“One of the most troubling aspects of the FIFA World Cup is the selfish, even rude, performance of many of the goalscorers, often ignoring or holding back their celebrating teammates so that they alone can get the limelight,” writes Rosebery’s Chris Commens. “I looked on Google to see if there was a word for this behavior. ‘Loan thief’ is one off-handed AI response. Did scorers keep going like this 50 years ago?”
Kiama’s Nola Tucker joins the round-the-ball pile-up: “Who needs acting classes when football is there to show us how? Is there anything more persuasive than a player’s stomping, whining and angst as an opponent nearly hits him? ‘I’m going to lie here moaning until the ref does something.’ Academy Award Stuff.”
“Sad to hear of Bonnie Tyler’s death,” says Narrabeen’s Peter Cole. “I once had a GPS device in my car that I named ‘Bonnie’ after her. It kept telling me to turn, and every time, it crashed.”
“As an opal buyer visiting Lightning Ridge in 1978, I was recommended to join the Australian Order of Old Bastards (C8) by local opal cutter Greg Pardy,” recalls Warwick Sherman of Huntleys Point. “Greg advised that to get membership, I had to put the word aardvark in a sentence. Almost without thinking, I said ‘Aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles, my mother’. I was accepted immediately.”
“Apropos of George Zivkovic’s ‘Old Farts Ale’ (C8) of Northmead, for those other people who can annoy others after a couple too many. A few years ago I came across a stammer of ‘My Wife’s Pain’ in a local special bottle, which contains many obscure beers,” says Waitara’s Richard Jary. “As I recall, it was the same descent.”
George now has other issues: “I think we’ve all seen those ‘practice makes better’ commercials on TV for car insurance companies, but who collects the balls left behind when cars are restarted and driven?”
“One memorable hunt (C8) at the University of NSW in the 1970s involved 1000 points for a police car and police (the local police shop happily obliged as it was good PR) and something like a million points for a hamburger and a signed receipt from Harry’s Café de Wheels,” reports Dave Gosfordll of Northern Horsfall. “Hint – they don’t sell hamburgers.”
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