Would you I hold it against you? I certainly would

Not much of an intro to this one. The Liberals remained in power in NSW. Australia won the one day Cricket World Cup. And we wondered about what can be done when a pilot decides they want to crash the plane they are flying and the nature of mental illnesses that would lead to a person making that decision. Anyway none of these are covered in this.

In this edition:

- Forgetting The First Rule Of Pop Music
- Kerr's Cur


Forgetting The First Rule Of Pop Music

Mrs L was playing some Britney Spears in the car the other day and she played a song called 'Hold It Against Me'. My first thought was it had fairly blatantly ripped off the lyrics to the Bellamy Brothers song 'If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me'.

My second thought was how obviously sexual the song was. I then realised that the I had never picked up on the same double meaning in the Bellamy Brothers song.

Only took me 36 years to figure it out what the Bellamy Brothers were really on about.


Kerr's Cur

It's been just over a week since the passing of Malcolm Fraser.

In the years I've lived in Australia, there have been 3 Prime Ministers from the Liberal Party and all 3 of them have been intensely disliked by hardcore Labor supporters. Of the 3, I think the most hated was Malcolm Fraser. Of course the hatred centres around on the events of 1975 and the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

I'll remember him as the Prime Minister who said 'life wasn't meant to be easy' without seeming to grasp it was his job to at least make life easier for Australian. Also as Prime Minister he failed to make the changes to the economy that were needed. It was the subsequent Labor Party that bought in the compulsory superannuation scheme, floated the dollar, dramatically cut tariffs and bought in a period of industrial reform and peace (although I think the changes went to far and ended up gutting the union movement in Australia).

My lasting memory of him as Prime Minister was on the day he conceded defeat after the 1983 election, with him blubbering away. It was quite pathetic and I remember having a laugh. For those of who didn't like him, it was good to see him struggling when he finally got his comeuppance.

Everything had gone wrong for Fraser during that campaign. He had wanted to run against Bill Hayden whom he had beaten in the 1980 election. He knew he'd be in trouble of Labor replaced Hayden with Bob Hawke. As Fraser was driving to see the Governor-General to ask to be allowed to call an early election, unbeknown to Fraser, Labor replaced Hayden with Hawke. Fraser attempted to start a scare campaign about how people's savings wouldn't be safe in the bank if Labor was office, and they'd be better off keeping it under the bed. Hawke dismissed the notion with 'you can't keep your money under the bed because that's were all the Commies are'. It seemed at encapsulate how out of touch Fraser was and that he had none of the panache of Hawke.

In the mid 1980s he became a figure of fun when he was found with no trousers in a seedy Memphis hotel, which became funnier when he claimed he had been given a Mickey Finn.

As politics in Australia, like in most of the Western world moved to the right during the late 1970s and 1980s, Fraser seemed to buck the trend. In the mid 1980s Fraser helped establish CARE Australia. For quite a while he was the face of the organisation as well as holding senior positions with them. Also Fraser took a position re refugees that were popular with hardcore Labor party supporters and unpopular with hardcore Liberal supporters.

At Gough Whitlam's funeral the animosity between John Howard and Fraser was such that like Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard , as well as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, steps were taken to keep them apart. Fraser was also a strident critic of Tony Abbott. It got to the stage where Fraser was more popular with Labor supporters than he was with Liberal supporters. Following his passing it has been reported that a number of Liberal figures would not comment on his passing, apart from they would not speak ill of the dead.

Many years ago I saw a documentary on the UK mining strikes. There was a small piece on a village that had 2 pubs. Apparently neither pub would let in a bloke who hadn't gone on strike about 50 years earlier. Now that is seriously holding a grudge.

I'm a fan of grudges. I've refused to buy Nestle for over 30 years. I once went 18 months of not watching Channel 7 because they showed Red Dawn (thinking about that was probably a bit ridiculous, although Channel 7 didn't have many shows worth watching back then...so some things never change). And I've held grudges (actually I still do) against people I think have wronged me for very long periods.

I'm not a great believer in conspiracy theories, but I'm convinced that the US government orchestrated the overthrow of the Whitlam government. I'll attach an interview between Ray Martin and Christopher Boyce from 1982 here.

As it was Fraser crushed Whitlam at the subsequent 1975 election before beating him even more comprehensively in 1977. He defeated Hayden in 1980. If Fraser had waited, he would have beaten Whitlam in the 1977 election. However Fraser couldn't wait 18 months and let his ego and lust for power get so out of control, that with the aid of the tainted Senate (after 2 conservative premiers did not replace outgoing Labor senators with Labor senators) and 'Our Man Kerr' he plotted the dismissal of the democratically elected government of Australia.

Looking back on the Fraser government they didn't have the nasty right wing edge that the Howard did and the Abbott government does have. And certainly he should be given credit for what he did with CARE and for speaking up about our treatment of asylum seekers.

However Fraser either conspired with a foreign government or unwittingly did their work, to remove the democratically elected government of Australia. Apparently Whitlam forgave Fraser for the events of 1975. I haven't. And the good work he did after he left office, nowhere near makes up for what he did in 1975.

COYS!

This week I bought tickets to see Spurs when they come to Sydney in May and this week we'll find out if we got tickets to see Morrissey when he plays at the Sydney Opera House in the same week. I've loved Spurs since I was about 6. And I do mean love. I still spend a fair chunk of may day reading or thinking about Spurs. At about 20, I was put onto the Smiths & Morrissey. I doubt I'll find another songwriter who songs resonated so much with me. I don't quite feel the same connection any more (which I think is a good thing), but I'm still excited at the thought of seeing him again. I'm hoping we don't get tickets for his Saturday performance, because when it comes choosing between Spurs and Morrissey it's a bit of a mismatch. COYS!

In this edition

- Sheila Take A Bow
- Barbarism Begins At Home
- I Started Something I Couldn't Finish
- Milton Keynes Here We Come


Sheila Take A Bow

There is a quote from Bob Hawke about no matter what the ALP does, they'll always win seats around Newcastle. I wish I could find the actual quote to give justice to what a stronghold Newcastle is of the ALP.

 The Labor Party had won Newcastle at every election since 1927, except for in 1988 when an independent won the seat. Anyway when the ALP was annihilated by the Coalition at the 2011 NSW state election, Jodi McKay lost the seat.

Jodi was done in by being part of the worst NSW state government since the Rum rebellion and by a dirty tricks campaign after she stood upto boganaire Nathan Tinkler when she opposed a plan for a coal loader that Tinkler supported. And to make it worse some of her own colleagues were also part of the campaign to get rid of her. here

Jodi will stand for the ALP at the next state election, in my seat of Strathfield.  It's hard not to admire her for standing upto what was right and we could certainly do with some more people in government who make sensible decisions re developments.

I bumped into her today. I spoke to her about what had happened with Tinkler and Eric Roozendaal and asked her even if I admired her, how could we trust having another ALP government so soon after having such a bad and corrupt ALP government?

Jodi took the time to speak to me and about how painful it was to find out that her own colleagues conspired against her and how she didn't know for sure they had until the ICAC hearing. She also said if she wasn't convinced those corrupt elements had been removed from the ALP she wouldn't be running.

I'm glad that Jodi McKay is running for Strathfield. We could use somebody on Burwood Council who took a sensible approach to developments. It leaves me in a quandary because I like Jodi, but I'm not sure I have enough confidence in the NSW ALP to give them my vote again. Not yet anyway.


Barbarism Begins At Home

Earlier this week said 'Australians are sick of being lectured by the United Nations'. He was speaking of about a UN report that was critical of Australia's treatment of asylum seekers.

Good to know our PM has so little time for the UN. In 2013 & 2014 Australia was part of the UN Security Council.

Any Tony not all Australians are upset about reporting on Australia's treatment of asylum seekers.


I Started Something I Couldn't Finish

I have a problem that so often I book to do two things on one day, and just don't make the connection that I have done so. For weeks I have known that this Friday that a Wanderers game will clash with a Bulldogs game. I had chosen the Bulldogs game vs the Eels as the game I'd see. I also knew I had tickets to see England vs Afghanistan at the one day cricket world cup for this Friday. But for some reason I hadn't put together that there was a clash. Up until yesterday I was still planning on going to both.

Anyway I'll be going to see England vs Afghanistan even though the game is a dead rubber with both teams having no chance of making the quarter finals. Still it would be good to see an impoverished nation with such serious social problems, trying to master a sport that they haven't shown much talent for playing in the past. It will also be good to see Afghanistan play.


Milton Keynes Here We Come

Last Friday Spurs announced that they are coming to Sydney at the end of May.

It's been a big few weeks for the team I support. In bad news we lost the League Cup final (is it now called the Capital One Cup?) to Chelsea. In good news Spurs won a court case that means the building of a new stadium is one step closer (it could even by the final legal obstacle).

Spurs have bought all of the surrounding properties needed to build the new stadium. Bar one. Anyway they got a government compulsory purchase order for the property, but the company involved took them to court (and lost). I'm not sure why Spurs didn't just build around the property, sort of like you see from time to time in China, where some poor family's house ends up being right in the middle of a freeway. Some people might say that you can't really have an immovable structure in the middle of your field. However, we had Tom Huddlestone in the centre of our midfield for years, and really there wouldn't have been much of a difference.

Anyway it leaves Spurs in a quandary as to where to play whilst the ground is being built during the 2017/18 season. There has been some talk of playing at the Olympic Stadium or the Boleyn Ground or Wembley. All have problems that might mean that we can't play at them. It looks like the current favourite is the ground of the Milton Keynes Dons. There are some serious drawbacks to this plan. Their ground only holds about 30,000 people. It's over 50 miles from Tottenham to Milton Keynes, which with English traffic means it will take about 2 & 1/2 days to get to. And it's Milton Fucking Keynes!!!

Anyway there is another ground in London that has the capacity more in line with the level of our fan base. The team who plays there really owes a solid after we let them at our ground for six seasons during World War II. And their ground is only 4 miles from White Hart Lane. Of course I'm talking about the Emirates, the home ground of the Woolwich Wanderers aka Arsenal.

And despite all of these good points, it will not happen. And further we shouldn't inquire about the possibility of playing there. And if we did this would go down disastrously with our fans.

Spurs are currently running a fan poll for the best Spurs XI of all time. Defence has never been our strong suit. The 4 defenders I voted for were Steve Perryman (1 cap for England), Ledley King (21 caps for England), Mike England (44 caps for Wales) and Cyril Knowles(4 caps for England and one cracking song about him). Anyway all very good players, but they were hardly the British defenders of their generation even allowing for the fact that Perryman was terribly overlooked by English managers and if only Ledley had of had better knees he would have gone down as being one of the best defenders England had produced.

There were 12 candidates for the poll. Missing was a player who at one stage had been our club captain, and was captain when we won the 1999 League Cup final. He also  made 73 appearances for England and was widely regarded as being one of the best defenders in world football for a considerable period. It was no oversight that Sol Campbell's name was left of the list, for Sol left Spurs to join Arsenal. I'll leave that story for another day, but it's fair to say it didn't go down well with Spurs fan, most of whom still haven't forgiven him (also a lot of fans came to the conclusion that he is gay about the same time he signed for Arsenal).

Anyway it's good to be a  Spurs fan at the moment. We have a good young side, a new stadium looks likely and we're coming to Sydney. Now if we could only finish above Arsenal.