verging_on_random

Old and emotional

December 10, 2006 on 8:02 pm | In Uncategorized |

I was gonna write a vicious entry about the dessicated old bastards who run this country but it will keep. I don’t have the heart for it tonight because I just watched the ABC Schools Spectacular. Every year that show makes me so proud, not that I have anything to do with it, but I want to laugh and weep at the same time and tonight was no exception.

If you’ve never watched it the loss is yours. There’s more talent on display in 90 minutes than you’ll see in a complete series of ‘Australian Idol’, but more important than that is the spirit that infuses the whole production. There’s no glorification of the individual, half the time you never even get told who’s performing, and the whole exercise is characterised by sheer joy on the part of all the participants.

They celebrated some of the things that should be a source of pride for us, like multiculturalism and the Eureka flag, in a totally unselfconscious way. It wasn’t a political statement, just an expression of pride in their country, warts and all. And the energy! It made me feel grand just to see them.

The local Kingscliff kids were fuckin’ awesome … they are every year.

The Schools Spectacular reminds me of what a wonderful country this could be and how beautiful, talented, generous and full of life our kids are. I vote we let them run the place for a year and see what happens … they could scarcely do a worse job than the current mob.