This Sporting Life (radio Program) - Humour and Terms

Humour and Terms

Much of Roy and HG's comedy is topical, poking fun at current sporting news, the foibles, ego trips and media gaffes of sporting, film and music stars, and the often risible phraseology used by sporting writers and commentators.

Doyle and Pickhaver also interweave their dialogue with a colourful and uniquely Australian form of linguistic comedy that often verges on the obscene, although they very rarely use "four-letter words" unless particularly enraged.

Over the years they have coined many memorable parodic words and terms, while others revive archaic expressions from their youth, and many have since entered the vernacular in Australia.

Many listeners will be familiar with the TSL lexicon, which includes words and phrases such as:

• "bed flute" or simply "flute" -- the male sex organ
• "bugger-all to the power of less" -- nothing
• "bush-junk" -- useless native or introduced wild animals, suitable only for shooting
• "date" -- anus
• "dwahl" -- a slump in sporting form or a period of poor performance
• "football head" -- the Zen-like focus or mindset required to play a good game of footy; underperforming players are often described as not having their football head on
• "half dream room, the" -- an unconscious state, usually derived from a concussion; HG often claimed certain players were at their best when playing concussed
• "horizontal folk dancing" -- sexual intercourse
• "pillow" -- a pejorative term, signifiying that a player (typically in Rugby League or ARL) lacks the necessary level of aggression and/or masculinity, which probably derives from the Australian slang term "pillow-biter" (homosexual)
• "(Planet) Koozbane" -- a perennial Nelson-ism applied to sportspersons who have been stunned by a heavy blow, fall or tackle. The term is believed to derive from the name of the home planet of the alien puppet characters featured on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street
• "love-tap" -- a blow inflicted on another player (usually during League or ARL games) without the intention of inflicting serious harm
• "night-tools" -- genital organs
• "night-tool work" -- sexual intercourse
• "room of mirrors, the" -- a metaphorical mirror-lined room to which players are (or should be) banished for a period of time, in order to renew their motivation by "taking a long, hard look at themselves"
• "set of seven" -- one week, in reference to the expression "set of six" (tackles) from Rugby League
• "sloop" -- penis; the organ is said to be "pointing north" when erect
• "stink" -- a fight
• "Sweet Science, The" -- boxing
• "yips, the" -- a grave condition that adversely affects the performance of professional golfers

The duo are well known for their lengthy, hyperbolic dissertations on the characters of sporting and cultural identities. Roy is renowned for his long-winded and extremely colourful demolition of almost every conceivable aspect of the personality and performance of a sports star with whom he is displeased.

He will often describe the subject as "a hopeless joke", and declare that they are a fool to him/herself and to his/her family, state and country of origin; this climactic phase of his analysis is usually delivered at the top of his voice. Yet, paradoxically, Roy almost invariably concludes these harangues with quiet, amiable remarks on what a nice person the subject is, how much he likes them, and how much he or she has contributed to their particular field of endeavour. This can also be reversed such as when commentating the first Melbourne Grand Prix he praised the track as "the best in the world... superior to Monza, Spa and Hockenheim" which were all "rubbish". When there was a big crash on the first corner he claimed the track was to blame because it was "a joke".

Although usually more concise than Roy, and typically taking the role of presenter/interviewer who sets out the subject and poses questions for Roy to comment on, HG Nelson has his own unique and colourful editorial style. On many occasions he has described decisions or innovations with which he disagrees as "a hastily cobbled-together farrago". He once promised that he would "walk nude down George Street with a pie on my head" if the outcome of a sporting fixture did not match his prediction, and during one especially memorable rant he denounced golfer Greg Norman as:

"... a hapless water buffalo, wallowing around in the swamp, waiting for the safari to wander by and finish him off".

In his roundup of the 2006 Melbourne Cup, Nelson described the unusual hat he had worn to the event, which was fashioned in the form of a miniature chicken-processing factory, and which automatically dispensed tiny chickens for "the kiddies". The duo have also long been advocates of the concept of employing "celebrity shooters" at racing fixtures—i.e. hiring well-known personalities to 'put down' horses that are badly injured during races and in 2008 they energetically promoted the concept of a national pig-shoot for peace.

TV programming is another favourite target for duo's satire. Responding to the growth in realty TV progamming, Roy suggested several innovative new programmes including "Celebrities With Gastric" and "Celebrity Horses With Gastric".

Cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman has long been a target of the duo's satire, and it is now well established—at least according to Roy & HG—that Bradman was a spy for the Japanese during World War II. They have also deduced that, in his twilight years, "The Don" was locked in a shed at the back of his house in Bowral, NSW and forced to sign millions of items of all descriptions in order to capitalise on the inevitably lucrative market in Bradman memorabilia that would emerge after his death.