Post by PeterB on Nov 7, 2005 2:43:12 GMT -4
Well, the Melbourne Cup has been run and won for another year. And this year it seems to have lived up to its reputation for being the Race That Stops The Nation.
For those who haven’t heard of the Melbourne Cup, it’s a 3200 metre race (2 miles) for equine quadrupeds with bipeds clinging to their backs. Its been run in Melbourne on the first Tuesday in November since about the 1860s. Back in those days there was no country of Australia, just half a dozen self-governing British colonies which tried to not get on with each other. But in the first year the race was run, a horse from Sydney won, and the same horse (Archer I think) won it the following year. This was sufficient to generate interest in the race in the folk up in Sydney, who usually disdain anything to do with Melbourne. And since then, people from around the country have used the day as an excuse to enjoy a dress-up or piss-up at work.
This year I didn’t even see the race, as I was too busy, and frankly it didn’t bother me either way. I’ll happily put a couple of dollars into sweeps, and either celebrate my successes or bemoan my losses. But watch the race? It’s a bunch of horses making something of an effort as they pass the finishing post for the first time, slowing down to an amble around the back, then picking up speed as they re-enter the main straight.
As it happens, it was a historic race, as the winning horse also won the Cup last year and the year before. It’s the first time a horse has won the event three years in a row, or three times at all. People are comparing the winner, Makybe Diva, with Australia’s greatest racehorse, Phar Lap. I don’t think the comparison is appropriate, because Phar Lap won a much higher proportion of his races, and often did so carrying much greater weights.
But what I *do* miss are the shenanigans we used to get up to at work before various people at work collectively lost their sense of humour.
Back in the late 80s, we used to get around 100 people to a buffet lunch, followed by the announcement of the field for the Work Cup, followed by watching the Melbourne Cup, followed by the running of the Work Cup. Dress for the event was either jockey's silks, haut couture, or an appropriately bad taste interpretation of haut couture - tuxedo, with boardshorts instead of black pants, and a loud paisley tie instead of a bow tie would be a good start.
The Work Cup was a celebration of employee stupidity, and what was best about it was that no-one, not even senior managers, was safe. In the weeks leading up to the big day, people would tell the event’s organisers about various…acts perpetrated by their fellow employees, and this would all be stashed away.
On the day, we’d all be gathered in the amenities room, where in one corner would be a whiteboard covered in lengths of paper towels. At the appointed time, the Work Cup organisers would announce the field in the Cup one by one, peeling away a length of paper to reveal all. Each horse had a name and parentage which gave some indication of the event which had led to the nomination, and the horse’s jockey was the person who had performed – or suffered – the event. The event organisers would explain each “horse”’s “history” and potential, and everyone would have a good laugh at that person’s expense.
Once the field had been revealed, people would lay bets on which horse they thought would win, and on a couple of occasions I got to be the bookmaker for the event. I remember accumulating kitties of well over $100.
Then, after watching the Melbourne Cup, we’d listen to a call of the Work Cup. What happened was that earlier in the day, the two organisers looked through the field, decided on which horses would get first, second and third, and then they used a cassette tape to record a phantom race call. A few years later I found their papers – they actually had the text of a race call written out, with blanks to insert horse names, so they could easily call the race from year to year. To spice things up, extra happenings would be inserted which reflected some horse or other – a senior manager one year was sacked, so he got a horse, but the horse was scratched before the race for poor performance in lead-up races, and so on.
After the results, money in the kitty was distributed among those who backed the winning and placing horses, and we’d go back to more drinking until late in the day.
Over the years I got three nominations – one for being spotted riding to work on a new bike, one for when I started playing Australian Rules football (in which players wear fairly tight-fitting shorts to minimise the chance of being tackled) and once when I was spotted sweeping worms off a footpath and back into the grass. Other nominations included: the manager who drove his car into a basement wall in a ham-fisted attempt to avoid running over his boss; the man who reported to the police that his car had been stolen, because he was so drunk he went to the wrong car park; and the man who was having a quiet drink in a pub when a woman he’d never met removed his glasses and said he looked much sexier without them.
But alas, the event went into hiatus when a senior boss issued an edict about alcohol at work. After he left, the event was revived in a smaller format, but then someone made a complaint on behalf of someone else who hadn’t been offended by comments about her, and we were limited to egg and spoon races.
So, even if the event is no more where I work, I hope I’ve inspired someone on this bulletin board to start a tradition where they work which celebrates the stupidity of your fellow employees, no matter how senior.
For those who haven’t heard of the Melbourne Cup, it’s a 3200 metre race (2 miles) for equine quadrupeds with bipeds clinging to their backs. Its been run in Melbourne on the first Tuesday in November since about the 1860s. Back in those days there was no country of Australia, just half a dozen self-governing British colonies which tried to not get on with each other. But in the first year the race was run, a horse from Sydney won, and the same horse (Archer I think) won it the following year. This was sufficient to generate interest in the race in the folk up in Sydney, who usually disdain anything to do with Melbourne. And since then, people from around the country have used the day as an excuse to enjoy a dress-up or piss-up at work.
This year I didn’t even see the race, as I was too busy, and frankly it didn’t bother me either way. I’ll happily put a couple of dollars into sweeps, and either celebrate my successes or bemoan my losses. But watch the race? It’s a bunch of horses making something of an effort as they pass the finishing post for the first time, slowing down to an amble around the back, then picking up speed as they re-enter the main straight.
As it happens, it was a historic race, as the winning horse also won the Cup last year and the year before. It’s the first time a horse has won the event three years in a row, or three times at all. People are comparing the winner, Makybe Diva, with Australia’s greatest racehorse, Phar Lap. I don’t think the comparison is appropriate, because Phar Lap won a much higher proportion of his races, and often did so carrying much greater weights.
But what I *do* miss are the shenanigans we used to get up to at work before various people at work collectively lost their sense of humour.
Back in the late 80s, we used to get around 100 people to a buffet lunch, followed by the announcement of the field for the Work Cup, followed by watching the Melbourne Cup, followed by the running of the Work Cup. Dress for the event was either jockey's silks, haut couture, or an appropriately bad taste interpretation of haut couture - tuxedo, with boardshorts instead of black pants, and a loud paisley tie instead of a bow tie would be a good start.
The Work Cup was a celebration of employee stupidity, and what was best about it was that no-one, not even senior managers, was safe. In the weeks leading up to the big day, people would tell the event’s organisers about various…acts perpetrated by their fellow employees, and this would all be stashed away.
On the day, we’d all be gathered in the amenities room, where in one corner would be a whiteboard covered in lengths of paper towels. At the appointed time, the Work Cup organisers would announce the field in the Cup one by one, peeling away a length of paper to reveal all. Each horse had a name and parentage which gave some indication of the event which had led to the nomination, and the horse’s jockey was the person who had performed – or suffered – the event. The event organisers would explain each “horse”’s “history” and potential, and everyone would have a good laugh at that person’s expense.
Once the field had been revealed, people would lay bets on which horse they thought would win, and on a couple of occasions I got to be the bookmaker for the event. I remember accumulating kitties of well over $100.
Then, after watching the Melbourne Cup, we’d listen to a call of the Work Cup. What happened was that earlier in the day, the two organisers looked through the field, decided on which horses would get first, second and third, and then they used a cassette tape to record a phantom race call. A few years later I found their papers – they actually had the text of a race call written out, with blanks to insert horse names, so they could easily call the race from year to year. To spice things up, extra happenings would be inserted which reflected some horse or other – a senior manager one year was sacked, so he got a horse, but the horse was scratched before the race for poor performance in lead-up races, and so on.
After the results, money in the kitty was distributed among those who backed the winning and placing horses, and we’d go back to more drinking until late in the day.
Over the years I got three nominations – one for being spotted riding to work on a new bike, one for when I started playing Australian Rules football (in which players wear fairly tight-fitting shorts to minimise the chance of being tackled) and once when I was spotted sweeping worms off a footpath and back into the grass. Other nominations included: the manager who drove his car into a basement wall in a ham-fisted attempt to avoid running over his boss; the man who reported to the police that his car had been stolen, because he was so drunk he went to the wrong car park; and the man who was having a quiet drink in a pub when a woman he’d never met removed his glasses and said he looked much sexier without them.
But alas, the event went into hiatus when a senior boss issued an edict about alcohol at work. After he left, the event was revived in a smaller format, but then someone made a complaint on behalf of someone else who hadn’t been offended by comments about her, and we were limited to egg and spoon races.
So, even if the event is no more where I work, I hope I’ve inspired someone on this bulletin board to start a tradition where they work which celebrates the stupidity of your fellow employees, no matter how senior.