Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, June 05, 2005
 
Other Things

I watched the Nick Cave special on ABC TV last night. I'm still mildly peeved at missing Nick's recent tour due to my visiting Nauru at the same time. The TV special was a poor substitute but it was still interesting to see. I was actually hoping to be at a friend’s 40th birthday party last night, but as I've been away from home for 18 of the previous 20 nights – and had already spent all the daylight hours of Saturday at a Democrats meeting - I needed to stay home and spend some time with my little girl. Whilst I was disappointed at missing the party, I did get to see most of the Nick Cave special, plus Dr Who and even bits and pieces of the Brisbane Lions winning a game of footy again. Long-time Bad Seeds member Blixa Bargeld made an observation about how Nick Cave had managed to avoid becoming a burnt-out rock star, which was basically through recognising that there were other things in life outside of the life of being a rock star. I avoided this particular dilemma by not becoming a rock star, but I'm also keen to avoid burning out in my political role over the next 3 years. One tactic is to try to keep doing a few other things outside of politics.

One of these other things included playing a game of Australian football last weekend – admittedly it was a game of politicians (the Roosters) against the Press Gallery (the Jackals), but it was still just footy. In a good display of cross-party teamwork, some of the other players were Labor’s Craig Emerson and Kim Wilkie, plus the Liberal’s Andrew Laming, Gary Humphries and Gary Hunt. Last year in the corresponding game I broke my wrist, so I was pleased to get through this game unscathed. Indeed, I was lucky enough to kick a few goals, which is always a nice feeling (and my team won the game too, which would be an even better feeling if I was a competitive type.) Apart from being misreported in Crikey as having kicked 6 goals rather than 3 (why can't the media make those sorts of mistakes more often!), having sore leg muscles for the next three days and having an even uglier photo of me than usual published in the Canberra Times (no doubt the media's revenge for having their sorry asses whupped), it was a worthwhile experience. I’ve already started preparing for next years match with a renewed determination by watching more games on the television.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, June 05, 2005 Permalink
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