Wednesday, 17 June, 2020
Women’s sports teams on top; toad vomit tablets; who wants a holiday to nowhere?; and Kayln Ponga signs up.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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The results are in … and Australia’s national female sporting teams have emerged the clear winners in a popularity contest with their male counterparts.
A survey measuring the popularity of national sporting teams among Aussies has found that the Australian Women’s Cricket Team is the number one, followed closely by the Aussie women’s soccer team, the Matildas.
Swinging into third place is the Australian women’s rugby sevens team, closely followed in fourth place by the Diamonds – our national netball team.
The survey asked almost 5000 Australians and New Zealanders which teams made them feel the most pride, had earned their respect and gave them the most enjoyment.
Australian men’s national teams didn’t do nearly as well as the women’s teams.
The men’s T20 team was top ranked among the blokes, as the country’s fifth most popular team. With sixth, seventh and eighth spots being taken out by the Boomers (our basketball boys), the Aussie men’s Test cricket team and our national rugby league team, the Kangaroos.
And while in New Zealand, the All Blacks won the popularity contest hands down – here in Oz their rugby playing counterparts the Wallabies came in at comparatively miserable number 13. Their report card still reads: must work harder.
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Isaac Newton is one of the most celebrated mathematicians and physicists of all time. Born in 1642, he was responsible for some of the greatest scientific achievements of his time – including his famous laws of motion and Newton’s law of gravity. But as a medical expert – his ideas left a lot to be desired. Take for example the auction that is taking place in the UK this week of several pages of Newton’s diary in which he sets out the recipe for toad vomit lozenges as a cure for the plague. The plague was a nasty disease that swept Europe and killed millions. Newton reckoned that if you ate tablets made out of dried toad vomit, it would cure you of the plague. It didn’t. And you thought taking cough medicine was bad…
SPIN THE GLOBE
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Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops … and today we have landed in Taiwan … where an airport is offering 90 lucky people the chance to go on a fake holiday.
Winners of this most interesting competition will be able to go to the airport, go through security, board a plane – that doesn’t take off – then get off again and come back through immigration and passport control.
Why? I hear you ask? Who can say? The airport’s owners say it’s a good way to remind people what it’s like to travel. Except, they don’t.
We’ll file this one under weird and wacky.
SPORT TIME!
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Rugby league star Kayln Ponga yesterday signed on the dotted line with his beloved Newcastle Knights, agreeing to stay with the club for another four years and in the process signing a contract that makes him one of the highest paid players in the game. Not bad for a 22 year-old.
Meanwhile, Victorian footy fans were yesterday celebrating the announcement that the VFL and VFLW would both be returning to competition in the coming weeks. An eight team VFL competition will kick off on August 1, while a four-team VFLW ‘Super Series’ has been announced for September.
Because too much footy is barely enough.
POP CULTURE CORNER
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Going to see a band play live was one of the great experiences of life, pre-COVID. And with restrictions set to continue for the time being on the number of people allowed to congregate in an enclosed space – it might be a while before bands are able to tour again.
Which is why a bunch of music festivals and live band performances will take place in the next month or so at drive-ins around the country.
A drive-in is a place you park your car in front a huge screen to go and watch a movie. They were big in the 60s and 70s. Now they’re being reimagined so people can sit inside their cars and watch a band playing on a stage in front of them. There’s the Airwaves festival on the Sunshine Coast and The Drive In festival being planned for Melbourne’s Flemington racecourse. Not quite the same as being jostled to the beat of a song in the middle of a sweaty crowd. But hey: these are interesting times we live in.
ROSIE’S RECIPES
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Every Wednesday, we stick our head into the Squiz Kids kitchen to see what Rosie’s been cooking this week.
And a big thank you to 11 year-old Squiz Kid, Harper, who has sent in a scrum-diddly-umptious recipe this week for Rosie to try.
It’s called Peanut Butter Chocolate Bark – and tastes every bit as delicious as it sounds. It’s sweet, it’s savoury. It involves two of Rosie’s favourite food groups …. chocolate and peanut butter.
The recipe plus photos of the process and finished product are all on the Squiz Kids website.
Don’t forget: if you have a favourite recipe that YOU like to cook that you’d like Rosie to try… AND to feature in this segment – be sure to send it to: [email protected].
THE S’QUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- Which Aussie women’s sporting team has just topped a nationwide popularity poll?
- What’s the name of the famous English mathematician who came up with the idea of gravity .. and toad vomit lozenges?
- Name the Newcastle Knights player who’s just signed a very lucrative four year contract?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s June 17 … the birthday of tennis ace Venus Williams, rapper Kendrick Lamar and Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice … It’s also Iceland’s National Day – so a perfect day to eat putrefied shark, which is a delicacy there. Not even joking.
It’s also a big day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today … Kalliya from Abbotsford, Zoe, Luca and Kane from Melbourne, Cruize from Port Kennedy, Chloe from St Helens Park, Hayley from Brisbane, Hannah from Fairlight, Addison from Sunnybank Hills, Billy and Lucas from Perth, Zachary from Adelaide, Adrian and Levin from Sydney, Alyse from North Sydney, Claude from Cammeray, Liddy and Elizabeth from Wagga Wagga, Danielle from Ashmont, Humza from Birrong, Timothy from Woodhill, Craig from Noosa, Jeff from Narraweena, Eliza from Queensland and Rosie all the way from Tokyo, Japan.
And some belated birthday shoutouts… Nakeisha from Ashmont, Caitlin from Nundle, Ethan from Greystanes and Josie from Palm Beach.
Happy birthday to you all.
Today’s classroom shoutouts: 3/4M from Bathurst Public School, Year 3 and 4 at Blackwell Public School, Year 4 at East Fremantle Primary School, and Calrossy Anglican School in Tamworth.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- The Australian Women’s Cricket Team
- Isaac Newton
- Kalyn Ponga