Glenelg v Crows v Carlton v Crows

Jul 30, 2019 | Mickey Randall

tigers

The combined and cowardly bullying of the AFL and Channel 7 is such that SANFL games don’t clash with Crows or Power fixtures. These are shunted about the weekend, even if it means avoiding the traditional Saturday afternoon timeslot. July 27 was an exception, and in an odd symmetry, the Crows were playing at the same time as the Crows.

The spluttering-like-a-wheezy-Grandpa-AFL Crows were having a rare MCG outing against the newly confident Carlton, while down at our sun-dappled bay the top of the table Glenelg Tigers were clashing with the SANFL Crows.

footy

Like a minor gangster in Goodfellas I had some temporary confusion regarding my loyalty. But, of course, I wanted the MCG Crows to win and for Glenelg Oval to witness a Tigers’ victory.

Glenelg has a salary cap of about $360,000 while a conservative estimate would value the Crows’ livestock warming up at the Bay at somewhere around four million. While I admire much of the Crows talent fronting for their Magoos such as Gibbs, Betts, Douglas, Jacobs and Greenwood (why on earth is he not in the AFL side?) my inner socialist (and Glenelg membership) means I want the locals to win.

But, as I said from the safety of my sports psychologist’s couch, “It’s complicated.”

The bright afternoon and happy crowd on the grassy eastern mound invested the atmosphere with both privilege and picnic. By the southern goals a young girl waved a, “Go, Eddie, go” sign. There were kids and footies and beanies and sausages in bread. With the preternatural sun dangling over the gulf it was a marvellous place to be.

The skilled, fast game was enhanced by the exemplary ground condition. As both sides traded first-half goals I thought of the AFL and wondered at its similarity to the Catholic Church: neither pay taxes, or possess a whiff of social responsibility and while Jolimont and the Vatican have so many riches that their accountants can scarcely tally the gold; the distant parishioners question their faith, and increasingly don’t count their blessings.

Early in these simultaneous matches I remarked to my mate Bob that, “Wouldn’t it be a horrid afternoon if the Crows lost at the MCG but won here at Glenelg?” A glance at his phone showed Carlton skipping away and jubilant that instead of only being a feeder team for Adelaide they’d likely experience some matchday joy.

Swinging by the beer caravan (is this model available from Noel’s?) there’s cheery banter from the past players serving the cups. The kind of rapport that embeds from playing lots of footy together, lots of years ago. I like that a spoon is used to flip open the cans.

Glenelg sets up their game and late season with a seven-goal third term. Despite none of the Tigers being alive for their club’s last flag in 1986, there’s a buzz and emerging belief in 5045 that the next two months might be special.

And then I wonder about the Crows jagging a SANFL premiership. What, exactly would such a triumph represent? Who would celebrate it? After the season`s final siren would three octogenarians pull up in their Corolla outside the Checkside Tavern at West Lakes? Would they then ask security if they could please take in their thermos and fruit cake? Would anybody turn up at the West End chimney? Would they bring any paint?

It would be the most hollow of wins.

For Glenelg, Liam McBean continues his great form with four excellent goals and along with Hugh McCluggage from the Brisbane Lions, has one of football’s best names. If only Cool McCool had played as a dashing winger (doubtless standing Hurricane Harry).

Cool

With the Tigers up by two points veteran Crow Richard Douglas accepts a pass from Greenwood but is outside the fifty arc. He uses a Michael Holding run-up, strikes it well, but his kick is short and the Burley is consumed by the mauling pack. The siren sounds.

Strolling towards Anzac Highway and home, “Oh, we’re from Tigerland” drifts happily across our seaside hamlet. And again. And again.

I hope the AFL Crows can self-apply the defibrillator, and quickly, but think the extension cord likely too short for them.

Meanwhile, down at Glenelg they’re showing enormous heart and there’s electricity in the air.

goodfellas

Wednesday in Fitzroy

Jul 11, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Rainbow Hotel, 27 St David St, Fitzroy

Another mild afternoon and I’m pleased to arrive before sunset to enjoy the interplay between light and shade and architecture and the human form. And also to enjoy the beer. It’s steak night, but despite the eager salespitch it’s too early for me.

There’s two rooms in the beer garden, and as I’m training myself or maybe the pubs of Fitzroy are training me to look up, I see upturned umbrellas and an old, stylish bicycle. Bicycles are everywhere in this suburb. There are a rich symbol of all that’s good here.

I suspect it divides the punters but I like a Chesterfield in a pub. There are no candles but instead bedside table lamps throughout the front bar. A former employee swings by with his new born girl and the bar staff are excited. It’s great to see.

Having necessarily ignored the Bridge Road stout given its 12% punch I finish my Four Pines Pale Ale and depart, both garden and bar now bursting with cheery folk. I’d happily return.

Napier Hotel, 210 Napier St, Fitzroy

Approaching this pub it’s white and bright and lit up like a Madrid square. Stepping through the front door it’s darker than a Thai cave but boasts beautiful stained glass windows.

Sitting in an ante room the Doobie Brothers are playing and a family is eating in the dark. I’ve been in brighter ghost trains. Throughout the pub are large, satirical Phantom artworks that explore gender politics.

I sip my Moo Brew Pale Ale and John Fogerty finishes “Green River” and we move to an early Miles Davis number. Next to me (I think) I overhear another ubiquitous footy conversation, this time about the Sydney Swans and the possibility of yet another late run at the finals. Back in the front bar two women are talking of travel and trees- “It was beautiful and under it was just like a room.”

The Standard Hotel, 293 Fitzroy St, Fitzroy

The first thing I see is mightily impressive. It’s the take away drinks fridge in the front bar. Standing beside two women who are eating steak I order a Beechworth Pale Ale. One has a guitar case next to her.

On my way to the huge beer garden- again with many separate spaces I note that there’s much Fitzroy footy club memorabilia. It speaks to me of pride in the past and a certain defiance, but I also suspect that this is a suburb still in mourning for the loss of its team. I wonder how many locals now support Brisbane? How many in this close, vibrant community connect with a team thousands of miles away in the muggy, ambivalent north?

Out in the beer garden it’s dark. I’m almost the only punter not wearing black. In a function room there’s a clot of attractive, smiling, young suits who’ll soon inherit our catastrophe.

Boonie, Elvis and Keef photos are above the bar, all brilliant in their excess and singularity. What to make of the visual overload? Is it pollution? Is it competing for the narrative or there as comic relief? Or just stuff to look at while waiting for your drink or friend?

Labour in Vain, 197A Brunswick St, Fitzroy

I enter to Dire Straits working their laconic way through “Sultans of Swing” and take an inner gasp as I consider that this song is now in its fifth decade.

Some young lads are playing pool and of course, like all contests there’s thrills and disappointments, equally. Wandering about, I see a bloke ascending the stairs. One of life’s eternal mysteries is what lies at the top of the stairs. I’m always intrigued. Before he disappears I yell out to him, “What’s up there?” He replies, “The smoking area.” I stay on the ground floor.

With Newtowner Ale as brewed by Young Henry in mit I find a spot by the window. The world moves by. These are big windows letting folks look in. Most other Fitzroy pubs I’ve seen are secretive, daring you to wander in. It’s breezy out.

Like others in the suburb, Labour in Vain displays a concerted dedication to the past. There’s nothing contemporary on the walls or in the space. Why? Maybe pubs are places of escape, a refuge from our saturated lives. And the past is always a distraction, good or bad.

Billy Corgan’s whiney voice suddenly fills the bar with a Smashing Pumpkins’ song that like most of them, I find overrated. In the 1990’s they did nothing for me. And now they do double that.

Union Club Hotel, 164 Gore St, Fitzroy

To employ a cricketing metaphor, DNB.

For two pubs earlier I got a message from David Wilson offering to meet for a beer. I’ve heard the term disruption used recently in various learning contexts, and guess that my plan now enjoyed a happy disruption for I returned to the Napier and found David in the front bar and we chatted about cricket and footy and family and work and writing. It was great and I thank him for this.

I’d had myself an evening.

Tuesday in Fitzroy

Jul 10, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Tramway Hotel, 165 Rae St, Fitzroy North

Underground music. Likely a Melbournian band from the 1980’s. One punter inside, one outside at the row of three tables on Church Street near the roundabout. The young fella out at a table appears from my spot by the fireplace to have an Andalusian dancing horse tattooed on his skull. Opposite me is a macramé wall hanging, and I feel as if I’ve been taken hostage by the horrific 70’s. At the centre of the Tramway is its triangular bar.

I order a Young Henry’s Pale Ale which I find safe if unspectacular. It’s a mild afternoon so I move outside into darkening street. The Andalusian dancing horse has galloped off into his evening. Bikes outnumber cars on Rae Street and I find this reassuring. Most folk sport beanies. The upcoming gigs blackboard announces Acid Country broadcasting live this Thursday on PBS 106.7FM. Their website promises “an intimate afternoon of music, radio and community”.

Royal Oak Hotel, 442 Nicholson St, Fitzroy North

In the world of pub names is this the equivalent of John or Mary?

Here’s another fire and candles. There seems to be a distinctive inner-city intimacy at work in Fitzroy North. I can’t recall going into an Adelaide pub and finding lit candles. I like it. The Beatles are playing. My Hargreaves Hill Pale Ale is curious.

Apart from me (obviously) there are three blokes in the front bar talking footy. They speak of the Scott brothers. One chap is theorising that the Geelong coach, Chris Scott, might be lucky to keep his job. It seems unlikely given that his team is top by some distance.

I see an Escher print on the wall, murky books above my head and a tram zings past. A bowls scoreboard sits nearby. It’s quiz night and a staff member asks me if I’m here with a team. I shake my head. Scotland’s finest, The Proclaimers come on and I smile to myself. Indeed, Adelaide is 500 miles away. Having run The Tan earlier today (for the first time) which is a lap of Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens I think these lyrics true-

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

I look up and there’s an upturned wooden surf boat over pool table. I leave.

Suddenly, suburban floodlights. WT Peterson oval. Footy training over by the grandstand. Naked trees watching silently by me. Just in front on the forward flank: man, dog, tennis ball.

Lord Newry, 543 Brunswick St, Fitzroy North

First port of call in this boozer is the gents. There are astonishing quantities of graffiti on every surface. I rush. Don’t dry my hands.

I order a Four Pines Pale Ale. Some Glaswegians in the back bar are talking football. In the front bar’s a muted glow, like grandma’s lounge room if she loved orange light shades and early disco music.

I detect a nautical theme because of the turgid and, I suspect, ironic prints of British ships. I think of the postcolonial perspective and associated ideas about imperialism, but only briefly.

I look up at the ceiling which has been stained yelpy yellow by a million Ardath and Black and White darts. And then I think about Sir Walter Raleigh who introduced smoking to Britain and I’m back to postcolonialism, but only briefly.

I note that there’s only five items on the Specials menu board. I think this the maximum allowable number because any more and I’d question just how special those dishes might be. Wouldn’t you?

Royal Derby, 446 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

In the men’s the exhaust fan is whirling like the propeller of the Indianapolis but without Quint’s sharks. It’s so noisy I fear the whole building might take off.

The Kings of Leon are playing and I find them restorative at this point if not generally. I keep with my broad ale theme and buy a Stone and Wood Pacific Ale. There’s a table tennis table in a dedicated room although no-one’s using it, and it would be difficult for me to play by myself.

Over in the betting corner a man is having trouble with his eyes and these go from menacing and mean to glazed and then incapable of focus. He leaves. It’s the only pub in which I hear no footy talk.

The Rose, 406 Napier St, Fitzroy

Happily, I walk in and hear blokes talking footy around a central rectangular bar. There’s a big dog by a table. Warm chat everywhere. Exotic beers abound, but also Coopers.

With exposed bricks and beautiful and enveloping light this is suburban joy. It’s the standout on my brief tour. India and New Zealand begin the World Cup semi-final and I speak with an Englishman about this fixture and our upcoming clash. We agree that the bowlers might dictate the result and Mitchell Stark could be the difference.

I order a burger. It’s a treat. Some young lads near me talk of commercial airline seat configurations on flights into and out of the Western Australian mines. They appear knowledgeable. As I leave, they’ve turned to the bright prospects of the Brisbane Lions who, of course, used to be Fitzroy.

Pub Review: The Three Brothers Arms, Macclesfield

Jun 27, 2019 | Mickey Randall

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Becalmed by the fireplace a smiling chap said, “It’s great isn’t it?”

I agreed.

“It’s just like your living room. That’s how the owners want you to treat it.”

“Tell the Truth” by Derek and the Dominoes made its earthy, laconic way from the speakers to the ears of the punters. It had that warm, enveloping feel to it because it wasn’t coming from a juke box, CD player or streaming service.

Audiophiles agree that it remains the finest way to enjoy an album, and over by the pool table was that most uncommon yet esteemed of front bar furniture: an antique turntable and speakers.

Brilliant.

“This is a very English idea,” I nodded. “Publicans over there want you to treat the pub like your own home. It’s rare here.”

tba a

Living on a West Coast farm I bought a second-hand turntable that had somehow lost its legs, so I used split squash balls to absorb the bumps and rumbles because as is established fact there’s nothing worse than the stylus bouncing across your most prized vinyl which of course is Ripper ’76.

With the volume screaming past eleven it kept the sheep away from the house. Digital music is omnipresent but real records provide us with the physical and the kinaesthetic. It’s a richer sensory experience.

Eric Clapton and Duane Allman were undertaking some acceptable fret work on this most perfect of Saturday afternoon pub soundtracks. Along the pub wall rest half a dozen rows of LPs. Blues masters, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, sixties and seventies gems. Pinned nearby is a brief set of rules for busy times- one side only per person etc.

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With regular live gigs in the Heritage Bar and beer garden (Kasey Chambers’ dad Bill playing soon) it’s a musical nirvana and complements impeccably the pub across the road, The Macclesfield, which offers standard services like big screen footy, TAB, happy hours, pokies.

Is there a better balanced two-pub town?

Earlier we took in the Mary MacKillop Way which with paintings and text documents the saint’s local work. One station highlights the sisters’ efforts during a bushfire when Mary offered the volunteers, “drinks and light food.” Light food?

Happily, I’ve no experience in this but imagine after elongated hours of hot and dangerous labour battling a blaze, I’d be a little disappointed to be only given a cup of tea and a scone, and to hear the dreaded words, “Sorry love but we’re out of jam and cream.”

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Originally known as the Goats Head Inn it’s visually engaging with memorabilia and photos, and curios like an upturned umbrella and wooden toy train dangling from the ceiling. There’s historic Guinness and stout signage too.

By the window we find a spot on a ruby Chesterfield couch, and in our nook’s an upright piano and a Hendrix (I’m claiming this as a collective noun) of acoustic and electric guitars.

The resident kelpie Ranger wanders about saying hello. I love dogs in pubs. In England this is routine and they’re welcomed with water bowls and spaces to stretch out. Hounds are so central to our way of life here yet rarely spotted in public buildings. Why? I’ve seldom seen an unkempt, drunk dog wobbling about picking fights in a pub, and know who I’d rather sit next to. One of the bar staff tells me that Ranger loves playdates and often has canine callers.

tba 6

Well done, Three Brothers Arms.

With the fire crackling away, I attempt another beer. “I might try the Goats Head Lager. Who makes it?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” insists the young barkeep with a wink. Maybe it’s difficult following a Coopers Sparkling Ale, but although I get that it’s a tribute to the pub’s original name and neighbouring brewery, I find it somewhat bland.

Convivial knots of chaps are at the low tables and many of them sport tweed jackets. They look like minor characters in an Ian McEwen novel. With its uncomplicated sense of purpose and refined atmospherics it does feel decidedly English in here, and I reckon the pub would sit sympathetically in the Lakes District or by a brook in the Cotswolds.

Meanwhile, someone drops Bob Dylan onto the turntable and his endearing whine mingles warmly with the patrons’ wine. Underscoring the music is the staccato percussion from the pool table. It’s a jovial place.

Claire and I have dinner plans, but vow to return. The beer garden stretches down to the Angas River and is a summery must. We pat Ranger goodbye and head out into the afternoon’s fresh coolness.

tba 2

Pub Review: The Macclesfield Hotel- Man v Megalodon Hamburger

Jun 19, 2019 | Mickey Randall

front pub
It was the size of an adult human head.

This, of course, is neither alarming or humorous if you’re expecting a fully-grown person in which case it warrants no observation.

Plonked down on our table and despite its silence, inactive state and general amicability it was instantly startling. I was in for the fight of my culinary life. I was about to die in an episode of Man v Food. It was a hamburger.

A megalodon hamburger.

6pm on a Friday is the textbook time to gust into a country pub, and this is true for the Macclesfield Hotel in the Adelaide Hills. It’s the sanctified end of the working week, the festive start of the weekend, and a chance to see a community skipping and jabbering, busy and recalibrating.

A full, spectral moon floodlit the countryside, and a toasty glow encased the front bar. There was cheery commotion for the (possibly over-capitalised) Friday Night Weekly ‘Pick-a-Pint’ Jackpot Draw was on. Chocolate-smeared kids dashed about, and leather and patch jackets, and work shirts, and bushy beards coloured our canvas.

bar

We secured a stretch of timber and towel and coasters. I opted for a Coopers Pale Ale while Claire had a house white, and both were atomically accurate. To our left with a clattering plastic bucket, Bic biro and little paper books was that most principal of pub peoples, the meat tray ticket seller.

Despite there being no visible meat tray, we fished out our coin, and prayed to the patron saint of Free Sausages, but as it was later revealed, all those canonised in the name of chops had enjoyed a rostered day off. Even local saint, Mary MacKillop was working on subsidiary projects.

An enlivening din swirled throughout and I wondered at the chat: recent rainfall; tomorrow’s home footy fixture in which the local Blood ‘n’ Tars would take on the Gumeracha Magpies; Sunday’s celebrity cricket match at Davenport Square starring former Australian cricketer Wayne Phillips (whose wife has a Kapunda connection); houses and farms bought and sold; kids’ sport, kids’ achieving, kids’ causing concern.

The dining room was also ministered by a wood fire. Large tables crafted from tree trunks had been coaxed in and like the bar, the tone was both industrious and intimate.

Claire ordered sliders, and next morning two of these remained so we evoked Pulp Fiction:

Jules: It looks like me and Vincent caught you boys at breakfast. Sorry about that. What ‘cha having?
Brett: Hamburgers.
Jules: Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.

burger 2

Meanwhile my meal was intimidating, and I felt like the skinny teenager who learns that tomorrow he’ll be on Plugger Lockett. It loomed on the plate like an aircraft carrier (surely the USS Ronald Reagan) and the chips clung to the cliff all cowering and awed. If the hamburger had eyes it would’ve stared me down like Ali at the weigh-in.

Anxious for a food coach my challenge was how to accost the behemoth. Right, I’ll pick it up and tackle it whole. I blinked. Nup, maybe if I had a gob like a hippo, then just maybe. OK, I’ll cut it in half. Peering now at the knife, my cutlery seemed impossibly tiny, like a toy you’d get from a kids’ lucky dip at a particularly dismal country show.

Maccy bar

With gallows acceptance I murmured to Claire, “I have no choice.” She whispered, “God’s speed,” before nodding, “and please, take care.”

Deconstruction.

And so, my colossal hamburger became a creaking plate of two beef patties, bacon, eggs (yes, two bum nuts), cheese, lettuce, onions, tomato, relish and bread rolls: a medically-necessary mixed grill.

Like a (considerably) less menacing version of a middle-career Robert De Niro I tightened my teeth, and worked methodically through it while eventually the Friday night footy match wound up; the pub cleaner later dragged her mop and bucket about me wheezing, “You’re alright darlin’, take your time”; and the last of the front bar faithful wobbled off into the moonlit midnight.

de niro

My hamburger was magnificent.

The subsequent surgery a success I drove into town Saturday morning to buy the paper and accidently found myself in the Maccy cup-house administering a punt. At the bar was a solitary woman, and as I fed my betting slips to the machine, she asked in her throaty way, “Gotta tip, love?” Such is the agreeable nature of this boozer that she and Yorky laughed at my reply, “Yep, keep your cash in your pocket.”

Minutes later the car radio crackled my horse saluting (Sandown, race 2, number 8, Shrouded in Mist, 6/1) and with this happy coda I thought, gee, I really like this pub.

jules

A Sunday in the Barossa

Jun 9, 2019 | Mickey Randall

rockfords 2

A celebration of excellent weather, the gentle environment and our astonishing privilege: an autumn Sunday in the Barossa!

The trick (or life hack as the young ‘uns call these) with winery tours is to keep the itinerary simple: don’t fall for vaulting ambition, or an overly complex itinerary. With this in mind Claire said, “I reckon we should go along Krondorf Road.”

Beginning at Grant Burge Wines a highlight was the view down to and across the rolling valley floor with the trees all gilded and brunette and anticipating their winter drink. There was a lengthy list of wines to work through and these were uniformly adequate if somewhat devoid of charisma.

Noting the massive bottles on display we spoke of the biblical names ascribed to these: Methuselah, Balthazar and my favourite to say, often apropos of nothing, Nebuchadnezzar: holding 15 litres, an unholy receptacle with catastrophic hangovers for the extended family (perhaps not the kiddies).

rockfords 1

Rockfords is always a delight. The former stables host the tastings. All stone and pastoral calm; inside is warmly dark, and the punters drift and mingle, scuffling to and from the counter. Above our heads is a row of dusty, hoary bottles, the labels whispering of meeker times. With our dear friend Trish in mind we bought a bottle of Alicante Bouchet as voices murmured about us, all low and vaguely thrilling and festive.

The Basket Press Shiraz is Olympian, and I remembered I’d a bottle at home, a significant birthday gift from old friends Bob and Trish. As always with long-distance wine I’m torn: do I lay it down for years on the hazy promise of a milestone, or given life’s uncertainty, dash home on an otherwise unspectacular Tuesday, and turn the church key?

It was divine to then emerge from this intimate dusk and into the cobblestoned light of Rockford’s courtyard. Dust and pollen and laughter pirouetted about in the golden air, and I remarked to Claire how I found it difficult to believe there could be a happier place on the planet.

hallets 2

Our clocks had chimed midday and so we drove westward. Our pace was like that of the horses and carts of centuries ago when stoic Lutherans slapped the reins, and crunching the carpark gravel at St. Halletts we both noted how it had been decades since either of us had visited.

The cellar door has a generous, handsome bar. Even the toilets are luxurious in their appointments. We discussed the received silliness of the various euphemisms for these: bathroom. Aside from the physical hopelessness of the cistern, who’d wish to take a bath in one? And restroom: these may have once offered welcome refuge, but with an unsophisticated world view shaped by my amenities experiences out the back of Adelaide Oval I reckon toilets are like proctologist visits; get in and out (as it were) as quickly as you can.

We chatted over our cups with the woman serving the drinks. She was Parisienne and pregnant. On a working holiday years ago she met her eventual husband in an aisle of the local hardware store, and now here she was. It was a natter in keeping with the day’s themes of warmth and gratefulness and she popped extra crackers on our cheeseboard.

With the Para River acting as a gentle guardian there’s an ample lawn punctuated by some silent gums and wooden tables, like those favoured in English country pubs. We had cheese and olives and sunshine and stillness. And a glass of wine each. My sparkling red was exquisite, delicate and with a haughty effervescence that contrasted ever so slightly with the surroundings.

hallets 1

“Do you know what my favourite drink is when wine-tasting?” I asked, the sun slanting across the lawn.

“A shiraz?” Claire suggested.

“No, but good try.”

“Go on then.”

“After the last winery it’s the Pale Ale I have at a pub.”

So, our day ended with a first. We swung into the Sandy Creek pub, a boozer I must’ve passed a thousand times, but had never entered.

With the light collapsing beyond the low hills we sat out the front and watched the steady stream of cars and trucks and vintage jalopies roar along the highway as on the TV inside the Crows and Dockers began their unwatchable match.

It had been a sunlit day of space and conversation and bursting gratitude. sandy creek

Beer Review: Coopers XPA (spoiler: boiled shite)

Jun 5, 2019 | Mickey Randall

costa An iconic Australian brewer, Coopers have launched a new beer. This is of considerable excitement to me, and here’s a quick list of launches that are far, far worse.

The launch of a P!nk album
The launch of the Costa Concordia
The launch of Paris Hilton’s eponymous perfume
The launch of an Exocet missile
The launch of AFLX
The launch of Shane Warne’s new wig
The launch of an all you can eat tofu diner.

That’ll do for now.

I’m in a suburban Adelaide pub. It’s called the Highway, and is stylised as HWY. Some would argue that for the HWY, this is where style ends. It’s actually pronounced “Hur- wah- yee” and emits exactly the sound you’ll make when paying for a drink here.

It’s one of those maddening pubs that insists on using those ridiculous glasses that are well short of being pints, yet they charge you as if they’re Jeroboams of lager.

Maybe it’s called the Highway because in the Lounge Bar and accompanying deck, highway robbery is the business plan. I often feel in there as if I’ve been personally served by Ned Kelly masquerading as a twenty-something arts/law drop out called Charlotte whose boyfriend plays footy for an Old Collegians club.

You know the one. ned With all these crimes temporarily excused I’m in the Sports Bar seeking a Coopers XPA, largely as there’s nowhere closer to home with this on tap. As sports bars go this one is fine with screens showing golf, cricket replays and the thoroughbreds from Hawkesbury and Quirindi. On the other side there’s a mega-wall of betting screens and some burly high-vis blokes.

As is law in this country there’s that one cove in the bar, sans hygiene and base-level socialisation who, despite the early hour, has already been here too long. Wandering about aimlessly he invariably glances and blinks at me, and wobbles over as in his fuddled head it’s time for a chat. Oh, here he comes.

No use putting my head down and avoiding eye-contact. It must be my deodorant. Well, at least his fly is up and on his upper thigh he’s not sporting a dinner-plate sized pee mark.

He belongs to another era, particularly the one before the Highway was renovated when, even around 5 bells on a Friday, the front bar was as dark as a Thai cave and a grizzled and aproned butcher squatted at a table, sold cubes of cheese and slices of mettwurst and handed over your happy hour tucker on actual butchers’ paper. This was before butchers’ paper was hijacked by every clueless conference convenor and it became a toxic weed along with housekeeping, plenaries and parking lots.

pub front

The Coopers XPA?

Colossally disappointing. Taking a spot adjacent to the bar with my undersized, overpriced glass, I took a sip. Nothing on the front palate. Pause. Nothing on the middle palate. Another awkward pause. Expecting a late rush of taste and flavour and Coopers yum from the back palate I still found nothing.

I acknowledge that at 5.2% it is more Ali than featherweight, but the XPA seems to have pipe-cleaners for arms, and not guns.

Old mate Puggy then joined me, and instantly confirmed my dismal analysis. We had been promised a lumpy V8, like a Brock Commodore, all throaty and snarling up a country straight, but instead were piloting an insipid sedan. With bald tyres.

Highway2016

The previous Coopers release was Session Ale, and it was sun and joy and tropics. A golden splash of fun, and reggae straight in ya gob. It has proved to be a hit, like a Beatles’ tune from their Rubber Soul era.

Coopers XPA is the song that came 17th in Eurovision 1987, but without the charm, longevity and ridiculous applause from the irradiated Ukrainians.

Bob Hawke, Brutalism and Banana Bread: Melbourne Trip 2019

May 22, 2019 | Mickey Randall

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Who doesn’t love an existential question just after dawn, on a festive Friday? Our flight had entered Victorian airspace (the state, not the historical era) and breakfast (adhering to Spartan and not Southern American culinary tradition) was dumped onto our tray tables.

Propelling eastwards, several kilometres above the awakening and expectant earth, Chris asked, “So, what’s the difference between banana bread and banana cake?”

“Extremely good question, old mate,” I replied staring at the brownish block of mashed fruit, all unanimated and morose.

Trev observed. “I reckon the difference is about three dollars. “

“Yep,” I confirmed, my linguistic prism primed. “Given the alliterative appeal, banana bread is more expensive.”

In part the North Fitzroy Arms appeals because it presents as a country pub. Pushing open the front door at 12.01 is all frisson and happy expectation. The décor and the memorabilia are as I remember. Unlike some soulless modern venues there’s no seductive chrome or glass. The taps offer familiar brews. I comment, “Good to see Pentridge Pale Ale is available.” Gough and Percy are on the back wall, in black and white, forever frozen in the early 1970’s.

gough

It’s great to see everyone, and the lunch is a beauty with the Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup with Mascarpone & Basil Oil scoring well. This weekend, everyone is a Eurovision judge.

Today’s guest speaker, George Megalogenis, is compelling and his book, The Football Solution: how Richmond’s premiership can save Australia, underpins the conversation with John Harms courtesy of a magnificent mix of history, politics, inner-Melbourne geography, sports psychology and Bob Hawke memoir.

The post-lunch exchanges are always splendid and I especially enjoy meeting Footy Almanac editor Colin Ritchie and hearing of his most recent trip to New Orleans. We yak of jazz icons Dr. John and Trombone Shorty, and the legendary venue Preservation Hall which with a wave of his hand Col suggests is the same size as the pub’s dining room.

Saturday morning we’re strolling north. Chris asks, “What time is it?” Of course, breakfast television motifs litter our weekend, so I channel former NBC Today host Bryant Gumbel and reply, “There’s breaking news overnight, but firstly let’s see what’s happening in your part of the world. It’s thirty-seven minutes after the hour.”

Mere moments later we pass Barrie Cassidy, in the midst of a Very Big Week, given the passing of Bob Hawke and the election. “We should’ve asked Barrie to join us in the All Nations Hotel for a quick beer,” laments Trev. “I reckon he might be on the hop for the next day or two, but otherwise I’m sure he would’ve been in,” I reassure the boys, based on zero personal insight.

Trev stops suddenly and points across at a concrete structure. “See that architecture. That’s Brutalism and inspired some of the buildings and spacecraft in Star Wars.” And indeed, looking at the stark, overbearing façade I see his point. If Trev went on Hard Quiz or Mastermind he’d pick Star Wars as his topic. That, or The Kapunda Tennis Club in the early 1980’s, or Shoegazing: Indie Rock’s Most Alluring Sub-genre. Same as all of us, I reckon.
NFA

Chris had spotted on Friday that Coopers Brewery launched a new XPA ale in Melbourne. Suitably inspired, and trusting the Internet, we arrived at the suggested pub, but were told it was closed for cleaning, hadn’t heard of Coopers XPA and that we might simply bugger off. Our disappointment could only have been lessened if the pub was instead a Frank Walker’s National Tiles outlet.

Surging into the All Nations Hotel at thirteen minutes after the hour we note that our regular stools (of the furniture variety) are waiting. Instantly, there’s an ornithological theme: geese. On tap is a craft beer called Goose Session IPA. We then spy the Grey Goose vodka on the shelf. Naturally, we text Kapunda identity Greg “Goose” Mickan whose prolonged digital silence indicates he’s delighted to hear from us. Googling him we find an introductory video on his business website. He boasts of there being, “720 degree views on his property. Provided you turn around twice.” We dedicate the following game of spoofy to him.

ANH

Safely at the Punt Road End (or Free Bird Seed End) of the MCG having invested (badly as it turns out) in Adelaide’s premier sprint, the Goodwood Handicap and Brisbane’s Doomben Cup, we locate our seats, and SANFL memorabilia enthusiast and champion bloke, Swish Schwerdt.

We yak about our respective Adelaide teams, Centrals and Glenelg, who are playing at the Ponderosa (the Tigers prevail for the first time out there since accidental leg spinner John Winston Howard was in power although as near as I can tell there’s no deep connection). We also recall the fabulous days on local radio when, at an urgent juncture a voice’d announce: “Let’s go round the grounds. Nipper Christie down at Alberton.” Much giggling follows.

MCG

During all of this, sixty thousand people completely ignore our charming dialogue and instead watch a match between Collingwood and St Kilda. The half-time Four N Twenty pies are at least equal to the footballing Pies, and the fixture finished, we move with clear-eyed purpose towards the Duke of Wellington cup-house.

Sunday’s breakfast television is the PGA golf and we decide that having to skool every time we heard, “In the HOLE!” would be dangerous; then bemoan the absence of David Marr on Insiders, but enjoy Barrie Cassidy’s fine work; and finally, on Eurovision, we decide that having to skool every time there’s geopolitical and not musical merit voting – “Hello Tel Aviv! Thanks for a great show. Greece gives twelve points to Cyrus!” – would also be dangerous, but not as dangerous as repeated listening to any of the songs.

Returning to the CBD after our Lygon Street brunch during which Trev confronts a colossal veal scallopini we pause respectfully at Carlton’s John Curtin Hotel with a Coopers beer to toast Bob Hawke; a venue in which Bob Hawke himself often toasted Bob Hawke (with ample cause).

Curtin

Our penultimate pub is the Exford (surely a sister hotel to Rundle Street’s Exeter) and we watch the Port and Gold Coast game from a sodden Adelaide Oval. The big screen shows that the locals have turned up in their dozens (forget Winter is Coming, I think the tarps are coming), and with the Filth the Power claiming control we scarper.

It’s forty-six after the hour, we’ve a plane to catch and banana bread to battle.

spoofy

These Things Amuse Me Way Too Much

May 16, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Amusing Thing #1

Years ago the British comedian Ali G interviewed David and Victoria Beckham. Their son, Brooklyn came up and Ali asked where the name originated.

Posh replied, “That’s where he was born.”

“Right,” Ali said, “But where was he conceived?”

Denmark was the coy answer.

“Dat is interesting,” said the host, “Cause if me and my Julie had a baby it’d be called, ‘In The Bog Of A KFC.'”

Ali then inquired, “So when young Brooklyn grows up, would you like him to be a footballer like Beckham, or a singer like Mariah Carey?”

Amusing Thing #2

I gave been known to sing and apparently am not quite as horrific as I was. With the Kimba crew, one of my favourites is by the sixties band, The Turtles. Their big hit was “Happy Together” but their other song was written to annoy their record company as they were hugely impatient for another top 40 song.

“Eleanor” is also great, despite the band’s intention. They deliberately aimed for terrible lyrics but I find endless amusement in these

Eleanor, Gee I think you’re swell

And you really do me well

You’re my pride and joy etcetera.

This is the best use of the word “etcetera” in the history of the world. Employed to grate it actually works to comic and romantic effect, although I can’t imagine a groom saying, “I promise to look after you in sickness and health, etcetera.”

All of you songwriters out there, here’s my challenge to you: pen some lyrics using the word “etcetera.”

Amusing Thing #3

That is all.

Pub Review: Hotel Victor, Victor Harbor

May 2, 2019 | Mickey Randall

DW 1

Iconic Australian cricketer, leviathan punter, beer inhaler and former Rothmans enthusiast Doug Walters famously said, “When in Victor Harbor be sure to swing by the Hotel Victor. It’s really good.”

Actually, he didn’t say this, and I just made it up.

Doug is a fabulously cool cat, and once went to bed in Perth well after dawn and well-oiled before mere hours later, going out to bat for his country. He possesses a remarkably mild temper, but I wonder what even he’d make of the Hotel Victor.

taps

The boys and I were in town and as the Tuesday sun was setting, all autumnal and fetching, we suddenly had a dinner dilemma. I won’t say it was poor planning on my behalf but our holiday cabin menu read: half a raw sausage, two bread crusts and nine grapes.

Among the safest beer choices in this land of plenty is Coopers Pale Ale, but happily sat in the front bar and peering across the park, my first sip was, as they say in beverage circles, putrid. Mmm. Something not right here. All metallic edges and prodding screwdrivers, and not the fruity, plentiful palate so richly celebrated.

Eleven patient slurps later I cleared my poisoned throat and rasped at the innkeeper, “Excuse me, young man with the hipster beard, my ale is poorly.” He replaced it, but the second was equally miserable. It lay in the glass like a sad, Liverpudlian puddle.

bistro

Occasionally, the first beers poured daily from a keg can be, as Doug himself describes, a little sharp. However, this was beer o’clock in Victor Harbor during the splendid guts of school holidays. There were punters nursing cups all over the boozer. I was no pioneer.

A pub unable to provide a crisp gargle is like a frisky pup not wanting to reproduce with your bare leg: inexplicable.

We should’ve decamped to the fish ‘n’ chippery, but I persevered with the cold-eyed application of the Never Dead.

I’d a discount meal voucher and was singular in my wish to redeem it. “No, you can’t use it in here, only in the bistro,” announced the pig-tailed girl with cheerful senselessness. “What difference does it make?” I blinked. “Do the meals not come from the same kitchen? How can it matter where we sit?”

She blinked back.

In the apparently magical bistro with the boys gawping at their devices I ordered, but the pub again gave the rude finger. “Sorry, you can’t use this coupon for kids’ meals, only adult ones.”

I was tempted to use Aunt Edna’s favourite expression, the elegant and timeless, Fuck me.

I was getting extra good at loosing arguments, and my will to live was about to drown itself in my rancid ale, so naturally I continued. “But the discount here is ten bucks. Should I return, and buy the adult-only lobster and save thirty dollars? Would that be better for you?”

Hotel Victor 3, me 0.

lobster

I admit my roast beef was terrific. Tender, exquisitely flavoursome and a treat to eat. The carvery vegetables were also delicious; especially the cauliflower, although as Aunt Edna used to suggest, “If you somehow manage to fuck up cauliflower we’re all in deep shit.” She had a shocking mouth, Aunt Edna.

Upon arrival we were promised water and glasses, but the four wait staff were so stressed attending to the excessive, punishing demands of the six other diners that this didn’t happen. Mercifully, humans are only 60% water so replenishing with H2O wasn’t important, and at no stage were we in significant biological danger.

They were also busy dwelling on Doug Walters’ famous century made entirely in the final session at the WACA in 1974. He bought it up with a six off the day’s last ball.

For the Hotel Victor to have also hit a six off their last delivery would’ve required free Coopers Sparkling Ales for me, and buckets of chocolate ice-cream for both Alex and Max.

The wait staff (yes, we’re still waiting) were consumed by their own ridiculous rules for acceptance of vouchers; an unwavering commitment to shagging up the country’s finest keg beer; and avoiding minimal levels of table service and so, with eyes shut, flopping about at the crease like a wounded sea mammal, and failing to offer a cricket shot, were bowled middle stump.

DW 2

On Granite Island

Apr 24, 2019 | Mickey Randall

granite island

Of the bounteous opportunities we have here clinging to the southern coast of this wide land, circumnavigating Granite Island is, for mine, among the best for our occasionally battered souls.

Beautifully situated an hour from Adelaide and connected umbilically to Victor Harbor (note the inexplicable American spelling) by a causeway, Alex, Max and I set out enthusiastically in the gap between Easter and Anzac Day (depending on your view, either two grim or celebratory holidays) as the affirming autumnal sun drenched us with healthy effervescence.

The horse-drawn tram was also on holiday (possibly still partying in honour of the equine heroine Winx) so, gun-barrel straight, we galloped across to the island with the boys chatting ceaselessly and in that lovely, unconscious, yet stream-of-conscious way only the young and excited can.

Their old man was buoyant too so for reasons I still can’t quite unpack we found ourselves at the kiosk prior to and not following our moderate exercise. Like a pickpocketed Dickensian character, before I knew it the boys had persuaded me into a pair of chocolate milkshakes.

pulp

Such is the passage of time and the unrelenting effects of inflation that the $5 milkshake Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega shared in Pulp Fiction had long since lost its shock value and Alex and Max briskly slurped their $6 refreshments, completely unaware of any cultural and fiscal dissonance with the iconic filmography of Quentin Tarantino.

We trekked in an anticlockwise fashion and shared the gravel path with folk from across the seas and across the road. It was one of those utterly self-contained moments in which we were constantly in the company of others, yet felt no need to interact, or to broaden our world beyond our complete, little bubble. Some days, we is all we need.

Happily, however, the boys were unrelenting in interrogating the island. They rushed constantly along the path, before like an old sea dog, or Quint from Jaws, I reeled them in. They scrambled up and over the smoothed and the ragged outcrops while paying attention to my startled wishes that they not endanger either themselves or the part of me that suffers from incurable and eternal risk assessment.

rock

On the island’s southern edge Alex declared, “The ocean here is normally cold as there’s nothing between us and Antarctica.” I felt gratitude for his global insight as I reflected upon my own worldview at his age which was, “Gee, Angaston Oval is a muddy poop-heap in August.”

The town-side of Granite Island hosts a distinctive ancient tree with stripped limbs enticing young climbers. Each branch appears as a blonde vaulting horse and indeed, upon our last visit Alex was riding its sturdy frame until, like a character in a deleted scene from Blazing Saddles, he slipped several feet directly onto another blonde bough in a way that I could tell, caused considerable shock to both his face and his groin. I could almost hear a fast-plucked banjo. I may have yelped.

On Wednesday’s lap Max spied this friendly foe and yelled, “Alex! Alex! Here’s the nut-breaker. Here’s the nut-breaker!” With this public declaration I expected either a rush of Asian tourists seeking autographs, or a rush of Asian tourists desperately seeking higher ground, but neither eventuated.

tree

Rounding the gentle final curve we took in the long sweep of Encounter Bay and The Bluff, and bemoaned the old, dry hills. A week or so back Alex had declared that when he was older he’d live in Victor Harbor because it was “really cool.” Max then countered how he was going to dwell in the viticultural gem that is South Australia’s Clare Valley.

Of course, he added in what really should be a surprise to no-one, “And Utah.”

We then eased onto the sparkling causeway and the boys, like tightrope walkers, tried to travel the entire distance balancing on a single rail-track before we reached the car, sitting patiently by The Crown Hotel.

A few minutes later we were barbequing our lunch just behind the clean, dappled beach.

causeway

When Too Much Football Is Barely Enough

Apr 11, 2019 | Mickey Randall

The best Barry Humphries’ character Sandy Stone would describe it as a “nice afternoon’s entertainment.”

With a gorgeous autumnal forecast in the mid-twenties here’s the plan for Saturday.

1. Stroll down to Glenelg Oval just after lunch for the Round 3 fixture between the Tigers and the South Adelaide Panthers. I understand that in the Big Cat World a tiger would be expected to defeat a panther but in early season SANFL footy there are few certainties. The boys, their mates and I will set up shop on the sloping lawn in front of the scoreboard. While the football will be punctuated by four siren blasts finishing the action each quarter, Alex and Max will eat incessantly and in keeping with the theme of the event, carnivorously.

oval

2. At 2.30 (interestingly I had a dental appointment during the week, which I think I’m pleased to say hurt my wallet more than my mouth) we’ll scamper into the bar and watch Winx make her final start in the (time-honoured) Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick.

winx

If Prince Charles had a horse race named after him (not his wife?) would it be known as the Chuck Cup? Before, during and after Max will compare the iconic mare and Black Caviar (he has a salmon pink and black spotted cap with her name on it). “Who would win out of the two, Dad?” and, tragi-comically, “How would Waikikamukau go against those two horses?”

chuck

3. During the second half of the Glenelg game the boys will climb one of the trees (as you do at the footy) bordering the ground’s eastern side, leaving me to ~~drink beer in peace~~ guard their snacks, and check the progress of my ~~assorted trifectas and bets~~ personal investment portfolio. Once the game is over we’ll make our way home beneath the golden sunlight, when in a most fortunate twist it will be time to finally watch some football. Port Adelaide play Richmond and this’ll be on TV. At the continued, if expected risk of upsetting the Port fans the match will open with the rather one-sided clash of each club’s theme songs. The Richmond song, “Oh We’re From Tigerland” is, to linger with the racing motif, the best of the pair by the length of the Flemington straight (450 metres, thanks for asking). It’s a rousing, joyous ditty. However, the Power tune, I’m afraid to report, suffers in many regards such as this significant lyric

We’ll never stop, stop, stop
Til we’re top, top, top.

Even casual fans of the Power (is this really a thing?) will know that they did, indeed, finish top in 2004, but unfortunately, they’ve adhered to their own promise since then, in terms of premiership aspirations, and they’ve well and truly stopped. Of this there can be no doubt. They’re good for their word.

4. By the time the Crows verse (as everyone under 21 says) the Kangaroos at the Docklands Stadium I’ll have celebrated each of my horses having saluted. Referencing the Docklands venue, I prefer to only use its generic label for it has, I’d argue, suffered more nomenclature change than the American singer John Mellencamp who has been known variously as John Cougar, Johnny Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp, Johnny Mellencamp, Cougar John, John Mellen-head, Old Mellencamp John, and the decidedly unhelpful and confusing mononym John. Anyway, by the time this match ends I may well have had sufficient football for this April Saturday, but we’ll see.

Even if the Crows win, I doubt I’ll watch the replay. There’s a surprise, but I reckon it’s what Sandy Stone would chose.

It might, instead, be time for bed.

Adelaide Oval in the Eighties: Rodney Hogg, Adidas Romes and Mondo Rock

Apr 4, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Davo, Rocket, Stephen, Trish, obscured Kapunda youth likely Kate, Trish and your correspondent

I remember the sweet, coconut aroma of tanning oil. It made us glisten like boxers or glamorous full-forwards and accelerated our baking, so we were flapping roast chooks on the sloping grass. Applied upon arrival to our skinny selves it was a blessing if we forgot to re-drench our arms and backs during the second innings. Best let the sun inflict its damage without encouragement. Today, detecting its distinctive smell I’m instantly at Adelaide Oval during the summers of my youth.

With headlights peering into the warm dark our convoy of HQ’s and 180B’s would make its way about Kapunda’s streets and then steer south to Gawler. We’d load eskies and bags of food and a couple of our Mums’ blankets onto the train carriage ready for the hour-long ride.

I recall Rocket and Chrisso and Woodsy and Nick and Claire and Trish and Crackshot and Lukey and Kate and Gert and Stephen and Jamie and Tommy and Boogly and Davo and Bobby and Brendan.

old oval

On the red hen sliding past Womma station there’d be a sudden fizz as someone like Davo opened a Southwark stubby, while secretly hoping the guard wouldn’t appear. Meanwhile, our parents would yawn and empty some cereal into their bowls.

There was always a queue, but at 8am we’d burst into the ground, and rush the open space on the south-eastern corner’s hill. Here the blankets became important as they were thrown out like magic carpets and we claimed our territory half-way up the mound.

Although the world wobbled on a different axis back then I was always astonished when at precisely 8.05am I’d hear the first industrial whistle from under the scoreboard. Accompanied by a satisfied roar, it was the spear being pulled from breakfast’s first empty keg. Across the day these would punctuate the air as a gassy summery score.

scoreboard

Many wore those blue shearers’ singlets which were an oddly ironic uniform, chiefly among those of us who’d never wrestled a sheep. Our hats were barely functional rather than chic. Most didn’t bother. Our hair was unfashionable in the cruel way that only teenaged hair can be. The perms could be especially devastating, and high school yearbooks confirm these vicious facts. There were double-plugger rubber thongs and Adidas Romes and youthful enthusiasms.

I’d see a neat sign on the back fence declaring that under its small tarp was the “Duck Pond.” Pleasingly, I never knew the etymology for this. Nor did I bother for some mysteries are best unsolved. The equivalent of permanent residents at a country caravan park, this was a comforting citizenry whose annual presence was as welcoming as the first sighting of a beer snake being paraded about the crowd as if it had been transported from an Asian street festival.

beer snake

There was an innocent charm in the catering. I suspect the total combined menu was pies, pasties, chips and hot dogs. I fear that sausage rolls were a culinary omission, and don’t think chicken salt had yet been discovered in the pans of Adelaide’s barren north. Tacos or stir fry? Scarcely conceived.

The only vaguely healthy option was fruit although this was largely confined to a whole watermelon, injected with Smirnoff the night before, behind someone’s Dad’s shed.

I recall that Brendan always smuggled in drink. At the forefront of innovation for clandestine imbibing were his bar-noculars, which appeared to security guards, parents and the constabulary as a set of binoculars doubtless used by a cricket tragic. Happily, these were optically useless but alcoholically tremendous as each black tube held a neat quantity of neat spirit. It was perhaps the sole technological marvel of that decade.

At 9.30 the teams appeared on the heritage scoreboard. Which bustling Rodney would open the bowling: Hogg or McCurdy? Would Roo Yardley deliver some offies with his high, tidy action? Which Kim Hughes would turn up? The swashbuckler or the drunkenly swinging? Surely, David Hookes would finally get a run on his home ground?

As part of their sports science-free warm-up the players might slow jog a lap, and I recall the crowd commentary on IVA Richards. “Check out the shoulders on him! He looks like a middle-weight!” And, I can still see Clive Lloyd, all hunch-backed and huge, laconic and cat-lazy.

The late Bruce “Roo” Yardley

Back then 220 was a handy score, and the Windies and England often had us covered. Lillee and Thomson and Marsh were near the end while AB was bracing himself for the torrid decade ahead. I also remember Sod O’Donnell and Henry Lawson and Kepler.

After the match we’d play cricket in the Creswell Gardens or head to the SA-FM Sky Show by the Torrens or maybe take refuge in the Cathedral Hotel or venture down to Glenelg for a swim.

Your correspondent and Trish about to line dance in the Creswell Gardens

On the train, we’d rattle homewards and then pile into our cars with their Pioneer cassette decks and Mondo Rock blasting through the open windows into the still dark. We were worriless for tomorrow was Monday and the Australia Day long weekend. School and uni were weeks away.

Our world was still wonderfully small, and for a few days every summer Adelaide Oval was at its centre.

deck

Nine

Mar 27, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Max in shades
Max Benjamin Randall, this Saturday, after the longest time and the shortest of years you’ll be nine. These days have flowed over us, like rain. They stretch on and on, and this makes me glad.

I love how you see our dogs Buddy (Chubby Kid) and Angel (Angela Merkel) as your siblings. Some mornings you emerge from the bedroom: stiff-legged, sleepy-eyed and with your beautiful hair bouncing in a wild, sunny animation, and go straight outside to the puppies, give them a hug and see how they’re going. It’s a sign of your boundless affection, and says many cool things about you.

Your bed is the top bunk above Alex, and near your pillow is a teetering stack of books. Like your dad you tackle multiple titles at once and sleeping, enjoy the proximity of these paper joys.

boys 2

Good luck with that lovely Road Dahl box-set Nanna and Poppa bought you for Christmas. I think you’ll like it, and have a life-long relationship with stories as both a reader and a teller. I reckon you just might.

Next season I hope you’ll play cricket. It’ll be fantastic if you can be in the same team as your brother. You love this game and enjoy some excellent competition in the backyard with Alex. I’m reassured the fights are typical and a predictor that neither of you will be unassertive types when older. This appears likely. It’s somehow comforting.

As it’s one of the sporting world’s most specialised skills, we must keep working on your leg-spin. In a decade or so, Australia might be ready for another blonde leggy.

Speaking of Alex, my favourite moments are when the two of you do something constructive together. Whether it’s building Lego or making a fort I love to see this. While these are punctuated with incidents that are, shall we say, less than constructive, I know as you both make your way through school and beyond you’ll be fierce supporters of each other. In the best possible ways you’ll be warrior-brothers.

cricket-1

Such is your shared competitiveness that only last week you were both riding home and of course, it immediately became a race along the mean streets of Glenelg North. Hurtling along Winx-like, it was superb until in what would’ve otherwise been a photo finish you clipped handlebars. Oh, no! Then it became horrific, but also if we could watch again in super-slow-motion, quite balletic, as you simultaneously somersaulted over your bikes.

Cue kilometres of bandage and gallons of hospital-strength antiseptic.

Pleasingly, neither of you is like me in that there were no tears. I’d be happy if this is the last of your stacks, but confidence is not especially high given your combined broken arm count in Singapore was four. In two years.

sports day

Another wonderful contrast to me is your encyclopaedic knowledge of cars from a crusty Corolla to, as you suggest, a lit super-car. We now take weekly excursions to various car-dealers to check out the McLarens, Bentleys and Lamborghinis, and just last night when in bed you said, “Dad, if you were a car you’d be a Ferrari.” I asked why and you replied, “Well, it seems like the sort of car an old Dad who had millions of dollars would want.” One of these is true.

So, have a great day. Saturday birthdays are always special.

boys

Last weekend cruising about Alex commented how he couldn’t wait until he was older and could live in Victor Harbor. In a sign that your world will surely open itself up you responded, “Yeah, I’m going to live in Clare.”

After a pause you added, “But also Utah.” You deserve so much, and to see and experience all of which you dream.

Happy, happy birthday dearest Max.

Max on beach

Pub Review: Sir John Franklin, Kapunda

Mar 22, 2019 | Mickey Randall

Noted navy man and Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin contributes his name to this Kapunda boozer which is neither especially naval nor Arctic given the town’s dusty location in the driest state in the driest continent. I doubt this old mucker ever enjoyed a Cooper Sparkling Ale. But let’s not quibble over these minor details.

Franklin had a distinguished career before he untimely extinguished in remote Canada from starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning, and scurvy. And, I suspect, from an overly long and grim death certificate.

This should have come as no surprise to him given that his 1819 expedition ended with most of his party expiring following unpleasant cannibalism, or a shoddy diet of lichen and their own footwear. This gained Franklin the nickname of, “the man who ate his boots” which must have been somewhat embarrassing for him at barbeques and footy club progressive dinners.

Sir John Franklin, in happier times

Happily, neither fellow diners nor Blundstones are on the menu today at this grand old pub. Although on a recent post-cricket visit (I was probably there long enough to have been described for tax purposes as a lodger) I chose not to dine (I was afraid of getting parmigiana on my new cricket whites) while fellow guests Matt Ryan and Fergie Higgins spoke well of the meals and, as grandma would have liked, left nothing on their plates.

To provide some entirely unnecessary, indulgent context the balcony of the Sir John Franklin was the first place I saw and heard that most distinctive 1980’s artefact: the ghetto blaster. A ridiculously enormous silver affair, it was owned by one of the Hutton brothers, whose father George was the publican when I was in high school.

As various HQ Holdens and Valiants warbled up and down the Main Street we supplied the soundtrack which, of course, was the masterful 1980 compilation cassette Full Boar. My affections were torn between Mi Sex and their tune, “Computer Games” and Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”. I’m still not into yoga and I have half a brain.

The front bar features Sky Channel and a TAB, both of which were splendidly embraced on our recent visit by esteemed former local Chris Hayward while he waited patiently for his similarly veteran-statused cricket colleagues. Of course, his investments were accompanied by a schooner of West End Draught, although tragically this didn’t enhance his returns.

I’m thrilled to report that this space within the pub is more than adequate for the compulsory spoofy tournament, or two. The bar stools are ergonomically perfect for this, and for competitors who use the Paul White stand as you play technique, the carpet is forgiving and offers suitable support for those tense moments when you’re in a final against Goose Mickan and you’re holding none, but have called five.

Built in 1849, the pub has a social club and my research staff tells me that among the office-bearers are former Kapunda Football Club trainer Peter Wenke (no-one ran the magic towel out to the half-back flank with more grace) who in a surprise to your correspondent, was in this very bar late Saturday morning. I continue to love the notion of the pub social club that affords its members a sense of ownership and decidedly human investment. But that’s enough reflection upon the role of social capital in contemporary Australian watering-holes.

Finally, on a personal note I must mention the superb bag-minding service run by the pub. If, like me, you left a small Auskick backpack (borrowed from your son Max) by the bar prior to rambling home late Saturday evening to the Clare Road digs of your mate Woodsy, then the most excellent staff will take care of it until you collect it, sheepishly, Sunday morning. My cricketing colleague Stef can also vouch for this wonderful facility.

So, next time you’re in Kapunda, there’s much to enjoy in my favourite pub named for a British explorer who perished in Canada from a greedy, rather excessive mix of starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning and scurvy.

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