Latte Leftie – 244

Latte Leftie assures a bookish intellectual that it’s (very occasionally) acceptable to jump on the sporting bandwagon.

Dear LL – Like everyone else in my social circle I’m much given to lamenting what a bunch of anti-intellectual, sports-obsessed philistines most of my compatriots are. However, I have a truly shameful confession to make. I moved into Redfern (though
I prefer to give my address as Darlington) shortly after The Block was shut down and the most property-value-deflating members of the Indigenous underclass were shipped elsewhere. In recent weeks, I have gotten caught up in what I gather rugby league aficionados call ‘finals fever’ and on more than one occasion feigned some interest in, and knowledge of the game, pretending to have enjoyed watching Artie Betroot and Wally Meninga play single origin ‘footy’ and to admire players who I’ve otherwise dismissed as gang-raping, public defecating, homo-erotic bonding (not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course) thugs. Exactly how appalling do you judge my slumming it in this fashion to be?
Louis, Redfern

LL replies: You shouldn’t be to hard on yourself, Louis, given that even Jean-Paul Satre took time off from sounding off about Existentialism in Parisian cafés to coach a soccer team. And if one ever was to take an interest in a grand final, what better one to embrace than a match between a bunch of oppressed Muslims and blue collar heroes (albeit ones pulling down $300,000 plus a year). Plus, Tony Abbott got booed while handing out the trophies! I only hope you took the opportunity to burnish your own working-class intellectual credentials with entirely fabricated stories about how you used to sit on the grassy knoll (or whatever it’s called) with your rabbit-skinner grandfather as a small boy watching the giants of the game such as Winston Churchill and Davo Messenger flying through air-taking marks. Now go and sin no more.