Little escape from Aussie anthem flu

SYDNEY - Get ready for anthem flu.

Don't be fooled by stories of champion Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe being out of the Commonwealth Games with bronchial problems. He's been struck with anthem anxiety.

That's an early symptom of full-blown anthem flu. Another is anthemophobia, where sufferers foam at the mouth at the first two bars of Advance Australia Fair.

Anthem flu is about to run rife in Australia. New Zealanders, due to their proximity, won't be immune. It will affect the whole Commonwealth in varying degrees.

And there will be next to no escape.

Betting agencies in Australia are predicting the host country will win close to 100 gold medals at the Games.

That's a century of renditions of "Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free ..." and some torturous phrases thereafter.

While the Thorpedo has already gone down with the flu, Australian sports fanatics are not paying attention to the devastating effects of anthem flu, believing he has bronchitis.

That has caused its own anxiety problems. Thorpe was considered a home run for a handful of gold - without him and Grant Hackett, Australia's male presence in the pool is looking limp.

Thorpe's mere absence has caused mourning on the scale of Phar Lap's death and Bradman's golden duck.

Courier-Mail newspaper Mike Colman put it like this.

"U2 is playing in Melbourne next week ... but Bono won't be with them. The movie Capote will be on show at the same time ... but all the scenes with Philip Seymour Hoffman will be cut.

"Pick any analogy you like.

"With Ian Thorpe pulling out yesterday, the Melbourne Commonwealth Games are a pub with no beer. Put purely and simply, Australia's biggest sporting event of the year has lost its marquee attraction."

Unfortunately for Colman, U2 pulled out its Melbourne and other antipodean concerts the next day. Perhaps they got wind of anthem flu.

Foxtel in Australia has seven different Games channels offering wall-to-wall sport. It is promoting, among other specials, 100 hours of badminton.

If the Aussies don't get facial tics trying to keep a straight face singing so often that their home is girt by sea, they'll go cross-eyed watching shuttlecocks fly back and forth across their screens.

- NZPA