Last year when Viewed crossed the finish line of the Melbourne Cup and I tore up my TAB tickets, I became suddenly furious.
I was not angry at my personal financial loss, insubstantial and predicted as it was, but at the pictures on my television screen of the various VIPs and officials gathering around the victorious trainer and jockey. These VIPs, who would once have stood gloved and top-hatted, now wore red Emirates baseball caps to present the 'Emirates Melbourne Cup'.
I was outraged. This wasn't Emirates' Melbourne Cup. It was Melbourne's Melbourne cup.
Corporations seem to think they own a lot of our stuff, as it happens. The most recent incarnation of this belief is the trend for buying naming rights to Australia's public works — indeed it seems all our sporting arenas undergo quasi-annual name changes.
These buildings, and the events that take place within them, constitute our urban and cultural landscapes, and should be sources of community pride, especially in a country in which sport is so central to identity.
These stadiums should be, in the marketing jargon, our 'third places'; we should feel as much at home using these facilities as we do in a town square.
Federation Square in Melbourne, by the by, is sponsored by BMW and Optus, but its name and its identity as a public space remain; its angular facades unencumbered by corporate badging. Federation Square is just one example of how we can sell our events and amenities to sponsors without selling our souls.
Superficial as it may seem, the first step to reclaiming our public facilities should be reclaiming their names. Why should Western Australians, for example, abide names such 'Medibank Stadium' and 'Members Equity Stadium' when they could dedicate these public works to some unsung local hero?
Even when Members Equity's contract expires, 'Perth Oval' will never return — not least because it is now rectangular — so why not immortalise a name such as William 'Nipper' Truscott of the Mines Rovers, East Fremantle, and State football teams? Nipper secured Western Australia's first carnival win against Victoria in 1921 with a saving mark as the siren sounded.
Likewise Sydney music fans might attend concerts at Johnny O'Keefe or Bee Gees Park instead of ACER Arena, and Suncorp Stadium might be returned to its former glory as 'Lang Park'. Prior to its redevelopment as Suncorp in 2003, the park was named for the feisty