Usually I fold up and put away my basket full of washed clothes once every week or two, but lately I have taken to just pulling things out of the basket…unfortunately the basket was overflowing and it isn’t particularly convenient to find matching socks in a jumble of clothes, so I unloaded the basket onto my bed (plus the items which had overflowed onto the floor), but before I could get started Nattie made herself comfortable.
Nattie then moved to the chair at the end of my bed, and I found some socks I hadn’t taken out of their packing. They were made by Ausiie workers.
They were added to the pile of clothes to be sorted.
Nattie observed from the chair.
The items were then sorted into appropriate piles to be placed in the cupboard. The piles were socks, jumpers/shirts/skivvies, pants, pillow slips, hankies, pyjamas, singlets and underpants.
Nattie was quite comfortable on the chair.
The clothes were then placed away in their respective sections of the cupboards.
That was my main activity yesterday afternoon and was done whilst listening to the AFL on 2CA (3AW feed).
Samuel
July 31st, 2006 at 03:22pm
On November 14, 1931, 2CA started broadcasting on the AM dial with a frequency of 1050kHz (they subsequently changed to 1053kHz when the industry changed from 10kHz stepping to 9kHz stepping…radio historian Wayne Mac talks about that during Samuel’s Persiflage #2)
Anyway, 2CA will be 75 years old on November 14 this year, and as such they have decided to have a birthday promotion. The prize they are giving away is $75,000. So, how does it work? Well the 2CA website explains that quite well:
“What would you do with $75,000? Pay off the rest of the mortgage? Finally take that overseas holiday? From Monday, listen out for 2CA’s $75,000 Birthday songs, as soon as you hear one, be the first caller through on 62411053 and you will be in the running to win $75,000! It’s 2CA’s $75,000 Birthday songs, on the new sound of Canberra’s 1053 2CA.
I get the distinct impression that they are just copying and pasting radio scripts on to their website, but it seems to work.
Today is Monday, so for your chance to win, tune your dial to 1053AM and keep an ear out for the “birthday songs”…I’m sure there will be plenty of promos giving you more explicit instructions.
Incidentally, John B1_B5 wrote an article, not all that long ago, about the early years of 2CA in which he stated that 2CA started off in a shop in Kingston, with a 50 watt 4 stage transmitter employing a mercury vapour Rectifier, the antenna for this device was mounted on the roof above the shop. For more information about the early years of 2CA, see this page on John’s website.
Also of interest, John Kerr was 2CA’s breakfast host from 1960 to 1965 (or 1966), he was also the breakfast host on 2GO Gosford for 13 years starting in 1973…2GO are celebrating their 35th birthday on November 19, a mere five days after 2CA’s 75th birthday. I get the feeling John will be kept quite busy and excited during that week. With any luck he will be in Canberra for a day or two…it would be nice to meet up with him here in Canberra, even if only for a coffee.
Samuel
July 31st, 2006 at 12:52pm
Well that depends on who you ask…the messages from within the Labor party are very mixed.
A couple months ago I had a couple people from the ACT Labor Party tell me that they didn’t think Jon Stanhope would face the next election as party leader, at the time I more or less discounted this as a speculative rumour of little significance, but the events of the weekend have shown that there is more to this than I thought.
Over the weekend the ACT Labor Party held their (Annual?/Monthly?/Sporadic?) party conference, and the internal squabbles and rifts were apparent…a Labor backbencher joined a protest against school closures outside the conference, and almost half of the 196 party members who could be bothered turning up (a quote from one of my Labor Party insiders “I was going to go…but then I didn’t) voted against the school closures, including five MLAs (two of which were cabinet members).
According to RiotACT, the MLAs who voted against the school closures (or more accurately, voted to not close any schools this year and also extend the consultation period) were Katy Gallagher, Simon Corbell, Wayne Berry, and Karin Macdonald. The fifth MLA is either Mary Porter or Mick Gentleman…not that it really matters, as the real surprise is that Katy and Simon voted against the wishes of the Chief Turnip.
Katy and Simon have, up until now, been virtual mouthpieces for the Chief Turnip, and if I remember correctly Katy is also Deputy Chief Minister (The turnip title is reserved for Stanhope for now). With the opposition now calling for a full inquiry into education in the ACT, it looks like the next round of sittings of the Legislative Assembly will be most amusing and entertaining.
It was also interesting the way the Chief Turnip and his subordinates deflected the internal criticism of his “unpopular magic safety fairy” stance. The Chief Turnip was quoted on the ABC news website as saying:
We, of course, have always been aware of the range of views and the fact that this is a very emotional and difficult debate…It was a difficult decision and the issue is significant and it affects each of us as Canberrans, and certainly members of the party have a view.
Pity he doesn’t actually care about the party members’ views.
The Canberra Times had a very interesting article about the meeting:
REVOLT FAILS School closure plan survives narrow ALP conference vote
Markus Mannheim
Sunday, 30 July 2006
CHIEF Minister Jon Stanhope narrowly avoided a humiliating defeat at yesterday’s annual Labor conference when party members attempted to block his controversial plan to close 39 public schools.
The party’s dominant left faction led the revolt, which would have prevented any school from being closed before 2008.
Deputy Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and fellow left frontbencher Simon Corbell broke cabinet solidarity to vote with their faction against Government policy.
The motion was defeated by just four votes – 96 to 100 – after a bitter debate during which MLAs hurled abuse at each other.
Legislative Assembly Speaker Wayne Berry said he was embarrassed by what he described as the “shock and awe” policy of school closures, saying it left party supporters confused and upset.
“If there was one thing that rocketed Labor into office in 2001, it was education,” he said.
Brindabella MLA Karin MacDonald said that her fellow backbenchers had only been told of the policy on the morning of the June 6 budget.
She said she had still not received a full and substantial briefing to allay her concerns.
“I do not believe that this process … could have been handled any worse than this minister [Andrew Barr] has done,” she told delegates.
In response, Territory and Municipal Services Minister John Hargreaves said he found her speech disgusting.
“To find that one of our elected representatives has the temerity to stand up here and criticise the minister in such a personal attack is something that I have never experienced in all my time with the Labor Party in the ACT,” he said.
The motion had been expected to pass, but was blocked at the last minute when most of Ms MacDonald’s right-wing Unity faction decided to support the Government.
Mr Stanhope acknowledged the vote was close, but said he was pleased to have the party’s formal support.
“The issues were aired, views within the party were expressed and, at the end of the day, the branch conference has supported the Government in its school closure program,” he said afterwards.
Opposition education spokeswoman Vicki Dunne said it was now up to the five Labor MLAs who voted against the closures to do the same in the Assembly next month.
“Cabinet solidarity went out the door today,” she said.
“It shows that the Labor Party knows what it is doing is wrong, and that most caucus members know that it is wrong.”
An earlier motion criticising the Government’s funding of private schools was also narrowly defeated by a margin of five votes.
With the current state of affairs it would appear that there are enough people against Stanhope in the parliament to have an effective no-confidence motion…now that would be interesting. Perhaps that is what my sources inside the Labor Party were hinting at.
Samuel
July 31st, 2006 at 09:27am
A much better weekend of footy tips, I’m quite pleased with the results.
AFL Round 17: 4/8 (50%)
NRL Round 21: 5/7 (71.43%)
Week Total: 9/15 (51.25%)
Totals:
AFL: 70/136 (51.47%)
NRL: 74/145 (51.03%)
Total: 144/281 (51.25%)
Samuel
July 31st, 2006 at 06:55am
