Sir Robert Menzies

It must be that I am an unrecognised and untapped keg of astute political potential. An unhatched egg of statesmanship, just waiting to be sat upon for 28 days by some warm maternal stateswoman before I hatch into a consummate fully-fledged featherer of my own nest.

Sir Robert Menzies was Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister.  His bushy eyebrows reigned imperiously and paternally over my generation of baby boomers during the 1950′s and beyond.
Menzies and I have something very important in common.

We both issued identical public statements.

“I did but see her passing by, and yet I’ll love her till I die.”

Menzies grovelled this to the Mother Country in 1954 after Queen Elizabeth’s first royal visit to Australia.

Some time later, coincidentally and auspiciously, I came out with the same phrase in appreciation of the following, although etymological nit-pickers could perhaps technically argue that I arrived at the word ‘love’ after a slightly less rigorous thought process than Menzies.

So now we’ve established conclusively that Sir Robert and Sir (potentially) GOF are really just two peas in the same leadership pod.
Except that he is dead and to the best of my knowledge I’m not.

Therefore I am a Prime Ministerial time bomb just waiting to be detonated.

Be that as it may. Let’s now return to Menzies and the Woomera story.

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Sir Robert loved the Queen so much that he allowed her English subjects to come and test their nuclear weapons and fire their rockets in our Australian backyard instead of their own.
This was necessary because the only piece of vacant land in all of Great Britain, M.C.C. Lords, was occasionally being used for games of cricket, and radioactive explosions were deemed to be potentially detrimental to both the hallowed turf and spectator attendance.

This establishment in South Australia was originally named the Woomera Test Facilty but was eventually given a name change. Something to do with an embarrassing anagram, so it became the Woomera Test Range, but I think it should remain WTF forever.

1. WTF was the Government of the day thinking by ever allowing nuclear testing at Maralinga in this pristine albeit remote environment.

2. WTF were they thinking by gathering unprotected men together on top of a sandhill to watch the atomic blasts for the purpose of shooting publicity films. “Just to be safe boys, backs facing the blast, but then immediately turn around to watch the pretty mushroom cloud.”

3. WTF was the unconscionable disregard for the traditional aboriginal landowners, many of whom suffered the consequences of downwind nuclear fallout.

When the nuclear nonsense ended, Woomera was used to test-fire missiles. Skylarks, Black Knights and Europas. Like naughty little boys playing with gunpowder rockets in the backyard, debris came crashing back to earth causing annoyance to the neighbours……in this case, a handful of broad-acre pastoralists.

In response, the Government supplied each farmer with a ‘bomb shelter’ in which to safely hide, along with advance notification of missile test-firing schedules.

In the words of one pastoralist;

“These ******* shelters provided an excellent ******* cellar in which to store food, wine and machinery spare parts, as well as being a perfect viewing platform.  We would grab a beer and sit on top of the ******* shelter and watch all the ******* rockets whizzing overhead.”

The laconic Aussie outback spirit was alive and well back then.

It still is.

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P.S.  Woomera is now a tourist attraction. The National Missile Park.

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Ol pato bilas gut tru na behainim wanpela man igat bilakpela hat.

Several ducks dressed in their finery are following a man with a black hat.

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Dispela sampting emi bagarapim stret tingting bilong me.

This is really messing with my head.

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Yangpela as-nating meri holim wonem sampting tru long han bilong em na lukluk igo long solawara?

What imaginary objects is the naked young lady pretending to hold while she’s looking out to sea?

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Planti pisin sindaon na pekpek nabaut antap long ol wiliwil.

Lots of pigeons are sitting and crapping on the bicycles.

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Tupela blari longlong dog. Wanpela lesbaka putim shoe na hat na malalo olsem masta, na narapela bilas na sindaon long tebol redi long kaikai olsem Prince Charles.

Two stupid bloody dogs. One dressed up relaxing like an expatriate, and another sitting at the table dining like Prince Charles.

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Pikinini lukim bol bilong lapun man na poreit nogut tru.

The kid sees the old man’s privates and is horrified at the sight.

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As I enjoy reading the replies of other respondents, I am happy to comply on this occasion.

What are eleven facts that we may not know about you?

Long-time readers probably know almost everything. They’ve read more indiscriminate trivia here than they ever deserved.

1.  When using sporting equipment or work tools that require just one hand I am right-handed, but left-handed when they require both hands.

2.  I’ve only been admitted to hospital once in my adult life.  For seven days.  An ingrown big toenail. Yep. One whole week.
Various tropical bacteria, fungi and worms were calling my foot ‘home’. Perhaps I should have sought earlier medical intervention.

3. At age 49, after stupidly spending the day lifting objects that would have challenged Tarzan, I collapsed in the main street of Port Douglas with breathlessness and severe chest pains.  Just before I lost consciousness I told Mrs GOF to ‘call 911′.
Fortunately she didn’t listen to me and dialled the correct emergency number for Australia….. triple zero.
Bloody Americans nearly killed me.

After some oxygen and a couple of hours of being poked and prodded by medics I staged a miracle recovery and wandered off into the night a little sore but happy to be alive.  

4.  I am the 1974 Finschhafen Golf Club (PNG) champion.
There were only two of us playing the ‘airstrip course’, and Patrick was handicapped to a greater extent than I in terms of blood alcohol level. I still have the trophy. A $2 South Pacific Lager mug.

5.  I was so terrified of 10 y.o. Fay Conn throwing rocks at me as I pedaled past her house every day on my bike in 1958, that I always rode the long way home after school to avoid her. An extra 3 miles.  Someone told me years later that her behaviour was a sign that she had the hots for me.  My understanding of women has not improved during the 55 years since.

6.  I didn’t taste beer until I was 19. I can still take it or leave it.

7.  When I was 17 my nickname was ‘Twiggy’ because the only discernible difference between her physique and mine was that I had slightly larger tits.  If it wasn’t for that sexist chiffon ceiling which existed during the 1960′s I could have been a supermodel.
Shit happens.

8.  Once upon a time I smoked a pipe to look ‘cool’. I never inhaled the smoke because it seemed an unnatural and stupid thing to do, and I’ve never regretted making that choice.

9.  Thirty years ago I tried working for someone else…..in a milk factory coldroom. I sacked myself after just 2 days to save management the trouble,  and I’ve been self-employed ever since. This present employer is not perfect, but he is for the most part, tolerant of my many peculiarities.

10.  In primary school I was the last kid in my class to gain a Herald Learn To Swim Certificate. (30 feet across the shallow end of the Castlemaine Municipal pool). This only occurred after my arms grew long enough to touch the bottom as I went.  
Swimming remains for me “staying alive in water”.

11.  I have extraordinarily long toes. All the better with which to grip the planet and avoid being flung off into space. I passed this genetic gift onto my kids who are eternally grateful, because not one of them has vanished through the troposphere, even though the planet is moving through space at 45,000 mph.

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Now Elyse wants to know even more.  Blame her.  

Q. Were you closer to your Mum or Dad?
A. Mum. Dad was always unwell or in hospital.

Q. First moment in history that you remember.
A.  Baby Jesus being born. No, sorry…Cuban missile crisis.

Q. What is your favourite pet ever.
A.  I have a policy of not becoming too emotionally attached to pets or people ‘cos eventually they get sick and die and that makes me sad.  My policy could be flawed, ‘cos sometimes it doesn’t work.

Nelson.

Q. Funniest event in your life.
A. Disembarking a tractor when the long hand-throttle lever went up my trouser-leg leaving me dangling off to the side, suspended in mid air like a puppet with a stick up it’s arse, while the tractor was screaming it’s guts out.  Well Mrs GOF thought it was funny.
I failed to find amusement.

Q. First insult you delivered and why the recipient deserved it.
A. “Shutup, bugger, bum”  in Grade 1 to the world in general, because they were the first naughty words I learned and the universe deserved to be a witness to my evolving command of language.

Q. What is your first memory.
A. At age four I had an imaginary friend who lived in a real abandoned miner’s cottage beside the road near Daylesford.
His name was Ik.   

Q. What do you dislike most about blogging.
A. ‘Friend collectors’ who feign interest but never actually read anything I write.  Apart from that, blogging is a wonderful privilege of living in the 21st century, and it’s all free. Thank you WordPress.

Q. Do your family and friends read this blog.
A. The Bucket is available to my immediate family and just a few trusted friends, but for the most part they get bored with all the crap that I write and sensibly find more productive ways to spend their time.

Q. How would you be using your time right now if you were not answering my stupid questions.
A. I’d be having my essential and restorative midday nanna nap. Elyse, you are a health hazard.

Q. What is your dream job.
A. I have been doing it for the last 30 years.
 
But then again, is it too late for me to try my hand at being a professional bra-fitter at Myers?

Q. What do you expect to be reincarnated as in the next life.
A. Sorry, I can find no evidence of any ‘next life’. This present one is all that I expect, and dammit, it’s been a thoroughly enjoyable and wonderful ride.

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Any of my blog friends up for the challenge of answering the same questions?

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This year we are breaking new ground by giving recognition not just to a single exasperating plonker, but to an unknown number of parasitic paper-shuffling nincompoops who exhibited exceptional stupidity and ignorance, combined with a monumental lack of decency and common sense.

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Millaa Millaa is a little town in my neighbourhood with a population of 250.  It’s the sort of town which immediately brings to mind the John Denver song lyric “I spent a week there one day.”

Millaa doesn’t have much going for it these days. It’s economic boom times are long gone. The timber industry and cheese factory are both just memories residing in the minds of old-timers, and the few remaining dairy farmers are now being financially emasculated by the absurd downward-pricing policies of Australia’s supermarket duopoly.

It is a picturesque town when the weather is fine, but often it is a bleak, windswept and rain-drenched place which most travelers are more than happy to bypass in order to find somewhere more climatically hospitable.

Last year, the good folk of Millaa Millaa approached their local Council asking for a toilet to be built at the cemetery.  All that rain tends to make some old farts like me  revered community elders want to regularly dash off for a pee, even midway through funeral services, or during the interment of deceased friends.

The Council edifice eggheads  architects estimated the cost of a toilet block to be $83,000 and accordingly advised that they couldn’t afford to spend that amount of money.
Undeterred, the resourceful members of the Millaa Millaa Chamber of Commerce immediately dug deep into their own pockets, as well as the sacred cemetery soil, and built their own custom designed toilet for the princely sum of just $1300.

The unique Millaa Millaa coffin-shaped toilet soon generated publicity and notoriety, and became a much-welcomed tourism drawcard for the town …….until large piles of bureaucratic and sanctimonious shit started hitting the fan of irreverent Aussie ingenuity.

In one of the most treacherous acts of administrative bastardry I have witnessed in my entire life, the Council ordered
“the immediate removal of this unauthorised structure.”

On January 25, 2013, the toilet was lifted onto the back of a truck and given a funeral service of its own through the centre of town.
Eulogies were delivered mourning the passing of common sense.

Millaa’s little dunny. Murdered by a humorless purgative pack of pathetic pen-pushers.

The faceless little dictators who made this decision richly deserve our 2013 Pain In The Arse Award in recognition of their managerial incompetence and the disrespectful and insensitive way that they treated the good people of Millaa Millaa, the very same people they are overpaid to serve.

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(Last year’s  Pain in the Arse Award winner here)

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Advisory;  Contains explicit psychological procedures and occasional sarcasm.

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Dr GOF;   Come inside my consulting room Dr Fill. What brought you here to seek my professional services today?

Dr Fill;   A taxi.

Dr GOF;   This ain’t my first rodeo, son.  I suggest you answer my questions sensibly if you don’t want this exercise to be a complete waste of time.

Dr Fill;   Sorry Dr GOF. My problem is that I had built up a nice low-key counseling service in America, but suddenly I became so bashful and unsure of myself that I could no longer form definite opinions or communicate with my clients.  That is why I am here today to obtain guidance from the finest practitioner in our field.  
Am I now just a pathetic old worn-out failure GOF?

Dr GOF;   ‘Doctor’ GOF please Fill.  Failure is no accident.  What you need here is a hero. You need to step up to the plate and be a hero for yourself.

Dr Fill;   Then why did you make me sit way up here in this oversized chair so my feet can’t hardly touch the floor no more?
A man cain’t feel like a hero when his legs are a-danglin’ around in the breeze like a couple of  broken powerlines in a hurricane.

Dr GOF;   Hero can wait.  Right now you need to be positioned in that chair as a physical reminder of your powerlessness and intellectual inferiority, and to make certain that you feel suitably humble and subordinate while you are here basking in the aura of my overwhelmingly popular and authoritative presence.

Dr Fill;   (With legs still dangling)  OK, so tell me, why am I feeling so incompetent, unappreciated, unloved and alone in this world Dr GOF?

Dr GOF;   You’re only lonely if you’re not there for yourself Fill. You need to talk to yourself, encourage yourself, lift yourself up and play with yourself on a regular basis. Be there for yourself when you need a best friend.

Dr Fill;   But people have said behind my back that I am a pontificating old sermonizer, and that hurts my self esteem and makes me feel really horrible inside. These days I am just so sensitive to the opinions of others.

Dr GOF;   Opinions are like asses…..everybody’s got one.

Dr Fill;   Except for Elle MacPherson…..wow…I saw her once on Oprah and I can tell you that her legs went on and on, way past where her…..oh sorry Dr GOF, I know you’re not interested in distractions of the fleshly kind.  Tell me, what do you see in my future?

Dr GOF;   The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. I’ll bet you never thought of that one eh?

Dr Fill;   Actually I was aware of that. I once saw some long tall Texan dude repetitiously sprouting that phrase when he was talking down to TV audiences….that Oprah Show sure is educational in many ways.

Dr GOF;   Awareness without action is worthless, Dr Fill. You’ve gotta DO something man.

Dr Fill;   So what should I do to fix my troubled soul?

Dr GOF;   Ahh…soul!  Yes.  You have to require more of yourself, and you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.

Dr Fill;   So what should I acknowledge?

Dr GOF;   Lets take baby steps.  There’s obviously a lot to fix here.

For starters you might just simply acknowledge that you are an opinionated preacher-man who thinks he has the preordained right to force his own bourgeois moral values upon all people regardless of their own culture and socio-economic circumstances.
See. No biggie.
All we have to do is clobber that little bit of self-deception outta your noggin’ first, then we’ll move onto Step Two.

Dr Fill;   Well dangnammit, I’d never quite thought about it in precisely those terms before. You’re only a gnats-gonad distance away from being a master philosopher Dr GOF.  I shore do ‘preciate your wisdom.  Someone like you should be on television.

Dr GOF;   My little sunbeams of erudition will only be available to a select few like yourself Dr Fill…….. in exchange for the sweet shuffling sound of large-denomination banknotes being dealt upon my palm.

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Is anyone still here?

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Dear Tristan,

Thank you for your letter.  I wrote these little nursery rhymes especially for you. See if you can guess the missing words. (I have written the answer below each one just in case you put a wrong word in the space provided.)  Oh and don’t worry too much about what your Mum says. She just has trouble repressing her primal urges whenever she sees a picture of me here in The Bucket.

Best wishes from Uncle GOF.

Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed
Till exploding cow bowels
Came down like a _ _ _ _-filled balloon.

(MUCK)

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Little Miss Muffet
(Australian spelling version)

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey.
Then down came a spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And saw her fat _ _ _ _ on display.

(ARMS)

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Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
How does your garden grow?
“On the corpses of curious people I kill.”
“So who the _ _ _ _ wants to know?”

(HECK)

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Explanatory Note for my overseas friends;
As a partial explanation for Tristan’s confused state of mind and evidence of my own beyond-repair one, Joh Bjelke-Petersen was a vindictive Christian right-wing dictator who once ruled Queensland, and Gough Whitlam from the opposite side of politics, who, despite his own shortcomings, was the last truly statesman-like Prime Minister of Australia.
Toorak is a suburb in Melbourne where the well-heeled live in mansionly magnificence.

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Brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) rear fanged, mildly venomous

Each one of us enters the world with a special gift to bestow upon the remainder of humanity.

Franz Liszt enriched the world with his music. Nigella Lawson was endowed with multiple gifts, one of which involves the preparation of food, and Homer Simpson iced the cake of responsible parenthood with lashings of paternal wisdom.

Now let me tell you about my gift.

I just happen to instinctively know, even with my eyes closed, that a snake has weaseled itself out of the jungle and into my living room, mistakenly believing it to be GOF’s Refuge for Homeless Serpents.

Just one example of my extraordinary sensory ability;

Last Monday night Mrs GOF and I were watching the big bash cricket (the game….not the insect) on TV when my gift suddenly kicked in.

It’s hard to explain to mere mortals exactly how my instinctive faculty works.  It probably has something to do with my rare ability to detect the subtle sounds of cups, plates and framed photographs being dislodged from display cabinets and crashing onto the floor, or hearing Mrs GOF’s “Eeeeeek! Snake!, Snake!, GOF get rid of it!” echoing in the vacant recesses of my cranium, or smelling the carpet-burns on the soles of her feet as she accelerates like a bipedal drag racer into the bedroom before slamming the door shut.

Anyhow, suffice to say I detected a snake in the room last Monday.

It’s my perceptive gift.

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I did not always have this finely honed gift of snake detection.
It was a late-onset gift, deferred for thirty years, perhaps as a consequence of the botched forceps delivery which saw me skidding headfirst across the linoleum floor of the birthing suite like a bar of soap in a bathtub, until I came to a shuddering and whimpering halt against the varnished redgum skirting board of the nurses station.

Or perhaps not.

Anyway, forty years ago, giftless, on a balmy moonlit night at Pindiu in Papua New Guinea I strolled the 100 yards from my house to the office, stepped inside, and thought very little about whatever it was that slithered across my bare foot.

Returning to the light in my house I was astonished to find two distinct puncture wounds on my ankle with blood oozing out of them. They looked just like the photographs you see in medical books under the heading; “Snakebite”.

Being all-knowing, (as is the wont of the young) I immediately thought “This is not good.”

I’m living alone. No medical facilities. No communication with the outside world. No chance of evacuation by plane until first light the following day. Having established that I didn’t want to die alone, I motor-biked across the airstrip and up the hill to stay with the only other expatriate who lived there.

He refused to suck the venom out of the wounds on the grounds that my foot was unhygienic and smelled vaguely of manure.  Having been the recipient of basic first aid training he guaranteed that application of a tourniquet for 12 hours would result in the onset of rampant gangrene followed by the amputation of both my legs and some other important bits as well.

We concluded that I’d probably only have another hour to live, and that it would be best spent drinking beer, an activity in which he’d obviously been engaged for quite some time.

That I am still here today indicates one of two possibilities.

1. It was a non-poisonous snake, or
2. Beer is a powerful anti-venom.

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Footnote;  I could have been saved from this shitload of anxiety had I known then that bites from venomous snakes normally don’t bleed as profusely as those from non-venomous snakes.
 
In the interests of responsible journalism I should point out that in 2013 compression bandaging and limb immobilisation are the preferred primary treatments for snake bite.

Sucking, limb-strangling with string, and riding around in blind panics on motor bikes are no longer acceptable practises.

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I have no idea why WordPress published this picture sideways.  Please tilt your neck 90 degrees to the left.

Taking a different point of view

The decline started early and I take full responsibility. My parents did their level best to raise me as a sociable, successful and communicative contributor to Australian society.  It is no reflection upon them that they failed. Many of the principles of life which evolved in my young head as I wandered alone through the Victorian bush just happened to be poles apart from those of my dear parents.

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My parents decided sixty years ago that sending me off at the age of five to the local Yandoit Primary School for one week of initiation would act as a kick-start to my academic learning.

I took the more instantly rewarding view that the 12 year-old girl assigned to chaperone me was far more interesting than anything being written on the blackboard.

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My parents believed that unquestioning adherence to their brand of Christianity would provide the most structurally sound framework for me to live my life on Earth, but more importantly it would guarantee a front-stalls ticket to the heavenly afterlife.

I progressively formed the view that except for teaching the Ten Commandments, organised religions were a divisive sham, and attachment to any particular brand was not a prerequisite to being a good human being.  I could not discover any evidence in the natural world which surrounded me that there was a possibility of life after death.

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The White Hills Technical School Headmaster apparently expected much more from me.  He generously pasted the following unsigned 1963 end of year character reference in my report book which conveyed the idea to potential employers that I was worthless.

I took the point of view which I now hold with even greater conviction that Headmaster Robt. M. Wiseman was a disgrace both to his profession and the ancestors who bequeathed to him that surname.

Robt. M. Wiseman’s gift to GOF.

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My father believed that joining the secret society of Freemasons was the best way for me to enhance my career prospects and social status.

I chose instead to walk in the opposite direction and take complete responsibility for my own success or failure.

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In 1974 my Public Service employer in New Guinea generously promoted me from doing rural development field work to a much more highly paid administrative position in town.

I took the view after just six months in office that I would use my newly acquired executive powers to post myself back to the bush from whence I came to work with the people in the place that I loved, and in doing so relinquish the higher salary and all future prospects for promotion.

(It is a very special time for me and Mrs GOF at the moment as we read our daughter’s continuing series of stories about ‘returning home’ at the age of 30 to this place she never knew.) (here)

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My capitalist society believes that accumulating wealth and expensive houses and possessions should be amongst the highest priorities in my life.

I chose the view that this is a totally ludicrous and mindless preoccupation best left to others.  Beyond having a roof over my head, a modest financial reserve and some land from which to make a living, I don’t give a rat’s arse about company shares, financial indices, interest and exchange rates, negative gearing or any other form of accounting trickery.

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In accordance with my strict Rules of Engagement with Humans, I occasionally tolerate visitors to GOF’s Paradise.  Some fail to see the natural beauty of the landscape or appreciate the sounds of silence, instead preferring to take note that our mains-powerless home is of inferior quality and size to their half-million dollar residences in town, and they conclude;
“The GOF’s live in squalor in the middle of the rainforest.”

Plumbing held together with Araldite superglue.

Insulation falling off the verandah roof.

Lichen farm on the roof.

Snake-shit stains on the verandah wall.

I promise I’ll clean up the snake shit……everything else will take care of itself.

Mrs GOF and I built and furnished this little home with our own four hands in 1983 for the cost of just $8000.  It, like us, is now showing signs of age.
It has survived three major cyclones and many other gales, been struck by lightning, sheltered us from 150 inches of rain every year, kept us warm through thirty winters, been a safe haven in which to raise a child, and provided a barrier most of the time to tree snakes who also like to call it’s roof space home.

I take the view that it would be a fitting end if, shortly after Mrs GOF and I fall off our respective twigs, our house collapses of exhaustion from a job well done and also returns to the earth from whence it came.
“Resale value” is something for others to worry themselves sleepless about. I don’t give a rats about that either.

So as you can see, my life has been a series of abject failures to live up to the expectations of others.

Regardless of all the other bloody stupid mistakes I’ve made along the way, you cannot begin to understand just how happy, fulfilled and contented this makes me feel.

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Top secret location in Wooroonooran national Park.

Enchanting trickles wayside rill,
Bubbling merrily down the hill.
Joyful gurgling, Spring’s rebirth.
Quenching thirst of Mother Earth.

This place to sit and contemplate.
To be, or deeply meditate.
I linga longa than I orta.
Here flows beer instead of water.

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Well strike me pink, you’d think they wouldn’t have the nerve to show their faces in Australia again after the severe tongue lashing I gave them last year.

Obviously that wasn’t enough, so maybe I’ll have to resurrect my very own nineteen-sixties four step protest procedure which saw me single-handedly stop the Vietnam war, abolish capital punishment, and ensure that more bras were burned than were strictly necessary to promote the liberation of women in Australia.

These two loudmouthed horrid unsporting little tarts swindlers need to be gagged and deported before they distract and defraud any more honest opponents.

GOF’s 1960′s Escalating Public Protest Procedure;

1.  Raise right eyebrow in contempt.

2.  Expectorate with indignance.

3.  Hoist myself up and dangle precariously from the flagpole at Parliament House, Canberra. (Late springtime activity only due weather constraints)

4. Streak at public events with protest message bootpolished on my backside. (summertime only)

Now according to Mrs GOF and the arresting Officers who apprehended me last week during my Stage Four protest sparked by the planned bulldozing of Cairns City Place, I am no longer in peak streaking condition.  I therefore need another failsafe option to deter these two screeching tennis prizemoney poachers from ever coming back to Australia again.

When I was six my Dad deterred me from engaging in all manner of aberrant behaviours by putting me over his knee, pulling my strides down, and flogging my bare arse black and blue with a wooden spoon.  It worked a treat. For more than half a century now I’ve been recalcitrance-free.

You will be delighted to know that I have just secured myself a job as a linesperson at Rod Laver Arena for this weeks Azarenka v Sharapova tennis match. I urge you not to miss it.

You will never again get the opportunity to witness this unique interaction between one linesman, two players, and one tennis racquet handle.

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