Cash splashed, just as I asked of our MPs

IT was the day after the state government had delivered its latest budget.
They do it every year. Boring, boring.
Okay, I understand that a budget just before an election can be a bit juicier.
And I have been the one imploring our local MPs to throw Queensland into extreme debt for the benefit of Logan.
Which, as hindsight would have it, they seem to have acknowledged in emphatic fashion. More buses, more frontline health workers, a few discounts here and there, and a bit more other stuff that will help groups of people other than me.
We’ve got what we wanted, and the red team will depart knowing they’ve splashed the cash in the right neighbourhood. My neighbourhood.
Our current leader, 500 Miles can spend as much time as he likes with Bluey, dunk into as many ice baths at Brisbane Lions games as he wants, and he can keep that hairy chest protruding from his unbuttoned shirt.
But even the image experts can’t change past perception. While I like to think people can in fact change their ways over time, the 360-degree turn from Queen P bulldog to baby-kissing nice guy has come a little too quickly for people to trust.
So, here I was polishing my bowls, innocently preparing for a game of mixed triples.
Nora is our skipper which means she stands at the other end, around 20 metres away from me.
I can hear her trumpeting her inappropriate rants, but at least they won’t be directly into my ear which is more than I can say for afternoon tea where she’s likely to push me into a corner and breathe denture cleanser into my face.
All the while she’ll be spitting ill-informed tales about how immigrants are ruining the values of our great nation, how truancy could be solved by locking children in a prison cell, and how terrorism is somehow a threat to Wednesday morning mixed triples.
I’ll try to shut down the intermittent racist jokes, and I’ll let her know she should be more subdued in public.
To which she’ll reply: “But you know I’m right, don’t you?”
I’ll point her to some reading where she might become better informed, and I’ll slink away to the bar for a beer I wasn’t initially going to have, but now need.
Ethel is my direct opponent for the day. She and her husband wear matching rainbow scarves, hers around her head, his around his neck.
She doesn’t say much, is very polite, and will always hand me my bowl.
Her fingernails bear dirt, evidence she spends non-bowling days in the garden.
She’ll mutter “Oh Nora” a lot, which keeps me amused.
Then she’ll string a few sentences together about how Nora should spend less time worrying about other people’s affairs, and more time worrying about the planet that will soon be covered in water due to melting glaciers.
Malcolm is also on our rink. He’s driven trucks most of his life.
On the side of his bowls, he has a flag which I argue would have CFMEU painted inside them if it would fit.
He lives week-to-week on a pension and believes beer should be free as a matter of government assistance to battlers.
He’s a gentle soul and not overtly political, but feels there’s a quiet place which should be reserved for Andrew Bolt and his band of fellow Sky News commentators.
Every second word is an expletive, interjected only with apologies for his foul mouth.
It’s an eclectic bunch, yet rarely does an argument erupt. They respect the sanctity of the green, as battle of a different nature plays its course.
I like to think I’m more circumspect. I have my views, yet few of them extreme. Or at least that’s what I like to surmise; considered, considerate, empathetic.
Hey Wanda, you wouldn’t believe what the goons at the club were rattling on about today. What’s that? Did I win? No, we finished up in a draw.