Aussies – utterly predictable right down to the last words.

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, July 14th, 2019 - 30 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, humour, Satire, sport - Tags: , , , , ,

It isn’t often that I read a sports story. My view was that if you aren’t doing a sport, then what is the point in watching others doing it? Work on something that you can do. However a title on an aussie ABC article caught me – “New Zealand earn genuine respect”

Turns out that NZ has been doing well in cricket recently and the full title was “Cricket World Cup final: Once ridiculed, the New Zealand cricket team has earned Australia’s respect”.

I nearly stopped reading then – not general respect – just aussie respect?. Who really gives a shit about what aussies respect? Before I’d be interested I’d first have to respect them for it to matter. There have been few reasons to do so over a number of decades.

The kind of relief that I saw over and over again on the faces of Singaporean taxi-drivers last year when I said that I was not an aussie, but was a kiwi was part of an continuing object lesson in a world wide lack of respect for aussies. I’ve seen exactly the same across all of my work travel in recent years.

Of course Trump says he likes them – when he isn’t snubbing them in favour of the kind of nice dictators that he likes to fawn and drool over. But personally I suspect that is just because he is scared that the aussie would just ratchet up their innate blowhard bullshit beyond his capacities.

Anyway, I did think that ABC writer, Richard Hinds, did capture the essence of their argument with:-

Before the ICC World Cup, the captains of the 10 competing nations posed for a photograph in which Chesterfield lounges were juxtaposed with an industrial backdrop to … well, I’m not sure what the idea was.

Regardless of the photographer’s intentions he managed to engage the skippers in a competition to assume the most “alpha” pose, with piercing glares, pursed lips, studied nonchalance and even regal insouciance (Virat Kohli, naturally) deployed with menacing intent.

Meanwhile, off to the left stood Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson, whose friendly grin and Harry high pants kit made him look more like an eager nets bowler who had wandered into frame than one of the world’s great batsmen.

This, in a single image, was how the world had come to see New Zealand cricket and, perhaps somewhere deep down, how New Zealand cricket has often seen itself.

Naturally the author then proceeds to do what all sports commentators do, fart religiously at the mouth to fill the dead air. It is hard to find actual content about whatever the writer.  Ok.. some actual content.

Yet here are the Kiwis again. Through to a second consecutive World Cup final after defying not only the odds provided by the bookmakers, but the far more overwhelming statistics of the census takers — India 1.3 billion, New Zealand five million.

Maybe we played the Indians? The following paragraph is an interesting albeit trite observation. 

Disparity in population can be misleading in sport because you only need as many good players as it takes to field a team. Belgian football is just one example of how an astute system can produce an international team that punches above its per-capita weight. And, of course, there is New Zealand rugby.

Of course the real trick in any sport isn’t the population nor the size of the team. It is the methods by which you develop people and fund their development from the kids leagues all the way through. It allows concentration of team talent cooperating together. My impression of aussie sports is that it is more orientated towards producing self-righteous narcissistic self-entitled dimwits. Our current embarrassment, Israel Folau, comes to mind. 

Still trying to find out who they were playing…. Ah!

While the colourfully clad Indians in the crowd rode an emotional rollercoaster during the semi-final, the Kiwis captured by the cameras at Old Trafford looked like they were on a rest day from the Manchester and District Poultry and Livestock Conference.

Which is not to damn the Kiwis for this display of endearing provincialism. Rather, at a time when Australian sports fans are urged on by stadium “activators” to mimic their American counterparts, it is to praise them for how comfortable they seemed in their own skin.

Call it the Jacinda Ardern effect, where those of us who once mocked New Zealand’s seemingly isolated insularity now have a quiet yearning for the decent virtues and strong but respectful international conduct.

Huh? We just do things that way. Sure there are a few pontificating self-promoting blowhards around.

Like Mike Hosking who seem to need to compensate for something by grasping his quivering gear stick going round and round at Hampton Downs (and crashing). Or Shane Jones – the less said about that the better. But I’m glad he is a NZ First problem now.

Most kiwis are way less concerned with posturing like mindless dickheads and more concerned with actually being competent at what we do. Which is what the point of the ABC article was actually about. Way down the bottom, that point appears. Learning to be competent means doing some work.

Yet Australian sports teams right down to junior level are now cleaning out their change rooms in imitation of the “sweeping the shed” practice famously employed by the All Blacks. This makes it even more difficult to love the shambles that is Australian rugby and hate their Kiwi oppressors.

Should New Zealand beat England in the final, the Kiwis will have landed the first leg of what would be a magnificent treble — cricket, netball and rugby World Cups in the same year.

But regardless of the results, where once we might have patronised or ridiculed the Kiwis, it is now difficult not to cheer them on out of genuine respect.

Followed of course by the utterly predictable last inclusive words without which an aussie would have to hang their head in shame.

And yes, OK, it doesn’t hurt that our beloved fellow Australasians are playing England.

30 comments on “Aussies – utterly predictable right down to the last words. ”

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  1. greywarshark 1
    14 July 2019 at 11:17 am

    Which is not to damn the Kiwis for this display of endearing provincialism. Rather, at a time when Australian sports fans are urged on by stadium “activators” to mimic their American counterparts, it is to praise them for how comfortable they seemed in their own skin.

    Call it the Jacinda Ardern effect, where those of us who once mocked New Zealand’s seemingly isolated insularity now have a quiet yearning for the decent virtues and strong but respectful international conduct….

    But regardless of the results, where once we might have patronised or ridiculed the Kiwis, it is now difficult not to cheer them on out of genuine respect.

    Patronising still, muchly. Our problem in dealing with Australia I think is that whatever we do with them, they always beat us – sport, withholding genuine open borders to our airline and selling us the Ansett loser, us selling our banks to Australian interests. This is the country that hunts down criminals and kills them, and then turns them into today's national heroes.

  2. Hamish Stevenson 2
    14 July 2019 at 11:39 am

    Australians are never going to change. I worked there in 1995 and they never overlooked an opportunity to mock the kiwi accent or tell a kiwi joke. Their pervasive social pathology is definitely related to the preponderance of criminality in their provenance.

  3. WILD KATIPO 3
    14 July 2019 at 2:28 pm

    Oh shite,…I thought we were in the music section , not the sports section…

    But hey !- Kiwis are like the Jimi Hendrix Experience…

    We actually DO punch above our weights , and we are ( still ) quite laid back in general. And just like the Jimi Hendrix Experience , who were a three piece band ( and thus had to put far more work into maintaining that wall of sound than say Deep Purple who were a 5 piece band…) we do tend to keep that quieter exterior…. and just get on with it.

    N.B : check out Mitch Mitchell's drum solo which proceeded Led Zepplin’s John Henry Bonham’s drum solo in the song ' ‘Moby Dick’ ' by many years…

    And that's another thing we tend to be… innovators.

    Think women's rights to vote, welfare systems, state housing… you get the drift,… now…. maybe its time for the Labour party to catch up with the main train of thought and renounce neo liberalism and Roger Douglas.

    Wouldn't that be innovative…

    Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child Live 1969 – YouTube



  4. Gabby 4
    14 July 2019 at 2:29 pm

    You don't need to be an arsehole to win, but the yockers prefer not to know that.

  5. JohnSelway 5
    15 July 2019 at 1:07 am

    You’re a terrible writer LPrent. Everything you write is exactly the same – find a topic, talk about awful it is to you and how silly everyone else using the same tired invective while bloviating about your own achievements.

    Every. Time.

    • lprent 5.1
      15 July 2019 at 6:08 am

      I guess that you're too dumb to understand what a blog is?

      A blog (a truncation of "weblog")[1] is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).

      Personally, I tend to write when I am annoyed about something. I draw on my own experiences and opinions to explain why I think particular things .. which is exactly what blogs are meant to do.

      Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject or topic, ranging from politics to sports.

      Clearly you find this as just as objectionable as I find your mindless and inaccurate criticism – that doesn't show any skerrick of experience apart from whining. Certainly from what I have seen of your comments you're incapable of doing anything else apart from whining about others.

      At this point I'll remind you of the site policy.

      • Abusing the sysop or post writers on their own site – including telling us how to run our site or what we should write. This is viewed as self-evident stupidity, and should be added as a category to the Darwin Awards.

      I'm getting kind of annoyed by your whining, persistent criticism, and inability to express why you find this necessary to say in response to whoever you’re saying it to.

      So the next time I see you make a comment that is false in fact, attacks someone else for expressing an opinion, and doe sit without providing any discussion about why you think this is relevant to the discussion, you're getting kicked off permanently. Lets see if that encourages you to lift your standard, and if you don’t then it isn’t a loss worth caring about

  6. JohnSelway 6
    15 July 2019 at 2:07 pm

    I’m not saying you shouldn’t have an opinion. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to express that opinion. I’m not telling you what to write or how to run the site. I know what a blog is and I know what purpose The Standard is for.

    All I’m saying is you’re a terrible writer and a terribly pompous one at that.

    • Muttonbird 6.1
      15 July 2019 at 3:25 pm

      You'd know pompous, that's for sure.

      Why don’t you have a crack at submitting a post and we’ll critique it.

      • JohnSelway 6.1.1
        15 July 2019 at 4:48 pm

        I have over the last year had articles published by The Spinoff, Noted, Remix Magazine and some overseas publications so I don’t need to prove anything to you.

        [lprent: I get paid for my writing all of the time. Millions of lines of meaningful code every few years that actually does something and makes millions.

        This on the other hand is just something that I do when I have time and feel like working without the compiler and TDD for while. It roughly is the equivalent of scribbling a diary in bed in my pyjamas. My partner is the writer of english. I’m the writer of code and clear researched opinions. Personally I couldn’t give a pigs arse for style in English – I’m interested in making my opinion clear. ]

        • Muttonbird 6.1.1.1
          15 July 2019 at 5:30 pm

          Obviously you don't have the balls to put a post up here.

          • JohnSelway 6.1.1.1.1
            15 July 2019 at 5:38 pm

            I don’t have anything I want to write about here and when do write I get paid so why would I post anything?

            you don’t have to write a piece for the standard in order to point out LPrent has an appalling writing style. A little bit like Bomber really.

            • Shadrach 6.1.1.1.1.1
              15 July 2019 at 10:59 pm

              And yet you apparently read this entire blog post. And I assume several others, in order to form such an opinion? Strange. If this particular writer irritates you so much, don't read his pieces. You'll feel so much better.

        • Incognito 6.1.1.2
          15 July 2019 at 5:37 pm

          Links?

          • JohnSelway 6.1.1.2.1
            15 July 2019 at 5:50 pm

            Sorry no can do – John Selway is not my real name. You don't have to believe me though and I don't care if you don't.

            Also if LPrent wants to ban for insulting his writing style the prerogative is his. I'm just telling him how awful is writing is

            [lprent: Now you’re just spinning what I wrote… That is just one bit.

            including telling us how to run our site or what we should write

            If you read the about, you’ll find that what we write about are our own personal opinions. Try to show me where in what we have written as guideline for the site that we ever said anyone was interested in pandering to style fetishists?

            Clearly while you may know how to write – you have never learned how to read. ]

            • Incognito 6.1.1.2.1.1
              15 July 2019 at 6:21 pm

              Fair enough.

              As you know full well, Lynn is a programmer and writes (in) code. When he has time, he writes about stuff on this blog site. Style and format don’t matter so much as it is about having a robust debate about stuff that matters, to Lynn and to the many (!) others who read the site. We don’t write prose to win a literary prize.

              All authors write for free. We do this in our spare free time. That’s how we tick. Why do things only for money?

              Lynn maintains the servers and all the technical stuff behind the scenes for free.

              This site is a free platform for others, including you, to debate politics and social issues, etc., and leave comments.

              I don’t understand why you have nothing you want to write about here but do bother writing scathing comments about an author’s style!? In fact, and as Lynn pointed out, you don’t contribute anything to the discussion.

              I/we don’t have to ban you; you could simply stop wasting space here and start contributing and adding something of substance.

              I hope that’s not too much to ask from you but we’ll see what you’re made of.

              • Muttonbird …
                15 July 2019 at 6:28 pm

                Well said.

                Some people are incapable of gratitude…a simple thanks wouldn't go amiss.

              • JohnSelway …
                15 July 2019 at 7:12 pm

                Long comment with good points except for the fact that if I was spending my time here criticising DPF’s writing style (which isn’t all that bad) or Whale Oils (which is awful) I’m sure that’d be considered a contribution. Problem is, what I can’t get behind is LPrent’s utter pomposity and sneering arrogance which is prevalent in everything he writes. I expect better from him to be honest but his posts always have the following monikers:

                1) I don’t like something

                2) The thing I don’t like is stupid

                3) people who like the thing are also stupid

                4) But I’m too busy being a “insert something I’ve done portrayed as if I am the first person to have ever done it and am better at it than anyone else”

                5) use the terms dickheads, dimwits or accuses others of masturbating

                6) finish with a final “but I’m so above it”

                its vainglorious and with unearned arrogance. So yes, I’ll call it out because he does it every. Time.

                The most ironic part of it is when this is pointed out he doubles down with a ban threat. Well fuck that.

                • Incognito …
                  15 July 2019 at 9:51 pm

                  In the beginning, I found Lynn’s abrasiveness hard to stomach too. However, over time I’ve learned here to look past or through it and focus on the good points he’s making and he’s often right. You cannot judge a book by its cover.

                  His prosaic style can be very effective when moderating. And he has an adorable little kitten called Mort.

                  You may think that criticising DPF or WO’s styles of writing is “considered a contribution”. Without adding substance, it becomes just one of those yeah-nah-meh comments and a dime in a dozen. There is a difference between commenting (for the sake of it) and contributing. Do you aim for a comment that will be valued and appreciated by the readers of the site? The responses of the commentariat are a reasonable guide.

                  You can criticise the style of DPF, WO or Jacinda Ardern for that matter but it is a false equivalence nevertheless. Because there is nothing in the site’s policy about having a go at non-authors. You make the mistake of putting DPF, WO, and Bomber at the same level as authors of and on TS and they are not, by a long shot.

                  So yes, I’ll call it out because he does it every. Time.

                  Since you don’t want to write posts here and don’t care about being banned why do you make it your mission to try to wind up Lynn? You don’t have to read any of his posts nor do you have to criticise his style. So, why do it?

                  • lprent …
                    15 July 2019 at 10:44 pm

                    His prosaic style can be very effective when moderating. And he has an adorable little kitten called Mort.

                    Damn.. I have been avoiding that.

                    We don’t have him any more (or more precisely he doesn’t own us). Mort found that running across the Newton Road off-ramp in the dark with fog was not a good idea on Wednesday night. Didn't even realise that the young fool had gotten down the hill that far. It is about 400m and freaking noisy even at night. I found his body while riding to work and stopped at the off-ramp lights. Saw a dark lunk on the tarmac.

                    We're both devastated. Especially after watching his body amongst the traffic all day. Eventually managed to get the good people from Auckland Transport via the Motorway Alliance to come and scrap him up.

                    I don't think we'll be getting another cat for while. Maybe when we retire a bit and leave Auckland.

                    Anyway, this was his last photo…

                    • Incognito …
                      15 July 2019 at 10:50 pm

                      I’m sorry to hear that and even more sorry to have brought it up, even though it was unwittingly. These experiences suck badly.

                • marty mars …
                  15 July 2019 at 10:40 pm

                  pull your head out your arse and grow up man – Lynn does everything for FREE – you aren't the decider of good prose or accurate sentences – who chose you john? – no one that's who – it's all subjective anyway you big head – ffs what a joke

              • lprent …
                15 July 2019 at 10:29 pm

                Fair enough.

                …..

                Opps – snap..

                I think you actually said it better than I did.

  7. Chris T 7
    15 July 2019 at 4:44 pm

    Lol

    Read that article today and laughed my arse off.

    Wondered if it would get picked up.

    Patronising bastards

  8. Obtrectator 8
    16 July 2019 at 11:17 am

    Why is it that most of the comments on any given story are actually abuse or character assassinations of other posters?

    I've had enough of sifting through the dirt in search of the occasional nugget of added insight or humour. I'm off, and won't be back here in quite some while.

    And yes: this post is of course itself a slag-off. Of people's behaviour, though, not the people themselves.