Heat by Rob O’Neill

The problem with two-day games of cricket is they take two days. In winter tournament over here each day is played on consecutive weekends. So having avoided humiliation last week, I now had to front up again.

Still, given the other side needed only 50-odd runs to win, it should’ve been over in an hour. Little did I know the opposition had other plans. They wanted an outright victory. To do that they had to post a big lead and bowl us out again.

That would take all day.

So, another three hours in the field were in order. It’s hard to hide for three hours in a game of cricket. And sure enough it didn’t take long for me to be posted way out on the boundary as the boys hit out in the last hour.

Inevitably, one of ours bowled a dolly. It came crisply off the bat rising and coming straight for me like one of those laser-guided things, a fear-seeking missile. I wasn’t afraid of the ball or its finger-breaking power. I just didn’t want to drop it.

Across the park, the sounds of the Livid festival could be heard, distorting in the strong wind. It’s been windy and occasionally wet here for a week or more. Very un-Sydney.

The little black dot grew bigger and reached the top of its arch before bearing down at me.

At least this week I wasn’t hung over. My mind was clear. My weekend was all mapped out. Cricket today, dial in some nice food for tonight and watch World Cup games with the Girlie. Sunday is my day of culture. Last week I went to the NSW Art Gallery for the Dobell Prize for Drawing among other exhibits, including some pretty challenging video installations.

This week the Girlie was into her homework, so I went to the movies on my todd, The Weather Underground. This is one of those films that has you coming out of the theatre wondering what you are doing with your life. Not that I wanted to go out and blow things up or anything, it just makes you feel disconnected and pointless.

But that’s probably just me.

The documentary is the story of the Weathermen, home-grown US radical resisters to the Vietnam War whose slogan was “Bring the War Home.” For five years or more they bombed government offices – never killing anyone – and eluding the FBI by living in various hippy communes around America. It’s also the story of their rapid marginalisation in a changing 60s and 70s radical scene. If it comes your way make sure you stay right to the end of the credits to see one of these former terrorists win $29,000 on the US TV show Jeopardy. Priceless.

The black dot was now large and moving fast. The wind carried it a little. Just one step to the left. Right in the old breadbasket.

To add to my dissociation, I’m reading Fight Club by Chuck Pahlaniuk at long last. It is incredibly well written with some amazing and horrifying ideas. From memory, the film is very faithful to the book, but I haven’t seen it in a while. The studio head got sacked by Rupert Murdoch for making it, so he must have done something right. It’s very reminiscent of Ballard’s Crash.

The ball hits with a leathery smack. Right in the middle of my hands. Victory.

Carrying a book like Fight Club around with you in Glebe has an odd side-effect. People talk to you. I was having a coffee before the movie and running late when a young guy bailed me up at the counter to share his thoughts. He was a fan of the book, of course. Very keen. I felt rude cutting the discussion short. It isn’t easy to strike up a conversation with strangers. But the Weathermen called. I made my apologies.

And then the ball popped out.

Anyway, we still had to bat. This offered some redemption. In a dour rearguard action, yours truly managed to last 15 overs and collect 18 runs, top score for the second innings.

Maybe I won’t retire after all...

The voice of protest has not been dimmed here in Australia. Following the massive anti-detention and anti-war events of the last couple of years a new cause has emerged:

“For we are saying, give sheep a chance …”

Yes, the save-the-sheep people really did sing this over the weekend.

“Give sheep a chance…”

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the fate of these bleaters (the sheep that is) has resulted in a new sheep joke. I seem to be a magnet for any of these going around. Here it is, with thanks to David and hot from my inbox:

“The crisis of the ship containing 50,000 Australian sheep in the Persian Gulf has been solved. The ship has been redirected to New Zealand and renamed ‘The Love Boat’.”

Oh, I never get sick of those sheep jokes - not.

Anyway just to show I’m not afraid of tackling the big issues, there was a great response to my request for the correct word for that funny ring of fluff you get out of the dryer, possible uses and why is it always that funny mauve colour?

Norm wrote he thought “lint" was the word I was looking for.

“It wasn't a word that I heard much in NZ, but funnily enough here in the US it's pretty common. Read into that what you will.”

Thanks Norm, but while I agree lint is the stuff, the word doesn’t work hard enough. It doesn’t describe the unique ring shape of dryer fluff.

DavidG says the “lint in the ‘lint filter’ of the dryer “has a bluish tinge because apparently that is the base colour of the plastic compounds that are use in the synthetics in clothing these days. There was a study on belly button lint done recently and it delivered this finding.”

On uses, ChrisB reckons “It's clean (having presumably just been in the washing machine prior to its sojourn in the dryer) and dry, so it would make a good packaging material for the evironmentally friendly. Or a cushion or cuddly toy stuffing.

“Of course, then you'd need another sad-bastard hobby, on top of collecting lint: making cushions or cuddly toys. BTW: Sometimes it's anaemic mauve, such as when you've only been drying white towels. But it's still got a bit of mauve in it. Questions should be asked in the House. I'll get on to Winston ...”

Scott provided these useful links for the fluffophile in all of us:

“I thought these might interest you and the Girlie's dryer lint fetish:

http://www.colba.net/~brock/2000b/11-19.htm
http://www.mommarama.com/contest/contestlint.html
http://www.plokta.com/plokta/issue17/lint.htm

"Along with these there are a heap of recipes for dryer lint modeling clay (almost makes me want to go and buy a dryer now).”

While Deborah showed real creativity with these suggestions:

“Sometimes, if you put a load of say, white and yellow towels through the drier, you can get a layer of white fluff. This can create a particularly pleasing layered effect if you first dry some ordinary clothes, then the white and yellow towels, and then the ordinary clothes again. Of course, you have to ignore the manufacturer's instructions to clean the lint filter after every load...

“Names for 'fluff' rings... I suppose 'ruffs', but that has been taken. More interestingly, what about 'frings'.

“I had better go back to marking essays....”

Frings I like. It has a nice, err, fring to it.

And, finally, blog-mate Damian says:

“You have piqued my interest with your drier fluff. God, I don't know who's the sadder...

“I note Graham Barker, avid collector refers to research about the colour of navel lint vs drier lint and says that the light grey from the drier is more likely to be an average of the colours of the clothes, which would make sense really.

“As for uses, I should think it would eventually be useful for lining a shoe box, in which one could raise small birds (and I guess in Australia, joeys) that have fallen from nests. Softer than cotton wool, more environmentally friendly, and free.”

Readers, you truly rock my world.

Horribly hungover on Saturday morning, my phone wakes me. It’s a mate asking if I’m still playing cricket.

“Whaddya mean ‘still’. No. I told you, I’m hanging up my gloves … ah bat …pads ... whatever.”

“You bastard,” he said. “I’m counting on you. I’ve penciled you in.”

It turns out I’d phoned him the previous night, clearly in an unfit state to make such a decision, and said I’d play. Worse, he wasn’t going to cut me any slack. He was holding me to it.

I checked the clock. It was 11. The game started at the headache-friendly time of 1pm. Well, I calculated, we might win the toss. It was a two-day game so if we won the toss and I batted at the end I might not have to do anything at all; just sit on the sidelines and read the papers, maybe have a hair-of-the-dog, and go home smug and self-satisfied that I’m leading an active, healthy lifestyle.

Regular visitors may remember it was only two months ago I swore never to step out on a cricket pitch again. I made this decision because I am, frankly, hopeless. You can’t bat, you can’t bowl. So who are you kidding? It was time to stop the lies, to abandon the delusion.

After struggling through the horrible Sydney traffic jams, through Surry Hills up to Moore Park near the SCG, we arrive late to find we had, indeed, won the toss. And, yes, there is no argument. I would bat last. Number 11 was the place to be. And there are two massive papers to work my way through. Maybe I could even squeeze in a few ZZZZs under a tree somewhere.

I may be a cricketing zero, but I accept it. Nay, I welcome it. Far worse would it be to be John Howard, who has discovered even after supporting the war and being the US’s number two ally, he’s still a political zero. They still don’t know who he is. His mate George is coming to a special sitting of the Australian Parliament this month. However, when this was announced in the US the statement referred to “the Australian Prime Minister, John Major”.

The US certainly knows how to win friends and influence people. Meanwhile, Phillip Adams delivers an interesting reading of Bob Woodward’s Bush at War:

“The thought that this monumental mediocrity is the most powerful man on Earth will reassure Bush’s Christian fundamentalist followers that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is utterly wrong. Descended from apes? The US President hasn’t descended at all.

Don’t you love that phrase, “All Stetson, no cattle”?

Glancing up from my papers, it begins to dawn on me that the guys I’m playing with this week were rather good. It turns out I’m playing number 11 for the Kingsford 4th grade. I haven’t been in such exalted company since turning out occasionally for University-St Heliers in my twenties.

“Shit,” I thought, as a ball flew down the pitch. “Their opener is pretty quick,” an impression reinforced shortly after when he sent one of our openers’ wickets flying. One wicket fell and then another until we were five down. One guy, Dave, soldiered on to a fine 87.

Howard also has to deal with some strange and annoying distractions right now. And believe it or not a real sleeper is the so-called “Sheep of State”, a shipful of woolies that have been floating around in the Indian ocean for more than 60 days. The issue has given the cartoonists a field-day. One had two cages side by side. The first holding a refugee was labeled “vote winner”, the other holding a sheep was labeled “vote loser”.

Then Dave went. By 3pm I knew I was going to have to bat.

Padded up, gloved up, boxed up I wandered out to the centre. Two balls left in the over. The first whizzes past. The fielders seem suddenly excited. They close in. The second ball I block staunchly. My partner gets the strike. Brilliant.

He hits two, then one. I’m back on strike. Another ball whizzes past. Then another. Then I block a good ball. So far so good. I’m settling in. These guys ain’t so tough. Unlike last time, my feet are moving. It feels okay. I’m ready to hit something.

I see the over out and once gain the strike goes to the other end. He misses the first. The second he knocks up straight to a fielder and it’s all over.

Not out for nought.

Of course we still had to field, but to cut a long story short, here’s my record: I didn’t bowl. I didn’t take any catches. I didn’t drop any catches. I was not out for nothing. My impact on the game was zero, nothing, nada, but I did not humiliate myself!

The great news over here is we can expect tax cuts of $10 a week following the surprise $7.5 billion surplus announced overnight. Now some of you may remember just the other day I chided Howard for his big spending.

“What the bloody hell are you on about Rob?” you may well ask.

Well, you see, there a surplusses and there are surplusses. I’ll let finance maestro Crikey explain how it works:

“The various Australian websites are carrying the basic AAP report on the booming tax receipts but none of them have linked to the detailed Treasury documents.

"You can only laugh as Cozzie [treasurer Peter Costello] claims he is reducing debt (in this case by $8.4 billion to $29.7 billion) at the same time the government's superannuation scheme motors ever higher towards an unfunded liability of $90 billion. A responsible government would not have allowed unfunded public sector superannuation to blow out by almost $15 billion in 8 years.

"It is amazing that the mainstream press continue to let Cozzie and Howard get away with this dodgy accounting.

"Meanwhile, the economy is booming and we're getting slugged like never before as personal income tax receipts power above $90 billion and even company tax leapt by $2 billion thanks to a good profit reporting season."

Now that $15 billion of unfunded superannuation would not only wipe out the current surplus, but would also wipe away every budget surplus since Howard took office.

Interestingly, the New Zealand government’s second biggest liability is, wait for it, unfunded government superannuation. In 1999 this unfunded liability amounted to $NZ8.5 billion. By the end of April 2003 it had grown to $NZ10.4 billion.

But financial trickery over here goes further than super. Crikey from July:

“With the Australian dollar rising to four year highs last month, the Reserve Bank wisely took the opportunity to offload $5.5 billion Australian dollars they acquired whilst defending the currency during its cellar-dwelling around the US50c mark in recent years.

"This is sound economic management.

"However, profits raised from the sale are not going back into the Reserve Bank of Australia, but instead are being pumped straight into the federal budget as Howard and Costello cook the books to claim a surplus. The government is hoping to rip almost $4 billion out of the RBA this year which is a disgrace when you consider Australia's pathetically low levels of foreign currency reserves."

Now I presume from this that a significant amount of this super liability was unfunded from before 1996 and the blame for that should go to Howard’s Labour predecessors. But then there is a huge argument that the credit for Australia’s long boom should go there too.

Crikey, followed an Australian Financial Review report to draw these conclusions in July:

“While Steve Bracks and Bob Carr are guilty, the worst offenders are undoubtedly John Howard and Peter Costello who claim to be responsible financial managers.

"Their fiscal credibility is blown out of the water by this one Financial Review fact: since 1995 unfunded Commonwealth superannuation liabilities have blown out by $20 billion from $69 billion to $89 billion - equivalent to 8 per cent of GDP.

"In other words, all these claims of 7 straight budget surpluses is a fib, although the big privatisations would have produced the occasional cash surplus even if superannuation liabilities accrued were properly accounted for.

"However, with proper accounting, the Howard Government would probably never have reported a recurrent surplus.”

The ritual of the Saturday clean-up around ours is invariably a prelude to going to the movies. This weekend was no exception though there wasn’t much to choose from. It came down to The Stones’ Gimme Shelter versus a noir festival at the Chauval in Oxford St. I favored the latter. The Girlie didn’t mind either way.

Noir it was.

So we went to see a new print of a unique 1957 number called Sweet Smell of Success, which if you have anything to do with journalism or PR you really should see. Tony Curtis plays slime-ball publicist Sidney Falco to Burt Lancaster’s egocentric and ruthless JJ Hunsucker, star New York columnist. Falco lives off his ability to place items in Hunsucker’s column. The film starts with Falco in desperation. He has been frozen out after failing to end a relationship between Hunsucker’s dependent sister and a very straight young jazz guitarist.

The performances of the two leads are pretty terrific. Apparently this is the film that showed Curtis was more than just a pretty boy.

About an hour into the film I realized the Girlie and I had our wires crossed: she leaned across and asked if this was about the Rolling Stones. I told her it wasn’t, no, Tony Curtis wasn’t playing Mick Jagger, but I thought Lancaster could do a passable Charlie Watts.

She slumped back in her seat, not seeming to know what I was on about.

Anyway, there are other stars in this film, not least 1950s New York and cinematographer James Wong Howe whose monochrome is sumptuous from start to finish. He concocts many great shots of the city, its bars, street and clubs and a wonderful title sequence.

Some of the dramatic scenes are stunners too, especially when Falco is playing off two columnists drinking in a classic deco bar to place a smear against the unfortunate musician and again at the end, where Hunsucker effectively destroys his victim. Here five characters take part in a brilliantly choreographed segment, with each in turn moving up into the foreground to speak and Falco circling permanently in the back, chipping away destructively.

Director Alexander Mackendrick and screenwriters Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, of course, demand a mention. Sweet Smell is a bit melodramatic, but in the best possible way. If you get a chance, see it.

Before going out that morning, I feel compelled to mention, I discovered the Girlie has a hobby. I’ve always thought she needed an interest outside school and sleeping, so this was a welcome discovery. While cleaning the house, I found about half a dozen “fluff rings”, you know, the things you pull out of the clothes-dryer filter, placed neatly on top of each other in the laundry to form one big “fluff ring” about a centimeter thick.

I was about to throw this out but she told me not to. She is collecting them.

Now I confess these rings have at times fascinated me as well. Why, for instance, are they always that funny mauve colour? No matter what you are drying, they always come out the same.

Also, when I do throw them away, it is always with a slight pang of regret. They look as if they should have some sort of use, we just can’t figure out what it is. To add further to their allure, these fuzz rings don’t appear to have a name. Yes they are fluff and they are lint, but neither of these terms is quite precise enough for something so, so … elemental.

If you have any suggestions for uses for dryer fluff or their proper name, drop me a line. And if there really is no name feel free to coin one. But in the meantime I’ve done some research and it looks as if the Girlie’s new hobby is fairly unique. The internet does reveal some activity in the navel fluff space, indeed there have been academic studies undertaken here in Australia and there is at least one avid collector.

However, fluff ring collecting looks like virgin territory, apart from this site that suggests it as an ingredient of an especially durable kind of home-made paper.

Sorry, I’m obsessing. I'll go now.