Ozzie Rules A-OK

Oz Stereotype #26 - Australian Rules Football is a game that largely has no actual rules (see here for the official party line on the matter). From my in depth research and analysis: Affirmative. At least no rules that anyone appeared to follow... And yes, they really do wear criminally short shorts -----> Marvellous!

As part of my ongoing and entirely selfless campaign to promote generosity and niceness in general across the world I volunteered to collect money for charity (I'm doing it for the kids) for a couple of hours before and after the AFL match between the West Coast Eagles (my team of choice, partly because they're local, largely because they are currently embroiled in some fantastic stories of drugs and scandal in the papers, and partly because I like their team colours: blue and 'gold' - don't know what it is in Australia but nothing is ever yellow, always gold - some kind of complex left over from the days of prospecting I suspect) and Carlton Blues on Sunday. The offer of free tickets and free lunch was in no way the reason why I chose Sunday to be the day I honoured my generosity and niceness campaign. After having gorged on sandwiches in the MegaZone at the kids hospital (and let me tell you, mega goes no way to describe how awesome their play/chill out area was) and armed with a backpack stuffed with plastic handclappers (the <---- headache-maker as I called them), a money tin and a snazzy T-shirt, we headed to the Subiaco Oval to shout and bully and cajole people into giving us money - now this was something I could do and do I did, although many people would only give me money in exchange for a promise that I would SHUT UP! (ah money's money when it comes to charity, though I'm sure none of you could imagine me making lots of noise with my voice, ah-hem hmm hurrr.) 1 minute into the game it absolutely wee'd it down (in Australia?!? this isn't what I signed up for), and I mean wee like the sky had been hopping about on one leg for months before finally letting it go (which it probably had been in all honesty - *drought*). I was SOAKED to my soggy little pants. Boo hoo hoo.

Anyway and so to concentrate on important matters at hand. The 40 chaps running around the field after a ball. Yes 40!!! 18-a-side plus all these 'runner' dudes who just run about randomly during play to relay messages from the coach/local cocaine dealer. Loads of them. And in true schoolboy style they all huddled around the ball wherever it went. Throw the ball, kick the ball, wallop the other player, pass the ball, fight for a while, catch the ball, kick the ball in the goal, score! In this game you got points even if you missed the actual goal but got it through the posts in the mere vicinity of the goal. And from what I could see they weren't much good at catching the ball either, fumbling the ball they were great at, though when I voiced my comments that they might all be a bit on the useless side it didn't go down so well with the nearby Australians (I daresay the immortal phrase 'bloody pommies' was bandied about a fair bit). My favourite bit was the throw-in which is done by the referee in a manner that can only be described in terms of a giraffes mating ritual, biz-arre. Even though I had little to no idea what was going on most the time I had a great time (authentic Australian sporting experience, tick!) and the good old Eagles pulled through to win by 100-39. Whoop whoop woo, GO EAGLES!