2UE’s Paul B. Kidd has announced that he has bladder cancer and will be off the air for the next six weeks.
Paul made the announcement today on his weekend show with George Moore.
I can’t find much about this online other than people saying that he made the announcement, so I really don’t have any more information about this at this time. None-the-less, I wish Paul a speedy recovery and will be writing to him in the coming days to express my best wishes for him.
Paul has been co-hosting weekend programming with George Moore since 2001 and is well known, amongst other things, for being the voice of “Dolly”, the Weekend Quiz scorekeeper. Paul, a well-known crime-writer, also presents a weekly segment on the show about a notable crime from Australia’s past, which can be heard on the George and Paul page of the 2UE website.
I just noticed that Murray Olds is filling in for Tim Webster this afternoon on 2UE and 2CC. The Fairfax Radio Syndication website indicates that he will be filling in all week.
It’s nice to hear Murray on the radio again and to hear that he came back from Beijing safely. Of the possible fill-ins, he is definitely my preferred choice, although I have to admit that if Glenn Wheeler were still at 2UE, he’d be my pick of the crop.
Oddly, and for no immediately apparent reason, Sports Today NSW is being pushed back by 45 seconds, and will start at 18:08.00 instead of 18:07:15 starting tomorrow, and running through until September 26. John Gibbs (who has been referred to as Phil Gibbs in the Rugby World Cup material) is also on leave this week, being replaced by:
Russell Barwick and Bill Woods - Sep 1;
Russell Barwick - Sep 2 and 3;
Bill Woods - Sep 4 and 5.
To clarify that for the sake of anybody who is trying to work out (without help from Fairfax) why he needs two fill-ins tonight, that’s because Greg Alexander is also away tonight, tending to his NRL commentary duties with Fox Sports. Somebody has to clarify this stuff…although why I walk into doing it is beyond me.
Back to Murray Olds for a moment, perhaps John B1_B5 was right when he suggested that Furry Murray should be his theme song:
As I mentioned earlier this morning, 2CC are broadcasting from Bunnings Warehouse in Fyshwick until midday. I went down there with my inflatable Bunnings hammer and my Bunnings hat, and they appeared to be having a good time.
Pete Davidson, Graham Robinson, Karen of Bunnings Fyshwick, and the fill-in Garden Gurus
I was also pleasantly surprised to see Scott McGregor from television shows such as Better Homes and Gardens who was there to present two French polishing demonstrations.
The crowd for Scott’s 10am demonstration grew slowly over the hour, although the man eating the sausage sandwich (who also happened to have a notepad for taking notes which might be useful in his table restoration efforts) and I were there for the full demonstration.
This photo didn’t quite work, but Scott was quite energetic during the demonstration so I think it fits.
The demonstration went on for about an hour, which is probably longer than it was supposed to, but it didn’t really matter as Scott and the crowd (myself included) enjoyed it.
And by 11am, Scott had finished an abbreviated restoration and polish of the door of an old meter box.
Incidentally, Scott has just finished a documentary for the History Channel on the history of Australia Post. I don’t have access to the History Channel, but I will be buying a copy of it on DVD from Australia Post when it goes on sale. I’m looking forward to it.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the visits of some other 2CC listeners that I know. A bus driver friend turned up just after 9am, and Lillian and her husband, retired Dickson College canteen managers, turned up to see Scott McGregor after hearing about his demonstrations on 2CC. Lillian and her husband recently stayed at Scott’s “Ruwenzori” railway carriage based resort in Mudgee.
2CC’s Graham Robinson and the fill-in Garden Gurus are broadcasting live from Bunnings Warehouse in Fyshwick this morning. If my memory is serving me in a non-devious manner, they haven’t broadcasted from there before.
I’ve been debating for the last few days whether or not I will visit them there, and considering that I have been up since about 4:30am working on the morning sport bulletins for AIR News and upgrading WordPress and other website components, I am now too awake to go back to sleep, and I think I will pay them a visit.
The last time I went to a 2CC outside broadcast was at Bunnings Belconnen on Saturday March 15 where Mike Frame, Graham Robinson and 2CC Program Director and 2CA evening presenter Pete Davidson were in attendance. I still have the Bunnings hat and inflatable hammer I received on that occasion…I might just have to take them with me. I’ve been trying (not hard enough, obviously) to find a reason to wear the Bunnings hat…I wonder if the fact that I’ve been considering wearing this hat to Bunnings Fyshwick as part of my debate about whether or not to attend means that there is something wrong with me?
Probably not…it just means that I have too much time to think.
I’ll save some of my thoughts for an editorial that I’m writing, but I noted on 2CC’s news at 8am that former Mix 106.3 breakfast host Mark Parton is going to run as an independent candidate in the upcoming ACT election.
Mark has noted on his blog that he will make an announcement on 666 ABC Canberra at 8:30am. Sorry Mark, looks like 2CC beat the exclusive.
Anyway, this should make for an interesting contest. Mark is quite popular in this town, so it will be interesting to see how that translates to the electorate.
Update 10:48am: The official announcement will be at 11am according to Mark. If I wasn’t working, I’d probably be interested in attending even though he is not in my electorate.
Most people who have listened to me in the last 10 years know what I stand for. I stand for the community.
For families, I want this city to be a sustainable, prosperous community so that my children and hopefully their children can proudly call it home.
I am for common sense in Government and for supporting and nurturing business people who have the courage to put their neck on the line and “have a go”.
We need to think green, but we need to do it in a practical common sense way and I want to foster that approach in our community and in business.
I stand for openness and honesty in Government and for solutions that are not shaped by party politics.
Grand statements, but a good brief summary that people will be able to remember the gist of. The Ginninderra electoral race just became interesting. End Update
Samuel
I managed to find a good point about having the Olympics on at night and Seven’s AFL coverage delayed until 7:50am in New South Wales…if I sleep for thirteen hours from 6pm on Friday, I can wake up on Saturday and still see most of the AFL.
Anyway, the Dennis Cometti quote (and I had to decide between a few…it seems that letting Dennis loose to call all the action without Bruce McAvaney next to him results in far too much amusement, not that I’m complaining of course). Dennis referred to Ryan Hargrave as looking “fresh”, and then a minute or so later Hargrave looked quite exhausted, which prompted a number of Dennis’ co-commentators to have a bit of fun at Dennis’ expense.
Not long after this, Ryan Hargrave was off the field with ice wrapped around his ankle. One of Dennis’ co-commentators (possibly Nathan Buckley) noted that Hargrave didn’t look very fresh any more, prompting Dennis to say “if he was an avacado, you wouldn’t buy him”.
Teenagers and young children searching and downloading the latest tunes over the Internet are being exposed to pornographic images and websites.
The popular Internet tool LimeWire is at the centre of the pornography scare.
Searching for Britney Spears and even children shows The Wiggles and HI-5 return explicit images, and links to child porn websites.
That’s just a tad too selective…in truth, searching for anything on LimeWire is likely to produce results which aren’t what you’re searching for, and if you’re lucky you might find what you’re looking for as well.
But who came up with this astonishing revelation? The next paragraph of the article should clarify that:
Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, commander of the child protection and sex crimes squad, says police are seriously concerned about file-sharing programs like LimeWire and their capacity to expose children to inappropriate material.
“Police have previously received reports and conducted investigations into the receipt of this kind of material,” he told News Ltd.
Well, good luck Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, organisations with much more money to play with than you will ever see (the RIAA for one) have been doing their best to get rid of file sharing for many years.
For better or worse, where there is file sharing, there will be unsavoury content, this has been known for a very long time, so why it has managed to make the news today is beyond me. Surely Kevin Rudd has said something on his latest overseas trip…even if he was just ordering dinner, it would be more newsworthy than this tripe.
Update: news.com.au are claiming to have an exclusive on this story, and their article even links to the Limewire website. Does this mean that the folks at news.com.au want people to download Limewire and search for The Wiggles and HI-5, and then follow the yellow brick road to the content that the article whinges about?
While we’re at it, would somebody like to wake a sub-editor?
In April, ?? men were sentenced to jail in Queensland and the Northern Territory for also accessing child porn via LimeWire.
I’m confused and I have been for some time. Endeavour carpets in Fyshwick have a radio advertisement featuring a jingle for “Independent Carpets”.
What I can’t work out is why Endeavour Carpets would want to pay for an advertisement claiming that “Independent Carpets is the only place to go”. The only possibilities that springs to mind are:
1. Nobody noticed the error
2. It’s a deliberate tactic to confuse the listener and get the store’s name firmly implanted in the listener’s head.
A few months back, Mike Frame left 2CC to host the Queensland version of Southern Cross Ten’s State Focus programme. Mike does this from the Southern Cross Ten studios in Watson which is interesting not only because the regional program doesn’t have to be filmed in the region, but also because Mike didn’t have to leave Canberra and was therefore able to appear in the social pages of The Chronicle last week, attending a function at Thoroughbred Park.
That photo reminded me that I’ve been meaning to check for a video of Framey on State Focus for a while, and this morning I spotted the following extract which originally aired on the 6th of July.
It looks like Mike is enjoying hosting State Focus, but he doesn’t look comfortable reading the autocue. Firing question off with some degree of ad-libbing makes Framey look more “at home”, hopefully the autocue part of his job will become more natural as time goes by.
Whilst on the subject of Framey, apparently he filled in for Graham Robinson on a Sunday on 2CC a few weeks ago. I missed it as I was sleeping at the time, I would have called in otherwise. As for the question of why I haven’t called Graham on the weekend yet…well I’m rarely able to call on a Saturday during the Weekend Magazine, and I don’t really have much to contribute to the gardening show or The Tradies Post…I do listen though.
The Australian is reporting on a rather peculiar statement from Macquarie Radio (Sydney’s 2GB and 2CH) chief executive Angela Clark.
Ms. Clark claims that Deborah Cameron’s success this year on ABC 702 Sydney’s morning show is “a survey glitch”. She is referring to the latest survey in particular where Ms. Cameron had the attention of 10.1% of the Sydney audience, putting her in second place behind 2GB’s Ray Hadley who was in the ear of 13.7% of Sydney listeners.
Ms. Cameron is relatively new to the airwaves, having taken over the morning show at the beginning of this year as a replacement for Virginia Trioli, leaving her newspaper journalism role to do so. It has been widely noted that Ms. Cameron doesn’t come across as a “polished” radio presenter, and perhaps that is part of her charm and part of the reason for her success. In many ways I think talk radio presenters sound more credible when they sound like they are ad-libbing rather than reading a piece of paper.
Anyway, back to my point. Angela Clark claims that the latest survey is a glitch, but I would like to know what she makes of the trend.
The clear trend here is upwards, and if there was a “glitch” in the data used in survey four, then I would have expected survey five to deliver a lower percentage, not a higher one. To explain, the metro markets such as Sydney generally use two reporting periods per survey. Survey one only has one reporting period, but that is shared with survey two which uses reporting periods one and two, survey three uses reporting periods two and three, survey four uses reporting period three and four, and so on. If reporting period four was abnormally high, then it should have been balanced out by reporting period five, but it wasn’t, so the trend is an upward one.
This all makes me wonder what Ms. Clark expects me to make of 2CH’s unexpected success this year, especially considering that Macquarie have publicly expressed their pleasure with 2CH’s results:
Survey 1: 5.6% (9th)
Survey 2: 5.4% (9th)
Survey 3: 6.7% (7th)
Survey 4: 7.3% (6th)
Survey 5: 7.1% (6th)
The trend here is an upward one, and for a station which works with a minimal budget and virtually no promotion, it’s an impressive jump, especially considering that they are now ahead of six of the eight other music stations.
That said though, if 2CH’s trend isn’t as strong as Deborah Cameron’s trend, and Ms. Cameron’s trend can be written off as a glitch by Ms. Clark, surely Macquarie should be wary about praising 2CH’s wonderful upward glitch. Or does the goose live under separate conditions to the gander?
I managed to stump Jim Ball with this around 5am and I was going to post it here at that time, but decided to get some sleep instead. Probably not a bad idea after being awake for 33 hours.
So, today is the 13th of August, and it is a most wonderous day in the history of radio. Without cheating and going to wikipedia for the answer, would anybody like to guess?
If you need a clue, it happened in 1954.
There’s no prize on offer…to see the answer, simply highlight from here
Answer: On August 13 1954, for the first time ever, the Pakistani national anthem was broadcast by Radio Pakistan, Pakistan’s official broadcaster. The next day, they celebrated their seventh birthday.
If this year was 2004 and we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of that amazingly wonderful day, I might consider playing the Pakistani national anthem myself. Can somebody remind me to do that in 2054?
to here.
You didn’t know the answer? Well, you should have been listening to Jim Ball’s show this morning. Tsk tsk.
From tonight’s AFL coverage on Channel Seven. Bruce McAvaney was talking about Collingwood.
Bruce McAvaney: A month ago we were wondering if they would get in to the top four, now we’re wondering if they can cling on to a spot in the top eight.
Umpire (on field): Nooooo
One wonders if they commentators are hooked in to the same mix as the audience and are therefore able to hear the umpires. I only wonder because the commentators didn’t seem to notice the umpire’s comment, and I would have almost expected Dennis Cometti to inform Bruce that “you have your answer”.
Livenews.com.au brings us some good news written by Alan Jones’ fill-in presenter Jason Morrison:
The prostate cancer operation for broadcaster Alan Jones has been a success, according to his family.
A statement released by his niece Tonia Taylor says;
“Alan’s operation has been successful. His surgeon, Professor Phillip Stricker, is happy with the way it went.
“Alan is comfortable and resting.”
Mr Jones remains in Sydney’s St Vincents hospital.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in May and decided to go public with his medical condition to encourage men to take the threat seriously and have regular checks.
He will be away from his 2GB radio show for several weeks to recover from the surgery.
Mr. Jones went under the knife on Saturday according to 2GB rugby league commentator Andrew Moore and I’m pleased to hear that the operation went well. I would imagine that he will be housebound for a few weeks while he recovers, so I wonder if his doctors and the management of 2GB will entertain the idea of having him broadcast from home towards the end of his recovery period if he requests it.
Yesterday my copy of The City Chronicle arrived in my letterbox. I’ve been concerned about the seemingly dropping journalistic standards of this weekly paper since its parent company Rural Press merged with Fairfax a bit over a year ago. Unfortunately this week’s front page confirmed my fears.
Click image to enlarge
For those of you who aren’t aware, The Chronicle is a free weekly (except for a couple weeks over Christmas) newspaper produced by the people who produce The Canberra Times. It comes in a tabloid format and is delivered to approximately 128,000 households and workplaces across Canberra and Queanbeyan, and read by approximately 178,000 people. Editions of the paper are produced for each region across Canberra and Quenabeyan, with content differing slightly between these editions.
So, back to this week’s front page of The City Chronicle, and the lead story is about older buses in ACTION’s fleet struggling in wet weather.
Click image to enlarge
The story comes complete with a digitally altered image of an older bus sitting under an umbrella which seems to be floating in mid-air. The sky has also been altered to be a more menacing colour.
But what about the article itself…surely many many buses must have been off the road for this to warrant the front page of a weekly publication, especially when the story doesn’t relate to a particular region and could theoretically be used on every edition (I’m still checking up on that).
Out of action
Older buses struggle with recent rain
By Rebecca Thistleton
CANBERRA’S recent damp weather was too much to handle for some of Action’s older buses.
Last Monday, 13 buses were unable to operate because of wet weather.
A Territory and Municipal Services spokeswoman said this was 3.9 per cent of Action’s fleet of 339 buses, and was caused by “heavy rain and inclement weather.”
Gosh, so many buses off the road because of the rain…and such an unlucky number too. I wonder what could possibly have caused the buses to have so much trouble in this batch of rain when they didn’t have this much trouble with the last batch of rain?
“Action believes there is an increase due to issues such as the irregular use of windscreen wipers,” the spokeswoman said.
So, thirteen buses mysteriously had their windscreen wipers stop working on one day? Surely Ms. Thistleton thought there was something fishy about that figure and asked some questions about the number of buses which were “unable to operate” on previous rainy days…or was she just being taken for a ride by the good folks at ACTION Public Relations?
On a normal day, the average number of buses unable to operate properly was 2.7 per cent - that’s about nine buses out of action every day.
Nine buses out of action every day…wasn’t there a figure about the number of buses out of action last Monday earlier in this article?
Last Monday, 13 buses were unable to operate because of wet weather.
Um, doesn’t thirteen minus nine equal four? Does that mean that, in reality, The City Chronicle is running a front page story complete with digitally altered photograph, about four older buses having a windscreen wiper problem? Perhaps…let’s read on and find out.
One of the buses to break down on Monday was a newer, compressed natural gas model, the rest were older diesel models.
So, that’s actually only three more older buses off the road than usual. It’s hardly, as the sub-headline suggests, older buses struggling with recent rain. And it’s not as if there weren’t more important stories in the last week. Pages 14 and 15 contain a double page spread about Jon Stanhope’s ideas for a light rail network…surely a story like that deserves more prominence than a story which can only fill a column if the journalist quotes and paraphrases a TAMS spokeswoman droning on for three paragraphs about standard procedures for when a bus breaks down.
If The Chronicle keeps this up, I’m going to start to think they’ve hired all of the (freely distributed daily News Limited publication in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) MX journalists. The writing and sensationalism is almost as good.
Now, just in case you’re interested in this awful beat-up of a front page lead story, here it is in all its glory…and if you’ll excuse me, I have an email to write to the good folks at Media Watch.
WIN News anchor Jessica Good happily showed off the perils of putting commas in the wrong place on the autocue during this evening’s pre-recorded weather update.
“Hello again isolated showers, [forecast continues]”
Whilst it was much more amusing than the correct “Hello again, isolated showers [forecast continues]“, unfortunately it sent me in to hysterical laughter and as such I haven’t the faintest clue what the weather forecast is. I don’t even know if “isolated showers” applies to us or some other region.
That said, if you know somebody named Isolated Showers, you might want to ask them to watch WIN Television for the rest of the night. Jessica Good seems to have a message for them.
Paul made the announcement today on his weekend show with George Moore.
