Aussie action at the World Cup

Well, it's almost time for the FIFA World Cup to quite literally kick-off and how good is it that the Socceroos have qualified and will finally be taking part in the action on a world stage. Christ knows they've done their best to stop us in the past and succeeded.

I keep expecting some Euro Aussie-phobe to suddenly realise that they've let Australia slip through the net and change the rules again to knock us out at the last minute - 'I'm sorry, but we think it only fair that you play a team made up of the world's best players in order to qualify... can't have you getting in that easily now, wouldn't be fair on teams like the USA, Togo or Poland...'

Bitter? Just a bit - just doesn't seem quite sporting that despite belting the living suitcases out of every team in our region, we've never had the opportunity to rip off a few 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy! Oy! Oys!' for our boys, yet in some parts of the world you can qualify by simply being able to recognise that yes, soccer balls are round.

I'll never forget living in London during the World Cup in the late 80s - 88, 89 possibly. I was working in a Peter Dominics off-license on Upper Street in Islington and sharing an upstairs apartment with the manager, cum mad abstractionist Justin Piperger. We decided to drag the TV downstairs and set it up in the shop when England was playing - no one got served when the ball was in 'our' half, but I don't think anyone cared! Another glass of Crimean Shiraz anyone? (it was our World Cup special at the time.

There was a great little Italian restaurant around the corner, tucked in a laneway off Upper Street and served the best seafood pizzas - but it was the same deal there. TVs were everywhere and if Italy looked like scoring, it was forks down and be prepared to wait. If Italy actually scored, then it was time to knock back a few chiantis very quickly, join in the celebrations and hunker down for a very long night.

Just for a bit of added 'cool' factor, England's theme song for that campaign was penned by none other than New Order - 'We're playing for England, Eng-er-land!' Still sends a shiver up my spine today. Let the action begin!

Scrotum talk & Sydney Harbour Bridge

I've been a lazy poster over the past few weeks, but with the days getting shorter, the nights getting colder and the demands of the office growing ever greater, it's a bit bloody hard - flat out like a lizard drinking, as the old saying goes.

But I got worried today when a blog browser typed in 'scotum verandah (yes, spelling mistake intended' and got directed to my site - numero uno, first cab off the 'scotum' rank. Indeed, one of my posts did indeed mention the mis-spelled version of scrotum and verandah. However, I don't think my post provided the information this browser was after... methinks the terminology may indeed be the same as, 'the verandah over the toolshed', i.e, the male beer gut.

Anyway, moving away from scrotal matters, I can highly recommend that when next in Sydney you do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb - see photo above.

I did it as part of a corporate team building exercise a few weeks back and it's quite a day out. For those of you scared of heights, there is one section where you climb up steel ladders - 75 steps in total - through the traffic and that gave me a bit of a moment. But once you're up on the arch it's quite peaceful taking in all the Sydney smog as you gaze down over the Opera House and other Harbour attractions.

One of the bridge facts that sent a shiver up my spine was how the thousands of rivets were hammered into the bridge - including the narrow support beams that run across the middle. Apparently one guy would haul the red hot rivets up from below and then throw them to the bloke out in the middle who would catch them in a little bucket before putting them in. And if you wore a rope to secure yourself to the bridge you were considered somewhat of a nancy boy. Surprisingly I think only two blokes fell off the bridge, but I guess it explains why there are so many rivets at the bottom of the harbour.

Quite frankly, I'd rather chew off my own 'scotum' than scramble around on a slippery steel bridge trying to catch red hot lumps of metal in a bucket for 10 hours a day. But those Sydney-siders will do anything for a crust...

One final word of caution, do not consume a lazy 10 C*%k-Sucking Cowboy shooters the night before the climb - I was sweating butterscotch schnapps by the half way point. They breathlise you before you start the climb and I think I only just scraped in.

Anyway, must be off to work on growing the verandah.

Migration services in Perth

Someone asked me the other day if I knew of a dependable, timely and cost effective Migration agency in Perth and as it happens, I do!

Steppingstone Relocations WA can arrange:

Visas for Work or Business Visas for Skilled People Visas for Couples Visas for Family Members Visas for Students Other Temporary Visas Visas for Refugees or Asylum Seekers

Steppingstone Relocations WA
Perth Office
45 Ventnor Avenue
West Perth WA, 6005
Phone
+61 (8) 9429 8833
Fax
+61 (8) 9429 8800

For more details visit:

www.steppingstonerelocations.com

John Howard & George Bush do 'Brokeback'

I almost choked on my rice bubbles this morning when I heard a news grab from the Howard-Bush 'Love Fest' in which Dubbya describes our Johnny as "not the prettiest" guy on the block.

Of course, our Johnny being the brown noser he is, failed to retort with a well timed, "That's okay George, cause you're not exactly the smartest bloke on the planet - about as sharp as a bowling ball in fact..."

Dubbya even went on to comment about the PM's bald pate, in a move which I think was intended to show just what great mates they really are - I think it was a scene stolen from 'Dumb and Dumber', or in this case, 'Dangerous and Dangerouser'.

So chummy are these two that word from Canberra is that Johnny generally greets Mr President with the truly Aussie opener, "G'day you old bastard, how the bloody hell are they hangin'?" Dubbya just loves it and intends to come up with the perfect rejoinder one day, just as soon as one of his staffers makes one up.

Talk around town is that the two men are planning to retire 'Brokeback Style' and set up house on a large ranch property in North Dakota. There they can spend aimless days polishing their saddles and telling war stories across an open fire.

John Howard and George Bush - what a couple of wacky funsters they are!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1640172.htm

Waterloo Terrace, N1, circa 1989

Talk about a busy few weeks - barely had time for the proverbial scratch, let alone cobbling together a post... but as the unseasonably humid night outside unleashes the first rain for weeks, I thought I should hunker down here in the wee hours and pen a few words.

My old mate Harf sent me the attached photo last week, harking back to my days living in London at the pictured address in Waterloo Terrace. I remember the day the photo was taken quite clearly - a few pints and a packet of Silk Cuts down at The Post Office pub on Upper Street, Islington. Ever the wacky trickster, old Harf showed the snaps around when he got home and told everyone they were taken on his wedding day.

We moved into the Waterloo Tce house after doing a runner from a house in Hackney that accommodated about 12 people and had only three bathrooms and one kitchen. If the landlord could have rented the broom cupboard, he would have, so we had had no qualms about skipping that fortnight's rent - besides, he got to keep the Yukka plant.

The move was prompted by an invitation from a friend I'd made while performing temporary clerical duties very badly at Eagle Star Insurance. Jon and I both enjoyed a drink, shared the same taste in music and were both taking something of a sabatical from what we really wanted to do in life - it was a good fit, so the top room was invaded by Aussies.

Jon and his partner Louise - who I've mentioned before on this blog - went on to form Britpop band Sleeper not long after my visa finally gave a last cough, closed its eyes and expired.

Indeed, the band was born from the womb of this very house.

But back then, circa 1989, thoughts of stardom and cocaine fuelled pop star excess hadn't even hit the radar - we were probably pooling cash to buy a couple of litre bottles of Bulgarian Bull's Blood, an eighth of Leb and sitting around the shabby Georgian-inspired front lounge being swept up by the swirling guitar voodoo of Black Francis and our beloved Pixies.

Some nights in bed I can still feel myself floating in the bath in the Waterloo Tce basement, listening to the roar of the trains snaking their way through to Angel Station, the imagined muted voices of commuters rising through the earth, the soft whooosh and hum and the blessed vacuum of expectant silence that remains.

Grant McLennan Dies - long live the 'Go-Bees'

Terribly sad news out of Brisbane today that legendary Go Betweens frontman Grant McLennan failed to wake up this morning and we'll never again get to witness the melodic charm and warm wash of the Go-Bees live on stage.

To me the Go-Bees and The Triffids were the defining Australian bands of the 80s.

I spent many a night drifting and dreaming of what my future might hold as songs like Head Full of Steam and Spring Rain beat out a soundtrack that seemed so perfect, so pure.

As GM put it so eloquently in The Wrong Road:

"I took the Wrong Road round
Stranded at low-tide where the river bends
Wouldn't you know it, that's how life ends
Lucky at cards, that's an old lie
Lucky in love, that's how life ends."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=99073

Fremantle furore - where's our two points?

I almost had a brain snap yesterday, following one of the most ludicrous umpiring decisions that I've ever witnessed in AFL football.

And there have been a few involving the Fremantle Football Club: an umpire marking a kick from one of our players, an umpire asking the opposition team if they were happy with a decision and, well, the list goes on...

But yesterday at York Park in Launceston we witnessed the mother of all umpiring mistakes. Not content with abolishing the traditional centre bounce in favour of simply giving St Kilda a free kick out of the centre every time a goal was scored, umpire Nicholls decided to let the game continue after the siren to give the Saints every opportunity to win the game.

It would seem that the umpire's plans to hand the game to St Kilda via a series of ridiculous free kicks was thwarted by some good play by the Dockers and some indifferent form on the part of their opponents. Indeed, despite a veritable 'golden platter' being served up to the Saints, the umpire looked doomed to run out of time and opportunity to hand them an ill-deserved win.

Indeed, the siren sounded and Freo players immediately started celebrating a hard fought victory... but that's when it all got mondo bizarro and the weirdness level was cranked up to 11. You see, umpire Nicholls grabbed the ball and walked back to indicate that he was going to bounce the ball, despite half our players already walking off in search of a wet cloth to wipe away the spittle that had collected from being in the same suburb as 'no neck' Freaky Fraser for the past three hours.

While Freo players jumped up and down politely advising Mr Nicholls that it was all done and dusted, his eyes glazed over and the ball was indeed bounced. It went to a St Kilda player and a snap on goal resulted in a behind to level the match a full 10 seconds after the game had actually finished. But that's not all!!! Not content that St Kilda had simply levelled the match, our fave umpire awarded the St Kilda player a free kick and another shot on goal to try and rectify the situation - thank f#$@ that justice prevailed and it was another behind.

By this stage big Chris Connolly was stalking around the playing field like Gene Symmons on benzedrine and Cameron 'The Colonel' Schwabb looked like he was about to extract the missing two points directly from Nicholl's sphinctre.

It's fair to say that the siren at Launceston is akin to the sound of a mosquito farting in a paper bag, but the fact that everyone else heard it should mean that whatever happened after that moment should become null and void.

Too bad if the blood was rushing through Nicholls temples as he bullishly refused to concede a Fremantle victory - them's the rules. I urge one and all to go to the link below, sign the petition and help to overturn this travesty of justice.

http://www.gopetition.com/online/8480.html

Perth Music

Ever written a lengthy post only to have your machine crash and lose the lot? Just happened to me...

Anyway, a great site that all lovers of quality independent Perth music should bookmark is: http://www.perthmusic.blogspot.com

Despite this town being known as 'Cover Band City' ever since Todd Johnston and V-Capri graced the stage at the smoked glass, chrome, plastic palm trees and cream brick Floreat Park Hotel, we do have an incredible underbelly of fine original musicians.

I remember my 'hey day' back in the 80s - shut up, there was too some good music! - seeing bands the likes of The Stems, 20th Century Crucifixion, Kansas City Killers, The Holly Rollers, Die Monster Die, Cinema Prague and Love Pump at such venues as The Shents, The Grosvenor and The Old Melbourne.

Of course, these venues are long gone and no longer will I feel the hair on my head slowly singe during a fire breathing moment with The Painters and Dockers, or revel in the platform shoed glory of Love Pump in full flight. But, hey - this town needs more retirement homes!

I also remember a place called Fat City Cafe off The Broadway in Nedlands which went right off on a Sunday... however, the last time old Hadie and myself rocked up there, a Nedlands-type with a lemon jumper tied around his neck and deck shoes said there'd never been bands at the venue and told us to politely push off... does anyone else remember this place???

My most memorable gig? - a night at the Shents sharing the contents of a hollowed out bible sent from the midst of a Queensland jungle while Kim Salmon set about making his guitar talk to me in three different languages... what's yours?

How well do you know me?

Got this by email today & would be interested in your responses either by a post below, or by email to my Yahoo adress: cookemedia@yahoo.com.au

I've been tagged. So here it goes (I got this in my lunch break) ...delete my answers, replace with your own and send it back to me and on to other friends you decide to tag!

How well do you know me?? For instance, did you know...

Four jobs I have had in my life include:
1. Newsagency debt collector
2. Warehouse picker
3. Bartender
4. Driver-Trainer

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Withnail & I
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Blue Velvet
4. Bliss

Four places you have lived:
1. Fremantle / Scarborough / West Leederville / Marmion / Nedlands - Perth
2. Hertford / Islington / Hackney - UK
3. Mulgrave / Port Melbourne / Toorak / Yarraville - Melbourne
4. Darwin

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. All Saints
2. Myth Busters
3. Little Britain
4. Bargain Hunt

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Rottnest
2. Greek Islands
3. Europe4. Singapore

Four websites I visit daily, most days:
1. www.theperthfiles.blogspot.com
2. www.mediaportal.com.au
3. www.bom.gov.au
4. www.dockerland.com

Four of my favourite foods:
1. Lemon slurpees
2. Beef jerky (chili)
3. Seafood
4. Tea Leaf smoked duck

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Little Parakeet Bay, Rottnest
2. The Quokka Arms, Rottnest
3. Shark Bay Bowling Club
4. Wallowing about in a swimming pool filled with $100 notes

Tony Mokbel - where the bloody hell are you?

It's interesting to note that apart from Ben Cousins, the biggest number of hits on this blog are from web search results on 'Tony Mokbel' - mostly from Victoria and Heidelberg in particular (Map Stats and ClustrMaps are a great resource!).

Well, just in case there's a police squad devoted to searching blogs for gangsters that flee bail, let me put it on record that I'm strictly in the "Tony, where the bloody hell are you?" category when it comes to his whereabouts.

What did surprise me the other day was that someone in Dubai did a search on 'Fat' Tony and was directed through to my blog. After transferring $20 million overseas, there are worse places in the world to play golf and work on a sun tan.

So Tony, if you're out there, drop us a line and let us know what the weather's like!
IMAGE: Courtesy of The Age

Kevin Bloody Wilson in Lancelin

Ahh, nothing like a long weekend in lovely Lancelin, bed-riden by a demon chest cold and a lower back spasm - the two complaints work a treat when combined! If it wasn't for the 1,000 milligram 'big bertha' antinflammatories and a sensational win by the Freo Dockers, it might have been an Easter to forget.

Of course, one of Lancelin's most famous residents is none other than the 'effin and blinding Kevin Bloody Wilson. I was pleased to see as I drove past his beachside manor that his boat was also named in appropriate KBW style - 'Far Canal'.

For those of you not well versed in Aussie 'strine', I'll spell it out for you, 'Far Canal... far-kin-al... far-kin-hell..." Got it? It's a bit like the perenial 'Far Q' and 'Far Q2'.

We love a play on words in Australia and even more so we love a sweary name. Here are some of my all time faves:

Wayne King (went to my high school)
Wayne Kerr (I had a teacher of that name!)
Richard (Dick) Wenker (I had to write a business profile about the man!)
Hung Long (far as I know his restaurant's still open in Northbridge)

Image: pure gold from the Kevin Bloody Wilson website!

Bull ants, 'boondies', bogans and bore water...

Perth is a funny old place really, it has a certain character that brings to mind bore water staining, 'boondies', bull ants and the ubiquitous bogan.

To the visitor, many parts of Perth must appear as though they are rusting - fences, walls, kerbing and indeed, whole primary schools. As a kid I remember feeling quite repulsed by bore water stains and I would often wonder why people used this water if it turned everything a rusty brown.

I think the underlying love affair with bore water is the Perthite's need to defy the odds and maintain their little patches of green in suburbia. Essentially, most of us live on a large sand dune and by rights we shouldn't have lawns at all - But tell that to a Perth person and you're nothing but a savage. The dryest state in Australia? To hell with it - pass me my Pope sprinkler and let me go to work! While Melbourne lawns are left to die in summer due to water restrictions, over here it's all systems go.

Speaking of sand dunes, Perth is also the home of the 'boondie' - hardened pockets of sand (mainly of the yellow variety) that are thrown like snow balls. I have a bad memory of being hit in the eye with a supposed 'boondie' that turned out to be a real rock covered in yellow sand. I've been off them ever since.

Bull ants? Big black bastards with ferocious pincers that hang out at popular picnic spots waiting to crawl up your inside leg as you try and keep the bush flies off your snaggers. Enough said.
And the bogan - not native to Perth, but a key feature none-the-less. Begins life as a prolific boondie thrower and progresses to driving purple Valiants in a looping fashion around popular urban meeting places.

Anyway, must go and listen to Little Johnny Howard doing his best Sergeant Schultz impersonation at the Cole enquiry - that little bloke just cracks me up! And Lexie Downer - ooh, don't you want to pinch those little ruddy cheeks just right off his face!

Time waits for no Docker

Just in case you wanted to know this.

On The 4th of next month, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

You may now return to your life.

On another note, to all the purple brethren, I look forward to seeing you out in force at Subiaco on Saturday afternoon - that'll be Saturday night for you eastern staters.

I'll be the guy behind the goals at the Hadyn Bunton Drive side of the ground muttering about how crap it is that you can only buy mid-strength beer... Harf, it's your shout son.

Go The Dockers!

The middle of nowhere... literally

For those of you who are overseas visitors, I thought I'd show you an image from our Bureau of Meteorology radar of quite possibly the most remote place on earth, Giles. This exciting metropolis is located in the Great Sandy Desert and really is as uninteresting as this picture would suggest...

Cyclone Glenda closes in

By Jeezus, I wouldn't like to be the poor bugger out at Mardie Station up there in the Kimberly region - the latest Bureau of Meteorology radar image shows it copping a fair hiding from Cyclone Glenda right now:

http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR152.loop.shtml

It's amazing to think that Cyclone Tracey was a category 4 storm, just like Glenda, yet Larry was a top of the range category 5! The BOM shipping warning puts wave heights in the path of Glenda as "phenomenal"... says it all really, doesn't it?

Go Saints & Heave Ho Freo

On the eve of the very first AFL match for 2006, West Coast versus St Kilda, all I can say is GO YOU SAINTERS!!! I hope you give the Toasters a glorious hiding on home soil and pave the way for a sensational weekend, punctuated by the Fremantle Dockers' first win away at Launceston against the happless Hawks... HEAVE HO FREO and no dragging the anchor across Bass Strait!

Image: Fraser Gehrig oils his mullet in preparation for tonight's game.

Yacht racing on the Swan River

Corporate days out in Perth are always a treat - invariably involving drinking cold beer in the sun, eating copious amounts of shellfish and flinging about a few business cards... and a day out yesterday sailing on the mighty Swan River out of Royal Perth Yacht Club was no exception.

Of course, nothing like starting the afternoon with a few gourmet sangers, washed down with a couple of icy cold Coronas before jumping on board our Foundation 36 yacht under the helm of 'Skip', a veteran of the 1983 Australia II America's Cup win.

We headed out into the 25-30 knot breeze - a faint tinkle of Land Down Under running around inside my head - and I was unanimously chosen to steer the boat as opposed to being a 'winch wench'. Nice move I thought, until I realised that steering a yacht straight into a stiff breeze is akin to driving a Holden Berlina station wagon through mud with two flat tyres and a broken axle. But it was okay, Skip was on hand to take over when it looked like we might be sliced in two by one of our dozen or so race competitors, or tossed into the river to swim with the jellyfish.

The idea that sailing was all about sipping champagne and giving the odd tug on the jib while you watched someone else trim the main sail soon flew out the window (if we had one), along with half a dozen caps. The boat tilts up on such a steep angle that at one point I thought I'd soon be hanging vertically, clinging to the guide wire railing, with nothing but salty air and the river beneath me... it was like driving a car on two wheels.

Going back down wind it's much more civilised and battling it out to beat the opposition around the markers is quite a thrill when you aren't scrambling around on all fours on the deck trying to prevent yourself being garotted by wet ropes - at one stage I ticked when I should have tacked, but Skip took most of the pain out of the situation and I only ended up with a bruised winged keel for my error. However, one of our crew gashed his leg open and someone on another boat lost a toenail.

We took part in two races, finishing in second spot both times, which placed us in third position overall - a bronze medal if you like. Our team all won steel meshed reinforced garden hoses, complete with stainless steel fittings - next year I've got my eye on first place and a Ryobi Cordless Powerdrill...

Ben Cousins - 'piss' poor verdict

It's moments like these that make you wonder if Perth isn't populated by aliens who have a fondness for fit young blokes in yellow and blue jumpers, chardonnay, four wheel drives and the odd line or three of Bolivian marching powder.

In fining Ben Cousins the grand sum of $900, plus costs, Magistrate Peter Malone has reduced this incident to nothing more than a joke - he couldn't even help himself from bleating on about what a huge fan of the Eagles he is and how "uncomfortable" he'd feel in sentencing his idol. The defence counsel, Mambo-jambo or whatever his name was, had to console him - that's okay judgey, everyone loves our Benny.

Christ, why didn't he just get out the cheque book, pay the fine himself, then take young Benny out for a slap up feed and a night at the strippers? Perchance the opportunity might even arise to relieve themselves by the Canning Hwy motorcade...

So what was the excuse that warrented such a lenient penalty?

"Oh, ummm Ben thought the media would get on his back even if he didn't blow over the limit... what? That sounds like a lame and stupid excuse?" Gee, I can see it now, can't you? BEN COUSINS BLOWS UNDER 0.05 IN BOOZE BUS SHAME... doesn't do it for me.

"Ummm, another excuse? Oh yeah! He really needed to do a wee, so he abandoned his car in the middle of the road, ran off and wissed, then just decided to keep on running".

Possibly he was weeing and running at the same time as he was chased by the police? I don't know about anyone else, but when I have a leak I always get the urge to run away and leave my friends stranded in my car in the middle of a major highway.

I'm sorry, but if Ben Cousins is that paranoid about media scrutiny and/or has a strange wee-and-run fetish, then he needs professional help. Either that, or once again he's flaunted the law and escaped with nothing more than a bit of lost pocket change and a captaincy that the Toasters have already mooted will be his again in 2007 anyway.

How do you reckon Jeff Farmer would have fared if he'd been in the dock facing these charges?

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=87712

Chimp - Can't Stop, On Fire

As Molly is want to say, do yourself a favour and buy this album by Chimp - or at least listen to it at cdbaby.com.

Lead guitar Jon Stewart is a former housemate of mine from the late 80s, when we were living in the 'on the edge of gentrification' suburb of Islington, N1. Jon went on to form the Brit-Pop band Sleeper with fellow housemate Louise Wener. He now teaches music in Brighton and Lou writes books.

My claim to fame here is that Jon credits me with helping get the band up and running after introducing him to the music of The Pixies, arguably the best band ever - in my books at least. A shame I wasn't around when Sleeper hit the big time - Jonny owed me a couple of drinks and I really would have enjoyed that rock 'n' roll excess.

Oh and Jon, I'll never forget the exploding 'doobie' you gave me on my birthday - damn thing nearly took an eye out!

Anyway, here's my review of Chimp's latest album, Can't Stop - On Fire:

Sublime, poignant and tinged with a distant threat of madness and longing...like sitting in a hot tub by yourself in the middle of a pine forest on the cusp of spring - wind in the branches - elements of warmth and chill that lull, caress and somehow invigorate - mulled wine and hot rum toddies.

Can't Stop, On Fire is an eloquent collection of well crafted tunes that hang together as much on their emotional pull as their musical charm.

It's an old car lost on a bush track in the red dusty outback carrying Alex Lloyd, Grant Lee Buffalo, Lou Reed and the ghost of Jeff and Tim Buckley... there's a bottle being passed around and an odd scraping sound coming from the roof that no one really cares to investigate...

http://www.chimpweb.com/cantstop.htm

John Cooke, 3 October 2003
buy 'can't stop, on fire' online at cdbaby.com

Great White Shark

For those of you who thought my last shark wasn't quite exciting enough - you try pulling the bugger in on a handline! - here's one I caught in 1978 off the main jetty at Rottnest Island... nah, only joshing... it was around at Parker's Point - they love a bit of occie those great whites.

More piccies of large dead fish hanging from hooks here: http://www.marktheshark.com