“SPIT & POLISH” – By Des Kelly

It started for me, at home. My Dad, Carlo, God bless his Soul, always believed that his shoes had to be polished, looked after, and well worn. He was a past Senior Cadet at his Alma Mater, which was Royal College, in Colombo, & was always recognised for his very smart uniform, down to his boots which always had a mirror finish. Later on, after he married Mum (R.I.P. Lyn.), & we started to come along,

he carried on the tradition, did not want to go out to parties, movies, or anywhere, for that matter, in his spare time.

All he wanted to do, (much to our satisfaction), was to stay home, listen to the music he loved, on our old Gramaphone & clean & POLISH our shoes. He actually took pleasure in doing this, would line up the various pairs of shoes, polish, brushes, & plenty of spare rags around him, ending up with shoes that were old ones looking new again. I will never forget what he, quite often told us. “No matter how well you dress, you do not look right unless your shoes look good on you. Remember that”.!!

Now, getting down to the next reason, bar one, for this story. Also, in the Ceylon I remember, there were “those” who would chew betel leaves complete with certain additives, chew”, chew, and then SPIT a sickening reddish sputum, anywhere they chose to. They did not spit At you, but it was just too bad if you were in the way. Even if, as they say, in Country songs, you were feeling so blue, & didn’t know what to do, you would then go home to bed, looking rather red, Well, because the sputum sludge, was hard to budge, shower as you may, until another day. Can’t help it folks, after all, I am a song-writer.

So here we go, for the real reason for this story.

If ever there was”Breaking News”, this is it. Covid 19, Corona Virus, or any bloody thing you want to call it, (I am so sick of hearing this medical term on television, I have now decided to simply shorten the word to the letters C.V.).

C.V., you have done it again. I congratulate you.

The A.C,B.(Australian Cricket Board), in it’s wisdom, has decided that, in addition to not scratching it’s balls with sandpaper, spit can no longer be used by bowlers in order to clean their balls, either on or off the field. From now on, balls can only be cleaned on the trousered legs of our Bowlers. This is a very good thing. C.V. has seen to that.

However, my advice to SportsMen, in general, as I have never noticed a SportsWoman do this, is PLEASE DESIST from SPITTING on your given Arenas, AT ALL. I have seen this happen many times and consider it a filthy practice.

Please go into your dressing rooms, place a brass “Spitting Bowl” in a corner somewhere, take aim, and spit as much as you want to. The only alternative is to swallow your own spit. What is so bad about that ?, it would lubricate your own throat and possibly stop you getting a dry cough which is generally associated with C.V. I rest my briefcase.

Desmond Kelly