Converting the Infidels

It is the dream of any fan of any sport that all the peoples of the world be so inclined. Soccer fans like to claim that their game is THE world game, but I doubt the New Guinea Highlanders that have seen white men twice want to be like Pele (actually they want to be like Mal Meninga but that's another story found elsewhere in this blog). Similarly, I'd like all Australians to wanna be Wallabies, but even I'm aware that that the bum sniffing codes are truly only played in two Eastern states. And don't even get me started on the plans of Australian Rules Football to eventually rule the planet - that's about as likely as American Football's (or Gridiron's) Down Under Bowl (no, really, it exists) being broadcast on free-to-air TV (which is only slightly less likely than Super 14s being broadcast on free-to-air TV - but that's a subject of regular tipping comp rants).

So most sports fans settle for much smaller goals. Those with children content themselves with simply brainwashing their children from the day they're born. My brother, in an effort to turn his sons into Wallabies, calls both Rugby League and Rugby Union just 'Rugby' so that as far as they're concerned it's the same thing and they will grow up not knowing what Rugby League is. It's an admirable cause designed to ensure that they don't follow the Bulldogs, but the plans were destroyed when the Tigers won the Premiership and his 1980s allegiances (and more particularly his 1989 heartbreak) ensured that he was the first on the bandwagon and his sons were soon sighted wearing Tigers jerseys.

A more common goal is the conversion of just one person, and that tends to be a partner, and the partner tends to be female. It's not sexist but statistics. I've tried it myself. I took an ex-girlfriend one day to one-day cricket. As any cricket fan who's tried this knows you have to start small. You don't introduce a virgin to the karma sutra, and you don't take a cricket virgin to a Test Match, you take her to a one-dayer.

I've pretty much got bored with one-day cricket. It's predictable and one-dimensional, of dubious entertainment value and lacking in the traditional strengths of test cricket - tactics that rival chess, stamina and concentration to rival marathon runners, a rich tradition of monumental deeds and nation defining controversies. One-day cricket is simple love 'em and leave 'em stuff but it serves (or at least served, until the advent of an even bigger abomination Twenty20 cricket) the masses appetites for results, action, colour and movement. So it’s a natural entrée for the uninitiated.

The day was going swimmingly. The ex was asking all the right questions and in those days you could still drink full-strength beer. With the correct amount of good humour we sledged the opposition supporters, cheered the inflatable condoms, booed the security guards popping beach balls and followed the chant of ‘Porn star – Porn star’ as a well-endowed blond in a Porn star t-shirt spilt a tray of beer (note here that the cricket was incidental). But then the Mexican wave started up. The first few laps were OK, but by the third lap we were sprayed by beer and on the fourth a half-eaten chicken landed in the exes lap. She’s a vegetarian and a tee-totaller. My one chance of converting her to my greatest passion (apart from barbeques and drinking) was over and the relationship ended soon after. I am sure it was no coincidence.

More recently, a friend went along to a soccer match between Australia and Kuwait. She had never been to a sporting match of any kind in her entire life, and debating the concept of soccer vs football with her was a total waste of time. But her reasoning was simple – I’ve reached a stage in my life where I need to know more people – more people are into sport – so I will give it a go too.

Now I hate soccer and I’m proud to say it (“soccer” – there I said it). I’d even rather watch one-day cricket. I warned her of the hours of no action, the pointlessness of a non-contact sport where any contact results in a pathetic attempt to fool the match official into awarding a penalty, and the arbitrary and random (ie non-skill) nature of the penalty shoot-out. But she went never the less.

Not surprisingly she was bored and texted me at half-time to tell me so. Her match report the next day consisted of “I went for Kuwait so people abused me but he Mexican Wave was fun. I left before it finished”. Apart from the irony of the Mexican Wave, my point was proved.

Now she has a boyfriend. He plays a variety of football. She’s not sure which but thinks they’re of both the touching (as in touch football) and non-touch (as in a Rugby code) varieties. Her very lack of understanding of this simple breakdown of the football codes (as incisive as it might be in an accidental sort of way) indicates to me that he has no chance whatsoever of converting her. And if he reads this article first he will never try.

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Freelance Massage

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I attempted to turn a fantasy into reality and explored the potential of freelance journalism. The lesson was learned. The pay is crap, it's really hard work, and, like being a travel writer, turning your hobby into a job can distance you from the very reason you enjoy the hobby in the first place.

Still, the Freelance Journalism course was the trigger for anumber of articles, some of which are dated, some of which are awful, and a couple that are OK. I like this one - it is of the nature of freelance journalism - and swedish massage - and me...



‘Freelance Journalism – Eight 1 hour lessons at the Intensive Language Centre’.

Well that’s a potential problem already. How intensive do I want my freelance journalism to be? Are we to be taught the art of dodging bullets, how to write and drink at the same time, the correct way to grow a four-day stubble and how to remove nicotine stains from one’s fingers?

Language Centre? Well English I imagine. It’s the only language I speak for one thing. Is journalism a language? Or do journalists communicate with each other in some sort of code through their writing or is it more of the nod/wink and silly handshake method preferred by Masons? Is it a question of tools? Are we to be taught to be flamboyant, to speak in punchy paragraphs, to translate, to spell, to punctuate, annotate, illustrate, photograph and plagiarise?

I walk to the Intensive Language Centre in the drizzling rain on Day 1. So far so good. I could be in London, probably Fleet St in the good old days, whenever that was. The Intensive Language Centre certainly seems to be rather intense. When I was a kid this was Cleveland St Boys High, and it had a definite fearsome reputation for thuggery, so that on this day I approach the building with some trepidation.

I follow a girl, mid-20s, cascading black curls, to the office. Students are being told which room to go to and how to get there. I quietly hope for the girl to ask for Freelance Journalism, although she doesn’t look the type. I admit to myself I don’t actually know what journalists look like. I think of them as small mug-shot boxes next to blocks of text or as caricatured icons (of the computer kind – not the religious kind) on the internet. But in any case, she doesn’t look the type.

“What course?”, we are asked.

“Swedish Massage”, she replies.

“Freelance Journalism”, I despondently mumble.

I follow her curvaceous hips up the stairs. I don’t choose to it’s just that our classes are next door to each other. Maybe it's true, I think - a stereotype based on a reality. Way out of my league alas. I'd be a blabbering mess just trying to talk to her let alone chat her up.

I console myself with the knowledge that my true skills are best kept to dark rooms late at night, tapping into a typewriter, a waft of cigarette smoke curling up to the slowly rotating ceiling fan. I could travel the world and be handsomely paid to do it, meet the strange and wonderful, tell the world of the globe’s majesty, contribute to world peace and understanding and make them laugh, make them laugh, make them laugh.

But just think of what I could do if I knew Swedish Massage.

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I - More than Just the Loneliest Letter

‘I’. It is the simplest letter in the English Language. In its capital form it is a single short or slightly longer stroke sometimes made more flamboyant by the addition of a head and tail. The ninth letter of the alphabet and the third vowel, ‘I’ is at its most powerful when standing proudly by itself unencumbered by the addition of extra baggage such as an ‘S’ a ‘T’ or an ‘F’. ‘I’ is the King of the letters in the great chess set of our language, seemingly innocuous and cumbersome yet at the same time an object of much desire and awe.

In it’s individual form, ‘I’ is blandly described by linguists as a ‘personal pronoun’. Yet to pigeon hole this letter in such a way does not do it any justice. To journalists, the simple addition of ‘I’ to a piece of work elevates the article from mere reporting to the far grander and ambitious level of opinion or even editorial. For anyone to deliberately open themselves to the court of public judgement by stating their own beliefs or thoughts is to risk driving a wedge in one’s readership by taking sides.

To write ‘I think’ is even worse. Thinking is not encouraged in much of society for fear of rocking whatever boat is at hand at the time. A journalist that is seen to think is viewed as a dangerous loose cannon by those that wield power, unless that thinking is along the lines of those with said power. Editorials may express an opinion, but unless an ‘I’ is used than there will always be the suspicion that the opinions expressed in the editorial are not necessarily those of the editor, but perhaps of the newspaper proprietor.

Point 4 in the journalists’ code of ethics actively discourages the use of subjective thinking. ‘They shall not allow personal interests to influence them in their professional duties’ it states. Yet aren’t we all the product of our own interests? The very fact that we are interested in them, that we have analysed and studied the subject, learned about it at length and enjoyed or been repulsed by it, implies that we are well positioned to comment on it. The whole fabric of our democratic society is based on making decisions, a freedom that millions have fought and died for. The freedom to write about our interests, to sit in judgement of others is an essential journalistic right.

Everyone is the product of their interests, they influence everything we do. Our interests operate subconsciously and guide us through life. It is impossible to prevent your interests from influencing what you say, think and do.

I am not proposing that reporting the facts of an incident should be embellished by the writer. It is for this very reason that reporting exists, to provide the information that others, including the reporter can use to make their own judgements. But all the best journalism involves a great deal of thinking and draws on a wealth of experience. All the best articles take time to state a case and if not expressly using the personal pronoun it is quite obvious that the piece is from a particular point of view. Personal interests, in their purest sense, when not used for personal gain, should actively be encouraged to form the basis of writing rather than be hidden in a cloak of political correctness and societal norms.

At least I think so.

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Talking About My Generation

"I think our generation has been called to apathy just as our grandparents were called to defeat fascism and the baby boomers were called to get divorced and fuck around for most of their adult lives before bankrupting the entire goddamn country when they retire. But we have the chance to do something really special here. Imagine a world where people didn't care enough to go to war over anything. Where some guy gets up in the morning and says, 'I know God wants me to kill the infidels and keep gay people from marrying each other, but I just don't give a shit. I'm going back to bed.' It would be paradise on earth. This is our mission. I think we can make it happen, but I really don't care either way. And that's called hope."

Paul Neilan, in conversation with Matt Borondy

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