Confessions Of A Pay-dependent Sports Addict
The Age
Thursday July 26, 2007
ON THOSE charts that rate life events according to the stress they induce, moving house is always near the top. Even allowing for the permanent damage to internal organs suffered during a day spent wincing as two of the Three Stooges bounced the boxes marked "fragile" across the pavement, however, I wasn't fully prepared for how emotionally taxing our move would be.
The major source of anguish came not from the ominous tinkling sounds coming from said boxes, but from the phone call to Foxtel, who blithely informed me that, while my new residence could be hooked up, there was a two-week waiting period.Surely this couldn't be right? As a long-time subscriber from the days when there was actual competition between two providers, I'm used to the cable guy arriving at a moment's notice, ready to install the box and give the hedge a bit of a trim while he was there, "if you would just please sign here for the 24-month package".Now, I was told, it would be a fortnight from Monday - although I could be put on a waiting list. This is the sort of thing you do to get into a posh restaurant on a Saturday night, not to have a bloke come around, screw a plug in the wall and charge you $68.85 a month for the privilege.A final glance at the Foxtel program guide before the cords came out quickly answered the obvious question about why the cable guy was suddenly holding the whip hand. Having moved house last Friday, had I chosen to stay in my new cable-deprived habitat I would have missed some of the major features of one of the great weekends of couch-potatory: the Bledisloe Cup match and Tri-Nations decider between the Wallabies and the All Blacks on Saturday afternoon (later replayed at some ungodly hour by Seven), the Asian Cup quarter-final between Australia and Japan, four live AFL games on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon (the only Sunday game on free-to-air was delayed), the England-India Test match and the usual gap-fillers such as Fox Sports news.Sure, there was some decent sport on free-to-air too. The Eagles-Swans epic (ruined somewhat by the commentators' nauseating hero worship of naughty Eagle Ben Cousins), the British Open and the V8 Supercars, if you like that sort of thing. However, wherever you stand on the pay-for-sport debate - infuriated that you have to cough up for major sports such as Socceroos matches that should be on SBS, or elated that pay television ensures guaranteed live coverage of events that the networks have abused or not used - it's not until that little green light on the Foxtel box stops blinking that you understand how pay-dependent the sports addict has become.But if the Ten commentary team is still in the mood to laud recovering addicts, they would be reaching for their two and even three-syllable adjectives to praise the sheer grit and determination shown by a man relentless in his mission not to miss out on the festival of sport during his fortnight in free-to-air purgatory.Getting out of the still chaotic new house was itself an act of bravery to equal anything Cousins managed, given it involved convincing a very intelligent woman she would need an early night, having hauled some of the heavier boxes up the stairs with the baby under her arm. (Obviously I can't do the lifting with my back and, at that age, babies much prefer to be with mummy.) Besides, it would give her the chance to clean up without me under her feet.The next step involved finding a pub with enough screens to cater for multiple viewing of the early events - replay of Collingwood-Essendon match, live Adelaide-Freo game, live Bledisloe Cup. All boxes ticked at a Fitzroy regular that was crowded enough without letting people like you know where it is.Final step: identifying friend with cable most likely to welcome drunks back to house for all-night sports-fest and then timing run to his house to coincide with kids' bed time.Mission accomplished, except kids were still up for the last 20 minutes of Doctor Who. (So that's what's inside the Daleks!) That's one weekend survived. But it's still 11 days until the cable guy turns up and, as always, the real test for me and Cousins will be whether we can back up after such a stunning performance.
© 2007 The Age