Mazer Rackham

Kossie can't even crack their seconds?

FINALLY our upgraded facilities came through! Thank you MFC and thank you Vic govt!

"Good morning, Minister." "Morning. You new here? A nice cuppa, thanks love. One lump. And a biscuit too." "Er, minister, we are the delegation from Melbourne." "From ..... ?" "Melbourne." " ......... Melbourne?" "Melbourne Football Club." "Right. Right. Melbourne Football Club. Erm ... siddown. What can I do for you?" "Thank you for meeting us, Minister. We'd like to discuss and advance our mutual plans for the Gosch's Paddock redevelopment." "The Gosch's ...... oh, right! NOW I know who you are! Nup." ".... 'nup'?" "Yeah. Nup. CAROL! See in my next appointment." "I ... we ... thank you Minis-- THANK YOU MIN--" *Later* "What a disaster. How are we going to spin that?" "Let say something like, 'The Club continued discussions regarding', etc etc."

It's to confuse his enemies. "I told you to tag Langdon!" "Duh ... gee coach." "You know who is he is, don't you?" "Nah ... yeah .... nah. I dunno." "The one with the long hair!" "Duh ... okay coach." *thinks* "I fought he went to Freo? Better book me plane ticket now."

Rolling Stones in some shape or form seem to pop up as putative answers in every D'land quiz.

Oh, come on. Think "Rolling Stones guitar players".

What do these players have in common? Be effusive. B: L.Birch T.Gillard HB: S.Heath M.Gay S.Goldrick C: S.Lampard T.Hanks B.Mackin HF: A.Bannan K.Paxman K.Hore F: D.Pearce T.Harris Foll: L.Pearce O.Purcell E.West I/C: M.Chaplin C.Sherriff L.Mithen E.Zanker M.Fitzsimon

OMG!!!!! How remiss of me. The winners. Gold @La Dee-vina Comedia Silver @Demonstone Bronze@tilly18 Pitted aluminium @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew

Ye grand reveal. Here is what LINKS these players: Sale(M)a(Y)ze Ellingwort(H)ardema(N)ewport etc

There is a hint in the first post. "What links these players". Also the forward lines proposed by LdVC, demonstone and tilly18 comply. Why would good old Vinnie Cattoggio be given a key position, surrounded by guys with names like Maric and Owen? TRnB provided an entire compliant sentence.

Elon Musk has not been able to solve the quiz and is using his internet robots to prevent messages to me. That's the most likely explanation. Either that or (long shot) something has gone wrong with the d'land site. Two correct answers so far.

Reckon my message box must be full. Try now.

Toumpas is famous for not eating vegemite. Might explain a few things.

A team of olden dayes Demons with a few current players thrown in. What links these players, etc ... (Answers in PMs in case that needs to be stated.) B: C. Salem S. May A. Yze HB: R. Ellingworth G. Hardeman S. Newport C: J. Toumpas C. Sylvia S. Armstrong HTF: J. Garlett K. Templeton C. Nettlebeck F: D. Kowal J. Lewis C. Spargo Foll: S. O'Dwyer P. Rohde S. Eishold Int: C. Dawes J. Smith B. Holland B. Dixon

Very good! Damn, how did I miss Jeff White. Throw out the pretender and reinstate White as first ruck!

Even more odd: the following team! B: J. Bowey M. Scarlett L. Dunn HB: K. Rose D. White R. Dunne C: N. Brown N. Black N. Brown HF: B. Green D. Schwarz T. Greene F: R. Gray B. Brown J. Brown Foll: T. Goldstein A. Weiss B. Rose

Or, as in the Warnie/Waugh thing, you're being lured in by providing harmless, everyone-knows-this, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly information. It's all just a laugh until you realise you're on the hook and being directed to give 0 votes to Ace Brilliant and his 45 possie/5 goal game, or to give 1 vote to Alf Flubb who was the sub and played 10 minutes.

If gambling was removed from horse racing, it would overnight shrink to the size of competitive dressage. (Note to the horse lovers: I am not advocating that. But I do think that the horse results should be in the papers next to the Tattslotto numbers, and not in the sports section.)

There is an ad for some non-alcoholic drink that you can drink so you'll still be "one of the boys". Hard to dunk on a non-alcoholic drink though. It's hardly a "gateway" drink; more of the opposite. A lot of ads infer being part of the group ...camping with the boys (and girl) ... as part of the beer drinking experience, but I can't recall any (maybe I am just too inured to the whole ad business) that link "mates" and "alcohol" as explicitly as the gambling companies do "mates" and "betting". It's insidious. "You can't be part of a group of mates if you're not gambling with them" is the barely-disguised subtext. It's borderline social engineering.

The problem is not that the recipients of the votes were unexpected. It's that people got to learn who got the 3 votes.

They fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The first, of course, is never get into a land war in Asia. The other is, never win against a betting agency.

"Awright boys, time for the votes. Whaddya reckon?" (silence) "Matt? Leigh?" "E. Yeo 3 votes." "Dean, the Eagles weren't even playing. And you weren't on the ground. How did you get in here? The door's supposed to be locked! Go on, [censored] off. Matt, who do you think played well?" "I dunno. Most of the game was down the other end from me." "Leigh, what about you?" "I dunno. They players all look the same to me. What do you reckon?" "I dunno either. It moves so fast, I dunno what's going on most of the time." (silence) "Well, we can't sit here all night. What are we gunna do?" "We could look at the stats sheet." "Great idea ... lemme see ... Tom Mitchell 40 possies! Well that's your 3 right there." "Did Cripps play?" "Nah, he played last night ... good idea, but ... hey, it says here someone kicked 6 goals." "A mid?" "No, a ... um ... what's the word? Four ... fore ... foreman ..." "So not a mid?" "You're right. One vote only." "Who played on Mitchell?" "Christ. Was it ... Pendlebury?" "I dunno. Come on, give him the 2 and let's get out of here." "S. Pendlebury 2 votes. Jeez, that was easier than I thought. Crack open the beers."

A key defender got a vote. Probably what touched off the investigation.

Isn't it funny how every year, it seems the last few rounds of reading out the votes have the games ordered to provide maximum drama. Almost like someone already knew what the votes were.

Arnold Rothstein will forever live on as "Nathan Detroit" in the musical "Guys and Dolls". Now if you really want to google something, try Titanic Thompson, who was the basis for the character "Sky Masterson".