Archive for January 21st, 2006
As you may recall, I reported about a week ago that the ABC are running a special “Reunions Special” series of As Time Goes By, which is a series of four episodes which pick up after the original series ended. These episodes are screening on Friday nights at 8PM.
Last night, ABC TV ran episode two, a summary of which can be found below. (Source: ABC TV)
Jean, Sandy and Judith wait nervously for news of Harry’s job and Alistair’s doctors appointment. Lionel is the first to return home, having left Alistair waiting for test results.
Alone at last, Jean and Lionel reflect on the day. Lionel is keen to talk about something other than babies, but Jean wants to know why he and his first wife never had children.
Episode three will screen on ABC TV at 8PM on Friday, January 27, whilst episode four will screen at 8PM on Friday, February 3.
Samuel
January 21st, 2006 at 11:24pm
I can sum that up in one word…”lunatics” (for those that keep emailing me saying it’s “loonatics”, that’s a movie, not a word!).
Take 2UE’s OB at The Domain in Sydney for example. 2UE generally have enclosed studios for every OB, which is lucky as somebody could have been seriously hurt if they didn’t. I’ll let a Sydney listener, Madcat from USENET Aus.Radio.broadcast explain what happened:
I was just listeening to 2UE just after 1pm Saturday, and they are
doing their “Find Me A Home” program as an OB from The Domain in
Sydney.
Some woman started banging on the glass window telling them to “turn
it down”. They told her to stop, as she’d break the glass. She did
for a few moments.
Then she started up again…constantly and hard – BANG BANG BANG BANG.
And it really did sound like the window would shatter.
The real esate guy adn the host got all flustered, and mentioned that
they would have to get the police.
(Verbatim copy, errors were in original text).
Poor Monica Trapaga, her first day filling in for Glenn Wheeler and she gets a visit from a lunatic. If this person had wanted to have the speaker volume turned down, you would think she could have asked one of the 2UE staff, there seemed to be plenty there (including weekday afternoon presenter John Stanley). I don’t think I’ve seen a single OB that didn’t have non-presenting station staff all over the place.
Canberra only get 2pm to 6pm of Glenn’s (Monica’s) show on a Saturday, but the bits I heard did sound like Monica got a bit of a shock from that drama and needed a break. To her credit she continued with the show, and it was undoubtedly a coup for 2UE having Monica at an OB, but it did seem quite clear that she was shaken up by the whole event. I hope that 2UE have the courtesy to give her tomorrow off if she needs it.
Samuel
January 21st, 2006 at 09:30pm
The ACT Government has announced an additional 22 mobile speed camera locations. Whilst I’m glad they are monitoring more areas, I don’t approve of the publication of camera locations.
The ACT government have this strange theory that publicising speed camera locations will slow people down, ultimately though, all it does is give motorists a chance to slow down near a speed camera and speed up again once they pass it.
This thread on Canberra Cruises proves this theory, as it clearly shows that people there might slow down around the cameras, but they won’t slow down elsewhere. So what to do?
Well I was chatting with 2CC’s Mike Frame today just after he interviewed an ACT government spokeperson about the new cameras, during this interview Mike seemed to agree with the idea of notifying motorists of speed cameras. I said to Mike that I think we should do away with the conspicuous white vans for speed cameras, and should just have random vehicles in random locations with the speed cameras. This would have much more effect on motorists’ speeds as they would need to avoid speeding altogether in order to avoid fines, demerit points and other punishments. By the end of the conversation Mike seemed to agree that I had a good point.
I really think that the idea of speed cameras being pure revenue raisers is nonsense…if people obeyed the road rules there would be no revenue from speed cameras.
Another thing which I think would help make the roads safer is a licence fee system based on the number of demerit points the licence holder has attracted (I use the word “attratced” because I can’t work out whether one gains or loses demerit points). For example, 0 points = free licence, 1 point = $100 licence, 2 points = $200, 3 points = $400, 4 points = $800, 5 points = $1600, etc.
Of course, an increased covert and marked police presence would help. Covert speed cameras would help keep speed down, whilst covert police cars would help keep other road rules in an unbroken state as you would never know when the police might catch you. Marked police vehicles and foot/bicycle patrols would help keep general law and order in check. It’s pretty simple, but I suppose it just requires funding…
Samuel
January 21st, 2006 at 07:30pm
I posted this as a comment over here, but I think it will be more useful as a general announcement. I am becoming annoyed at having to make these announcements, but please read and abide or go elsewhere.
I retain editorial control over this site, I will delete useless comments, especially when they are offtopic. What I am seeing at the moment is that a few people are taking every chance they can to leave comments on various subjects which do not correspond to the post they are attached to.
I don’t want to censor people, but useless and annoying comments will be deleted.
I’m sorry if this inconveniences you, but there is nothing stopping you from starting your own site if you want to talk about stuff which I don’t. There are plenty of free webshosts and blogging services out there for you to choose from.
For the record, I am making a financial loss from this site and my podcast. That doesn’t concern me, because the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of the cost. What does bother me is seeing me lose control of something which I pay to maintain and dedicate a lot of time to.
One thing I have noticed about bigger blogs and forums is that they tend to have a lot of useless comments from people who couldn’t give a toss about the topic, and instead feel like posting garbage to websites. Some of the bigger forums have an advantage in that they generally have a bunch of admins and moderators who can deal with that and set the general tone of the site. I do not have that luxury, this is a one person operation, and I can’t be here 24/7 to maintain it. Therefore it is important that I set the tone when I am here, so that it carries over to when I’m not.
Sometimes I am forced to take measures that I don’t like, and have been criticised for previously, but if I don’t make these decisions then this site would spiral out of control and I would be likely to not renew the site hosting.
There are other blogs which run successfully without comments. Whilst thay might work here, I suspect it would remove a large portion of the readership. One of the key aspects of this site is the discussion, and I find a lot of it to be interesting, but I still need to retain control over it so that things run smoothly. I don’t want to lose visitors because I can’t control the comments…that would be a disaster, so I control the comments to the extent that I stop childish behaviour, and spam-like comments.
I appreciate you reading the site, and I appreciate you leaving comments, but if you cross the line in my view as site owner, then you will be forced to take action. I’m not going to ban anyone for disagreeing with me, but I will ban people who continually post rubbish.
This site is here for me to have fun, not to spend hours deleting rubbish. If you can’t deal with that, then go elsewhere.
Samuel
January 21st, 2006 at 01:31am