canny granny

Another athletic record for Australia

Australian athletes are a funny lot these days.

In my earlier incarnation as a young woman I cheered Dawn Fraser, a big, hulking, plain girl from a working class Sydney suburb, as she thrashed her way through the water to win gold medals for the 100 metres freestyle three times in a row. No one came near her winning time in 15 years either. She also climbed a flagpole at Emperor Hirohito’s palace to steal the Olympic flag.

Dawn has a place in my heart.

And then there’s Cathy Freeman of course. She burst into the Olympic spotlight at the 1996 Games, the first Aboriginal athlete to represent Australia. Cathy didn’t climb a flagpole but she took her victory lap at the 1994 Commonwealth Games with the Aboriginal flag. Good for you, Cathy.

But now Australia has teetered into the record books for the number of competitors (256) dashing their way around an 80m track at Sydney’s Circular Quay wearing three-inch heels. And not all women either - take another look at that photo.

The race was won by 400 metre professional hurdler Brittney McGlone by several clear lengths, netting her $5000, and a pair of gold stilettos. I ask you, would Cathy stoop to this?

How I discovered Bigfoot

Are you sadly disappointed that the Bigfoot carcass turned out to be a gorilla suit? And a damp, smelly gorilla suit at that.

The whole affair would have just been marvelous fun if Tom Biscardi, the man who has spent years searching for the elusive hominid had not gone completely off his nut about it. Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer claim their hoax was not for profit, but Biscardi says he paid them $50,000. (Half their luck!)

Mr Biscardi, I take this opportunity to announce my discovery of Bigfoot - alive and well and living in Australia. These size 17 feet pictured here belong to Ian Thorpe, swimmer extraordinaire. I can produce the body once I work out a way to get past his security staff. I’ve tried to gain entry in the guise of a gas meter reader but they saw through me. The pizza delivery didn’t do the trick either.

Although he may be a little difficult to nab with my over-sized butterfly net, I can always give it a go. An advance payment from your good self would greatly facilitate a speedy capture.

How about it? Or should I get something onto YouTube first?

On the other hand there is an authentic non-swimming, non-celeb, Bigfoot in Australia .. the Yowie, Sasquatch of the South

Vegemite ban payback for missing Athletes

I think I know the origins of the savage ban on vegemite to the Olympic competitors from Australia. It’s payback for the Commonwealth Games. Payback for those missing athletes.

You heard about the missing athletes of course. Eleven of them. All went missing from their cozy little cabins in the new Commonwealth Games Athletics Village in Melbourne in March of 2006.

Were these eleven fine young specimens of humankind murdered while they slept and their bodies dragged away to unmarked graves? What happened? A satanic cult? Were they victims of secret government matter-transformer/ transmitter/ transposer experiments?

My money is on Alien Abductions.

People from Sierra Leone are particularly prone to alien abductions. Especially the athletes. Only six years ago 70% of the Sierra Leone team - 21 of the total 30 - vanished during the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

But wait, there’s more — Tanzanian boxer Omari Idd Kimweri, and Bangladeshi 400m runner Mohammad Tawhidul Islam, also vanished overnight from their beds. Perhaps in the dark they were mistaken for Sierra Leone athletes.

Now it’s payback time for Australia,

Vegemite Olympic Saga continues

The Chinese Olympics committee may have banned athletes bringing their own chow into the Olympic village, but the Americans are bringing in tonnes of food, which they will eat at a local university outside the Olympic Park.

Australian athletes are meanwhile suffering from vegemite withdrawal and will in all probability come last in their events.

China says the ban is in place to minimise the risk of illegal substances being used but let’s be serious here …it’s obviously about protecting the concessions and contracts of Olympics vendors.

There is no prize for guessing the name of the food sponsor. It starts with Mc and ends with Donalds.