SO back-to-back Newcastle 500 winner Scott McLaughlin thinks he can fit somewhere north of 40 McNuggets inside his Supercars championship trophy. He's not sure, he didn't count 'em.
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I'd certainly rather watch a winner trying to down those things - the exact chemical composition of which remains a mystery to science - in one gulp than see another motor sport winner drinking from a shoe. That gross ritual appears to be a particularly common act on the podium among those who burn rubber for a living.
During the 20th century, drinking champagne from a lady's slipper became a shorthand for decadence and sophistication. Now drinking from a shoe is shorthand for being as Aussie as sunburn.
The "shoey" is surely the main contender for the crassest act in contemporary sport, although the general acceptance of male cricketers and footballers in all codes and at all levels to retrieve something from the bottom of their lungs and lob it anywhere on the field is a close second. Using the sports field as a spittoon seems nothing these days, although if you did the same thing on the Bathers Way you'd probably find yourself in the middle of a mob who look like they just bussed in from frown town.
But back to ScoMac. The race winner I mean, not the former Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter whose videoed run toward Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison at the opening of the Return and Earn at the BP Thornton in February 2018 - while flapping his arms like an ephedrine-fueled Ronald McDonald trying to take flight - keeps him eternally in my heart and mind. It's worth a look if you missed it. Hopefully the video will remain forever etched on the website of the Maitland Mercury and kiddies around the globe can look at when they feel sad.
I do miss that tireless servant of the Hunter, fighting for us every day and every night and doing his best to ensure local Labor MPs were shooed away from ribbon cuttings. I particularly miss his breakneck nodding - when a news camera showed up - behind Gladys B and Andy C when they came to the city to ride the light rail and to remind us how lucky we are for their gifts to the city.
Is it a coincidence that we don't have a Parliamentary Secretary and we haven't seen much of Gladys B or Andy C? I think not. It's a tragedy. An absolute tragedy. I so miss that agitated nodder.
But back to the other ScoMac - the car race winner one - and the 40-or-so McNuggets. "It was a self-inflicted big night," the winner of the Newcastle 500 told the Newcastle Herald.
Fair enough. Bloke wins a race, it's the end of the season, so he has a big night. If that's all that happened, it wouldn't warrant a Royal Commission. But it's what else he said that got the steam coming out of the ears of this correspondent.
"We went to King Street McDonald's.
"It's an absolute dive, but we went there and filled both trophies with whatever we could . . ."
Excuse me? Am I hallucinating?
Did ScoMac, the race car driver one - who was a guest of this city that gave all that mob the keys to the city and a big welcome and a flyover - call one of Newcastle's most significant cultural institutions an absolute dive? Not just a dive. An absolute dive?
Them's fighting words, champ.
We are not wearing that.
You come here with your fancy circus and the good burghers of this wonderful city endure closed streets and the children can't get to the beach and dogs cry and we drop ratepayer money in the kitty so you can win a fancy trophy, and yet you still have the gall to call King Street Maccas "an absolute dive"?
What's next Scott McLaughlin? Gonna take a shot at our biggest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the southern hemisphere? Perhaps a snarky dig at the first KFC drive-through only restaurant in Australia featuring five stalls accompanied by an easy-to-use app? Is Henny Penny in your sights?
We will never accept outsiders coming here and running down our fast food palaces.
We will never accept outsiders coming here and running down our fast food palaces that have graciously served millions of Novocastrians after a self-inflicted big night.
Let those among us who have not struggled with the first rays of a new day's light from the vantage point of King Street Maccas cast the first stone.
However, none shall. That's because Novocastrians understand and appreciate our culture, our struggles, our history.
But mostly our fast food.