May 26

Last night Australia played Greece at the MCG in a preliminary World Cup 'friendly' (most of the time the teams were eyeing each other like baleful chimpanzees, ). Almost 100000 people in the stadium: it was like theatre on a great green stage, and I started to realise why there's such a fuss when goals are revoked or a foul is allowed. It offends people's sense of history: impossible to try and disallow something that has already happened, and in particular on the basis that it's unfair. Started to think shapeless thoughts which I can't quite express about sport as a metaphor for history, sport as a parallel of history, sport as a second chance at history. Seen from this perspective, my incoherent theory might explain why football matters so much and why a Togolese priest has seen fit to make a trip to Brazil to seek mastery over the fate of Togolese football through acquiring the superior magical knowledge of Brazilian voodoo. (spawning a discussion on an African talkback program on Sydney radio entitled 'does voodoo work?')