Just finished watching this four hour ABC Australia documentary on former Australian prime minister John Howard (who once called cricketer Sir Donald Bradman the greatest living Australian). It was a great way to catch up on my Aussie history.
The predominant feeling I took away was one of sadness. He seemed to have made a bad choice following President Bush into Iraq and Afghanistan. He hung on too long as a leader and was badly defeated in the 2007 election. it’s hard for me to get enthusiastic about a GST (General Services Tax) or banning automatic guns. White nationalist Pauline Hanson fascinates me and John Howard’s dance with her.
I’m reading a book now called Bradman’s War by Malcolm Knox (born in 1966 like me), who thanks me in the intro to his 2007 book Adult Book.
This new book is about Bradman’s 1948 tour of Britain, when Aussie never lost.
I like watching ABC’s Four Corners documentaries on youtube.
When Australian batsman Lindsay Hassett in WWII saw a sheikh arrive with his 199 wives, he said, “One more and he’d be entitled to a new ball.” In cricket, you get a new ball after a certain number of overs.
According to this new book, Sir Donald Bradman was so nasty on the cricket field and conducted it like war because he was a psychosomatic invalid during WWII, skipping the real war while the blokes who fought real war didn’t feel like playing cricket like war.
