Sydney

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What’s happened to Australian beer? Two hundred of years of dedication has created the perfect Aussie beer, completely tasteless. But now, someone has discovered hops and all these boutique beers are appearing, pale ales, red beers and stouts. Great stuff, all we need now is to persuade them to serve it a little warmer and we’ll be sorted.

We set off in search of Australian culture, meaning football of course, but not the beautiful game that this great country has only just started playing, and can’t yet be considered a serious endeavor. I’m talking about the game played with the elongated ball with pointy ends, and in particular NRL and AFL. Now the immediate observation I made is that both ‘codes’ have three initials but two of them differ. Also, one has two more goal posts than the other. Other than that, it’s basically a bunch of blokes knocking the hell out of each other on a large field watched by a passionate crowd trying to get drunk on mid strength beer. I absolutely loved it. We went to the NRL game between South Sydney and the Bulldogs at the Olympic stadium with the next generation of Mags’ family, having worn out her contemporaries. A very fine scrap was settled when someone drop kicked a decisive goal while no one was looking. We retired to the nearby Novotel bar for a real drink and then back to the centre of town for some more revelry. Leaving the stadium I spotted this informative sign for the away fans.

Trots kindly took us to an AFL game between Sydney Swans and Fremantle where I caused much mirth by shouting “It’s a one” every time a behind was scored. The Swans’ mascot is a Cygnet called Cyggy who completed laps of the oval on a motorized scooter which is not something you see every day. Mags observing that it’s a surprise that they’re allowed to call him that; I expect the anti smoking lobby will be on to it soon.