Let's do launch!

Book Launch

I WILL LAUNCH MAAATE! Bribe Proofing the Public Purse Against Good Blokes

• ·         on November 24 (Queensland Election Eve)
• ·         from 5:30pm
• ·         at the Croquet Club Hall, 91 Cordelia Street, South Brisbane.

Short story about Hanson

Pauline Hanson is back so it’s time for the return of my story

CODPIECE & CHIPS

Prince of Wales Hotel, Nundah, Brisbane, March, 1996

A MAN’S voice from behind me whispered four numbers in my ear. I turned around to see a short Asian man, neatly though casually dressed in a blue polo shirt and brown slacks. He repeated the four numbers.

‘That’s what I thought,’ I said and echoed the numbers.

He nodded. ‘Take them in the quinella and the trifecta.’

I retreated to a far corner of the PubTAB, turning to nod slightly at him. Lonely people, usually blokes, approach strangers in a betting agency to discuss the chances in the next race. He had made no effort to follow me.

His tips ran 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 10th. I did the math. If I had bet one unit on a box quinella and a half-unit on a box trifecta, I would have collected $1900 and change for an outlay of $18. I looked across at him and his face held no expression apart from a hint of sorrow.

He was beside me again five races later, minutes before a Brisbane event. Four more numbers he gave me, again for the quinella and trifecta.

‘Thanks,’ I said and made other wagers which lost. His numbers had won again. This time my collect would have been $1450 or so on $18 of bets. I sought him out.

‘You must be going well.’

His face was blank. ‘I cannot afford to bet. The next race won’t work out. I will tell you when.’

Taking tips from a man who can’t afford to bet is pretty dumb, but I did, anyway, when next he tapped me on the shoulder. I missed out on the trifecta where you need to back 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the right order. The best three of his four horses ran 1st, 2nd and 5th, instead of 3rd. I collected $82 on the quinella ─ backing 1st and 2nd in either order ─ for a win of more than $60.

I offered to buy him a beer and he took lemonade instead before we perched on adjacent bar stools. We introduced one another. I was Steele Hill. He was Mat bin Wardi. He was a 39-year-old from Malaysia. I was not interested in much of that. ‘Too bad, you are short of a dollar when your luck’s running hot, Mat.’

He sipped his lemonade. ‘I have money but not for gambling.’

‘You could have had a lot more,’ I said. He was a rare punter without regrets, could’ves and should’ves, we gamblers call them. The traditional riposte to should’ve-ers is ‘if me Aunty had balls’. The rest of the admonition ‘she’d be me Uncle’ is left understood. Mat was no should’v-er.

‘I only need what I have ─ $10,000 and enough to live on for two months.’

I looked for eavesdroppers. ‘I wouldn’t mention ten grand too loudly. That sort of dough makes some people do nasty things.’

He had already pledged the big money. ‘It’s for the Racing Minister.’

I imagined why Mat would give the Queensland Racing Minister 10 large but I came up empty. ‘See you later,’ I said and walked over to study the form sheet stuck to the wall.

He tipped me another quinella on the last race in Brisbane, $115 collect this time, but no buckets of gold from that elusive trifecta. It was time to go home, have dinner and maybe hit the Hendra TAB for the night’s trotting races.

I saw him walking down the footpath off Sandgate Rd in the opposite direction to where I was heading. I swung the EH around and pulled up beside him. ‘Wanna lift?’

He pointed down the footpath. ‘I can walk to Aspley.’

I suppose he could. ‘Bother, that’s gotta be seven or eight kilometres. Hop in.’

He put comfort ahead of self-reliance. ‘Thank you, Mr Hill.’

‘It’s Steele, and, if you’re worried you told me about that 10 grand, I’ll drop you near your place.’

‘Ten grand? Drop me?’ 

‘Let you off. She’s a tough old emu, our version of the English language.’

He laughed. ‘I love it. It’s just like Australia. Free.’

He gave me directions to the Aspley Caravan Park. We pulled up beside his rented van.

‘Would you like an early dinner?’ he said. He saw my look which pondered whether he could afford to shout. ‘Nothing special but tasty,’ he said.

We entered the van and he flicked on the tiny screen of a television set perched on a round cane table. ‘The six o’clock news will be on soon,’ he explained.

We had rice, pieces of fish and vegetables with both chilli and soy sauces ─ tasty indeed.

We talked; mostly he did, over dinner. Mat bin Wardi had been in Australia for fourteen months. He was a medical registrar in Malaysia and his wife was a nurse. Their two teenage children were in high school. By national standards, the family was doing all right. Middle class, he said. Asian stiffs, I thought.

It was the usual story. The kids have to do better than us. Take them to Australia to study medicine. Happily ever after, I think that’s how it finishes. You’ve probably seen the movie.

He interrupted himself when the news bulletin started. He turned up the volume on the television. I continued to eat and waited for him to re-kick his bio into action.

Both parents tried for permanent residence in the free Land of Oz, as a couple and as individuals. No go, they had preferred occupations but other things were not quite right. Mat came over alone on a 12-month visa to find work and sponsors. He found little of the first and none of the second.

A news item made him leap to his feet and point at the screen. ‘That’s her.’

I looked up to see a 40-something red-haired woman I had never seen before, but I watch little television.

Mat was winding himself up and the words flew from his mouth. Her name was Pauline Hanson. She had been kicked out of the Liberal Party for saying illiberal things about Asian immigration into Australia. She was still running for the Federal election as an independent. She owned a fish and chip shop. Sounded pretty mundane stuff to me – Mr and Mrs Bigot and the Bigot kiddies having a whinge around the barbie.

One aspect was a little strange and I asked about it. ‘Is it relevant she owns a fish and chip shop?’

‘No, I bought the fish we are eating from there and it reminded me I had read it.’

‘You bought fish and chips from Pauline Hanson’s shop? Did she serve you?’

‘Not from her shop which is way out in Ipswich. From a fish shop near here. I asked what sort of fish they had and the man said cod or whiting but they were out of whiting. I ordered a codpiece and chips. In Malaysian markets you can choose from many species of fish. I ate the chips at lunchtime with the batter I cut from the codpiece which we are now eating.’

‘Delicious,’ I declared, thinking Mat must have heard someone in front of him order a piece of cod and chips. His version of the order was close enough not to need correcting. He continued with his story of trying to bring the family to the Great Southern Land of Opportunity. Mat was desperate.

Can you adam-and-eve his luck? He met a man in a PubTAB. His new friend would see the Queensland Racing Minister, and, 10,000 of Mat’s dollars later, he would have permanent residence. Can you adam-and-eve it? Can you believe it?

I could see no point in explaining immigration was a Federal not a state responsibility. The best thing I could do for Mat was to meet this politically connected hustler about to relieve the would-be New Aussie of 10K. I changed the subject to his racing system.

Mat bin Wardi was using numerology to pick the placegetters in races. Certain numbers are connected. More than that, they are the same number, only different. When that number, or series of four numbers, which are actually the one number, will come up is determined by previous results. I know it sounds complicated but it is reasonably straight forward when an Asian numerologist such as Mat explains it.

You are probably saying it is all hoodoo-guru-voodoo tripe and I agree. But I still win on the system from time to time, so I am not sharing any more details, in case you follow the system and erode my winnings.

We finished dinner and I wrote down my phone number in case Mat wanted a lift to a TAB.

I tried his system on the horses over the next month. Sometimes, I used just Mat’s numbers. Other times, I mixed his numbers with my own scientific selections. During the third week, I finally cracked the trifecta, a $2500 collect at the Mooney Valley trots. I lost half my winnings during the next week. Betting on the greyhounds from home on a Thursday night, I received the call. The bloke who knew the Racing Minister had disappeared along with Mat’s $10,000. Mat was skint and needed unemployment benefit. Could I help? We met the next day at the Prince of Wales pub. He looked spent and I asked him if he had walked. He denied it.

He explained why he needed my help. ‘I have no money to pay anyone to get me unemployment relief and I don’t know how to do it any other way,’ he said.

I promised to ring someone. Sexy ambitious public servant Cassie Billings had almost got me killed five years earlier. She owed me. The Nundah dole office told me still-20-something go-getter Cassie had moved to head office. I phoned her there.

She remembered me. ‘Oh, right, you’re the beno I exchanged tongues with a while back on the top floor of our building.’ I was glad I was memorable for my speaking in tongues.

Five years on, I was again sucked into a verbal joust with Cassie Billings. ‘Cassie, I thought you weren’t allowed to use the b-word as in beno for unemployment beneficiary.’

She seemed to be sucking on a lollipop or a biro while she spoke. ‘I’ve made a unilateral exception for a spunky beno like you. How you doing?’

I was owed, that’s how I was doing. ‘You almost got me killed.’

She made a sympathetic sound in her throat. ‘Almost, as in you’re still alive. How can I help you?’

I explained about Mat. She said she expected a more exciting request but she would post the application and identity forms. She could not process the forms herself. She would line Mat up with a Chermside assessor who would play nice. ‘Jamie Harris, remember that name; he’s kosher.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering what kosher meant in public-servant speak apart from consuming too much American culture.

The forms arrived in the post below a With Compliments slip. ‘Call me, Sweetie,’ Cassie Billings had written on the with-comps. I wrote ‘why would I call you Sweetie?’ below her message before I decided the jest was lame. I binned the note.

Mat and I went through his caravan looking for all the items you need to make up the points for identity. We came up a little shy so I rang people I know in the industries of printing and forgery.

Within a few days, Mat’s proof of identity was sweet. We even had a notice of termination of employment and a glowing reference, both courtesy of my illegal bookmaker mate, Con Vitalis. It seemed Vitalis also had a lawful business in office supplies. That sideline business existed only on very convincing paper.

I coached Mat to be respectful but not too nervous when he applied for the dole. He needed to ring beforehand and make sure he would be interviewed by Jamie Harris. Mat was to mention Cassie Billings. If Harris did not respond positively, we would have a re-think.

Mat attained his interview with Mr Harris. Mat said it appeared to go well. Harris asked about his other work besides his stint in office supplies. Mat answered truthfully about his lowly paid back-breaking farm work of vegetable picking, north of Brisbane. Harris asked about his family in Malaysia. The public servant appreciated Mat’s fervent wish to earn enough to bring them all to Australia, the land of the free. Harris said Matt should have his first cheque in the mail in three weeks.

He waited three weeks and nothing turned up. Another week passed and still nothing. Mat asked me what to do and I was unsure. We decided to wait another week.

Two days later, it was I who received a phone call from Jamie Harris. He wanted to see me at the Chermside unemployment office.

Harris was in his late 20s, of average height and skinny. He wore all black from top to toe, including long black hair in a ponytail. He spoke in a deep warm voice. ‘Come in, Steele. You’re quite a character from what Cassie Billings tells me.’ He guided me to a seat at a desk opposite him in a private cubicle.

We spoke about the weather. We talked about Cassie Billings. The conversation moved to music and he was in a bluegrass band. ‘You should come see us play. I will put you down for one-plus-one on the door.’ I thanked him for the offer of two free tickets to a gig. After that, we were down to business.

He asked me how I knew Mat bin Wardi. I was figuring the odds and decided a half-truth was the way to go. I would sort of say we met at the TAB. ‘We both turned up for work at the same place.’ He guessed the end of the tale. ‘No luck with the work, ay?’ I shook my head.

‘Not that day, no.’

He looked down at the desk in embarrassment but raised his head with a smile. ‘It is going to be Mat’s lucky day, today. He is a good bloke. I worked in a country office for a few years. Like Mat, I did a bit of vegetable harvesting to raise a few extra shekels as pub gigs in the bush pay shit.’

I nodded in agreement, knowing, for most bands, pub gigs pay shit, city or country.

His expression became more serious, but still friendly. ‘The thing is, I did not wish to worry Mat, but my superior is holding up the application. I tell you; three times I’ve tried to hide it under her nose by slipping it among straight-forward payments. She has caught me out every time.’ Harris tapped his own nose twice, with a finger, as if that meant something to me.

I felt my own index finger move towards my nose but I retracted it, not seeing value in exchanging obscure signals. ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.

He shook his head and waved his arms to show he had no problem with Mat or me. ‘He forgot to put in his passport. Mat has sufficient identification, but in cases like his, we need to see his passport.’

‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘Mat just has to bring his passport in and you will give him a counter cheque.’

He gave me a vigorous thumbs-up. ‘That’s it. You can even bring the passport in for him. I’ll photocopy it and phone you, Steele, when Mat can come in for his cheque. He has absolutely nothing to worry about.’

I thanked him and said I would see Mat immediately and have the passport for copying within the hour.

Mat took some time to find his passport. I asked him why he had not thought of it when we put his identity together. He said he did not know. ‘I give you my passport and I will get paid, Steele? And you’ll bring it back straight away.’

I laughed at Mat’s worrying nature and at his relief when I brought the passport back within 45 minutes.

Immigration officials came for him, two days later.

They worked fast and said he would be on the plane to Malaysia within two months, after they had interviewed him thoroughly.

They allowed me to visit him in his detention cell. It was funny. He was the calmest I had seen him. ‘It’s not your fault, Steele. I should have told you why I did not want to give you my passport when we first looked for identity documents. You tried to help me, but you were too trusting. It’s not your fault. Your personality is in the numbers. We are friends. When I come back to Australia, I will meet you at the Prince of Wales.’

I said I’d like that.

I rang the bluegrass man. Harris said it was nothing personal but the Australian ecosystem needed zero population growth. ‘It is all our land can sustain,’ he said.

I asked him about the rigmarole of calling me into his office and making me get Mat’s passport.

‘You won’t help another one of them, after this,’ he said and hung up.

Another one of them, the phrase rang in my ear.

___o0o___

PAULINE Hanson was elected to Federal parliament before Mat was deported. I took a little more interest in politics after that and asked Gooroo to send me a copy of her maiden speech.

She was still banging on about her favourite sore points. ‘I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.

‘If I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say into who comes into my country.’ She said her views were based on ‘common-sense and my experience as a mother of four children and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop’.

Pauline Hanson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-_DStmAH7o

From Bernie Dowling's Naughty Nineties – Steele Hill Short stories

7 Reasons to read 7 Shouts

WE are all sick of reading the same old stuff, week in week out.

I probably only have to give you one good reason to read a good Bent Banana Book, a book which is different. But I am a generous sorta bloke and I will give you 7.

Laughs amid the turmoil

Book Review by Bernie Dowling

Weimar Vibes is a most humorous novel on a very serious subject.

To sex or not to sex

THAT is the question: to sex or not to sex.

A lot of websites are saying no to sex.

On the first page of a Google search of mine, six websites had this exact same bait line: 'American Playwright David Mamet explains why no play or movie he writes or directs include explicit sex scenes.'

Oh! Calcutta! you are so quaint

Critical readers have their say about 7 Shouts

A fun read June 10, 2012

By Jane.S

Bernie Dowling has a unique voice that really brings his columns to life. I highly recommend this to anyone that enjoys Australian humour. Even if you don't laugh you will be entertained and informed. My favourite is the Slanguage chapter. For the record I say 'marown'.

Rich crazies insure their best bits

OMG what can you say

When a loopy has lots of dough

I received this media release from an insurance company today.

I have no comment.

I mean, really, what can you say?

Cheers

Bernie

What do alien abductions, legs, backsides, moustaches and voices all have in common?

The answer is, celebrities insure them! Here are just some of the fascinating things that the stars are insuring²: Shirley MacLaine has protection against alien abduction for $25mil Model Heidi Klum's legs were insured for $2.2mil Former Test cricket player Merv Hughes' walrus moustache for $370,000 Bruce Springsteen's voice for $6mil Dolly Parton's 'renowned assets' for $600,000 One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson's backside for $160,000 Amazing! You could even say crazy. But on the other hand, celebrities recognise what's most valuable to them and insure against damage or loss of their signature 'asset'. They do it for peace of mind. 95 percent of Australian families don't have adequate insurance¹. That's a lot of under-valued Aussie parents, partners and kids. Now that's crazy! For further information or to purchase Ezicover insurance*, please click here. A reminder about what's important in life from NRAS Australia.

10 annoying things in fiction

“I know nothing about him,” I murmur.

“…Thank you,” I murmur.

“Um. Actually –” I mutter.

“Raising the ordinary to the extraordinary,” I murmur.

“It’s shrewd business,” he murmurs.

“Very well,” she mutters, then exits.

“Oh I’ll bear that in mind,” I murmur.

– All the above quotes are from Chapter 1 of Fifty Shades of Murmuring and Muttering

10  annoying things in fiction

 10.  A sentence which starts with Then.

  9. A sentence with then in it.

  8. Sentences without verbs except those in this article.

   7. Sentences with many overblown annoying unnecessary florid adjectives.

   6 Characters who express direct speech in any of the following ways: laugh, grin, cry, smile, exclaim, explode, object, sigh, scowl, murmur.

  5. Adverbs which constantly modify how someone speaks, I say scathingly.

  4. Characters who appear for no reason

  3. Characters who disappear without explanation

  2. The word very which is a very bad word.

  1. More than one ante-climax.

Games people play

Olympic Rant #11 Games reputation on the chopping block

WHEN I heard the IOC had booted out a referee and the coppers had lumbered an Olympic tweeter, I thought it best to turn my attention to an alternative spectacular, the annual Pine Rivers Show.

No axes in the back at the Pine Rivers Show

In the noble sport of bashing, referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov of Turkmenistan was punted from the London games after he failed to stop a match despite a fighter from Azerbaijan being knocked to the canvas six times.

Amazingly, judges awarded the fight to the Azerbaijani Magomed Abdulhamidov, but that decision was soon reversed amid allegations of a $2 million bribe by Azerbaijan. Wow, who would have thought bribery and match fixing would have crept into the pristine sport of bashing?

Outside the bashing ring, police arrested a 17-year-old for tweeting “negative messages” with reference to Olympic diver Tom Daley’s dead father. Wow, who would have thought an offensive message would be posted on Twitter? Police throughout the world are now investigating 45, 762, 811 people over possible similar offences.

Some journos have taken to referring to these London Olympics as the Twitter Games. In my day job, I tweet a bit about the Olympics among posts on more pressing local matters. (I work for what used to be called a suburban newspaper but we have rebadged ourself as a community newspaper.) In these rants, I have quoted a couple of people's tweets. I am far from an astronaut in the tweet universe but I am not a black hole, either.

On our papers Facebook pages, I posted the discussion point of whether the gun Chinese swimmer was Ye Shiwen or Shiwen Ye. The topic was bubbling nicely when my posts and its attached comments disappeared. Our IT guru assured me the posts were there on the Faceboook page but nobody could see them. This seemed like a great metaphysical conundrum along the lines of “if a tree falls in the forest…" But it curtailed one of my more promising social-media adventures.

One positive thing I will say about my Twitter universe is all the stars in it are rarely negative or insulting. I will just check my Twitter account to see how many stars there are.  I have 22 followers and I follow 30 people. I try to keep parity between followers and followees, but it seems I have slipped up a bit lately.

I read everything I can lay my screen on about social-media strategy. Bent Banana Books is a professional publisher, after all. We need to go into the marketplace and kick arse, ass in America, though I do not get the metaphor of booting a donkey, in the bum, or anyone else, for that matter. I vow to follow hundreds of people hoping some will reciprocate.  But I find it a bit contrived. Then I start getting picky about whom to follow. Those I choose do not follow me back. It’s a mess. One woman – not one of my stars – tweeted anyone with fewer than 100 followers –she actually tweeted less than 100 but I have cleaned her grammar for her – was a cyber stalker. For some reason, her tweet made me feel better.

I believe I should have 2000 followers because what I tweet is really really relevant. Others seem to disagree. They could be right.

After reading depressing reports from the London Olympics, I decided to go to the Pine Rivers Show.

Pine Rivers is a district north of Brisbane. This is its 108th show and the showground is just across the road from where I live.

Pine Rivers has a population of about 130, 000. More than 30,000 people attend the show each year. Per capita, the Pine Rivers Show is far more popular than the London Olympics. No-one watches the show on TV, but.

I tweeted and Facebooked some of my observations to our newspaper accounts. It is my day off, but what the heck, what are a few lousy tweets between friends. I will share some of the tweets and posts, but only the ones which set the scene or demonstrate how wily I am in linking the Pine Rivers Show to the London Olympics.

'1. #pineriversshow This is shaping as the best Pine Rivers Show ever. If you like leisurely strolls head down in the next few hours before the burst of the late afternoon crowds.

#pineriversshow Check out 3-month-old alpaca named Short Circuit and 10-month-old miniature long-hair goat Twiggy. They are in the farmyard.

Ugandan drummer Joseph Matovu is conducting free drumming workshops. The kids from Pine Rivers Special School (for disabled students) really pounded out the beat for Old McDonald Had a Farm. "They are fantastic," Joseph said of the kids. Joseph is fantastic, too.

The variety of food is amazing. You have the old standards of Dagwood Dogs, burgers and chips, as well as the scouts' sausage sizzle and the Rotary sangers. But there are also wood-fired pizzas, American-style burgers, Teppanyati noodles, Turkish gozleme which is beef cheese and spinach on pita bread and yakitori, Japanese chicken skewers. From the Taste of Greece stall I bought the spanakopita (spinach and feta pie) Yum-eee! The vendor said I pronounced spanakopita so well, he gave me an extra pie free.

#pineriversshow I don't know what school it was but props for the kids who waited patiently in a 50-metre line to get into the show. They spent the waiting time pointing out to one another all the wonders inside.

                                                      '

Pine Rivers was only settled by the White invaders in the mid-1880s and the district only began to become (sub)urbanised 30 or so years ago.  (In 1966 the population was fewer than 14,000). It has nowhere near the rich cultural history of the London and the local council refuses to heritage-list significant sites and buildings in Pine Rivers district. Yet Pine Rivers can host a friendly show of competitions – cooking, horticulture, beef cattle, poultry, arts & crafts, photography, wood-chopping, needlework, school work, colouring-in, show jumping, a rodeo and some I cannot recall – as well as exhibitions and entertainments, many with an international flavour.

I loved it when the Greek man gave me an extra pie for showing the respect to try to pronounce one of his national dishes as best I could.

On that positive message, let’s play the Australian National Anthem for London 2012.

Bernie Dowling, August 3, 2012

Pool brouhaha splashes at the shallow end

Olympic Rant #8 Dopey blasts dwarf win

‘YOU’RE a drug cheat.’

‘No you’re a drug cheat.’

‘You’re a druggie.’

Nah, you’re a druggie; nah, nah, nah.’

Back and forth across the Olympic the pool, the accusations fly like shuttlecocks; it is water badminton.

The latest design in shuttlecocks for water badminton

expected to be an Olympic sport in 2020 

Chinese swimmer Shiwen Ye was the catalyst for the first of a barrage of snide remarks when she won the 400m individual medley. It should have been a fairy tale result as Ye easily swam her personal best and snatched a world record. But it turned into a fairy tale directed by Tim Burton as the dark news unfolded that the Chinese schoolgirl had swum a faster final 50m than Ryan Lochte who had won the men’s equivalent and relegated super swimmer Michael Phelps to a medal-less  fourth in the process.

At first no one quite yelled out Ye was a drug cheat: that would be against the Olympic spirit of these carping back-biting Games.

Lochte served up just a hint of suspicion as he told journos the American camp discussed it over dinner. ‘She’s fast,’ he told reporters, just in case any of the scribes had not noticed.

It was wise to help out the world’s media with an indisputable piece of copy. It was not only the swim which had the world’s media declaring there were two Shiwen.  Yes. I am not sure about the exact proportion but let’s say half the world’s media believe her name is Ye Shiwen. I am with the “Shiwen Ye” half because that is all she writes in the official Games website. For those wishing to argue the toss at your own dinner party, Ye is the family name.

Australian swimming commentator and former Olympic medallist Susie O’Neill was known as Madam Butterfly in her heyday. She was more Madam Math as she gave her opinion of the swim of Mademoiselle Ye. ‘Every time we see a good Chinese swimmer….there’s just that .0001 per cent at the back of mind.’

It might have been at the back of Madam Butterfly’s mind but it butterflew to the front of her lips.

The coyness of such remarks failed to impress a former Chinese swimming official who did not confucius with maths or dinner-party banter in returning the water shuttlecock.

Shanghai Chen was the head of the Chinese Olympic medical team in Los Angeles, Seoul and Barcelona. ‘America’s (Michael) Phelps broke seven world records! Is he normal?’ Dr Chen asked.

Before a journo could ask the sensible question ‘what’s your definition of normal’, Chen made it clear drug cheating was abnormal.

‘I suspect Phelps, but without evidence,’ he said. This sounded like the distillation of a conversation at a tea, rather than dinner, party. ‘I have to recognise that we should be grounded in facts,’

Dr Chen said.

That is how you engage in war of drug cheating without either side making an outright accusation against the other.

‘The Americans are very bad; they do a lot of evil,’ Dr Chen said  

Swimming pools are central to geopolitics: with the medico’s unsophisticated diagnosis, all became clear.

Congratulations Azerbaijan

Valentin Hristov, 18, won Olympic bronze for Azerbaijan in the clean and jerk 56-kg weight class) event.

In another upset, North Korea's Om Yun Chol won the gold ahead of Chinese world champion Jingbiao Wu (or Wu Jingbiao, take your pick).

Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, watched the success of Bulgarian-born Hristov.

The Republic of Azerbaijan is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the nation’s record on human rights: especially its treatment of homosexuals and the media.

All may not be forgiven but this journalist is glad to see a nation which is not a household name in the West take home a medal. We applaud you in the traditional manner.

Bernie Dowling July 31, 2012

Shoot off the mouth for gold

Olympic Rant #5 Barkingly mad start to the games

IT was a weird start to Games e competition with American super-swimmer Michael Phelps missing a medal in the 400m men’s individual medley won by teammate Ryan Lochte.

Lochte one, Phelps nil

Phelps described it as a “crappy race’’, presumably reflecting on his own performance rather than the collective effort of the finalists. Still, Phelps missed a medal in eloquence as well as in the pool.

It was hard to know what to make of the performance of senior sports scribe Barney Ronay after the first gold medal of the Games went to China’s Siling  Yi in the sport of shooting-at-things.  The sub-category was the 10m air rifle. Thank Mao; the 10m was not the calibre of the rifle but the distance from which you shoot at things.

On behalf of the guardian .co.uk, journo Ronay wrote, ‘China’s parpingly jaunty anthem was the first to be heard in triumph at London 2012.’ Parpingly? Really, Barney.

The obscure word “parping” seems to mean the sound made by a car horn.

Whether parpingly can be used successfully to modify “jaunty”, I just do not know. What I do know is the word appeared in the online guardian in Andrew Sparrow’s blog on June 16, 2012.

‘

Boris Johnson has arrived in Cape Town to fly the flag for England's 2018 World Cup bid (and) did give his views on the controversial vuvuzela, the horn blasted deafeningly by fans during every game of the South African World Cup.

Johnson said: ’Certainly the vuvuzela is a very very interesting device…..It's a great way of expressing yourself in a loud, vehement, parping kind of way. … I think maybe that's not the effect we're going to want to see in 2012 [at the London Olympics].’

              ’

Was it coincidence that Barney Ronay revived the word parping(ly) or was it some sort of tribute to the barkingly mad Boris Johnson?  BTW, Johnson brought little to the lingual table in stating a horn had the sound of a horn and that sound is rarely jaunty.

Enough of this nonsense bring on that jaunty sound.

That anthem could have been written for a Chinese victory in the international sport of shooting at things. The lyric about China facing its greatest danger is a bit dodgy though.  This anthem is likely to be around for centuries so the message for the generations is be on a constant war footing. Grab your air rifle and be prepared.

 I am not sure tourists will flock to that new Great Wall if it is made of flesh and blood; could be a bit slippery. Perhaps I am being too literal.

It is heartening to see the Chinese lyrics pay homage to the French anthem La Marseillaise. The Chinese version has the good taste to ditch that French stuff about fearsome soldiers coming into our midst to cut the throats of your sons and consorts. It is something of a surprise France does not do better in shooting-at-things. I believe the reason is the French athletes try to sell their arms during the competition, leaving them at a distinct disadvantage during the shoot-offs for medals.

During shooting-at-things, athletes are encouraged to only fire at inert objects. Live pigeon shooting had its only appearance at the 1900 Paris Games. It did not take off.

Neither did the 21 pigeons Belgian Leon de Linden shot to win the gold. They do not call them pigeons for nothing, but even the IOC could see the ineffable killing the unflappable was a trifle off.

Crap is the word

CRAP is quick off the blocks in the competition for the golden word of the 2012 London Olympics.

Swim champ Michael Phelps missed a medal in the 400m men’s individual medley and described his performance as a crappy race. Tory MP Aidan Burley took to Twitter to describe the Opening ceremony as “leftie multicultural crap”.

You would have thought that phrase has few shades of meaning, far fewer than 50, but Burley said he was misunderstood. Unfortunately for public figures, the nature of Twitter makes it difficult to bleat the old stand-by of being taken out of context.  The MP then went on to make the bizarre claim the rappers did his head in.

‘We had all these rappers – that is what got me to the point about multiculturalism.’

Burley received little support from his Conservative colleagues. The Mad Mayor of London said it was nonsense, a subject on which Boris Johnson is an authority.

‘People say it was all leftie stuff. That is nonsense. I'm a Conservative and I had hot tears of patriotic pride from the beginning. I was blubbing like Andy Murray,’ Johnson said. Why he had to tie-in Murray’s tears after losing the Wimbledon tennis final was anybody’s guess, if anybody wants to bother interpreting thoughts from the addled Mayoral mind.

Aidan Burley MP ‏@AidanBurleyMP

Seems my tweet has been misunderstood. I was talking about the way it was handled in the show, not multiculturalism itself

 lAidan Burley MP ‏@AidanBurleyMP

Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap. Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!

Aidan Burley MP ‏@AidanBurleyMP

The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?

It was left up to online readers to stick up for Burley.

This is from a reader of the Independent

johngoode • 

Burley was right.
This was not an opening ceremony but an excuse by the liberal elite to pour more of their absurd and defeatist multi-cultural propaganda into the Olympics. Why Danny Boyle, for crying out loud.

Look, next time, why not just have an opening ceremony full of addicts and ravers at a disco and cut the attempts to present the distorted history lessons. Why bother with the athletes at all? This country has lost it.

Most Independent readers took the opposite view: 

northwing • 8 hours ago

Hilarious! An opening ceremony for an event featuring athletes from more than 200 nations, hosted by one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse cities on the planet branded “leftie multicultural crap”! Where does the Tory party get such prize turnips from? I know they don't like their MPs to be too clever, but he really takes the gold for ignorance and boorish stupidity. Cameron should promote him to the Cabinet immediately- at least he's honest about his racism, xenophobia and fascistic tendencies!

Bernie Dowling July 29, 2912

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