Go The Swans

It’s Sunday night and I’ve just watched Bob Geldoff on Parkinson. As always, he was really interesting until Parky asked him about music and he began to sing. Watching Parky has topped off an otherwise lazy day where the most energy expended was walking to the supermarket a short while ago and making a salad of tomato, cucumber, chick peas and fetta for dinner. Yes, it’s that kind of weekend.

Yesterday, on the other hand was reasonably busy and interesting as Damien and I caught up for yum cha and then headed to the Captain Cook Hotel at Millers Point to watch the Sydney Swans defeat the West Coast Eagles. The level of interest in Aussie Rules in Sydney is, perhaps, typified by our decision to take newspapers to the pub with us in case it became boring, and our early discussion about whether or not we’d stay if it looked like they were losing.

Noticeably, we were the only people in the pub who watched the whole game, as people wandered in and out, watched for a while, drank beer and then disappeared. And that’s just the people who were at a wedding opposite. One of the blokes attending asked if it was worth watching or should he go back to the wedding. Contrast this with Melbourne, where my friend Sue works for a church, where she tells me there are generally no weddings booked for grand final weekend or Grand Prix weekend. Not a good thing or a bad thing in either situation, but an interesting one. Mind you, I think it was a big night on the town in Sydney last night, judging by the number of already-drunk people I saw on the way home. For this weekend, at least, everyone in Sydney is a Swans fan.

Also this week I went to see Fiddler On The Roof, featuring the legendary Topol reprising his movie role as Tevye. It was a star-studded night, though not with the usual cast of stars from soaps, reality tv, and diy television. Instead, Bronwyn Bishop, Piers Akerman and Gough & Margaret Whitliam were there. The Whitlams continue to look good, although I note that Gough is now mostly walking with a stick. On the way out they ambled slowly prompting my friend to comment, “They’re fabulous, but you wouldn’t want to get stuck behind them in a queue”.

I thought it was a good production, especially the choreography. Oddly enough, however, the occasional Australian accent appeared, and one or two of the actors had obviously been listening too closely to the Broadway production. We also went to the after-show party which featured good food and plenty of booze.

Amongst those attending the party was the very famous musical theatre star, Elaine Paige. I’ll have a story for you about her next week.