Well folks it’s the end of the first week of December, the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder is tomorrow, I still haven’t willingly bought any Christmas presents, and with the Ashes starting on Wednesday morning, here’s Channel 9’s opening from the 2006-07 series, with Richie Benaud sporting the bone jacket, and Warnie before he got back on the diet smokes:

Now it’s time to look what’s happened in my distorted universe in the past few days:

A slight glimpse of the moon, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter aligning on Monday night

This was just from a stock standard iPhone 11, but you can definitely see The Moon on the left, Venus next, then Saturn is the tiny spec, and Jupiter, all lined up:

The next time the planets will align like that in this unwelcoming part of the universe is Friday evening, so it’ll probably make another appearance in next Tuesday’s article, along with Don McLean singing Vincent:

I’ll be getting this collage framed and sent straight to the pool room, and you better believe it

After 4 narrow defeats to begin the season, I finally got my first win in a Pennants game at Como on Thursday.. ironically our awesome foursome, led superbly by Michael Alphabet, were the only rink that actually won for Manning in 5th Division, because the other two rinks got their heads cracked open and we lost on aggregate:

4-4 to 14-4 in the space of 4 ends, we were on absolute fire.

What an important moment in a young fella’s life – His first words, his first time riding a bike, his first day at school, his first day of uni, and the first time he wins a pennants game of bowls.

Ahead of The Ashes getting underway tomorrow morning, here’s this week’s episode of “What’s Ian Chappell So Negative About”…

And in this episode, it’s not only Joe Root’s batting, it’s Joe Root’s captaincy in Australia!

“I wouldn’t worry too much about his captaincy, I don’t think that’s very good. He’s got an imagination problem that is important in Australia.”

Fair dinkum, is Chapelli talking about Tim ‘Texting’ Paine or Joe ‘Dud’ Root?

“Every effort” was made to ensure the 5th Ashes Test went ahead in Perth before it was moved on Monday afternoon

At least according to the WACA’s Commander in Chief Christina Matthews, who probably just got sick of having to listen the rhetoric from the pigheads at Cricket Australia and the WA Government:

Ah, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard involving cricket since Kerry O’Keefe delivered the Frog In A Bank joke.

If the buffoons from both sides made “every effort” to ensure that the Test went ahead, IT’D BE GOING AHEAD, and quite frankly, after the way the Sports Minister Tony Buti (One T short of what his surname should be) and the McGowan Government have welded the border shut to the rest of Australia and given everyone the finger for 19 months, even having the gall to suggest to The West Australian that Perth should host the 2nd Test instead of Adelaide, just because it suits their border policies with Queensland, should tell you a fair bit about how much hot air they’ve pumped up their backsides up on Harvest Terrace.

And yes, Dr Buti did suggest that hair-brained idea that would’ve robbed tens of thousands of Adelaide Oval ticketholders, just so the WA Government could have their cake, eat it too, and throw the leftovers in the face of the SACA:

“If cricket isn’t able to meet our border rules for (the) fifth Test in Perth, then they should move the second Test to Perth instead… It’s a no-brainer. As long as Queensland stays COVID-free, then the teams can fly in (from Brisbane) ahead of the pink-ball day-night Test.”

“The simple solution would be to bring that Test here while South Australia manages its COVID outbreak.

“Adelaide can then host the fifth Test originally scheduled for Perth.”

Well, Antonio, you deluded soul, guess what?

AT LEAST SOUTH AUSTRALIA IS ACTUALLY HOSTING AN ASHES TEST, UNLIKE YOUR MATES RUNNING THIS PISSY LITTLE HERMIT KINGDOM.

A big thanks to Glen and the Buffed Helmets for inviting me to the Salt Sixers tournament last Friday

So the back story is that Glen ‘Scratch’ O’Brien, one of Manning’s pennant bowlers who plays for the Buffed Helmets in our Manning Jack Attack competition on Wednesday nights, is the chief of Salt Property Group, and last Tuesday he sent me a message about the upcoming Salt Sixes, which is a corporate cricket tournament/fundraiser that Salt sponsor, held at Tompkins Park on the Swan River, home of Melville Cricket Club, where the once great duo of Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh used to roam.

I can only think, if DK and Bacchus had this kind of a view when they were playing, they’d have finished up with more than 95 instances of c Marsh b Lillee in Test cricket:

Although, if Tompkins on Swan had existed 50 years ago, they’d have never played for Australia, because it was a very handy place to be on a boiling hot day, especially with the fan on full blast:

So to cut a long story short, this year’s beneficiaries of the money raised were grassroots cricket and Muscular Dystrophy WA, and based on my afternoon visit it looked like a damn successful day, with 12 teams taking part from all walks of life, be it Gage Roads Brewery, Striker Indoor (Where the Buffed Helmets play Indoor Cricket), to Melville and Applecross Cricket Clubs, to GWB Finance, and Bradford Legal, who will probably issue me with a lawsuit if I mention they did stuff all in the middle.

During the lunch break, there was an auction to sponsor a race at Ascot on January 15, which was won by Striker Indoor, although I suggested to Glen that based on this Jack Attack season, the Buffed Helmets should’ve sponsored it and called it ‘The Carmo Handicap’, because apparently that’s exactly what he’s like playing bowls.

In all, I should say a big thanks to Glen for inviting me and providing me with a few cans (A few more than I deserved), and to Cheese and Fuzzy from the Buffed Helmets who kept me company throughout Friday afternoon, and it seemed that Fuzzy copped a drive-by from special guest John Townsend (The West Australian’s chief cricket writer), who mentioned that one of his four Mankad run outs was a 16 year old who was on something close to 170 not out….

That 16-year-old was none other than Fuzzy, who had to mention to me that it was the only way John was going to get him out that day.

Actually, on the topic of John Townsend, when he got up to the lectern, I thought he looked like Kevin Bloody Wilson’s younger brother:

What staggered me about Bathurst this year was that more echidnas than kangaroos invaded the track

In fact, there were as many sightings of the famed Albino Wallaroos that roam around Mount Panorama, as there were sightings of kangaroos trying to turn themselves into Qantas:

They don’t just race cars at Bathurst, they get random dogs to race against greyhounds

The great Choisir died at the age of 22

A fond farewell to a brilliant creature – He sired 100 individual stakes winners, 11 Group 1 winners, some 1211 individual winners (Out of 1874 that raced), but his crowning achievement was that glorious visit to Royal Ascot in 2003, which paved the way for the many Australian successes at the fabled carnival over the next decade, one of which was his progeny Starspangledbanner, and the unbeatable Black Caviar in 2012.

First up, Choisir won the King’s Stand Stakes on the Tuesday in a canter (At 25-1 as well), then on the Saturday, Paul Perry’s Coalfields Comet (With Johnny Murtagh sticking aboard) backed up in what was then the Golden Jubilee Stakes, and made history by completing the Royal Ascot sprinting double, a feat that had only been accomplished by Diadem way back in 1920, and has only been replicated once since then, by Blue Point in 2019.

And he was trained in bloody Newcastle.

After checking in on the Women’s FA Cup Final, still have no idea how Sam Kerr is only 28

For some reason I’ve always thought Kerr had played in the 2007 Women’s World Cup, when Australia made the Quarter Finals and lost to Brazil, but it turns out Kerr debuted for the Matildas in February of 2009, aged 15.

Obviously Sam wasn’t good enough to play international women’s football at the age of 13, so she was clearly behind on her development.

Ahead of the ultimate showdown in Abu Dhabi this weekend, here’s the last (And only) time the Formula 1 World Championship was tied going into the last race of the season

The year was 1974, and the two tied drivers were 1972 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi, who had moved from Lotus to McLaren for ’74 after becoming the youngest World Champion in ’72 and finishing 2nd to the retiring Jackie Stewart in 1973, and Ferrari’s Swiss gun Clay Regazzoni, senior teammate to some cocky little upstart called Niki Lauda, who won 3 races that season.

In the penultimate round of the championship, Fittipaldi won the Canadian Grand Prix ahead of Regazzoni, leaving the pair tied on 52 points heading into the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen (Fittipaldi had the wins tiebreak 3-1), and what gets forgotten is that while Fittipaldi and Regazzoni were tied, Jody Sheckter in the Elf Tyrrell was still a live chance on 45 points, given this was the heady days when you only got 9 points for a race win and the Top 6 scored points.

When it came down to the showdown at The Glen, Scheckter qualified 5th and Fittipaldi and Regazzoni qualified 8th and 9th respectively, but it was evident early on that Fittipaldi had the upper hand as he moved his way up to 6th (Being blocked by Lauda in a bid to help his teammate), while Regazzoni began to struggle with handling issues, as the race became marred by the death of Austrian Helmuth Koinigg on Lap 10, in what was only his second Grand Prix.

Regazzoni’s chances of the title ended on Lap 15 when he made a desperate pit stop, which made absolutely no improvement to the Ferrari’s handling, and he would fall 4 laps down, while Fittipaldi continued to fight with Scheckter, knowing he didn’t even need to pass the South African, and it turned out he didn’t, because Sheckter retired on Lap 44 due to a loss of fuel pressure, ensuring Fittipaldi would win his second title in three years, giving McLaren the first World Championships in their illustrious history, given they also won the Constructors Championship ahead of Ferrari.

Thus, Fittipaldi, who was already the youngest World Champion in history two years prior (25 years old), became the youngest double World Champion in F1 history (27 years old), records that would both stand for just over 3 decades, until they were broken by Fernando Alonso when he won his titles in 2005-06 at the age of 24 & 25.

Of course, the youngest World Champion record has been broken twice since Alonso came along; Lewis Hamilton in 2008 (23 years 300 days), and Sebastian Vettel in 2010 (23 years 134 days), who himself became the youngest double World Champion a year later.

It’s pleasing to see the COVID conspiracy theorists are getting back to basics

Spreading their message through old-fashioned, poorly sprayed graffiti

And finally, here’s your laugh for this week

The Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen.