Carn the Mighty Hawks!

Dad's footy team – and mine – is Hawthorn: the AFL Grand Final is about to start, "Up there Cazaly" has been sung, and the Hawks stand ready to defeat Freo. 

Thank God that Cazaly himself, when coaching Hawthorn sixty years ago, gave them their present nickname – prior to that, they'd been the Mayblooms...

I predict Hawthorn will win, by the skin of their teeth: the Fremantle Dockers are tough. Up the mighty Hawks!

UPDATE: the Dockers just didn't have it in them; Hawthorn won by 15 points. Excellent!

Footy Grand Final - IT'S A DRAW

We've got the TV on, and the national anthem is being sung: "Advance Australia fair".  The M.C.G. is packed – fully 100,000 there to see the match.  In a minute, the Grand Final will begin: Collingwood versus St Kilda.  Carn the Saints!

******

They've bounced the ball.

The Pies have their first goal almost immediately!

******

End of the first quarter: Magpies 26 to Saints 20.

******

A pet peeve: footballers – indeed anyone – with tattoos.  It should be banned.  Such atavism!  The same goes for weird piercings hither and thither.  Are we to regress to the state of cavemen and primitives, painted blue with bones through our noses?

******

Half time: Collingwood 50 to St Kilda 26.

The half-time break: time to eat the obligatory meat pie.

******

Third quarter: Collingwood still in front, 55 to 47.

******

Less than ten minutes to go and St Kilda has caught up: Collingwood is only one point ahead, 61 to 60 - the game has warmed up!

Seven minutes left, and the scores are tied!

St Kilda's ahead by a goal!

No, Collingwood's back in the lead by one point!  Three minutes to go...

The scores are level again at 68 all, with only a minute left...

24 seconds left...

7 seconds...

******

IT'S A DRAW!

Just as with the General Election, the result is – no result.

Everyone is absolutely stunned and amazed.

Next week, they will have to play again: a second Grand Final!

(Both back in 1948, and in 1977, a draw occurred, and so the game was replayed, as will happen now in 2010.)

As a final indignity, for reasons as yet unknown the teams' changing rooms have been flooded out, and as everyone reels in shock, the players have had to retire to the other set of changing rooms...

******

Prime Minister Gillard turns out to be a Cassandra: as she said at the Grand Final Breakfast this morning, as I heard it on the radio:

"Please, please, we cannot have a draw."

"A week without a premiership football team - I'm not sure our nation's strong enough to take it."

Oh Julia, what have you done?

Better

To-day the family got together for breakfast at the First Basin café, overlooking the again-flooded Gorge (the swirling waters are over the swimming pool and lower lawn) - will it ever stop raining? - and our get-together was for a happy occasion: my Mum's birthday. Many happy returns!

Afterwards, we all headed off on various errands; I did as I do, and went to church for confession. It was as I find it ever: confession, as well as an exercise in honesty, and above all a signal instance of God's merciful ever-faithfulness ("we may be unfaithful, but He is always faithful"), is refreshing to the soul.

Later on, I recalled that this is the 26th of the month, and therefore, happy thought, the monthly reminder of the feast of St Philip Neri, on the 26th of May: I do believe his intercession for me, a stumbling half-devotee, who tried to see something of him and his Rome, has helped me now as in the past. Good Philip, pray for us to Christ-God, that He save our souls!

I had a pleasant conversation with David Schütz this morning, also, and made some varied purchases, now I've my wallet back at last:

• a new watch, with a proper Roman numeral clockface (my old one finally gave up the ghost in Rome);
• Primeval - Series Three (an entertaining sci-fi DVD set);
• John Hatcher, The Black Death: The Intimate Story of a Village in Crisis, 1345-1350;
• Kunzig & Broecker, Fixing Climate: The Story of Climate Science - and How to Stop Global Warming (I just love can-do tech fixes: man is the master of this God-given earth, so if we have unwittingly altered the climate, it is for us to assume control - take that, backward hippies!);
• Dante, Vita Nuova (his courtly love for Beatrice - for me, a memento of Florence the beautiful);
• Edgar Allen Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination (having just read Lovecraft's essay on supernatural horror in literature, this seemed a good choice).

I also visited my travel agent, and had her investigate the price of a trip to New Zealand in late January 2010. Scott, a friend of mine, is interested in joining me, so I hope all will work out. It will definitely be cheaper than holidaying in Italy, and I afforded that alright!

The TV is already on in the background, for the Grand Final soon begins, in unseasonably wet and cold Melbourne, with conditions that may be the worst in memory (hail is predicted). Carn the Saints!

AFL Grand Final Report

Robert, Michael and I - and another friend - shared a carton of Cascade Premium Light (Rob and I are from Tasmania, and I used to live round the corner from Cascade Brewery, pictured) and various nibbles, while watching the match of the year: and it was Hawthorn's return to the top, with a fourth-quarter success over a dogged but ill-aiming Geelong; the scores say it all: 18.7 (153) to 11.23 (89) - the Cats wasting far too many opportunities on behinds, not goals.  So we finished up with two bottles of champagne, to celebrate the Hawks' first premiership since 1991.  I rang Dad, from whom I learnt to be a Hawthorn supporter, and he reminded me that he was at the match that was their first grand final victory, back in 1961.

In between beers, being all of us interested in theology, we talked about Rob's doctoral research into the pre-history of the Oxford Movement, looking at a book about the alleged ethos thereof, and what this implies about the links between faith and the moral life - that sanctity and the apprehension of truth go hand in hand, whereas vice and infidelity lamentably conspire together - and agreed to catch up again soon.  Rob, you're a fine host!

It was a good day to watch footy, as this old ad illustrates:

Now, for some rest; I feel worn out after an arvo spent on the turps...

Holiday Plans

For the next two weeks, I'm off work, relaxing: the second week (Sunday to Friday) will be taken up with the Toodyay Retreat, but some of the first week (Tuesday to Thursday) will be spent down the South West, in and around the general Margaret River, Busselton, Dunsborough, and Bunbury area.

I obviously won't be posting during my annual retreat, but will try to keep this blog updated with some of my holiday pastimes.

Now, for any fellow Western Australians: any tips on good places to visit?

Oh, and in other personal, local and national news: Mum and Dad have just had their birthdays, so please remember them in your prayers; the new State Ministry was finally sworn in on Tuesday at Government House, some two weeks after the general election; and tomorrow is the AFL Grand Final (my team, Hawthorn, versus Geelong, in a replay of the '89 clincher), so, like all true blue Aussies, Michael and I are going round to Robert's place to drink beer, eat pies and other footy fare, and barrack for our teams: C'arn the mighty Hawks!