Why has no Australian writer since Williamson with “The Club” attempted to do the same? At the very least, what with Warney texting his libido around and strangled coaches, there must be a great and darkly funny cricket novel out there. Not to mention all the tennis and swimming feral fathers.

Nah. Speaking as a former tennis prodigy who survived a forced march through “Infinite Jest”, I can say DFW is just as clumsy and flatfooted about fluently rolling lawn tennis references crosscourt on the run as Smarty Anus.

Otherwise generally an excellent writer, ‘specially when he puts tennis and ‘big’ novels to one side. ‘Lyndon’ is one of the most crystalline yet hallucinatory pieces of prose I have ever read.

The national anthem will be changed to either “Take the Skin-heads Bowling,” or else the theme from “Courageous Cat.” And the currency will be re-designed by George Herriman, Vaughn Bode and Ernie Bushmiller.

And I think everybody should be required to take a detailed, plainly-taught course in civics and basic law, so they have a clearer idea of the sorts of shenanigans governments get up to, and how they can better monitor and criticize them. And they should have to take it at an age when they’re genuinely equipped to understand what they’ve been taught.

w/r/t this whole “opera versus sport” thing, why not just athleticize opera (or the performing arts in general)? Brecht was on to something like this: it’s part of human nature for people to be interested in judging outcomes against standardized criteria; that’s what sport is all about. I mean, just set up an arts system where there are sometimes more head-to-head competitive environments, like maybe having “Australian Idol — Classical Version,” or regional state against state competitions amongst colleges and high schools, for the best production of Twelfth Night or the Henriad. Make the rules for judging consistent, more like sport.

And I like Doctor Cat’s idea of making artists play sports and making athletes do art. You forgot David Foster Wallace, who was a tennis prodigy. And Muhammad Ali, who was quite the poet and orator. Excelsior!

Both major parties should commit to more generous overall funding for education – from daycare to tertiary level. Funding can be sourced from a set percentage of GST ( through the negotiations conducted between state and federal governments)and maybe from long term bonds issued against HECS repayment funds or even by dipping into a tax on gambling.
Investment in improving our education at all levels will lead to us dealing with all manner of other problems more effectively.
Industry policy from both parties will unfortunately be a mish-mash trying to satisfy their backers. We would all benefit from a hands off approach with suitable tax incentives for those areas which need R and D.

from a social point of view, sport is extremely important for all children to participate in.

Why? So the uncoordinated, the short-sighted, the gentle, the bookish, the dreamy and the bored-to-sobs can be publicly humiliated, openly bullied and/or bored to sobs on a weekly basis?

Art is ultimately an elitist activity.

And sport, which is all about winning, isn’t?

Get real.

I’m more interested in the delivery of the message that art is (at least) as important as sport than I am in funding increases as such.

Hmmm…I wonder how you could make that assessment? I would argue that from a social point of view, sport is extremely important for all children to participate in. I am not convinced it is the case for Art. Art is ultimately an elitist activity. We should encourage the very best and allow hoi polloi to watch The Simpsons.

of course this would send Qantas broke, but you can’t make an omelette…

Under my hegemony

Helen, I like it!

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae

(I am not as I was under the reign of the good Cynara – Horace)

LAST night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to you, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long;
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

Ernest Dowson

Symbolist poets of decadence and the Yellow Book Fin du siecle aesthetic to be the sole content of the English curriculum!

Dr Donnelly to be forced to read same, and write students’ notes…