Christmas Eve, sport and drink driving

Christmas Eve 2006
Adelaide, South Australia


Up in the far north of the state the people of a small, very remote country town had arranged a Christmas treat for the children. At a prearranged time everyone would gather just outside town to wait for a light aircraft to fly overhead, from which Father Christmas would parachute to ground behind some nearby scrub. Of course it wasn't really Father Christmas. It wasn't even a man in a Father Christmas suit, it was just a dummy dressed up.

The idea was that with everyone's attention fixed on the figure floating gently down, a real person wearing an identical Father Christmas suit would be hiding in the scrub, crawling as near as he could to where the dummy would land. Upon the dummy coming to ground he'd jump out with his sack and do the usual 'Ho Ho Ho' thing. Presents would be handed out, the children's party would begin, and everyone would have a memorable day.

With the community duly assembled, the children anxiously scanned the skies for any sign of a plane. They didn't have to wait long. After a few minutes the drone of a propeller gave notice that the event was about to begin; right on time the plane approached, circled the town twice, and discharged its red-suited passenger. The children, seeing Father Christmas exiting the plane, cheered and waved frantically as he began to descend bang on target towards the patch of scrub.

Then came the snag. Almost immediately after he jumped out of the door Father Christmas's parachute became entangled. The stout, bearded bringer of gifts promptly plummeted to his death.

First there was stunned silence. Then, after the enormity of what they'd seen sunk in, a chorus of crying and wailing erupted from the horrified children.

Then, miraculously, a completely unharmed Father Christmas unaccountably leapt out from the bushes with a cheery wave and a 'Ho, Ho, Ho!' Far from making them feel relieved, this traumatised the children even further. Not only had Father Christmas been killed right before their eyes, his ghost was now advancing towards them with a glint in his eye and a determined stride. Screaming in terror, some broke ranks and ran to find somewhere to hide from the apparition. Still, at least they had a memorable day.

Christmas; it's for the kiddies really isn't it?

Although it's Christmas Eve we won't be overdoing the celebrations tonight, or at least I won't. This is because tomorrow morning we (in other words I) drive to the Barossa Valley for a family Christmas at Adam and Barbara's house. There are random breath tests here and I can't afford to be still over the limit, which in South Australia is 0.05. I haven't the faintest idea what that means but I'm told it's quite low.

Following the announcement of Shane Warne's retirement from Test cricket we now learn that Glenn McGrath is to follow suit. The difference with McGrath is that when he goes he'll be retiring from cricket completely. Now this might be of only passing interest to people in the UK, and only to cricket followers at that, but it's difficult to overstate the importance of sport in this country. Most people are mad on it. Successful sportsmen and women are hailed as heroes, whether it's at national level as with McGrath and Warne, or locally if, say, they play for the district Australian Rules team. The sporting pages of the newspapers are packed with news and rumour on just about any game that's played here. Swimming, Australian Rules, football, basketball, cricket, athletics, yachting, rugby and even beach sports are all given prominent coverage. South Australia has them all apart from rugby; oddly neither code is popular here, where cricket and Australian Rules reign supreme.

The reason why sport is so popular has something to do with the climate of course, but I read somewhere that there's more to it than that. A few decades ago the government of the day saw that if Australia's team in any sport was successful it spawned a disproportionately large leap in the nation's spirits. So they embarked on a programme of sporting investment. Today the results are clear for all to see; in almost any game you can think of, Australia punches way above its weight on the international stage. This is reflected in the general 'feel good' atmosphere you can sense everywhere, and helps to foster the intense patriotism you find in most Australians. There might be a lesson there for UK politicians, if they can only avert their eyes from the pound signs associated with the sale of school playing fields.