Milk flowing, pubs bubbling, Shark evisceration imminent: Good times in C-Town, baby

The people of Canberra are as one: how nice that it's stopped raining. And Up The Milk! And The Milk book! And many other things. It's NRL Round 1, friend, and in a vexed world this is all to the good

The People!

Good day to you.

I come to you from Green Land itself, the fine city of Canberra, in the tense and pregnant moments just 24 hours before the ritual evisceration of visiting Cronulla Sharks.

And the joint is ready to rumble.

Maybe not rumble. It’s Canberra not the streets of Kyiv, a pox upon you Vladimir you crazy great louse.

But there is a buzz in the air ahead of Friday night’s National Rugby League round one fixture, particularly as the sun has come out for the first time since 1972.

Big Match Preview (just for paid subscribers who outlay $1.15 per week to keep the author in foam of flat white, and those who’d spend $1.92 per week to also receive a signed copy of The Milk, join us and we can be heroes, and so on) to follow in the bottom half of this missive.

In the meantime, news of The Milk is this: it is bubbling.

Had a cracking launch on Sunday at the Kingston Hotel and heard informative and very funny yarns by Raiders old boys Ash Gilbert, Chris O’Sullivan, Mark Bell and Darrel McDonald, with a cameo from local media hound and impossibly youthful man Phil ‘Elvis’ Small.

Nick ‘Raider Nick’ Risteski was MC and did a bang-up job, and you could listen to him at his ‘Nick at Night’ podcast, the man knows many things, possibly all the things.

Darrel McDonald (right) slaying ‘em as Ashley Gilbert (left) and Mark Bell (centre) roll in aisles. Pic: The Greenhouse.

Phil Small (foreground) with Raiders old boys (l-r) Darrel McDonald, Mark Bell, Ashley Gilbert, Chris O’Sullivan. Milk author Matt Cleary and MC Nick ‘Raider Nick’ Risteski. Pic: Pat Spinney.

Signed a few books, had a few beers, enjoyed a sensational medium-rare sirloin with pepper sauce, and met a few fans, a couple of whom asked that I sign their jerseys, perhaps mistaking me for a drunk Irish cousin of Ivan Cleary’s, or something.

Regardless, it was a cracking day out, and we’ve got another one, of sorts, coming up at King O’Malley’s on Friday before the footy. It’ll be a more casual affair, just few beers, footy chat, book signing and sales. We’ll be there from 3pm, and you - yes, you, in particular - are invited.

Caption ideas for what’s going on in Ashley Gilbert’s and/or Chris O’Sullivan’s head as Milk author Matt Cleary gibbers at the Launch welcome. Pic: The Greenhouse.

In other news of news, did a stint on 2CC breakfast radio with Stephen Cenatiempo - and you can listen to 5 minutes and 28 seconds of radio gold here:

Also spent an enjoyable hour and 14 minutes with the lads from the Green Machine Podcast, and you could bung the ear pods in and go for a long walk and listen to these people as follows.

Also had a chat with Jimmy Smith on SEN, it was good.

So yes. It’s been a week of beers and press and fine flowing Milk here in the Capital which will enjoy a cracking game of footy Friday night followed by the Black Opal and Canberra Cup race meetings, I will need to go back to work for a rest.

Right! Avert your eyes non-payers, or get yourself a subscription and/or book because the following Big Match Preview is for the contributors of $1.15 per week who will be heading, in their mind’s eye, to GIO Stadium on Friday night where …