Samuel from Canberra emailing from work. Just thought you might be interested to know that I work opposite a petrol station and just saw one of the funniest sites I've seen in a while.
A white commodore pulled up at the petrol station and the driver got out, they were obscured by the signs but I could tell something was a bit odd. Firstly they didn't seem to know how to use the petrol pump, and had to get the attendant out for a lesson. I was distracted by work for a few minutes after this, but I saw them again as they were returning to their car after paying for their petrol, and that's when I spotted it…they were wearing a near full length purple dressing gown which was about three sizes too big!
I wonder if they were sleep walking? It would explain the dressing gown but not much else.
Have a great weekend Paul and Abe.
Samuel Gordon-Stewart Canberra
Update: This petrol station is fantastic entertainment. The attendant has walked out in to the petrol pump area for his break and lit up a cigarette. I just hope flaming chunks of the place don’t come flying through the window. End Update
Looks like we ruffled a few feathers inside ACTION Management. I still don't know how that email got to air but frankly I no longer care, it was a good thing that it did, and on behalf of everyone in Canberra who uses buses, thank you.
Regards, Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Informational Update 11:00PM: This talkback email needs an explanation. This morning I copied on to this blog an email I sent to 2CC for informational purposes about a rumoured change to ACTION’s weekday bus timetables. I sent that email on Monday at a time when it was still a rumour which was likely to change at any moment given the whimsical nature of ACTION management.
On Tuesday morning Mike Jeffreys read out the email during the 2CC Breakfast program, this was not what I expected, in fact I didn’t even know that Mike Jeffreys had a copy of the email, however it made the information public, and clearly gave ACTION, their governing body TAMS (Territory and Municipal Services) and transport minister John Hargreaves a jolt. It was no longer possible to easily deny the plan had ever existed, and they wouldn’t be able to easily change their mind about it.
Today Mr. Hargreaves and ACTION have announced “extra services and the re-introduction of certain weekday routes” to begin on the 30th of April. The announcement is pleasing, although I will reserve judgement until I actually have had a chance to review the updated timetables. At first glance it looks like they have expanded the service to roughly the limit of possible modifications without scrapping the current timetable completely. It is probably close to the limit of the remaining bus fleet too.
2UE’s John Kerr is having another lunch, this time it will be at one of Sydney’s best restaurants, Liquidity. It will be a two course lunch starting at midday on Tuesday and I will be in attendance. I’m not sure if there are any places left, but if you’d like to attend the cost is $40 and bookings can be made by calling (02) 8223 3866.
I have been pleasantly surprised over the last few months to see that the number of hits on the Samuel’s Persiflage feed have not dropped, and that despite the lack of recent episodes people are still subscribed and looking forward to more episodes.
I’m pleased to be able to announce that Samuel’s Persiflage returns later this week with a new episode, and I’m sure that for people who don’t read this message, it will be a pleasant surprise in return for their loyalty.
2CC’s drive show has gained a computer segment, Wednesday afternoons at 3:30pm (I’m making an educated guess on the time). Mike Welsh will be joined by Peter Saville who regular listeners may recall from his previous work on 2CC’s drive show in 2003. People from Mike’s old stomping ground of Tasmania might also remember Peter from his work with ABC Local Radio in Tasmania.
Long-term readers of this blog would know that I like to write accounts of my dreams, those same readers would probably struggle to remember one of my nightmares. Well generally I don’t have them, but as I had one yesterday I should write it down for your amusement.
The dream starts with WIN Television’s local news and the tail end of a report about something. In the dream I wasn’t actually watching the news, the news telecast seemed to be the dream. Anyway at the end of the report Peter Leonard appeared with the next story, and it was him saying that he was driving on the federal highway and got his car stuck in the rather deep gravel trap at the off ramp to the Hume Highway’s southbound lanes, Phil Small then said to Peter with a chuckle that he has been accident free for 15 years, they chatted about their age and what colour the lines on the road should be for a few moments before deciding that they should go to the report on Peter’s accident.
The dream then moved to the site of Peter’s (now cleared) accident. I was standing there looking over at the Hume Highway (looking strangely like Parkes Way) and noticed one car on fire, a lot of debris, and a lot of damaged vehicles scattered all over the place, but there was no traffic anywhere. I spotted a shed on the other side of the road, the sign on the shed said that it was the depot for the New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service’s Hume Highway Forest division. I decided that they would be the best people to help in this situation and went over to the shed.
When I got there I met the deputy park ranger who said I could speak to the chief park ranger who was out the back, I went over to the back door whilst the deputy park ranger headed towards the kitchen. Something didn’t seem right, and I couldn’t quite work out why I recognised the deputy park ranger, but I went off to find the chief park ranger anyway. As I was heading towards the back door a handful of injured people walked in the front door, and just as I reached the back door the chief park ranger walked through it with more injured people. The chief park ranger was none other than actor Anthony LaPaglia, and he asked me to go and get the deputy park ranger as he was “ready for his assistance with these people”.
I said nothing but noticed Anthony LaPaglia was walking towards the wall with various gardening tools and saws on it, I started to walk around the corner to the kitchen and noticed the deputy park ranger (who I now recognised as actor Craig Charles) was holding a bunch of very large knives, by this stage Anthony LaPaglia was holding a large saw and a hedge trimmer. Both of them were preparing to attack. My instinct was to run, but I instead told them that some movie they had both been in (no such movie exists in real life) had been terrible, and reminded them how much money the film company lost due to it. For some reason they stopped walking towards the crowd, and melted whilst screaming.
The crowd and I then rushed across the Hume Highway and took refuge in the back yard of a house where we all started putting pegs on the Hills Hoist rotary clothes line.
The dream, or more correctly, nightmare, then ended.
Seeing as an email I didn’t send to Mike Jeffreys somehow got in to his hands and was subsequently read out on the air on 2CC, I might as well publish the information here. The more public the information is, the harder it will be for ACTION or Territory and Municipal Services to change their minds.
It would appear that the government want ACTION to come up with a new set of timetables to expand services in the middle of the day, before the end of the school holidays. Considering that it generally takes months of wrangling between the Transport Workers Union and ACTION for any timetable change to occur, I find the deadline amusing, none the less the plan makes sense.
At the moment a lot of drivers have a split shift where they spend a couple hours on “depot duties”, then go home for a while, and come back for the evening peak period. The plan is to turn the depot duties in to extra buses during the day. There are a few issues with making the new shifts work as ACTION have sold quite a few buses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a new timetable by the end of next month.
Following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Australia took the correct and mature decision that the only way to even attempt to prevent a repeat of that tragic event was to enact proper gun control laws. No law will ever prevent everything, but our gun control laws are a fine example of how to properly manage firearms.
The United States of America, following yesterday’s terrible and tragic Virginia Tech University shooting which, with 32 people killed, is the worst school shooting to date, need to accept the fact that until they enact proper gun controls, the massacres will continue.
It’s not just the massacres either, multiple times every day a shooting occurs in the US. To give you some idea of the scope of this, a Google News search for the word “shooting” in the headline of stories published by US news agencies from the 18th of March to the 16th of April (to exclude the massive number of stories about the massacre) returns 12,812 stories. It is important to note that articles from various news sources about the same story are usually grouped as the one story by Google News. In the first twenty stories alone, seven of the shootings were fatal. In the feedback to one of those stories, a Louisville Courier-Journal online reader wrote “I wonder what you people do when Louisville goes on one of it’s two to three week stretches without a homicide” to which another reader replied “Perhaps you can refresh my memory; I seem to have lost it.”
How can anyone feel safe in a country where shootings are this regular? Surely it is time that the US overturned the archaic second amendment, namely the “right to keep and bear arms”. The second amendment states “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Well it is completely beyond me how constant shootings and intermittent massacres can be considered “a well regulated Militia”, or conducive to the “security of a free state”. The second amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, at a time when the US may have seen a need for people to bear arms in an effort to uphold the security of the state. It is ridiculous to think that there is a legitimate need for this amendment in this day and age.
Australia’s gun laws are by no means perfect, as shootings do still very occasionally occur, but they are a model which the United States should examine and follow. In a democratic society it is the responsibility of the government to protect the citizens who elected them, and the second amendment’s total aversion to any form of proper gun control does nothing other than make the US government negligent.
Today was supposed to be a happy day, with the birthday of this blog and Australian talk radio, but as this blog has a growing audience in the US I feel that there is minimal room for frivolity today.
At the time of writing this message there were up to 32 dead and nearly as many wounded in the worst school shooting in the US to date. I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere condolences and best wishes to everyone who has been affected by the Virginia Tech University shooting today. It is truly terrible news, and it really does make the case for Australia’s gun control laws.
There will be a low key celebration of the second birthday of this blog later today at the birthday moment, however I will not be conducting the other planned celebrations today.
I will, however, leave Australian talk radio to do what it has done so well for the last forty years, cover and discuss a breaking news story of massive magnitude.
I think I’ve missed two weeks of Musician(s) Of The Week Awards, so seeing as it is the 2nd birthday of Samuel’s Blog today I might as well have a Musician Of The Fortnight Award, make it something a bit out of the ordinary, add a video clip, and award it to “The Cat”. Originally a dream sequence on the British television comedy Red Dwarf, Danny John-Jules (who played “The Cat” on the aforementioned show and was lead singer/dancer in the video) took the song “Tongue Tied”, rearranged it, and released it (under the name “The Cat”) as a single in 1993, it reached number 17 on the UK Charts. That being said, the dream sequence in Red Dwarf (and the full length video clip on the DVDs) has ensured that the original version is much more well known.
The lyrics are below, but the video clip is well worth watching first.
When I saw you for the first time (first time)
My knees began to quiver (quiver)
And I got a funny feeling (feeling)
In my kidneys and my liver (digestive system baby)
My hands they started shakin’ (shakin’)
And my heart began a-thumpin’ (boom, boom, boom)
My breakfast left my body (huey, huey, huey)
Now darling tell me something
Why do you make me tongue tied (tongue tied)
tongue tied
Whenever you are near me? (near me)
Tied tongue (tied tongue)
Tied tongue (tied tongue)
Whenever you’re in town (In town)
You make me feel a clown, girl
Yes, you make me tongue-tongue (tied-tied)
tongue tied
Why can’t I tell you clearly? (clearly)
Tied-tied, tongue-tongue (tongue tied, tongue tied)
Whenever you’re around
(Boo-dah-bah-bow)
I saw you ‘cross the dance floor (dancin’)
I thought of birds and bees (reproductive system baby)
But when I tried to speak to ya (talk, talk)
My tongue unravelled to my knees (flippety-flippety-flop)
I tried to say “I love you” (love you)
But it came out kind of wrong, girl (wrong girl)
It sounded like “Nunubididoo” (tongue tied)
Nuh-mur-nuh-murh-ni-nong-nurl
That’s ’cause you make me tongue tied (tongue tied)
tongue tied
Whenever you are near me (near me)
I’m nurmy-murmy (nurmy-murmy)
Murmy-nurmy (nurmy-murmy)
Whenever you’re in town (in town)
My trousers they go brown, girl
Yes, you make me nongy-nangy (nangy-nongy)
tongue tied
Why can’t I tell you clearly? (clearly)
Be-dobby-durgle (dobby-durgle)
Tongue tied (tongue tied)
Whenever you’re around
(Boo-dah-bah-bow)
Oh, I’m beggin’ on my knees
Sweet, sweet darling, listen please
Understand me when I say
Gedurble-diggle-doggle-niggle-foggle-nibble-nay
I’m trying to say I’m tongue tied (tongue tied)
tongue tied
Whenever you are near me (really)
I’m nurmy-murmy (nurmy-murmy)
Murmy-nurmy (murmy-nurmy)
Whenever you’re in town (in town)
I drool so much I drown, girl
Yes, you make me nongy-nangy (nangy-nongy)
ningy-nongy
Why can’t I tell you clearly (clearly)
Ge-dobby-durgle (dobby-durgle)
Durgle-dobby (durgle-dobby)
Whenever you’re around (around)
Whenever you’re around, girl
Some of you have been concerned enough to send me emails about my well-being, others have just been concerned, and the rest of you are wondering what I’m babbling about.
I have not been well this week, I was rather ill during Easter due to a combination of mild food poisoning and general ill health, and have been mildly better during the week. I have been well enough to work a midnight to dawn shift during which a minimal amount is required of me, and then sleep pretty much all day in an effort to feel a bit better and not put up with constant nagging headaches. The one upside that I can think of here is that I don’t have to use up any sick leave for this to work, and I can still feel somewhat useful and productive. On the other hand, you could call me insane.
This should explain why I haven’t posted anything here for about a week. Even now I have no intention of writing much, and probably won’t write much at all until next week. I will, however, make an effort to post some video excitement here tonight or tomorrow for your entertainment.
In the mean time, here are my footy tips for this weekend. Eventually I will get around to writing the results from last week.
NRL Round 5 Bulldogs V Sea Eagles Dragons V Storm Panthers V Eels Rabbitohs V Knights Raiders V Roosters Titans V Broncos Warriors V Cowboys Tigers V Sharks
AFL Round 3 Magpies V Tigers Blues V Bombers Power V Crows Saints V Bulldogs Dockers V Eagles Swans V Lions Demons V Cats Kangaroos V Hawks
As a footnote, I haven’t forgotten that on the 17th this blog will officially turn two years old, and you may be interested to know that on the same day, Talk Radio in Australia will be 40 years old.
It's very interesting that David Hicks' sworn statement to the British government says he was tortured by the US considering that he recently withdrew that statement. Which one was the truth? And how much bending of the truth is Hicks doing to get his way?
Many questions will need to be answered when he is allowed to talk to the media next year, and it's a pity that he can't talk to the media straight away as I think we could start a soap opera out of the David Hicks saga.
According to a slightly confusing ABC News article, ACT Industrial Relations Minister, Andrew Barr, has announced that Melbourne Cup day will be a public holiday in the ACT. This is apparently a replacement for the Union Picnic day which was scrapped by the federal government.
I have no problem with the extra public holiday per se as I think our public holidays are too heavily consolidated in the December-April period as it is, but not even Melbourne gets the full day off for the Melbourne Cup…it’s a half-day holiday down there. Everywhere else in Australia the Melbourne Cup is an event in which people get to have a nice friendly fun afternoon with their work colleagues or whoever else happens to be nearby, and people are free to ignore the event if they so desire. Melbourne Cup day is a very special day on the work calendar, but work still gets done…the workplace might grind to a halt for three minutes and be slower than usual for about an hour, but it is still a productive day, and generally quite a happy day. It has its own culture which has built up over the years.
The only reason the public holiday works in Melbourne is because Flemington race course is in Melbourne. Admittedly other race courses around the country have celebrations and show the race on the big screen, but it doesn’t have the same atmosphere as Flemington.
Having a public holiday anywhere else in the country is only going to ruin the culture of a special day on the work calendar, a day which promotes work place bonding without the peculiar and strenuous training sessions in funny hotel conference rooms that some businesses seem to think help their employees. It will also make the day a lot less special for everyone as schools and many other things close on public holidays. Parents won’t have the opportunity to easily get together with friends as they will have to look after the kids, and those who have to work on the public holiday will be very unlikely to have many, if any, people to share the day with.
Well done Andrew Barr, you have destroyed the Melbourne Cup, I hope you’re pleased with yourself.
I do have to wonder how much Andrew Barr had to drink before providing the following quote to the ABC:
I don’t think that productivity on the first Tuesday in November tends to be fairly low and so I think of all the days in the calendar to be able to find a replacement day, this is the appropriate day.
So productivity on Melbourne Cup day is not low, but we need to write-off the day anyway?
Incidentally, in case you’re wondering, Cyclone Katy, during her time as the Industrial Relations Minister, added two public holidays to the 2005 post-Christmas period, and in doing so gave us all a lesson in the law in a press release:
“This year Christmas Day and New Years Day both fall on a Sunday,” Ms Gallagher said. “Under the Holidays Act, the public holiday for both days automatically moves to the following Monday. This would have meant that Christmas Day and New Years Day would not have been observed as public holidays for this year, along the same lines as last year where the two days fell on a Saturday.”
“I am authorised to declare additional public holidays under the Act, and the ACT Government has decided that given the current climate in which ACT workers have a real risk of losing their leave entitlements under the proposed federal industrial relations laws, and the special significance of these two days, they ought to be observed as public holidays,” Ms Gallagher said.
Cyclone Katy’s extra holidays were designed to bring us in line with our surrounding neighbour New South Wales:
These arrangements will ensure that the ACT is consistent with New South Wales and Victoria, which have also ensured that trading over these two days is treated consistently with public holidays.
But New South Wales works on Melbourne Cup day.
Andrew, when you first joined the legislative assembly and were instantly handed the education portfolio I thought you were just hired as a scapegoat for that failing portfolio…but today Andrew, you have proven yourself as a complete and utter incompetent fool.
It's wonderful to hear you on the wireless in Canberra again, a very pleasant way to spend a Good Friday afternoon.
When you asked about the best inventions of all time, I instantly thought of the toilet. There have been a lot of good inventions, but the toilet, in its many forms, is an essential part of life, and without it and indoor plumbing and the sewer network, we could hardly have built the cities that we live in…and high-rise buildings wouldn't be at all practical.