Sunny days, at Mike Bailey's trivia fundraiser

Mike Bailey and Senator John Faulkner give me the inside word on the best strip clubs to visit whilst in the US.

Willis and I went down to our local to take part in our first ever political party fundraiser. Mike Bailey - former ABC TV weather man, full-time amateur comedian, and now Labor candidate for the Federal seat of North Sydney - was having a bit of a trivia night.

I've blogged about Mike's race to Canberra before and with an election likely for late November, Mike needs all the support he can get (we're on a first name basis now by the way). There were a heap of people there - 38 tables in fact - a mixture of old stodgy Labor hardcores, and new-wave filthy socialist university arts students. And Willis & I. He's stodgy and I'm in the filthy socialist camp.

Willis and I settled into a few schooners, introducing ourselves to our table - a trivia master, a chemist, a man with anger-management problems, his wife, a super-intelligent woman who thought she was playing 'Fast Money' all night and her unassuming husband who secretly wanted to pants Ricky Ponting.

Highlights include:

• Anger-management constantly putting his wife and others in their place
• Anger-management's wife subsequently getting drunk to deal with her husband's shit
• Anger-management's comments to Willis and I that we needed to start pulling our weight
• Our Latin team name - 'Cogitamus', meaning "we are thinking"
• Our conversation with Senator John Faulkner after the proceedings - he used the words "bastards", "crooks", "criminals" and "the worst kinds of humans" when referring to the current government, then told us encouragingly to "keep up the struggle"
• Finding out that Mike Bailey's son is named Mike Bailey
• Willis adopting the pseudonym 'Ric Biggs', even if only for a short while
• Mid-week beers with Willis, after a particularly difficult day

Our table was extremely competitive, leading for most of the night, only to come second to Table 27 in the final round. At the height of the frustration, two members from my table staged a protest with Senator Faulkner over when the most recent King of England was crowned. Apparently he was announced King in 1936, but was crowned the following year...contentious stuff. Here's a video of the incident:



I've just sent off a friend request to Joe Hockey on Facebook, asking whether he'll be holding any fundraising evenings as part of his campaign. Willis and I will also be looking to attend an event from each of the different candidates for our electorate in the lead-up to the election.

The wonders of capitalist democracy!