verging_on_random

A new great and powerful friend?

One of my favourite blogs is Tofu Notes, written by a young (by my standards) Australian bloke named Damian who’s living in Nias. Hat tip to him for putting me on to an Indonesian blog Indonesia Matters, which like blogs written by people in Iraq and Iran and sundry other places, offers a different perspective on events in these countries from the one you get reading the mainstream media.

A recent post in Indonesia Matters by ‘new columnist Achmad Sudarsono’ begins:

Australia’s defeat in the Rugby World Cup at the hands of Britain on October 6th was more than a humiliation. It was a sign of a culture that is failing on every level and won’t admit it.

Oi!

It’s a funny post - intentionally I think but like lots of clever humour it’s hard to be completely sure - and I was kind of with Achmad’s argument for a lot of the time - I mean who can deny that the Wallabies were a joke at the World Cup - but he lost me when he wrote

After all, Rugby is really a contest of which team has the thickest skulls and fewest brain cells. (It has none of the subtleties of sepak takraw or badminton).

Well OK, I can go along with sepak takraw requiring quite a bit of skill, but badminton (or ’shuttlecock’ as we Aussies call it)? Come on dude … honestly.