Archive for January, 2008
Back in 2005 ACTION Buses launched a new version of mathematics which seemed to revolve around the notion of more being less and vice versa. At the time they advised that 8:37pm was seven minutes earlier than 8:30pm.
This new version of mathematics hasn’t been widely adopted, however yesterday AAP trialled it in their 4:40pm weather forecast. Amongst the forecasts was “Canberra……………………………Showers increasing. 24 23”. The minimum temperature is higher than the maximum temperature, once again proving that less is more and vice versa.
Perhaps it is unfair of me to pick up on a silly little typo like this, but I found it amusing…I think Clive Robertson found it amusing whilst reading the weather this morning too.
Samuel
January 18th, 2008 at 09:27am
Samuel’s back, and he has a look at the fuss over the whalers, their hostages, and whaling in general.
Update: Hmmph, every time I have tried to write something about the whaling this week, the circumstances have changed while I was writing. It’s happened again, the Customs boat has arrived…my sentiments about the usefulness of a Customs boat remain valid though. End Update
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/016.mp3]
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The script follows.
Samuel
Welcome to Editorial Echoes for January 17, I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart.
Well, doesn’t time fly…it’s been nearly two months since we last did this, and quite a bit has happened since then. Of course there was a federal election and although I didn’t produce any episodes of Editorial Echoes after that, I made my position on the result quite clear on my blog.
There are two main reasons why I haven’t produced any episodes of Editorial Echoes for a while, one was that a lot of this podcast relates to politics and with a new government in power, it was only fair that I give them some time to settle before chastising them too heavily. The other was that I took a bit over a month off from blogging and podcasting at my usual rate. That break of sorts was good, and now I’m back.
And what a time to be back, we’ve got whalers and their hostages, we’ve got a sixteen year-old in Melbourne that I can’t name but you probably know who I mean and why I’m mentioning him, and then there’s a health announcement by the federal government on the weekend that didn’t get anywhere near enough press coverage, and an out-of-the-blue editorial by Tim Brunero on livenews.com.au about voluntary student unionism that I’m going to have to respond to.
There’s enough material here for a few episodes, and whilst I did say on my blog that there would only be one episode of Editorial Echoes this week…well we’ll just wait an see what happens.
So, the whalers. Japanese whalers once again make the headlines whaling in Australian waters, it happens every year, I’ve been following the stories for a few years now, and generally the story is the same. The Japanese insist on whaling, Australia says no, whaling happens anyway and an environmental group tries to stop them.
Same thing year in year out…what makes this occasion different though is a federal court ruling, stating that it is illegal to hunt whales in Australian waters. Two anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepard boat, Steve Irwin, boarded the Japanese whaling vessel the Nishin Maru with a letter from the Captain of the Steve Irwin advising that the whaling activity is illegal. That’s where the fun and games started, and the legalities became very very blurry.
Depending on who you talk to, boarding the Nishin Maru with the intent of handing the vessel’s captain a letter and then leaving is an act which ranges from being completely legal, to being an act of piracy. I’m not going to pretend to know the answer to that, but I do believe there were some very odd decisions from both parties.
The Sea Shepard people would have known that boarding a Japanese whaling vessel would be seen as a hostile act, although the Japanese would have known that detaining the two activists would also be seen as hostile. Maybe that was the point, the Sea Shepard people probably boarded knowing that they would either give the Japanese whalers a letter which would be ignored, or they could claim to have had their crew taken hostage…either way it’s newsworthy and keeps the heat on the whalers. As for the whalers, detaining the activists was a way of showing that they really don’t care what anybody thinks of their activities…they aren’t messing around and will continue whaling.
Ultimately the situation is messy and we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens. I doubt it will stop the whaling activity…if anything it will just inflame tensions on both sides.
The question I really have to ask though, is what are the federal government doing about whaling? Prior to the election, the federal Labor party made a fair bit of noise about how, unlike the Howard government, they were going to be tough on whaling…and yet, now the best they can do is send a Customs ship to the area…a Customs ship. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the government yet, but the whalers aren’t about to try and have a holiday in Tasmania, they don’t really have anything to declare at the airport, and they certainly aren’t going to behave simply because the drug sniffer dogs might be asked to check the crew’s quarters.
To top it off, the Customs boat is AWOL. Nobody seems to know where it is. Customs might be good at dealing with rickety little Indonesian fishing boats, but the Nishin Maru is neither little nor rickety. If the federal government were serious about getting the Japanese whalers out of our waters, they would send the navy down there to deal with them. Try to escort them out of our territory, and if they refuse, sink them.
That kind of action is about the only thing that is going to send home the message that the international community condemns whaling. Anything else is just a waste of effort.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter. echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com is the email address.
I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart and this has been Editorial Echoes. Until we talk again, tada.
January 17th, 2008 at 03:13pm
A couple little bits of Technical news that caught my attention overnight.
Fairfax have becoming a network peering partner of PIPE Networks.
For many people in Australia this will reduce the number of hops to Fairfax websites, making them much faster to load and interact with. Sites included in this are The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, MyCareer.com.au and many other Fairfax Digital sites.
Interestingly MyTalk.com.au which they inherited from Southern Cross Broadcasting is not a part of the peering agreement, probably due to it seemingly being hosted somewhere in Adelaide and therefore not being part of the New South Wales agreement.
In other (probably more interesting) news, MySQL AB has been purchased by Sun Microsystems (even if the title of the article makes that less than clear). MySQL AB are the people responsible for the popular MySQL database, which is used as the backend for many a website including this one.
Sun Microsystems have a pretty good record of supporting open source software, and the people at MySQL AB seem pretty happy, so hopefully this will be a good thing.
Samuel
January 17th, 2008 at 09:07am
On Tuesday I thanked 2CC for granting one of my Christmas wishes by updating their “open line” promo.
As of 4:38 this morning I am able to thank them for granting another Christmas wish…the emergency tape has been updated. The old tape started with a 2CC ID and an ad for The Australian Bedding Company. The new emergency tape also starts with a 2CC ID, but the first ad it different, starting with the words “For machinery that’s all grunt”. It’s definitely not an ad for The Australian Bedding Company, although network programming cut in before I could hear any more of the ad to identify the advertised business.
I should probably point out that I didn’t express my Christmas wishes to 2CC, although I have expressed my reservations about the old eight minute (or thereabouts) loop emergency tape on a number of occasions. Hopefully this tape isn’t another short loop…although with any luck I will never have the opportunity to find out.
Update: 5:23 arrives and another chance to hear the tape…the first three ads are for Queanbeyan Diesel Service, ASI Locksmiths and Living Simply. End Update
Samuel
January 17th, 2008 at 04:48am
And again it’s a day late. Martin, who has been trying to get me to link to his site since late last year…I’m still not sure that there is much reason to link to his site so we’ll just call it a birthday present.
Happy Birthday Martin.
Incidentally, looking back through the archives I can see one other link to Martin’s website, does anybody want to locate it? A small undetermined prize is on offer (Naturally Martin is ineligible to enter).
Samuel
January 16th, 2008 at 10:34pm
Good afternoon Tim,
I would just like to echo your sentiments about Bill Woods and Deborah Knight having done well over the last few weeks filling in for Glenn Wheeler.
I am generally not a fan of duos on talk radio, but Bill and Deborah were fantastic, they work very well together and should be at the top of the list next time 2UE are looking for a duo.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
January 16th, 2008 at 01:30pm
I’m struggling to find the news anywhere else, but Steve Price insists that Corey Delaney, the missing 16 year-old who decided to tell his parents that he couldn’t go on holiday with them because he had to work, and instead posted a public invitation to a party on MySpace, and subsequently ended up with an out of control mob which required an awful lot of police attention, has been arrested.
On further inspection it looks like the news has come from 3AW in Melbourne and been confirmed by police on-the-air down there.
All I can say is that this is a circus. Corey needs a good kick up the rear end and the media should stop giving the little brat a heap of free publicity and focus on the battle between the Japanese whalers and the environmentalists instead.
I was going to write Corey in to the upcoming episode of Editorial Echoes, but unless the police release him with no repercussions, he is just a waste of my time. There are a couple things about the story which don’t add up unless you add in even more stupidity than is already apparent on Corey’s behalf, and that of his parents…but as I said, a waste of time, and as long as he receives some sort of punishment, I really don’t care.
Update: Err, quick thought…if Corey is charged, aren’t there laws to protect the identity of minors involved in legal proceedings? If so, hasn’t Corey waived his right to anonymity by making media appearances on A Current Affair and Melbourne’s Fox FM? Surely it would be stupid to force the media to stop naming him after he has already become a household name for the exact thing any charges would relate to. Removing his name from blogs and YouTube etc could be quite a test of such laws (and keep the Department of Public Prosecutions busy for the next few years). End Update
Further Update: What I want to say I can not say, however certain circumstances have hopefully forced this story in to being much quieter from now on. Comments are closed, I can not spell out the reason due to legal constraints. Read between the lines and I’m sure you will reach your own conclusions. It’s amusing that I have whinged about the ambiguity of the English language over the last week, and yet today that very ambiguity is incredibly useful. End Update
Samuel
January 16th, 2008 at 12:03pm
Hi Mike,
Quick question for you…how many times have you written a shopping list, taken it with you to the supermarket and walked around crossing items off as you get them from the shelf…and thought "Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to carry this bit of paper and instead could type a shopping list in Word and have it appear on my shopping trolley with a heap of advertising next to it"?
Let me guess…never?
And for this reason Microsoft have invented it…it's a solution that just needs a problem. And Microsoft will profit from the ads while we try and work out what problem they're solving.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
From http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080114/D8U5LR780.html
Video Ads Are Planned for Grocery Carts
Jan 14, 8:00 AM (ET)
By JESSICA MINTZ
SEATTLE (AP) – Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT) is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart. The software maker spent four years working with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in the checkout line.
Microsoft's acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, last year for $6 billion shored up the company's capacity to serve video ads onto these grocery cart screens.
Starting in the second half of 2008, the companies plan to test MediaCart in Wakefern Food Corp.'s ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast. Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.
The system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where the shopper's cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at certain points – an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example, when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.
Microsoft is also working with MediaCart and ShopRite to help advertisers reach potential consumers based on past grocery purchases, which are logged when they swipe their loyalty cards.
"This is not all necessarily about bombarding consumers, about targeting advertising," said Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group. "It's about also making the shopping experience better for the consumer."
Advertisers will get more feedback about which commercials or coupon offers are effective, because customers either buy the products or accept the offers on the spot, or they don't. But Ferris said neither Microsoft nor any advertisers will have access to the personal information consumers provide when they join the supermarket's loyalty card program.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:00pm
If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you probably would have noticed a decline in the number of posts I have written over the last few weeks. There have been a few reasons for this including my desire to take a few weeks off from regular blogging.
I’m back on deck properly now and things should return to normal over the next few days. I will try to produce a couple episodes of Editorial Echoes per week, although one will be the limit this week, and the weekly poll returns on Sunday.
It seems funny to me that for months the “Create New Post” screen in the WordPress admin section was almost my most visited page on the Internet, and I’ve barely seen it over the last few weeks.
I have also done a tiny bit of housekeeping, removing the Samuel’s Persiflage portion of the sidebar and replacing it with a link to the Samuel’s Persiflage index page. I may place a shorter Editorial Echoes entry on the sidebar.
Also while I think of it, happy birthday to Tim for yesterday.
Samuel
January 15th, 2008 at 10:59am
Yesterday during my rundown of the new 2UE schedule I spent three paragraphs talking about program intros. In one of those paragraphs I made my thoughts pretty clear about what I would like to see happen with a few intros:
1. Steve Price to continue using Hunters and Collectors’ “Holy Grail”.
2. It would be interesting to see what intro Tim Webster uses.
3. Stuart Bocking should get his own intro rather than using last year’s summer intro.
The results:
1. Steve Price gets a piece of production music, which is nowhere near as good as the catchy “Holy Grail”.
2. Tim Webster gets the very catchy Van Morrison song “Jackie Wilson Said” (whatever happened to Lawsie’s Cuckoo’s Nest…they should put together a new version of that song called “Timmy Webster Said”).
3. Stuart Bocking keeps using the same intro…I suppose that, seeing as nobody else is using it any more, it is technically his.
2CC also haven’t wasted any time, they already have a promo for “Weekdays on 2CC’ featuring Mike Jeffreys, Steve Price, Tim Webster and Mike Welsh in heavy rotation.
Courtesy of 2UE/Fairfax and 2CC/Capital Radio Network and for the purposes of archiving the beginning of the post-Laws era, here are the various intros and 2CC’s “Weekdays on 2CC” promo. Unless I can find my dodgy recording of the old Steve Price Drive Show intro on my digital notetaker, this will be the last 2UE and 2CC audio I post for a while.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/2CC2008IntroPromo.mp3]
Download MP3
I don’t know whether Steve Price’s 2UE intro and his network intro were both assigned to the network or they decided to double up on the voiceover for the fun of it, but it was like that each hour. Also worth noting is that unlike John Stanley’s show, Tim Webster’s 2UE intro is not being assigned to the network, which makes 2CC’s return from the news much cleaner. 2CC use the same intro for the afternoon show as 2UE except for the local voiceover…the two intros are rarely synchronised so it was always very obvious when John’s 2UE intro had been assigned to the network as the music changed quite oddly when 2CC jumped from their own intro to the network feed.
Both Steve Price and Tim Webster have short intros and don’t seem to have different “start of show” and “return from news” intros. Previously it was common for shows to have a longer intro at the beginning of the show and a shorter one as they returned from the news (although John Laws just played whatever intro he felt like).
Update: Five past ten, and a “More of the Steve Price morning show” intro…looks like tradition isn’t leaving after all. End Update
Stuart Bocking still has the differing intros, and unlike the Steve Price and Tim Webster intros, Stuart’s intro lingers, allowing him to slowly fade it out.
As for 2CC’s weekday promo, a very good job by Production. I should probably thank them for granting one of my Christmas wishes and updating the “open line” promo too.
I’m going to let Steve and Tim settle in for at least the rest of this week before I make further comment on their new shows. I’ve already made a few comments on their first day (although I have to admit that I slept through the last hour or so of Tim Webster’s show and only heard later that he has retained the “chat with the drive show host” segment at 2:55 and John Stanley was on there, I was surprised that 2CC didn’t run their usual “On this day” segment at that time, perhaps they don’t have the pre-recorded goodbyes from Tim Webster yet) and it is only fair that I give them some time to settle in properly before making any more comments.
Samuel
January 15th, 2008 at 05:32am
Good evening Stuart and welcome back.
Oh dear, it's that time of the year again when the Australian Open tennis steals the headlines. As far as I'm concerned they could remove the players from the court and I would be more entertained by the growing grass than by a tennis match. I find tennis very boring.
I do, however, like hearing about the results and hearing match summaries, and it's good to hear Graham Agars reporting on the tennis again…but I just can't watch a tennis match…that ball going back and forth for hours on end…the grunting…the commentators making the same generic comments hour after hour after hour. Give me a nice open round of golf any day!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
January 14th, 2008 at 10:30pm
Today is the first day of the metropolitan radio ratings, and as such (in most cases) the start of the normal presenter schedule.
Today is also the first day for the new morning show host on 2UE. Nobody will ever replace John Laws and I think 2UE have made sure that the new host will not be attempting to do so, by shifting the focus of the show from being a national program, to being a New South Wales and ACT based program.
The new host of 2UE’s morning show is Steve Price who, in my opinion, is one of the best commentators on Australian radio, and an excellent choice to present a hard-hitting news based program. Steve has been involved in Journalism for the last 35 years, including many years with 3AW in Melbourne (as Executive Producer, Program Director, News Director and Drive presenter). He moved to Sydney’s 2UE in 2002 initially as Breakfast host and then as Drive host.
As a Canberran I have not had the opportunity to hear an awful lot of Steve Price, but have felt very privileged to hear his program during the multitude of times I have been in and around Sydney over the last couple of years. Steve has also appeared on 2CC co-hosting election coverages in the last few years.
Handing Steve the morning show is an excellent decision in my mind. Being the person to follow-on from John Laws was always going to be a tough ask, however I think Steve is the right person for the job.
I’m not as convinced about 2UE’s choice for the afternoon show though. Channel Ten newsreader, fill-in presenter for John Laws over the last few years and “listener favourite” according to 2UE, Tim Webster is taking over the afternoon show from John Stanley who has been hosting it for about the last decade.
I like Tim as a fill-in presenter, but I don’t think I could put up with him on a permanent basis. He just seems to be too “wishy-washy”. He certainly has his opinions, but unlike other presenters he just doesn’t seem to be capable of really getting to the bottom of an issue and getting some sort of resolution…perhaps that’s just because he hasn’t had a show to call his own.
My main concern is that an afternoon show with Tim Webster will mean the show becomes more news based and less fun. I certainly don’t want Tim to copy John Stanley’s format, but I don’t want him to drop all of the fun and entertainment that John had on his afternoon show either.
I suppose I will just have to wait and see if Tim grows on me. Unfortunately if his summer morning effort is anything to go by, this is going to be an arduous year of afternoon radio. Please prove me wrong Tim.
The big pity for me is that 2UE have moved John Stanley to Drive, which means he will not be heard in Canberra any more. I wish John all the best with the Drive show, he has previously had success in that timeslot and I’m sure he will do a good job, but Canberra will be a poorer place for it.
When I returned to listening to 2CC in 2003, John’s show was something I looked forward to. It’s been that way ever since. It starts with Mark Knopfler’s theme from the Local Hero soundtrack, and continues with John’s smooth voice for the next three hours. I will particularly miss John’s conversations with entertainment reporter Peter Ford, and the Thursday segment “What Drives You Nuts”. I will have less opportunities to take part in John’s show, but I won’t let the broadcast barrier in the way, I won’t be a stranger to John or his new show.
A quick thought for 2CC, if we’re in the mood for change, then please break up those ad breaks a bit during the afternoon show. During the ad breaks in Sydney, 2UE take the opportunity to run traffic reports and live-read ads. As a result, the breaks can be quite long…a minute of news headlines on 2CC around the half-hour would, admittedly, be more work for the newsroom, but would make those long breaks a bit easier to listen to, and improve 2CC’s credentials as a news leader. Even if the newsroom were to pre-record the headlines at 25 past the hour, it would be well-worth the effort. This would be a good idea for the morning show too in my opinion.
Breakfast on 2UE has a bit of a change, with Mike Carlton’s co-host Peter FitzSimons being replaced by Sandy Aloisi, making it the first time 2UE have had a female co-host in a regular weekday timeslot (or not quite…it’s the first time during a daytime slot. Davky notes in the comments that Deb Elsworth aka Ella James was Malcolm T. Elliott’s co-host in the late 90s). It’s not the first time they’ve had a regular female host on the station (although I can’t work out why Psychic Sharyn still gets four hours each week), but with all of the female co-hosts filling in for various people lately on 2UE, I’m not surprised that they have finally taken notice of their listeners and appointed a female to a regular slot.
Personally I would have preferred Peter FitzSimons and Sandy Aloisi, as I’m just not a fan of Mike Carlton and I don’t think he will ever have a chance of defeating Alan Jones in the ratings…but so be it.
On that note, I would like to congratulate Channel Ten’s Bill Woods and Deborah Knight who did very well filling in for Glenn Wheeler on the weekend afternoon show. These two work very well together and deserve a regular slot somewhere on the schedule.
I will be interested to hear the intro music that Steve Price, Tim Webster and Stuart Bocking choose this year. Steve Price has been using the Hunters and Collectors track “Holy Grail” (also used by Channel Ten for their AFL coverage) as his intro on the Drive show…hopefully he will keep using it. Tim Webster has not had the opportunity to have his own intro, having either used a standard “Tim Webster, keeping the dream alive for John Laws” intro or one of 2UE’s summer intros, and it’s about time Stuart got his own intro after having used last year’s summer intro music all year.
Speaking of 2UE’s summer intros, 2UE used the (not so great in my opinion) Joe Cocker cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s hit song “Summer In The City” as the basis for their intros. The bit they used works quite well, but the rest of the song is certainly not a highlight of the Joe Cocker catalogue. For the sake of radio posterity, here are Tim Webster and Glenn Wheeler’s 2007/2008 summer intros.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/2UESummerIntros0708.mp3]
Download MP3
Incidentally, I was watching the webcam when Glenn Wheeler “boogied” to the summer intro (as mentioned in the audio), it was quite amusing and I sent him an email to express my amusement.
And while we’re here, good luck to Ash Keenan who has resigned from the Australian Traffic Network. Ash was their traffic reporter for 2CA and 2CC following Dennis Leigh leaving last year. At this stage I don’t know who will take over, or who will fill-in, although I will hazard a guess at Mike “frame in the plane” Frame being the fill-in traffic reporter. (Update: Nope, we have a Dwayne Strauss presenting the traffic).
Samuel
January 14th, 2008 at 06:22am
This week’s award has a bit of a story to go with it.
I first heard this song when I was about ten years old. I was in year four at Ainslie Primary School and Julie Mayhew, the music teacher, was away. Her replacement was Mrs. Patricia Williams. Mrs. Williams was very interested in the music of the 1920s and 1930s and probably the related decades, and on this particular day (the first time I met her) she brought in her dancing wooden doll and taught us “Crazy Words–Crazy Tune” by Irving Aaronson & the Victor Commanders.
For one reason or another I thought this was the most boring music class I had ever attended, so I wasn’t particularly co-operative…I did, however, like the song. I’m fairly certain that we were only taught the chorus, and a modified, primary-school-friendly version at that, but I liked the song anyway. The version of the lyrics as I recall them:
Sits around, all day long
Sings the same words to every song
“Vo do de o, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
His ukulele, daily
How he’ll strum!
Vum vum vum!
Dancin’ and Prancin’
Then he’ll holler, “I’ve got it!”
(and repeat ad-nauseam)
Despite liking the song, I did not like Mrs. Williams. I don’t really know why any more, I just recall that I didn’t like her.
A few weeks later, Mr. Busch, my general year four teacher sent a note to the parents of all the students in his class to inform them that he was going to take a few weeks of long service leave and that Patricia Williams would be filling in for him. I did not make the connection between the person on the piece of paper and the music teacher at that time, possibly because I thought “Pat-rick-ee-a” was a very strange name.
Skip forward a couple weeks and Mr. Bush went on long service leave. By this time I had completely forgotten that he was going away. Before I got in to the classroom that morning, I was informed that “She’s here” by one of my classmates…once I recognised Mrs. Williams I became quite un-cooperative as I had previously decided that I didn’t like her.
Around 10am, possibly 10:30 (it as definitely before recess), Mrs. Williams pulled me aside for a conversation to find out why I was being so difficult. I informed her that I didn’t like her, to which she naturally asked “why?”, however the best explanation I could come up with at the time was “I just don’t”. She suggested that I should give her another chance, which I begrudgingly did, and by the end of the day I thought she was a wonderful teacher.
Over the remaining two and a bit years of my time at primary school Mrs. Williams filled in for various teachers, including an extended stint filling in for Julie Mayhew (the aforementioned music teacher) while I was in year six, and a time in the last week or so of year five where she filled in for one of the year two teachers and asked the deputy principal (Lindy Beeley) if I could join that class for a few days…Mrs Beeley asked me if I would like to spend a few days in Mrs. Williams’ class, an offer I wasn’t about to refuse, and so I did. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of that class, except one day where we had to find the longest word in the English language. According to Mrs. Williams it was “antidisestablishmentarianism”, although I’m not sure if that is still accurate.
Mrs. Williams and I were friends, and I remember introducing her to Mum one day when we bumped in to her in Civic (I’ll clarify that…I was walking with Mum, Mrs. Williams was walking in the other direction), and I remember Mrs. Williams was present on the day I graduated from primary school, I was in tears on that day because I didn’t want to leave primary school, I don’t remember what Mrs. Williams said to me except that it made me feel better.
I haven’t seen her or heard anything about her since. She was a very good teacher and I hope she is well.
Incidentally, whilst checking if Mrs. Beeley’s name has the third “e” in it or not, I found out that she is now a fully-fledged school principal at Florey Primary, a feat she deserves to be congratulated for. I wonder if she was the principal there in 2006…I worked for Belconnen Community Service for a couple months in 2006 and fixed a few computers in the After School Centre at Florey Primary. If I had known Mrs. Beeley was working there, I would have said hello.
Anyway, the winners of the Musicians Of The Week award this week are Irving Aaronson & the Victor Commanders, and the feature song is “Crazy Words–Crazy Tune”. As this song was published in 1926 the copyright has expired in Australia. I thank the Virginia University for their restoration of the music.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/CrazyWordsCrazyTune.mp3]
Download MP3
Crazy words, crazy tune,
All that I ever hear him croon
“Vo do de o, vo doe doe de o, doe–doe doe doe.”
Sits around, all night long
Sings the same words to every song
“Vo do de o, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
His ukulele, daily
How he’ll strum!
Bum bum bum!
Vampin’ and stampin’
Then he’ll holler, “Black bottom!”
Crazy words, crazy tune,
He’ll be driving me crazy soon
“Vo do de o, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
Napoleon
Marched his men
To Waterloo
What did he say to them?
“Vo do de o, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
Oh, is that so?
Washington
At Valley Forge
‘Twas bitter cold and up spoke George
“Vo do do, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
No–you don’t say?
And Simon Legree
In Uncle Tom’s Cabin
What did he say to Uncle Tom?
I’ll tell you what he said,
He took his whip and said to Uncle Tom–
“C’mon, Charleston!”
And in the Senate
The other day
What did our President Coolidge say?
“Vo do do, vo doe doe de o, doe.”
Samuel
January 13th, 2008 at 10:35pm
I’m one of those people who will run a Google search on my own name every few weeks for the fun of it, and also has Google alerts setup to report on activity mentioning my own name. As such, I am quite familiar with most of the things that turn up when people search for my name.
A short time ago I was reading through some posts on a forum that I visit frequently but do not post on as I would prefer to keep my name off there (and yes I’m well aware that I could post there under a pseudonym, but unfortunately forum policy would require me to use my name and not a pseudonym), and whilst I was reading I stumbled across a post which mentioned my name. The post was nice and I suppose I should probably be happy as the person who mentioned my name was quite positive…but to the same extent I don’t want my name on those forums and I am now rather undecided about whether to take it further and have my name removed.
The post has been online for nearly 24 hours and I’m not sure how regularly Google indexes the forum (this site gets indexed far too often, seemingly as a result of Google using updates to the RSS feed as a good excuse to re-index) so I decided to Google my name. I was pleased to be unable to find any results from that forum with my name…but I did get a bit of a shock when I spotted my name being mentioned on the ACT Government’s Hansard website.
In 2006 I had the pleasure of assisting in the running of a charity trivia night, mainly organised by George Lemon from Senator Gary Humphries‘ office, the funds of which went to Gawad Kalinga. It would appear that a short time thereafter Liberal member for Ginninderra Vicki Dunne MLA addressed the ACT Legislative Assembly on the work of Gawad Kalinga and the people and organisations who assisted with the trivia night. Even though my role mainly consisted of moving furniture and acting as a runner collecting answer sheets from the various tables, Mrs. Dunne was kind enough to mention that I assisted with the night.
Until today I was not aware of this rather kind act, I certainly did not assist with the trivia night in order to receive any recognition, but it is nice to have received some recognition anyway.
Thank you Mrs. Dunne, I am just sorry that I was not able to thank you sooner.
Now I just have to return to my original quandary of whether or not to request the removal of my name from the forum I was talking about earlier before Google picks it up.
Samuel
January 10th, 2008 at 06:05am
No, not for me, for Loadedog and his housemates.
It would appear that Loadedog is for one reason or another shortly about to become homeless having been given his marching orders from his residence in Reid after five years living there.
Loadedog has made a public request for a rental property, his specifications follow:
…we need a house to rent somewhere in the inner north of Canberra. Ideally it’d be close to Civic, on a block big enough to host the Backanalia, with a large shed, 2-4 bedrooms (at around $150 per room) and have a separate lounge/rumpus/studio large enough to host podcasts (around 5×4 metres is adequate).
Anybody who knows of (or has) such a residence on offer is requested to contact Loadedog either by email or through a comment on his blog.
Samuel
January 7th, 2008 at 11:26pm
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