The Australian prime minister Scott Morrison invokes greatest athlete of all time in wild attack on opposition leader.

Two weeks ago, the world’s greatest athlete Kelly Slater slammed the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for his government’s dreadful inaction during calamitous flooding on the country’s north-east coast.

While posting messages from fans about the flooding, Slater wrote, 

“The lack of federal assistance in the flood zones in northern NSW has been nothing short of appalling. The stories from friends are hard to comprehend. But the gathering of local communities has been inspiring to watch from afar. So while the MP @scottmorrisonmp and cohorts pat themselves on the back or poke fun at people who ‘live in the gum trees’, the communities will continue to get on with the tasks at hand in helping their neighbors.”

(The best headline from that imbroglio, I think, was sportbible’s homo-erotic “Surfing Legend Unloads on PM Scott Morrison”).

Now, after launching a bizarre skinny-shaming attack on his political opponent Anthony Albanese, whose dramatic weight loss now allows the former socialist to squeeze into poom poom shots, Morrison, owner of a physique one might accurately describe as hippopotamically fat, concluded with a reference to Slater. 

“I’m not pretending to be anyone else. I’m still wearing the same sunglasses. Sadly, the same suits. I weigh about the same size and I don’t mind a bit of Italian cuisine … I’m not pretending to be anyone else,” Morrison told a forum for Sky News Australia’s Paul Murray Live. “When you’re Prime Minister, you can’t pretend to be anyone else. …I can say I can surf like Kelly Slater but that doesn’t mean I can.”

Slater is yet to respond.

White lightning strikes again?

Now let us each, here, be very honest with each other. How many iconic, truly iconic, surf competitions exist? The Billabong Pro Pipeline, neé Pipeline Masters certainly. And… ? The argument could easily be made that Bells Beach, there on Australia’s southeastern tip, is the only other one.

Cold and gloomy.

Fat and gloomy.

Historically significant.

Well, the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, just days from running on its historically significant Eastern weekend, is just days from running on its historically significant Easter weekend. Who shall be participating? A standard grab bag of Kolohe Andino, Filipe Toledo, Connor O’Leary, etc. Surfers who regularly compete on the World Surf League’s Championship Tour.

Wildcards, though, are given for each and every event and a rumor from a source high up in Rip Curl’s chain of command is declaring that one of this year’s wildcard will be none other than retiree and 3x champion Mick Fanning.

White lightning.

The world’s most loved surfer, who also has launched many yoga studios and beer cans since he has bowed out, will likely come up against a younger, hungry higher seed. Maybe even Kelly Slater himself.

Does this thrill you or just make you wish the World Surf League would launch its master’s division?

Hmmmm.

"It looks like a poop chute."

But what was once a pristine emerald hillock, framed perfectly between open French doors or majestically taking the place of a sliding glass wall, is now a gouged and gashed abomination. A “poop chute” in no way appropriate, scenically, for champagne brunches on the terrace or brandy and cigar aperitifs.

Kirra Hill in Coolangatta and very near many fine surf breaks, surrounded by multi-million dollar luxury condominiums, first became lightly marked over a week ago when champion surfer Joel Parkinson partook in some fun sliding in the aftermath of torrential rains that flooded much of the Gold Coast.

Parkinson, and children, spread much joy as their escapades were featured on the local news but also inspired darker forces. In the following days, semi-adult TikTokers took to the same mound and slid and slid and slid until the 2008 Pipeline Master showed up and told them to knock it off.

The resulting “bust up,” captured by the prepubescent 25-year-olds and posted to social media, divided the whole of Australia, brother fighting brother, sister fighting sister, over who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

Worse still, the apparent fun associated with hill sliding has led to a mass pilgrimage with thousands a day slipping the earth into an ugly eye sore.

“It looks like the stains in a poor man’s underpants,” one neighbor complained.

Privately, the well-heeled who own expensive flats with bluff views, have all sided with Parkinson. The axiom “do as I say, not as I do” is well understood in those circles, the idea of “hypocrisy” as outdated as flying commercial, though they do wish his bubbling rage would have been more respected by the man children.

“He should have made a real lesson out of them,” another neighbor mumbled.

Will Kirra Hill ever recover?

Will it become a den of middle-to-lower-middle-class mud sliders bussing in to squeal like little piggies thereby sending property values on a downward spiral?

More as the story develops.

Calling Ben Gravy.

Hours ago, a 7.3 earthquake rumbled some 35 miles off the coast of Fukushima, Japan triggering much alarm and worry. Fukushima, the historically semi-literate will remember, was site of a nuclear power plant that became extremely damaged then leaky after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the same faulty lines in 2011.

Officials are saying there has been no new damage to the plant though, according to local news, “NHK TV reported that a fire alarm went off at the turbine building of No. 5 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi, while water pumps for the spent fuel cooling pool at two of the four reactors at Fukushima Daini stopped, though there was no immediate risk of overheating.”

The earthquake has also led to an issuing of tsunami warnings that have, in turn, excited surfers who love novelty waves.

Two months ago, an earthquake set off by an underwater volcano caused many such novelty surfers to paddle out leading to embarrassing near drownings in San Francisco. 

Authorities are warning that any attempt to surf a tsunami can be dangerous but also to use soft tops if the urge for oddity is too great to overcome.

“Learn from Ben Gravy,” they say, “not Mason Ho as Mason Ho actually rips. Like, proper rips.”

Smart.