The Big Weekend

It’s a huge weekend for voting here in Oz. Not only is it the final of Australian Idol with the good-looking, deeply religious young lad (Matt) taking on the stage school-ed, singing-since-a-foetus bird (Nat), but there’s a general election an’all! They’re every three years and I was here the last time they had one. After taking the country into the Iraq war and generally being an old right-wing bastard, everyone thought John Howard was going to get mullered, but he won by a landslide and everyone bar rich conservatives and racist bush dwellers was gutted. Since then he’s introduced new employment practices that shaft the working classes, built and promised more nuclear reactors, and got even even further up George Bush’s arse, stating that Australia are in Iraq for the long haul. He’s also said that he’s going to retire before the next election and let his right hand man in the Liberal Party (!!) take over. This has led to every one expecting a landslide for the Labor (their spelling) lad… Kevin! He’s even duller than John Howard, and he’s done a Tony Blair a la ’97 by stepping into the middle ground in order to win votes, but he says he’ll sign the Kyoto Protocol (I thought Australia was green and environmentally friendly as a country, but under big John they stood next to George Bush and America in telling the rest of the world to go and poke their climate change protocol).

It’s compulsory to vote in Australia and they’re always held on a Saturday, but the best bit is the adverts. There’s generally a simpler, more direct approach to life down under so adverts by the Liberal party warning about voting in a new government at this crucial time in the county’s history (interest rates are rising fast) consist of black screens with huge white letters and a booming Aussie voice over: “LABOR WILL STUFF UP THE ECOMONY!”. Meanwhile, the husband of a Liberal MP in a crucial and marginal seat has been tippled by the news for handing out fake Labor party leaflets saying they supported building more mosques and supported the Bali Bombers.

Can you imagine Jack Straw or someone doing that? There’s so much hilarious stuff that comes under the banner of ‘You couldn’t make it up’ that I might make it a regular feature.

Also this weekend, and much more importantly, it’s Sydney F.C. Vs the Queensland Roar (cheers Harjy-boy!), a crunch game featuring two in form teams, with a special guest appearance by LA Galaxy, who’re in town to flog shirts ahead of their friendly with Sydney on Tuesday (the whole place is going Beckham mad. Which is brilliant, obviously…). The game’s on Sunday evening and during the day I’m off to the North Sydney oval to watch the Speedblitz Blues (or New South Wales as they’re also known) dish out a pasting to Tasmania in the cricket. After dispatching Sri Lanka last weekend it looks like Brett Lee, Ricky Ponting and Clark & Clarke should be back in the squad.

I've got a couple of job interviews next week but the focus is firmly on the weekend, have a cracker at the darts lads...