I don’t like to criticise the police because I am generally very supportive of their efforts. I think they do a fantastic job and deserve to be commended for their work, but this morning I find myself compelled to express a minor gripe.
A message for Senior Constable Sasha (something which sounded like “Lidcombe”) from the Media Unit of the New South Wales Police, who presented a report for Clive Robertson on 2UE this morning. “Actually” and “of course”, whilst useful additions to sentences, become very annoying when added to almost every sentence. “Alleged” is understandable as you are forced to use that for anybody who has not yet had their innocence or guilt proven by a court of law, but “actually” and “of course” are rarely useful additions to a sentence. They add a bit of colour to some sentences, but are highly annoying when used in every second sentence for no apparent reason.
Apart from that Senior Constable Sasha (something which sounded like “Lidcombe”), I think you are doing a great job. You read the stories well and you interact with the program host in a friendly and professional manner. Hopefully if you read this, you will take this feedback in the constructive manner in which it is intended.
Merry Christmas Senior Constable, may your Christmas and the Christmas of every police officer in the country be safe and uneventful.
I sent the following email to Jim Sutton on New Zealand’s number one talk radio station Newstalk ZB a few minutes ago. Jim is running a rather enjoyable show this evening.
Good evening Jim,
I would just like to wish you and all of your listeners, especially anybody affected by the Gisborne earthquake, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Over here on this side of the Tasman we are having all sorts of odd weather, it was pouring rain in Canberra this morning and now there’s barely a cloud in the sky! We need the rain though, so if we could get more rain for Christmas that would be nice.
I enjoyed the version of “When a child was born” that you played a few moments ago. It was very nice.
Best of luck for the new year,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra, Australia
Just a quick note to wish you, your staff, your family and all of the listeners a very merry and safe Christmas, and a wonderful new year. I'm sorry I missed your Christmas lunch but if the photos are anything to go by, it looks like you had a wonderful time…I'm a bit worried about the dancing elf video though…you look good in a green fur coat and red and white striped socks, but are you sure you want to be responsible for making all the toys? I suppose it's better than being a reindeer and having to cart the toys all the way around the world in one night (no wonder they only do it once a year).
Merry Christmas Stuart!
Regards, Samuel Gordon-Stewart Canberra
If you’re interested in seeing Stuart and his staff dancing in elf costumes, click here.
Congratulations to Tim Malone, an occasional contributor to this website, who has been appointed as the Acting Station Manager of Canberra’s Christian radio station, 1WAY FM. Tim effectively takes over from Bill Kitto who is stepping down as Station Manager after three and a half years in the role.
Mr. Kitto announced his plan to retire from his role as Station Manager in November, the board of Canberra Christian Radio Limited subsequently advertised the position and considered who they believe will best be able to build on the Station’s success to date and optimise their future effectiveness in ‘presenting the reality of Jesus Christ’, a central ideal of their purpose statement.
At a special Board meeting last night, the Board decided not to permanently appoint a new Station Manager at this time and instead promoted Tim Malone from Project Manager to Acting Station Manager.
In a message to everyone involved with the station, Chairman of the Board Brent Budarick, on behalf of the Board, expressed his gratitude and appreciation to Bill Kitto for all he has done for the Station over the years, particularly as Station Manager for the past three and a half years.
I would personally like to congratulate Tim on his appointment to this role. Tim is very enthusiastic about 1WAY FM and has been working very hard in recent times to lift the profile of the station in the Canberra market. Tim seems quite excited about his new role, and I wish him all the best with it. I’m sure he will do well.
1WAY FM broadcasts on 91.9FM in Canberra and on 94.3FM via the Tuggeranong repeater.
You may recall that back in August I had a dream about a film crew visiting me to film some green mesh. This dream occurred a short time before a real film crew were supposed to arrive and film part of a documentary at my house. The documentary in question is about talkback radio, and in particular the people who ring talkback radio.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to catch up with the producer of the documentary, the ACRA award winning, 2CC Drive Show producer, Michael Thompson (not the one in the Woolworths ads). The part of the documentary which was being filmed over a series of weekends in August was the interviews of various talkback radio callers, it has been slow going since then as it is (or so it would appear to me at least) a part-time project. There have been other things to film, there has been plenty of footage to edit, and many other things have needed to be done.
It’s a silly thing to say, but the documentary is getting closer to completion every day, or in other words, it will be done when it is done. The grand plan is for the documentary to be screened on free-to-air television and I will keep you updated on that.
I’m not sure when the documentary will be completed, but based on what I have been told over the last few months, it will be done sometime in the next few months. I’m quite happy to wait, as I’m sure it will be worth the wait.
Incidentally, Michael Thompson has been the producer of the drive show for over a year now and I still haven’t officially welcomed him. Michael, welcome. Michael graduated from Charles Sturt University’s Journalism course last year and is doing a great job as the producer of the drive show.
Michael will be on leave after today, so I would strongly encourage anybody who listens to the 2CC Drive Show to ring 62554444 this afternoon and wish him a merry Christmas…and while you’re there, wait on the line and do the same for the presenter, Mike Welsh.
84 hours of no content…that figures. As the title says, where do I start? To be blunt I really don’t know, I’ve had a crap few days and no matter how much I try, I just struggle to get in to the Christmas spirit. That in itself concerns me because usually I am quite excited by Christmas by the 19th of December, but this year, if it weren’t for the public holidays Christmas could pass and I wouldn’t notice.
I don’t know whether December is just sneaking past me or whether I’m just not interested this year, but I still haven’t sent Christmas cards or presents to anyone. I’ve emailed one person to wish them “Merry Christmas”, but I had another reason for emailing them do it doesn’t really count as “contacting somebody for the sole purpose of wishing them a merry Christmas”.
That on its own wouldn’t be too bad, but this week has been downright awful so far and I can’t see it improving. It started poorly in the early hours of Sunday morning with narrow avoidance of a road accident and a security alarm nearly deafening me. Monday morning I woke up forcefully and involuntarily discharging contents of a bodily organ (the dictionary definition doesn’t make it any less pleasant), and despite feeling much better than Monday on Tuesday and today, my week has continued to go downhill, so much so that a single, relatively innocuous event (to avoid details) at work around midday was enough to make me snap…I think the people involved know that they were not the cause of frustration, but they will read this so I will use this to ensure that they are aware that they are not in the slightest bit to blame for my actions.
After the tantrum I had my lunch break, during which I went for a walk, a helpful exercise but possibly not the safest thing to do considering that I didn’t really mind whether or not a heavy vehicle managed to run it to me. By the end of my lunch break I was prepared to avoid heavy vehicles, although I did ponder the requirements for climbing a power pole. Strangely the thing that keeps me going despite what a psychiatrist may refer to as “suicidal thoughts” is something which I’m not sure is even real…the thought that others depend on me. Whether it is real or a delusion, it is helpful, although possibly a part of the problem…even if it is part of the problem, it has helped on previous occasions, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it helps again in the future.
Suddenly I find myself wondering what a psychiatrist does if they need help…if my state of confusion at what is running through my mind is any indication, there is no way they could analyse their own state of mind, and I would think that they would be quite a difficult subject to study due to their training…of course what that has to do with anything is beyond me.
When I think about it, it was probably the fact that I noticed shopping centres playing Christmas carols in November that caused my disinterest in Christmas this year, and yet despite this I am annoyed by my disinterest and can’t make myself feel interested again. If it were possible, I think I’d just skip forward to January, but it’s not possible so I will just have to make do. Writing this has been mildly therapeutic, but I’ll probably still be in this odd mood for another few days.
Incidentally it’s not as if I’m completely ignoring Christmas either, I have already given Christmas presents to a couple people (in person) and received a couple presents, one of which remains unopened. I decided this year to break with habit and, if asked, inform people what I would like as present instead of receiving useless, well-intentioned, junk. I am enjoying reading the one thing I requested (Stan and Marcella Zemanek’s book “My Way or The Highway”), and that is a good thing I suppose, but ultimately, this year, I just wish the festive season would go away…I’m tired of it, perhaps because it became evident in November, perhaps because it makes aspects of my working life an utter nuisance, or perhaps because it means that some of the idiots I deal with on a daily basis are just that little bit more frazzled…whatever the reason (and I suspect it’s a combination), the sooner it’s 2008 the better.
I will still send out Christmas cards, and a couple presents, if they arrive late then so be it, at least they arrive. I do hope that everyone else enjoys the next couple weeks, just as long as they don’t expect me to.
I suppose the thing I don’t understand is that usually when I get in to one of these moods, nothing really makes me happy, and yet this time I am intermittently being made happy, and I still manage to return to being…I suppose “uninterested” is as good a word as any…never mind me, I’ll get through, it will just be torture for the next week or so.
Of course it’s not just an impending Christmas that is getting to me at the moment, it is a bunch of other things, I’m not going to try and explain in any detail, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask, I’ve rambled for long enough. I hope the next few weeks are as enjoyable as possible for you, please do not worry about my state of mind, this is just one of my strange phases…it’s happened before and will happen again, and this is nowhere near as bad as some previous occasions so I’m not worried.
Whilst writing this I have been listening to a playlist which should be making things worse but is helping slightly…if you’re interested it is:
Alone Again, Naturally – Gilbert O’Sullivan
Take On Me – Aha
White Wedding – Billy Idol
Ode To Billy Joe – Bobbie Gentrie
It Don’t Matter To Me – Bread
It’s Too Late – Carole King
25 or 6 to 4 – Chicago
Khe Sanh – Cold Chisel
Hey St. Peter – Flash and The Pan
All Those Years Ago – George Harrison
Hip To Be Square – Hewey Lewis and The News
Holy Grail – Hunters and Collectors
At Seventeen – Janis Ian
Beat It – Michael Jackson
Moonlight Shadow – Mike Oldfield
It’s Just Another Day – Paul McCartney
I’ll Follow The Sun – The Beatles
End Of The Line – Travelling Wilburys
I apologise if I have provided incorrect or misspelled attribution in that list.
As I mentioned earlier, this has been a therapeutic exercise. I am compelled to publish this for the sake of my sanity due to the amount of time I have spent writing it…and maybe the inevitable nuisance of people wanting to talk to me about it will be helpful…I don’t know, I’m just confused, annoyed, and uninterested. I wouldn’t call it depression, but then again, I’m too close to it to diagnose it, and I don’t want a diagnosis…I just want some time to myself…I also don’t want to stop writing, but I’m going to force myself to do so because if I don’t, I’ll still be writing this next week. I may continue later though.
Yes, the man for whom most things are “blooming marvellous”, ABC “Gardening Australia” host Peter Cundall is retiring after 40 years on the air.
Peter has been broadcasting gardening programs on ABC television and radio each week since 1969, and has been presenting Gardening Australia for the past 17 years, and it is no longer just our “blooming lot for the week”.
It really has been quite a year for retirements.
Enjoy your retirement Peter, may your garden bloom.
I’ve suspected it for a while because, quite frankly, who else could 2UE offer the morning show to if they wanted a serious and “hard hitting” newstalk program. According to The Daily Telegraph, Steve Price will be taking over the 9am to midday slot next year.
The Daily Telegraph also confirms my fears, namely that Tim Webster will be taking over the afternoon show, and John Stanley will move to Drive, effectively removing John Stanley from the airwaves in Canberra. I’m very happy that Steve Price will be a permanent fixture of the Canberra airwaves, but I will miss John Stanley.
I like Tim Webster, but I do have to wonder if his arrival on the afternoon show will herald the end of the mostly fun and frivolous format of John Stanley’s afternoon show, and its replacement with a more serious news based show.
These are big changes, and will be interesting to see how the hosts perform in their new shows.
Some people may recall a rather peculiar post-midnight gameshow which aired in the Nine Network for a while called Quizmania. The basic gist of the show was that there was an overly simple puzzle on the screen, and you had to dial a 1900 number to provide an answer…and the vast majority of the time you would not be put through to the studio, you would lose your 55 cents and be entered in to a “second chance draw” to win a sponsor’s energy drink.
I think the main reason the local show failed was because it lacked proper personalities…unlike the (failed for other reasons) UK version which had no lack of personalities…in particular Greg “Greggles” Scott. Greg had plenty of fun with the rather peculiar bunch of callers he received, and this week’s Friday Funny is a bunch of his highlights. Enjoy.
Do you have something you would like to contribute to Friday Funnies? If so, email it to samuel@samuelgordonstewart.com. All contributions welcome!
Just a thought about having day/night cricket test matches…wouldn't it require a change in the rules, in particular the bad light rule?
As I understand it, the bad light rule says play can be stopped when the artificial lights are having more effect than the natural light. For obvious reasons, this rule would have to be abandoned if test matches were to be played at night. Somehow I just don't think the cricket traditionalists would wear it.
Also about Stephanie Brantz being dropped from the Channel Nine cricket team…I thought her role last year doing fluff pieces from the grandstand was a joke and a waste of her talent. She deserves a place on the central commentary team, and if Nine don't want her there, perhaps she could add some badly needed colour to the ABC radio coverage.
Enjoy the golf (I bet Mr. Bocking wishes he was there).
Back in the early 1990s when for most people answering machines were somewhat new, and if you were purchasing one, interesting and exciting, various people saw a need to go nuts and produce peculiar answering machine greetings. Sadly, the manufacturers and distributors of answering machines were amongst them. Courtesy of Franskter we have this peculiar gem produced in the early 1990s by First Take Productions for Tandy Electronics Stores.
Just imagine for a moment that you are ringing somebody…you wait a little while and the phone keeps ringing, and after about thirty seconds of ringing you hear a click and a slight hiss as the tape on the answering machine starts playing, and then…
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/answer.mp3]
What would you do?
If it were me, I would probably hang up half way through…and maybe that was the point of the tape, in which case I have to wonder why the people bought an answering machine in the first place.
It is worthwhile noting that as bad as it sounded there, it would have sounded worse (and probably a bit distorted) blaring down a copper analog phone line.
There was an interesting four-page article about Ian McNamara in The Weekend Australian Magazine last week titled “Macca All Over”. Many would know Ian by his nickname, Macca, the host of ABC Local Radio’s Sunday morning program “Australia All Over”.
I didn’t spot the article on the weekend but it did come to my attention earlier this week on The Australian’s website. It’s lengthy, but it’s worth a read and is probably one of the best feature articles in a newspaper this year.
Ian McNamara is one of the few people I can listen to for any length of time on the ABC…I think this quote from former ABC boss David Hill probably explains the key difference between Macca and most other ABC radio presenters quite well:
Generally speaking he’s got extraordinary popularity and extraordinary reach but Macca is philosophically old Australian conservative, old working-class conservatism. Philosophically, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, it just rubs me up the wrong way – not progressive, uncomfortable with change.
He’s a real traditionalist. And he breaks all the rules (of radio). Traditional professional radio management have always found Macca exasperating. He mumbles, ‘Now, I’ve got this letter from Bill somebody.’ Rustle, rustle on air. ‘Oh here it is – oh that’s not it.’ Most people in a program like that would have a strict rundown but he’s all over the place.”
It’s not just the fact that I find some of the more “progressive” presenters on the ABC utterly infuriating and I find Macca much easier to listen to, but it is that “unprofessional” element of his program…it’s not a strict schedule, things don’t quite go to plan and he plays with that. It’s just a down-to-earth Sunday morning chat program. I think many of the best radio presenters are the ones who don’t expect everything to go perfectly, and aren’t afraid to have fun with things going wrong.
I disagree with him on various issues, I find his bird call music annoying and some of his callers to be bordering on the stultifyingly boring, but I like him, and in general I like his program. It is almost the only thing that I can listen to on 666 ABC Canberra without trying to pull my hair out. That being said I am probably more likely to listen to 2CC on most Sunday mornings, but every few weeks I spend a couple hours listening to Macca. He is, to summarise, a good change of pace.
Anyway, the article is most interesting and I encourage you to read it. Even if you’re not interested in Ian McNamara, it’s one of the best bits of journalism you will see this year, and for that reason alone it is worth reading. I congratulate Mark Whitaker for writing such a wonderful article.
…and perhaps the most useless scientific study of the year.
TWO scientists studying at the Australian National University are part of an international team that has discovered the Milky Way galaxy actually spins in different directions.
In their paper to be published in the journal Nature, the scientists describe how the outer edge of the Milky Way, the halo, is made up of two components that rotate in opposite directions.
Can anybody explain to me why we are funding studies like this when we could be using that funding to find a cure for cancer or any number of other medical ailments?
For at least the last ten years Bunnings Warehouse have been using the same theme music, and now they have changed it. I noticed it twice on television last night and have heard it once on the radio today. It’s the same basic tune, but (and this won’t sound very technical) it sounds a bit like they’ve taken the tape and boiled it.
They haven’t updated the ads on their website yet so you can still hear the old music at http://bunnings.com.au/aboutus/100/Who_We_Are.aspx (Update: New ads with new music now on that link). I’ll update this with the new and old music shortly. (I should have recorded the 2CC gardening show before the final “Best of Laws” on the 2nd of December as it is sponsored by Bunnings and there are a couple extended commercials each morning produced either by 2CC Production or Bunnings, these commercials use extended versions of the Bunnings Music…maybe they will get another run this weekend.
