When they wrote the footy club songs, they got together an old familiar tune and lyrics which are generally way over-the-top for most circumstances, basically proclaiming the team is invincible. If only it were true.

The Geelong Football Club song is called We Are Geelong, sung to the tune of Toreador from Bizet’s Carmen, a tune I’m very familiar with as my mum used to love playing music from this opera around the house when I was growing up.

The lyrics were written by John Watts, and admittedly I didn’t know the full words until yesterday during the game, when it was getting clearer that the team would win, and Tony found them and printed them out for me.

They open with: We are Geelong, the greatest team of all

Under normal circumstances, this would be a big call. But as the game came to a close, it became apparent that the Cats had in fact won the game by the biggest Grand Final margin ever. At one point I was even cheering on Port Adelaide, urging them to kick a few goals just to make it a little more interesting.

If winning margin at a Grand Final is a good way of measuring it, then maybe they really are “the greatest team of all.”

PS. I have now memorised all of the lyrics. At least, the first verse. Like the national anthem, few know there’s a second verse, and even fewer know what the words are. I also promised Tony I’ll buy a club jersey.

Now… Go Storm!

PS. Monday morning: Storm won their game too.

The weekend’s here, the crowds are gathering around the MCG, and though I won’t be attending, I have only one thing to say:

Go Cats!

Yes, I’m jumping on the bandwagon. I’ve been a Geelong Cats fan for a long time, though it’s years since I’ve been to a game.

From what I can see, most years they do well in the first few rounds, then descend into a plumetting spiral of defeats. But not this year. They haven’t won every game, but they’ve finished on top of the ladder, and thumped North Melbourne in the first week of the finals. (Oh, do we not call them “North Melbourne” anymore?)

It would appear that the Cats have a fighting chance of winning the Premiership for the first time since 1963. (Hey, when did they stop calling the home ground “Kardinia Park“?)

So enthused am I by the prospect of a Cats Premiership that I’ve gone and bought myself a scarf. Okay, so I didn’t splurge for an official AFL scarf. No, I got a $5.50 “unauthorised” scarf (it has a sticker saying so) that I found at a discount shop down the street.

Marita asked me to get her a Bombers one. It looks like they’ve got away without having to subtly alter the colours or spelling, on condition of the disclaimer sticker. No doubt if they’d lost a trademark challenge, they would have had me supporting the Catts, and her the Bumbers. Or something like that.

Tell you what — if the Cats win the next final, I’ll buy a beanie too. Maybe even a (gasp) jersey. Like a real, authorised one, so the club gets some money from it.

Just don’t ask me who all the players are… (Hey, why do we have a coach with the nickname “bomber”?)

Anyway, Go Cats!!

PS. Trish won the Footy Tipping this year, and consequently will take home the Ugly Trophy for the year. Lucky Trish.

Shrek the Third — was okay I suppose, a few amusing moments, but nothing outstanding. The first Shrek is still the best one… egads they have a Shrek 4 planned — I hope it’s better than the Third, though I bet they’re all successful. I suppose worth watching if someone else is paying, but fails the “would watch again” test.

I had been thinking that Jim Schembri’s article the other day about kids in cinemas was an exaggeration, but on second thoughts, it’s true: some kids (especially younger kids) don’t know how to behave in cinemas, and evidently their parents don’t know either.

Nerds FC — very amusing stuff. Yes I noted the guy who can recite pi — though he knows 486 digits, a long way over my paltry 75. I only caught a couple of episodes of the first series, but will try and see the rest of these ones.

Oh, and just when I thought my footy tipping couldn’t get any worse… 2 out of 8.

Santoro’s out. I think it’s kind of a shame. It’s rare that the Australian parliament can boast his level of alliteration. He wasn’t just Santo Santoro, he was Senator Santo Santoro.

A few months ago I mentioned theories about fluoride improving dental health. Now a study has concluded that yes, it’s made a big difference.

The Grand Prix was on today. I watched a little bit of it on the telly, but really, it just reminds me of that old Twelfth Man record, the one that spoofed Murray Walker. “The cars are just going round and round… it’s so bloody boring…”

They don’t appear to be scrounging for money now that there’s no cigarette advertising allowed.

Was certainly able to hear both the cars and the pre-race FA-18 fly-past from home. My tax dollars at work. How does one organise a fly-past from the air-force? Does one just ring up the RAAF and leave a credit-card number, or do you need some sort of official status to get it organised? Could a zillionaire arrange the Roulettes to fly over his kid’s birthday party? (Actually there is an application form on their web site. No cost mentioned, but if you have to ask…)

We don’t have the Village Green anymore, but many Australian suburbs do have this: a local cricket oval.

In summer the local cricket club will be in residence. About every fortnight there’ll be a game on. I’m not skilled enough to tell who are the locals and who are the visitors, but they frequently show just as much enthusiasm as their well-paid counterparts playing international matches. (”Howzaaaaaaaat?!”)

At some point in the autumn they’ll vacate to let the footy club move in — there might be some overlap in the players. (They seem to have left the football goals in place over summer here.)

I assume in rugby-playing states they have a more equal balance of rugby pitches and cricket ovals, though even here in AFL-loving Victoria, there’s a few rectangular pitches for rugby and soccer around.

Summer rolls on, with several hot days this week leaving us sweating.

On Thursday night we had an evening session of street cricket, always good when it’s warm and the sun goes down late. It’s not exactly The Ashes, and some fielding slip-ups meant one tennis ball went down a drain. Oh well. If we’d been bothering to count runs, that would have been six and out.

We eventually called it stumps when it was too dark to see properly.

Last week I took the opportunity to take the kids to the pool a couple of times. In the nearby industrial end of Moorabbin is a centre with a wave pool.

It looks at first glance like a beach. A kind of hard, digital beach, with no litter in the sand (indeed, no sand), no jellyfish or shells, lifeguards everywhere, and the cleanest water you’ve ever seen. And it’s heated quite warmly, so unlike the other pools, so there’s a cold shock to the system when you go in.

I found my bathers ballooned up when I entered the water, somehow filling with air pockets. The only way I could get rid of them was to give them a slight tug to let the air escape, which had the unfortunate effect of releasing big bubbles of air to the surface, as if I’d done a massive fart underwater.

Evidently the sequence of events in the wave pool is random: the sessions of waves come at unpredictable times (heralded by an alarm, and almost unintelligible loudspeaker warnings about keeping away from the walls, lest you get washed into them and do yourself an injury). The waves are interspersed with automated rainshowers (very tropical) and bubbles from various locations. As each occurs, some of the pool (mostly the youngsters) would rush over to get prime position to enjoy them. Rather amusing to see the odd middle-aged man waddle over to try and get a spot amongst the bubbles though.

Eventually the chlorine started to take its toll, giving both Isaac and myself headaches. On the second visit we limited our pool time to a couple of hours, which seemed to get around that problem. Good fun though, and a great relief on hot days.

It hasn’t been a spectacular year for me in the footy tipping. Although I was thankfully nowhere near the come bottom of the competition, after leading for a short period during the year I ended up fifth at the end of the season, three points off the lead. That formidable trophy won’t be coming to my place any time soon.

Thankfully a work colleague set up a finals tipping competition. It’s based around shares that started at 10 cents each. You could buy shares before last Friday, and your shares on whichever team(s) you wanted. Any shares on losing teams are lost, and the value of the remaining shares of the prize pool goes up accordingly. So I coughed up $10 and put my 100 shares on three teams that looked pretty safe.

And lost everything in the first smegging week.

Perhaps next year I will relive some of my past glories.