On Saturday night the MCG was the place to be. It was the venue for the day/night Mushroom 25th birthday charity concert, a concert with most of the biggest names in the Australian music industry - Baaaaaarnsey!, Mossey, and umm… Molly, Kelly, Dannii and Kylie. Not to mention an reformation by those members of INXS who are still in the land of the living (with Baaaaarnsey! as frontman). And virtually every song was a hit - what more could you get for $2 per ticket?

By the evening when the headline acts came on, the place was just about packed to capacity. Kylie Minogue did her thing, then Ol’ (yawn) 55, but the singing along started when Paul Kelly launched into Leaps And Bounds, which is about the stadium itself. Most appropriate, I thought. The only people who looked a bit bewildered were the six teenage girls in the next row who apparently required music that had a drum machine beat they could dance to.

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs got everyone singing, and most people playing the "which hit will they play" game correctly predicted Mark Seymour’s Hunters’ classic "Throw Your Arms Around Me". The rain had held off all day, but it started when Peter Andre came on, and stopped as soon as he finished. Which says to me that God has taste.

At times it seemed like the biggest cheers from the crowd happened when somebody decided to go sprinting on a part of the pitch closed off to the public, and the security blokes would sprint after them and invariably catch them and wrestle them to the ground.

Meanwhile The Choirboys looked like they weren’t expecting their lead singer to launch back into "Run To Paradise" after apparently finishing (I reckon he was enjoying his moment of glory too much). But they managed to play along with him anyway.

The Angels naturally rocked the place, but no "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again", which of course would have generated an audience refrain not broadcastable on commercial television. The MC did a bit of it before they came on though.

Then Baaaaaaarnsey!. Let me tell you, Baaaaaarnsey! screaming "Working Class Man" into his microphone and 75,000 people screaming/singing along with him makes quite a racket. If there was a pitch invasion at that point, nobody would have noticed.

After the finale with INXS I walked back to the station with my sister and a few dozen thousand people, and managed to make it home in time to catch the finale again on the delayed telecast on the telly. What a shame that concerts never sound as impressive on TV as they do in real life.

I just had a tooth taken out. (Sorry, should I warned in advance that this diary entry contained dental content?) It’s not the most fun thing to do, I admit. Not my favourite way to spend a Saturday morning. Probably not yours either.

Oh, sure, I had a choice. I could either have my top left wisdom tooth wrenched out of my skull… or I could wait until the decay that had started to eat away at the tooth got down to the nerve and I was left in uncontrollable agony. Not to mention the decay also preparing to set out on an extended tour around my mouth, stopping at whatever other teeth it could find along the way. No thanks.

I made the mistake on Friday of mentioning my impending tooth-pulling to my workmates. They managed to relate various wisdom teeth stories, which would make even the most hardened dentist pause in silent contemplation at the prospect of dental agony. One told of his departure from the dentist, staggering down Collins Street with blood practically gushing from his mouth. Another related his inability to eat anything for days afterwards, and his near-collapse a week later when his eyes happened upon a sign displaying the word "Dentist".

Should I take notice of these doom-merchants? Random, and possibly quite irrational thoughts pervaded my every waking hour. Would the anaesthetic numb the left side of my mouth into a permanently lifeless pulp? Would the dentist pull out the wrong tooth? Would it hurt like hell?

The day arrived. Worse, the time arrived. I lay in the chair, trying to joke with the dentist and his assistant, but not really succeeding. The anaesthetic went in. Three doses. I’m okay with needles, as long as I don’t watch. So I didn’t. Why make it worse for yourself, eh?

The dentist checked that I couldn’t feel anything. I’m not sure quite what he did - he could have staple-gunned the inside of my mouth for all I know. I couldn’t feel anything. I decided to just lie back and let dentistry take its course.

He fiddled in my mouth, as I concentrated on the ceiling. A big silver pair pliers passed my field of vision. I felt pulling. I felt something in my mouth being dislodged from its roots. I saw the pliers pass back, with something in their grip. "It’s done", he said. He washed the tooth off and showed it to me.

Wow. My mouth was bleeding, but I hadn’t felt a thing. I still couldn’t, as he put in a couple of stitches. Two days later, as I sit writing this, I’m amazed at how easy and painless it was. But I’m glad I don’t have to have the others out yet. Apparently there’s plenty of room for them in there - I have a big mouth.

TAB: 4 bets, $10, lost. 2 x Office sweepstakes, total $5, got second prize in lesser sweep, $2.40. Better than my usual effort of losing it all, I suppose.

Tuesday is Melbourne Cup Day. I get the feeling that people in other parts of the world don’t really believe the truth about Cup Day. The way that (a) it’s a public holiday in honour of a horse race, and that (b) the nation stops when the race starts at about 3:20pm.

As I see it, it’s a great idea for a public holiday. It’s one of the few holidays that people actually participate in. I mean, on the Queen’s Birthday, we don’t sit around drinking toasts to Her Maj. And on Labour Day, do we march in honour of our ancestors who fought for our rights to work accident compensation and the eight hour day? Heck no!

But Cup Day is a holiday that everyone gets involved in. It’s the one day that everyone in Melbourne, even if they only bet once a year, puts a few dollars on a horse. And everyone watches or listens to the race.

And that’s why the nation stops. Okay, I can only speak for Melbourne, but it really does. For example, I live on a reasonably busy main road. Cars whiz by at all hours of the day. But on Cup Day, you can look out of the window for the four or so minutes that the race runs, and not see anything moving out there.

So, who am I betting on? Well, as per usual, I’ve chosen four horses to place a few dollars each on. And no doubt, as per usual, they’ll all come fourth or later.

And I’m betting that the TAB computers will break down!