The other permitted discrimination

Note: applies only in Australia, and then mostly west of the Barassi line.

The other permitted discrimination is, as I mentioned over at the Orphange, hating the Collingwood 'Magpies' Football Club. Being a migrant pom I'm not entirely sure why this is so but my wife assures me that it is not only permitted but is actually a condition of visas for permanent residence. I've never checked but I'm sure she wouldn't tell me a porkie just because she supports another team, and it's lent further plausibility by something our PM, Julia Dullard, said last year while campaigning in the general election.

I’m a Western Bulldogs girl, maybe a unity ticket we can be on is we can all hate Collingwood and I think that that’s fair enough isn’t it?

Yes, she really did say that, and obviously that didn't go down well among the large number of Collingwood fans, but she won the election anyway. Sorta, kinda. So in that spirit, and also to amuse James, the Orphanage's resident Geelong fan, I'd like to share something that hit my inbox a couple of footy seasons back.

You know you're a Collingwood Fan when:


1. A Halloween pumpkin has more teeth than your wife.

2. You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.

3. You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.

4. Jack Daniels makes your list of "most admired people."

5. You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean.

6. Someone in your family once died right after saying: "Hey, watch this."

7. You think Dom Perigon is a Mafia leader.

8. A ceiling fan once ruined your wife's hairdo.

9. You think the last words of Advance Australia Fair are: "Carn the Pies."

10. You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded, right off its wheels.

11. The market value of your car goes up and down, depending on how much petrol is in it.

12. You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.

13. One of your kids was born on a pool table.

14. You can't get married to your sweetheart because there's a law against it.

15. You think "loaded dishwasher" means your wife is drunk.

16. Your toilet paper has page numbers on it.

17. Your front verandah collapses and kills more than five dogs.

But give Collingwood their due, whatever else they are they're the Premiers and also playing very good football at the moment. Maybe that's why we're all supposed to hate them.