October
MayGlass houses
I can’t cop the pompous moralising over Damien Oliver and Paul Hamblin failing breath tests. One wonders whether the holy denizens of the press would be tut-tutting quite so loudly if they were regularly breath-tested in the workplace — especially at Warrnambool.
The carnival is invariably characterised in the media as one big booze-up from start to finish.
On-camera staff (admittedly not this year that I noticed) have in past years appeared to be worse for wear, much to their colleagues’ obvious amusement. So heaven only knows what state the print and online journos are in, given that they don’t have to front the cameras and only need to bash out a few lines of “he done good” quotes.
Whenever Darren Weir wins anything of significance, updates are urgently sought on his condition the following day, amid much boys-club chuckling.
Did Jason Richardson interview a single winning trainer over the three days without telling him/her that it was “your shout” at the pub that night?
The only thing more synonymous with the Warrnambool carnival than excessive consumption of grog is cold, wet weather.
And yet we gape in gobsmacked disgust when a couple of 54kg jockeys front up with remnants of alcohol in their system.
The hypocrisy is, if you’ll pardon the pun, breathtaking.
Castlemaine (Vic)