I’m starting to think footballers aren’t all that bright

I know, I know. It’s a bit controversial.

I’ve always thought footballers of all codes to be above reproach. Look at James Hird! He’s a stock broker, or so I seem to remember. You can’t be thick as two short planks and be a stock-broker.

(Actually, I take it back – you CAN be thick and a stock-broker. It probably helps.)

Anyway, this week, footballers have been getting into a bit of foot-in-the-mouth type strife:

• Mal Brown – described Aborigines as Cannibals
• Robert DiPierdomenico – said a fellow player was pretty good “for an Abo”.
• Andrew Johns – called … … a “black c__t”. Interestingly, the “black” was seen as terribly insulting, the “c**t” not so much
• Jason Akermanis – got in trouble for writing a column in the Herald Sun saying gay footballers shouldn’t come out of the closet, because it would make everyone uncomfortable in the shower

I make 2 points about this:

1. All of these people made these remarks in public, usually in EXTREMELY public places
2. All of these people are usually defended by their friends as “not having a sexist/racist/homophobic bone in his body”.

If 1 and 2 are true, and in some cases I think they are, the only conclusion I can come too is that they’re all a bit obtuse. Aker, if you don’t know what that means, try one of these:

brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, doltish, dopey, dull, dumb, dummy*, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, laughable, loser*, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, out to lunch, pointless, puerile, rash, senseless, shortsighted, simple, simpleminded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thick-headed, trivial, unintelligent, unthinking, witless

Do any of those make sense?

I’m probably being a bit unfair. The AFL has produced such intellectual giants as Brendan Fevola, Sam Newman and Gary Ablett Snr, so I could be wrong. (By the way, if you get time, have a look at G Ablett’s article in the Herald Sun “disproving” evolution. It’s scary to think a grown adult thinks that way in the year 2010, but worse to see all the comments from people who thinks he makes a good point!)

But before you say – “ahh yes but they have more money than you ever will” in a mocking sort of voice, Sarah Ferguson also had, at one point, bucket-loads of money and butlers and castles, and look at her now. A sad, drunken, corrupt old tart who tries to hustle undercover News of the World journalists.

Running
18.5km on Wednesday morning. I missed a day yesterday due to wind (outside) and too much work and stuff (inside). 19.5km this morning in beautiful conditions. It truly was heart-warming down by the bay at 7:30am this morning, although my heart was about the only thing not freezing.

the things kids say, and why I can never show my face at childcare again

You’ll be pleased to hear my mood has lightened a little from the deep dark blackness of my last post. It’s now merely a somber grey, with fleeting hints of rainbows somewhere in the distance.

I’m still sore, bruised and swollen, and I’m still sick with the flu, but the worst of it has passed by now.

As always, the key to lightening my mood lay in exercise. This morning I did the first thing even remotely resembling exercise in a week – walking the dog. The dog looked at me a couple of times as if to say “Get a move on, man. I don’t have all day. And quit walking like a pirate”.

She would never say such a thing, of course. Buffy (the dog) is a sweet-natured thing who would never say so much as a mean word, even if she could talk. Which she can’t.

I’ve long held the belief that a good crisp bracing 10km run can cure most of what ails you, and I was tempted to put that belief into practice today. Sadly, a few aches and pains downstairs in the post dog-walk era suggested that wasn’t the best idea.

The things kids say
My 3 year old son knows about my operation. Not much, but enough to stop him doing disastrous running jumps onto my lap. Like all 3 year-olds, he hasn’t quite grasped the concept of tact, though. On Thursday, when he was a childcare, he told everyone who would listen – the workers, the kids, the manager, the parents:

My Daddy has a blue doodle

I can clearly never show my face there ever again.

But at least I can laugh about it, which means things must be on the improve.

Football
It’s about an hour before the final between Collingwood and Geelong. I have little knowledge or interest in the game, usually, and I have a long record of picking these things wrongly, but that being said: I predict Geelong to win in a dominant display of wet weather football.

football and emotional blackmail

Lou Richards may or may not be a delightful old bloke (I must say I’m yet to see any evidence of that, just a lot of extremely irritating appearances on weekend football shows). I’m told he was a pretty good footballer in his day. But is he a “legend”?

That’s the question that seems to have obsessed 75% of Melbourne, the AFL, and most of the media this week. The Herald Sun has clearly made up its mind in the affirmative, running strident front page editorials and articles by Sam Newman.

I’m not convinced. If he doesn’t meet the criteria, then I don’t care how close to death he is, how good friends he is with Sam Newman or even Kevin Rudd. He can’t get in.

If it were me making the decision, I’d resent the petty emotional blackmail playing out in the newspapers.

Stuff him.

Running
None today. I have a run scheduled for tonight, which I’m not completely looking forward to.

bloody football

There are some things I will never understand about this city (Melbourne). Chief amongst them is football. Don’t get me wrong, I like the AFL. It’s not a bad game to watch and I can see the players are impressive athletes. But they’re not that good.

On my way to the train station I pass a little newspaper stall, and they usually have a sign up showing the top story from the Herald Sun. This morning it was “Revealed: Sheehan’s top 50”.

Revealed?

“Sheehan” is (I learnt this subsequently) a football journalist, meaning he gets paid to sit around watching football and write about it. Apparently, he’s sat around, presumably over a few beers, and worked out his top 50 players.

And this is news.

Not only that, it’s a revelation.

Running
A recovery run this lunch-time. There was a little bit of stiffness early on, but I started to feel good the second time around the tan. 12.5km in 55 minutes.

a step too far

There are certain types of madness that are soooo out there they have you questioning your own grasp on reality. I’m thinking of Andrew Bolt, Salvador Dali and people who like easy listening music.

Maybe I’m missing something… perhaps Air Supply really were a good band….

No, that’s going too far.

Sometimes, it goes the other way. Sometimes someone who is otherwise quite successful turns out on closer inspection to be so clearly mad that it makes you feel better about your own sanity.

I’m thinking particularly about Dean Karnazes. I suspect most of you know who he is, but if you’re a non-running type, he’s the “Ultramarathon man”, famous for running hundreds of miles at a time, non-stop, over mountains, across deserts and to the South Pole.

I’ve been reading his first book and, with all due respect, the man is off his tree; certifiable, and not in a good way.

If you’ve read his book, and somehow manage to miss the warning signs in the first chapter (where he eats a family size pizza and a whole cheesecake while 6 hours into a 48 hour run), this statement should set off alarm bells:

Running should not be fun …. it should hurt

Um. No.

Running should be fun, otherwise only masochistic loonies would do it. Yes, it can be fairly difficult at times, but in general it’s quite a pleasant way to spend your time.

Then there’s the whole 200 mile run thing, the falling asleep while running thing, and the running-a-marathon-in-running-shoes-at-the-south-pole thing.

It’s people like him who make me feel better about my ultramarathon policy. That is, I’ll run all distances up to and including a marathon, but no further.

That way madness lies.

Running
12 point something not-at-all-loopy kilometres this lunchtime.

That’s not quite true: I did feel slightly unhinged when I ran past Princess Park to see someone had flattened the Carlton Social Club. When did that happen? Why wasn’t I consulted?

I can’t help thinking if they’d held off until the end of the football season, some of the Brendan Fevola unpleasantness might have been avoided.

a cultural experience of sorts

I’ve spent more nights than I care to remember in pubs, public houses, bars, taverns, saloons, TABs, casinos, dives and holes. You name it, I’ve been there, sat on a stool and emerged blinking into the outside world some blurry hours later. In fact most of the period between 1994-97 and 2000-2004 was spent in one particular “authentic” venue in sunny Brunswick.

That accounts for my individual level of athletic prowess, short-term memory and scintillating social skills.

Anyway, for one reason or another, it’s been quite some time since I’ve spent quality time propping up a bar. Last night I managed to remedy the situation.

Yesterday’s working hours were spent getting myself keyed up to watch the Soccerroos disintegrate under the crushing force of the Qatari blizzard of mixed metaphors at the Telstra Dome. Sadly, the powers that be decided this pleasure should be restricted to people who pay for TV. Eh? Pay for TV? Who pays for TV? What a crazy idea that is!

So I adjourned to my local reputable public house – Daisey’s Hotel – and mingled with the common herd for a couple of hours.

I’d forgotten how much fun it is in the TAB: not much. There’s the barmaid who’s more fed up with her job than I am, the talkative drunk who knows less than zero about the game but knows what he likes, and the compulsive gamblers who may as well empty their pockets when they enter the room.

The only good thing about sports bars these days is that, sometime in the last few years, they seem to have banned smoking. Without the pall of ciggie smoke you have plenty of opportunity of studying the depression, wasted dreams, and dodgy decor in great detail.

Fun.

Oh, from memory Australia won at a canter, but don’t quote me.

hobble

Not to worry – it wasn’t me hobbling. Not at all, it was Wayne Carey who was “hobbled” by Miami police in a recent trip to the US.

Apparently he was:

“angry, drunk, and violent” and his speech was rapid.
from the age.

This was surprising: he hadn’t been hanging out with Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty was nowhere to be seen.

The Miami coppers made the tactical error of waking Wayne as he lay passed out on his hotel bed. He reacted by punching and kicking them. Even after they managed to get him into the divvy van (or local equivalent) he carried on headbutting the windows, as you do.

That’s when they put him in a hobble, a “device used to restrain combative, violent, high-risk people”.

I’m always amazed by people who beat up police officers. It’s the height of stupidity. There’s no way it’s going to end well.

If I was going to beat someone up, they’d be the last people I’d choose. For one thing, they’re usually bigger than me. Also they have guns and hundreds of mates. Oh, and there’s the small matter of the judicial system, which tends to look askance at roughing up the constabulary.

It’d probably be wise to choose someone smaller than me, which limits things a fair bit. I don’t know, Lleyton Hewitt looks pretty small on tv and he certainly has it coming.

Moving on, the thing is, the Miami incident was on October 27 last year. The latest, erm, outburst was last weekend at his “luxury Port Melbourne apartment”. That’s one hell of a bender.

Fellow former footballer, Wayne Schwass, made an early entry in the “understatement of the year” awards:

His actions certainly suggest that there are a number of things going on in his life.

You think?

I must say, seriously, I’m very surprised and disappointed by the whole recent Wayne Carey situation. I’ve always looked upon WC as an example of grace and dignity, intelligence and moral courage.

Or something.

Running
What do doctors know eh? If I had have seen a quack this morning, he would have taken a look at my blood-shot eyes and snuffly nose, diagnosed a common cold and forbade me from running. As always, I knew better. I had an invigorating 14km run, including 7 jaunts up Anderson street. It took right on an hour, which was pretty pleasing progress.

Now I feel 100% better, chock full of vim and vitality and other things beginning with v.

carla bruni

Melbourne’s running spots seem infested with AFL teams at the moment. Yesterday morning it was Carlton loitering on the Anderson Street hill, today North Melbourne were at Princes Park.

The thought did cross my mind that they’re following me.

That’s not a comforting thought. Imagine that: every time I go for a run, there’ll be a mob of 6 foot 4, super-fit elite athletes sauntering about making me feel like a short fat slob.

That’s hardly fair.

Running
Another 12k run this morning, this one based around a fartlek session around Princes Park. I’ve been doing a few of these lately, once a week for the past three weeks. They’re a good indicator as to how I’m going, in terms of speed.

My session (this is based on the marathon training program I did last year):

• 2×60 sec/60 float
• 4×30 sec/30 float
• 2×60 sec/60 float
• 4×30 sec/30 float
• 2×60 sec/60 float

The 3 kms between the office and P Park function as both warm-up and cool down.

I’ve been pretty strict about sticking to the timing. The fartlek bit of the session goes for exactly 20 minutes and I cover just under 1.5 times around Princess Park. If I make it further in the same time next week that means (to me) that I’m faster and/or fitter.

Or it could possibly go the other way.

France
I hope Kevin Rudd is taking notice of events in France, where the President – Nicolas Sarkozy – has dumped his wife and taken up with a rich heiress and former supermodel whose past conquests range from rock stars to intellectuals.

Carla Bruni claims to be:

a tamer (of men), a cat, an Italian,” she told Le Figaro Madame in February last year. “Monogamy bores me terribly.”

“I am faithful … to myself!” she said. “I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry (its female equivalent).”

I approve of this. There should be more polyandrous supermodels in Australian politics. So Kevin, isn’t it time to divorce Therese and hook up with Lara Bingle?