Archive for December, 2006
With Christmas just around the corner, and me running late with some Christmas wishes, I had a Christmas calling splurge, and have wished four radio presenters a Merry Christmas in the space of five hours. And for your benefit, and to help spread the Christmas cheer, I’ve recorded them for your enjoyment.
5.40MB MP3 Download
First up is my call to John Kerr on 2UE and stations across the nation at about 2:15 this morning, I had an exhausting list of people I needed to send Christmas wishes to, and John and I discussed the Terrigal Lunch photos (They will appear on here after Christmas), plus we briefly discuss a phone conversation I had with John’s former producer Leonie Ryan who is now a newsreader at 2LM Lismore.
Then we have my call to Stuart Bocking filling in for George Moore and Paul B. Kidd on 2UE at about 6:10am. I wish Stuart a Merry Christmas, he does the same to me, and we discuss Christmas lunches and our plans.
Then it’s the 2CC Bunnings Gardening Show with Mike Frame and Vicki Berry at 7:05am (Sorry Vicki, I accidently spelled your name with a “Y” when I first wrote this article). Mike and Vicki discuss the recent rain, I wish them a Merry Christmas and ask Vicki what plants she thinks make good Christmas presents. Vicki’s thing can help enhance the use of your garden, has two words of six letters and eight letters respectively, and as I discover has no “W’s for waterlilly”.
Tonight (to continue my audio deluge) I will be posting my inaugural Christmas message.
Update 9am: The puzzle was “Garden Lighting”, congratulations to Yvonne who was the first caller to get it. I got it half an hour beforehand, Mike got it about half an hour before me.
Vicky had a second puzzle up her sleeve, something to enhance your garden
_ I N _
_ H I _ _
No G’s or B’s.
Congratulations to Betty who won the Bliss Garden Giftware set of wind chimes (yep, that was the puzzle), and to Peggy Sheppard of Waramanga who wasn’t home to receive the call, but got an amusing message from Mike and Vicky on her answering machine, announcing that she had won the 2CC Bunnings Gardening Show’s major Christmas prize of a “Jack and Jill seat” from Stonehenge in Pialligo. Hopefully she doesn’t skip the message when she hears it starting with a drumroll, on the assumption that it was from weird telemarketers!
End Update
Samuel
December 24th, 2006 at 07:55am
It looks like 2CC and 2CA’s weekend newsreaders are missing in a suspected case of festively-induced absences.
Yesterday, weekday morning newsreader Jane Turner was reading the news, and as such her pre-recorded weather forecasts have been playing overnight as per standard procedure, it is unusual to have the weekday morning newsreader reading the Saturday news.
This morning we have had two scheduled local bulletins turn into 2UE feed bulletins. Laura Tunstall and the team at 2UE are doing a great job, but I have to wonder how long it will be until a newsreader takes over at 2CC. As unusual as it is for the weekday morning newsreader to read Saturday news, it is even more unusual for 2CC to not have a local newsreader (either scheduled or fill-in) by the 6:30 bulletin.
I can only hope they have one by 7am, as Jane’s weather is now a tad long in the tooth as it refers to last night as “tonight” and it is now daylight outside.
That being said, all is forgiven as it is the festive season and radio stations do strange things around the festive season!
Update shortly after 7am: Welcome to 2CC’s newest weather reporter, Mike Frame! Still waiting for a newsreader. End Update
Update 7:30: Still a 2UE feed…I’m starting to wonder if this was an unusual Christmas Eve way of handling the news. End Update
Update 9:05am: Regardless of what happened (and I think it was a newsreader not turning up) 2CC have clearly decided to just use the 2UE feed and have Mike Frame do the weather. It will be interesting to see how Mike goes at fitting the weather in the allocated timeslots for the automation this afternoon and tonight. End Update
Update 12:10pm: I nearly fell over when I heard Francis Keany presenting the weather after a 2UE-feed news bulletin. I was looking forward to hearing Mike’s voice reading the pre-recorded weather for the next 18 hours, but alas he has just disappeared on holidays after a sterling effort as the fill-in weatherman, and Francis will be the first local voice on Christmas day at 12:04:40 after the 2CC weather intro. I’ll run through a list of lineup changes on Boxing Day once I get my head around them.End Update
Samuel
December 24th, 2006 at 06:43am
Good morning again John,
Many weeks ago you asked how the "Super 66" lottery draw works, as you were confused as to how you could get he same number drawn out twice.
A few years ago, before all the televised lotteries were shortened, we used to see the Super 66 draw on television in Canberra. Basically you have a barrel with six compartments, each compartment has ten balls numbered zero through ten nine. From memory, you can't choose your own numbers in Super 66, it is a bit like a variation on New South Wales' "Lucky Lotteries" where you just get a ticket number and hope your number comes up, except that they only draw one set of numbers in Super 66, and prizes are assigned based on how many of those numbers you have.
New South Wales Lotteries did the exact same thing (but with seven numbers) when they had "Lucky Seven" on Friday nights before the football.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 24th, 2006 at 04:00am
John,
Please excuse me for a moment, but I have a message for Ishmael, I've wanted to say it too him all year, and this morning he has tipped me right over the edge…Ishmael, go and stuff your head up a turkey.
I just love the way he can deflate his own arguments…Isn't it wonderful that he wants people to ring up, but only the people who don't normally ring up (invent them Ishmael if you want them, I'm sorry that a group of people are awake on Saturday and Sunday morning and want to have a chat), he wants people to not talk about their personal life, he wants you to be fairer (but admits you've never been nasty or unfair to him…or many others).
Ishmael, we don't need serious newstalk every second of every day…I repeat, go and stuff your head up a turkey you goose!
And I was having such a good morning until that moron got on. I shall return to my good morning and jolly Christmas spirit now that I've got that off my chest.
Have a good morning John, and Merry Christmas (again),
Samuel
Update 1:27am January 10, 2007: Since publishing this email, Ishmael has contacted me and we have had some discussions. I have come to the conclusion that whilst I disagree with a lot of Ishmael’s opinions, he isn’t the stark raving mad lunatic I portrayed him as, and actually seems like a fairly reasonable individual.
My description of Ishmael as a “serial pest caller” was harsh and unwarranted, especially seeing as there are plenty of callers who actually do fit that category, and it is unfair to compare Ishmael to them when Ishmael actually calls to make a point rather than a nuisance.
I still think the choice of timing of Ishmael’s exchange with John Kerr was poor, but I do now see where he is coming from.
Whilst Ishmael understands that I won’t be taking down any of what I wrote, I would like to publicly apologise to Ishmael for being a bit too harsh in my comments. End Update
December 24th, 2006 at 03:30am
For those of you who are wondering where the Musicians Of The Week award went, it should never have appeared in the first place. I accidentally forgot to tick the “Edit Timestamp” box when I was posting it, and as such my scheduled time for it to appear was not taken into account. As I then went away from the computer for a while I didn’t notice the error and it stayed at the top of the page for about an hour. This isn’t the first time I’ve made that error, but it is the first time I’ve let it run for that long.
I apoligise for any confusion or any inconvenience my error caused, please rest assured that the Musicians Of The Week award will re-appear in its usual timeslot later today.
Samuel
December 24th, 2006 at 02:46am
I was checking the Australia Post website last night to see if there would be any last minute Saturday delivery runs like there were last year, only to find this pearl of wisdom under the heading “Our latest news”.
For trading hours and delivery services over the Christmas/New Year period, please call 13 13 18 during business hours.
I suppose the out of hours answering machine just says “We’re not here, call back when we are”.
Thanks Australia Post, very helpful of you to have that message on the website after the final definite trading day before Christmas.
Samuel
December 23rd, 2006 at 08:59pm
I spotted this potentially alarming article from The Guardian, the start of which reads as follows:
Five billion years on … disaster awaits
Astronomers have captured a vision of the cataclysmic fate which awaits our solar system in about five billion years’ time.
Among the dot points to save people from having to read the article is:
Astronomers foresee end of our solar system
Just wondering, but when and why did astronomers decide to stop pointing their telescopes at the sky, and start pointing them at crystal balls? Or have they just decided to change an “n” to an “l” and be astrologers? The latter would be cheaper, you don’t need a telescope, you can make things up if you want, and if you’re really nuts you might even get an international newspaper syndication deal.
Samuel
December 23rd, 2006 at 06:52pm
This week the Friday Funny is late on purpose, so that Samuel’s Persiflage could be on the top of the (Christmas?) tree for a while. I received many Christmas jokes in the last couple weeks, and this is the one I like the best, sent in by Tim from New York, Janet from Melbourne, and Berin from Érd, near Budapest.
1 cup water
1 cup of sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups dried fruit
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
lemon juice
nuts
1 gallon whiskey
Sample the whiskey to check for quality.
Take a large bowl.
Check the whiskey again to be sure it is of the highest quality.
Pour one level cup and drink.
Repeat.
Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 cup butter in a large, fluffy bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon sugar and beat again.
Make sure the whiskey is still OK.
Cry another tup. Turn off mixer.
Break 2 legs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Mix on the turner.
If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift 2 cups of salt. Or something, Who cares.
Check the whiskey.
Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.
Grease the oven.
Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees.
Don’t forget to beat off the turner.
Throw the bowl out of the window.
Check the whiskey again.
Go to bed.
Do you have something you would like to contribute to Friday Funnies? If so, email it to smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com. All contributions welcome!
Samuel
December 23rd, 2006 at 04:11pm
The sky is blue, water is blue, water is falling from above, the sky is above, therefore the sky is falling and made out of water.
It’s nice to see a good few drops and then some of drenching rain here in Canberra.
Samuel
December 23rd, 2006 at 03:55pm
It’s an interview and audio deluge, it’s been very strange having so many interviews, especially with me being very tired lately and sounding it.
Anyway, in the last few days Michael Coles interviewed me on The Big Weird Podcast‘s Christmas Special (MP3 Download). It was fun, thanks to Michael for the interview, and hello to his co-host Jill Saunders.
Samuel
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:16pm
Dear Stan,
Thank you for the years of entertainment that you have provided. I would like to wish you all the best for the future, and I sincerely hope that you recover from your health problems as quickly as possible.
Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year Stan, I will miss you, and although it won't be the same without you, knowing that you are concentrating on getting better outweighs missing you from the radio.
Best of luck and all the best for the future! May your years ahead be as bright and wonderful as your career has been to date.
Yours Sincerely,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 22nd, 2006 at 09:00pm
Samuel’s Persiflage Episode Number Eleven has sprung into life (possibly chased by singing sheep), and is waiting for you to download it. There is also a low quality version for the bandwidth impaired here.
HTML Transcript coming soon
PDF Transcript coming soon
This month’s Persiflage Puzzle has three words of nine, three, and five letters respectively. The clue is “The first person to write about Santa’s wife, Mrs. Claus”.
As we rapidly approach Christmas, it is hard not to talk about it, and this month we chat with Bill Grady, host of You Are The Guest about what Christmas means to him, and how it affects people around the world. Bill shares a funny Christmas story from his childhood, and the interview is quite possibly the first purposefully “networked” interview in the history of podcasting, having previously appeared in a slightly different version on You Are The Guest #68
Samuel seems to have found some Christmas music to replace the normal music, and the original Samuel’s Persiflage intro is in there somewhere.
There is also some feedback.
All listeners are invited to send in more feedback, both in written and audio format. As per usual feedback can be sent to podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com (text, MP3, Wave or Ogg Vorbis), spoken feedback by clicking here or on the button below would be great, or leave a comment below.
Samuel also updates the school closures discussed in Episode seven, and the Plain English Awards from the Plain English campaign, who we chatted with in Episode one.
The Samuel’s Persiflage #11 file itself is available here, and is 1:08:49 in length (63.0MB) at 128kbps stereo. The 128kbps format was decided upon because it produces a very good sound quality, and doesn’t “flatten” any music used in the podcast. I do, however, acknowledge that this is just unreasonable for dial-up, so a 16kbps mono file is also available here. The sound quality isn’t as good, but some people like it. The low quality version is 7.87MB
For those of you who are using podcast software to receive your podcasts, the feed can be found here and if you are using iTunes you can subscribe to Samuel’s Persiflage by clicking here.
Podcast related questions and comments can be sent to podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com or left in the comments section of this post. Spoken feedback is preferred (but not mandated) and can be sent either in MP3, Wave or Ogg Vorbis format, or sent even more easily by clicking the button below and following the prompts.
The Best of Samuel’s Persiflage for 2005/2006 will be released on New Years Day (in theory), with regular episodes resuming later in January. From the Samuel’s Persiflage production team (OK, so there is only one person, and he is the executive producer and presenter) have a great Christmas and New Year, take it easy, and I look forward to your company on Samuel’s Persiflage in the new year.
Samuel
December 22nd, 2006 at 04:24am
“Tis the season for loopy characters…tra la la la la, la la la la”
It looks like I’ve been turned into a Wikipedia article for the second time, and much like last time it’s a load of tripe. I will be proposing that it be deleted.
(Update 11:46PM: The article has been deleted despite a protest without explanation from its author “Sabiby”. End Update)
Samuel gordon stewart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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[1]Samuel Gordon Stewart [2]is a notable blogger of small fame in his home city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Through his massive web-site updated many times a day containing often peculiar writings of his day to day routine, dreams, letters to politicians, Canberra news and his now strained relationship with Bradley Murdoch, all written in a confusing style jumping between first and third person, along with his pod cast Australian Independent Radio [3], numerous cartoon series [4]and hilarious and often vicious insults and criticism his blog attracts and posts, Samuel Gordon Stewart is often mentioned on many web-sites, has won Australian blogging awards and has gained fame on more main stream local media. Media such as AM1052 2CA, FM104.7, The Canberra Times, Prime News, and various other smaller community media publications and broad casts regularly give mention to Samuel or publish/broadcast comments from him. Through continued mention in the media, his large numbers of letters to the editor of many local papers being published, and word of mouth publicity, Samuel Gordon Stewart has gained local fame to be a cult hero in the league of other well known Canberra personalities such as Limestone Lizzy, Northbourne Nattily, or Civic’s Crocodile Man.
Links: https://samuelgordonstewart.com/
http://www.grods.com/proud-to-be-samuel
Saint Samuel Gordon Stewart first martyr of RiotACT
Sources: The Canberra Times: Friday 2nd of June 2006, Monday 26th June 2006, Wednesday 13th August 2006, Tuesday 21st November 2006
The Queanbeyan Chronicle: Tuesday 7th March 2006, Thursday 6th July 2006
The Tuggeranong Chronicle: Friday 15th September 2006
Thanks to anonymous writer “hello” for the heads-up, even if I think you are the author of the article.
In more exciting news, “the ginger bread man” is back, with another fake email address.
From……: the ginger bread man
Email…..: samsmum@samuelgordonstewart.com
Url…….:
………………………………………………….
Subject…: oh sammy, sam, sam…
………………………………………………….
you do remember me dont you sammy?
how is mr hat? still alive? i havent seen him in any photos of you?
but i have seen you and your cute doggy walking atop mount ainslie at dawn.
can u guess who i am?
As I said in response to your last email, I can think of a few people that you could be, all of whom I had minimal contact with, and haven’t seen in years…I suspect that most of them have matured slightly beyond your level of maturity though.
Hat is fine, living a peaceful retirement in a cupboard.
Perhaps I have forgotten mentioning a dawn foray up Mount Ainslie with my “cute doggy” (how good are you at research, what is his/her name, gender and breed?), but to the best of my knowledge I have not mentioned it, which leads into your next question:
can u guess who i am?
My psychopathic stalker? The Suffolk Strangler? Oh, wait I know, you’re the paranoid coin eater from Neptune.
Are you having fun continuing something which wasn’t funny in school? Bullying was hardly funny then, don’t expect me to find it funny now.
Samuel
December 19th, 2006 at 08:39pm
From the You Are The Guest Website
December 18, 2006: Listen To “You Are The Guest Show # 68”
Guest Host: Samuel Gordon-Stewart from Canberra, Australia
Samuel Gordon-Stewart is our first Guest Host, and this show is networked between our podcast and on his show in Australia. Samuel and his guest from America talk about various topics related to the Christmas season such as consumerism, religion, and how cultures and beliefs outside of Christianity view and perceive the holiday. Bill also shares a funny story about a personal Christmas experience. During “Ask Samuel 3”, Samuel is asked about one of his family traditions at Christmas, how he thinks others who don’t celebrate the holiday perceive Christmas, and what policy needs to be changed for Australia to be stronger in the years ahead.
Recorded last week…I wanted to write more but the migraine is still here.
Samuel
December 18th, 2006 at 10:07am
…that the Vedic Mathematics genre was revived after Hindu Shankaracharya Jagadguru Swami Sri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji Maharaja rediscovered it in the form of sixteen sutras?
No? Neither did I.
What’s this got to do with the price of fish? Nothing really, it’s just a random bit of information I spotted on the Wikipedia homepage whilst sitting here supposedly working on the next episode of Samuel’s Persiflage. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, I’m just not in the mood to produce the remaining half an episode, or record it. I have noticed a considerable calming down of myself in the last 24 hours as the pseudoephedrine treatment prescribed by my doctor has run out, I am also tired due to erratic sleep over the last few days courtesy of illness and medicine.
I had a heap of things to do today, but not the energy to do them…I think right now I’ll have a coffee, have a shower and see about going to bed. Looks like we’ll all be waiting an extra 24 hours for Samuel’s Persiflage #11.
I have at least two articles that I need to write for tomorrow, I suppose I could get up really early in the morning. At least then I might feel awake, something I’ve been lacking since I finally got to sleep at 6:30am today…perhaps I shouldn’t have slept, I didn’t feel tired…then again, perhaps I should just stop typing before this turns into the ramblings of a sleep-deprived person…hmmm, too late I think.
Uh oh…I just got the urge to write and schedule a post about a dream I had a few nights ago.
Samuel
December 17th, 2006 at 11:01pm
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