Bureaucracy madness
WHAT a wonderful surprise it was for all footy fans this week to discover that a host of state government bureaucrats have been enjoying access to MUCH CHEAPER PRIME RESERVED SEATS at the MCG and Docklands than the rest of us mere hardworking, taxpaying PLEBS.
Clearly these excellent viewing opportunities for the aforementioned folks have done little to solve the problems of many Geelong line train services which have been cancelled because of staff sicknesses.
That being the case, why don’t these bureaucrats put their heads together next time they’re SCHMOOZING it up from the front row on the wing at the footy, and ask themselves why there never seems to be a shortage of replacement buses and bus drivers to cover the rail services they are replacing in the first place? Know what I mean?
This is just one of life’s great mysteries yours truly was pondering last weekend from the northern end of McDonald Reserve Belmont while wearing a white coat and trying to keep score at a junior football game as the wind howled and rain arrived sideways in conditions I could only describe as not even close to resembling BENIGN (thank you Mark H. for inspiration) and were far more like a good oldfashioned drenching of sorts.
But back to bureaucracy and sport. Specifically the Margaret River Pro and the cancellation of a surfing event because there were sharks in the water which posed a danger to competitors.
While not wanting to trivialise the seriousness of the events leading up to the decision made this week, at least the call came quickly. Can you imagine how long a bureaucratic think-tank would have taken to come to the same decision? Longer than a bloody AFL score review takes, that’s for sure.
If fact if the bureaucrats ran the surfing it would probably be BANNED FOREVER because there might be the chance competitors could get WET, which would take risk-aversion to a whole new level indeed.
This week I’ll sign off by wishing all sport volunteers a wonderful weekend of officiating as they cut through red tape and banish bureaucracy week after week to make life great fun for the participants and just get on with the job ... even if they have to pay FULL PRICE for good seats.
Vale Darrell Eastlake, one of our great sporting commentators who made everything exciting with shouty-descriptive calls for junior sport fans like me and inspired some of us to write in BLOCK CAPITAL LETTERS for impact as a result of his style when we grew up. May he rest in noisy sporting glory with all the other legends upstairs.