Buzz Lightbeer: It seems that you’re at the end of the interview queue. All the other players have been interviewed before you. Why do you think you’ve been left until last?

RE: It’s not fair, I tell you. Sometimes I seem to be invisible.

Buzz Lightbeer: Invisible, perhaps, but I’m told you’re going to be on TV.

RE: Yes, I’ve been offered a spot on “Australia’s Got No Talent”. I’m gobsmacked. It’s a huge honour.

Buzz Lightbeer: So, what will you be doing?

RE: Nothing at all. I sit on a stool in an otherwise empty room, to a soundtrack of silence. I offered to do it in the dark, but they said, of course, they need a picture because it is television.

Buzz Lightbeer: Sounds great. Do you get a whole show?

RE: I wish! No, I’ll probably just get 15 or 20 minutes. They say they have to keep the show interesting – “vibrant” was the word – so they like to keep things moving. They’ve got Peter Dutton on after me.

Buzz Lightbeer: Speaking of moving things along, what’s your view on the teams having gone into the blender?

RE: Well, it’s instinctively correct, I suppose.

Buzz Lightbeer: Instinctively correct? Do you mean instinctively correct that we needed to get rid of the teams that we had? Or that there should be seven teams of two? Where does instinct come in?

RE: Don’t ask me. It’s not like I make the choices. I guess what I meant was there’s something almost [pauses]… biblical about it. The animals went into the ark in pairs and they must have had a blender on board. They had to make smoothies somehow. Nowhere does it say, “Yea, but there were verily no smoothies on board”.

Buzz Lightbeer: I suppose you’re right. On the other hand, some sports commentators have been having a go at some of the claims made on the AATBL website, suggesting that some of the “facts” are not as factual as, say, some other facts. Like the claim that Gonad is a Demons supporter or that Cannonball is a doctor. Bollocks!

RE: Yes, the standards have probably gone to shit, I agree. It seems that some of the “facts”, like those two you mentioned, might be better described as “alternative facts”. I’ll have my people speak to the website elves and see whether we can get them to lift their game.

Buzz Lightbeer: Why do we have “website elves” working on our website?

RE: The Internet Fairy has priced itself out of the market. The commercial imperative of these troubled times demands best practice. We can’t just spend money willy-nilly.

Buzz Lightbeer: So the elves are cheaper?

RE: We don’t pay them at all. They don’t have a union, so they have to look after thems-elves.