I’m quickly compiling a list of taboo topics living in Melbourne. A dislike of coffee, obviously, as I found out the hard way. The fairly tempestuous weather situation. And Formula One motor racing.
Melburnians haven’t quite taken to the colour, the cash, the guttural roar of the F1 Grand Prix. Oh, your bogans, sure. They come from far and wide. And your social set, perched high above the grandstands in their corporate marquees swilling expensive champagne and chowing down on the finest lunch mass catering can muster. But not your average, working Melburnians, the portentous latte-sippers who whine about all the concrete and fumes in their precious lakeside park.
It’s one weekend a year, people (sure, and the months of track construction and park destruction before and after). Wake up and smell the burning rubber — in global sport it doesn’t get much bigger and much more exciting than the multizillion dollar F1 circus. Get along. You might even enjoy it.
I walked the 5.3-kilometre circuit last weekend as the advertising hoardings were fixed, the last barriers of the concrete canyon forked into place and the remaining towering grandstands and corporate facilities were summoned from the earth. For a motor sport fan from way back, it’s a thoroughly impressive set-up and the pre-event buzz is palpable. This weekend a few hundred thousand people will descend on the parklands for a spectacle worth gazing at whether you’re a rev-head or not.
To tour the pit complex is like gawking through the window of a high-end jeweller — the place reeks of cash, from the highly paid celebrities behind the wheel, found hiding out in their luxurious motor homes with their model WAGs, to racing machinery worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And trackside, the sound of a squealing engine is something else — or, if music is more your scene, stay on for the concerts from Powderfinger, Simple Minds and indie bands such as Scientists of Modern Music, the Midnight Juggernauts and Bang Gang DJ’s (yes, I too am aware of the inappropriately positioned apostrophe and no, I don’t know who any of those bands are either). It’s just one big party in the park, really. And who doesn’t love a party?
The details: The Australian Grand Prix begins at Albert Park today. Get your tickets on the event website. The park will recover! Just live a little, Melbourne. Elsewhere, the Grand Prix will be showing on Channel 10, the home of So You Think You Can Dance.
Jason, we’ll forgive your unfortunate lack of taste when it comes to coffee……
But today’s piece of tragic nonsense is a bridge too far.
It’s time someone from the Crikey bunker stuffed you up an exhaust pipe and christened you Murray Walker II 🙂
Jason,
This event needs some scrutiny, that’s why I support Crikey. Just because both major parties in Victoria are in denial on the real cost to Victoria doesn’t mean we should live in ignorance of the lies and propaganda that prop this event up.
It could be run on a private track, with minimal taxpayer support but instead the full taxpayer support last year was $86m (see Save Albert Park website). The Crawford enquiry into federal funding of sport found the Federal Govt spent just $90m in support of all sports in Australia, so do you still think it’s worth it? I note your adoring comments are similar to Sam Newman’s, when it first arrived, except Sam mentioned sex as well. Sam means “bimbo sex”, I think but hey, that’s Sam.
FYI they said 46,300 attended today. The real figure is less than 10,000, including 1,850 school kids bussed in to make up numbers. And they didn’t get to see Sam all day, because it’s footie season and he was denigrating Lesbians this week on the Footy Show. Next week it’s my turn, I hope. Neil Mitchell called those who want to move the Grand Prix “drongos” today. Melbourne goes a bit mad at Grand Prix time so Jason, you’re not alone and please drive carefully this week or leave your hot wheels at home.
Peter Logan – happy to supply the facts, if you want to see them. (There have even been overseas academic studies on,our GP – case studies on how to waste money, trash a park and get poor health outcomes.)
I think the real question here is what on earth is a ‘portentous latte-sipper’? A quiet harbinger of caffeinated doom, perhaps? Or did he mean ‘pretentious’, like his writing?
As for the amusing misspellings of both Powderfinger and Midnight Juggernauts, how is it that a writer can so consistently fail to pick up their own basic typos, let alone a deputy editor? It’s just shabby work.
“it doesn’t get much bigger and much more exciting than the multizillion dollar F1 circus.”
“your average, working Melburnians, the portentous latte-sippers who whine about all the concrete and fumes in their precious lakeside park.”
If Crikey wants to be taken seriously it’ll have to do better than this. Semi-literate, cliched, straining for effect.
WHY has café latte and chardonnay become synonymous with self-absorbed upper-middle class arrogant and snobbish folk?
It’s all wrong! I am rough as guts, with the vocab of a wharfie and I enjoy both! (Bein ‘as rough as guts, an’ wharfies, that is). ..as well as being partial to lattie and chardie of course.
(Any criticism of my taste, and I’ll come around an’ smash yer’ bloody face in, you snivelling little failed abortion).
Respectively yours,
Elan.