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No, I'm talking about the Melbourne Cup. (Gods, there are places in this world which aren't participating in the US electoral cycle, and trust me, a lot of us are Very Happy Indeed about this. I get fed up enough with the Australian one, and that only lasts a maximum of six weeks).
So, we're having the annual Festival of Silly Hats (otherwise known as the Spring Racing Carnival) and the centrepiece of this is the Melbourne Cup. The race itself is run at about 3 - 4pm Melbourne time (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time, or effectively GMT +11) which means over here in Western Australia (GMT +8), it runs at about 1pm. One of the great traditions of the Cup in every state except Victoria is the Melbourne Cup Lunch. Here in WA, it's just that - it happens at lunchtime, we watch the race, and by the end of the lunch break, it's all over and back to work, folks. Over east, the working day pretty much grinds to a halt around 11am (first lunch breaks) and the rest of the afternoon is spent waiting for the race to be run and not getting any work completed.
In the spirit of the day, however, I offer my tips on how to pick a Melbourne Cup Winner:
1) Make sure you've picked a horse. No Melbourne cup as yet has been won by anything other than a horse.
2) Make sure the horse has four legs. No three legged Cup winners yet, either.
3) Make sure the horse you've picked is actually running in the Cup (that makes things a lot simpler).
4) Ensure there's actually a jockey involved. For some reason they get picky about things like having jockeys on the horses.
5) After that, you're on your own. I tend to just take a number in the office sweep and see how I do.
By the bye - by the time I've posted this, you've missed your chance to contact anyone on the Australian east coast south of Brisbane.
(To our USAlien friends: best of luck, and those of you who haven't voted yet, please do so. If you're annoyed with your compatriot's choice of president and want to emigrate, please remember to arrive by plane rather than by sea. Although, if a bunch of you want to charter a boat to carry you here to Australia, feel free to do so, if only so we can watch the convulsions our immigration people are going to launch themselves into. Pack for sunny Nauru, however, because that's where you'll be spending your first two or three years.)
So, we're having the annual Festival of Silly Hats (otherwise known as the Spring Racing Carnival) and the centrepiece of this is the Melbourne Cup. The race itself is run at about 3 - 4pm Melbourne time (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time, or effectively GMT +11) which means over here in Western Australia (GMT +8), it runs at about 1pm. One of the great traditions of the Cup in every state except Victoria is the Melbourne Cup Lunch. Here in WA, it's just that - it happens at lunchtime, we watch the race, and by the end of the lunch break, it's all over and back to work, folks. Over east, the working day pretty much grinds to a halt around 11am (first lunch breaks) and the rest of the afternoon is spent waiting for the race to be run and not getting any work completed.
In the spirit of the day, however, I offer my tips on how to pick a Melbourne Cup Winner:
1) Make sure you've picked a horse. No Melbourne cup as yet has been won by anything other than a horse.
2) Make sure the horse has four legs. No three legged Cup winners yet, either.
3) Make sure the horse you've picked is actually running in the Cup (that makes things a lot simpler).
4) Ensure there's actually a jockey involved. For some reason they get picky about things like having jockeys on the horses.
5) After that, you're on your own. I tend to just take a number in the office sweep and see how I do.
By the bye - by the time I've posted this, you've missed your chance to contact anyone on the Australian east coast south of Brisbane.
(To our USAlien friends: best of luck, and those of you who haven't voted yet, please do so. If you're annoyed with your compatriot's choice of president and want to emigrate, please remember to arrive by plane rather than by sea. Although, if a bunch of you want to charter a boat to carry you here to Australia, feel free to do so, if only so we can watch the convulsions our immigration people are going to launch themselves into. Pack for sunny Nauru, however, because that's where you'll be spending your first two or three years.)
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