Mister Brisbane: A league of their own
As the chocolate hangover subsides, I weigh in on the NRL furore, lament the loss of local brands, and pay tribute to a comedy hero
They say we all have a doppelgänger: a person who looks just like us. I think I found mine about a dozen years ago when I was visiting Disneyland. He not only looks like me, he has the same taste in shirts. Does anyone else have a lookalike picture to share?
BRIS BRANDS
Do you remember Panda and Red Seal potato chips? Tristrams soft drinks? Golden Top pies? If the answer is “yes”, then you’re old like me! And you’re lucky in that you remember the era of local products, before national and international brands submerged them. I especially remember Golden Top pies because 1) they were square and 2) the factory was just down the road from my grandmother’s house in Gaythorne. It’s sometimes said that country kids having a closer connection to the food they eat, because they are there at the source, where the wheat grows and the cows and milked. But city kids at least used to have places to go where they could see food being processed and packaged. In my day, every kid in Brisbane visited the Golden Circle factory at Northgate. I remember watching the ladies with sharp knifes nicking imperfections from the pineapples on the assembly line, seeing the range of products they made, and lining up for some juice at the end of the tour. A bit like a brewery visit for nongrown-ups. (Incidentally, we also went to an abattoir, something I suspect school students no longer do.) I know there are still some factories around, but they are mostly making products with labels that would be as familiar in Perth or Peru as they are in Brisbane. There may be some comfort in knowing that Coca-Cola and KFC is the same all around the world, but there sometimes I hanker for a Neptune sarsaparilla and Sam’s pizza.
MY DAILY BREAD
I could tell a porky and say I made this roll myself, but it was delivered to me by somebody who bought it at a Vietnamese bakery. Delicious.
FOOTY FEVER
There has been some to-and-fro online and in the mainstream media about the NRL’s plans to relaunch the rugby league competition in late May. I’m not sure how the league supremos came to their decision because nobody knows what course the virus will take. It’s arrogant for a sporting body (which is basically a huge corporation) to say that it has decided when it will be safe for people to play a body-contact game again. Starting too soon would not only put players at risk, it would place a fresh burden on the public health system. At least the NRL has given us a few weeks to contemplate the nature of organised sport and the role played by governing bodies. Despite my reputation as an “arts guy”, I do like watching football, be it rugby league or actual football (soccer). But I also remember gentler, simpler times. The Brisbane/Queensland league competition has long been overshadowed by the national comp, but there was a time when we all had our own teams based, usually, on where we lived in suburbia. It was the kind of game where the players rose through the junior ranks and, for the most part, continued to play for the same team or its “parent” club. Now we have professional players with little loyalty or connection to the locality or city in which they play. Good luck to them being paid well for what they do well; I don’t have a problem with that. However, we’ve also seen some appalling off-field behaviour fuelled by money, booze, boredom and that sense of superiority, invincibility and immunity that sportspeople and other celebs seem to have these days. Meanwhile, huge bureaucracies have emerged within individual clubs and the NRL. They seem to exist as faceless businesses rather than to promote the game and serve the fans. I’m not saying we can go back entirely to the earlier era, but a lot of people are arguing that the commercialisation and commodification of the game has taken it too far away from its roots. Perhaps some good can come of the coronavirus-forced shut down and footy can reforge its community connections.
FAREWELL, TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR
Covid-19 has stolen a big part of my childhood and youth. As a child, I used to watch Tim Brooke-Taylor on The Goodies, and, as a uni student, listen to recordings of I’m Sorry I’ll Read that Again. More recently, I saw him live in Brisbane with Graeme Garden (who I’ve interviewed) and Bill Oddie, and listened to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. The picture is from At Last the 1948 Show, in which he co-starred with John Cleese, Marty Feldman and Graham Chapman. Tim’s the fresh-faced one on the right. Over the weekend, he died from coronavirus. He was 79 and had more to give to family, friends and fans. I’m taking this personally, and I implore you all to take the virus, and the advice we get about dealing with it, very seriously.
MINNIE ME
Just one more picture from Disneyland before I sign off.
WHAT TO DO
Thanks to the people at QPAC, here is a list of links to cultural events that we can enjoy online, from variety performances to classical music, opera and musical theatre.