Archive for January, 2007
At long last, and despite a burn on my right index finger, it’s here, the Best of Samuel’s Persiflage for 2005 & 2006…it’s episode #12 of Samuel’s Persiflage.
The high quality version can be downloaded by clicking here, the low quality version for the bandwidth impaired can be downloaded by clicking here.
This month we have highlights from a number of interviews (some are a tad long winded, but it was very hard to decide what to cut), a couple songs we heard during the year, a collection of audio feedback from John B1_B5, the strangest classic commercial I ran during the year, the strange feedback of episode seven, and a revelation about what I wear while podcasting!
There is no Persiflage Puzzle or feedback segment this month, they are being held over until the next episode, so as per usual…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.
The Samuel’s Persiflage #12 file itself is available here, and is 1:49:31 in length (100MB) 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 anywhere near as good, but some people like it. The low quality version is 12.5MB
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.
Things should be back to normal on Samuel’s Persiflage in the February edition.
Samuel
January 31st, 2007 at 06:41am
It’s official…internally official…but official none the less, 2UE’s new night time host is Stuart Bocking.
Murray Olds was going to be the fill-in host this week, but it would appear that John Laws put a bit of pressure on management to give Stuart the job. The noises I’m hearing suggest that Laws wanted a permanent night time host by the time he got back, it’s also claimed that Stuart wasn’t fond of the hours he had to keep on the overnight shift, wanted to move to nights, and got a bit of help from Lawsie to do so. Stuart was previously John Laws’ executive producer for a number of years.
Needless to say, this snap decision over the weekend has caused no end of confusion…mainly for listeners, but also for presenters who have provided some of the most muddled explanations I have heard in a long time.
At least one of my sources backs up my theory that 2UE staff found out about the decision on Sunday, but were told to keep quiet and use an official cover story. The cover story revolved around Stuart filling in for the Monday night show, and possibly being back on his regular shift later in the week…the story didn’t mention Murray Olds, or who would do Stan’s show for the rest of the week…or what anyone was doing really, and this left presenters in an awkward position as they needed to explain why they were on-air when they were, but had to make up half the story in order to make any sense. Poor John Kerr probably got the hardest explanation of the lot as he tried to explain who was doing what on the overnight shift, and ended up saying something about filling in for Stuart so that Stuart wouldn’t do the Tuesday overnight show and be on for 30 hours straight…or something like that.
2UE will make the official announcement at some stage in the next couple days, I’m led to believe that Stan Zemanek will make a statement about the show being in very capable hands and him wishing Stuart all the best.
Stuart was being very careful about it all last night, telling callers who asked whether he was permanently on the night show that his presence was “a stop gap measure”. He did accidentally mention that it’s now his show at one stage…but not very clearly.
Meanwhile Clive Robertson looks set to take over Stuart’s old midnight-5:30am weekday shift. I haven’t heard any confirmation of this, but a few murmurs about it being “almost certain”, and the fact he now has an email address (robertson@2ue.com.au) pretty much make it a certainty in my view.
The big upshot of Clive Robertson taking over that shift is the reintroduction of overnight producers. Clive simply refuses to work without one. Whether 2UE will see the light and give John Kerr one or not is still very much up in the air. It didn’t take them long to reintroduce live overnight news after a couple of stuff ups with wrong bulletins or no bulletins going to air, so one would hope that with every other overnight job reintroduced, John will get a producer.
Anyway, congratulations Stuart, premature congratulations Clive, and commiserations to Murray Olds who once again has been shuffled around on short notice by 2UE.
Samuel
January 30th, 2007 at 01:22am
Yesterday morning, after taking photos of buildings in an effort to make a point about the poor quality of journalism evident at City News/Ads, Nattie and I had a lengthy walk which included a visit to the lake. There were a few hot air balloons around and as we had the camera with us, I thought it would be a good idea to take some photos. All of the photos below can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Incidentally, if you’re just after the story in the headline, click here to scroll directly to the story.
At one stage down near the lake we had a bunch of hot air balloons more or less above us, but too scattered to fit into one photo, so I took a few.
First up is the Dawn Drifters balloon. Dawn Drifters and Balloons Aloft are the main hot air balloon businesses in Canberra.
Then the Prime Television balloon.
The next balloon was a trifle odd, it was a balloon for three credit unions, namely The Credit Union of Canberra, The Snowy Mountains Credit Union, and the Hospitals Credit Union. The reason it was odd is that these credit unions have merged to form Service One Members Banking.
All of these photos make the balloons look pretty close, but that was just a zoom effect, as you can see in this photo of the Prime Television balloon (left) and the Dawn Drifters balloon (right).
Next up is the Delfast balloon (top) and the Kamberra Wine Company balloon (bottom).
And the Questacon balloon.
After this I noticed that the Dawn Drifters Balloon was heading towards Civic, and was having immense trouble staying above various buildings, as we headed in towards where it was, it was descending on the Airservices Australia building.
This photo was taken while the balloon’s basket was behind the building, but parts of the balloon were still above it. Needless to say, a collision under those circumstances could easily be tragic.
Naturally enough, just when I was about to rapidly head around to the other side of the building with the camera in video mode, the batteries exhausted themselves. While I was quickly changing the batteries, the pilot of the balloon skillfully got out of the precarious position and floated away.
The balloon was just about to hover across the road when I took this photo.
I then took the following video of it flying away. If you look very carefully, just after the camera shakes a bit, you can see one of the passengers lean out and wave to the camera.
The original, slightly higher quality video, can be downloaded by clicking here.
I have produced this map with the aide of Google Earth to place the video in context.
My location is marked with a blue dot, the location of the balloon in the photo where it is partially behind the Airservices Australia building is marked with a red dot, and the approximate path taken by the escaping balloon is shown by the red line. Street names have been added for your reference.
Samuel
January 29th, 2007 at 02:37pm
Canberra’s worst newspaper, the glorified freely-distributed glossy advertorial nonsense device known as City News, and affectionately called City Ads, has done it yet again.
Long term readers would know that I’m not a fan of City Ads for many reasons, including the fact that the three covers of the paper are pure advertising, and an interesting photo stuffup noticed by John B1_B5 where the front cover on the “Canberra Review” section was sporting a picture with no relation to the story it was supposed to promote.
Further investigations revealed entire sections of the so-called newspaper (exclduing an opinion piece) were ads masquearding as articles, plus ads, and then to top it all off, they lifted an opinion piece from Crikey.com.au.
For obvious reasons, I generally pay minimal attention to City Ads these days, usually giving it a quick skim when it arrives, and checking to see if a real estate agent I know has an ad in that week. Usually I don’t find anything of interest, but this week’s edition (dated 25 January 2007) caught my eye with the Braddon advertising feature, starting on page 10.
City Ads has ben running these advertising features for a while, they take a look at a bit of the history of a suburb, and run advertorials on the businesses of the suburb. This week though, the history section caught my eye.
The crux of the article was the recent history of Braddon, mainly the destruction of the nice suburban area it used to be, to make way for masses of medium to high density housing, from about 1990 onwards. They decided to cite the ANU’s Fenner Hall as an example of high-rise accomodation from many many years ago, as Fenner Hall was built in the mid 1960s as general accomodation, and named Gowrie Hostel.
The top three quarters or thereabouts of page 10 (click to enlarge)
Anyway, it wasn’t the article that caught my eye, but the photo of Fenner Hall.
Fenner Hall or Currong Apartments? (click to enlarge)
The picture is in fact of Currong Apartments, which are way over the other side of Braddon, and were built in a different year. I saw the photo and thought there was an article about Currong Apartments, and found it quite amusing when I discovered the mishap.
Here are a couple pictures of Currong Apartments which I took on the morning of Sunday January 28, 2007.
Currong Apartments, January 2007 (click to enlarge)
Currong Apartments, January 2007 (click to enlarge)
I believe that the second photo is roughly the same angle as the archival photo, just with more buildings, trees and a modified top window, and no fence.
This is what Fenner Hall looks like (again photos taken Sunday morning January 27, 2007)
Fenner Hall, January 2007 (click to enlarge)
Fenner Hall, January 2007 (click to enlarge)
The two places don’t look at all similar, and given the way Currong Apartments have been in the news in the last few years, you would expect that a journalist or editor would know which is which.
As the archival photo came from the National Archives, it is possible that they just picked an incorrectly labeled photo, so I decided to take a look at the photo they referenced “A1200/L30799”.
Information page for photo A1200/L30799 (click to enlarge)
It’s titled “Flats at Braddon”, is it possible they just picked up the wrong photo?
National Archives photo A1200/L30799, Flats At Braddon
Nope, that’s yet another photo, and it appears to be a photo of the Allawah Flats (since renamed Allawah Apartments), taken from Ballumbir/Cooyong Street.
So now they have not only used the wrong photo of the wrong building and not noticed, they have also got the year wrong for the building of Fenner Hall, and attributed a completely different photo, and not noticed.
I then went in search of the photo I think they were going to use, and I found one, photo A7973/INT793/1.
Information page for National Archives photo A7973/INT793/1 (click to enlarge)
The photo is titled “Cities and towns – Canberra – Gowrie Hostel, Canberra – 11.1964”, which leads me to believe it was taken in November 1964. Quite clearly the reference number isn’t even close to the one City Ads quoted.
National Archives photo A7973/INT793/1, Cities and towns – Canberra – Gowrie Hostel (Fenner Hall), Canberra – 11.1964
But that still leaves the mystery of what photo they actually used, and whilst I can’t be certain due to the fact that there is no digital copy available of it yet, I believe it is actually National Archives photo A1340/1964/54, “Currong Flats – Section 52 Braddon”.
Information page for National Archives photo A1340/1964/54 (click to enlarge)
It is beyond me how anyone, even City Ads, could get this so wrong. It should be simple, get a photo and add the correct attribution, but somehow in this case they have published the wrong photo of a building that just about everyone in Canberra would know is Currong Apartments, attributed it to a photo of Allawah Apartments, and seemingly lost the photo they were trying to use of Fenner Hall…not to mention gotten the date wrong for the construction of Fenner Hall.
I can’t understand how nobody managed to pick up at least one of the errors, but letting them all through smacks of pure incompetence. It just concerns me that some people in Canberra think City Ads is filled with quality journalism, especially when half the articles are undisclosed ads, and they can’t even work out what buildings just down the road from their office are called.
Samuel
January 29th, 2007 at 11:50am
This week Murray Olds will be filling the chair on the 2UE Night Show…well that’s what 2UE have been saying, and what their website says, but according to John Kerr who filled in for Stuart Bocking overnight, Stuart will be doing the 8pm-Midnight show tonight. John doesn’t know who is doing what show and when after that…and who can blame him? The whole thing is getting very messy. It was amusing listening to John trying to explain it at the start of the show, getting somewhat lost and making it sounds like he was saving Stuart from a 30 hour shift!
The question of who will take over the show on a permanent basis remains to be seen, and ultimately for me, the question is which source to believe. Only a week or so ago I was hearing stories about Glenn Wheeler, Stuart Bocking and Clive Robertson not being in contention, now I’m told that Stuart and Clive have put themselves up for selection and are “sitting on the edge of their seats”.
I have to admit that Stuart did sound quietly confident when he signed off on Friday night, saying something to the effect of “I’ll either be back here or on New Day come Monday”. It looks like he’ll be on the night show tonight…but I would love to know why he is there and Murray isn’t.
It looks to me like 2UE are just taking the opportunity to test various people on the night shift, and see how the audience reacts. Both Glenn and Stuart are popular in that shift, but Glenn, apparently, hasn’t put his hand up for the job. So perhaps that’s what we will have, Stuart Bocking, with Glenn Wheeler filling in. That might just work, because then Murray Olds could take the midnight to dawn shift, and Clive Robertson, Steve Liebmann, Clinton Maynard and Tim Webster could continue to fill in where and when needed.
Of course that is pure speculation…but it would work.
I’m going to say right here and now that I think Clive Robertson has no chance of getting the night shift…he knows just as well as I do that he isn’t overly well liked by Southern Cross Broadcasting in Melbourne, and whilst he can be great fun in week long bursts, he just doesn’t seem suited to a shift with an endless stream of callers. He is much more entertaining with the occasional caller and plenty of his anecdotes and observations.
I’ve had three emails during the week from people asking who I think will get the job, and I’ve told each of them that, despite Stuart supposedly not being in the running at the time of their emails, Stuart Bocking is my tip to take over the 2UE Night Show. I think Glenn Wheeler will remain as the fill-in host, but I think the rumours of someone new to the station taking over are pure bunk.
Samuel
January 29th, 2007 at 09:06am
After the New Years Day debacle with the 2CC Emergency Tape’s copy of “The Sounds Of Silence” being repeated ad nauseum, 2CC have once again changed the emergency tape, which is always a good idea after it’s been played a bit more than a few times.
The emergency tape has reverted to the ad break formula, which was used by the one before last, and takes advantage of 2CC’s newish imaging.
Thanks to a missing ad break (there were a couple missing pulses…the technician was still at 2UE fixing things at 2am) during Thursday night’s Sports Today program, I have been able to find out what the start of the emergency tape contains.
2CC “It’s your call” 5 second station ID
Australian Bedding Company ad (generic – 30 seconds)
Vision City ad (Read by John Laws – 30 Seconds)
Raine and Horne ad (30 Seconds)
The Good Guys ad (generic – 30 Seconds)
The pre-news IDC pulse interrupted the Good Guys ad, and whilst I hope I never find out what comes after it, I’m pretty sure that one day I will!
Samuel
January 29th, 2007 at 06:10am
This week’s award goes to Woody Guthrie, and I’ve chosen a song to feature which I think is fairly representative of many songs of that era, as it has meaningful lyrics which perform a social commentary of sorts. The feature song is “Worried Man Blues”.
I went across the river, I laid down to sleep
went across the river, I laid down to sleep
When I woke up, had shackles on my feet
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long
Twenty one links of chain around my leg
Twenty one links of chain around my leg
And on each link, the initials of my name
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long
I asked that judge what’s gonna be my fine
Asked that judge what’s gonna be my fine
Twenty one years on the Rocky Mountain Line
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long
A train pulled out, twenty-one coaches long
Train pulled out, twenty-one coaches long
And the woman I love, on that train and gone
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long
Twenty-one years, to pay my awful crime
Twenty-one years, to pay my awful crime
Twenty-one years, and I still got ninety-nine
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long
Samuel
January 28th, 2007 at 07:10pm
Congratulations to Serena Williams who defeated Maria Sharapova in straight sets, 6-1 6-2, to become the 2007 Womens Champion. I haven’t paid a huge amount of attention to the Australian Open, mainly because tennis isn’t one of my more favoured sports, and as such I really wasn’t in a position to tip a winner.
I can say, however, that I have seen enough of the mens competition to make a tip. As I said to John Kerr this morning at about 5:25, Fernando Gonzalez will defeat Roger Federer in the fourth set. It won’t be a whitewash, but I think Gonzalez will come out of the blocks a bit too fast for Federer. That being said, if the game gets to the fifth set, then Gonzalez will run out of steam, will become frustrated, and Federer will win.
Update 10:36pm: Wrong on both counts! Roger Federer defeated Fernando Gonzalez in straight sets 7-6 6-4 6-4, to take out his third Australian Open Title. John Kerr was right, my predictions were bold…Sir Humphrey Appleby would probably have called them “courageous”. End Update
Also, while I’m here, congratulations must go to Boys champion Brydan Klein, who defeated Jonathan Eysseric of France 6-2 4-6 6-1. He is the first Australian to win the title in thirteen years, and the first junior player to ever win tournament on Rod Laver Arena.
Congratulations also to girls champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (not surprisingly from Russia), who defeated Madison Brengle of the U.S. in straight sets, with tiebreakers in each set, 7-6 (6) 7-6 (3).
Samuel
January 28th, 2007 at 12:24pm
Time for another Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll.
Are consumers being treated fairly by the petroleum industry?
Total Votes: 24
Started: January 27, 2007
Feel free to discuss the poll subject in the comments below. You need to be a registered member of Samuel’s Blog to comment, but anyone can vote. The system will attempt to prevent you from voting more than once, and whilst it might not always be able to do that, I request that you only vote once.
Disclaimer: This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you’re using these numbers to do anything important, you’re insane. That being said, I do try to keep the results fair and accurate, and I try to prevent abuse by unscrupulous voters, but I can’t make any guarantees.
Now for the results from last week’s poll.
What do you think the minimum age should be for people to drive a car without supervision (eg. obtain “P” plates)?
-
14
-
15
-
16
-
17
-
18
-
19
-
20
-
21 or higher
Total Votes: 35
Started: January 20, 2007
There were also a few legitimate votes for the answer “13 and under”, which was removed from the poll after repeated abuse. I suspect that the majority of votes for “14” were from the “13 and under” abuser(s), however the results were certainly quite interesting none the less, it would appear that the general concensus is for older (and theoretically more mature) drivers, although opinion is clearly divided on exactly what age that should be.
For a list of all previous results, see the Weekly Poll Results page.
Samuel
January 28th, 2007 at 12:10am
Last weekend I wrote John Kerr an email about 2UE’s new voiceovers, stating that they sounded rushed and didn’t do the new voiceover lady credit. I also asked John to pass it on to management, and it looks like he did, because the voiceovers have improved dramatically.
Before I give you a sample of the voiceovers, I’ll briefly explain the back story. Up until January 14, Ken Sparkes was 2UE’s voiceover man, and had been for nearly nineteen years. For whatever reason, 2UE decided to replace him with two people, one male, one female, they also seemed to leave production of all the replacement promos until the last minute. It is always going to be hard to replace the voice of a station, especially an incredibly long-term one, but leaving it to the last minute just makes it worse.
When I emailed John, I had heard the promos from the new voiceover lady for about a week, and they were driving me up the wall. At that stage I hadn’t heard the new male voiceovers. Since then, the female voiceovers have improved considerably.
So, here we have a collage of 2UE voiceovers. Click here to listen or download.
1. Ken Sparkes – Back to Clive Robertson
2. New female VO – Back to John Kerr
3. New Female VO – Nights with Glenn Wheeler
4. New Female VO – Back to Glenn Wheeler
Now for the voiceovers produced after my email.
5. New Female VO – Stuart Bocking
6. New Female VO – Back to Stuart Bocking
7. New Female VO – Peter Ford Showbiz (Not sure if this was produced before or after my email, but it’s a good one)
And the male voiceovers for comparison
8. Ken Sparkes – John Laws Promo
9. New Male VO – Tennis Update
10. New Male VO – Tim Webster
I think, apart from being rushed, the first lot of voiceovers 2UE got the new lady to do were just re-reads of scripts written for Ken Sparkes, and like most people, she can’t do a good copy of a Ken Sparkes voiceover. They sounded rushed, cold and stilted. It’s always a good idea to write promos with the target voice in mind, and where that has been done, she comes across well, sounds warm, and sounds like she cares about what she is reading.
As for the male voiceovers, he seems to do a good job at reading his own variation of voiceovers written for Ken…I’m sure he’ll sound even better with voiceovers written specifically for him.
Overall, 2UE have a great new voiceover team, and I’m sure they’ve learnt their lesson about rushing large amounts of new voiceovers.
Samuel
January 27th, 2007 at 09:35am
The news I heard on Monday afternoon was quite possibly the best news I have heard all week. According to Showbiz guru Peter Ford on 2UE’s John Stanley afternoon show (and many other shows and stations it would seem), moves are afoot at Banksia Productions to sever ties with Channel Nine, and sign with Channel Ten to provide new episodes of “Here’s Humphrey”.
Since 2003, Channel Nine have only run repeats of Here’s Humphrey, and brought Humphrey out alongside Hi-5 during Carols By Candlelight. You would think this would have been enough for the show to be gone forever, but it’s not, as Banksia still produce a Spanish, American and Mandarin version of Humphrey (they fly the hosts to Adelaide for filming), which effectively keeps the show alive.
The repeats of Here’s Humphrey have effectively been Channel Nine’s answer to the “what to do when Kerri-Anne’s on holidays” dilemma, and he has been treated as an irrelevance since the Hi-5 marketing juggernaut hit the screens.
In my view, Humphrey is more suitable for children than Hi-5 which seems more appropriate for an older audience, as I fail to see how skimpy costumes and semi-teen behaviour help a preschooler learn and develop. Humphrey, according to his website, is a perpetual four year old, forever discovering the world, and having lots of fun doing it. Actually, I’ll let the website explain:
Each episode of Humphrey is designed to entertain and educate its audience as they join in the fun with Humphrey B Bear. Humphrey enjoys exploring and pretending. He likes playing, singing, dancing and being with his friends. The essence of the program is in its star that will forever be four years of age and loves every minute of it.
Everyday is a new adventure for Humphrey. An adventure that parallels the needs, fears and fun of the average four year old child. Humphrey Bear explores life as they do, reinforcing their self esteem and showing them it’s OK to make mistakes (after all everyone does). We don’t always have to be the best at everything, it’s more important to simply take part.
Immensely more useful to a preschooler than a bunch of virtual pop-stars!
Humphrey has been on Channel Nine without ads since 1965, and I can understand them wanting something which will make more money, but some things are more important than profits, and if Channel Nine fail to see that, then I hope Channel Ten (or even Channel Seven) do pick up Humphrey, as the nation is a poorer place without new and up-to-date episodes of Here’s Humphrey.
I think Humphrey is one of the best children’s entertainers we have in this country, and just as it would be an incredible tragedy if the ABC were to cancel Play School, it would be a tragedy if new episodes of Humphrey don’t return to television soon.
As the Here’s Humphrey theme song “Humphrey’s Best Friends” says “Hooray for Humphrey, Good old Humphrey. Hooray for Humphrey Bear!!”
Samuel
January 26th, 2007 at 10:30pm
Congratulations to 2UE’s John Stanley and his wife Elissa, who are expecting their first child in about eight weeks.
I’m almost certain that John Stanley would now agree that new episodes of Here’s Humphrey are long overdue and it would be good if Banksia Productions sign with a new TV station (I haven’t written that article yet have I? Hmmm, hang on, I’ll do it now).
Samuel
January 26th, 2007 at 10:05pm
Good morning and happy Australia Day Tim,
Just a quick note to thank you for an enjoyable summer of filling in for Lawsie. I look forward to hearing you filling in again, and seeing you on Channel Ten.
Now you go and take a well deserved break!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
January 26th, 2007 at 11:30am
Happy Australia Day!
Click here to download the Australian national anthem.
For those of you who are a bit bemused by all of this, Wikipedia is here to help:
26 January 1788 was the date on which the First Fleet, under Captain Arthur Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove and set up the Colony of New South Wales. Formal possession, including the reading of Phillip’s Commission, took place on 7 February.
Samuel
January 26th, 2007 at 12:06am
Hi Stuart,
Just thought you might be interested in my observation of regular unleaded petrol prices in Canberra today. This morning and for most of the day they were steady on 107.9 cents per litre. During the evening peak hours I noticed they jumped in more than a few places to 111.9, and when I took the dog for a walk this evening around 7:30 they were back down to 107.9.
Am I imagining the collusion here?
Have a great Australia Day!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
January 25th, 2007 at 08:30pm
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