Toddlers

My twin boys are toddlers, and they do and say funny stuff. Like...

Big Bash League Ladder Prediction

I really didn't care about BBL1 and BBL2, but then BBL3 was on free-to-air television every night for six weeks, and suddenly I found it very interesting. There is probably a lesson there for sport leagues on the margins of mainstream public consiousness – I'm looking at you A-League and Super Rugby.

By BBL4 I'd even decided which of the artificial Sydney-based franchises with ugly uniforms I'd support – go Sixers!

Now I'm so comfortably on the bandwagon I'm going to try and predict the final ladder positions of each team in BBL5, which seems absurd given the unpredictability of Twenty20 cricket and the short length of the regular season. But it can't go worse than my NRL predictions.

Top Five Things I Wrote Before This Blog Existed

I launched this blog in January 2015, instantly capturing the hearts, minds and clicks of dozens of friends with my captivating prose they could readily skim through in seconds, yet claim to have read in full, so they seemed politely interested in my new hobby.

It's now hard to remember a time when I wasn't a successful and influential voice in the blogosphere, shaping modern opinion and events on a myriad of important subjects, but if I cast my mind back eleven or twelve months, that time does in fact exist as a hazy memory.

And it turns out, I still wrote things!

They are on Facebook, and from probably hundreds of status updates, I've managed to identify five that are okay, I guess.

Here they are in reverse chronological order:

All The Hats I've Eaten

The 2016 SMH Good Food Guide was released a few weeks back.

When I tallied it up, I've been to twenty of the current hatted restaurants.

Here's a few words on all of them:

Ranking All The Current Australian Cricketers

Following Australian cricket used to be relatively simple. Your typical summer would have 12 or 13 Test cricketers, and maybe an additional half dozen cricketers for the one dayers, either to replace the Test specialists or as cover to give players a rest. There were a maximum twenty players in the mix at any one time.

It's not so simple now. There are now three cricket formats and I reckon across them Australia now typically uses 30 to 40 cricketers over a summer. There are quite possibly more current cricketers that have represented Australia - or at least made a national squad - than there are mere state players.

You've changed, man!

So here's a helpful guide to literally all of them. Number 81 is my favourite.

Infrequently Asked Questions About Twins

A few months ago, a Facebook post went viral with responses to frequently asked questions directed towards parents of twins.

I wish I came up with it.

The Latest and Best Review of the NRL Grand Final You Will Ever Read

It was the best of the times, it was the Thurst of times... the Grand Final was a phenomenal game. It was close, fast, both teams prepared to attack, both teams defending brilliantly, with an ending you couldn't script. The NRL even managed to deliver decent pre-game entertainment!

The match itself has been recapped and reviewed at great length, so I won't be doing that. My favourite summary is this one. Instead, here are four things you may not have read elsewhere: