You know it makes sense

January 14, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
3 Comments

Sam’s back.

Sam Kekovich used to play Australian Rules Football but these days he’s better known for causing controversy around Australia Day each year for simply suggesting that Australians choose to eat lamb on our national day.

Well …. to be perfectly honest it may not be the suggestion itself but rather the way he chooses to phrase that suggestion.

He started his regular Australia Day lamb advertisements a few years back in 2005. He had a number of people heading for the phones to protest when the advertisement he fronted contained the following.

Do you think the diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages? No. They were thinking of grabbing a lamb chop off the barbie with their bare fingers, sustaining third degree burns, then sticking their hands into a relieving esky to fish out a cold one.

Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings.

The soap-avoiding, pot-smoking, hippy vegetarians may disagree with me, but they can get stuffed. They know the way to the airport, and if they don’t I’ll show them.

Some vegetarians were outraged. How dare anyone suggest that they were unAustralian simply because they refused to eat a lamb chop?

The theme has stayed the same since. Sam talks about activities that he thinks are unAustralian with the cure for all our ills being to have a lamb barbecue on January the 26th, Australia Day.

The 2007 advertisements are now showing on the commercial television networks and they run a full three minutes. This year the campaign takes the form of election advertising and suggests you vote for the Australia Day Party.

If you want to see who Sam’s targetted in this year’s rant just head to the campaign’s home page where you can watch the video and even download a poster or two.

The humour is quite Australian so you may not understand it fully if you haven’t spent a bit of time down under. Either way, let me know what you think.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Click here for regular email updates from this blog.

Technorati Tags: – –



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading You know it makes sense? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.

Don't strain yourself

January 14, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
5 Comments

I think I must be missing something here.

Most Sunday mornings you’ll find me at the local leisure centre. The centre has basketball courts, a library, a swimming pool, function rooms, a gym and much more. The reason I’m usually there is that’s where we join a bunch of other Christians for our weekly church service.

On a number of occasions I’ve pondered the parking at the centre. Today I spent quite a bit of time in the car park (more on that later) and so I had even more opportunity to wonder about a common occurence.

It’s a big car park. It has lots of bays. Most of them are empty on a Sunday morning. Many of the empty bays are reasonably close to the centre’s front entrance.

Also in the car park is a turning area where there is room for people to drop others off or pick them up. It’s also suitable if you need to get in and out of the centre quickly. I imagine it’d be handy if you had to drop in a library book or something similar. There are a number of signs in this area letting people know that they cannot park any longer than 15 minutes there at any time.

The thing that intrigues me is that quite often, and this morning was no exception, big beefy blokes drive up and park in the turning area then head off to the gym for their workouts. It’s obvious that they’ll be a lot longer than 15 minutes but they need to be as close to the centre’s entrance as possible. They are not prepared to park another 20 metres away.

I could understand it if they had mobility issues but these are fit people about to go and exercise yet they’re unable to walk 20 metres. They run on the treadmill, they’ll pump iron, they’ll put their bodies through all kinds of stresses but that little extra walk is too much. How odd.

I’ve noticed similar behaviour at a nearby park where cricket players will park on footpaths and cycleways rather than park in the plentiful bays 15 metres away. They’re prepared to run, jump, stretch and wallop the ball during the game but they are somehow unable to walk an extra 15 metres to and from their cars.

Is it that we are so car dependent that we don’t want to be any further away from our vehicles than we have to? Is it that these people think that their needs are more important than every one else’s? I’m really at a loss to understand the phenomenon.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Click here for regular email updates from this blog.

Technorati Tags: – –



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Don't strain yourself? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.