Uncategorized – Page 2 – Rees Quilford

November 22, 2012January 17, 2019

Adelaide, it’s a good place for cricket

I have always wanted to go to the Adelaide Test. A good mate from university used to make an annual pilgrimage with the boys from the Panton Hill Cricket Club. He would rave about long hot days spent drinking in the sun on the ground’s famous hill.

One of the few upsides of my recent move to Adelaide is that I have found myself living not far from the ground. Now that I only have to survive a short walk through the well-tended rose gardens and reversing Mercedes of North Adelaide’s leafy back streets I have no excuses.

There is no doubt that the Adelaide Oval is a good spot for cricket. The ground is the jewel in the Festival state’s crown. Nestled on the banks of the Torrens, just a long throw from the CBD, it cuts a pretty picture.

Adelaide occupies a prominent position in the Australian cricket landscape. The oval has played host to matches since the 1870s and has seen some of the most dramatic moments in Australian cricket. It was here, during the third Test of the 1932–33 Ashes series, that outrage over England’s use of the Bodyline strategy finally boiled over. The tactic created so much anger amongst the Australian public that Mike Brearley has speculated that the then English captain Jardine may have “won the Ashes, but nearly lost an Empire.” The game attracted 174,452 spectators, a record at the time.

Up until recently, the ground held around 34,000 spectators but with the current construction works, capacity must be around half that. It’s a shame I won’t get to see the ground in all of its splendor but the scene is still set for a cracking week of cricket.

Having rarely bowled a ball in anger I am nothing more than an armchair cricket punter. The extent of my cricketing knowledge is limited to listening to Kerry O’Keeffe, playing beach cricket and reading Confessions of a Thirteenth Man. Still, recent history has shown that the Adelaide Oval Curator, Damian Hough, tends to produce a bit of road. That, coupled with the batting performances of both sides in the first Test, means that there is a fair chance of a batting exhibition. It should give me plenty of time to brush up on my cricket parlance.

If nothing else, the cricket coming to town has meant that The Advertiser has dramatically reduced the space it can dedicate to its Kurt Tippett vilification campaign and for that I am glad. The weeklong battle of bat and ball is going to be great.

November 5, 2012January 17, 2019

#qanda: Australia’s social media mecca

I write this from the smug afterglow of having seen my first tweet displayed on Q&A. My increasing infatuation with Twitter has led me to see the ABC’s current affairs panel discussion as Australia’s social media mecca. I am not alone, opinionated eccentrics engaging in a lively and live panel discussion moderated by the luminary presence of Tony Jones has captured the imagination of the Australian tweeting public. I, like many others, spend my Monday nights bombarding the Q&A hashtag (#qanda) with self-important and grossly uninformed witticisms. I was pretty chuffed to finally get one up.

Five years from now I will probably look back on this Twitter fancy with an embarrassment similar to that now experienced by the chatroom addicts of the late 1990s but for now I will continue my infatuation (and procrastination) with the little blue bird.

Twitter is lauded for providing unmediated access to breaking news in real time. One need look no further than the digital avalanche that has followed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to see this morbid phenomenon but the real time aspect of Twitter not what attracts me. I’m not somebody who needs their news right now. I don’t actually think there are many people who do. I can see the benefit for politicians, disaster response experts and M from MI6 but reading about something as it happens or a day or two later makes little difference to the everyday punter.

Twitter interests me because it allows serendipitous discovery of both the inconsequential and informative. I can follow a topic or comment down the rabbit hole into a virtual world of thematically interconnected articles and projects. It encourages reading on a broader range of topics from a wider range of sources. It also allows me to engage with likeminded people and participate in informed discussion. Like all social media platforms there is the narcissistic rubbish but if you can see your way through that then you can find gold on the other side. In some respects it is similar to skimming through a pile of newspapers and journals.

I still like to feel the ink on my fingertips but it is obvious that the news and journalism paradigm has fundamentally changed in the digital age. Much is being made of the rise of citizen journalism and the advent of social media has certainly changed print journalism as well as television news and current affairs programs. One-way communication is giving way to two-way engagement albeit on unequal terms. Here in Australia, the ABC and SBS have been some of the most innovative users of social media and multimedia to facilitate greater engagement with their audience. Like many other programs, Q&A displays tweets from the bleachers in the news ticker at the bottom of the screen but they also incorporate some of those tweets into the actual discussion. The Q&A format and its aspiration to demonstrate democracy in action, “where the audience asks the questions,” is particularly suited to this approach. They do it well enough for the #QandA hashtag to trend nationally and internationally throughout the broadcast. One broadcast during the 2011 federal election prompted more the 37,000 tweets. Many other news, current affairs and breakfast programs have incorporated similar approaches into their broadcast. It adds value in some cases but many programs do it poorly. Irrespective of the quality of its delivery, the trend to integrate social media into the television broadcasts means that interested citizens now have an unprecedented opportunity to engage and influence the news cycle.

The tweet that was featured on Q&A hardly fits into the category of citizen journalism; it merely reflected how impressed I was by Archie Roach and his contribution to the discussion. I was happy to have it profiled nevertheless. My delight is nerdy, frivolous and probably has something to do with Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps in the digital age this concept could and should be revised to encompass something about 140 characters of fame. That aside, the Q&A format and my use of Twitter provides me with a weekly opportunity to engage in informed discussion with some of Australia’s most pressing issues. I am glad that the ABC staff saw fit to take my tweet as a comment.

October 9, 2012January 17, 2019

Dunlop Volleys work as well on the dance floor as they do in the bedroom. Or so I thought.

I’ve always thought that the Dunlop Volley worked as well on the dance floor as they did in the bedroom. It didn’t matter if you were seeing out a couple of sets of grass court tennis, busting a funk at an Italian disco party or laying roofing iron over open beams 30 foot in the air the Volley was the true all round shoe.

It’s not just me who has held this view. The experts have tended to agree. Roof contractors across the country wear the Volley. These are people who understand the importance of safety and comfort in a shoe. Evonne Goolagong wore a pair of Volleys to her famous victory at Wimbledon in 1971. ‘Edo’ Edmondson did the same at the 1976 Australian Open.

Continue reading “Dunlop Volleys work as well on the dance floor as they do in the bedroom. Or so I thought.”

September 12, 2012January 17, 2019

The A and B of Adelaide take-away

Responses to my recent move to Adelaide have varied greatly depending who I am speaking to. Variations of: “Adelaide?”, “Why would you do that to yourself?” and “How’s that working out for you?” seem to bob up on a regular basis. But if the enquirer is South Australian, aside from the disparaging remarks about Victoria it is surprising how often “Have you tried and an AB yet?” comes up. Continue reading “The A and B of Adelaide take-away”

September 5, 2012January 17, 2019

Running Into A World Of Your Own

Drenched in sweat, I am blowing hard but steady. All I can hear is the sound of my own breathing mixed with the wind in my ears. I stare off into the middle distance with what is probably a stricken look on my face. I no longer look at people but past them. I was looking at people earlier. Looking to see what they were doing, what they were wearing, how they were traveling. But none of that matters now. All that matters now is how I am travelling. All that matters now is putting one foot in front of the other. Continue reading “Running Into A World Of Your Own”

June 5, 2012January 17, 2019

It’s what we leave behind that’s tough

Saying goodbye isn’t the hard part, it’s what we leave behind that’s tough.
– Unknown

The house of my childhood is being demolished. Strangers in HiVis jackets and steel capped boots have already been through with sledgehammers and crowbars to gut the interior and once the bulldozer comes only a pile of rubble will remain. While the house isn’t much to look at from the street – plain cement sheeting, veranda cast in shadow and rusty red paint clinging to the roof’s corrugated iron – I didn’t realise how much it meant to me until Mum and Dad said they were knocking it down. Continue reading “It’s what we leave behind that’s tough”

January 9, 2012

One last splash at Hawthorn

My last swim was swum in the Hawthorn pool last Sunday afternoon. The pond has been my local swimming hole for more than a decade but has closed its doors for a $27 million facelift. The place holds a lot of memories so we went down for one last splash.

Continue reading “One last splash at Hawthorn”

October 15, 2011

One dollar. One spin.

With Andrew Wilkie fighting the good fight on mandatory pre-commitment and the Greens bobbing up this week with a proposal for a $1 bet limit, Pokie reform is firmly on the Australian political agenda. I’m sure both these policies have merit but it’s worth remembering that neither are breaking new ground.

Having visited a pub-TAB or two in my time I know how destructive the punt can be. More than a decade ago when cash was being pretty short, a few mates and I developed a rule of thumb for betting on the pokies. It’s not really a solution to problem gambling but it does provide a pretty solid framework for good times.

Continue reading “One dollar. One spin.”

January 20, 2011

Thumbing a ride

It’s not often that I have occasion to hitchhike these days. However, a couple of weeks ago, after a day spent cringing my way through our inept Ashes campaign at the MCG, I had occasion to pull the thumb out and hitch back to Wonthaggi. I got home quite easily, although it got me thinking about how few people you see hitchhiking these days.

Having decided that the beach was a fair more appealing prospect than the cricket, I caught the train from the city out to Pakenham. I then walked past the racetrack, across the bridge and over the freeway overpass. It was there, on the road to Koo Ree Wup, that I stuck my thumb out in an appeal to passing traffic.

I did a lot of hitching when I was a kid; whether it was thumbing a ride out to Cape Paterson after school for a surf, or hitching home on the weekend during my time at Uni. I never used to have trouble getting a lift but standing there in Pakenham with four-days growth and a lot less hair than I once had, I realised that I had become a skeezy old hitchhiking weirdo. Nobody in their right mind would consider inviting me into their car. Or so I thought. It turned out that I only had to wait about five minutes before a beat up Toyota Hiace full of Romanians pulled over. Ma, Pa, Nanna and the kids, all on a family outing.

“Where you headed?”
“Wonthaggi.”
“I can take you as far as Koo Wee Rup.”
“That would be great, thank you.”

And off we went. I soon discovered that they picked me up because they were Christians; something to do with doing a good deed and converting the heathen masses. Regardless, we had an interesting chat about life in Romania under Soviet rule compared to life as a newly arrived immigrate to Australia in the 1970’s.

They dropped me off on the other side of Koo Wee Rup with god’s blessing and having learnt something. Standing on the South Gippsland highway, it wasn’t long before my next ride happened along in the form of Matt and Sars Ingram. The unbridled fear evident in Sars eyes when she realised that Matt was pulling over to pick up a hitch-hiker confirmed my intuition that I was indeed a weirdo. But during the next 45 minutes spent reveling in the domestic bliss that comes with sitting between two toddlers I got to thinking about the way in which perceptions of hitch-hiking have changed.

I have always been surprised by the range of people that are prepared to pull over and offer you a ride. There was the truck driver with an insatiable speed habit, a mum with four kids in tow, a former AFL player, a young woman driving by herself at 1:30am, a middle aged plumber who picked me up at 7:15am and spent the next twenty minutes driving at 150km/h alternating between slagging off his ex-wife and taking long swigs from the piss-warm long neck sitting between his legs. Then there was the overweight homosexual man who looked to me for love. I guess I was bit more touchupable when I was younger but hitchhiking also seemed far more acceptable back then.

These days it seems that it is a pursuit confined to unemployed, unwashed, middle aged losers who can’t drive because of their third drink-driving conviction. There is an ingrained level of mistrust associated with those standing roadside and a perception that it is dangerous (the Belanglo murders probably have had a fair bit to with this). Those perceptions are not without merit but I have had some wonderful conversations and some noteworthy experiences whilst hitching. On each occasion, I made it safely to my destination courtesy of the kindness of a friend or stranger.

So the next time you are rattling along the highway and see a punter thumbing a ride consider giving them a ride, you might be pleasantly surprised.