Match of the Day

Let’s start with a good visual gag: a special, limited-edition packet of Redheads matches, suitably changed with true Australian gumption…

To further the footballing headline, the Weekend Australian went from moral outrage to slight petulance at this week’s “embarrassing” dismissal from the 2022 World Cup bid, “outshone even by South Korea”. The comments on winners Qatar are quite bitter: “the world’s most watched sports tournament would be held in a desert outpost with just 1.5 million people and a climate that makes outdoor sport potentially lethal.” Sour grapes, anyone?

Their main concern is for 80-year old Frank Lowy, head of the Football Federation Australia and chairman of Westfield shopping centres who fronted the bid. “From his childhood in wartime Hungary to his spells as a refugee in detention camps in Cyprus and Palestine, it was playing football that gave him a sense of belonging.” And if you’re not welling up yet, here’s the clincher: “…helping to win the 2022 World Cup would be a wonderful legacy, even though he admitted that he did not expect to be alive to see it.” I hope you're proud of yourself, Qatar…

Here’s a hunch, but I reckon investing $45 million Australian taxpayers money on a pitch which included a video of a cartoon kangaroo on a surfboard probably wasn’t quite what FIFA had in mind. Much better to side with an oil-rich emirate nation with bottomless funds and high concept ideas. Not only will all of the stadiums have airconditioning, but Qatar have promised to donate them to other nations in the Middle East once the tournament has finished; what better way to help unify such a rapidly modernising part of the world. And given Qatar’s support for the latest technologies, imagine what wonders they will have in place by 2022. They might even have something that will work on English goalkeepers.

As Johnny Mathis once said, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Although, in Australia, it’s actually beginning to look a lot like Spring break. For me, hearing Bing Crosby sing ‘White Christmas’ in a hot climate is causing a strange sort of metaphysical imbalance. We’re approaching the height of a Queensland summer, where Christmas consists of paddling pools, seafood and barbecue. Somewhat different to 'Morecombe & Wise', turkey roast and logs on the fire.

There’s a lot of wallowing at Christmas time, where the whole family come together for the first and last time of the year to feel horribly nostalgic. The same underlying sentiment seems to be shared between both nations, but the lead up isn’t quite so oppressive here, unlike in the UK, where most campaigns start around October, with geese a-laying and maids a-milking for much longer than their allotted 12 days. There still seems to be a creeping, imminent sense of occasion, but for the pom abroad, it’s not quite looking like Christmas. Not yet anyway, Johnny.

It’s been a while since TM shared a terrifying spider story, but look at what greeted us after work today. Amazing creatures, really, to have poised unashamedly all afternoon as the centrepiece of a sprawling, sinister web stretching maybe three feet wide, hovering over our outside table like a spindly gargoyle. My flatmate believes this is the very same arachnid spotted doing reconnaissance work near the deathly hallows of our patio furniture several days ago, a little too close to the relative safety of our interiors for my liking. I’m sure with further probing we will soon locate his building plans for the house, and grand schemes to populate the laundry room following his domination of the terrace.

Re: spiders; a general rule of thumb in Australia seems to suggest that the larger the spider, the less harm it will cause. So whereas an agitated nip from the tiny redback might quite convincingly send you into an infinite snooze, a larger blighter like this one - which we think is probably a tree spider - will only harmlessly jump at you or, say, land on your face in a last chance bid for recompense. So if you can help it, try not to kill them: consider the huntsman spider, which may look like the embodiment of pure evil, but would much rather make light work of your cockroaches than your kin. While some house spiders are incredibly territorial, and ending one from bothering your skirting boards will only encourage more to take their place. Knowing this probably won't alter your instincts, of course, which is to fetch the nearest boot and start walloping, Norman Bates style, until the once nimble creature starts to resemble a stubborn food stain; a death which is, by anyone's standards, a sorry way to go.