Ten Things #19

Retirees, Jack Nicholson and planespotting

1/ The Olympics is still on, and I notice that ‘medal’ is now officially, presumably by popular demand, an intransitive verb. Sigh.

2/ So farewell, then, Nick Hockley, a Mr Inside rather than a Mr Outside in his role as CEO at Cricket Australia.  He never filled you with confidence as a speaker, but nor did he threaten to burn the joint down, which in the preceding few years had looked a possibility.  Now the states want more and, after a long, low-level campaign against him, will get the opportunity to see what this looks like. A few of his noisier detractors will fancy their chances; I fancy they’re deluding themselves.

3/ Among potential candidates to take over, Todd Greenberg will be front runner.  He has the advantage of being good on his feet - CA has not had a genuinely accomplished public communicator as CEO since Malcolm Speed, who even then was a little wintry for some tastes.  It’s a little soon for new chief of cricket James Allsopp, and a little late for former WACA CEO Christina Matthews, although expect to hear erstwhile commercial boss Stephanie Beltrame, and perennial favoured daughter Belinda Clark mentioned in despatches.  Here’s my plea, though. Can we please do the looking ourselves rather than shovelling hundreds of thousands to the likes of Egon Zehnder, SRI and Maritana Partners?  Cricket has developed a ridiculous learned helplessness, and would rather call in a consultant to tell it the time rather than look at its watch.  Time to sidestep such corporate fetishism.  Interview half a dozen candidates; choose the best one; it’s not…you know what....

4/ You’ll want to read this warm and intimate take on Graham Thorpe from Mike Atherton. ‘We adored him,’ says Mike - an unusually ardent word in a sporting context, if suitable, I think, for the occasion, so sharpened by regret.  

5/ On the podcast yesterday, Pete mentioned this candid interview with Andrew Flintoff, ahead of Field of Dreams On Tour, which starts next Tuesday.  A generation later than Thorpe, he sounds somewhat franker in his vulnerabilities: ‘I'd always wanted to do something in cricket. I was never quite sure what it was.  I’ve done a bit of commentary which I don't particularly like, or it's not really me. I've always had an ambition to coach, but I'm not quite sure of my route to doing that or who I'd coach - or, let's be honest, who would have me?’ Who knows how Flintoff’s near-death experience will inflect his coaching?  But he has the second chance denied Thorpe.

6/ I feel a little keenly for Tom Hawkins, who’s had the misfortune to foreshadow the end of his 359-game career on the day Dusty Martin mooched off into his twilight, conspicuous in his inconspicuousness.  I still remember the first time I heard direct intelligence about Tom, whose prowess in the TAC Cup had been rumoured through 2006.  One day after Offsiders, Gerard Wheteley sidled up confidentially and muttered: ‘I saw Tom Hawkins yesterday.’

‘And?’ I said excitedly.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said simply.  The following season began the process of confirming the hype, even if Hawkins's skills, particularly kicking, took a while to catch up to his physical presence, like that of a Giant Redwood.  Vale Tom: the half of your life in hoops has been well spent. I’ve hardly seen a player who derived more visible communal pleasure from the game - the stats enumerate almost 300 goal assists and 500 one-percenters, which were intrinsic to the Cats at their most successful. 

7/ As an aficionado of both, I like those moments where archives and movies intersect.  In Chinatown (1974) the clerk of the Hall of Records, played by Allan Warnick, totally steals the scene from Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gettes, who is following a suspicion about a pattern of land sales in the northwest valley.  ‘Row 23, Section C,’ he says, adopting a tone the screenplay describes as ‘quietly snotty’.  Then, when Gettes wants to check a volume out, the clerk disabuses him of such heresy: ‘This is not a lending library.’ Jake retaliates by covertly tearing a page from the relevant register, coughing so as to disguise the noise. 

8/ Because there is a podcast about everything nowadays, there is one featuring Warnick here. Apparently he was a friend of Nicholson’s visiting the set; Roman Polanski saw him as the relevant scene approached and said: ‘He’s perfect.’  After a brief rehearsal, the actors nailed the dialogue on more or less the first take.  At an early screening of the movie, Nicholson reflected to Warnick: ‘You know, our scene is the only one that gets a laugh.’  I can attest, from watching it again a couple of nights ago, that this remains true half a century on.

9/ Here are C and I on location in the vicinity of Tullamarine recently.

Dedicated planespotters bring ladders, stand on cabs and in the backs of utes. 

We are content merely to observe, binoculars and phones at the ready, as in this artful composition

Last week’s highlight, better even than a Qatar Airlines 777 in retro livery, a 767 in DHL’s lively mustard tones .

10/ Off to the airport again shortly, this time bound for here, where I’ll be talking about my new book and interviewing Nicky Winmar about his.