Day for it - a sign from below

"Day for it - Weather conducive for the activity currently being undertaken, common phrase in Australia" Urban Dictionary

As I was walking back from the shops on Tuesday I saw this bottle top in the grass. A sign I thought, and surely I can write something about that, so I picked it up. Well yes it sort of was a sign and as it turned out it was a sign from below, not above, and not really anything to do with the weather. However, if I was superstitious I would indeed, on reflection, have thought it was a sign.

Because.

I had already had a setback in that the reason I had gone into Eltham was to pick up a ticket for a train trip to Bendigo to see the exhibition Paris: Impressions Of Life 1880-1925 which is a collection of paintings from the Musée Carnavalet and includes items from Signac and Utrillo. I was really looking forward to the outing itself and also the exhibition. However, when I went to the station to get my free Seniors ticket I found that I was not in the system and had to go back home and register. So when I saw the bottle top I saw it as a rather dubious sign.

However, also as a sign that perhaps all would be well. Alas no, for a kilometre or so further on I suddenly found myself in pain and unable to walk without shooting pain up and down my left buttock. I had to call David to rescue me.

But I clung to the cheerfulness of the sign and registered my Seniors and Myki cards. However, as I got up from the computer I found I could hardly walk at all. Panic all around, a trip to the doctor - nothing serious - probably just a strained muscle and besides it was now all a bit better. Nevertheless I emailed my friend who was organising the Bendigo trip to cancel my participation. Weirdly I guess it was a good thing, in fact, that I had not been able to get that ticket. Also weirdly was how I actually felt that finding that bottle top was indeed some kind of sign. And then how I repurposed the message to suit my situation. Do you think that that is how superstitions come to be? Eons ago somebody walked under a ladder and then was struck dead, or put up an umbrella, only to be struck by lightning ...

Enough of my daily trials and tribulations which are tiny in the scheme of things. I noticed that there was also a tiny ™️ besides the words 'Day for it' so I launched into finding what the bottle had been, and why that name.

That name. Urban Dictionary's definitions always include an example of how the word or phrase is used. In this case it notes that it is Australian slang and then gives the example:

"Bunch of mates sitting in the sun on a 28 degree sunny day sinking beers

Person 1: "Day for it"

Person 2: "You're not wrong mate"

by hmmmyep September 5, 2020/Urban Dictionary

Which you can find on these T-shirts from Magic Mango.

I have to say that it is a phrase that does somehow express that, possibly mythical, happy-go-lucky Australian attitude to life. And because of that it has found its way into an actual company name - two in fact, both associated with food and drink, sunshine and fun.

The first is beer. Of course. And actually sort of the end of this particular story. Plus another T-shirt because, also of course, there is always 'merch' - another Australianism associated with a product. This is the logo on the T-shirt, and I have to say it is rather brilliant at expressing that happy-go-lucky sun and sand attitude - the very thing that attracted us to Australia all those years ago. I'm not sure of the significance of the background chillies however. Hot? I don't think there are chillies in the beer.

So let me start at the end of the story, because this is actually how I began - if you see what I mean. Because this has been one of those internet rambles where one thing led to another and mostly going backwards, with the occasional sideways diversion.

In fact let me do the sideways diversion first because the main focus here emanates from the beer, and this sideways diversions is rapidly got out of the way. Having entered 'day for it' as my search term, found the beer, but not a lot of information, I continued looking and found that there also existed a Melbourne catering company called Day For It Melbourne - which had no information about who runs it and so on. Just links to booking their services - a rather nice logo and a couple of photographs:

Certainly not enough to write a story about, and certainly not really enough information on the website to encourage you to search further for your event caterer. Diversion done. Needs work.

Back to the main event Better Beer and the bottle whose top I found. And this really does not need work. The ideas associated with the full story here are almost endless.

Not only does that phrase 'day for it' feature on the bottle top it features on all of the stubbies as well. It's not the company name, so I guessed it's just a well-loved Aussie phrase that has been adopted by the two young men behind all of this.

Perhaps it's appropriate that in the above photograph of the two (the two on the right) there is another person in the photograph. I do not know who he is and it doesn't say, and he may well be a very important part of the company, but from what I have now read of the two behind it all - Jack Steele and Matt Ford they collaborate with many and share the money and the fun around.

Jack Steele and Matt Ford it tells you on the Better Beer website are two young men from the NSW south coast who had been tradies but wanted to do something different. They had always wanted to make beer and so they teamed up with Nick Coogan a brewer from the same area to make a no alcohol but great tasting beer. From this partnership came Better Beer.

Of course the story is much more complicated than that, but at that point this was all I knew. And so I continued trawling the net, where I found this - and a few other associated pictures, posters and so on. It seems to have happened back in the early 2020s but I'm not at all sure that it continues to this day. Also having now investigated my couple of young men much more, I wonder whether it might have been an earlier initiative of theirs, although I don't even know where this festival took place - there were at least two iterations of it.

However, somewhere or other I picked up that our two young men had called themselves, and indeed still do, The Inspired Unemployed. Apparently, as well as feeling unsatisfied as tradies - one working in his father's plastering firm, the other 'on the tools', they both also felt anxious and uncertain. And so they launched into comedy - probably the path that many unsure people take in life. Initially these were unscripted, improvised brief skits on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. But they hit a nerve and their audience expanded rapidly:

"In essence, the "battlers", as they call themselves, create short clips that depict Australian culture and stereotypes among Millennials and Gen Z." ABC News

"They strive to create comedy that doesn’t harm or offend anyone. While they may poke fun at stereotypes, their primary goal is to amuse, entertain, and never hurt sentiments." Retail Beauty

They polished their craft and shortly became "Australia’s most beloved online silly boys" (Pedestrian). So much so indeed that they became the advertisers dream team, and featured, particularly in spoofy ads, for high-end fashion in particular.

To the point where: "Certifiably, the dynamic duo are the cultural and sartorial icons of today." (Harper's Bazaar). So much so that that perfume ad, was a product that they launched briefly, the profit from which was given to a range of small charities. That central image is for an ad for Swisse - which I did not realise is actually an Australian company.

In their own words:

"When we stopped caring what others thought, that's really when life got amazing and we blew up and found a passion." Jack Steele

Which is when they turned to the beer.

"November 2021. Better Beer was launched by Nick Cogger of Torquay Beverages Co. in partnership with Mighty Craft. Both parties had long suspected something like Better Beer would find widespread success here in Australia. All it needed was to be packaged with the right marketing. That’s precisely where Steele and Ford came into the picture. In exchange for a 20% stake in the Better Beer brand each, they agreed to give it their co-sign and the odd 100 million site impressions." Boss Hunting

It took them a year - them now being the two plus Nick Cogger - as their website explains:

"They took the average beer and asked "what can we do to make it better?", and the answer was simple- remove the bad and add more of the good. So they teamed up to create the Better Beer Company and together created their dream beer: a refreshing Zero Carb lager, that in their words is the “crispest beer in the world", and canned the ultimate 'Oprah Tinfrey'."

And boy, was it a success, for Endeavour took it up so you can buy it at Dan Murphy's and BWS stores:

"According to the AFR, from January 1st to March 31st of this year alone, Better Beer managed to generate $7.8 million worth of sales, moving 1.8 million litres of its zero-carb bevvies. The total sales since hitting shelves up until the end of March? An even more impressive $9.5 million from 2.2 million litres." Boss Hunting (2023)

In fact, too successful perhaps as elsewhere I saw that in fact the company is having trouble finding the funds - a cash flow problem - to gear up to increase production to meet demand. I don't know whether this problem has been solved. You can certainly still buy it at Dan's.

And isn't it interesting that their aim was not a trend craft beer but a no alcohol beer?

One final initiative worth mentioning Day For It Day which is to mark the first Saturday of summer - and in their words:

“We wanted to do something to say thanks for the amazing support our community has given Better Beer in our first year.” Matt Ford

What they gave back was discounted prices all day in pubs and shops around the country.

"Day For it, a regular catchphrase for The Inspired Unemployed Pair and now, a perfect description of one of the biggest days for the beer brand. ‘Day for It Day really was a DAY for Better Beer by all measures with the unofficial public holiday delivering around 300,000 liters of sales across liquor outlets, pubs and bars plus a whopping $110,000 of RRP merchandise sales alone. ‘’ Brews News 2022

The poster above was for the second Day For It Day. I assume it will happen again in 2024.

And finally a sort of explanation of why 'day for it' - it was a regular catchphrase of the The Inspired Unemployed duo's skits. They are still on Instagram and YouTube and they have a TV program on Paramount+. There are podcasts and spotify play lists as well. Where do they find the time I wonder? All the Better Beer stuff is, I imagine, done by the Better Beer company, which is not really them. They are investors and promotors more than anything I guess.

I am obviously not the target audience but I have to admire and quietly cheer them on. They seem to do good things as well as make money, and they seem to be good role models in the sense that they are quietly telling young men that they don't have conform to the average image of the larrikin tradie.

So was it a sign from above or below when I found one of their bottle tops in the grass? Was it a sign at all and just a sad sign of rubbish disposal anywhere. Although there was no bottle as well.