Sounds like you’re having one of those mornings where you just run away screaming and let the emergency tape run the show.
That drink machine that stole Mike’s money…there are a few machines like that at my work, the coins go in, the machine accepts them, but it doesn’t add them to the total. Do you know who makes the machines? I’d like to buy some shares in them.
So the phones don’t work, on the bright side you won’t be Perth’s long-range taxi booking service…of course you could just give out your mobile number and use the speakerphone mode, but that would probably be very hard for any of us to hear and understand.
And to think you’ve got to sit there until 6am…sorry John, but I’m glad it’s you and not me.
Just thinking…I bet the phones work in the studio which doesn’t work!
Have a good morning John…I’ll call later if you get the phones working.
Christmas Musician Of The Week number 2 for 2006 is upon us, and this week the award goes to Elton John for the song “Step Into Christmas”.
Welcome to my Christmas song
I’d like to thank you for the year
So I’m sending you this Christmas card
To say it’s nice to have you here
I’d like to sing about all the things
Your eyes and mind can see
So hop aboard the turntable
Oh-ohh step into Christmas with me yeah
Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free
Take care in all you do next year
And keep smiling through the days
If we can help to entertain you
Oh we will find the ways
So Merry Christmas one and all
There’s no place I’d rather be
Than asking you if you’d oblige
Stepping into Christmas with me
Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Ah-ah-ah
La-la-laaaa-ah-ahhh
Welcome to my Christmas song
I’d like to thank you for the year
So I’m sending you this Christmas card
To say it’s nice to have you here
I’d like to sing about all the things
Your eyes and mind can see
So hop aboard the turntable
Oh-ohh step into Christmas with me yeah
Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free
Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free
Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Step, step into Christmas
Aaaah, forever and ever
Yeah, come along with me
Ah-ah-ah
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Step, step into Christmas
Aaaah, forever and ever
Yeah, come along with me
Ah-ah-ah
Can somebody slow down the newsmill please? I’m having trouble keeping up.
Stan Zemanek has announced that he will retire from radio (and possibly television, althought that’s a tad less clear) at the end of the year to focus on beating his brain tumour and spend more time with his family. The news came as a surprise when John Kerr anounced it earlier this morning, but it was hardly a shock as it is quite clear that Stan is still unwell.
I’ll miss Stan, his unique radio show, and his loopy callers, but I get the feeling that with Stan’s fighting spirit, and his passion for radio, he’ll be back in a year or so.
But until then, best of luck Stan…perhaps I should ring you before you go.
‘Mellower’ Stan Zemanek to quit radio
By Sandra Lee
10dec06
A SELF-confessed “mellower” Stan Zemanek is turning off his 2UE microphone after 17 years of “shock jock” radio to spend more time with his family as he fights a debilitating form of brain cancer.
“I decided that I have had enough of night-time radio and I am going to concentrate on getting my health back in order and fight this dreadful disease,” Zemanek, 59, told The Sunday Telegraph in an exclusive interview yesterday.
“My health comes first and so does my family and I want to give them every opportunity to see me around for the next 20 years.”
Zemanek was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in May and within days underwent radical surgery by neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo. He was released from hospital three days after the operation, survived a subsequent three-week course of radiation therapy and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.
“It knocks me about a bit,” he says. “I’m not out of the woods yet. I am a long way from out of the woods but my doctor and oncologist have given me the best advice on what to do and how to do things and I’m pleased with that.”
Zemanek’s radio career will end when he broadcasts his final show on December 22.
He said he was pleased to leave 2UE as the presenter with the biggest audience increase in the final ratings survey of the year.
Zemanek’s decision was based on his love for his wife, Marcella, with whom he has two daughters, Gabriele, 33 and Melissa, 30.
“It’s easier on the patient than it is on the carer and my wife, Marcella, who has done a sterling job in keeping me on the right track,” he said. “She is the one who dishes out the pills, makes all the medical appointments and talks to the doctors.
“I really think I need to give her a little bit more time at home, helping her. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here today. She has been a rock to my whole being, and so have my two daughters.”
Zemanek built his radio career as a pugnacious personality who savaged his interview guests and listeners with a lacerating tongue.
But he admits battling an aggressive form of cancer for the past seven months has mellowed him – “a bit”.
“I have become more reasoned but I am still the bad boy of television and radio and still won’t take a backward step if I believe I am right and people want to argue with me,” he says.
“I still enjoy an argument with people but maybe not as much as before.”
Zemanek has not lost his sense of humour, either.
“The other day I said to one listener, ‘Please don’t yell at me, don’t you know I am sick?’ I played my sympathy card,” he joked.
However, Zemanek is not quitting professional life totally. Tomorrow he will film three more episodes of Foxtel’s Beauty And The Beast, and he has just done a deal to sell the film rights of the Warren Fellows book, The Damage Done – 12 Years Of Hell In A Bangkok Prison.
And he has firm plans for the future. “One of my aspirations of getting through this is that I want to dance with Marcella at my grandson Hamish’s 21st birthday. That’s in 19 years.
“That’s the main aim in life now. I want to be dancing with Marcella in my old age.”
I thought Save The Ridge were dead and buried…I was wrong. I thought that having Gungahlin Drive near completion would spell the end of anti-Gungahlin Drive protests…I was wrong. People against Gungahlin Drive will not use it when it opens…just wait, I’ll be wrong.
Today the ACT Government is holding a public walking tour of part of Gungahlin Drive, Save The Ridge are going to “peacefully” gatecrash the event, presumably with megaphones and banners.
Save The Ridge are a cunning mob, they know they no longer have the numbers to mount any sort of protest, so they “urgently” enlist the help of various “Save xyz School” groups, claiming that the money being spent on the Gungahlin Drive Extension is being diverted away from schools, buses etc. They forget a couple important points:
Budget: It may have been a bad one, but Gungahlin Drive was in there
Those peksy court costs: Those agonising years of stalling in the courts by STR cost an awful lot of money…and helped to blow out the cost of the road
I don’t know what they expect the government to do…unbuilding the road would cost more money so that doesn’t help, cancelling the road would be an utter waste and leave a large mess…but might provide a poorly placed dragway (could offset aeroplane noise if the Tralee development goes ahead).
The horse has bolted, it’s won the race, and is about to receive the trophy, but for what it’s worth, Save The Ridge are having an encore comedy performance. Enjoy the press release (emphasis as per the press release).
WHAT: Community Rally to Protest the Opening of the First Stage of the Gungahlin Drive Extension and the Negative Impact the Massive Cost Overruns have had on the Public Transport, Education and Community Sector
TIME AND DATE: 10am, Sunday 10 December
WHERE: Gungahlin Drive Extension junction with Ginninderra Drive
(parking at the GDE site office, off Masterman St, Bruce. Transport is being provided between there and the start of a community walk)
ASSISTANCE: STR needs the URGENT community support to assist with leafleting, letterboxing and postering. Please email info@savetheridge.org.au or call Paul Oboohov on 0417 048 217 to volunteer some time.
OTHER HELP: SPREAD THE WORD!
ABOUT: The first section of the Gungahlin Drive Extension (GDE), between Ginninderra Drive and the Barton Highway, will be officially opened by the ACT government on Sunday 10 December. The ACT government has scheduled a community walk / cycle at 10am on the GDE between Ginninderra Drive and Ellenborough St to “celebrate the opening”, see http://www.gde.act.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/41409/CommunityWalkEvent.doc
The Save the Ridge Committee invites you to attend a peaceful protest at this event, to make the following points:
* The cost of the 9km GDE, one of the most expensive non tunnelled single lane roads in Australia’s history, is being recouped partly through the closure of 39 schools in the ACT, as well as a raft of cutbacks including scaled back ACTION bus services, library closures, social programs cut, reducing ACT Government employee superannuation entitlements from 15.4% to 9% and significant increases of government taxes and charges;
* The GDE is being built at a time of trend petrol price rises not seen since the early 1980’s. With massive increases in petrol demand in some of the world’s most populous developing nations, cheap oil is a thing of the past and nationally climate change issues are now near the top of the community’s concerns. Like the Australian Government, the ACT Government has taken almost no action on the issue. An important first step would be a significant investment in an electrified rapid transit system with a commitment to power it through green energy purchases. With no carbon emissions, this would make significant progress on improving the Territory’s per capita greenhouse gas emission profile;
* According to Canberra Times reports (Canberra Times, Dec 2), until recently the GDE construction has used almost 0.5 (approx. 0.41)% of Canberra’s potable water supply at a time of unprecedented water restrictions. It will continue to require water, but from a new greywater source. The cost of this appears to be the Government reneging on the promise to rehabilitate 20 sportgrounds for community use due to their being insufficient available water because of the drought;
* The GDE has come at an incalculable environmental cost with the destruction of significant linkages in Canberra’s high conservation value urban bush. The ACT Government’s rhetoric of suggesting it will become the first capital city in the world to achieve environmental status under UNESCO (Canberra Sunday Times, 3 December 2006) is farcical with the wholesale vandalism of Kaleen Grasslands, Bruce/O’Connor Ridges and Black Mountain Reserve. Numerous studies by university researchers have found Black Mountain Reserve to be a world class area for biodiversity, the position advocated by STR and supported by world class members of the broader scientific community since the 1990’s;
* Community members and experts recognise that bush regions ACT Government have preserved are so small and fragmented, that the richness of their ecology is not likely to be sustainable in the long term. This is largely due to the threat to fauna when migrating between areas and from domestic animals. The Government’s proposal for the fossil fuel based Belconnen to Civic busway is another example of how little value these pockets of bush have to the ACT Government and how they are only perceived to have value if they can encourage further construction activity along the corridors; and
* The ACT Arboretum site will now be the final home for almost 200,000 cubic metres of unnecessary GDE fill that was trucked in from various construction sites around Canberra to build the GDE. After it has already arrived, it was determined that there was already a surplus of fill on site and this fill was not necessary. In addition, 170,000 cubic metres of soil from the site will also be sent to the Arboretum to permit further construction of the road. Almost 400,000 cubic metres of soil will now be relocated to the Arboretum site. This farce is characteristic of the repeated failures throughout the entire GDE planning, approvals and construction process.
Placards will be available, but if you wish, please bring one of your own. A placard and banner making workshop will be held at 2pm on Saturday 9 December in the Rocks meeting hall. Please come along and help create a range of interesting statements.
Speakers include, but are not limited to:
* Alex Pollard, ACT Peak Oil;
* Meredith Hunter, ACT Greens candidate for the seat of Fraser; and
* Allan Lohe, former Save the Ridge Chairperson
If you can suggest any additional speakers, please contact Paul Oboohov on ph 0417 048 217.