Satire 36 Money Matters 38 Headnoise 40 The Cynic

What were they thinking letting this bloke go?

You Own the Rabbitohs

Satire Kieran Blake, kieranblakewriter.org Photo Russell Crowe

Residents of Randwick City will have total control of the South Sydney rugby league team once the Rabbitohs become the first publicly-owned club in the NRL.

The Rabbitohs will soon pass into public ownership after it was revealed that Randwick City ratepayers contributed millions of dollars to the Heffron Centre, but will have access to only a small portion of the facility in Maroubra. Instead, senior players will have exclusive use of large parts of the complex every day of the year, except on Mad Monday.

Once the foundation club completes its transfer from Redfern Oval to Heffron Centre in preparation for the 2023 season, residents of Randwick City will take control of the first-grade team.

Ratepayers will have automatic access to a website and an app, and will be able to vote on player selection and positions, coaching appointments and recruitment.

Residents will decide which players are traded and recruited during the off-season, subject to salary cap restrictions. Residents - not the club - would therefore have voted on the proposal to release Dane Gagai and Jaydn Su’a, and to trade Adam Reynolds for an ageing, overrated and underperforming half who was the subject of a police investigation and never actually played for the club.

Randwick locals will also determine the team line-up each week, and will vote on whether the game’s best five-eighth should play at fullback if Latrell is sidelined, and whether Captain Cam should start on the bench. Ownership also allows residents to tell Jason Demetriou how to coach in person, and not just from the comfort of their keyboard, and to centre the team’s tactics around one simple premise: give the ball to Latrell.

The news will undoubtedly please fans of bespectacled Aussie comedians, movie stars in leather sandals and politicians who order their adversaries to ‘sit down boofhead’. But public ownership also benefits residents who don’t support the Rabbitohs.

Interlopers from the Western Suburbs, The Shire, or worse still, Queensland, can use this unique situation to sabotage Souths and send them toppling out of the finals - as long as the saboteurs pay rates to Randwick City Council.

“We thank the traditional owners, and the Bra Boys, for granting us permission to establish this state-of-theart training centre on their land, and we look forward to delivering a premiership to our supporters in return,” read a statement from the club.

“We also defend the club’s access to the community facility. Players desperately need the enormous section of the building dedicated to tattoo artists, unqualified barbers and our army of lawyers.”

Meanwhile, Randwick City ratepayers have been promised a 20 per cent reduction on council rates if the Rabbitohs don’t win the premiership in 2023.

Piece of work.

How to Avoid Being the Patsy

Words Rob Shears Photo Bernie Madoff

The terrible tales of Melissa Caddick’s exploits have shaken fear into several people who sought financial advice from me recently. With the right checks you can significantly reduce your risk, but sadly there will always be crooks in finance.

Here are some ways to avoid being the patsy...

1. Check the ASIC register. Melissa wasn’t a registered adviser. 2. Be cautious of sales techniques. The excellent book Influence by Robert Cialdini highlights techniques to influence others. Read this book and avoid those that abuse these techniques. Pressure sales from fake scarcity is a common technique to suck more money into their schemes. If you hear the words, “If you don’t get in now, you’ll miss out,” run away. 3. Be wary of complex schemes. The fallout from the GFC had many complex funds locked up. Many frauds hide behind complexity. Prefer transparent investments. 4. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is. 5. Know what the markets have returned and be wary of extreme results. 6. Overly smooth results can be a red flag. Bernie Maddoff’s results were simply too consistent. 7. High interest rates can mean very high risk. Compare it to mortgage rates. If it is significantly higher, think of how risky it must be. 8. Log in to your account on your platform. Do not accept only a PDF for your account details. 9. Educate yourself. The ASIC website moneysmart.gov.au is great place to start.

At a time when some are shying away from financial advice, the need for good advice is increasing due to increasing wealth. The compliance burden is leading to a significant reduction in the number of advisers. Over two thirds of financial advisers will soon have left the industry. Those that remain have been increasing fees. This is driving many to follow finfluencers for their finance management. There are some great finfluencers, however there are many terrible ones. Some are leading people like sheep into likely disasters such as crypto and speculative companies.

The importance of good financial advice cannot be understated. A good adviser can change your life for the better. We have had clients whose total and permanent disability insurance set them up for a comfortable life, yet without advice they would not have applied for this insurance.

Insurance, asset structuring and estate planning are areas that most know little about yet often have great need for. We have saved hundreds of thousands in tax for a client’s estate due to correct restructuring of their assets. Most think about upside and the good times, few plan for setbacks. Many who manage their own finances are like playing soccer with all forwards, no backs and no keeper. Professional advice can fill these gaps.

Rob Shears is an Authorised Representative of Valor Financial Group (AFSL 405452). This advice is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether the advice is suitable for you and your personal circumstances.

Definitely not a long-term solution.

The Urge

Words Jeremy Ireland Photo Jack Daniels

Winter has arrived, and it seems like it wants to leave its mark. Having managed to dodge COVID thus far, the flu came in full force and smacked me fair across the face. What does one do when confined to the couch? Binge TV, of course. With the trusty remote in one hand, panadol in the other, I flicked through the channels in search of something not too taxing and found a 2019 documentary on Diego Maradona. Despite his achievements, it turned out to be more about the struggles he faced trying to cope with his drug use. Love him or loathe him, the doco really does show the power and brutality when someone finds themselves on that slippery slope of addiction.

The word ‘addiction’ has quite a history. Carl Fisher’s book, The Urge, points out that the term’s original meaning was quite different from where it sits today. Originally, the word ‘addiction’ was used throughout early modern Europe in a religious context, where addiction was to attach oneself to something or someone, giving it both positive and negative connotations. This attachment, more often to an object, was seen during this time to swing more in the positive direction, representing goodness and a way of showing devotion. In this sense the addict was someone who did good.

Today, however, its meaning is very different, with more of a negative connotation and all the stereotypes. Even if one were to say they were addicted to chocolate, it would not necessarily be received in a positive light. If we were to research the term in a psychological fashion you would find that addiction involves having exposure to something, then changing your behaviour to seek and repeat the experience. It all sounds benign so far, but the trouble is that once this pattern of behaviour has been established a habit is formed, which in turn leads to the addiction. If this behavior has negative consequences, then ‘bingo’, the addiction label gets applied.

So, what does this mean for the layperson that finds themselves with an addiction? To answer this qustion I’m prone to ask the guru, Professor Jordan Peterson, but on this topic I find him a little blunt. He states in his first book that if you want to change your life for the better you should “start to stop doing what you know to be wrong”. Well, I’m sorry to say it, but that is kind of obvious. Try telling someone who’s already feeling bad about themselves to stop whatever it is they shouldn’t be doing and they might just tell you to piss off.

Anxiety is an awful feeling, but what we may not know is that it’s a future state. In a general sense we are worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, so to alleviate the pressure we look for other means to quash it. Imagine anxiety as a wave; as the wave approaches, the energy picks up, as does the anxiety. All of us get anxious at some point - it is a natural state - but it’s what we do at the crest of that anxiety wave that can lead us one way or the other. If we ride that wave out in its natural form the energy will eventually dissipate, like whitewash rolling up the sand - the wave has finished, the anxiety reduced. The thing is, if we are uncomfortable at the wave’s crest we could get straight to the sand without having to ride that wave by having a drink or taking a drug. Unfortunately by doing so we are stripping the brain of its natural ability to cope on its own, which means that over time if we keep it up we rewire our brain into the habit of using something artificial to relieve the uncomfortable feeling. Teaching someone to recognise and sit with feeling anxious knowing that the wave naturally dissipates is a start.

Clinging to the back of anxiety is the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is associated with feelings of pleasure. Not surprisinigly, we are prone to want more of it. And here’s the double whammy: in our desire to eliminate bad feelings like anxiety, we do something that artificially makes us feel good (drinking booze, for example). This urge becomes stronger and more dominant and the addictive substance ‘feeds the growth’, leaving one completely reliant on, if not devoted to, the drug’s effect.

Anxiety is just a tiny sliver in the tip of this Titanic sized iceberg. There are many other factors at play including socioeconomic ones that warrant further discussion. I will tackle these in the next edition.

Have you got a question? Please contact Jeremy at bondicounsellingservices.com.

Spectacular beaches, beautiful sunrises, and some of the most stunning residences in Australia...

It's no wonder that the Eastern Suburbs is one of Sydney's most desirable locations to live. It's about feeling at home, wherever you go. So, whether you're moving in, or moving on, call Mary Howell. She will make sure you feel right at home, wherever you are.

MARY HOWELL 0414 400 345 maryhowell@theagency.com.au

Bronte Medical Centre

Bronte Medical Centre is pleased to welcome Dr Debbie Hill to the practice.

Dr Hill has a passion for helping people understand what is happening in their bodies and lives, and working with them to optimise their health in ways relevant to their life.

Her areas of special interest include:

Care of families inc. newborns

Paediatrics

Women ’ s and Men ' s health

Sexual and reproductive health

Adolescent medicine

Dermatology

Preventive health and counselling

Appointments Available:

www.brontemedical.com Ph: 02 9389 4422

Under new management

Emancipate yourself from social slavery.

Delete Instagram, Have Longer Lasting Sex and Learn to Levitate

Words Jay Houhlias Photo Kevin Systrom

By the end of this piece, you should be able to do two of the three things listed in the title (we all know which of the three is impossible, we won’t bother with that one).

Everybody is tired of hearing it, but I’ll take one for team humanity and say it anyway because it needs to be said - we are not smarter than Instagram.

Descending from heaven, George Orwell comes to us with prescient genius in the form of his double think (holding two conflicting beliefs side by side). Mr. Orwell knew, even then, that we would grow to develop a bipolar affliction when it comes to Instagram - we know it’s bad, but we always use it. We know it’s terrible for our mental health, yet we have the arrogance to assume we possess the ability to limit and use it in a healthy manner.

We all criticise Instagram while our addiction to it flies by undetected as we convince ourselves that we are exempt from all its negatives. Instagram’s subtle genius is that it tricks you into thinking you are the only one who uses it healthily. This is because (feel free to pick whichever one applies); you use it for work, you are sponsored and make money from it, you have overseas friends who you keep in contact with, you use it as an information source (lol), you use it to vet potential dates, you use it to validate your social status - you use it because it’s bloody obvious and you shouldn’t need to explain yourself to anyone, so screw you or any other fake enlightened person for implying I have a problem with it!

The truth is, Instagram does all these things, and it does them well. It, like all other social media platforms, is a remarkable technology. No one ever said it wasn’t. The point is not to say that Instagram doesn’t have any utility or benefit. The point is that despite that utility and those benefits, a life without it is better - but you still sacrifice a lot when you delete your Instagram. Rather than pretending like you don’t care about it and saying you never use it (but still obsess over it), how about you respect it for the technology that it is and make a conscious decision to live your life without it.

Now, do not mistake deleting Instagram for one of those rubbish ‘cleanses’ (the very fact that you need to cleanse means you have something dirty to cleanse from). A week off Instagram is not a cleanse, it’s just temporary abstinence. All you’re doing is recharging your batteries so you’re virile and ravenous for Instagram again when the week is over. I have never known someone who goes on a ‘cleanse’ that ends up committing to deleting it properly. Instead, they cleanse for a week, they preach about how good they feel, then when the week is over they are back getting dirty again.

So, without further ado, here is the three-step process to do the aforementioned in the title. Wait until you have a moment of absolute certainty (f*ck it, I’m deleting Instagram!), but instead of rationalising yourself out of it like you always do, just go out on a whim and delete it - two minutes of stupid, irrational courage is all it takes. You’ll regret it immediately after, but you already deleted it, so there is nothing you can do about it now. Train yourself. This is the hard part. Now that Instagram is gone, you must train your life without it. This means no stalking, no judging, no silly messages, no online politics. Your brain will adjust, and it will gradually start to see actual human beings and their personalities which, low and behold, will be the only way to gauge who someone is. *Just note, if you spend three hours a day on Instagram and then you delete it, it doesn’t mean you gain an extra three hours a day; your brain will find something else dumb to waste that three hours on.

Jump very high, and when midair, assume a crossed-legged position. Hope for the best and really focus hard - try to not come back to the ground.