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October 28, 2003

Kiwi Humour

At work, I have a mate who is a Kiwi. Apart from that he is a great bloke but has this little thing called an obsession. He is mad keen on Rugby (Union not League). Now if I was to be honest for a moment, and ignore my Australian heritage, I would have to admit that the Kiwi Rugby team is probably the best in the world (ducks to avoid rotten fruit thrown by irate Aussies). The response of the average Kiwi to Rugby is akin to the response of the average Victorian to AFL - pretty close to worship.

Anyway, me mate [Ed: "my mate" just doesn't sound right] has tickets to almost every game that is on. He has driven to Melbourne and back. He has flown to Brisbane. He is attending every game that he possibly can. We have been suggesting that he get sponsored by Steinlarger or someone similar as a reward for this hard work. [Ed: Melbourne to Brisbane is further than Rome to Edinburgh as the crow flies.]

To cut a long story short (and to get to the point), he arrives at Brisbane and checks into his hotel. Just some hotel selected at random that happened to have a room available. As he does he spots a couple of Rugby Union mini-buses outside. 'Ello, 'ello, whats all this about? He has checked into the hotel where the Kiwi team are staying. Not only that, they are practising in a paddock just outside and across the road from the hotel. Talk about a dream come true! Anyway, being a Kiwi, he is wearing the right sort of gear and has no trouble chatting to some of the players.

Where's the point about the humour? Well he gets one of the players (Tana Umuga) to call up a mate who is also flying into Brisbane to see the game. He gets a call on his mobile and wants to tell someone but everyone around him is talking to someone else. Really can't believe he is getting a personal call from one of the worlds top players. Later, me mate gets another player (Chris Jack) to call a friend and leave a message on his mobile.

While I like the humour of the story, I also think that the friendly way it was handled speaks volumes about the Kiwi team and I wish them all the best. Compare that to the French team who wouldn't even speak to a journalist and left it up to the coach to make a statement: "It doesn't matter if the crowds don't like us, we will win anyway".

Posted by Ozguru at October 28, 2003 01:10 PM

Comments

He has also flown to Melbourne (I missed that in the description). Thinking of the distance, reminds me of a story my father used to tell. He was in the UK and had hired a vehicle of some sort. Leaving from London early one morning, he got to Glasgow where they stopped to eat. The waitress asked them how far they had travelled that day. My dad said they had just come up from London. "Oh" says the waitress, "you must be Australians". Apparently, the English do not normally travel such long distances in a single day. That also explains why English visitors used to have to stop for morning tea on the way when visiting our place when I was young - we lived a good 90 minutes fast driving from the center of the city.

Posted by: ozguru at October 28, 2003 01:10 PM

I enjoy your blog a lot and like the Kiwi post here in particular. Also, wanted to say hi as a fellow TypePad blogger and Mac OS X fanatic. I love the new cat!

Posted by: Janet Tokerud at October 28, 2003 01:10 PM