserve to see people locked away for the rest of their life, and if this isn't one of them then what sort of society are we living in?

And what do the media do about it? The Herald Sun are always trying to position themselves as the defenders of all things good and true, and they're too busy hanging around Ben Cousins' driveway to make any sort of statement about what a shambles sentencing in this country is. Politicians? Opening golf courses and making pissweak internet ads.

Next financial year get yourself a game card (not from the Herald Sun, they're too busy printing the latest "global warming is fake" bollocks by Andrew Bolt) and play "Bullshit Sentence Bingo". See if you can find one ridiculously lenient sentence in every field of crime, then one that seems completely over the top for an otherwise ordinary case. By June 30 2010 your house will be full of game cards. Unfortunately you don't win anything except the right to vote at a State Election for one of two parties who couldn't give a shit about anything but their own rorts.

* end talkback radio outrage*

Fantasy Eurovision 2009 - Results Spectacular

2009-05-26T19:23:00.004+10:00

*Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to Wimbledon dog track for the startling conclusion to this year's night of nights. And here's your host... Ugly Dave"

"Ere, I'm back. You know last week after the show I walked into a bar. Didn't 'alf 'urt. Hur, hur, hur. Anyway, let's get on with it. Me mother in law is outside and she'll just die if I don't take her for a walk. Hur, hur, hur. Anyway, if you want to recap the acts one more time go here. Otherwise as the results come in we'll be joined by some often casually racist stereotypes for their reactions. Are you ready? Well let's start with last, because they're the furthest away from first."

23. Greece - Diamanda Galas : 0 points

Deep shock and resentment there in Athens. The selection committee will surely now be wondering if they should have gone for Yanni and his blistering synth pop moustache instead of a wailing crazy woman.

=22. England - The Members : 8 points

A very poor showing for the English, but aren't the fans taking it well? As is so often the case for the English it's a bottom five finish. Would Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark have done any better? We'll never know.

=22. Scotland - The Proclaimers : 8 points

Shockingly poor result for one of the favourites of the competition, and look the Scottish fans have come all the way to Wembley Stadium to protest about it.

20. Republic of Ireland - The Pogues and the Dubliners - : 9 points

Shock in rural Ireland as their favourite sons go down to a heavy defeat. Father Ted unavailable for comment due to being, err, dead.

19. Spain - Las Ketchup : 13 points

There's Don Flamenco. Noted Spanish boxer and Nintendo character. He's not at all pleased but did stop to tell us that it's not his fault that his country have produced bugger all decent pop artists.

18. Netherlands - Dr. Alban : 18 points

A poor result for the singing dentist from the land of the Tulip.

17. France - Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgitte Bardot - : 21 points

Poor result for the sleaziest Frenchman ever born. His understudy, however, has found time to chat up a young girl in Serge's honor. The great man himself did have time to give this victory speech from beyond the grave.

16. Romania - Enigma : 24 points

It's over to Bucharest, where they haven't had much to smile about since the fall of Ceacescu, and that won't change tonight as the song that a million babies was concieved to fails to finish in the top half. Food rationing for all.

=14. Norway - A-ha : 25 points

Shocking scenes in Oslo where everybody asks "Surely we'd won if they'd picked Take On Me". Well, that's not the way it works kids.

=14. Portugal - Rui Da Silva : 25 points

Obscure artist in 'better than expected' shock. Portuguese national football team said to be "thrilled" at being included due to the lack of any actual Portugal related stereotypes than didn't involve Angolans and machine guns.

13. East Germany - Nina Hagen : 27 points

Wild scenes in East Berlin! The hometown girl has beaten almost half of Europe and they're jumping for joy!

12. Northern Ireland - Feargal Sharkey : 31 points

News just in from Belfast, TISM have been recruited to fill this slot next year.

11. Moldova - O-Zone : 34 points

Possibly anti-Numa Numa backlash causes best foreign bubblegum language pop song of the millenium to fail to crack the top ten. This young lady's not too concerned though, all she's worried about is having to go back there.

10. Austria - Falco : 35 points

It's Don't Turn Around, Der Koroner's in town for the Austrian Eurovision tilt this year.

=6. Italy - Albert One : 38 points

Even massive corruption and gangland activity couldn't drive this porky italo disco classic to top spot. The above gentleman are working on an entry which we hope to be seeing in 25-40 years.

=6. Denmark - Aqua : 38 points

Strangely these guys don't seem to be that concerned about Denmark's failure.

=6. Iceland - The Sugarcubes : 38 points

Music by Bjork, jumpers by Daryl Somers. Strong result for the eccentric, and suddenly bankrupt, island nation.

=6. Belgium - Plastic Bertrand : 38 points

Nobody knows what a Belgian looks like, so we invited his Royal Majesty King Albert II to do the honours. He said in a statement "France, Belgium and Germany - suck on this"

5. West Germany - The Real McCoy : 40 points

Celebrations and drunken slurring all around for the highest finish of the "big four" nations. Clearly a more crowd pleasing choice than the semi-final runner up "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorpions.

4. Switzerland - DJ Otzi : 43 points

Strange things happen when you Google Image search for the Swiss Navy.

3. Wales - Catatonia : 46 points

No, it's not a late entry from the Black and White Minstrel Show. Because that, unlike showing pictures of Moldovan prostitutes, would be racist. No, it's just some Welsh miners showing their glee at finishing in the coveted third position on the night.

2. Russia - TATU : 52 points

The world loves sleaze, and even better if it involves a pair of schoolgirls! This is such a popular result that Russia's greatest musical exports (even though they were from Germany) couldn't help but stop in and pay their tribute. Quoth the lead singer "AHAHAHAHA! HEY!"

And that only leaves one. Ladies and gentlemen, the winners of Fantasy Eurovision 2009. You guessed it;

1. Sweden - Roxette : 55 points

And if you thought you had sat through 22 other acts just to see some scantily clad Swedish women writhing in celebration then you were wrong.

Let's get them out here for one more round of the winning song. Per and Marie, you crazy - and yes, hot - kids. Get out here now.

Right, that's it for this year. Direct your lawsuits to Channel 10 c/o Wobbies World Nunawading. Shall we go out on a song? Right lads and ladettes, let's hear it. Goodnight Europe.

TSP is your Geographical Connection

2009-05-25T19:02:00.008+10:00

What do you think the meeting was like when they named the Central African Republic?

"We need a name for a republic that's in the centre of Africa"

*Out come the bottles of champagne*

Yes kids, African history is that simple. Of course our friends from Bangui went on to ruin things with some very dubious behaviour,

Between 17 April and 19 April a number of elementary school students were arrested after they had protested against wearing the expensive, government-required school uniforms. Around one hundred were killed. Bokassa allegedly participated in the massacre, beating some of the children to death with his cane.

Write into the 50/50 column and suggest that as an alternative to national service for the kids. Joy Buttress from Dromana would.

Armpit vs Deodorant

2009-05-25T18:56:00.000+10:00

Surely nobody seriously expected to win this. All week the talk 'around the traps' (i.e forums and pissed blokes in pubs) was how we were a huge chance of knocking them over and how it was a danger game for the Hawks. Danger my arse. They might not be the same well-oiled killing machine that they were last year, and they might have been whacked fiercly with the injury stick, but they're still a much better side than we are.

Honourable losses galore are lovely but it doesn't bridge the gap in class, and doesn't compensate for a forward line matchup featuring two guys who have kicked 54 goals between them. Especially considering our entire squad has only kicked 90 between them in the same time frame. And that's why we were never going to win this game.

And of course we didn't. Again. How many more times can I write the same report before I just start cutting and pasting with altered names and votes?

At least there were signs (oh really? Tell us something we haven't heard every week). Colin freaking Sylvia went absolutely bananas for one, The Stefan Martin Experience went forward with promising results and Rivers and Warnock managed to contain the goalkicking machines in the second half.

Despite the vast gulf in class there was a point in the middle of the first quarter when we were playing well and could have taken the lead. We were winning out of the centre, Robertson had got the first from his third criminal free kick in two weeks (welcome back gifts at tax deductible) and Davey had a set shot from pretty much straight in front to give us the lead. He misses, Hawthorn start to dominate the middle, they kick the next four and it's effectively over.

At times it seemed like the Hawks got bored of playing and tried to indulge themselves in a "Goal of the Year" contest instead. First Bateman tried to dribble one through from 30m out on the boundary line and almost got away with it, the in the second quarter Rioli took a handball from a diving player, did a 360 degree spin that practically left our guy flat on his arse before hitting the post. May I remind those of you who frantically whop off over top 5 draft picks that he was a #12 pick and dominates on a weekly basis. According to the pissweak AFL website highlights neither of these were considered good enough to make it. Laughable - more on that later.

Speaking of things were in the "of the year" file we come to Russell Robertson. The mark? Probably a top 10 or 20 contender. The blooper? Every possible chance of taking home the Lada Samara at the end of the year. He takes a great mark in the square, and while lying flat on the ground he farcically tries to kick it through. Gary Moss (should I know who this is? Why is anyone called Gary in the 21st century?) says "I'll have that", grabs it out of mid-air and we don't even get a point out of it. Think of Jamar trying to play on in the square against Essendon last year and botching it - then multiply it by 50. At least Jamar got a point.

I'd been pro-Robbo this season up until that point but there's never been any moment more worthy of turning on somebody over. He got a couple of goals but that will go down in the top 5 of the lowest moments in our wilderness years.

The rest of our forward line wasn't offering much either. Martin was trying hard but couldn't get near it, Maric was looking good playing up the ground, Petterd was all at sea and Bate was trying hard with no support at all. Miller, especially, was having one of his worst games in years. Right from the first quarter where he could have had a flying shot at goal but decided to piss around with it he was totally devoid of any confidence. For somebody who has come from the brink of uselessness to be a key player in the last couple of years he was rubbish. Needs to stop thinking so much and be a bit more selfish. We know we're not going to win anything, nobody's going to have a go for a couple of snaps that sneak through for a point.

Half time led to one of the most undignified displays since Football Park played sex music over footage of grannies. I know there's $5000 on the line but does anyone with half a brain really ever involve themselves in those competitions where you have to wave something in the air for the cameras? For one you may as well not bother if you're male because women always win it, and two have some dignity and not be another whore at the capitalist gangbang waving some corporate logo around over your head for a one in 25,000 chance at cash and prizes. You may as well go to New Orleans during Spring Break and bap out for the Girls Gone Wild cameras.

Erm, anyway - moving on. With a massacre on the cards and Franklin/Roughead (Roughlin? Frankhead?) having seven between them Frawley was given an honourable discharge from the battle and replaced with Rivers. JR then kept him goalless in one of the better 3 possession performances you're likely to see. Warnock also did a good job on Roughead and kept him scoreless. Unfortunately they have goalkicking options up the wazoo so stopping them just means more quality time for everyone else, but at least it didn't develop into the full scale slaughter that it promised late in the second quarter.

Random Thought
At what point was anybody going to realise that Hawthorn spent the entire game switching the play diagonally across the ground? Even I, the least informed analyst of all time, could see it.

Stef Martin was an interesting one in the forward line. During the first half he didn't get near it, but in the second he started to come alive. Two goals, including a hot snap from the boundary line, made it a worthwhile experiment. I only hope that it's left as an experiment and he doesn't end up as a Miller 04-06/Petterd/Dunn type player who gets shuffled around every five seconds until they completely lose the plot. At least switch it around and give us the Rivers in the forward-line tilt that we've been dying to see ever since he bagged a couple against the Pies a few years ago.

Speaking of Petterd and Dunn do you think they get together at training and wonder if they're being persecuted for having bizarre first names (watch out Cale, Stefan and Austin). Both of them get shuffled around every week, never left in one place and, in Dunn's case, dropped on a whim. I like Petterd but is there any point in playing him next week - Queensland homecoming angle aside - if he's not actually going to get any sort of role other than wandering aimlessly in the forward line?

Shame that Gold Coast isn't coming in next year, because you may as well try and wrench a few draft picks out of them for these guys rather than just burying them in mediocrity. Dunn especially I'm concerned about - every time he's played forward he's shown promise but after his first season he's never been left there. I'd much rather he do what Petterd is doing now, but neither of them seem to figure greatly in anyone's plans. Shame. Who wants to bet on Dunn being the next person to join the Clay Sampson "Sacked by Melbourne, wins a flag elsewhere" Club?

Johnson was solid throughout. He's improved greatly since he's been the lone ruckman (SME cameos aside). Doesn't mean we shouldn't bring Jamar back next week - and did you ever think you'd hear me say that? - but he still deserves a thumbs up for his performances since the tragic loss of Meesen Magic. Unfortunate not to sneak into the votes for the third consecutive week.

When the Hawks kicked the first two goals of the 3rd quarter to blow the lead out to +50 points it looked like things were going to get absolutely craptacular. Sylvia got our first from a running set shot - I think even he's realised that he can't kick one off a normal run-up under any sort of pressure. Then he crumbed one (CRUMB! CRUMB! CRUMB!) and snapped another for three in a row to add to his otherwise sensational work around the ground. Easily the best of his 78 games so far.

They got the margin back out again but going into the last quarter
two players down with injury they put the shutters up early. We got a few goals (including the SME's hot snap), to the point where only the truly neurotic are even slightly tense about losing, and suddenly they were chipping it around in one of the ponciest displays ever seen. Even their own fans were booing them, which is odd.

First thought was "I withdraw going for them in the Grand Final last year. Bring back Geelong etc.." but I suppose once you've necked yourself for four quarters you're hardly going to indulge in some pointless last minute contests just to keep the crowd interested. They did deign to involve themselves in some pointless last minute brawling though, which was nice. I'm still waiting for one of our fringe players to properly clock somebody though. Morton fired up a bit in the scuffles - surely one day he's going to make all our dreams come true, and all future Morton family gatherings awkward, by giving one of his brothers a right hook to the head.

Second thought is for fucks sake Melbourne man up and stop them doing it. Then you remember that they've been out there for four quarters as well and probably can't be bothered running anymore either. Easy enough for us fatties in the stands I suppose, would be different being out there. The only problem is that even in close games we don't stop teams doing it.

We did get a goal out of the chaos when Sylvia got a 50 after being whacked in the head in the marking contest. Nothing more in it that a stray hand trying to spoil but presumably the tribunal will give Muston a 25 game suspension to try and entice a few more 4WD owners into letting their kids play the sport.

So, we barely deserved to get that close - and line punters everywhere were probably throwing bricks at their televisions - but we certainly deserved to avoid being blown out of the water. Like most games this year we'll take it and look to the future.

Web Watch
The AFL website would have to be one of the worst in international sports. Try watching highlights videos on it. I got through the first half in one browser, at which point it would re-direct me - no matter what I chose - to another Big Pond video website for overseas customers that you not only needed a subscription to but couldn't view in Australia. So, I switched to another browser where halfway through the 2nd half highlights an ad came on from which it refused to return. It's an embarassment of a set-up that we're subjected to year after year while they pocket they ad money from the continual reloads.

Then there's the insistance that if it wasn't a goal then it didn't happen. Can you seriously tell me with a straight face that Bateman and Rioli's near goals or Robertson's blooper weren't highlights? I don't expect them to show punch-ups but for god's sake give us something. Imagine being somebody from overseas who wants to know what happened on the weekend. Good luck unless you subscribe to their premium service - even then it's full games or bastardised highlights.

Crowd Watch
Sat in the Olympic Stand for a quick exit. Surrounded by Hawthorn fans including a family of complete knobs behind us who couldn't be bothered controlling their kids. One of the little bastards wouldn't shut up for the entire half - I don't know what they did to him at half time but he appeared heavily sedated from then on. Of course just as the kid started being quiet they located a family friend to join them who was - of course - 'challenged'. Cue a half of "GO THE HAWKERS" every five seconds. Better than the kid because he didn't alternate yelling things with kicking me in the back.

Oh for a "child free" zone at the football. An idiot free zone (yes, Hawthorn nonce with a tea-cosy on his head giving it large at the final siren, I'm talking about you) would be too much to ask, but can we at least hand out free Gameboys or something so the little freaks can amuse themselves until they actually understand the game.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal

Probably the biggest gap between the 5 and 4 votes in history. Where has this Colin Sylvia been hiding for the past few years?

5 - Colin Sylvia
4 - Cameron Bruce
3 - Brad Green
2 - Stefan Martin
1 - Jared Rivers

Apologies to Maric, Johnson, Whelan, Warnock, Davey, McLean, Jones, Johnson and McDonald just for losing his rag in the third quarter.

Leaderboard
18 - Aaron Davey
17 - Brent Moloney
11 - Brad Green
10 - Nathan Jones
8 - Brock McLean, James Frawley (LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Colin Sylvia
7 - Brad Miller, Cameron Bruce, Stefan Martin
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year)
6 - Cale Morton
4 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell
3 - Matthew Bate, Ricky Petterd, Russell Robertson, Jared Rivers
2 - James McDonald
1 - Lynden Dunn

Next Week
You'd expect that St. Kilda would smash us, even though it is at the wildcard venue Carrara, but given the way we've managed to avoid getting murdered by the three best teams of last year in consecutive weeks (though it was a close run thing tonight) we just might be able to avoid copping a massive backhander in this one. Besides, all the interest will be in the following week when even the dickless pro-tank brigade will be cheering on a win against the Collingwood filth.

Next Year
McDonald, Whelan, Wheatley, Robertson. Who stays and who goes?

I'd say Wheatley is probably done for - he's not the worst player ever but he doesn't really add much to a rebuilding side. If he's lucky he might sneak into an established side in the pre-season. Definately deserves games in the second half of the year though, has been a good servant. Morton, wasted as he is in the backline, is doing his job with 100% better efficiency.

McDonald and Whelan aren't exactly the future but I'm not going to try and axe either of them. Have both been great players and deserve to go one more year (two in Whelan's case) if they want. Whelan's tackle on Franklin is enough to convince me that even in a world featuring Cheney and Bennell that he's got a role to play.

Robertson is the interesting one. Blooper aside he's filling a role at the moment. One or two goals a week, he kicks 30 for the year and what have we lost? If there was somebody else desperately pushing for the same spot I'd say he was in danger but the fact is there isn't and even if we're going to get rumbled every week we still need to kick goals to avoid thrashings. Unless we're going to trade for a forward, or somebody like Watts comes on big-time in the second half of the year I think he can go around for one more next year with the disclaimer that he might not make it until R22.

Interesting it seems a lot of people have turned on him in the last few weeks. Has always been a polarising player - except for the two or three years of his prime when he was running riot - but recently there's been a lot of hate directed his way. Even before last night. Meh, I'm philosophical about the whole thing. He's a bigger star amongst housewives than he is on a footy field these days but good luck to him, we're hardly pressing for the finals so let him do his own thing and give him a crack next year with the big "fire up or get the train to Cranbourne" disclaimer.

Procedural Announcement
I'm massively burnt out from writing about loss after loss, so next week I'm taking the now traditional Demonblog mid-season break. Last year it was overseas, this year it's in my loungeroom. So, first in first served if you want to write the St. Kilda game. As usual you can do whatever you like as long as you give the votes. Email to Supermercado -> demonblog.com or PM on Big Footy.

Fantasy Eurovision 2009

2009-05-18T13:21:00.017+10:00

(Dear readers,

Last night's Eurovision was as dull as you've come to expect. No novelty songs, no classics. I'll get around to doing a write up eventually, but in it's place we now cross to the England for a version special TSP interactive event...)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium for Europe's all time night of nights. Please welcome your host for the evening, the one and only

Ugly Dave Gray.

'ere thank you very much. You know, when they rang me up and offered me the chance to host this evening I told my wife and she turned to me and said "It's going to be a special occasion. I'd like you to put me in something long and flowing". So I threw her in the river. Boom Boom.

Anyway, on with the evening. The rules for Fantasy Eurovision are as follows;

* No matter if the singers carked it years ago. After all we've all died on stage at one point or another.
* No boring three minute limit for songs.
* In the event of more than one nominee being available for the nation then the participant has been randomly drawn.

Got that? Good. You know, on my way here tonight I walked past a couple a couple of flies. One looked down at the other and said "Don't look now, but your human's open" Ah ah ah ah ah ah.

Err anyway. Once you're done refreshing your memory of the classic hits contained within scroll down to the bottom to cast your vote in this important contest. Viewers across the world are hanging on the results.

Shall we all have a bit of a singalong then? Alright, let's have contestant #1

No, not that number one. This number one;

1. Switzerland - DJ Otzi "Hey Baby"

2. Wales - Catatonia "Road Rage"

3. East Germany - Nina Hagen "New York, NY"

4. Denmark - Aqua "Dr Jones"

5. Portugal - Rui Da Silva "Touch Me"

6. West Germany - The Real McCoy "Come and Get Your Love"

7. Italy - Albert One "Turbo Diesel"

8. Russia - TATU "All The Things She Said"

9. Iceland - The Sugarcubes "Birthday"

10. Moldova - O-Zone "Dragostea Din Tei"

11. Sweden - Roxette "Joyride"

12. Belgium - Plastic Bertrand "Ca Plane Pour Moi"

13. Northern Ireland - Feargal Sharkey "A Good Heart"

14. England - The Members "Sound of the Suburbs"

15. Norway - A-ha "The Sun Only Shines On TV"

16. Greece - Diamanda Galas "Double Barrel Prayer"

17. Spain - Las Ketchup "The Ketchup Song"

18. Netherlands - Dr. Alban "Sing Hallelujah"

19. Austria - Falco "Der Kommissar"

20. Republic of Ireland - The Pogues and the Dubliners - "Irish Rover"

21. France - Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgitte Bardot - "Bonny and Clyde"

22. Scotland - The Proclaimers "500 Miles"

23. Romania - Enigma "Sadeness Pt. 1"

Wasn't that marvellous?

Now for the most important part of the evening. Click here to cast your vote.

While you vote let's take a look at the act that the reason we're in majestic South London tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, the reigning champions - Cats UK

Results will be available after a decent period of reflection.

Kontroversy Korner

2009-05-16T20:40:00.006+10:00

I've got an issue with the TAC and their advertising. Now, disclaimers ahoy, we're all about dropping the road toll and you should certainly never drive - or go into strange motel rooms with footballers - after 25 beers and a bottle of vodka BUT their two most recent ads are an absolute farce.

Commercial A - Speed

Opens with a bit of harsh piano work and a singer wailing about how "I've been looking so long at these pictures of you that I somehow believe that they're real". Heartstrings tugged out, everyone sheds a tear and the message is fairly obvious - don't drive like a dickhead and you won't wreck the lives of your, or somebody else's - friends and family. But then they cock it up with the worst tag-line of all time.

"This is why you're photographed when you speed."

Yeah, that's wonderful but get your list of speed cameras out and tell me how many of them are on roads with a top speed of 80kph or more. Are they suggesting that tragic loss of life in a variety of incidents is why people are being stung for doing 64 in a 60 zone? Who knows what the stories behind the advertisement are, but I'm willing to bet that most of them involved some serious 150 in a 100 zone style speed, not 55 in a 50 zone. We're photographed when we speed because the whole state revenue would go tits up without it. How many times do you see a report of a fatal speed related crash in the country? And how many times have you driven hundreds of kilometres through the country and not seen one speed camera or police radar?

There's no money in sticking a camera behind a tree in Yackandandah so they won't do it, there's a billion dollars to be made nailing people on the Westgate Bridge so they do. Don't try to pretend you're being high and mighty now. For the record I don't necessarily disagree with the 3kph lee-way on speeding. I think it could stand to be proportional to the speed limit itself, to admit that 63 is not the same as 103 but I can live with it. More importantly I firmly believe that anyone doing 20 or 30kph over the limit without the best reason ever should lose their licence for five years if not more.

The message is right. Slow the fuck down and behave yourself, but to pretend that nailing people for going 4 or 5kph over the limit at relatively low speeds is any kind of public service is a joke. Going by the comments on that Youtube video when anyone dared to suggest the ad is a farce I expect somebody to lose the plot over this but don't miss the point - speed is one thing but you're photographed to prevent a calamity at 121kph on the Hume Highway, not 64kph on Orrong Road. Direct your emotional blackmail to the right markets.

Commercial B - Drink Driving

Couldn't find a copy of this one online, but I'm sure you've seen it. Two guys are in a pub and have absolutely no idea if they're over the limit or not. One is bigger, one has been drinking already, the standard drinks aren't actually standard drinks anyway etc..

Now, my problem with this one is that they themselves are admitting that the system for measurement of drinks is an absolute farce and that .05 is actually one massive lottery where people who are just guilty and people who are off chops are thrown into the same basket. First things first, who decided what a standard drink consisted of and why the fark don't we change it already? If nothing actually constitutes 1 standard drink anymore why can't we change the definition?

Does their own ad not prove that nobody actually understands the BAC system. It's one thing to say everyone needs to know their limitations but surely in the 21st century we can come up with something better. Don't ask me what, I'm no boffin, but you've got about 5 million scientists around the world. Get cracking. Go out drinking one night and invest in a few goes at the BAC tester in the pub. Try and guess the point at which you cross .05 - I guarantee you'll miss by a mile.

Again, the mystical line between .049 and .05 confuses me. I know you have to set a limit somewhere but are we really sure that a fat bloke who racks up .049 is any less of a danger to himself or others than a 50kg female who gets .05? If you rack up .10 and are out of your car dancing to the police car lights then yeah you're pretty shit, but is it not true that there are people who can have one drink and lose their mind without going anywhere near hitting the point where it becomes illegal and/or technically dangerous.

Err yes, so if you're going to waste my taxpayers money on these ads then at least do something sensible and realistic with them. This says it all really;

(P.S - No, I haven't been nicked for drink driving or speeding recently or indeed ever)

Ode to a Website

2009-05-16T20:30:00.001+10:00

Since I took my first, tentative steps towards the internet in 1997 by connecting via a BBS and looking up wrestling results (this very page. I'm still confused over the logic of the Dusty Rhodes turn 11.5 years later) there are very few websites that I can claim have had any influence on my life. YouTube, Wikipedia, the aforementioned DDT Digest, redhotplumpers.com, AFL Tables. That's about it really - everything else is just background noise and doe-eyed, scantily clad Bulgarian immigrants.

However I'd like to pay tribute to the latest member of the TSP Hall of Fame. But, first a little background.

Fantasy Football is nothing new. I remember owning a book in the early 90's explaining how you could set up a league with family and friends. Not surprisingly my year 6 classmates weren't as keen to pore over the stats as I was and the book ended up being thrown out somewhere. In fact before the internet came along footy tipping reigned as king and fantasy games were strictly for Americans or the English. In fact even when the internet came along nobody gave a rats for a few years, but somewhere three or four years ago Supercoach and Dream Team appeared on the Herald Sun and AFL websites respectively. I was roped in and at first paid scant regard to the way it worked - teams would be unchanged for weeks on end and I think Jared Rivers was my captain at one point when he was out for six weeks. Why would you have Rivers as captain anyway? Who knows.

Then along came Fan Footy and suddenly I was hooked. Being the sort of insular fan who couldn't care less about any player who didn't play for Melbourne I was suddenly introduced a whole world of random players that I'd never heard of. Who the buggery is Craig Bird? Who knows, but he's been in my team for two years now. The genius to the whole thing is the icons that go next to players with information about their performance - be it good, bad or otherwise. Suddenly the clunky AFL.com.au Game Tracker isn't the best place to follow a game. In this era when a player can have 30 touches and still not be anywhere near the best players in a match, it's Fan Footy that gives you the information you need to know to follow a game even if you haven't got it on the radio or tv.

Consider the following;

From this alone I can tell that the top 6 are all "hot", Jack Grimes is on Brad Johnson, Cheney is rising in value, Bartram is tagging, Miller is playing badly and Warnock has a specific defensive job. Hover over any of the logos for specific stats. What else do you need to know? Sure, you need to totally reject the idea of having a life to get into this stuff but once you do it's addictive. Looking for the scores on your mobile in the middle of a tedious date? Staight to FF.

The guiltiest pleasure of the whole thing is the tombstone logo. () Sure, it means that somebody's copped a long term injury but it's like an event to see it. Prismall, Hille, most of the Melbourne side at one time or another. You know that when that logo comes up you won't be seeing somebody for a long time. When Russell Robertson blew his achilles to shreds last year and I saw that on the screen in a dingy Singapore internet cafe I let out a plaintive wail. It's one thing when the radio says somebody's done their knee, but it's not true until m0nty confirms it.

The genius of the tombstone is that in my circle of acquaintances it has passed into common usage. Somebody's broken their leg falling out of a tree, "it's a tombstone for...", somebody's fallen off the back of the train, "tombstone in Connex Supercoach". Somebody's died? "Tombstones all around". In fact I would like to think that if I snuffed it tomorrow that my death notice would look like this;

Adam 1.0

The other notable feature of the site is the running commentary alongside the stats, most of which is seemingly written by 13-year-olds or complete lunatics. The vast majority of it consists of people posting as if they're actually talking directly to the player, though it's hard to work out whether Justin Sherman would actually know what "BoMbErZ-93" meant if he rolled up to him in the street and yelled "WTF SHERMAN u absolute MANCHILD". Apparently it's a compliment. Every game can also be relied on to have some muppet post that they made the lowest scorer on the ground their captain that week (double points) as if nobody has ever thought of that gag before. Then there's outright abuse. This afternoon "footy_wiz" was moved to say "firrito u flowering [fuck is replaced with flower, hillarity ensues - 1.0] spud, the 2 first gamers did better than you". No consideration of the fact that Firrito is richer, more famous and more chance of getting laid than anyone who has ever logged onto that website myself included.

Of course this year has seen the final ascent of fantasy football to the tip of everyone's tongue. Suddenly the real footy dissectors are coming in of a Monday morning and talking points instead of tips. The old style footy tipping, where you'd study the form for ten years and still get beaten by the work experience kid who guesses his tips, has been dethroned. It's a good thing, even if it has been taken a bit far with Dream Team updates on the big screen at the MCG and during radio calls. Even if it has created the phenomenon of idiots in the crowd going bananas over their own team copping a goal just because it's come from one of their players.

It'll play itself out over the next couple of years and everyone will get sick of it again but it's a wild ride while it lasts - and as far as I'm concerned Fan Footy is the best thing about it. In fact, as they might say , ,

(P.S - If I win my work comp this year I'm going to run into the office, throw Gatorade over myself in celebration and dedicate the victory to m0nty)

(P.P.S - If you made it this far you might be as sick as me. Normal people tuned out in the second paragraph)

Dog Day Afternoon

2009-05-16T20:04:00.001+10:00

And so another week is upon us. Are we absolutely sure that none of our players suddenly developed a random career threatening injury during the week? Well there's the first surprise of the day - I had my money on Jordie McKenzie having gone on an AFL Auskick tour of Mexico City and coming back with Swine Flu. Speaking of Auskick, at what point was Jo Bailey/Silvagni given the arse from the half-time "welcome the kids" promo? Poor Jo - sacked again. Sure, she's only the second best Bailey ever but when you're being fired so Dipper can have a larger share of air-time you know somebody's got it in for you.

Err, anyway, there was some sort of game on today. Frankly I'd rather spend 20 minutes writing about the vagaries of the Auskick program, and how I want to murder whoever came up with those CGU ads but I suppose you're not here for that. For the sake of historians reading back over this in decades to come we'd better at least pay some interest in the match.

BUT before I do may I say that the innovation of showing 'classic' matches on the screen before the first bounce is proving to be a winner with the handful of sick freaks like me who show up before 1.30. At the Geelong game it was the 1pt win in R20, 2005 and today it was the - arguably better - week after featuring Jeff White and 'that' free kick. Thought the Dogs fans were going to riot a second time seeing that. One thing that it did do was prove that Al Nicholson has been treated unfairly by history - he had a mighty second half in that one. There was even a Philth sighting for those of you still mourning his exit. They've got a few options for the Collingwood game. I'm sure they'll be cheap and go for 2007, but personally I'd prefer the wild last quarter comeback in 04 or Farmer's 9 goal second half in 2000. My god I need to get a job at Name-A-Game so I can do some dodgy after-hours duplication work.

Now, if we must, the match itself. Rivers and Frawley out injured, Bennell rested. Cheney, Valenti and Whelan back in the side. After copping goals in the first twenty seconds of the last two weeks we managed to stem the tide this time and only concede a point. Seriously, we're not doing so badly out of the centre overall but for god's sake can we please at least lock the ball down at the first bounce? It's getting ridiculous how many times we concede the first score then bounce back and start playing good football a few minutes later.

And good football it was today. For the first time it really looked like the gameplan was coming together. The delivery was crisp and our chains of handball didn't always go one step too far and end up with somebody (Jones, I'm looking at you) getting pinged for holding the ball. Didn't last, but it was a sexy glimpse into the future. Bate got the first in an important game for him after a terrible few weeks and by the 18 minute mark when Brock goalled we had opened up a fifteen point lead. By quarter time it was still 11, including another great Sylvia goal on the run from outside 50. He really needs to go to the Aaron Davey school of refusing to take set shots.

Bate and Jones kicked the first two of the second, but slowly the Melbourne we know and love (!?) crept back into the contest. Suddenly players were running into trouble needlessly and kicks were being butchered. The Bulldogs were hardly at their best and we still managed to take a lead into half time, but the tide was certainly turning. Akermanis - the burst player we would kill for - alone dragged the Dogs back into it. Cooney was getting done over by Bartram, but there was no stopping Aker. Halftime and we were in the bizarre position of playing well enough to be 6 goals in front, but not well enough to actually win the game.

Naturally the Dogs fans around us were getting nervous about the prospect of getting done over by the bottom side. I can see why too, it's the same thing we get when we're good (remember that?) and are pushed by bottom sides. At least if you're a Geelong or Hawthorn fan you know that if you lose and some idiot starts hanging it on you then you can drag out the giant cardboard cutout Premiership Cup, point it and walk off without saying a word. What are Footscray, St. Kilda, Melbourne or Freo fans (and any Richmond fan under 30) going to do? Being at the top end of the ladder and falling over the line is nothing to boast about without some sort of recent history behind it to back up the mockery. A loss, on the other hand, is symbolic of the exact reason why you (we?) have been so shit for so long. So you take your tight win and do a runner, or you lose and go straight to the top of the laughing stock league.

No, future historians, we didn't win. 4.6 to 0.0 from 8.22 of Q3 to 8.15 of Q4 saw to that but we showed that we're going places. Martin, Warnock and Cheney were holding firm down back, Morton was doing as he pleased coming out of defensive 50, Moloney and McLean were going bananas in the centre and the likes of Bate, Robertson and Maric were competitive up front. Class won out in the end, but not without a fight.

Miller had a rotten day but he never stopped putting in and despite missing a crucial shot in the dying minutes - had a hand in a couple of goals and fought all the way. I used to slaughter him, not without some justification, but the way his attitude has improved in our dark years has been remarkable. Maybe it was all taken for a granted a bit too much when we were good and now reality has hit home? Can't wait to see how he goes in a couple of years with the likes of Bate and Watts operating around him.

Maric crumbed one (CRUMB!) perfectly to get us back within fifteen, before Davey - who spent at least a quarter of the game on the bench getting attention on his hammies - got another to make things really interesting at the 13 minute mark. Another good game for Davey - nothing spectacular and a few more mistakes than recent weeks but he's still excelling in that role as a "quarterback".

Just as we got back into things it was reality check time. Morton 'gave away' a farcical free-kick on Boyd, which was then upgraded with a goal-square 50 when we played on for the next thirty seconds and got the ball to the opposite wing without wondering why every other player on the ground had stopped. Now, it was a truly rancid decision but surely if you're in any way interested in the concept of 'justice' then you've got to mark that off against the two criminal goals Robertson got from frees earlier in the game. The second, in particular, was comical umpiring - Robbo fell over without a Bulldogs player anywhere behind him and got a free for being pushed in the back. You may snicker, but if it'd happened to us you'd have thrown bottles.

Miller missed what he should have kicked before Scott Welsh goalled to effectively finish the contest. The Dogs missed a couple of sitters to well and truly put us away we got back into it we got a couple late with time to spare to close the margin right back up. Valenti first with a good running finish and then Bate's 4th in what was his best performance in a month - if not since the Hawthorn NAB cup game. Still 7pts behind with a minute left it wasn't completely inconceivable that we could snatch it, but not winning it out of the centre straight away off the next bounce wrecked any thoughts of pulling off the great escape.

So, another loss by under 10pts. Draft discussion notwithstanding, and in the knowledge that I would have killed for a win, that was about as good a loss as you get when you're in our position. The Dogs weren't at the top of their game and we still necked ourselves with dodgy disposal but we were there or thereabouts all day - and that's what counts. You can debate the advantage of adding picks 1 and 2 until the cows come home, and the odds are that one of them at least will be a gun, but even without them there's no debating that we're on the rise. Robbo is past his best, Johnson is so-so in the ruck and we lack that little bit of polish but Jesus H Christ there are signs of greatness building. Look at some of the guys we've unearthed already this season - Bennell, Cheney and Grimes (near enough) have all been revelations and that's without unveiling Watts, Strauss or Blease. Teenyboppers and bandwagoners - this is your two year boarding call. Buy your 2011 membership now because things could go nuts.

Meanwhile how much better have we looked since Robbo came back? He hasn't been anywhere near vintage the last three weeks but his mere presence drags our forward line up a notch. Would love for him to hang on for a couple more seasons for one last crack at the finals but I can't see it happening. I think we took the Robbo/Neitz years for granted at the time - we were blessed to have those two going around together.

Speaking of the draft I don't mind the idea of going in reverse order of the teams that miss the 8, but are we then going to end up with teams preferring to miss the finals knowing they're not going to win the flag and get pick 1 instead? Here's a radical concept for the league - just abolish the priority pick. Let's say we somehow finish 2nd last this year - if we're not good enough to build a list on a pick 4 (Morton), 1 (Watts), 2 (?) and a truckload of 10-20's then we should just give up. Same goes for any other team. Ok you'll still get teams pulling the pin at the end of the year to manipulate their position on the table and get a high pick but at least we won't have to go through this grim "no more than four" spectacle every fucking year. Carlton cheated their way to it, and I have no doubt we'll do exactly the same thing but it doesn't make it any more palatable.

Crowd Watch
28k. Absolutely pissweak effort by our fans. We whinge and moan about being given 15 1.10 Sunday games, but the moment they give us a game in the prime timeslot a handful of us show up. Any danger they might scan my membership, realise I've been to far too many losses in the last three years and ring up to say thanks? Now that they're getting into sending SMS'es to fans before games how about some credit for the people who have sat through this shit live rather than hiding in their loungeroom until we're good again?

Of course our next home game is Queen's Birthday, so we can assume that 30,000 once a year idiots will come out and embarass us all. Thanks for the gate takings and everything, but for fucks sake show up to the games.

Crumb Watch
Dial M for Maric. That is all.

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

Moloney shades Morton due to doing a truckload of work in the centre and throwing tackles like they're going out of fashion. Morton was important, but most of his were uncontested in the defensive 50. McLean also good once again.

5 - Brent Moloney
4 - Cale Morton
3 - Brock McLean
2 - Matthew Bate
1 - Aaron Davey

Apologies to Bartram (for the tag on Cooney only - please don't kick in again), Bruce, Cheney, Grimes, Johnson, The Stefan Martin Experience, Robertson, Sylvia and Whelan. Most of whom could have snuck in for 5th.

A word too for Lynden Dunn who I just like as a player. Didn't do a massive deal one way or the other today but I still think he's important to our structure.

Leaderboard

Sudden tightness at the top. Still no votes for the Strawbs O'Dwyer ruckman award but I'm throwing Johnson into the countback lead as he's gone very close two weeks in a row.

18 - Aaron Davey
17 - Brent Moloney
10 - Nathan Jones
8 - Brock McLean, Brad Green, James Frawley (LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
7 - Brad Miller
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Stefan Martin
6 - Cale Morton
4 - Matthew Warnock, Jamie Bennell
3 - Matthew Bate, Ricky Petterd, Colin Sylvia, Cameron Bruce, Russell Robertson
2 - James McDonald, Jared Rivers
1 - Lynden Dunn

Kasey Korner
I'll be there tomorrow. Don't know about a full report, but I'll throw some thoughts on MFC listed players on here if I don't get lost on the way. Interestingly enough one Mr. A Yze of Box Hill will be lining up against us tomorrow. Hope he gets 45 touches, dominates and Casey still win.

2010 Captaincy Market
Thanks to our good friends and sponsors at betezy.com.au*

$3 - James McDonald
$5 - Brad Green, Cameron Bruce
$6 - Brent Moloney
$12 - Brad Miller
$5000 - Greg Healy

Personally I think McDonald will go around for one more year, so they're not going to bounce him. I'd expect that at the end of next year it will be a toss up between Green and Moloney. For mine as long as he can get through the next couple of years without getting seriously injured Moloney wins just for being a Melbourne fan as a kid.

* Not really, but they are an MFC sponsor. So bet big - but probably not on us.

Merchandise Manor
The new Hankook/Kaspersky Lab jumpers are in next week. Pre-ordered already and looking forward to rocking the first edition #34 SME jumper at the Hawthorn game.

Thus finally endeth the era of the Philthy Phil #28. We saw some good times in that, and a lot of shit times - and only once did somebody question me as to why the fark I had that on the jumper. Good times. Now, it's up to ol' Octopus Arms himself to do the number proud.

Next Week
Hawthorn @ the family friendly graveyard slot of 4.40pm. The good news is that it's not our home game so it doesn't matter when 25 people show up. 11 game members should note that if they can stay awake long enough they can get into this game free as the replacement for the Canberra match.

I expect, however, that we'll lose comfortably. It's one thing to push the Dogs to the line but another to do over the Hawks coming off a win. Garland rolled Franklin last time, now somebody else (Warnock?) has to step up and keep him quiet. Then you've got the other guy - it's about 5000% more formidible than anything the Bulldogs will ever serve up. I expect that once again the priority pick frenzy are pulling themselves over the prospect of another loss.

Final Thoughts
Is everything covered? Are we ordering 2013 Premiership t-shirts yet? Cheerio and go Dees.

Good God

2009-05-11T20:40:00.003+10:00

"There is a nip in the air" he says. "I love Australia for Australians". Why are you rapping then you old crunt? This was so bad it couldn't even chart in 1992 in a year when 2 Unlimited, Right Said Fred and Dannii Minogue were riding high in the Top 40. Pure horror.

Bank of Horror

2009-05-11T15:26:00.003+10:00

Everyone mocks me for banking with Bank of Queensland, but the distinct lack of customers has an advantage in being able to eavesdrop on other customers. Here's a particuarly cringeworthy exchange I heard today between Horny Customer (HC) - a trady sort in a singlet - and Attractive Teller (AT) - an, err, attractive teller..

HC - How are you?
AT - Oh not good, I'm sick
HC - Oh yeah, I noticed you weren't here last week.
AT - I'm getting better now
HC - *laughing* It wasn't that AIDS was it?
*silence*
HC - I had that once. Ha ha. Got rid of it, gave it to somebody else.
*long silence*
*Adam tries to remain upright whilst feeling the need to fall to the floor*
*still silence*
AT - So....... what can I help you with today?

Supremely inappropriate. Gentlemen, remember that line next time you're trying to woo a special lady.

I Am Your Leader

2009-05-10T12:15:00.003+10:00

Who would have guessed the opposition would whinge about the budget?

I created this in five minutes Hockey you bastard, show some respect.

Maybe in retrospect I did go a bit OTT on welfare..

Top of the Slops

2009-05-10T01:33:00.005+10:00

Could this be the most hideous novelty single of all time?

Alvin And The Chipmunks With Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart

All the way to #53 on the UK charts in December 1992. Surely you'd look back on that purchase and wonder if you couldn't have done better with your money by throwing it into the North Sea attached to a brick.

If you dare...

Could always be worse I suppose. #53 is one thing, but imagine if you contributed to any one of Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers three - count them - number one singles. What the fark were you - hypothetically - thinking? As a 9 year old I bought a cassingle copy of The Skyhooks excremental Jukebox in Siberia and even I wouldn't have touched the Jive Bunny catalogue. The Bunny era lasted two short years but by christ it must have made somebody a fortune. The law of diminishing returns eventually caught up to them though. In order the singles charted at 1 ($), 1 ($$), 1 ($$$ how good is this!), 4 , 8, 13, 28 (wait, I think people are starting to get over this), 43, 43 (and that will just about do us). Even the album spent five months in the charts. My god.

This site is the ultimate novelty track goldmine. A thing of beauty.

Advertising Gold

2009-05-04T20:37:00.002+10:00

Forget footy 1986-2009. This is where the game officially hit it's peak.

Meanwhile the real version of this jingle (shamelessly pinched from Milwaukee as it was) is still the finest station promo yet.

Having said that there was a Channel Seven one to the tune of Mahnamahna which deserves a second look.

The Foregone Conclusion Cup

2009-05-03T20:36:00.000+10:00

If last week was the equivalent of some really long and pointless Swedish movie that you can't quite understand, then this week had the potential to be a Cannibal Holocaust style violent slasher snuff film. In case you were hit on the head by a rogue Brent Grgic slice at Baytec Stadium and have just woken up from the resultant coma - Geelong are quite a good team these days, Grgic doesn't play for them anymore and nobody is quite sure what Kardinia Park is called this week. I'm not sure if the first two are connected.

We, however, are struggling. The green shoots of recovery are there somewhere but we're still a long way from seeing any real returns on our investments. Last week against Adelaide we were arguably half decent but let down by the complete absence of a forward structure for most of the game. The long awaited return of Russell Robertson addressed that issue somewhat, but the fact of the matter still remained that the worst team of the past two years was lining up against the best and a world class porking was on the cards.

Somehow despite the Cats racking up an all-time record for the most disposals in one game with two players on more than 40 possesions, and having 36 scoring shots it didn't happen this way. Whisper it quietly we were even winning at one point. Sure, it was for about two minutes at the end of the first quarter and it stirred the Cats into switching gear and putting us away but it was nice while it lasted. The freak who had a casual $500,000 on Geelong to win $25k surely wouldn't have been too concerned (after all you would have to have grapefruits the size of Peru to put a bet like that on in the first place) but he must have been wondering if Geelong could possibly find a way to throw the match. They couldn't.

Speaking of world records I'm not sure I've ever seen a quicker goal from the first - or indeed any - bounce that didn't involve a downfield free kick or a 50. For some reason Ablett, coming off about 4000 possesions in a month was allowed to stand all on his own in the centre. I'm sure everyone in the world could see what was going to happen next and lo and behold fate didn't disappoint. Straight into his hands, wandered to just outside 50 and slotted it in 9 seconds.

On the strength of that moment alone things looked like they were going to get really, really ugly but in reality after that we spent the next 25 minutes being better than we had any right to be while the Cats seemed to be suffering a major lack of interest. I can understand where they're coming from, having won 48 of the last 51 games including a couple of grand finals it must be difficult to get yourself motivated to be dragged into a slopfest against the worst team in the land. If we'd been able to kick straight we'd have made it even more interesting. The much welcome return of Robertson delivered a couple of nervous looking points but more importantly put somebody into our forward line who could go on a long lead and mark without tripping over and killing themselves.

Down the other end the Cats were going inside 50 without trouble, but a combination of excellent defensive work and poor kicking kept us from being totally destroyed. I'm going to say this every week but Frawley, Warnock, Martin and Rivers are starting to develop into a formidable unit. If we can keep them together in the future that's the springboard to build a decent team from. Even Rivers' luck must have swung around somewhat, the knock he got to the knee in Q3 would probably have ended up with him in hospital over the last few years but this time he was back within minutes taking grabs and filling gaps inside 50. The only blemish on his record was a sloppy shanked kick straight down Johnson's throat in the second.

Not surprisingly, as often happens a good team held to a points draw by a poor team in the first quarter realises what's going on during the quarter time break and come out to rectify the situation before half time. Suddenly they had free players everywhere and were putting more pressure on our players leading to turnovers left, right and centre and textbook rebound football on their behalf. Only Paul Johnson's late goal - and he was at least better than he has been recently - kept us within six goals at the long break and it seemed as if any remaining resistance was going to collapse in a screaming heap.

5 Geelong behinds and a goal to start the third quarter made it look like we were going to get bitchslapped, but Robbo's 2nd and 3rd goals - celebrated wildly despite the scoreboard - dragged it back to 30 points before they got a couple of late ones. We pulled off a couple of pieces of sublime linking football but time and time again we'd do the hard work and turn it over. At least they tried something different in the forward line by sending the Stefan Martin Experience up there for the first time. He gave off a couple of clever assists and looked lively but I'm hardly declaring him to be the future of goalscoring. Similarly Petterd was lively again without ever dominating.

The key fourth quarter highlight was Davey's flying smother in the centre. How good was that? I'm still convinced that we're lacking crumb, but I have to admit that he is dominating in his new role. Hawkins - aka the Geelong Newton - finally flounced his way to a goal to open the quarter but with Ablett off, Scarlett rested and most of their other players struggling to maintain interest we won the last. Incidentally Juice could make a fortune if he franchised his style of gameplay - Hawkins in Geelong, Gill in Adelaide. Could be big bucks in it for him.

Ironically we've now gone into games against Geelong twice in two years expecting to get massacred and come away with a creditable performance both times. Then when we were in relatively decent form last year and played them on the Friday night they cut us to shreds. The moral of the story? Throw ourselves on the mercy of the footballing world every week before we play them.

Nobody seriously expected us to win so what did we really lose today? The pro-tank bin scab faction were probably sitting there in Geelong scarves punting it home, and the rest of us saw a team that is a couple of years away from being truly competitive no matter who ends up joining us via the draft. I said I'd take anyth

2009 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes

5 - Aaron Davey
4 - James Frawley
3 - Russell Robertson
2 - Brent Moloney
1 - Stefan Martin

Varying degrees of apologies to Miller, Rivers, Jones, Warnock, McLean, McDonald, Petterd, Meesen, Sylvia and Morton

On the other side of the coin we have to work out what's wrong with Bate. Ever since he was one of a handful of contributors in Adelaide a few weeks back he has had three consecutive games of complete pox. You would have thought that the return of Robbo would free him up to play further up the ground, and while he got a little bit of it late on it was still well under his best.

Maric had an absolute nightmare. After showing a lot of promise last season and sneaking into the bests for Casey in most of their early games he turned up today and played undoubtedly the worst game since either of Weetra's spectacular performances at the start of last season. I suppose you give everyone a second chance but good god he'd want to improve significantly on the Keystone Kops trash he served up today.

Leaderboard

For the first couple of weeks it was how far Green, now it's Davey who is streaking to the title. Cheney still leads the Hilton on the strength of Round 1 alone but the voting system could prove controversial if he's still in that position come R22. In reality Bennell is really the moral leader at this point.

17 - Aaron Davey
11 - Brent Moloney
8 - Brad Green, James Frawley (LEADER: 2009 Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
5 - Kyle Cheney (LEADER: 2009 Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year), Nathan Jones, Brock McLean, Stefan Martin
4 - Matthew Warnock, Brad Miller
3 - Ricky Petterd, Colin Sylvia, Cameron Bruce, Russell Robertson
2 - James McDonald, Jared Rivers
1 - Matthew Bate, Lynden Dunn

Crowd Watch
Two things that should be outlawed - forcibly if required.

1) Grown men waving flags

It's bad enough as it is, but unlike kids who just swing the thing around without concern and nearly take your eye out the grown man flag waver goes about his craft with an intensity bordering on psychotic. They wave the thing around in intricate patterns as if not following the same sick ritual will cause the world to end.

Judgement - Nobody over 13 years old shall henceforth be permitted to wave a flag unless they are in a cheer squad.

Sure cheer squads should be shot as well but that's for another day.

2) Teenybopper female fans displaying homemade signs.

No person, male or female, older than 13 to bring a handwritten homemade sign declaring their undying love for a player. We're all for women in football here but ask yourself how many times you see a 16-year-old with an "I HEART PLAYER X" handwritten sign when your team is losing. The "ILUVROBBO24" faction dropped off the twig a couple of years ago, but they were out there in numbers and are waiting for us to fire up again so they can come back. There were two girls sitting in front of me today who must have been in their mid-20's and were waving signs about telling us how much they loved Joel Selwood. One day Geelong are going to turn rancid and these people will disappear.

Judgement: Handwritten signs to be banned. Sew a banner with a terrible pun a'la the cheersquad or at least spraypaint it on a
bedsheet and display the thing at the top of the Southern Stand.

Female fans of a legal age shall henceforth follow historical tradition and only declare their love for individual players on the internet or in the back seat of cars outside seedy nightclubs.

Kasey Korner
Caught the last three quarters of the game against Coburg. Newton kicked five and no doubt will get a recall sometime before the end of the season but I was most impressive by Danny Hughes. Would love to see him get a game before the end of the year. Whelan was impressive as well, but to be entirely honest I'm not sure where he fits into our plans at the moment. Bennell has been too good to drop, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to switch the two around at some point. The really interesting one is Wheatley - where does he come back? To be honest I don't see any point to him at the moment.

Oh and there was some kid called Watts who was quite good as well. Makes Morton look like Hulk Hogan at the moment though so I still can't support playing him before the halfway mark of the year. Could be an absolute stud in the future though if his senior debut was anything to go by.

The Tombstone Report
It's the year of players mysteriously getting injured. First Garland, then McDonald and now Sam Blease - leg snapped in two during a schoolyard kickaround. My god.

For this reason if Watts is going to play school football then I volunteer to go to each game and throw myself in front of him at every contest.

Radio Watch
Triple M is my preferred listening at a game, but overall it is an absolutely gash radio station. Don't you just want to stab Pete and Myf in the face? And the claim in their jingle that it's "the breakfast show that Melbourne wakes up to" should be investigated by the Advertising Standards Tribunal if the ratings are anything to go by.

Next Week
West Coast in Perth in the 4.40pm Sunday game. They're hardly setting the world on fire at the moment but there's more chance of peace in the Middle East than there is of us winning anywhere west of Melbourne at the moment.

Newspaper in Pissweak Reportage Shock

2009-04-28T17:16:00.004+10:00

Ladies, ever had a random gentleman flash his knob at you? Not exactly top on your list of priorities in life I'm sure. Well, The Age want you to know that sexual crimes are a good excuse for a bit of comedy;

Hi - lar - ious in the office I'm sure. Maybe NOT so appropriate on a front page.