RSL rhymes with what the…
26 Oct 2006I gotta say, I really don’t get those places. I wound up on the @Newtown website this evening (it’s part of Petersham RSL club, as the website says — I still live in the East, just in case anyone was wondering) and was utterly perplexed. Not just because they’ve created an image-sliced site using Fireworks + Dreamweaver 2004 in 2006, but more because of the content.
“Come and enjoy the indulgent surroundings of Sydney’s hottest RSL club with 2 levels of exciting live entertainment, cocktail lounge, restaurant and pool tables, you won’t want to leave. Enjoy comfort and sophistication like no other venue in Sydney. Now open til late“
it proudly gushes on the front page, images of clean, spacious bars and young, attractive patrons (mostly female) flashing above the promoter’s rhetoric. Down the bottom, a “Powered by Moshtix” logo adorns the footer. Buried somewhere beneath all this is the obligatory required-by-legislation-but-of-uncertain-meaning-to-anyone “Information for members & their guests” byline.
Has anyone ever actually gone to an RSL as a guest? And what does it mean to be an RSL guest? RSL, of course, stands for “Returned services league”. In practice this seems to mean pretty much anyone who could be stuffed to join their cause. There’s all kinds of quirky stuff on the RSL website about their aims and goals and whatever, but I’ll leave you to read that for yourself. My slightly-right-of-centre readers might be upset if I started quoting bits from it selectively with the goal of ridiculing the organisation further than this post already does.
Anyway, at any rate, it seems self-evident that RSL clubs seem to have little connection to returned servicemen (and/or women) at all.