Why Australian retailers suck

May 15th, 2012

AUSTRALIAN retailers are always quick to whinge about the trading conditions they have to put up with, due to the high value of the Australian dollar.

They are very quick to offer excuse after excuse for their poor performance.

But there are other, more fundamental, reasons why Australian retailing is going downhill. The following anecdotes, drawn from my own experience, may provide some insight.

A fortnight ago, I visited JB Hi-Fi in order to purchase a pair of earphones. Before going to the store, I had looked at the company’s website and decided which one I wanted.

When I got there, the saleswoman told me that the model I was looking for was not in stock. JB is a big retailer with stores all over Australia but its website had no way of telling a visitor that a particular item was not in a particular store. Score one for the retailer.

Anyway, since I had gone there, I did not want to waste the trip; I looked around and chose another set of earphones, one made by Sony, which was marked at $99. The one I had wanted to buy was marked $69 on the website.

When I got back home with my purchase, I decided, on a whim, to find out how much it was retailing for in other outlets.

I was quite shocked to find them for sale for $53 in Britain. Another $9 would bring them to my door in four or five days.

That’s nearly a 60 per cent markup – $62 to $99. And this was happening at a time when the Australian dollar was worth about $1.03 US dollars – if anything the price should have been cheaper.

Australian retailers often try to escape criticism about this kind of price rip-off by saying that the outlet offering the cheaper price can afford to do so because of volume purchases.

But JB cannot do this; it is one of the bigger electronics retailers in the country and can easily buy as much volume as any other trader.

I took the earphones back to JB and returned them. The woman at the counter asked me why I had brought it back and I told her that it was because I was being ripped off. I added that I did not mind paying up to $75 for the convenience of getting it in hand, but that $99 was akin to daylight robbery.

It’s not the pricing alone that puts one off Australian retailers. Shop people have a sloppy attitude and often do not seem to know what is in their own place of work. I went by Rebel Sports that same morning to buy some athletic supporters. The woman I encountered did not seem to know what supporters were. She understood when I used the cruder word, jockstraps.

She then directed me upstairs. On my way thither, I encountered a young man who asked what I was looking for. When I told him (he did not understand the term “athletic supporters” either), he told me they were on a shelf downstairs!

I then told him that a woman on the ground floor had told me very confidently that what I was looking for was displayed upstairs. He shook his head and said he would take me downstairs and prove that he was right; we found a single supporter in the display area there.

On my way out, I asked the woman why she was unaware of the location of items in the store she worked in; she had no reply. No customer would return to that store again after encountering such stupidity.

A third example. A company called Our Deal offers rebates on good from various sources; one has to visit the site and look for deals, then provide one’s location and purchase the deal. Vouchers are then provided to the buyer and these, when taken to the outlet, can be redeemed for the product in question.

But Our Deal differs from the average outlet that accepts credit card payments; in every outlet I have dealt with over the last 10 years, the final screen after the purchase provides a receipt that be printed out as proof of purchase. Our Deal insists on sending the vouchers to an email address – which means that they can keep pumping their spam out to you day after day.

I always give fake email addresses to sites like this as there is no reason for them to contact me again; hence I had to contact Our Deal again. They have only a form on their website to make contact – and apparently it takes seven days for a reply! Seven days for an online outlet in the 21st century – now you know why Australian online outlets are not attracting too many customers. But the company’s phone number is easily locatable on the web. After two phone calls and a bit of tough talk, I got the vouchers sent to an email address that exists. It took two hours in all.

The person at the shop where I went to redeem the vouchers had never heard of Our Deal. Score one for communications. It took a few phone calls up and down the line before I could redeem the voucher.

I also got an email from Our Deal, saying that their “detectives” were onto the job to investigate my complaint. Add childishness to incompetence, a rather potent combination. Good reasons to avoid Our Deal like poison from now on.

Posted in Australia, Customer service | No Comments »

Blurring the message

May 2nd, 2012

GONE are the days when politicians would speak directly to the people in order to communicate their message. These days, politicians use the media as a shield to try and get the message across.

That’s why they fail to win popular support.

It’s difficult to understand why, if politicians are seeking public support, they cannot go out and interact with the source of their power. Unless, of course, they are bad communicators, are afraid of being embarrassed in public, or are simply ill at ease with crowds.

The Australian Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, is not the most intelligent person in politics in the country; he is not an attractive individual in many ways. But he is brave enough to go out in public and mix with people. Sometimes he comes off as a buffoon, at others, h strikes a chord with the crowd. But no matter what the outcome, he takes that risk.

That is why a man who is detested by the intelligentsia at large now looks very much like becoming the next prime minister when the country goes to the polls in 2013.

Undoubtedly, once Abbott comes to power, people will tire of him pretty soon as he is largely a policy-free zone. He is akin to the premier of the state of Victoria, Ted Baillieu, who was elected in 2010 and had no real plan for the state. Hence he does nothing. He has no ideas, no vision, no plans. He just wants to keep things on an even keel – and that is a difficult proposition during a time when global economic conditions are conspiring against Australia.

Using the media as a shield is not always a good idea. At times, one comes across a journalist and then the politician stands exposed. Hence politicians tend to favour those who will give them an easy ride – people whom one cannot call journalists, people who are more oriented to behave as PR professionals would.

There is a school of thought that manipulation of public sentiment can continue ad infinitum. This is a serious mistake. At some stage, the people do react and will not take it any longer. News Corporation, the biggest media organisation in the world, found this out in a different context when it hacked into the phone of a deal girl and gave the impression that she was still alive; the public reaction forced the prime minister of Britain to act and now the brown stuff has fallen all over the company.

But taking a risk is not part of a politician’s routine. He or she follows the dictates of spinmeisters until the day of being ejected from that seat arrives. Then comes a vow to do it better the next time around. A time which, sometimes, does not eventuate.

Posted in Australia, Government, Politics | No Comments »

Anzac Day glorifies war

April 24th, 2012

IN AUSTRALIA, Anzac Day is a means to promote militarism and nationalism. It marks the day when Australian forces invaded Turkey in 1915, entering World War I.

Sixty thousand Australians were killed in that war and nearly 16 million people died worldwide. It was no event over which to rejoice.

Anzac Day was initially used during the war to recruit people to fight on the other side of the world. In 1916 and 1917, Anzac Day became a means of supporting conscription.

After 1918, there was a long period when people were fed up with what they had exprienced during the war. Economic conditions were not good due to the numerous strikes caused by an increasingly militant workforce. During that time, Anzac Day was hardly celebrated.

Once the league for returned servicemen was formed, the government started supporting it and handed over control of Anzac Day to the league. During the great depression, the league grew in number as it offered unemployment relief.

Class tensions were rife at this time and Anzac Day marchers were told not to march according to rank. This created some kind of a covering of class differences and Anzac Day was promoted as a means of unifying the nation. But as the nation’s anti-war sentiment grew during the Vietnam War, so too did the popularity of Anzac Day.

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating began the current revival of Anzac Day as a nationalist celebration. Social spending was falling and Anzac Day was used as a poultice to project the spirit of nationalism and to hide class distinctions. Hawke brought back the pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Keating spoke long and loud about the sacrifice on the Kokoda Track.

John Howard took this to a new level, invoking Anzac Day and building up a spirit of militarism to justify Australia’s participation in wars in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anzac Day is meant to be a day that recognises the horrors of war. Instead, it has become a day that caters to militarism, imperialism and conservatism.

No soldier would want to glorify the events at Gallipoli. War is not a thing that those who fought in enjoyed. Sensible people should reject this celebration and boycott what happens because all it is doing is making a good and glorious event out of the misery of war.

Posted in Australia, England, New Zealand, War | No Comments »

Afghanistan: lies and damn lies. No statistics

April 18th, 2012

THIRTY-TWO Australians have died needlessly in Afghanistan. All of them were young, in their 20s and 30s, and have left young families behind. If there was some point to their dying, if they had sacrificed their lives for a worthy cause, then at least their loved ones would have some means of consoling themselves.

But that isn’t the case. They have died for nothing. They have died because one man’s vanity led to him thinking that he could do better than the old Soviet Union, the British Empire and even the much reviled Genghis Khan.

That one man is George Dubya Bush.

When the US sent troops into Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 in order to wreak havoc on Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a justified reaction. Had the US smashed the al-Qaeda network and exited the country in six months, all would have been well.

But that wasn’t the case. The US and its allies decided that they would stay and try to indulge in nation-building. The long-term motive was to obtain mining concessions in Afghanistan and to try and build a pipeline through Central Asia for an alternative supply of gas. (That, incidentally, hasn’t worked. All the concessions, bar one, went to China and India; Canda was granted one.)

There has been some curious muddle-headed thinking by many in the Western camp; people like David Kilcullen have concluded that if the Afghans were given all the Western accoutrements of development, they would suddenly fall in love with their Western invaders. Kilcullen has a ridiculous hypothesis that the Taliban, who were ruling Afghanistan when the West invaded, has to draw on ordinary citizens for support and that these citizens can be weaned away by improvements in local conditions. Exactly how he came to this conclusion is unknown.

Things haven’t worked out that way. Had Bush asked someone to read the history books and find out what had happened to nations that tried to subjugate the Afghans, he might have found out that it was a mission that would end in failure. (Bush himself cannot read.)

But nobody among all the Western nations, Australia included, bothered to read up on the history of Afgnanistan and note that no invader has ever managed to get the better of the Afghans.

Now Australia has moved up its date of departure. Late next year, the Australian Labor Party will have to face an election which it will find very difficult to win; the Afghan involvement should not be present as an election issue.

For the US, something similar exists; Barack Obama goes to an election later in 2012 and if Afghanistan is an issue, it will not be helpful to him. So the American pullout will continue apace.

In the end, the Taliban will come back to power within six months of the West pulling out. The same Taliban which was ruling when the US invaded.

In the interim, the US, other NATO countries and Australia will tell their citizens any number of lies to quell the queries from the media. But in the end, it all amounts to nothing.

Once the troops have left Afghanistan it will all be back to square one.

Posted in Afghanistan, America, Australia, India, Middle East, Pakistan, Terrorism | No Comments »

The China wave

April 17th, 2012

PROFESSOR Zhang Weiwei is not particularly well-known around the world. An author and former translator for the Chinese supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, Zhang is, however, a very important figure in China.

He has written a ground-breaking book, The China Wave – which has not, as far as I can make out, been translated into English – about China’s way of approaching development and one that is attracting great interest in his home country.

In an interview with the one news service that seems to have a knack for ferreting out the interesting and the newsworthy – Al Jazeera – Zhang made some very interesting observations.

In the West, whenever China is discussed, there are plenty of Western “experts” on call who offer opinion after opinion, many of which are, frankly, silly and borne of a lack of education. Western news services seem to fight shy of calling on the Chinese themselves to analyse their own country.

Zhang’s point of view, is, in this context, refreshing, simply because he turns the lens on aspects of China which nobody so far has even thought relevant.

For example, one of the West’s preoccupations is that in a few decades China could well become the most powerful country in the world; with that as background, Western countries are forever postulating how China should become a democracy.

But Zhang points to an aspect of this democracy debate that has never been highlighted – if China had had a one-man one-vote system, he says, the country would have had a peasant government given its population structure. Such a government would be very nationalistic – and would probably go to war with Taiwan. Or even with Japan.

Is that what the West wants? Certainly not, says Zhang, and that is a very good reason why China needs the kind of government it has at the current time.

Another argument that the West uses against China is the question of individual rights. Zhang points out given China’a past – when right from the 1800s the longest period of internal stability has been eight or nine years – the average Chinese values internal stability much more. For the last three decades, there have been no invasions or internal uprisings in China and from the Chinese point of view that is much more important than the freedom to protest.

The West often tries to pass off its system of government – where accountability comes at the ballot box every three or four years – as superior to that in China where a nine-man politbureau is the supreme decision-making body. But as Zhang points out, the basic criterion for any member of this body is that he or she should have been a successful governor of a province for at least two terms. And as he points out, these are provinces which often have four or five times the population of an European country.

Zhang even has a little dig at the US here, pointing out that under such a system as this, a man like George W. Bush would never have been chosen as a leader.

As to Western fears of Chinese expansionism, Zhang is quick to point out that Beijing built a great wall to keep others out; in other words, its main preoccupation is internal social stability, not taking over and running the affairs of others.

He emphasises the value that China places on its past, the fact that people always look to history to understand the present and the future. Despite the fact that Mandarin has been in use for nearly 3500 years, he points out that the teachings of Confucius can still be read and understood by the average educated school child. This is in stark contrast to the fact that even a professor at an English university often cannot understand the works of Shakespeare as they were originally written.

Thus, China has a vast store of historic cultural wealth in its vaults that it can draw on and use while deciding about its future. This is not available to the West.

Zhang also points out that while the West is prone to laud its systems as superior, there has been no job creation in the US since 2008. By contrast in China, every year for the last three decades, there has been growth and job creation at every level, down to the smallest unit under governance. Why should China then adopt Western systems which have been shown to be inferior?

In short, Zhang shows that it is often more useful to look at the East through its own eyes, rather than consistently yielding to the big mistake of trying to measure Eastern achievements with a Western tape measure.

Posted in America, China, Government, Politics | No Comments »

Burma: the gold rush has begun

April 7th, 2012

THE push for democracy in Burma by the West has been going on for just one reason: resources.

Burma has gold, copper, tungsten, timber and oil in abundant quantities. All these years, the political situation and tight economic sanctions have not permitted exploration by Western companies. But now oil companies in the US are straining at the leash and waiting anxiously for the change to fly into Rangoon.

The Americans have already lifted some sanctions on Rangoon even though the only move towards a less rigid form of government has been an election in which the National League for Democracy was allowed to contest 45 of 664 seats. But what little has happened will be enough of an excuse for the Western carpetbaggers to start pouring the gates of the airport in Rangoon, the first real godl-rush since military rule was clamped on the country in 1962.

The Europeans are due to review sanctions on the country later this month and companies like BP and Shell are likely to be among the first companies to head for Burma once sanctions are, as expected, eased.

Nevertheless it looks like the generals who ran the country this long are now ready to put their hands out for American and other currencies. Like Suharto was encouraged to take over and divide the spoils in Indonesia in 1965, there will be a big auction in Burma too.

The American involvement in Afghanistan has turned out to be a total loss in terms of mining concessions and this makes the clinching of deals in Burma even more urgent. China and India have been the two big winners in Afghanistan and Canada picked up a solitary concession.

The Americans apparently believed they were entitled to get something, despite the mess they created in the country; Pentagon officials have even been heard complaining about it, claiming that they had done a lot for the country and got nothing in return! Which gives one a good idea about American naivety.

The Burmese people are dirt-poor and probably willing to work for less than the Chinese; China has already got a headstart in Burma and will be looking to consolidate. Thailand is another country which is looking to make some moolah in Burma. And one can’t discount India poking its nose in too.

Posted in America, China, Politics | No Comments »

Three years on, Sri Lanka still bleeds

April 4th, 2012

A MONTH and two weeks from now, it will be three years since Sri Lanka won its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, effectively ending the campaign for a separate state for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

But there has been no movement on achieving a political solution to put the minority Tamils at ease. Instead, the triumphalism that has pervaded the country has seen the government act in a manner that can only serve to remind the Tamils that during the days when the Tigers were in the ascendant they were at least not marginalised in the way they are right now.

The Tigers had ensured that the north of the country was more or less completely occupied by Tamils. Now, the army is everywhere in the north and Sinhalese people are being resettled in large numbers to change the population mix. And, to rub it in, there are signs in many places that are only in Sinhala, a language that Tamils, cut off from the rest of the country for decades, cannot even speak.

The government was under pressure to institute an inquiry when allegations of war crimes by both sides began to surface after the conflict ended. It launched its own inquiry, called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, with hearings all over the country. An eminent panel of jurists and academics was chosen to head the body.

The LLRC’s report was released in December last year. While it fell short of being comprehensive in many respects, it did make some recommendations that were sensible – the launching of an independent inquiry to find out how many civilians lost their lives, making restitution to those who suffered, and healing the wounds that have been created over the decades of ethnic strife.

The Sri Lanka government’s reaction has been surprising. It has asked the army to find out about civilians who fell victim during the conflict; the perpetrator of many of the deaths is thus investigating itself. Many of the top army brass have been promoted as ambassadors and now enjoy immunity from prosecution so that makes it very difficult to hold any of them responsible.

In the meantime, the Sri Lanka government has not eased up in any way on the restrictions on the media in the country. It has tightened things considerably by passing a law that all reporting on security matters should be passed through an official censor. And the abduction of people who are known to be opposed to government policies continues apace.

As one commentator put it, it is inconceivable that security forces which could bring an end to a highly organised and motivated group like the Tigers cannot track down any of those who have been abducted or find out who is behind the continuing episodes where white vans turn up and take people away.

Last month the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution asking Sri Lanka to conduct an independent inquiry into the war. Pushed by the US, Britain and Canada – each for its own reasons which I will explain – and backed by India – again for its own separate reason, on which I will elaborate – the resolution embarrassed the Sri Lankans no end as they had put in considerable diplomatic efforts to scuttle the resolution. It is doubtful, however, whether it will serve to push Sri Lanka any more than it has done.

The US is interested in Sri Lanka because China has a big foot planted in the tiny island. The US tried for many years to get a base in Trincomalee but failed; it would have been ideal as a spying post for the entire south Asian region. The Americans are now worried about the extent to which China has made inroads into Sri Lanka and the little island is just one more spot where the fading super power and China match wits.

Britain and Canada have big Tamil populations in certain areas and this issue plays directly into local politics. Else, neither country would give a stuff. Additionally, in Britain, there have been two excellent investigative programs from Channel 4 which provided stark proof of the extent of war crimes by the Sri Lanka government. The media pressure on the British government to do something has been intense.

India is the big power in the south Asian region. But in the case of Sri Lanka, it voted for the resolution against its neighbour because Colombo had broken a promise. During the dying days of the war, the main Tamil leaders had managed to contact US and other Western diplomats and there was considerable pressure on Colombo to allow them to escape. Sri Lanka was wavering when a boat was even sent to the northern area to evacuate them. But India was not about to forget that the Tiger leader Velupillai Pirabhakaran was responsible for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi back in 1991; the Indian naval vessel monitoring the situation from international waters moved a little closer to the area when news of the proposal for the evacuation came through. In effect, India challenged the US to act. The US did not dare to do anything.

The Sri Lanka government was happy about India’s reaction and as a quid pro quo agreed to get serious on devolving power after the conflict was over. It then went ahead with plans to kill all the Tiger leaders. But it never bothered about keeping its word. Having seen no sign of a move in this direction and, increasingly facing calls from its own Tamils for intervention, India had no option but to act against Sri Lanka when it came to voting on the resolution.

The Sri Lanka imbroglio will not sort itself out. The president needs to make some meaningful moves to resolve things politically. Else, to use a cliche, while he did manage to win the war, he will end up losing the peace.

Posted in India, Sri Lanka, Terrorism | No Comments »

Journalism of the very best kind

March 16th, 2012

CHANNEL 4 has done journalism proud, with a follow-up to its documentary on the war in Sri Lanka. Last year, in June, the television network screened a documentary titled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields which provided powerful evidence of war crimes by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers during the civil war which ended in May 2009.

The follow-up, titled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished, screened on the night of March 14 in London; it is available on YouTube and is a powerful reminder that in a day and age when journalism is often referred to as a dying profession, good investigative reports are worth more than their weight in gold.

The documentary presents four cases of killing, all of which graphically point to planning and execution at the highest level of government. One case is that of the 12-year-old son of Tiger supremo Velupilla Pirapaharan who was executed after being questioned.

The fact that so much footage continues to emerge is a clear indication that many of the soldiers who took part in the war had reservations about what they were asked to do. The footage could only have been taken by soldiers, nobody would have been able to approach the areas in question.

There is some footage taken by Tamil sources, including the media unit of the Tigers, but the main evidence of targeted and planned killings could only have come from inside the army.

There is no over-dramatisation; presenter Jon Snow is sober throughout. The footage that Channel 4 obtained speaks for himself and the Sri Lankan government will be hard put to deny these charges.

The program has gone to air just as the US is getting ready to bring a resolution before the UN human rights council, which is meeting in Geneva, urging Sri Lanka to investigate the allegations of war crimes and seek reconciliation.

Posted in Media, Sri Lanka, Terrorism | No Comments »

And this really has nothing to do with race. Really.

February 12th, 2012

MAJAK Daw is a Sudanese migrant to Australia. People know about him because he is the first African to play Australian rules football. A member of the junior string of the North Melbourne football club – Werribee – Majak’s recruitment resulted in a good deal of positive publicity for the senior club that is not especially well-known for performing well on the field.

North Melbourne last won the AFL senior championship in 1999 when it had in its ranks a man considered the best Australian rules player ever – Wayne Carey. Since then the team has turned in indifferent performances year in and year out.

The degree of publicity Majak received grew even more when he was racially abused during a game in 2011. Newspaper and TV coverage was sympathetic to the young man who has seen his share of war in Sudan before he came to Australia.

Now things seem to have gone sour; a few days back, Majak, who in 2012, had been moved up to the senior ranks – which meant that he would probably play for the senior team this year – was suddenly suspended indefinitely by the club. He was sent back to Werribee.

Initially, no reason was given apart from the spinmeister’s line that he had acted in a way not in keeping with the culture of the club. Later, once rumours about his activities began to leak on social media, the club stepped up and said that he had been suspended because he had lied to them about going to a nightclub while he was supposed to be going through the process of rehabilitation for an injury.

The club had to speak up because other facts about Majak had emerged – he owed someone in the club money (it was said to be less than $1000) and he was in a relationship with the white girlfriend of a former member of the same club. And people were concluding that these things were responsible for him being suspended.

If lying at an AFL club is a hanging offence, then this is the first I’ve heard of it in 15 years. Many high-profile AFL players get into all sorts of scrapes during the season and off-season. There are plenty of incidents involving alcohol and women. There are barroom fights, there are scuffles and there are interludes of racism. All of this is par for the course in the AFL. And plenty of fibs are told about each and every incident.

Yet, when an African footballer tells his club coach that he did not go out at night – when in fact he did – at a time when he was supposed to be undergoing rehabilitation, that suddenly becomes so serious that he gets suspended indefinitely. One must note here that apart from the prestige involved in playing for the senior club, no matter how poorly it performs, there is a good deal of difference in the pay one receives, compared to what one is paid by the junior outfit, Werribee.

It seems much more likely that his teammates were quite sour about the amount of publicity that Majak was getting and complained to the coach. His teammates would have probably spread the necessary canards and the coach would have realised that the majority of players – all white, mind you – were not especially fond of this black man who has quite a good public following. And that would have translated to problems on the field.

Publicity is the name of the game in any discipline in Australia and Majak was getting more than his fair share – and he had not even played a single senior game yet. Imagine what would have happened if, as expected, he turned out for the senior team and did well. His name would have become synonymous with North Melbourne; the man would have become bigger than the team.

His prospective teammates certainly wouldn’t have liked that.

AFL club officials are economical with the truth all the time. But when a young man who is from a completely different society tells a white lie, he is crucified. And it has nothing to do with race. Nothing at all.

Posted in AFL, Australia | No Comments »

One-day cricket has become just another tamasha

February 7th, 2012

AFTER more than 20 years, I finally went to the stadium to watch a one-day international, between India and Australia. I will never do so again.

In 1989, I watched Pakistan defeat India at Sharjah in a one-day tie; apart from the headache of sitting at ground-level and swallowing copious amounts of dust, the cricket was watchable. There were no distractions in the area I sat.

But the entire thing has now degenerated into farce. Louts of both sexes who seem intent on cramming themselves full of lager constitute a sizeable part of the crowd. There were Indians in large numbers, all equally loutish, and outdoing even the Nazis in jingoism.

Nobody had come to watch the cricket. They were intent on seeing the team they supported win. And they did not mind behaving like the lowest of the low if they felt so. When the occasion presented itself, they crowded to the fence to shove their ugly mugs into the TV cameras.

I wasn’t sitting in the cheap seats either. These were reserved seats that cost $50 apiece. About the only place from which one can watch the game and enjoy it seems to be one of the boxes that have been sold to some corporate or the other.

If the crowd is not making noise, then Cricket Australia organises plenty of noise to fill the hiatus. The good folk there appear to think that there should not be a single moment when the crowd is not being entertained. That is, if you can call what goes on as entertainment. It is better described as rabble-rousing.

A sizeable portion of the crowd was interested in stuffing their faces with beer, at the atrocious rate of $6 for a glass that could not hold more than 250 cc. For good measure, they mixed the half-strength amber liquid with potato chips at the equally atrocious cost of $5 for a small tub.

And it wasn’t the men alone; the females were involved in these cerebral activities with much more fervour than the males.

The organisers think that making the game some kind of a silly spectacle will help it to endure. They are deluding themselves – once the primary purpose of the event is overlooked, much of the attraction fades. And why would people come to the stadium to see the hoi polloi get sloshed and behave like louts when they can watch the game in the comfort of their own living rooms?

Cricket is being slowly killed by those who run the game. There is too much of it, most being uncompetitive games between teams comprising players who have poor skills. Blaring cheap music to a drunken crowd will not make it any more attractive. Yet the diehard enthusiast has been coming to the game.

But that will not continue if this madness goes on.

Posted in Australia, Cricket, India | No Comments »

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