David Beckham’s in town. Now, I don’t want to say Sydney is provincial about this kind of thing, but I think you can tell a lot about a place by the way it reacts to famous visitors. Hip New Yorkers and stiff-upper Londoners wouldn’t bat an eyelid if the son of God flew in for the weekend. Sydneysiders are reacting as if he has. 80,000 people have spent $3.5m to go and watch him play a sport they normally scorn. This for me is a) too difficult to work out the price of the average ticket and b) a bit like buying a plane ticket just so you can watch the movie.
That said, I have two reasons to be glad The David is here. Firstly, because at last, years after everyone else, I have for the first time heard him speak (I know, I know, but I’ve been on Mars a lot this last decade). Now at last I can see why he doesn’t speak more often (strange that the same logic doesn’t stop his wife from singing). But more than this, I’m glad Becks is here because at last the media has stopped going on and on (and on) about the election. Eugh it’s been boring. A very dull Prime Minister has been ousted by an extremely dull leader of the Opposition. Centre-left has replaced by centre-right in a long z test of zzz….
I’m sure it’s interesting if you’re Australian but as a Johnny Foreigner who isn’t yet allowed to vote I do struggle to care. And whilst every one of my friends voted one way and every one of my colleagues voted the other and I’ve been unusually privy to both sides of bigotry, I really can’t engage with either of the two grey men who kept pointing at the charts. Imagine a run off between John Major and your father-in-law and you get the picture. You can see why it’s illegal not to vote over here.
Of course if they made voting optional they’d have to put polling booths inside cricket grounds or rugby stadia to get anyone into them. As it is you get a fine if they know who you are and you don’t vote. Strangely, they had a massive campaign a few weeks back encouraging people to register for the first time and then an equally large one threatening fines to those suckered in by it. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to let people be? But that’s not democracy I suppose. The people, unlike David Beckham, must be encouraged to speak. And spoken they have with a 6% swing to Labour mostly z from Queenzzland zzz…. When does the tennis start?
