Great Courthouse Quote

A Sydney TV comedian was charged with "offensive behaviour" recently for filming a skit outside a Rugby League match where he offered the assembling supporters the chance to buy "official team merchandise" such as (fake) knuckledusters, (rubber) knives, balaclavas, (imitation) flares and Rohypnol.

He was taking a comedic shot at my childhood team, the Sydney Bulldogs, whose players and supporters have squandered great performances in recent years by getting caught up in a number of unsavoury "off-the-field" incidents.

In a surprisingly common-sense judgment, the judge dismissed the charge against Chas Licciardello, saying reasonable people would not have been offended by the prank. Wow... judges talking about 'reasonable people', a spectacular quote in itself.

But the best quote came when Chas met with the press after the verdict:

"I'd just like to say how deeply disappointed we are at the court's decision. I will not rest until this injustice has been corrected. We will be appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, to the High Court, to the UN, to the Jedi Council and to the snick-o-meter."

Informed by the press that he'd in fact had a victory in court, Licciardello said: "I'm sorry, I didn't actually prepare any material for the off-chance that we won."

* Note: The snickometer is a piece of cricket adjudicating technology that tries to determine by sound analysis whether a batsman might have got a very faint "edge" to a delivery (pitch). Such an edge is called a "snick" or "nick". It isn't currently an official piece of equipment for the game, but is used in television coverage in order to show when the umpire screws up.