Boxing on Foxtel  Thursday 29 April
Random surfing on Foxtel discovered live boxing on one of the sports channels for one of the middleweight titles between Rubin 'Mr Hollywood' Williams, an American from Detroit and Australian boxer 'Lock & Load' Les Sherrington, who has his sponsors names and phone numbers texta-ed, if not tattooed, on his back. Sherrington entered the auditorium, somewhere on the Gold Coast, preceded by a rapper performing a song about him. Very medieval, like a herald introducing a knight or something even older. Homer, Troy?

In any case, a male singer, someone called AJ The Entertainer, sang The Star Spangled Banner to a backing track, cribbing the words off a card in his hand, and then a young, very petite, female singer, Deb Sage, warbled her way through Advance Australia Fair unaccompanied. A thin little voice, more or less in tune, but I suspect that she was holding herself back from adding  lots of wobbly bits at the end of each line. The audience joined in enthusiastically, including the barely dressed and well endowed young woman holding an Australian flag in the ring. A 5/10 performance

I was still writing this when Sherrington won the fight in the fourth round,opening up a big cut over the eye of Williams. Fascinating theater, in a strangely disturbing way.