The boat harbour formed a lateral border to the caravan park we used to stay in as kids. Dad used to challenge me to swim to the other side.
Shumpty Eats: Earth & Sea Coolangatta
I have decided that I must write a review about my takeaway pizza last night. I know I said I would review restaurants I attend in this part of my blog but have decided to break the rules this one time.
As I am down at Rainbow Bay / Coolangatta I decided to check in last night at my favourite pizza place: Earth & Sea Coolangatta. I have been coming to this pizza shop for more years than I can remember and yet again it came up trumps.
My order, as it has been for at least the last 10 years since I discovered the joys of chilli with food, was a small cheese pizza and a large half “Some Like it Hot” and “Number 14”.
The description of each from their menu is as follows:
- Some Like it Hot: “As our big brothers up the road are fond of repeating, 100% pure beef (with our seven secret herbs and spices), onion and chilli sauce. Italy’s answer to the Aussie meat pie.”
- Number 14: “When we only had 13 pizzas on the menu the local lads invented the number 14. Great Pizza! Real beef, ham, onion, egg and chilli. Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Well, it is now one of our most popular pizzas, so there!
Now that I have read that again it does strike me that they are quite similar but when you eat them it is the subtle flavours of the eggs and the ham that do really make a difference. Equally, I am not fussed that they are quiet similar pizzas because food is all about ones personal tastes and preferences and these pizzas are the ones that I like.
As a takeaway experience, you would struggle find one better for mine:
- The staff member who took my order over the phone knew her stuff: even asked me if I was sure that I wanted that particular combination in my half and half pizza because “you know mate they are basically the same pizza”. Often that would irritate me but in this context (as it showed she knew the menu) it did not.
- The 15 minute time estimate for my pick up was spot on. I walked in, I paid, I had about 30 seconds of banter with the staff member behind the counter and then my pizza was ready.
- The price was fair for the food that I got. When you look at the menu you will be taken a bit aback by the pricing of the pizzas: it just looks expensive BUT you have to get past that because the pizzas are massive both from the perspective of size and amount of toppings.
As for the pizzas, I am unable to make a complaint about them. The cheese pizza that I bought for a bit of nibble later in the evening was the best plain cheese pizza I had (as it has been since it went on the menu). Why? Because it had a heap of tomato sauce on it. The half / half pizza was perfect: heaps of beef, heaps of egg and just enough chilli to make me sweat a little under my beard but not so much that I would be awake at 2am tasting the pizza in the back of my throat.
I am not surprised by this though because over at least 20 years of coming to Earth & Sea Coolangatta I have never been left disappointed.
A review of a takeaway pizza would not be complete without an assessment of how the pizza went second time around having been refrigerated over night. The leftovers ticked all of the boxes for a “morning after the night before” breakfast: the topping all still stayed on the pizza, the base was not too hard and cold it tasted almost as good as it did when it came out of the oven.
All in all, as a takeaway experience I can not fault the guys at Earth & Sea Coolangatta (80 Marine Pde, Coolangatta) and recommend you check it out if you are down this way.
Shumpty’s Punt: Ipswich Cup Day
Good morning all: as I sit on my balcony down at Rainbow Bow the lure of the beach is nearly strong enough to pull me away from my form guide BUT never fear I have come up with a couple of bets today that I hope will reap rewards for regular followers of “Shumpty’s Punt”.
It is Ipswich Cup Day and to say it looks like a difficult day would be the understatement of the century. It is a funny old track Bundamba and can always throw up an upset. That being the case, I will be limiting my bets (well my declared bets) to only a couple and will spend the rest of my afternoon on the punt just watching the racing.
So today I have three tips only: in the first, the Cup and the lucky last at Ipswich.
Race 1: Telesto Warrior (5)
Can not go past the favourite in the first: loves the track, gets the claim and, for mine, wins. Nothing wrong with kicking the day off with a favourite to fill up the bank.
Race 6 (the Cup): Mr Light Blue (7)
I am going off the favourite (Ginga Dude) here principally because of the weight and the fact that anything can and will happen in the Cup. Mr Light Blue is another one of the “Ipswich Specialists” running today and I reckon he can get the job done in a race that is so often a lottery.
Race 8: Vacallo (4)
Has the gate and the jockey to win the lucky last but again this race is historically a lottery so if you still are square on the day I would be putting my money in my wallet and heading for the exit (or the rum and coke queue).
I hope you find a winner our of the foregoing and promise that we will be back to a full program of tips next week.
Good luck and good punting.
It’s Ipswich Cup Day: “best day of the year … better than Christmas”
Forgive the cheesy line from a Bruce Willis movie in the title to this post, but to me it accurately reflects the fervour with which many, mainly Ipswichians, consider Ipswich Cup Day.
Simply put it is a massive day that people come to my home town to from far and wide to enjoy. I for one love Ipswich Cup Day: I have since my first as a skinny, pimply 18 year old in my Lowes suit and Dad’s one and only tie and I will till the day I am no longer capable of going along.
24,000 fans squeeze their way into the plethora of tents on the outside and inside of the track, the lawn area next to the stand or, for those holding a hallowed members ticket, in the members stand.
Now for the uninitiated it needs to be made clear that Bundamba Race Course is NOT a city race track: it is a provincial track so a crowd of 24,000 is nothing short of massive. And boy do the fans have fun: I am sure I read somewhere (and I apologise for not having the source) that more XXXX Gold is drunk on this day than at any other sporting event in Queensland.
That being the case, it will come as little surprise that my memories of the last 15 years attending this day are hazy in patches. That said, what makes this day special for me is that despite me not living in Ipswich anymore I can always come back home for “the Cup” and find a mate to have a beer and a chat with. This is the one day at the races that I would consider the actual racing and having a punt secondary to catching with friends (and sometimes enemies) of the past to reminisce about times gone past.
There are other obvious highlights, some generic and some personal as well. For those of us who wear a suit daily there is the usual mirth associated with picking out the lads testing out their “Lowes” special’s for the first time. There is the presence of the great Gai Waterhouse at our (and I am Ipswichian by blood so I can still claim the Cup as an “our”) premier race day for the race named in her honour. And there is the never ending quest for those in the tented areas for some table space to try and eat the cold chicken lunch provided (impossible to do standing up, holding a form guide and a can of beer with a paper plate).
It wouldn’t be an event attended by members of my family without there being some tradition involved and the Ipswich Cup is not any different: immediately after the last race of the day the “juvenile” members of clan Howells (that is my mothers side of the family) collect on the lawn next to the grandstand to toast the memory of our grandfather Colin, who it would be fair to say introduced us all to horse racing in some form or another. This is a sombre moment often at the end of a big day so regularly tears are shed as we reminisce about a great man gone but not forgotten.
As another Ipswich Cup Day dawns bright, I can already sense the BBQ’s being heated up to accompany the many beer breakfasts that will be held around the city of Ipswich this morning coupled with the brows of many “one day a year punters” furrowing as they try to decipher the hyroglyphics of the form guide.
I have managed with this post to write about a day of horse racing without even mentioning the actually racing itself and that of itself shows just how big the day has become: the event has become bigger than its sum parts.
Regardless, it is just a great day and whilst I am missing it for the first time in the last 15 years I can guarantee it is a day I will return to next year.
For the love sport: State of Origin
As many of you will have worked out by now, I am a sports fanatic: simply put, if it is sport I will watch it and I will follow a team. Over the years I have fallen in and out of love with many sports. Rugby League is a sport that I have loved and fallen out of love with over time and it would be fair to say that aside from my ongoing support of the Canberra Raiders, the NRL competition in Australia really does not interest me much.
That fact declared, it is that time of the year again that my fervour for the game of rugby league reaches its peak because it is State of Origin time.
For as long as I can remember as a young child there were only three nights in a year that I was allowed to stay up late and they were the Wednesday nights that State of Origin was on. I would sit with my Dad, watch and listen to his oft frustrated rumblings about high tackles, repeat sets of six and head high tackles all the while not really knowing what was going on. It would be fair to say that during my formative years I was not so much a rabid supporter of State of Origin rugby league but more a passive observer.
That all changed when I went to my first game of State of Origin at Lang Park. 12 June 1991 was the date and it was the third game of a hard-fought series ultimately won by Queensland 2-1. I have three vivid memories of this game: first that we were in the old outer of Lang Park sitting on concrete steps; second that Mal Meninga kicked a goal from the sideline and I had never heard a sound like it and third, it was Wally Lewis’ last game. To that point in my life I had never experienced anything like it and was hooked.
Still though, even after my 1991 experience I did not possess that “hatred” of New South Wales that most of us from the Sunshine State possess around this time of year. It was not until 1995 that I really understood what it meant to Queenslanders to beat New South Wales.
For those that can remember it, the 1995 series was held at the start of the “Super League War” and all of the expectations were of a New South Wales whitewash, the bulk of Queensland’s usual team sheet being aligned with the rebel faction. New South Wales players, coaches and supporters were insufferable before the series started and I wanted nothing more for Queensland to prove them wrong. Everything that those much more senior to me had been complaining about with respect to those who reside on the other side of the Tweed River finally was sheeted home to me.
History shows that Paul Vautin’s team of “Nevilles” (as he described them) defeated their much more fancied opposition 3-0. Sitting in the lounge room of the Humphreys’ Family homestead in Ipswich images of Billy Moore screaming “Queenslander”, Brett Dallas running away to score under the posts in Melbourne and Trevor Gillmeister leading Queensland into the last game when we all knew he was crook sent chills up the spine. Even now as I sit here writing this I get the chills.
That was a series Queensland was given no chance to win by anyone and yet despite all of the disadvantages put in front them prevailed against all odds. That win meant so much to me, my father, my mates and anyone else I spoke to and for the first time I really realized how much it means to Queenslanders to beat New South Wales.
I am not going to get into the usual banter about which state is better: the fact is that I am biased and it is impossible for me to answer impartially. What I am going to say is that the “hatred” between the supporters of the two States is, to me, what continues to make these series of State of Origin games what they are. For weeks before game one, the best of mates will be sniping at each other about their respective teams chances and, with the advent of mobile telephony, there seems to be not a moment in the game that goes past that does not lead to a text message or a tweet directed at the opposition teams supports being received or responded to. Having attended two games in “enemy territory” in New South Wales proudly sporting my Queensland jersey I have felt (and heard) the disdain with which interloping supporters are considered with. Without that byplay between the respective groups of fans, I do not think the series would be what it is today.
It is important to recognise here though what I also consider to be the essence of State of Origin. It is the fact that for the period of the game and its preliminaries it truly is mate against mate from the players right through to the fans. Which, by extension means, that the following day we are all still mates no matter what the result. It is for this reason I have purposely put the word “hatred” in inverted commas during this post. Hate is a word easily bandied around but the fact is that we do not hate each other (as that word is meant to be used), we just hate losing to each other. It is just sport afterall.
With that, I look forward to 4 July when the third game of the present series reaches its crescendo at Lang Park and hope the best side wins: of course we all know that that team is Queensland. Let the banter begin!
What ever happened to the umpire’s always right? An addendum
Last week I wrote about the lack of respect shown to sporting officials and lamented that short of the players taking personal responsibility there was nothing really that could be done to restore the maxim that I grew up with (being that “the umpire is always right”) into the sports we all love to watch.
The principal feedback I received was whether I had considered the impact of parental behaviour at sport’s events on the future conduct of players.
To be fair I had considered that factor but really my initial view was that parental behaviour was perhaps not that big an issue in considering the totality of the “player respect” debate. Principally, in my mind, I had only considered my era of playing sport. Going back to those days I can not recall an event of “ugly parent” type behaviour at any of the sport that I had played. Equally, upon reflection it was not anything that I had ever paid attention to: I was too busy playing.
That being the case, I have had a read of recent reports of poor parental behaviour at sport and done a bit of a survey of mates of mine with kids who play sport. Ultimately, from both of these sources I have come to two conclusions:
1. Whilst there are a number of identifiable events of poor parental behaviour at sport, such behaviour does not appear to be happening at every game of sport played by children; and
2. It would be silliness to suggest that the behaviour of parents does not impact on the views of child / player with respect to the role that officials play in sport.
From a personal perspective I always had role models around me, in my parents and coaches, who hammered into me the maxim that the “umpire is always right”. I concede the obvious here that if the role models of players are not imparting and reinforcing that maxim then they are not likely to live by it like the sportsmen of my generation.
I wonder if that is to simplistic though: the people playing the sports we love are all adults. They all live by their own values systems and on the basis of their own judgments. It is trite to say, given what flows above, but at some point the excuses have to stop and personal responsibility for ones conduct must come to the fore.
I finish on a point that has been rattling around my head the last couple of days: if the boot was on the other foot would the players routinely abusing officials expect to be respected? I would suggest that they would and they would be lying if they posited otherwise. If that is the case, why does it seem to be foreign for those players to show some respect?
Shumpty Speaks 