I'd rather visit the city...

TWO things brought the name Paris Hilton to my attention recently. Well, three actually, but the third wasn’t anything new.
The first was the appearance of a rather interesting caricature of Ms Hilton on that bastion of family values, South Park.
For those who weren’t lucky(?) enough to be watching, or were doing the patriotic thing and watching Lleyton Hewitt get through in five against some Spanish dude, it really was a far better piss-take of Hilton than most of us would even dare to think about.
In it, Hilton went to South Park to open her latest "Stupid Spoiled Whore" franchise, where young girls can by the clothes and makeup to make them look like whores as well. Not only this, discerning shoppers could also buy their own amateur sex-video playsets.
Which brings us to the number two Hilton moment - apparently she went to a newsstand in the good ol’ US of A, bought some magazines, got her change, noticed a copy of her very own home movie for sale, threw the change back at the guy behind the counter, took the tape and said she wasn’t paying.
Wow.
The final Hilton reminder was in a book by an English cricket commentator.
Eh?
BBC commentator Henry Blofeld put out a book called "Henry Blofeld’s Cricket Year". Rather imaginatively titled, and a bargain down the local second-hand book shop here in Cooma.
In it, Blofeld described one of the Hilton hotels (in Trinidad I think) as being overpriced and overrated.
Funnily enough, I happen to have the same feelings about young Paris and her sister Nicky.
Ok, probably not overpriced, but they really are overrated.
Paris’ sole attempt at working seems to have been to go on a show with Lionel Ritchie’s daughter Nicole on "A Simple Life", where the two of them attempt to live in the real world.
Actually, no, there’s a book about how to behave like an heiress. I had a peek in a bookstore once and given the lack of women without a) clothes or b) four tonnes of makeup, put it back down and ran to the sports section.
Yet tell most young men (including those closely related to myself) that you really don’t rate Paris Hilton, the standard response is "you must like the other one then".
Nope.
That’s not to say that if one of them took their clothes off laid down on the bed in front of you and said "take me, I’m yours", you wouldn’t proceed to do so - if only so you could say that you f**ked one of the Hilton’s.
Yet this seems to be way of the world today (I can’t comment on before today because as anyone will tell you, I was only born yesterday).
People are more widely feted because they fit certain guidelines - thus we know more about Paris Hilton than new Australian of the Year Fiona Wood (sadly, I had to look that one up), Michael Kasprowicz doesn’t get the credit he deserves because he’s taken Brett Lee’s place in the Test side, and Australian Idol finalists get coverage when they get done for drink-driving.
Paris Hilton - over-blonde, over-madeup, over-rated. I’m over it.

Yada yada yada...

IN last Sunday’s Sun-Herald, there was an interesting article in one of the many magazines that fall out at inopportune times.
This article was about a group in Melbourne called "Reclaim the Pants", which basically consists of a group of blokes sitting down at a pub, having a feed and a few drinks, and basically talking crap.
If this doesn’t endear you to them (and believe me it sounded good already), then their creed would surely appeal to most Australian men.
"I believe in a world where no one has to get up off their fat arse, where empty pontifications are duly admired, where the principle of all-talk-no-action prevails, and where these truths are held to be self-evident, so help me God."
Spectacular, isn’t it?
The best thing about this group is that you have to have a y chromosome to join in. If you’re not male, you’re not going.
To me it sort of seems like a sporting club for those that don’t get the chance to play sport for one reason or another.
In the sporting clubs I’ve played for, after training or after the game is always a great time to sit with your mates and talk absolute shit.
Not pretend shit, or that serious, semi-non-humorous talk that you have to do when the missus is around, but pure, unadulterated shit.
Because let’s face it, men do talk a lot of shit when they’re together.
An example in the article was about which was Spandau Ballet’s greatest hit - Gold or True (the first-mentioned was way better).
And that’s basically what we do.
Sure, there’s always the occasional period of introspection that happens when one of your number is going through a bad time, but the rest of it is basic nothingness.
This is actually quite a good thing - crapping on about the differences between Warney and Magilla or who is the best-looking of the pop princesses gallivanting around the place sure beats sitting at home moping because the footy doesn’t start until some other garbage finishes.
For some of us, talking shit is the best way we have of releasing the stresses that modern life seems to throw at us.
There was going to be more, but I’ve just realised the Tsunami Appeal cricket match is on, and Ricky Ponting and Brian Lara are batting against Muttiah Muralitharan.
Good thing to watch, crap thing to cause it.