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Watching eight Super Rugby games a weekend, most of them live, comes at a cost. Romantic dinners, movie dates and pitching in to help sand down and re-varnish that old dresser are but mere concepts that exist in some make-believe, fantasy world.
There are other costs too. Time only to squeeze in two or three AFL matches, and maybe just one from the NRL, made easier admittedly by the hapless Warriors rendering themselves unwatchable (what’s that you say, Warriors 36–Broncos 18? Yeah, pull the other one).
Then there are the non-negotiables that eat into the available waking hours; early morning golf, live from the week’s PGA Tour stop, and late-night, thrilling bike racing over the top of ridiculously high Italian and French mountain passes.
The other potential cost is that much of the world passes by blithely, this other than sport world, the one where inactive folk dressed in active wear descend on shopping malls and fill social media with chatter about Johnny Depp and his snivelly little toy dogs like that’s actually a thing.
So, what a perfect opportunity on this rugby-less weekend to step back a little, smell the last of my roses before they check out for winter, and observe some of what passes for ‘real life’ out there.
I’m not sure I like what I saw.
Everyone loves a happy ending, and so it was for seven-year-old Yamato Tanooka, found after having been missing in a Japanese forest seven days, after being ejected from the family wagon to have a wee think about his behaviour.
This was a tricky one to deal with; are his parents callous, evil monsters for turfing their kid out of the car for doing not much more than what kids normally do? Or did they merely do what every other parent has felt like doing a hundred times, but never had the guts to follow through with?
It’s hard to know where this family goes from here. The parents have played their joker early. After seven days alone in a bear-infested forest, threats like “if you don’t finish your raw eel you can go to your tatami mat” are going to sound a bit lame.
Which places the kid in a strong position. His next birthday is going to be a doozy. A year’s supply of chocolate treats? Check. Real-life Star Wars characters with real light sabres performing a private show? Check. A pet Rhinoceros? Check.
If the parents don’t oblige, all young Yamato has to do is to engage a lawyer, Jackie Chiles-style, and put together the mother of all lawsuits for cruelty and neglect. If only they’d thought to let him take something with him when they tossed him out; seven days is a long time for a kid these days to go without an I-pad.
The lesson for this family? Buy a Sunwolves family membership and get along to Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium to support the home team. If Yamato had learned to howl like a wolf, he would have been picked up within a day.
Co-incidentally, Yamato’s discovery happened on the same day I saw Hunt For The Wilderpeople, the new movie featuring young kiwi kid Julian Dennison surviving in the bush with Sam Neill for over five months (and somehow getting even fatter while he was at it).
What did this Japanese kid manage? Seven days? Pathetic.
It was a triumphant week for humankind, reminding the animal kingdom just who calls the shots; literally. While it is an incredibly sad time for two families, it is worth noting that the bounty hunting like that seen in WA (shark) and Queensland (croc) all happens after the event, and doesn’t actually change the outcome.
Also unlucky was Cincinatti Zoo gorilla, Harambe, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, ie in his enclosure minding his own business. A timely reminder to gorillas that they are really only safe when slam dunking at half-time at an NBA game, playing drums to Phil Collins, or running uphill alongside Tour de France riders. Or in the mist.
‘Australian of the Week’ was surely NSW parliamentarian Robert Borsack, proving how deeply flawed our democracy is; not only posing proudly next to the Zimbabwean elephant he shot, but boasting about eating it. If that’s the type of fan the Waratahs have in their ranks I take back everything nice I said about their win over the Chiefs.
In other news, cute Russian twenty-something, Nina Zgurskaya, received a nasty surprise in the form of court documents, being sued by her ex-boyfriend for costs incurred by him in their two year long relationship, before she broke it off.
Included were claims for money spent on flowers, and restaurant and café meals. Which throws up all manner of possibilities; I wonder if my partner left me would I be able to get my $25 back?
In a nice touch the Siberian lawyer also added a claim for legal expenses to be payable to himself – confirming himself to be not only an A-grade tool, but also to be a real lawyer.
Rugby followers will be watching for the court’s decision with keen interest. If he wins, Western Force fans will surely have a compensation claim for all of the dross they’ve been served up over the last few seasons.
Not a bad time for them to be suing as well, with the ARU this week stepping in to administer and bankroll the Force.
At least Nick Kyrgios spared everyone the ignominy of being excluded from Australian Olympic games selection and subsequently fighting it through the courts, by getting in first and simply giving up. Or, hang on, isn’t giving up Bernard Tomic’s thing?
A couple of Manly NRL players could potentially be facing a court date if a NSW Police investigation into match fixing comes to anything. I actually recall watching one of the games touted as questionable, Souths versus Manly, but don’t remember anything untoward happening.
But then again, I’m a bit far removed from it all; I’ve never been to one of Eddie Hayson’s establishments either.
Frankly, if all of that is what passes as life for the masses, then leave me out of it. Normal transmission will resume at 5.35pm next Saturday when the All Blacks play Wales, followed by Australia v England and South Africa versus Ireland. That’s what I call a comfort zone.
No wrap of the weekend would be complete without mention of and tribute to, the greatest boxer himself, Muhammad Ali, dead at the age of 74 years. Truth be told, for most of his fighting career I was never a fan. Too lippy for my liking, too much Don King, and I could never bring myself to believe that he could really turn the light switch off in his bedroom and get into bed before it went dark.
But all that changed after watching Leon Gast’s Academy Award-winning film When We Were Kings, a most magnificent account of the assertion of black culture through the 1974 world title fight in Zaire between Ali and George Foreman, from which both men emerged almost statesman-like, and with enormous credit.
A truly beautiful film which rewards multiple viewings; whose ending, a black and white montage paying homage to Ali, set to Brian McKnight and Diana King’s title song, is simply spine-tingling.