God Forbid A Queenslander Goes To A Pub While On Tour

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

There is confusion this week across Queensland after one of our favourite sons has been chastised by sanctimonious media types and old people in ill-fitting polo shirts that seem to always be involved in swimming for some reason.

Instead of spending the last night of the Commonwealth Games swimming competition in the stands, Olympic bronze medallist and current 50m backstroke world champion Isaac Cooper went to the pub and engaged in some good old-fashioned power drinking.

"He should be in the stands, cheering his teammates on," one Commonwealth Games spokesperson, in an ill-fitting polo shirt, told The Advocate today.

"Instead, he was out in Glasgow hammering pints of Tennent's at pubs all over Glasgow. It's not the kind of behaviour we expect from one of our senior swim team leaders. We've asked him to stand down from that position."

Sections of the media were also quick to point out that Cooper is over there on taxpayer money to "win medals and show our Commonwealth brother-cousins how to 'fuck with the lights on'," not go on some indulgent pub crawl with his mates.

The Advocate's crosstown rival, the News Corp-owned Betoota Bugle, is calling for Cooper to face a press conference where journalists can harangue and pass judgement on the 22-year-old curly-haired dolphin from Bundaberg.

What they don't understand is that to be an elite swimmer, you have to be at least 20% fucked in the head. You spend hours, thousands and thousands of hours, in a fucking pool looking at a tiled black line. Alone. Underwater. That's too much time for someone's brain to be alone. On top of that, you're flogging yourself silly, pushing your heart and lungs further than 99% of the population would ever push theirs. And they expect these people to act in a rational, predictable way. These people aren't robots; they're just people who fucking love going fast through water and being very smooth to the touch. Unless you're one of them, you just won't understand.

God forbid a Queenslander go to a pub while on tour. Who cares if we're paying for it? It's a better use of our money than some wanker submarine or premium mince for Toto Albanese.

More to come.