Archive for February, 2012

Meet Pebbles

This was supposed to be yesterday’s second announcement.

Back in the middle of November (photos say November 13…I thought it was the day before that), there was an addition to my household. A little Jack Russell puppy who we named Pebbles.

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Pebbles was only tiny at the time, and Nattie wasn’t quite sure about the idea of another dog moving in, but she seemed to tolerate Pebbles’ presence at first, and then slowly got used to the idea that the little dog was not “just visiting”.

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Pebbles has grown quite a bit in the few months that she has been here, and when she isn’t running around with a toy or chewing on a bone, she enjoys a cuddle…or climbing on a person to lick their ears.

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Over time, Nattie and Pebbles have become friends. It has taken some time and Nattie has made her authority clear more than a few times, but they quite like each other now…even if Pebbles is a bit more fond of Nattie than Nattie is of Pebbles.

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Even though they get along, the difference in personality is stark. Nattie, at nearly 12 years of age, is more interested in relaxing than playing, while Pebbles is still a puppy with a seemingly endless supply of energy.

Here is a video of Pebbles playing on Friday night while I was listening to the AFL.

(Video not working? Click here to download it)

Patience is not Pebbles’ greatest strength. We had to wait quite a while when we went up to see the “good doctor” for her latest vaccinations, and she wasn’t in any way interested in sitting still.


(Video not working? Click here to download it)

If you’re wondering, the main reasons for getting a puppy were so that
A) Nattie would have a bit of doggy company in her senior years.
B) The puppy would grow up with another dog, hopefully reducing the anxiety of being separated from the rest of her family.

We took months to make the decision, and we could not be happier. Pebbles is a great addition to the family, and even Nattie seems a bit happier since Pebbles arrived.

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Woof!

Samuel

February 21st, 2012 at 05:43am

I am now a member of the Institute of Public Affairs

Announcement number one for the day.

On Friday I took a decision which I have been considering for some time. I became a member of the Institute of Public Affairs.

Institute of Public Affairs

I have followed the activities of the IPA for quite some time now and have been impressed by their work. At the most basic level, the organisation’s aim is to promote free markets, free speech and a free society. A long time ago it became very clear to me that everyone has something slightly different in mind when those notions are mentioned, so when the IPA made those claims, I decided that I should carefully vet their activities to decide if they really do reflect my values, and I am happy to say that on the vast majority of things, they do.

We both support capitalism. We both acknowledge the need for government, while supporting the need for it to be limited in its role, so as to not unnecessarily quash the freedom of the people to conduct business and have a voice. At the same time, we both support the rule of law, and acknowledge the need for governments to provide services (eg. the police and the courts) which uphold this. I suspect that we would both agree with the words of Charles Murray Ph.D. in a recent edition of Hillsdale College’s excellent publication Imprimis

[L]ocal government should do only those things that individuals cannot do for themselves, state government should do only those things that local governments cannot do, and the federal government should do only those things that the individual states cannot do.

(Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.)

The IPA has proven itself, in my mind, to be a force for good, by consistently making a positive contribution to the public debate about the future of this country, and to a lesser extent, the world. I was so impressed by their work that I decided to not take out a general membership, but to instead take out a premier membership at about double the cost of the general membership. I value the work of the IPA enough, and support the mission of the IPA enough, to do what I can to help keep it going, both in a monetary sense, and a symbolic supportive sense.

It’s just a shame that, due to other commitments, I am not able to go and seek Mark Steyn or Dan Hannan, one of whom is currently, and one of whom will shortly be, in the country as guests of the IPA.

Samuel

February 20th, 2012 at 06:26am

Sympathy vote for Kevin

By now you have probably seen, or at the very least heard about, this video of Kevin Rudd swearing in frustration after he failed, multiple times, to read a script in Mandarin off a teleprompter.

(Warning: Language Alert. This video is NOT censored)

To put the situation in a bit of context, Kevin Rudd is not quite the master of Mandarin that some believe he is. He can speak the language to a passable extent and would be able to get by in most day-to-day conversations on normal, mundane topics, but he can not read the language. As such, when he was attempting to record this video for a Mandarin-speaking audience, the sound of the Mandarin had to be converted to English letters for him to be able to read it on the teleprompter. Unfortunately it seems that the people responsible for the speech have written the sentences in a more convoluted way than was absolutely necessary (in much the same way that it would have been simpler for me to write “Sadly the speech writers used more difficult language than they had to” in the sentence before this interjection) and this tripped Kevin up quite a bit.

As happens with most people who struggle to read a script for a recording, be it video or audio, Kevin got annoyed with himself.

I have to say that, the video as released, seems to work in Kevin Rudd’s favour. It elicits a sympathy vote as everyone has known for ages and ages that he has a temper, and the release of the video appears to be a malicious attempt to smear him by showing him to be even more prone to temper tantrums that was previously thought. I don’t think it was a malicious release though…I think it was made to look that way, but I think a Kevin Rudd supporter has released it to elicit a sympathy vote for the reason listed above, and for sympathy with his plight in struggling to read a foreign language aloud.

If this was truly a malicious leak, the bits of the video where Kevin Rudd appears to be declaring Mandarin to be a stupid and overly-complicated language would be more heavily emphasised, and the bits which clarify this to be about the way it has been written by the speech writers, and not about the Mandarin language itself, would have been removed.

Just the way it has been edited, and the interesting timing when the Labor Party leadership rumours and tensions are reaching fever pitch, makes it seem to me as if this is a concerted effort by someone, possibly with Kevin’s knowledge, but not necessarily with it, to boost Kevin Rudd’s popularity.

If polling is released later this week which shows that Kevin Rudd is immensely more popular than Julia Gillard, I will not be surprised; and if that happens then I fully expect a leadership challenge and an election to be called a short time thereafter in the hopes that a “honeymoon period” will carry Labor across the line without the need for tenuous support from Greens and independents. It does seem to be about the only hope Labor have right now based on recent polling trends.

Samuel

February 19th, 2012 at 05:24pm

The Sunday Bits for February 19, 2012

Depending on how I feel after work this afternoon, I have two announcements that I wish to share with you. If not this afternoon, then tomorrow. But right now, two “bits” for you.

***

First up today, proof that being a fast walker is good for you.

The speed someone walks may predict the likelihood of developing dementia later in life, according to researchers in the US.
[..]
Suggestions of a link between slow walking speed and poor health have been made before.

A study, published in the British Medical Journal in 2009, said there was a “strong association” between slow walking speed and death from heart attacks and other heart problems. A Journal of the American Medical Association study suggested a link between walking faster over the age of 65 and a longer life.

Dr Erica Camargo, who conducted the latest study at the Boston Medical Centre, said: “While frailty and lower physical performance in elderly people have been associated with an increased risk of dementia, we weren’t sure until now how it impacted people of middle age.”

Brain scans, walking speed and grip strength were recorded for 2,410 people who were, on average, 62 years old.

Results presented at the Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting said that 11 years later, 34 people had developed dementia and 79 had had a stroke.

The researchers said slower walking speeds were linked to a higher risk of dementia and stronger grip with a lower risk of stroke.

(h/t BBC News)

I have always been annoyed by people who walk slowly, or to be more precise, people who walk more slowly than me which, unfortunately for some, includes most people who walk at what would probably be considered a “regular pace”, although it has to be said that an ingrown toenail has slowed my pace a little bit of late.

I have always been a fast walker. Mum, when I was in the early years of primary school, was a slightly faster than normal walker, and I had to move my little legs very quickly in order to keep up. As I grew up and the length of my stride increased, this quick movement continued and as such my walking pace increased.

My primary school held a walkathon once per year as a fundraiser. I always quite enjoyed this as it gave me a chance to walk quickly and demonstrate my fast pace for an extended period of time. In year three I took this quite seriously and for the week leading up to the walkathon I would spend part of my lunch break practicing. I worked out a course which I calculated was approximately a quarter of the length of the Walkathon course (the Walkathon was around the perimeter of the school grounds whereas my course was around a section of the bottom ovals) and would walk around it as quickly as I could for a certain period of time (20 or 30 minutes). After this I would then calculate how many laps of the Walkathon I could complete in the allotted time if I walked at the pace of my practice session.

From memory, I worked out that I could complete nine laps, and this was how many I did complete that year. As years went by, I would usually complete nine or ten laps, and unfortunately if one completed ten laps, one was not permitted to continue.

In high school, there was no Walkathon in year seven, but there was one in year 8 which went around the west basin on Lake Burley Griffin. This was an all-day activity and, of the people who did not cheat by cycling, skating or running (these things were allowed by the teaching staff so as to ensure the attendance and involvement of most students, as large sections of the event were unsupervised and it would have been quite easy for students to walk to Civic if they wanted to) I was the first to complete the course. Unfortunately this course was a bit too long for most students to complete, and probably a bit too public, so in years nine and ten, the Walkathon was held around the bases of Mounts Ainslie and Majura, with an extra activity for the keen runners to run up Mount Majura. This course allowed staff to use shortcuts (which were blocked for students by staff-run checkpoints) which allowed them to more easily keep an eye on students. I continued my track record of fast-walking success in these Walkathons.

Unfortunately, possibly because it was impossible for teachers to actively monitor it, no awards were handed out for the first person to complete the course, or indeed for the first walker to complete the course…but I enjoyed it anyway and, as was usually the case for school sporting events, I ran my own imaginary television and radio coverage of it. I couldn’t really commentate on the Walkathons much as I needed my breaths for walking and not talking, but the other commentators continued in my head (and for the psychologists out there, yes, the radio does talk to me, that’s because it’s talk radio…and yes, it does tell me to do things: to buy stuff mostly).

In more recent times, dog-walking has kept me walking quickly, although Nattie tires quickly these days, so the fast walking doesn’t last long on those any more.

***

Towards the end of 2008, a colleague at 1WAY FM, most-mornings host Alison Goodwill, informed me that she had seen a photo of mine in the Canberra Times. She asked if I was aware of it and if I had been paid for it. On both counts the answer was “no”, but that was OK as most photos on this blog are allowed to be copied if attribution is given…none-the-less, I was curious. Alsion was unable to provide many details about when the photo had been published but did say that it was a picture of mountains, possibly of the Brindabellas. I was confused by this as I could not recall taking a decent photos of the Brindabellas at any time…I did take a photo once which was supposed to be of the Brindabellas but instead became a photo of roads and powerlines, with the Brindabellas off in the distance…I didn’t think it was likely that this photo had been published.

The photo which I didn't think had been published
The photo which I didn’t think had been published in the Canberra Times, from my 2005 blog post Kingswood Journey

Regardless, I was curious, and decided to go and check the Canberra Times archives at the National Library. I had to wait a while for the editions of the Canberra Times from late 2008 to be made available, but a few months later (I think it was in late 2009…I received a phone call from a friend as I was leaving the Library that day, but I don’t recall enough other details about the day other than it being a warm day to be certain) I went to the National Library and searched through a few months worth of the Canberra Times, but could not find any reference to me, or any photo which looked like it could have been taken by me.

It continued to bother me, and I did go back on another occasion for another look, but was once again unable to find anything.

Fast-forward to this year, and a few weeks ago I was archiving the old photo gallery (a blog post is coming about that as I have some technical details about the process which may be of interest…unfortunately it is a blog post which may take me a little bit of time to write and so it may be a few weeks until I can find the time to make it happen) and did a Google search for “photos.samuelgordonstewart.com” as I wanted to find a few direct links to various pages of the photo gallery so that I could test them and correct an issue which I was encountering. When I did that, I found a rather unexpected result on page 2.

Screenshot of Google Image Search results

The one at the bottom of that lot, to be exact.

Screenshot of Google Image Search results

I followed the link, which took me to a Canberra Times online article from the 14th of October, 2008, titled “Body found near Mount Taylor“.

Screenshot of the article on the Canberra Times website

See that photo over on the right?

Screenshot of the photo on the Canberra Times website

When I saw it, I recognised the photo straight away, even though the quality of it on the Canberra Times website is lower than the original photo. The photo in question is this one:

Photo of Mount Taylor

Somewhat ironically, this happens to be the photo directly above the photo I mentioned earlier in the Kingswood Journey blog post from 2005.

Screenshot of the photo in my blog post

Even though I was in the middle of another, somewhat more important task at the time, this excited me so I jotted down the date of the Canberra Times article and went on another trip to the National Library to see if I could find the photo in the paper. It took a little while, but I found the page in question. Page 9 of the October 15, 2008 edition.

The Canberra Times: Page 9, October 15, 2008.

As you can see, my photo is nowhere to be found. In fact, my photo isn’t in there at all. The article is though…it’s a brief story at the bottom of the column at the top-right of the page.

The brief article in The Canberra Times

So, after a tad over three years of mystery, it turns out that my photo was never used in the paper, but was used on the website of the Canberra Times to illustrate a brief story. I was given incorrect information, which is why I was unable to find it originally, and yet strangely was only one photo off in picking the photo which I thought may have been used.

I am quite amazed that photo which I took from a moving bus, and which really isn’t the most wonderful photo in the world, was the best photo that the folks at the Times could find of Mount Taylor at the time. It’s also slightly flattering in a strange way as well.

***

And with the case closed, I bid you a wonderful Sunday!

Samuel

February 19th, 2012 at 06:28am

Happy 70th Birthday John Kerr!

Today, the 19th of February 2012, marks the 70th birthday of Radio 2UE’s current longest-consecutively-serving presenter John Kerr. There are one or two others who started before John, but they have worked elsewhere in the interim.

John Kerr at Liquidity in 2007John’s current stint started in 1994 when he took over 2UE’s overnight syndicated program New Day Australia. John hosted the weekday edition of the show through until the end of 2005, and in 2006 took over the weekend edition of New Day Australia. John has occasionally filled-in on the weekday edition of the program since then and, until last year, regularly covered the Christmas Day 6am-midday shift. It is my understanding that John’s current contract provides him with certain lifestyle benefits while absolving him of the requirement to fill-in on other programs. John retains a loyal audience, despite not having as many affiliate stations as he did back when he was on the weekday show.

John has this weekend off, and I think he has next weekend off as well, which is great for him but unfortunate for me as it means that I can’t wait on hold for an hour and a half to wish him a happy birthday. I’m sure that John is having a wonderful break though, and it’s really fantastic that 2UE are able to give him time off for such a momentous occasion.

I have a present for John which I think he will really like, and I will be sending it to 2UE this week. There really is no point in sending it too soon as he won’t receive it until he next drops in to the 2UE studios, and I see no point in having certain foods which form the present spoil before he gets to them.

A very happy birthday John!

Samuel

(file photo: John Kerr at a listener lunch at Liquidity Restaurant in 2007.)

February 19th, 2012 at 03:14am

Friday Funnies: Life with pets

With thanks to Irene for sending this one through

If I Didn’t Have A Dog…Or Cat……

I could walk barefoot around the yard in safety.

My house could be carpeted instead of tiled and laminated.

All flat surfaces, clothing, furniture, and cars would be hair-free.

When the doorbell rings, my home wouldn’t sound like a kennel.

When the doorbell rings, I could get to the door without wading through all the fuzzy bodies who beat me there.

I could sit on the couch and my bed any way I wanted, without having to take into consideration how much space several fur bodies need to get comfortable.

I would have enough money, and no guilt, to go on a real vacation.

I would not be on a first-name basis with 6 veterinarians, as I put their yet unborn grandkids through college.

The most used words in my vocabulary would not be:
“out,” “sit,” “down”, “come,” “no,” “stay,” and “leave it ALONE”.

My house would not be cordoned off into zones with baby gates and makeshift barriers.

I would not talk ‘baby talk’. ‘Eat your din din’. ‘Yummy Yummy for the tummy’..

My house would not look like a day care centre, with toys everywhere.

My pockets would not contain things like poop bags, treats and an extra leash.

I would no longer have to spell the words B-A-L-L, W-A-L-K, T-R-E-A-T, O-U-T, G-O, R-I-D-E, S-U-P-P-E-R, and C-O-O-K-I-E.

I would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as outside.

I would not look strangely at people who think having ONE dog/cat ties them down too much.

I’d look forward to spring and the rainy season instead of dreading them as ‘mud’ season.

I would not have to answer the question: ‘Why do you have so many animals?’ from people who will never know the joy of being loved unconditionally by the closest thing to an angel they will ever encounter.

How EMPTY my life would be!!!

Samuel

February 17th, 2012 at 10:41am

Crocmedia’s AFL Live allowed to stream online this year

I was just checking the radio schedule for tonight’s start to the AFL preseason competition and noticed something which I was hoping would come out of the new radio broadcast rights. Crocmedia, who produce “AFL Live” for regional stations, headed up by Rex Hunt and Sandy Roberts, are listed as being streamed tonight.

This is fantastic news, especially for those of us who really enjoy listening to Rex Hunt call matches and were disappointed to find out that he was leaving Triple M at the end of last year to move exclusively to Crocmedia.

I can’t confirm that Rex will be calling the three matches tonight between Richmond, North Melbourne, and Hawthorn, but seeing as tonight’s games are in Melbourne and are the only ones which Crocmedia are covering this weekend, I’d say that it’s a pretty safe bet…hopefully.

Either way, Saturday and Sunday afternoons with Rex Hunt this year are going to be awesome.

(Crocmedia and other AFL radio broadcasters are only permitted to stream their coverage via afl.com.au and not via individual stations’ webstreams)

UpdateCrocmedia do not appear to be covering tonight’s matches after all. Oh well, later in the preseason or when the main season starts I guess…it’s probably a bit hard to convince all of the small regional stations to cover relatively unprofitable preseason matches. End Update

Samuel

February 17th, 2012 at 07:50am

The horrible service of Woolworths Dickson

A couple weeks ago I had a very nasty experience in a supermarket. After it happened, I sent an email to 2UE’s John Kerr about it which he read out on the air. I deliberately omitted the details of the store in question at the time as I thought it was only fair to write to the manager of the store and allow him or her time to reply and correct the issue before deciding whether it would be necessary to make my grievances public.

After this, I wrote a detailed letter to the manager of the store in question, however they have not replied yet. They have had more than enough time to respond, and I believe that they have ignored me. I gave them the opportunity to avoid negative publicity, but they apparently don’t care, so I am more than happy to announce that the store in question was the Woolworths supermarket in Dickson.

My next step will be to write a letter to the head office of Woolworths and include a copy of my original letter. Before I do this though, I feel that it is only fair that I bring you up to speed on what happened as the email to John Kerr, which I posted on this blog at the time, was quite vague and did not include all the details of the incident from that night or the other incidents. For your perusal, a copy of the letter which I sent to the manager of Woolworths in Dickson follows.

My five-page letter of complaint to Woolworths Dickson
My five-page letter of complaint, with a two-page attachment: a printout from my internet banking service showing the disputed transaction. In the background, Nattie, who had decided that a footstool would be a comfortable place to sit for a while.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart
PO Box 1272
Dickson ACT 2602

February 6, 2012

The Store Manager
Woolworths Dickson
1 Dickson Place
Dickson ACT 2602

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am writing to you today to express my concern, disappointment and disgust at the behavior and attitude of some of the staff in your store in their recent dealings with me. I have had a few run-ins with your staff which, as isolated incidents, have annoyed me but not bothered me enough to care much about them, but the latest run-in offended me greatly and, when added to the previous incidents, is enough to make me want to avoid your store entirely.

I work about a five minute drive away from your store, and often work odd hours, so your store is a convenient place for me to pick up a few items and I usually do this at least two or three times per week. The incidents of late are enough to make me want to instead use the services of the IGA in Watson or, as they are not open as long as your store is, the Coles Express service station across the road from your store. The extra cost of doing so is worthwhile if it means that I will be treated with respect by the staff.

If I may crave your indulgence for a few minutes, I will endeavor to explain what has brought me to this decision, starting with the most recent incident which, to my mind, is the worst of the bunch.

On Saturday night (the 4th of February) I was at work and, upon finding out that the person on the shift which finishes a few hours after me had called in sick and that I would be required to stay back for an extra hour or two to cover for this person, I decided to use my half-hour meal break to visit your store and pick up some snacks to keep me going through the night. At about 11:10pm, I entered your store and proceeded to pick up a packet of Allens Strawberry and Cream lollies and a packet of mini easter eggs, which I then took to the self-serve checkout, but not before I was nearly bowled over by one of your staff moving stock around on a large trolley, who was not looking where he was going.

The first available checkout was the first one on the right as you walk in to the checkout area from the store and, as tends to be the case with these machines, it was neither accepting nor dispensing cash. I had hoped to get rid of a few coins with this purchase, but alas EFTPOS was the only option. This was a tad frustrating as it seems to be a bit of a waste to use EFTPOS for a $4.37 transaction, but so be it, I proceeded with the transaction. While I was using the checkout, I noted that the security guard was watching me with some interest. Once I was finished paying for my items (I have attached a printout from my internet banking transaction summary page which shows that this occurred at 11:14pm and was, as previously stated, a $4.37 transaction. The transaction is highlighted on page 2), I opted not to have a receipt printed as I would only have thrown it out as soon as I left the store anyway, picked up my items and walked towards the exit. Just after I had gone through the theft detection machine (which I should point out I did NOT set off), the security guard who had been watching me for some time stopped me and asked me if I had paid for the items.
“Yes” I replied.
“Show me the receipt” was his response. (He clearly was not versed in the ways in which the self-serve checkouts work, or he would know that they only print a receipt if asked to do so).
“I didn’t request one from the machine” I replied.
He then replied “If you don’t have a receipt, then I don’t believe that you paid for those items”. I did not say it at the time, but I was thinking that this was strange as I had seen him watching me use the self-serve checkout and wondered what he must have thought I was doing at the checkout for all that time. He then tried to ask the other staff in the area if they had seen me pay for the items, but they all ignored him. As he could not get confirmation from any of the staff, he told me that he did not believe that I had paid for the items, but I should leave with them anyway.

I was a tad confused by this, and offended that I was being called a thief and a liar. At first, I went to leave the store, and I did get out the door, but then the fact that I was deeply offended got the better of me and I walked back in and walked over to the security guard. I politely tried to gain his attention by saying “excuse me”, but he turned his back on me, so I tried again slightly louder and he started to walk away from me, so I tried again, a bit louder again, after which he turned and faced me. I informed him, calmly but in an annoyed tone of voice, that I was deeply offended by the way he had treated me; that I had seen him watch me pay for the items; and that as a matter of principle I was not going to leave with the items while he continued to accuse me of theft. I planted the items on the counter in front of him and informed him that the store could keep the items, and that I would be writing to the manager to complain about his conduct. I then walked out.

For the record, I have no problem with being challenged by security staff and accept the fact that you need to have measures in place to prevent people from walking off with items for which they have not paid, and I have previously consented to bag searches in stores when asked and have always been cooperative if I have set off a theft detector for whatever reason (usually it is a malfunction, although on one occasion it was due to a half-packet of AA size batteries which I had forgotten were in a bag that I was carrying). I have never, however, actually stolen an item from a store, nor have I ever been challenged by the security staff in your store for any reason, until Saturday night anyway.

In this case I believe that your security guard (who I note was wearing a Wilson Security uniform and is therefore probably not a direct employee of your store) overstepped his authority and was highly unprofessional in his conduct considering that there was no proof that I had stolen anything, and that the evidence in fact pointed the other way as I had not set off the theft detector when I walked through it, and the security guard had watched me using the self-serve checkout.

If more time had been available to me then I may very well have argued the point with him until he believed that I was not attempting to steal anything, and I probably would have done this by opening internet banking on my phone and showing him the transaction record, however as I was on a meal break from my job, I did not have the luxury of such time.

I believe that this needs your attention, not only because the security guard was incredibly rude, but because your staff paid no attention to his request for confirmation that I had paid for the items, and also because he was willing to let me walk off with items which he believed were stolen, which I am sure would horrify you as a store manager who is ultimately responsible for the bottom line of your store.

Unfortunately this is not the only incident which has caused me to decide that your store is an unfriendly place to shop. I don’t have dates for these other incidents as they were not big enough in my mind at the time to jot down the times at which they occurred, but I believe that they need to be brought to your attention anyway.

Firstly, your staff have been rude to me before on multiple occasions. On one occasion I was purchasing a cheese and bacon roll from the self-serve cupboard of your in-store bakery. As I picked out the roll, it occurred to me that I might need some assistance processing the roll at the self-serve checkout. I took a photo of the barcode on the shelf from which the roll had come, just in case the barcode would be useful. I then went to the self-serve checkout and asked the supervising staff member if she could show me how to buy the roll at the checkout, and I informed her that I had a photo of the barcode if it helped at all (Dendy Cinemas have previously scanned ticket barcodes off my phone, so I know that it is possible). Your staff member’s response to my question was a reasonably loud and angry tirade about how I should know how to do this myself and that I must be stupid if I thought that a barcode on a phone would be of any use. She then went on about how it was “obvious” that I should push a certain set of buttons on the screen (which she did quite quickly and without any attempt to check that I had some understanding or recollection of which buttons she had pressed) and then she wandered off mumbling under her breath.

It may very well be true that in the mind of a supermarket employee, the buttons which need to be pushed in order to make a checkout perform various functions are obvious, but it is a bit much to expect that a member of the general public would contain this knowledge, and it is definitely going a few steps too far to abuse a member of the public for not knowing these things.

On another occasion, one of the self-serve checkouts did not dispense change. It was only 20 cents, but I raised the point with the supervising staff member who informed me that as I could not prove that the machine had not dispensed change, she could not help me. It was clear that she thought that I had pocketed the 20 cents and wanted a further 20 cents to which I was not entitled. Yet again, on this occasion, I was on a meal break from work and was wearing a shirt bearing the logo of the company for which I work (a well-known company, I might add, but the details of which are irrelevant) so it seemed a bit odd that she would think that I, as a working person, would want to spend extra minutes in a store just to extort 20 cents from it.

Strangely enough, the staff in your store have never been rude to me away from the self-serve checkouts. They are rarely ever cheerful, but they do tend to at least be polite away from those machines.

On the subject of the self-serve checkouts, this is another problem which I have with your store. The upkeep of these machines is appalling. It is almost impossible to find a time when all of them are working properly. Most of the time at least one machine will be out of order, and the rest of them will be either only taking EFTPOS or only taking cash, and your staff do not take kindly to it if I want to wait to use a machine which is accepting my preferred method of payment, and they have very nearly started an argument with me over it on more than one occasion.

Then there is the fact that the things don’t seem to be cleaned very often. On more than one occasion, things have been spilled or smeared on the machines’ displays or the area which used to be the bagging area before the plastic bag ban was introduced. On more than one occasion I have had to wash my hands and/or the items which I have purchased after using these machines due to this problem. It is a matter of basic hygiene and public safety that these machines should be kept in a relatively clean state. You wouldn’t leave a spill on the floor of an aisle for longer than absolutely necessary, and your staff should be maintaining the same level of vigilance on the self-serve checkouts.

Unfortunately all of this, with the latest incident at the top of the list, has caused me to want to avoid your store at all costs, and the Woolworths brand as well. I do not enjoy being abused by your staff; I do not enjoy using unclean equipment; and most of all I do not appreciate being treated with contempt when I, as a customer of your store, am paying to keep the store running and the staff employed.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could, at the very least, investigate the first incident about which I have written and get back to me about it. You will find a copy of my bank records for this transaction attached to this letter, and I believe that you will have CCTV footage of the incident. To help you in locating me in the footage, on the night in question I was wearing an NYPD hoodie (it is official merchandise from the New York Police Department, so the letters NYPD are plastered across the front in giant yellow letters as per the NYPD logo which I am sure that you would have seen on television at one time or another, so it should be easy to spot). The rest of the incidents, while I would like you to be aware of them, do not need a response as I can not reasonably expect you to respond to incidents for which I do not have dates and times, although I would hope that you will talk to your staff about proper ways to deal with the public and about the importance of keeping the store clean.

Your actions in this regard will probably not bring me back to your store straight away, but may make me decide to revisit your store in the future if your response is good enough and if your staff smarten up their act considerably.

I should probably also note that, a few hours after the run-in with the security guard in your store, during some quiet time at work, I wrote an email about the incident to 2UE’s John Kerr who proceeded to read out my email on the air of 2UE in Sydney, 2CC here in Canberra, 4BC in Brisbane and a number of other radio stations around the country. I did not mention the exact location of the store in which this incident occurred (it would have been quite unfair of me to do so without contacting you about it first and giving you a chance to respond), however I did mention Woolworths and Canberra, so I would imagine that the Woolworths head office will have received a Media Monitors report about the email by now.

It would be safe to say that the security guard in your store put me in quite a bad mood, and it is not the first time that I have left your store thoroughly unsatisfied with the experience.

Thank you for taking the time to read this rather long letter. I hope that it helps you to improve your store, and I look forward to your reply with much anticipation.

Yours Sincerely,

Samuel Gordon-Stewart

2 comments February 17th, 2012 at 07:30am

Penalty Rates need to be overhauled

An email to 2GB’s Andrew Moore (with some extra bits added to make the context clear for people who did not hear the on-air topic)

Good morning Andrew,

Penalty rates are an interesting dilemma. While I agree that there should be some sort of extra incentive to work weird hours, I also don’t think that I should receive a heap of penalty rates for choosing to work odd hours.

My job contains a whole set of convoluted and expensive penalty rates which see me earn anything from 20% to 100% more than my base 38 hour wage per week. Admittedly my base rate would make me a rather low income earner, so I think a decent compromise would be to increase base rates a bit in exchange for simplifying penalty rates. Odd hours rates and public holiday rates should stay in a simplified form, but weekend rates are just wrong if I only work 38 hours per week. We don’t live in a society where business only occurs on weekdays, and it is expected by most people that businesses will operate on weekends, so it is silly to pay people extra for working on what is effectively an arbitrary two days of the week.

That’s my view…I’m sure there’s a few million other views out there.

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

February 17th, 2012 at 06:36am

Magda Szubanski advocates the mandatory drugging of the entire population to cure “intolerance”

Last night on the Ten Network’s “The Project” actress Magda Szubanski spoke in support of gay marriage, and about the fact that she is gay. I’m not going to discuss that in this post because it is really a distraction from her big comment of the night which I’m not sure that anybody really picked up on. Just for the record, I have no problem with Magda being gay. I do, however, disagree with her stance on gay marriage, but I respect her right to hold her view.

The comment that I found most interesting and alarming though, was her comment at the end of the interview. After stating that she would not take a pill, if one existed, to “cure” gay people of a genetic predisposition to being gay, she was interrupted and then sought permission to make one final statement. That statement was this:

Magda Szubanski. Image courtesy Channel TenIf they want to look at a genetic predisposition, look at the genetic predisposition for prejudice and intolerance.

Find a pill that can cure that, put in the water. Bang! Problem solved.

If you want to see the comment for yourself, it’s at approximately the 14:30 mark of this video.

(The embedded video is not working properly in some browsers. The direct link to the video is http://theprojecttv.com.au/video.htm?movideo_p=39696&movideo_m=162684 if you’re having issues watching it. Thanks to Lynn to reporting the issue.)

Now, let’s look at what Magda is advocating here. She wants a pill which cures everyone of prejudice and intolerance. That is patently absurd. Intolerance, in particular, is a perfectly normal part of human nature. We, as people, do not tolerate many things, such as murder, rape, theft, people driving on the wrong side of the road, etc. We are intolerant of many things for our own safety and security, and as part of our own moral code. To go to an example a bit closer to what Magda was talking about, I do not tolerate gay marriage as it goes against everything that I believe in, however I am more intolerant of violent and/or threatening behaviour, and thus would protest against a move to legalise gay marriage, but would not attempt to stop a service if it were legal. I may, however, attempt to have the law overturned.

Prejudice, in this case, would be justified as well. I would not need any information about the people involved to know that I disapprove of a gay marriage. I would, as a simple side-effect of the fact that I do not agree with gay marriage, be justified in being prejudiced against any given gay marriage before it occurred. This fits the definition of a prejudice perfectly (which is “a preconceived preference or idea”). As long as I do not attempt to stop the legal service by force or by intimidation, my intolerance and prejudice in this case is simply my opinion…and opinions are allowed.

Prejudice is also acceptable, for example, in the case of preferring local produce over imported produce. You don’t need to know where the imported fruit, meat, etc comes from in order to reach the conclusion that you would prefer to support local grown products, produced by local people. Without testing the quality of every single piece of imported produce for yourself, you are making that decision on the basis of some pre-formed assumptions (which may be evidence based, but that evidence doesn’t necessarily cover every piece of imported produce), and are therefore prejudiced.

So, to examine the practicality of Magda’s idea of cleansing everyone of intolerance and prejudice, there are two ways in which it could work. People could be tolerant of absolutely everything, resulting in tolerance of murders, rapes, etc. I doubt that this is what Magda wanted to see.

Rather, what Magda appeared to be advocating is cleansing people of particular intolerances and prejudices. In other words, enforcing a particular world-view. This is worse than the “thought police” telling someone off after they have announced their view of something as it is actually mandated thought control. What Magda advocated last night was that governments should spike the water supply in order to make people think a certain way. Apart from the utterly intolerable intrusion in to the mind of the individual, think of the potential of such a move. We might never need elections again as everyone would agree on everything, even which politician should be our national leader and, without any forms of disagreement being possible, our effective dictator.

It was quite frankly the single-most horrifying idea that I have heard put forward on national television for as long as I can remember. I actually doubt that Magda would want any of what she advocated…I suspect that she really just wants everyone to agree with her position on gay marriage, but alas, Magda, one of the great things about our country is that people are free to peacefully disagree about things, and I guarantee you that you do not want to live in a society where thoughts can be banned, or even worse, made impossible by some form of mass-drugging of the population.

Samuel

(h/t Channel Ten for the image of Magda Szubanski on The Project last night)

5 comments February 15th, 2012 at 06:08am

$200,000 to brand the carbon dioxide tax?

An email to 2GB’s Andrew Moore

Good morning Andrew,

Did I hear you correctly? $200,000 for a branding campaign for the carbon dioxide tax? Well I’ll gladly submit this effort for free in the hope that they won’t spend any more money on the project.

“If you’d just believed us in the first place, we wouldn’t need to spend more of your money to invent false evidence to convince you that the planet is warming…but you didn’t believe us, so we’ll tax you until you do.”

I wonder how our beloved Treasurer Of The Year plans to produce a surplus with wasteful spending like this?

A belated “welcome back” Andrew.

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

Indeed I did hear it correctly. The Daily Telegraph has a report today about the federal department of Climate Change spending $200,000 on a branding campaign for the carbon dioxide tax.

February 13th, 2012 at 04:31am

Romantic songs

Good morning John,

It's a shame (for me at least) that you are going to be away for the next couple of weekends as I don't have to work over the next couple of weekends and so it would be a good time for me to call you. But alas, you'll be away and I hope that it is not a shame for you, but instead is a jolly good time for you and for Rhonda.

About romantic songs, my favourite romantic song is "A You're Adorable". I like the version sung by Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae. Perry Como also released a version of this song which was more popular than the Stafford/MacRae version, but I think the Stafford/MacRae version is nicer as it really sounds like they're a couple who are deeply in love and are serenading each other with lovely compliments.

In regards to last week's gigantic email, I did write a letter of complaint to the manager of the store in question, but have not heard back as yet. Perhaps it is taking him or her a while to read the five-page letter that I sent.

Have a fantastic couple of weeks off.

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

February 12th, 2012 at 02:44am

Some fantastic news from the Republican race

I’m very pleased by the results of today’s elections in the Republican race for the Presidential nomination.

Rick Santorum, my preferred candidate of the remaining bunch, won all three states that were up for grabs today. He won Minnesota and Missouri by a big margin, and Colorado by a fairly narrow margin over Mitt Romney, but by a larger margin than he defeated Romney back in Iowa.

Today wasn’t the biggest day for the allocation of delegates by any means, but the victories are welcome all the same. If nothing else, it guarantees that the battle will go on for a bit longer, and I happen to think that will favour the more conservative candidates as the less conservative ones will have to spend more time fighting their own records, leaving the more conservative candidates to do what has really resonated with the electorate…fighting Obama and his horrendous record.

Samuel

2 comments February 8th, 2012 at 06:27pm

The self-serve checkouts…I’m over them!

An email to 2UE’s John Kerr

Good morning John,

Sorry to deviate way off topic like this, but I’ve changed my mind about the self-serve checkouts and wanted to let you know why.

I used to think that they were a great idea and a time-saver, especially when I only have one or two small items, but increasingly I have been frustrated by them. This evening just gone, the final straw broke.

After finding out that I was going to have to stay at work for longer than I had expected due to a staff member calling in sick, I decided to use my meal break to go to the Woolworths about five minutes drive from work to pick up some snacks. This was around 11pm. I went in, picked up two small snacks, and took them to the self-serve checkout. As is often the case, the machine’s cash dispenser was out of order and the machine was only accepting EFTPOS. I was hoping to pay with some loose change, but $4 on the card isn’t a huge deal…just inconvenient.

Once I had completed my purchase, I told the machine that I did not want a receipt as I would only have thrown it away anyway. The security guard watched me finishing up at the machine, and then stopped me after I had been through the theft detection alarm and had NOT set it off. He asked if I had paid for the items, and I said that I had. He then asked me for the receipt, showing a clear ignorance of how the machines work. I told him that I had not requested a receipt, but it was clear that he did not believe me and made a comment to that effect. He then started asking the staff there if they had seen me pay for the items, which seemed odd to me as he had been watching me use the self-service checkout, but none of the staff in the store seemed interested in his question.

The guard then made it clear that he did not believe me, but told me to go anyway. I started to leave, but I was incredibly offended, not just with the tone he had taken with me, but with the fact that he had watched me use the machine and saw that I had not set off any security alarms, and yet still stopped me and showed a complete ignorance of how the store’s machines work, and a complete contempt for everything I had said. So I turned back, attracted his attention (which was difficult as he turned his back on me at first and then tried to walk away from me) and informed him that I was very offended by his conduct and that, as a matter of principle (as I don’t appreciate being treated like a thief when the evidence clearly shows that I am not one) I was leaving the items at the store and I would be writing a letter of complaint to the store manager. I then planted the items on the counter in front of him, and left the store.

As I was on a meal break from work, I did not really have time to argue the point with the security guard. If time had been available, I would have gone in to internet banking on my phone and shown him the record of the transaction and requested an apology.

This is not the first time that I have encountered grief at the self-service checkouts. Often, they are unclean, having had various items spilled on them. Quite regularly they do not deal with cash and will only take EFTPOS or vice-versa, which is a problem which rarely ever afflicts the staff-run checkouts (on one occasion, the machine did not give me change and the staff refused to help on the grounds that I could not prove it…it was about 20 cents so I didn’t bother to argue the point) and on one particular occasion when I was purchasing a loose roll from the in-store bakery, a staff member yelled at me for daring to ask how to pay for the roll which did not have a barcode.

While this may indicate an attitude problem with the staff, I have to say that whenever I use a regular checkout with a staff member processing the sale, the process is always pleasant and the staff member is usually friendly.

I shall not be using the self-serve checkouts again, and I shall also be writing to the manager of the store in question, and probably will not be going back to that store any time soon. Other supermarkets are due to be built near it soon, and I dare say that they will be getting my business in future.

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

February 5th, 2012 at 02:50am

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