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Of Barrys and Shaggas
The summer may have been hot, but it gets cold too in Western Australia, and the news has been preoccupied in the last weeks with reports of the coldest winter on record and leading items on television bulletins showing frost being scraped from the windows of cars. The overnight temperatures have plunged below zero, and it may be too cold to stay much longer.
It may also be the cold which has caused a blockage to the brain at the Karratha Natural gas plant; the West Australian reports that the plant’s nine page Bicycle Procedures make riveting reading. Among the examples of the carefully crafted procedures are that staff are not permitted to ride their own bicycles on site but must submit a “Request for Bicycle” form including a 26-point bicycle maintenance checklist each month. All bikes must have a kick stand and carry basket sufficient to hold 5kg of cargo on the front and 15 on the back. It would be good to see these big, burly plant worker getting about in these bikes.
If there was any doubt that Australia is an uncultured, bogan nation there can be none now after, Rivers, one of the local discount retail stores started advertising “metallic shagga” boots. There are two things to consider here; if metallic footwear is not bad enough, calling them shagga boots is really quite beyond the pale. Apparently a derivative of Ug, Ugh or Ugg boots, the ad describes them as having a unique Australian history, created by surfers who, after a day paddling the cold water, wanted these sheepskin boots to keep themselves warm in the evenings. “As Australian, we consider them a cultural icon”, the ad concludes, and as a New Zealander this may be the last time a sheep joke will be enjoyed at our expense.
An AFL bad boy was in hospital last week, Richmond Tiger Ben Cousins having suffered a reaction to a combination of caffeine tablets and prescription sleeping pills. What has been revealed is that players get stuck into caffeine tablets before and during games to give them that added boost and then take sleeping pills after match to slow them down again. But what is intriguing about this report is that, while Cousins was relatively abstemious following one of his sides rare wins, one newspaper report described the official after-match function as having been attended by a number of “over-refreshed” club legends. Over refreshed, how is that for a euphemism for paralytic?
The final and favourite report for the week is that of a new website dedicated to saving the name Barry from extinction. Barrys built Australia, the site says, and the great name, once popular with parents, is being overlooked in a world of Zacharys, Oscars and Julians. Barrys need all the help they can get and on the endangered list a number of great Australian Barrys; Humphries and Gibb and one of the baddest boys of all, the Australian Football League star Barry Hall. Already the corresponding Facebook pages has over 3,000 “likes”.
Last night, the All Blacks beat South Africa in what must be one of the best rugby tests in recent time and local favourites, the Fremantle Dockers were beaten by Ben Cousin’s Richmond. It must be time to abandon this curious country and return to the sanctuary and sanity of New Zealand.