Goodbye to all that

Yeah, well ... the Saints caved and Geelong won.

Nicky cried, and so did a few of the other Saints.

I hate that.

Yesterday, I had lunch with my friends, Shelley and Deb, while David watched the Grand Final in Mosman Park, with other friends.

On the drive to his Grand Final do, we'd been listening on the radio to the pre-match rambling and raving, laughing about what cliches the AFL would trot out in the pre-match "entertainment" at the MCG.

We were pissing ourselves as David started: "You watch: they'll have Mark Seymour doing The Holy Grail."

That song exactly started within a second.

"I'm on a roll," David said as Holy Grail wound down. "Now it'll be Jimmy Barnes with Working Class Man."

Jimmy Barnes duly started his throat-closing mono-tone rasp ... but it wasn't that song (praise be ...) but something poor old Jimmy could scream through on his capillary-bursting one and a half notes. (Note to Jimmy: professional singers have the grace to retire when their voices go .... hint hint).

We were hooting.

"Now it'll be Johnny Farnham, doing The Voice."

Sure enough. Yawwwwwwn.

By this time I'd dropped David and was on my way back into Subi for lunch — when that sickeningly hoary old chestnut, I Still Call Australia Home, began with those simpering brats ... but I switched it off. I felt sure David would have picked that as well.

After the match, on the way home, we were joking about what tired old boring old dead old cliches would be on the cover of the dead boring old Sunday Times this morning.

"'Year of the Cats'!" David ventured to my disbelieving groans.

"Or — wait for it — 'Cat Empire'!"

I insisted no paper would stoop so low, not even one so hideous as the Sunday Times.

How wrong am I!