There is currently a power failure in Mitchell and Kaleen. ActewAGL hope to have the power back on by about 8:30am.
Update 8:30am: Power has been restored. ActewAGL are blaming an accident on the corner of Hoskins Street and Sandford Street in Mitchell for the outage. End Update
Since 2CC got back on the air just after the 7:30 news was replaced by the emergency tape version of The Carpenters, Mike Jeffreys and Jason Morrison have been having a rather amusing conversation. It’s almost a pity that they’ve gone to a sensible conversation, although they did manage to get the SMS system back online and listener opinions have been fairly evenly divided whether to continue the rambling or have a sensible conversation…the “no music” opinion has been quite unanimous though.
Update 7:58am: Of course Greens MLA Dr. Deb Foskey would be on to talk about carbon rationing during a power failure. Goodness knows what the buzzing noise on the phone line was just when Mike and Deb seemed to be agreeing on the subject of energy efficient houses. “That’s an interesting noise” said Dr. Foskey. All things considered, she took the whole “we’re running on backup power and I can see the time if I point a torch at the clock” thing quite well.
Just a thought, will the satellite receiver work on emergency power? If not Steve Price might be missing a station today. He has already missed his usual chat with Mike at 7:55. End Update
Update 8:15am: Even though I can rarely ever get words right in text messages, I sent 2CC a text message: “2cc no carpenters, but you can croon if you like. Hang in there mike, this is great entertainment from this end of the radio. Samuel”. Mike believes that I just like it because it’s unusual and has put everyone at the radio station in an odd position…well yes, but I also like the fact that this is live, almost completely unplanned radio, and there are a number of people with a good sense of humour keeping the ball rolling. Perhaps I should have suggested that this is precisely why we need to new power station near Hume. End Update
Whoever is responsible for organising today’s Canberra leg of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay is clearly doing a fantastic job at applying to be come to become the head honcho in the Department of Inconvenience. Starting the torch relay during peak hour and closing roads as they see fit during this time is a stroke of genius. Making everybody who lives or works in or around the road closures leave very early for work, and forcing extra traffic on to arterial roads which were cleverly opened with one lane each way along various parts of the road is also very clever.
And as if last night’s 6pm fireworks weren’t enough (they weren’t inconvenient) there had to be another set of fireworks at 6am today. That was a very inconvenient wakeup call, as was the 45 minutes of bird hysteria which followed it. The helicopter which has been in the air for about the same amount of time and flew directly over my house at 6:30am was also very inconvenient.
I’m just glad that my working day does not start in the normal place today, because otherwise I would be leaving for work at about 7:40am to ensure that I am out of the area before the random rolling road closures, and before everybody else has the same idea and clogs my alternative routes.
Update: Oops, a stroke of sanity from the Department of Inconvenience, the closure of Parkes Way has been delayed until 8:30am. At least their P.A. system is blaring out across the lake and wafting noises over my suburb, hope is not lost for this new government department. End Update
The power has been out in Weston Creek for about the last twenty minutes. From what I can see, it looks like most, if not all, of the business district has lost power. Other areas may be affected.
If you’re waiting for the Canberra Radio Ratings to be released, I would suggest not holding your breath as Nielsen have announced that they are delayed until next week, due to a delay in data processing (probably code for “two or more households didn’t return their ratings book on time”).
In October last year I continued my photographic series of Hills and Mountains of Canberra by visiting Oakey Hill, but for one reason or another I never got around to captioning the photos and making them publicly available…well, now they are.
Oakey Hill’s summit is 684 metres above sea level, the hill itself is surrounded by the Tuggeranong Parkway to the west, Hindmarsh Drive to the south, the subub of Lyons to the east and Heysen Street to the north. It is probably most recognisable for the mobile phone tower near the summit.
The phone tower can be seen quite clearly from many parts of Canberra, including Liardet Street in Weston.
Which, in turn, can be seen from Oakey Hill (click the image to enlarge…the previous photo was taken from next to the street sign at the end of the road between the petrol station and orange building).
Oakey Hill also has some nice views of Canberra such as looking towards Civic
Woden (on a slight angle)
And Parliament House
And much like almost every other hill in Canberra, Oakey Hill features a water reservoir.
The full set of photos can be viewed on the photo gallery at http://photos.samuelgordonstewart.com/Oakey-Hill-20071031, and it’s probably worth pointing out that I came very close to twisting my ankle on this hill…that’ll teach me to stand on small concrete columns and get off them without looking. Can anybody find the photo which features these small concrete columns?
I was coming home along Coranderrk Street at about 5:15 this morning and noticed something which I can only describe as an act of stupidity. Next to the National Convention Centre a new building is being constructed and there have been some minor roadworks in the area (see the green mark on the map below)…as such there are traffic cones. Some dim-witted idiots (or probably the plural thereof, even if it is a partially redundant description) decided that it would be a good idea to move them on to the road in a haphazard manner, effectively blocking one lane, and turning the other into an obstacle course. The road was not in this state (and there were no construction or roadwork staff on-site) when I went past at 7:45pm yesterday, so these dimwits obviously did it during the night.
Map copyright: Google 2008. Map data copyright: MapDataSciences Pty Ltd. Green marker added by Samuel
Just so we’re clear about this, I am not talking about the “witches hat” type of traffic cone, I’m talking about the tall skinny ones which are about a metre high, so you can’t really negate the obstacle course by running over the cones.
The area was still navigable, but at a lower speed, and only for one car at any given time. If left in this state, this “generally busy during the day” road would undoubtedly have an accident before long. I live short distance away, so I stopped at home, then made my way back and called the police. A friendly lady answered the phone and I explained the situation to her, and she let out a sort of “some people are really dumb” moan when she heard that traffic cones had been spread across the road. I mentioned to her that I would have fixed it myself, but it most probably would not be safe for me to move the cones at night (especially as I was wearing fairly dark clothing), and if somebody saw me moving the cones and called the police about it, I would be the one getting in trouble.
I wasn’t quite sure if the lady on the phone wanted me to wait around for the police to arrive, and as I generally don’t like to leave the scene until they arrive when I call an emergency service, I decided to wait. A few minutes later a police car arrived, “the police officers activated their vehicle’s warning lights” as one of their press releases would say, and got out to assess the situation. I walked over and explained who I was and why I was there, and then assisted the police with the cleanup (which was now much safer thanks to the flashing lights on the police car). A security guard who was just leaving the nearby CIT campus also assisted.
I must say that the two police officers, who must surely have been wondering what was going through the minds of the people who moved the traffic cones, did not seem phased by the sheer stupidity of the situation. They were very professional and friendly, and I think the response of the police to this incident was absolutely fantastic.
It’s just a pity that, in all likelyhood, the chances of catching the dimwits who moved the traffic cones is almost zero. With that in mind, if you saw anything suspicious in the area during the night, I would urge you to give crimestoppers a call on 1800 333 000.
As of yesterday we are in to Canberra’s first radio ratings period for the year. The ratings period runs from February 17 to March 15, a total of 4 weeks, with the results published on Thursday March 27.
Later this week the first metropolitan radio ratings will be released. Sydney and Brisbane will be of particular interest, especially for the Fairfax talk stations. 2UE in Sydney have an almost completely different (perhaps “shuffled” would be a better word) lineup, whilst 4BC have replaced the Sydney based morning show with their own local morning show. It will be a very interesting survey.
At some stage late on Saturday night a relatively large Canberra Door Moth made itself at home on my front door. It was still there in the early hours of Sunday morning, so I took some photos of it.
There’s a large storm making its way through Sydney at the moment, and another storm near Canberra and expected to hit within the next hour or so.
Both 2CC’s feed from 2UE, and the 2KY feed to their Canberra repeater are having issues this evening as a result of the storms…2KY’s Canberra repeater doesn’t have an emergency tape either.
Incidentally the Bureau Of Meterology is warning of large hailstones, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds in Newcastle, Gosford, Sydney, Wollongong, Nowra, Batemans Bay, Orange, Canberra, Goulburn, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga, Albury, Cobar and Bourke.
Update 7:25pm: Both stations are back on the air and have been broadcasting without issues for the last little while…the storms are still a concern though. End Update
It was interesting to hear ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope on 2CC’s 8am news today. He was talking about a plan to turn the Mulligan’s Flat Nature Reserve in to a nature sanctuary. During the audio grab he was listing a few of the species which could benefit from this, and he stumbled on the name of a bird, accidentally calling it a “Brown Tree Kook”.
I’ve been trying to work out what you would classify a Chief Turnip as for quite some time, and now I know, a Brown Tree Kook.
For what it’s worth, I actually think the idea of a nature sanctuary at Mulligan’s Flat is a good idea. I can’t imagine that it would cost too much to build and maintain a “predator proof fence”, and the initial allocation of $650,000 sounds quite reasonable. At the very least, it’s $650,000 that can’t be spent on another one of those peculiar public artworks or an Al Grasby statue.
I’m also pleased that the Brown Tree Kook has committed to restoring the historic Tharwa bridge. It’s a bit overdue, and I’m a tad suspicious of the timing considering that it is now an election year and, amongst other things, the Gungahlin Drive Extension roadworks are likely to finish a handful of months before the election with the most used part of it, the Glenloch Interchange, finishing last, giving people time to readjust to the old idea of a relatively smooth run through there just in time to vote for the incumbent.
But I digress, it’s good to see some action on the issue, and I made a point of visiting the Tharwa General Store yesterday (quite a distance, especially with the detour in lieu of a bridge) to thank Val Jeffrey for not backing down, and for getting the Stanhope government to actually do something that the community want…a rare feat in this town. Mr. Jeffrey was a bit less optimistic, pointing out that the work hasn’t started yet…but he seemed pleased that there was some progress all-the-same.
One wonders if we will see further niceties heading the way of our historic communities of Hall and Tharwa courtesy of the Brown Tree Kook this year…a reopening of their schools perhaps?
Update: Marcus writes in an email that Bob Brown, federal leader of The Greens, might be a more apt definition of a “brown tree kook”. Thanks Marcus! End Update
On Tuesday I thanked 2CC for granting one of my Christmas wishes by updating their “open line” promo.
As of 4:38 this morning I am able to thank them for granting another Christmas wish…the emergency tape has been updated. The old tape started with a 2CC ID and an ad for The Australian Bedding Company. The new emergency tape also starts with a 2CC ID, but the first ad it different, starting with the words “For machinery that’s all grunt”. It’s definitely not an ad for The Australian Bedding Company, although network programming cut in before I could hear any more of the ad to identify the advertised business.
I should probably point out that I didn’t express my Christmas wishes to 2CC, although I have expressed my reservations about the old eight minute (or thereabouts) loop emergency tape on a number of occasions. Hopefully this tape isn’t another short loop…although with any luck I will never have the opportunity to find out.
Update: 5:23 arrives and another chance to hear the tape…the first three ads are for Queanbeyan Diesel Service, ASI Locksmiths and Living Simply. End Update
It would appear that Loadedog is for one reason or another shortly about to become homeless having been given his marching orders from his residence in Reid after five years living there.
Loadedog has made a public request for a rental property, his specifications follow:
…we need a house to rent somewhere in the inner north of Canberra. Ideally it’d be close to Civic, on a block big enough to host the Backanalia, with a large shed, 2-4 bedrooms (at around $150 per room) and have a separate lounge/rumpus/studio large enough to host podcasts (around 5×4 metres is adequate).
Anybody who knows of (or has) such a residence on offer is requested to contact Loadedog either by email or through a comment on his blog.
I’m not surprised, something crazy is bound to happen at Summernats every year, it’s just the nature of the event.
This year it’s a (reportedly) drunken mob hurling verbal abuse and causing other problems, simply because a few of their mates were kicked out of the event.
The organisers of Summernats repeatedly refused to get the police involved despite the mob clearly being quite unruly and causing quite a bit of upset and stress amongst the rest of the attendees. Organiser Chic Henry has made his annual “no no no, nothing happened, nothing at all, we’re just a nice quiet group of people…just don’t point the camera over there” speech, this time referring to the mob as a “parade”.
Something dangerously stupid like this happens each year, and that we can expect something like this each year is definitely not an excuse.
I had a brief conversation with Mike Jeffreys (welcome back from leave Mike) on 2CC this morning in which Mike asked if I was there, I was more than happy to say “I’m never there”. Summernats is not an event which interests me and in previous years I have managed to upset a number of Canberra’s more die-hard supporters of Summernats with my annual annoyance over the event. Due to this upset I have to make it clear that it’s not the genuine car lovers or the car festival that annoys me, it’s the loutish element which it attracts.
The reason I rang Mike this morning was to express my pleasure in the lack of the usual, annual, Saturday night and Sunday morning noisy activity near my place. I was pleasantly surprised by it only lasting from 1am to 3am and only containing a noisy activity once every fifteen to twenty minutes…a vast improvement over previous years where the noise has been noticeable every ten to fifteen minutes from about 11pm until 4am or 5am.
When I noticed this lack of activity on Saturday night I thought for a few hours that finally Summernats had carefully weeded out the undesirable element. I was disheartened, but not surprised, when the news broke of the mini-riot. It seems that you can get rid of one form of idiot, and get a different one instead.
This is what bothers me, every year this event attracts an undesirable element and something stupid seems to happen at the event…this year the two just happened to involve the same group. And just as predictably, organiser Chic Henry will come out and say something ludicrous in an attempt to make the event sound like it’s a heap of wholesome family fun.
I have no doubt that the event works miracles for the ACT’s economy, and that a lot of very talented people bring their cars to Summernats to display the immaculate work they have done to them. It’s just a pity that the very nature of the event also attracts a bunch of lunatics…they may be a small minority of the visitors but they are a large enough number to cause plenty of trouble.
As much as I would be happy to see Summernats banned, I know that it is merely a pleasant fantasy. I think the only other option is an increased Police presence…if it doesn’t deter the nuts, at least there will be enough Police on hand to deal with the problems when they inevitably arise. An increased Police presence will also prevent another occurrence of the ridiculous situation where they don’t attend simply because the Summernats organisers decline assistance on the phone.
Of course I would also like to see Chic Henry hire a sane spokesman who doesn’t try to convince everyone that a chanting, angry mob is a parade…but my opinions of Chic Henry are a matter for another day, and probably a good basis for him to launch a defamation lawsuit against me.
Update 8:47am: Mike Jeffreys just interviewed Chic Henry, I think the following sentence from Chic Henry explains half of the problem with Summernats. “There were a lot of people there that had consumed a lot of alcohol during the day”.
Just about every other event in this country has some sort of limit on the amount of alcohol people can consume, and they have these limits to prevent this sort of incident. Also, unlike the behaviour of Summernats security personnel described by Mr. Henry, other events have security staff who will stop this kind of incident rather than let it proceed.
The two lessons to be learnt from this:
1. Summernats needs some sort of alcohol limit
2. The security staff need to be a bit more responsive. It may have started as a confusing “parade”, but it should never have been allowed to reach the point where a group were trying to push a truck over.
On the 17th of December (Monday last week), Peter Leonard won the Chief Minister-Public Relations Institute of Australia (ACT Division) Award for Community Media, and in doing so became the first individual to win the award.
Mr Stanhope said Mr Leonard received the award, in its ffith [sic] year, for his service to media and the Canberra community.
“I am very pleased to be able to present the Award to such a deserving winner. Peter is well known to Canberrans as a proud, popular and vocal supporter of the ACT community,” Mr Stanhope said.
The award acknowledges outstanding contributions to the community by ACT media organisations or individuals. This year, for the first time, an individual has been chosen as the recipient of the award.
Mr Leonard was selected for his exceptional service to the community through the media and public relations industry in Canberra, particularly his work at WIN TV presenting ACT and district news for many years.
“Peter has also dedicated himself to a wide range of ACT community programs and events, was Canberra Citizen of the Year in 1991, and has been a tireless worker for local charities such as the MS Society of the ACT and the Cancer Council,” Mr Stanhope said.
“On behalf of the ACT Community I thank Peter for his contribution and congratulate him on this prestigious and well deserved award.”
Seeing as Peter has been handed this prestigious award, I think it is appropriate to run this 1995 promo for WIN News. This is the Canberra version of the promo, WIN also had versions of the promo produced for Wollongong and Western New South Wales and probably other places as well. The promos were based on Nine’s Who’s Who of News, and were probably produced by Nine.
Interestingly it’s the only WIN version of the promo not to include footage of the journalists reporting to camera. It is also worthwhile noting that Canberra’s set was different to the one used in Wollongong and Western New South Wales. I personally preferred the physical set to the keyed set currently used. It is my opinion that if you’re going to have a static background, you might as well use a physical set, and the old WIN News set had some charm. I would like to see them do what Nine do, and have a camera somewhere providing the city as a backdrop, it’s a pity that this probably isn’t a viable option for WIN, especially in the places where the local news is read elsewhere, as it would personalise their bulletins a lot more than the static out of focus control room image they currently use across the entire network.
Anyway, Jon Stanhope’s press release goes on to mention some previous winners of the award, namely:
The Canberra Times for its contribution to the bushfire recovery, WIN News for continuing to maintain an excellent local news service, and radio station 2XX for many years of service to community radio.
It also mentions 666 ABC Canberra for their work during the 2003 bushfire. I have to say that I didn’t understand that award. It really should have been a joint award between 666 ABC Canberra, 2CC, 2CA, WIN News and ABC TV News. 2CC and 2CA (2CC took over 2CA for the day) did just as much work as 666 covering the fires, the WIN staff came in without being asked and put on a special bulletin..one Jon Stanhope should remember as I seem to recall him being interviewed by Peter Leonard during the bulletin, and ABC TV News also put on a special coverage of the fire. Why one group was singled out when they all did excellent work is beyond me.
I suppose that’s a discussion for another day, as today I should really just be congratulating Peter Leonard on another fabulous achievement. The award is thoroughly deserved.
Update 1:35pm:
The warning was expanded at 1:31pm:
For people in the HUNTER, CENTRAL TABLELANDS, ACT, CENTRAL WEST SLOPES, CENTRAL WEST PLAINS and parts of the METROPOLITAN, ILLAWARRA, SOUTH COAST, SOUTHERN TABLELANDS, NORTH WEST SLOPES, NORTH WEST PLAINS, SOUTH WEST SLOPES, UPPER WESTERN and LOWER WESTERN Forecast Districts.
Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce large hailstones, very heavy rainfall and flash flooding in the warning area over the next several hours. Locations which may be affected include Newcastle, Orange, Canberra, Goulburn, Tamworth, Gunnedah, Dubbo, Parkes and Cobar.
The next warning is due to be issued by 4:35 pm.
If severe thunderstorms develop in the Sydney/Newcastle/Wollongong region or Canberra and Queanbeyan, a more detailed Severe Thunderstorm Warning will be issued to people in these areas.
Originally filed 12:16pm:
With the light show out there at the moment, I’m hardly surprised.
For people in the HUNTER, CENTRAL TABLELANDS, ACT, CENTRAL WEST SLOPES and parts of the METROPOLITAN, ILLAWARRA, SOUTHERN TABLELANDS, NORTH WEST SLOPES and SOUTH WEST SLOPES Forecast Districts.
Issued at 12:05 pm Thursday, 27 December 2007.
Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce large hailstones and may produce very heavy rainfall and flash flooding in the warning area over the next several hours. Locations which may be affected include Newcastle, Orange, Bathurst, Katoomba, Canberra, Goulburn, Yass, Tamworth and Gunnedah.
The State Emergency Service advises that people should:
* Move your car under cover.
* Keep clear of creeks and storm drains.
* Don’t walk, ride your bike or drive through flood water.
* Unplug computers and appliances.
* Avoid using the phone during the storm.
* Stay indoors away from windows, and keep children and pets indoors as well.
* For emergency help in floods and storms, ring the SES (NSW and ACT) on 132 500.
The next warning is due to be issued by 3:05 pm.
If severe thunderstorms develop in the Sydney/Newcastle/Wollongong region or Canberra and Queanbeyan, a more detailed Severe Thunderstorm Warning will be issued to people in these areas.
On the 17th of December (Monday last week), Peter Leonard won the Chief Minister-Public Relations Institute of Australia (ACT Division) Award for Community Media, and in doing so became the first individual to win the award.