It’s Easter! And you know what that means. Stop number four on the dream tour! 

Log on and sit though the opening volley of ads. When the Shisedo ad (Sunscreen? Skin care? Who knows) cues up and Kanoa Igarashi says, “I used to close my eyes and dream, but now I see the beauty of this moment.” Take a swig from the nearest bottle of spirits and wonder what happened to “If you can’t rock and roll, don’t fucken come.”

Whenever the commentators lose their minds as a paddle battle occurs: like it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever witnessed: “This is what it’s all about, ladies and gentlemen! THIS is what we come for!” Spit dismissively at or near the screen.

Ding Alley’s Dave @maccatoons McArthur is out of action at the mo – a floater gone wrong has landed him on the surgeon’s table getting ligaments reattached to his footbones. So instead of a ‘toon, here’s one of Macca’s paintings – looking back at the Bells cliffs from Centreside. 

Kaipo’s quaffing soy atop a ladder in a hard-hat or something. Drink a toast to the plucky Hawaiian and know he couldn’t give a rat’s what any of us think – those lil’ promo bonuses add up, and he put one through Madge back in the day, so there’s that.

Stay upstanding and recharge your glasses for Kelly’s post-heat presser. Enjoy the obfuscation re the dicky hip, the genuine emotion as he reflects on what must be his last Bells, and know you are witnessing history. No-one will ever match his impact on pro surfing … and has there ever been such a frothing fiend for good waves? A true Surfer’s Surfer, the likes we will never see again. Then remember the stubby you put in the freezer a few hours ago to chill for a bit – now ruined for having been in there too long – draw a parallel if you wish.

Free Spin. Tyler’s ‘on the glass’ as they say. She’s going for the three-peat so deserves the focus. Up to you: tune in and do your best to decode / empathise; press mute; go clean the shards of exploded VB stubby out of the freezer, whatever.

Regardless of where John Florence places, go online and sign Ding Alley’s petition for JJF and his team rider Brenden 'Margo' Margieson to session Iluka Breakwall together. Can you imagine what JJF would do to those wedges? Would that not be a spectacle?

Commentator trots out the old “Victorians are sports-mad, sports-knowledgeable and oh-so passionate about their surfing” trope. Stare blankly at the screen as the drone pans over a fairly thin crowd a few days before the real crowd actually turns up.

Steph Gilmore does time in the booth, accompanied by blinding beatific halo and heavenly choir singing ‘Aaaahhhhhhh-ahhhhhh-AAAHHHHHHHH’ whenever she smiles, which is constantly. Throw down three shots in honour of this Cheshire Cat’s clever third act. Not only surfing’s greatest stylist, but the canniest merchant in the game. Supreme.

You’re hetero as the next bloke, but find yourself unable to tear your gaze from the curvature of defending champion Ethan Ewing’s neoprene-clad buttocks when seen paddling in profile. Guzzle a beer, produce as loud and blokey a burp as you can, and tell yourself it’s all about his flowing rail game. 

Speaking of fluidity. With his hair a certain way, and especially when carrying an extra kilo, Joe Turpel looks a little more like a lesbian with a heart of gold every year. The kind who’d befriend you that scary first afternoon in the jailhouse exercise yard. The similarity is at its most striking in jeans and untucked shirt / puffer on the presentation dais.

The Bowl. Low tide, moderate swell. Use the whitewater bouncy-bouncy downtime between the two-and-a-half outside turns and the hope-it-was-worth-it belt in the shorey to click on your other tabs. Facey, Insta or whatever horror you’ve got tucked in the corner on your ‘private viewing’ browser. Disgusting.

The plywood reality of the Red Bull competitors’ area is made even more underwhelming by Strider’s effusive walk-through. Shake up a cocktail of sugar, caffeine, and your own urine, in honour of the Austrian energy drink, then pour it down the toilet.

It’s anyone’s guess who’ll say “Natural Amphitheatre” first. Could be a commentator, could be a competitor. (Ding Alley’s prediction is it’ll be a ‘special guest’ on some video call, asked what’s so special about Bells.) Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who pulls it out, but it’s crucial that the term is employed. Society may be fraying at the seams: America’s hard right is chockers with Putin fanboys; Israel’s self-defence resembles an MMA fighter pounding the hell out of an unconscious opponent before the ref pulls him off; we’re shitting microplastics etc., but as long as someone  – with a straight face and no trace of irony – describes Bells as a Natural Amphitheatre on a webcast, the world’s social fabric will hold firm and planet Earth will keep spinning. Now is the time to rip into your Cadbury Easter egg, marvel how its chocolate tastes better than any other, take comfort in the purpleness of the packaging, and savour the comfort of tradition as another year sneaks on by.

Connor O’Leary’s post heat presser is one for the ages! Slowly and demonstratively stroking his long Fu Man Chu goatee beard as he ponders the interviewer’s questions, then answering in cryptic, inscrutable Confucius proverbs. Realise you’ve nodded off on the couch and are mixing up your Asian stereotypes in a racist dream. Go to bed, son. You’re drunk.

Wake next morning to Steve Shearer making sense of it all.

// DING ALLEY

Ding Alley is writer Gra Murdoch and Illustrator Dave @maccatoons McArthur. If you’re in the ’hood, Macca’s having an exhibition of paintings at Eagles Nest Gallery, Aireys Inlet. Saturday April 6th through to 27th May.