When you’ve supported the St Kilda Football Club for fifty years, there is always a sense of forebode when we have played two unacceptable games in a row. You know we are only one more devastating loss away from another season of regret, disappointment, anger and resentment.

Yesterday Lynda and I did our yearly pilgrimage to the Melbourne Comedy Festival where we see two shows, have dinner and stay in a hotel in the city. The Saints were playing the West Coast Eagles, a sublimely skilful team with a dangerous forward line consisting of three giants and a bloke named Ryan who can jump on your head at any moment. I would normally attend the game but we had tickets to the following shows:

  • Takashi Wakasugi, Farm Backpacker (Subclass 417). Takashi, 29,  is a former HR Manager from Japan who made a ludicrous decision to move to Australia via working as a fruit picker and tree planter in regional Victoria and NSW in order to obtain a long term visa. His stories and slideshow of what he endured are very funny as he takes you through the filth and degradation of what it’s like to share a room with 8 x backpackers and have fifty backpackers sharing three toilets. If you’ve been to Japan you will understand the philosophical clashes Takashi faced as a fresh faced, neat and hygiene conscious young man, versus the gross realities of fruit picking in the Australian summer with desperate backpackers. Certainly worth a look.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2021/shows/farm-backpacker-subclass-417

  • Daniel Connor, I’ve had a flare up. I get the feeling listening to Daniel that his comedy is derived from no further than a 5 km radius from his home! Observations taken from his time in lockdown in supermarkets and servos are hilarious, then there’s his trips taking his newborn out in the pram. It feels like you’re  in his kitchen having a cuppa and he’s running you through his day! Daniel is as dry as they come and is becoming one of Australia’s best comics if he isn’t there already. It was a packed house of 140 odd in the Powder Room at The Melbourne Town Hall and he didn’t disappoint. Highly recommended.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2021/shows/daniel-connell-ive-had-a-flare-up

We’ve got “The Mooseheads” booked for next Sunday and the ”Deadly Funny Final” on Saturday, both we religiously go to every year and highly recommend. With so much to see it’s very hard to decide so the best thing to do is deep dive into the website and take a chance as everything is so affordable. 

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2021

This is my favourite time in Melbourne. The temperature drops, the leaves fall, the comedians are warmed up after a week into the festival and the quality of footy is usually spot on. If you’re visiting from interstate, the city is pumping with people, the restaurants are full again and there is footy at Marvel Stadium and the MCG. There’s also plenty of quality hotels offering deals, desperate to lure you in after 2020.

We’ve been blessed to visit Montreal and Edinburgh during their festivals but there is nothing quite like Melbourne’s strange and addictive cultural combination of art and sport. Where else can you piss yourself laughing and enjoy the best sporting precinct in the world? Long-time 3RRR broadcaster and native Queenslander Tony Biggs recently summed up the Sydney v Melbourne rivalry as, “Sydney you look at, Melbourne I listen to.” 

The Saints? Well they had a heroic come from behind win over the Eagles to keep us in the race for 2021. After 150 years and one flag, you know to expect the unexpected. As I said to a young Saints supporter last week at Marvel Stadium, “The secret to longevity as a Saints supporter is to keep your expectations low, therefore eliminating the need for disappointment.” 🙂