Bronzed Aussies

Yes, okay so there’s been quite enough philosophising about what an honour it was to be in Udon Thani, and what an incredible journey it was to get there. Geez, anyone would think I’d made the final twelve on Australian Idol or something. So what did we actually achieve as a team while we were there?

Our first game was men’s division two doubles against Sri Lanka. This was a nice intro match, since – with due respect to Sri Lanka – they weren’t likely to be a challenge and it gave us the chance to get some court time and settle our nerves while still getting a win under our belts to start the tournament.

The next match was much more challenging, particularly in the doubles format which the Australian team was no as familiar with. Our boys fought hard but were outclassed by Cambodia, who beat us in three hard-fought sets.

Due to a rather unfortunate draw hiccup, we then played Chinese Taipei at the ridiculous time of half past one in the morning. It was a must win for us after the loss to Cambodia, but unfortunately the long day behind us hadn’t left the players with enough in the tank. We still had a great game, but went down in straight sets again. We were out of contention for doubles medals, but we’d had a great time and learned a lot about the challenging doubles format.

The following morning we played Macau in a dead rubber, which we won in straight sets. It was a nice way to finish a disappointing section in a difficult pool grouping. The final was played between Cambodia and the United States, with gold going to the USA, silver to Cambodia and bronze to Chinese Taipei and Bangladesh.

The next day brought the regu (three on three) tournament, which was a much more familiar format for Team Australia and a slightly friendlier group draw as well. Our first regu match was against Macau and once again we won in straight sets.

Our next match was a big one against first seeds Germany. While on paper they were the stronger team, we were confident going in that we had the ability to pull off an upset. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. While Australia played well and had flashes of brilliant play, the experience and consistency of the German team won through. In a frustrating result for Australia, we were beaten in straight sets.

We bounced back in a big way the following day with a confident straight sets win over Bangladesh to open, followed by a match against Nepal. On paper, and based on what we had seen during the rest of the tournament, Nepal should have been an easy victory for us. However, once again our inexperience at international level started to show, and Nepal played easily the best takraw they had played all week. What should have been a walkover ended up going to five sets, with the final set going right down the wire. We were able to put the last point away and claim the fifth set and the match, but the match could not have been any closer. Full credit to Nepal, who put up a strong and spirited fight.

The win put Australia through to the semis and a guaranteed bronze medal (The King’s Cup awards bronze medals to the losers of both semi-finals, with no need for a playoff. Isn’t that nice?), but we had plenty of fight left for the semi-final against Chinese Taipei.

The semi was certainly our most encouraging and enjoyable game of the tournament. C.Taipei were the favourites going in, but we were once again confident of staging an upset. It was another five set thriller, with the final set tipping C.Taipei’s way. Australia had to settle for bronze alongside Brazil. The final between Germany and Chinese Taipei was won by Germany.

So there you have it. Five days of nonstop takraw action, and a bronze medal for our efforts. It’s definitely been one of the craziest experiences I’ve had, and I’m looking forward to building up for the next tournament, whenever and wherever that turns out to be. In the meantime, it’s back to Australia and some sort of real life. Can’t wait for that either. Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Green and Gold

Growing up, I guess most Australian boys think that one day they’ll play for their country. Maybe it will be rugby, or perhaps soccer. Or maybe they’re that particular kind of crazy that gets up at three in the morning to train for the swimming squad. My preferred path for a meteoric rise to the top was through cricket. I was dead sure I was going to be the next Mark Waugh.

But as we get older, we realise that we’re not going to play for Australia; that a quiet career of lower grade social competition might be the best we can hope for. Some of us give up altogether.

And some of us get another chance, albeit through an unexpected and thoroughly obscure avenue.

I had known for a while that I was going to have the chance to play sepak takraw for Australia, and I was ready for it. I’d flown all the way out to Thailand for it and then travelled with the team to Udon Thani for the tournament. But the moment when I first put on my green and gold playing uniform still snuck up on me a bit.

I’ve always been known as being a little bit over the top in my patriotism. And that’s a fair call. I actually got chills when I slipped the uniform on and caught sight of my reflection. It was an absurdly powerful moment given it was just putting a shirt on, but I couldn’t stop grinning all morning.

But that was nothing compared to the moment I stepped onto the court and heard the announcers reading out “Representing Australia, number three, Garry Condoseres”. It seems strange, given that there are so many things that I am much better at than sepak takraw, but that was one of the proudest moments of my life, and will be for a while.

Make of that what you will.

Number three, Garry with 2 Rs

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Last Australian summer I had the privilege of taking Kim to her first ever cricket match. We spent the whole first fifty overs teacing her how the game worked and we were ready to knuckle down and enjoy the second innings when the skies opened and the game was washed out. But at least we tried.

This week Kim returned the favour spectacularly by taking me to my first ever baseball game. Her lcoal team, the Cincinnati Reds were playing the Arizona Diamond Backs at the fantastically named Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati.

I had always been under the impression that cricket was a lot more complicated that baseball. Well... I still think it is, but I will say that baseball is also capable of producing entire scoreboards full of statistics that make absolutely no sense to an outsider. I got the number of strikes and balls sorted out easily enough, and even the batting averages, but the rows and rows of percentages and figures used to describe how well a pitcher was or wasn't performing made my head swim a bit.

Meanwhile, I was having a great time taking in as much of the great baseball traditions as I could. We all stood and sung the American national anthem (well... I stood) despite the fact that it was only a domestic game (although it's still called the world series make of that what you will) and then settled in to eat our dubiously prepared hotdogs. The Reds' opening pitcher seemed to be doing well, although the numbers after his name might have come from the stock exchange of the train timetable for all the sense they made to me.

But by far the most impressive job being done by anyone at the stadium was that of the guy playing inspirational riffs on a theatre organ between pitches. Okay, it was a small plastic keyboard made to sound like a theatre organ, but the effect was the same. I don't care how many stops, voices, presets or effects a church or concert hall organ might have; that guy had reached the absolute peak of the professional organist's musical career path as far as I was concerned.

Baseball matches come in nine innings, unless there's a tie after nine, in which case they keep playing until one team either loses or dies. But that's it; there's only one format of nine innings a side. There's no twenty-twenty baseball, and disappointingly no format or baseball lasts for five days, After six innings they have what's known as the seventh inning stretch, which is where everyone in the stadium stands up and stretches, to make sure no one in the crowd has fallen asleep, died, or in anyother way stopped passionately supporting the home team. They also sing a song called 'take me out to ball game,' the first line of which is 'take me out to the ball game,' and the rest of which is completely forgettable, as evidenced by the fact that I've completely forgotten it.

We eventually made it to the bottom of the ninth and everyone dutifully and apparently prognostically stood up to witness the last out, despite there being no guarantee that it was necessarily going to be the last out.

It was.

The Reds won five runs to three, which seems a preposterously low score for a game with nine innings, but is, I'm told, fairly typical. Fireworks went off, the organist went ballistic, and President Obama parachuted in wearing a 'kiss the cook' apron and waving an inflatable oboe.

Okay that last one didn't really happen, but it wouldn't necessarily have been the most bizarre thing I'd seen all day.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs 0.359, 79%, 3389/120, 0.0023, five.

Life in the City

So at the start of the year I moved house from Malak in Darwin’s northern suburbs, to a unit right in Darwin city. I’ve moved in with two friends in a unit with a harbour view, five minutes’ walk from work, church, Happy Yess and the supermarket. It’s definitely been one of the smarter moves I’ve made. I can walk to all of them with no dramas at all, although my decision to walk to church bare foot yesterday was not my brightest ever.

City living has an entirely different feel to it. I realise it’s a bit misguided to talk about “city living” in a metropolis the scale of Darwin, particularly given how much time I’ve spent in Sydney recently. But it’s still a different vibe. It brings an increased sense of possibility and involvement and a new sense of being all grown up and mature.

In celebration of this new found sense of being an adult, my house mates and I have spent the weekend developing highly sophisticated ways of entertaining ourselves on stormy afternoons. I hereby present the first known documentation of the new game taking Harry Chan Avenue by storm.

Padawan Learner: A game for two or more players.

You will need:
A plastic light sabre
Adeptness with the Force (optional)
At least one Nerf gun
A blindfold (not recommended)

Points are scored (if you can be bothered) for every Nerf disc successfully deflected with the light sabre. For best results, a selection of different guns should be used. Experimental evidence suggests that Matt’s giant 40 disc shooter actually fires with slightly less velocity than my lighter ten shooter, although obviously I run out of ammunition a lot sooner.

Actually dressing up as a Jedi is recommended, by not essential.

May the Force be with you.



Garry with 2 Rs

Stumps

Like many Aussie guys, when I was a kid I dreamed of one day playing cricket for Australia. My childhood heroes were guys like Allan Border, David Boon, the Waugh brothers and (of course) Richie Benaud. As primary schoolers, our following of the sport was nothing short of obsession; every break we would be outside with a bat, a ball and (to the perpetual frustration of the groundsman) a rubbish bin that had been used as wickets so consistently it was dented and squashed hopelessly out of shape. On the weekends we played grade cricket in the dry and indoor cricket in the wet. I played under thirteens and then under fifteens and had a great time, although I remember being quite annoyed by the fact that I wasn’t very good at it.

It didn’t take very long for me to abandon my dream of playing for Australia, but all through high school I kept on following the game with the same passion. Of course, it helped that it was easy to get behind the Australian cricket team at that time, as we spent most of the late nineties being practically invincible. The old heroes were gone, but had been replaced by such legends as McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and Martyn to name just a few. I had to stop playing grade cricket to focus more on school and music, but I would still join mates occasionally for a backyard game. And every time I did, I would be quietly struggling to deal with the fact that for all my passion and enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good at it.

My university years were a time of great change. We could no longer rely on the great heroes of the past, and some of the core assumptions about our role in the world were being challenged. In 2005 the unthinkable happened: we lost the Ashes. Everything we thought we knew about the world had fallen around us, leaving us questioning even our fundamental understanding of the game. If ever there was a time to rally and stay true to our belief in ourselves, in our team mates and in the game, while everything else around us was in flux, this was it. I remember trying out rather optimistically for our college cricket side with fairly tragic results. I really wasn’t very good at it.

In 2009 I stepped out into a brave new world, and a brave new country. Even in the exotic lands of central Spain, I found ways to continue my connection with the game. My exploits with the Madrid Cricket Club have been well documented here, although they’re unlikely to be remembered anywhere else. And while everyone else at the summer school was down at the beach, I was in the internet café checking the score in the test match. But even though I could hold my own in the field against the English staff, it really wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. As the only Aussie English teacher, it was important that I could beat the English at cricket even if, once again, our test side couldn’t. And I did, but it didn’t matter. I still wasn’t very good at it.

I’ve been home in Darwin for two and a half years now. My relationship with the game is still strong, but changing all the time. I don’t watch it religiously on TV like I used to, mainly because the commentary team, rather than inspiring and educating me, now makes me want to throw things (Michael Slater, I’m throwing them at you). These days they spend more time cross promoting other Channel Nine products and selling us commemorative merchandise than analysing the game play. And when they do get around to commenting on the game, it’s nothing but a series of inane clichés. So now I just follow the games on the internet and keep tabs on the boys while they’re away on tour. Back at home, I’m part way through my third season of local grade cricket. I’ve been dutifully heading down to training twice a week and out for games on Sundays. After all those endless afternoons running around the mid-wicket boundary, I’ve come realise an important fact about cricket:

I’m not very good at it.

After all these years, you might expect that I would have developed an ability to bowl straight, hit a ball properly or catch with some sort of reliability. After nearly three decades of persistence, the time has come for me to face up to the fact that not only am I never going to play for Australia, I’m never going to play B-grade local competition in Darwin. And as the period of my life loosely referred to as ‘youth’ gradually approaches the tea break, I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I can say I’m alright with that.

This afternoon I called my E-grade captain and told him I was pulling out of the competition.

It was a surprisingly easy decision in the end; if I take the eight hours a week I was spending trying to learn to bowl and spend them working on something I’m good at, God only knows what I might achieve. And while I’ll have to start looking for new ways to keep active, for now it’s time to appreciate the game the way the rest of the country does: on the couch with a beer.

And I’m extremely good at that.




Garry with 2 Rs

Winners Are Grinners

It’s amazing what taking a month off blogging will do for your life. September has been a month full of… other stuff. Not having the nagging feeling of “I should be blogging about now” hanging over me has been great. And although I’ve missed Cum Tacent Clament (Is that weird? It feels like it might be weird), it’s also true that in the absence of blogging, September was month full of victory.

Victory number one came for our Wednesday night C-grade mixed social volley-ball team. I’m now the proud owner of a trophy, upon which is inscribed “Wet season mixed C-grade division winner”. This in spite of the fact that we played in the dry season and we only made it to the playoff for fifth and sixth. And we lost. But a trophy’s a trophy, right? They must have had some left over from last year. So everyone’s a winner. Yay!

Victory number two came in the corporate environment. The company I work for was nominated for an award for excellence in staff training and development. Sure, we nominated ourselves, but that’s beside the point. It’s just nice to be recognised. What’s more, we won the award for employer of the year. What an honour! So in the finest tradition of nominating yourself for an award and then winning it, I’m nominating Cum Tacent Clament for the Booker Prize, my keyboard Samantha for Most Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Metaphorical Anthropomorphisation and myself for Female Eskimo Entrepreneur of the Century.

And last but not least, my cricket team took out the D-grade premiership. There isn’t anything to mock about this one, it was a proper win in a proper competition. I could mention the marked increase in success the team experienced when they finally got around to relegating me to twelfth man, but since this blog is about me and how awesome I am, I won’t. I'll just point out that I am now an award winning cricketer, volleyballer and staff member and a second place getting Inuit woman.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. The next couple of weeks are going to get pretty insane as Princess Ida rehearsals go into top gear. Watch this space for the opening night wrap up!

The Death of Stroganoff

Wow. Two weeks without a CTC post. What a breach of trust. Ah well. The plain fact is the last fortnight has barely afforded me time to think, let alone write anything. All of a sudden my life is just a little bit out of control, but not in the good “anything could happen at anytime” way. More in the “stumble from one commitment to another and try not to drop anything” way, which is fun but brings into uncomfortable focus the fact that I’m really not getting any younger and can’t keep treating my mind like this or it will start to triangulate. I mean snap.

Mondays I work until five (usually five thirty) and then attend opera practice from seven thirty to late. I try to grab something to eat in the two hours in between while I’m getting over the stress of starting a new week at work and figuring out how all the vocal parts I’m supposed to have learned during the preceding week go.

Tuesdays are timesheet day at work, which means we do everything we normally do, but we do it with the HR ladies ringing us up every four minutes to ask us why the records being disparately faxed in from communities across several hundred kilometres aren’t perfect and in exact concordance with what the HR ladies think they should be. Then we have to change them to make them what the HR ladies think they should be. Milkfish. Then on Tuesday evenings I have some combination of cricket training, bible study and sepak takraw training, although they tend to overlap a bit, so invariably something gets dropped. Sometimes it’s bible study. Sometimes it’s catches in the outfield.

Wednesdays are hump day and I tend to be waist deep in paperwork by this stage, so after recovering from my customary Wednesday coughing fit, I, in keeping with the theme of the day, am usually fairly comprehensively humped. Wednesdays evenings are a bit nicer as all I have on are a couple of games of indoor beach volleyball. Unfortunately the game times vary each week, so I never know when it’s going to be until Wednesday afternoon. And if it’s really well timed, sometimes I make it home in time to watch Spicks and Specks, new episodes of which are becoming increasingly precious.

Thursdays are a bit of a pickle, which is okay if you like pickles. I don’t. I prefer ice cream. I’m supposed to cram in cricket, sepak takraw, church music practice and opera practice in the same four hour period. So far that’s not going so well, but that’s okay because every second Thursday is pay day. So sometimes I get to have ice cream.

No pickles!

By Friday afternoon I’ve generally had it with my job and I can be heard muttering to myself about finding a new one, or observed posting violent or despairing status updates to Facebook (posting them to the Governor General doesn’t have the same effect, and usually involves a day or so’s delay, plus an inquisitive email from the federal police). So on the one night of the week when I can get out and spend some time not being told what to do by anyone else, I tend to spend my time sitting calmly alone in a dark, quiet room and enjoying having absolutely nothing to think about, at least for one evening. Milkfish. Then it really get’s crazy.

Every second Saturday is prison ministry, which involves getting up on a Saturday morning and pretending to be cheerful, wise and loving. When I get home from prison, there’s usually about an hour before I’m supposed to be meeting someone for lunch, or checking in on the Tease production. Thankfully I’m no longer appearing in that as Phil has also pulled out due to Science. We found two other local guys to play our parts. I use this time to do laundry.

Saturday afternoons are consumed by full cast opera practice, which seems to be gradually expanding to be (milkfish) slightly longer every week, despite the fact that the performance is still three months away. When I catch myself singing the act two finale at my desk at work I’ll know I’ve truly lost it. I estimate this will take about another week and a half to occur.

Saturday night is theoretically sepak takraw again, although this is supplanted more often than not by a wedding, birthday party or quantum analytical chemistry symposium. That last one doesn’t come up that often, but does actually turn out to be a real thing, however ridiculous it might sound, and however doubly ridiculous the idea of my attending it might be.

Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. So all I do on Sunday is get up early for music practice, do church for a couple of hours and then back up with five or so hours of cricket. Fortunately I spend at least half of that time not batting, although not batting in the batting side generally means umpiring or scoring, which requires a level of concentration slightly higher than music practice, but not as high as a kite. The other half I spend not bowling, which just involves standing around in the sun for two hours and occasionally not catching a ball.

At some point on Sunday I call my mother and attempt to convey to her the fact that everything is fine. This is about to become significantly more difficult, as my mother is one of about five people who actually read this blog. Oh well. Yes mum, I’m fine. I ate nearly a whole tomato today. It was a really big one.

By Monday morning I’m ready for a rest to recover from my weekend. So I hit rewind and start the week all over again. It’s getting to be a vicious spiral, and at some point in the next week or two something is going to have to give. Either I’ll triangulate… I mean snap… at work and start singing lines from Princess Ida instead of answering members’ balance enquiries or I’ll start attempting to cover drive a volleyball through the gap between the worship leader and the Governor General. Or maybe I’ll just schedule some time off work.

Make of that what you milkfish.




Garry with 2 Rs

Kicking It Old School

The Arafura Games are with us once again. The city is full of lost looking athletes with ID badges on, and helpful looking volunteers in green shirts. The restaurants, souvenir shops and nightclubs are all rubbing their hands together with glee and the traffic around Marrara Stadium is above average, but not too bad.

Also, apparently there’s lots of sport on.

Last night I went to watch the sepak takraw. It was a double banger for me, because not only did I get to watch my mates playing for the NT team, I got to watch some of the really good players with the Malaysian and Thai teams. It’s pretty amazing watching those guys hanging upside down in the air and still kicking the ball with so much power.

The NT side? Not so much, but it was still awesome to see them out there representing the Territory and showing what they could do, which was a darn sight more than most people. Once again it made me feel nostalgic for the old days when I used to be able to do that. I went looking for my old NT sepak jersey, but I think it might be in the pile of stuff still in the cupboard at my parents’ house with my scout uniforms, astronomy books and various other pieces of evidence of things I used be good at. Come to think of it, I don’t know how I managed to get through high school without getting beaten up every other week. I’d love to get myself back up to that level, but somehow it seems consigned to the past almost as comprehensively as my maths competition certificates.

As if to punctuate the point, today I’ve been off work nursing a bung ankle. The mild post-viral arthropathy I get from time to time decided that this week is the week (probably due to the rapid onset of the dry season) to not be quite so mild and I’ve been having trouble walking, let alone turning back flips. I have it all under control, with a large dose of rest and an even larger dose of ibuprofen, but I can’t for the life of me figure out when I stopped being the guy out there doing cool stuff and turned into the guy sitting at home taking pills and whingeing about how the weather makes his joints ache. I’m only twenty-mumble years old for heaven’s sake.

What I should really do is stop whinging to my computer and get up and do something about it. Unfortunately my ankle is still having none of that so I guess it’s DVD o’clock. Now let’s see, will I go with Evita, or Four Weddings and a Funeral?

Yes okay, forget high school. I don’t know how I get from here to the weekend without getting beaten up.

Shove it

Garry with 2 Rs

Hump Day Blues

Wednesdays are usually the time when we celebrate reaching the mid point of the working week. The “hump day,” as it has come to be known, is a time when we start to see compelling evidence that the weekend might get here eventually. What a time to be alive.

For me, the last three Wednesdays in a row have bought on chronic coughing fits. I don’t know why. I’ve eliminated diet, environment and lifestyle as factors, so I’m left with some rather untenable conclusions about what might be causing it. As the great leader of men once said:

“If we eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, however unlikely, will probably eventually show up on Garry’s blog”.

It started way back when I was on my last week away in Wadeye before starting my new role which leaves me in the city more or less permanently. I was still battling the cold I picked up on my epic weekend of unadulterated awesomeness in Queensland, so when my lungs began a concerted effort to turn themselves inside out after work on the Wednesday, I took it in my stride, hacked up half my trachea, curled up in a ball and cursed my own existence. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Last week, after a tragically unsatisfying game of indoor beach volleyball, I drove home, showered, and then coughed for a steady half an hour before eventually spitting out a couple of hundred grams of sand.

It’s not unusual to find sand in unexpected places following a volleyball match, but two dilapidating coughing fits in a week left me more than a little concerned. I booked in to see the doctor for a check up. I had some juvenile Asthma when I was… a juvenile, and I’ve always dealt with the fact that I have unusually shallow lungs (not to mention my personality).

Doctors always seem to me to be much more interested in just about anything else than in what their patients think might be wrong. We spent a good twenty minutes discussing my diet, lifestyle, blood pressure and family history, which was all fine as I asked for a general check-up. My body mass index suggests I’m still slightly overweight for my height, which I already knew, but did reveal to me that I’m approaching the solution from entirely the wrong angle. I’ve been putting all my energy into losing weight and eating properly. What I should be doing is concentrating on growing taller.

We chatted for a few more minutes about how I probably don’t need to be worrying about cholesterol, blood pressure (mine was slightly high, but apparently that could be accounted for by the stress of meeting a new doctor. This strikes me as a little odd, not to mention a violation of the Hippocratic oath) or various types of cancer at my age.

Finally the doc told me off for not eating breakfast, instructed me to eat more fibre, do more exercise… and gave me a clean bill of health. According to her I was the healthiest person she had seen all week. Of course, it was only Monday lunchtime, so that’s not such a big deal.

“What about the Asthma?” I asked, helpfully.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” replied the doctor, encouragingly. “You probably don’t have that.”

So there you have it. Or not, as the case may be.

Last night before volleyball I had another coughing fit. If the doctor is to be believed, there’s nothing wrong with me. So I’m left with only one viable conclusion:

I’m allergic to Wednesdays. Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

A Soft Touch

In the last couple of posts I’ve been very excited about the fact that I’ve started going along to sepak takraw training again. I’m very aware that most people in the in English speaking world probably wouldn’t have any idea what that is. As always, CTC is here to help with up-to-date, accurate, un-biased and completely reliable information.

Sepak Takraw is the name of the first independently owned Australian registered interplanetary transport ship. Commissioned in 1942 as a secret plot to evacuate the entire world in the event of a NAZI takeover, it now operates as an orbital tourist resort and the first war memorial to be launched into space.

Would you believe a species of short-snouted turtle?

Fine.

Sepak Takraw is a Southeast Asian sport that is like a cross between soccer and volleyball. Thailand and Malaysia both steadfastly claim to have invented the sport, and the modern international name for the sport reflects a compromise between the two, with ‘sepak’ being the Malay word for ‘to kick’ and ‘takraw’ being the Thai word for the type of ball used. Traditionally the ball was made of woven ratan cane, but international standard takraws are now made of plastic.

It’s played between two teams of three (apparently two on two games are played, but that seems dumb to me) on a court roughly the size of a badminton court, and with a similar size and height net between the two halves. The principle is similar to volleyball; three touches on each side, with the goal being to put the ball over the net and have your opponents drop it.

The soccer part comes in the ball handling; you can use your legs and head to touch the ball, but not your torso or arms. It sounds crazy, but it’s great to watch. The YouTube footage available seems to be disappointing both in quantity and quality, but the best and most competently filmed demonstration I could find is this one.

If you’ve watched the footage, you may be of the opinion that a slightly overweight, mildly arthritic, completely Caucasian and utterly uncoordinated fellow like me has no business walking into the same room as a sepak takraw court, let alone getting on it. And you’d be right.

The thing is, I learned to play the game when I was in senior high school and was younger, healthier and had less respect for gravity. While I’ve never been able to turn a back flip or hang in the air like the spikers in the video, there was a time when I could at least control a ball thrown at me from across the room using just my feet and could get my legs up high enough to put the ball over the net with some force. I played for the Northern Territory in a couple of Arafura Games, and was all set to go and play for Australia in the World Cup, but I got foiled by year twelve exams and the fact that world cup was cancelled that year due to political unrest in Malaysia. I remember my old mentor telling me the key to controlling the ball was to stroke it like a beautiful woman. At the time I didn’t really know what he meant by that.

A decade or so later, I still don’t know. But I’ve still got the ball the coach gave me all those years ago, and it turns out I can still kick it. Sort of. My control is all over the place (much like my understanding of beautiful women, come to that), but the new coach says I’ve still got the basic techniques, I just need more practice and to get back into shape (just like… actually, never mind).

The Arafuras are coming up again in May this year. I won’t have time to get my skills up in time to play this time, especially if I’m playing cricket and volleyball at the same time, but I’m looking forward to hanging out with the NT team and watching some of the teams who can play properly (Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia usually send a couple of teams each, and they really mean business). And it’s the one sport I can play that I don’t seem to inherently suck at, and where being slightly bow legged actually provides an advantage.

And if I ever do meet that special lady, I’ll be sure to take my old mentor’s advice, and kick her like a takraw. Make of that what you will.

Actually... just forget it.



Garry with 2 Rs

An Unexpected Development

Strangely enough, I’ve received a few comments from friends in the three dimensional world regarding my list of goals for 2011. Most have suggested that there’s a certain goal on the list that doesn’t quite seem realistic, or at the very least seems to be well outside my ability to influence it. Given my lifestyle, attitude and general health lately, I would ordinarily tend to agree. However just recently there have been some very promising signs suggesting it may be time to take the red pen to my to-do list a little earlier than we had anticipated. And obviously as a blogger and compulsive attention junkie, I feel compelled to tell you all about it. Aren’t you lucky?

I’ve joined a social Wednesday night mixed volley ball team. I’ve been getting to know the other girls and guys on the team a bit over the past few weeks and we’re getting along really well as a social unit, if you know what I mean. As a volley ball team, on the other hand, we are utterly abysmal, and haven’t quite managed to win a game yet. But we’re having fun.

By pure coincidence at the same as this has been happening, the inter-congregational social soccer game has started up again on Sunday afternoons at my old school. I love getting out and hanging out with folk from other churches, as well as having a run around with some social soccer. You never know who you’re going to bump into there either.

On top of all that, now I’m playing Sepak Takraw two or three nights a week as well. I’m still working on a write-up on that for those of you wondering what’s going on. Stay tuned. Couple that with an intention to get back into cricket once a few other variables in my life get sorted out and we’re looking at the makings of a veritable, if not capable, sports nut. I'm sitting in my room typing this up and enjoying the first night in almost a week that I haven't been out doing something active. It's crazy, I tell you.

And if I can keep this sort of regime up, I should get myself down to 90kg in no time. I never thought it was possible until it started to happen to me.

Make of that what you will. And don’t look at me like that.




Garry with 2 Rs

In Defence of Our Stupid Warcry

Recently news.com.au published an article from Brisbane’s Courier-Mail and a poll calling for the banning of the Aussie sporting warcy “Oi! Oi! Oi!” on grounds that it’s embarrassing. When I last checked, the yeas were outnumbering the nays two to one and I find that distressing.

I’m not remotely embarrassed to say I love the Aussie Aussie Aussie warcry. Some of my most pleasant memories are of watching cricket on TV, hearing Bill Lawry say something insightful like “There’s a hush around the MCG as McGrath comes in from the members’ end” and being able to hear nothing through the field microphones except bay thirteen yelling “Oi Oi Oi!” at the top of their lungs. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for five minutes after I heard then IOC chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch close the 2000 Olympics by trying the call for himself, and getting a 70000 strong response.

Yes, I know Glen McGrath has retired. Yes, I know the Sydney Olympics were a decade ago. Big deal. Waltzing Matilda is older than both of them. You want to ban that too?

To me, Oi Oi Oi expresses in a most efficient manner the very character of Australian sport; it’s loud, it’s straightforward and it’s awesome. On the other side of the coin, it’s also overly simplistic, slightly annoying and at its most expressive under the influence of alcohol (consumed responsibly, obviously).

What’s not to love?

I know there are those who campaign for an Australia with higher cultural aspirations, free of the cultural cringe of the past and representative of a more modern, intelligent and mature Australia. I’m all for that, and I’ll happily join you for an opera, cello recital or stroll through the national gallery (just don’t ask me to write about it), followed by a rousing chorus of “I Vow to Thee My Country” back at the members’ lounge.

But back off and leave my sports chants alone!

I think some of the problem might be with the over application of the chant. As I wrote earlier, my fondest memories of it are as background noise during a one day cricket final. With the coming of the Olympics in 2000, the chant went spectacularly mainstream and starting appearing in rock concerts, telethons, youth conventions and, most recently and hilariously, the canonisation of St. Mary MacKillop. I have to agree, things have gotten a little out of hand there.

But let’s not get too excited and start banning things like an out of control web filter. Let’s put the chant back in bay thirteen where it belongs and get on with banning something sensible.

Like the Courier-Mail.

...



Garry with 2 Rs

The View From the Middle of Nowhere

I'm writing this from the visitors' accommodation in Milingimbi, just off the North coast of East Arnhem Land. Stranded from the rest of civilisation, and cut off from the internet (don't ask me how I'm posting this... wibbly wobbly timey wimey), it's just me, the land, the ocean, my bible, my notebook and my iPod.

Okay, okay. I also have a fridge, an air conditioner and a TV. But there's nothing on except repeats of Two and a Half Men, so my iPod's been getting a fair work out. I've been re-living and re-loving Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and I've decided that our lovable and piteous antihero wasn't that far off the mark.

Just before TAAHM, Channel Nine News informed me of the following:

Kevin Rudd's government has announced that after getting themselves elected by promising to open around 250 new childcare centres to relieve the chronic national shortage, they've decided they're going to build 38.

The Melbourne Storm have announced that they've been cheating for the last five years at least by rorting the salary cap system and have been stripped of three minor premierships, two premierships, a million dollars and all points for this season, past and present. No-one would ever have accused rugby league players of being able to count, but this sort of "do whatever it takes to win and bugger the spirit of the game" attitude really belongs in some other country. Like England.

In another brazen display from Rudd's goons, they've also gone and announced that an enquiry into the debacle that was the home insulation scheme has found that fixing the mess is likely to be really difficult, and really really expensive. So they've decided not to.

And did they send out Peter Garrett to face the music? No. He was hiding in an office deep within Parliament House somewhere. So did Kevin, who just two months ago was so keen to take responsibility and show us all how up front he was, front up? No. He was hiding in Tasmania. He would probably have been even further away, if it wasn't for that damned Icelandic volcano. Instead they arranged a press conference with some dubious looking assistant minister for who-cares-what? A man so otherwise irrelevant I'm not even going to bother looking up who it actually was.

On top of all that, and despite a very strongly worded request to join a Saturday league, I've been consigned to an E grade cricket team playing on Sundays, which means choosing between playing sport to do something about my physical fitness, and investing my Sundays in intercongregational activities to do something about the spiritual health of the local Church. I mean, I realise I'm close enough to useless and not getting anywhere, but this might just be the final insult.

I'm also rubbish at cricket.

Yes indeed, as the Horrible little Doctor put it:

"It's not about making money. It's about taking money; destroying the Status Quo. Because the Status is not Quo. The world's a mess and I just need to rule it."

I've been considering the various avenues available to me in terms of affecting the obviously necessary pardigmic social change. I could become a politician myself, but they all seem to be increasingly useless. I could become a religious leader, but, for all I see, we have too many of them as it is (more on that later). I could found an underground resistance movement, but bringing a campaign of violence and destruction of property to the streets of Palmerston wouldn't actually set me apart from the local high school students. And no-one seems to pay them any attention.

So logically the only recourse left is to become a lone-wolf masked vigilante and prowl the streets at night, seeking out injustice and crushing it under the heel of my rocketboots. To the secret lab, Emilio!

No. There's no secret laboratory and no mad yet devoted assistant. And who calls their sidekick Emilio, anyway? Lame. I guess I'll just stay here in the visitors' accommodation and continue to combat the forces of evil by blogging them to death.

And that's the news for this Thursday the 22nd of April. A Current Affair is next, but for now: good night.




Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. I apologise for the overtly political tone this blog has now taken. We will be returning to the regular scheduled service of absurd sexist ecumenical idiocy as soon as possible.

P.P.S. Anyone else think Jonathan Uptin needs a more creative sign-off?

Specialist Outfielder

The extent to which I’ve become an inactive layabout is starting to annoy me. I spend far too much time with my computer (so I decided to blog about it… hmm…) and not nearly enough time outside.

This is partly due to the Darwin climate this time of year. When it’s not 33 and sticky, it’s 29 and pouring which makes outdoor pursuits a little inconvenient. However, the Dry is fast approaching and that means only one thing:

Cricket season.

Yes, I know that rest of Australia has only just got over the monumental waste of time that was this summer’s so called ‘competition’ (although as I’m typing this, Mitchell Johnson has just taken 10 wickets in the second test in Hamilton to clinch the series against New Zealand) and is stolidly pushing on with fanatic devotion to games played with balls that aren’t round.

But up here we do things the other way around: we play cricket in the dry season when it’s slightly cooler, less humid and not pouring with rain all the time. We play football in the wet season because if we didn’t, the guys playing both cricket and some code of football (which is generally half the team; there’s only a limited pool of players to draw from) would be screwed, and also because football players usually aren’t smart enough to realise that running around in the sun in November is a stupid idea.

You may already have read of my previous adventures in international cricket. It could probably be said that as a batsman I make an excellent spin bowler and that as a bowler I make a fantastic… goal keeper. Nonetheless, I’ve decided that in order to break out of the inactive slump that has elevated my pant size to unacceptable levels, I’m signing up for the next season.

The last time I played club cricket in Australia was when I was in high school, playing for Tracy Village, which was just around the corner from our old house in Wanguri. I managed to earn myself the nickname “Kamikaze” due to my distinctive ground fielding style and was renowned as the most consistent number ten in the league (I can’t remember the name of the guy who batted at eleven. He must have been woeful). I bowled occasionally, but spent most of my time running around at deep mid-wicket being noisy.

Not much has changed, except that Tracy Village is no longer just around the corner. I’m living out in the wilderness of Woodroffe and I have a heart rending decision to make.

Palmerston cricket club trains at Woodroffe Oval, which is just around the corner from where I currently live. The logical thing for me to do is to sign up with them. But, as a born and bred northern suburbs boy, it seems a little unnatural. Like a boy from Longreach growing up to play State of Origin for New South Wales, or an Oxford law student rowing for Cambridge. Or a former Liberal leader crossing the floor to vote in favour of Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Can I really bring myself to represent Palmerston on the cricket field?

I think convenience is probably going to win out over district loyalty. I also think the Tracy Village sports club can probably count themselves extremely fortunate. Either way, I’ll be spending less time in cyberspace and more time in the outfield, which can only be a good thing from my current perspective.

This has been another presentation from Nine’s Wide World of Sports.




Garry with 2 Rs

Away in La Manga

I spent last weekend in a resort town in South East Spain called La Manga. It’s a little village close to the south east coast. The closest notable cities are Cartagena and Murcia (the regional capital). It was a bit of a hike from Madrid; I had to take a five hour train ride to Cartagena and then a twenty minute taxi ride, but it was a great place to kick back for a few days once I got there.

I was a bit out of place though. La Manga has the look of one of those southern Spanish villas that’s actually just a retirement village for British billionaires. It’s technically still under Spanish sovereignty, but as far as local culture goes, it belongs to England. And possibly also to the 20th century. Everyone speaks English and all the restaurants sell beef burgers and fish and chips and … whatever other stuff people eat in England. And all the prices are adjusted to suit the local clientele, so it’s not the sort of place a normal person could stay for more than a weekend or so, and not the sort of place you would normally find me at all.

So what the hell was I doing there?

Madrid Cricket Club was hosting a twenty-twenty tournament with a bunch of teams from Europe getting together for a weekend of good old-fashioned British culture, which seems to be what sleepy towns in south-east Spain are all about. And I was there in my freshly purchased MCC whites, ready to represent Madrid along with all the other ex-pats.

There were two other teams from Spain, three teams from England and two teams from the Netherlands. The English teams weren’t such a big deal (as is usually the case with English cricket teams), and actually the teams to watch were the Dutch boys. Amsterdam and The Hague were the strongest teams, since both teams had members who played for the Netherlands, and were fitting the weekend in between preparations for the world cup qualifiers. The English teams, like the Spanish teams, were mainly amateurs looking for a fun weekend in the sunshine.

I ended up playing most of the weekend as 12th man for La Manga CC, who hadn’t quite managed to bring a full team (despite the competition being held in their town) and needed to borrow some Madrid players. I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that even the team that couldn’t field a full side didn’t want me in their first eleven, so in the end I decided not to make anything of it, and just ran around at deep mid-wicket for a while.

As you might expect my batting was nothing to write home about, and certainly nothing to write a blog entry about, so I won’t.

I did manage to sneak in a couple of overs for Madrid with the ball when we played against La Manga, and took figures of two overs, no maidens, one for six which wasn’t too bad. Especially since the wicket was a Dutch national player from The Hague who had been called in to take my spot (make of that what you will).

Over all Madrid finished fifth, behind the Dutch teams and two of the English teams, but ahead of the other Spaniards and one particularly unfortunate English side.

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs

A visit to the MCC

Well, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself; Madrid has a cricket club. And what’s more they’re recruiting for the up-coming season. After getting word of this most perplexing of cultural dislocations, I felt it was my patriotic duty to investigate. So I slipped into the closest thing to sports clothes I own these days and headed out for the MCC.

To tell you the truth, as well as being a little culturally curious, I was also quite looking forward to the chance to pursue an unfulfilled childhood dream; being good at sport. I mean, come on. I’m in Spain. Most of the people here haven’t even heard of cricket. I was fairly likely to dominate simply by being Australian. Okay, so back home I would struggle to be picked as twelfth man for the Tennant Creek East local derby against those pie-chuckers from West Tennant, but here in the land of football and nothing much else (except for one random guy who seems to be pretty good at tennis) I might as well be Michael Clarke. Except without the crazy fiancée. I had visions of me raising my bat to the dressing room after scoring a hundred on debut, or taking five for twelve including a hat trick.

If I had any brains at all I’d have realised that this is Madrid; one of the most multi-cultural cities in Europe. The Madrid Cricket Club consisted of a bunch of English guys getting together for a match a little closer to the backyard on Australia Day than the MCG on Boxing Day. There were also a large group of sub-continental guys chatting to each other in a language I couldn’t make out. I’d like to assume it was Tamil, Hindi or Urdu, but it might just as well have been Spanish. I’m really not getting anywhere with the whole local language thing. Possibly because I spend all my time at English teacher agencies and… cricket clubs.

Anyway, the pitch for our epic match consisted of a rubber mat laid out in the middle of a rugby field. It was only half of the standard 22 yards, but as long as we only bowled from one end and didn’t pitch too short, it worked alright. The bounce wasn’t exactly what you’d call predictable, but dealing with difficult conditions is part and parcel of being a professional sportsman in the modern era.

It won’t come as huge shock to anyone back in Australia, but, in fact, there were no great heroic sporting feats on my part. I’m still just as woeful with the bat as I always was. I wasn’t too bad with the ball, although I’d have been a darn sight better if I hadn’t had two catches dropped at mid on. To top it all off, I seem to have forgotten how to catch too, although thankfully this didn’t come up as an issue during the match.

Apparently there’s a Spanish twenty-twenty tournament coming up in April. Remarkably enough, some of the other large cities of Spain have cricket clubs as well. I’m definitely going to try out if I can manage my time-table. Some of the other club members were also talking about a tour of England, but something about that doesn’t sound quite right.

I mean, yeah, England suck, but surely it hasn’t come to this, has it?

Far from home



Michael Hussey … I mean … Garry with 2 Rs