I don’t think there’s a better to get yourself some publicity than calling for a banning!
The World Cancer Research Fund warned parents to stop serving the processed meat, saying they could lead to bowel cancer.
Instead of a total ban on the ham sandwich, limiting the amount of processed meat a child ate was a better option, Cancer Council nutrition manager Kathy Chapman said.
“If a child is eating ham sandwiches every day they are potentially missing out on fresh vegetables and important nutrients,” she said.
Healthier fillings include tuna, salmon, egg and salad sandwiches.
Dietician Susie Burrell of Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney said a ham sandwich once a week was OK.
Eating a ham sarnie causes cancer? These ham-fisted food fascists are just pig ignorant
The article, which I think may actually be an opinion piece, is even better.
Surely an occasional ham baguette with spread-u-lite butter and free-range mustard can hardly be a risk?
Oh, you bet it can, says the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). If children eat bacon, ham, salami and other types of processed meat during their formative years, it will raise the risk of them contracting cancer – bowel cancer in particular – over a lifetime.
It will also encourage a bad ham habit. The brats might get to like the evil pig meat stuff. So it is better, the charity says, that children learn to view processed meat as an occasional treat, if it is eaten at all.
In the latest in a long line of food scares, this one scares me more than most.
First, in the typical manner of these over-arching health warnings, it is so unfair, particularly on those who already have this type of cancer for no other reason than they lost out in the genetic lottery. Now they will be dismissed by some as merely selfish hot-dog guzzlers who had it coming.
Also, this is not merely a health caution, it is – if you read between the lines – sly, anti-meat propaganda. They are messing, once more, with our carnivore minds.
The WCRF claim that a recent survey has shown that two thirds of the people in Britain did not know that eating processed meat increased the risk of cancer. This, apparently, despite the scientific evidence about a link being ‘convincing’.
I like that ‘convincing’, don’t you? What I would say about that ‘convincing’ is that it is unconvincing.
And surely there is enough pressure on adults to be good parents without accusing them of poisoning their children by slipping the occasional ham-on-rye into their satchel?
I can see, perhaps, that if you bought the vilest, past-its-sell-by-date, Barbie-pink ham you could find, crammed a pound of it between two slices of sugar-rich white loaf then forced it down the gullet of little Timmy or baby Lola every school day from the moment they started nursery until the tykes graduated, then, point taken WCRF. It might not be too healthy.
Yet it is the charity’s tacit suggestion, odious and unsettling, that we are raising a generation of tongue-lolling, drooling slope-heads who will be unable to differentiate between smoked ham and smoked heroin when the moment comes.
One slice of breaded Wiltshire and the fools will be lost to civilisation. The bad karma of Parma will live with them for ever.
What the health police seem to want us to do is nurture an army of mini-Howard Hughes types in knee-socks; freakish, food dictator children who will scream at chocolate, refuse to eat anything but the purest substances and insist that their lunch is wrapped in banana leaves to avoid carcinogenic plastics or the threat of bisphenol-A from their thermos flasks.
Does that sound far-fetched or even hysterical? Well, thanks to the constant meddling of the health police and their blizzard of mixed-message warnings over the years, it has already happened.
Doctors are reporting increasing incidences of something called orthorexia nervosa; the latest fashionable boa constrictor of an eating disorder to grip the middle classes.
Described as a fixation on righteous eating, it affects mostly well-educated, middle-class men and women over the age of 30. Well, it would do, wouldn’t it? You won’t find starving tribesmen in Darfur obsessing about the organic origins of their sugar-free orange juice.
[..]
Devoted orthorexics avoid anything containing sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, yeast, soya, gluten, dairy and corn. Extreme cases will also avoid any foodstuffs that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or that contain artificial additives.
It is a little like anorexia nervosa, except with extra carbs, and followers must think they are going to live for ever. If you waved a bacon sarnie under their noses, they would faint with horror.
[..]
Searching every day for fresh supplies of things like soy milk, wheatgrass juice, wild Tibetan goji berries, pure premium coconut water, hempseed and organic grain quinoa? It must be exhausting.
This dream takes place at about 4am. I was walking east on Batman Street in Braddon approaching the intersection with Gooreen Street when I heard a large amount of yelling from down the road near Gorman House. I turned around to take a look and saw a lot of police cars arriving at the scene…one of the police officers pointed a magnifying glass in my direction, and I decided to leave the area.
Sure enough, a police car zoomed up the street and I was stopped by the police who wanted to know why I was walking in the area and why I had tried to leave the area when they spotted me. I informed them that I was merely out for a walk, which is not an uncommon thing for me to do at 4am, and that I had decided to leave because I was getting cold. They did not like the answer, and yelled “you were there, therefore you did it, and you watch The Bill so you know your rights, and you’re coming with us”.
I was taken back to a place which was supposedly the Civic Police Station but looked more like Sun Hill Police Station, I was then yelled at by Kenny Koala and then (in my mind proving that this was actually Sun Hill) Superintendent John Heaton appeared, apologised for my arrest, informed me that they had caught the person who was responsible for the crime (I still have no idea what it was) and that I would be given a plane ticket to get home, from Civic to Reid.
The dream continued though, as I was unable to leave as none of the doors would unlock, prompting Supt. Heaton to turn on the TV and ring the TV shopping number to order in food while they waited for Kevin Rudd to ring the locksmith, which “usually takes a week or two as Wayne Swan likes to have the tax office audit them first”.
As reported in multiple places, Fairfax Radio’s chief political correspondent Alison Carabine is off to the ABC, specifically to ABC Radio National’s breakfast show with Fran Kelly, which should be quite interesting as Alison is often accused of having a right-wing bias, and Fran is often accused of having a left-wing bias.
Alison Carabine at the National Press Club’s debate between John Howard and Kevin Rudd in 2007. Picture credit: Channel Nine
Personally I think Alison is one of the best political reporters of recent times and is the most impartial reporters for the electronic media in the Parliament House Press Gallery. 2UE, other Fairfax owned stations, and other stations which take news from the Fairfax Radio Network will be poorer for her loss. Radio National have picked up a great reporter…hopefully Alison can retain her reporting excellence in that peculiar environment.
Radionews.com.au is carrying the curious news that Ken Sparkes (former 2UE voiceover man…and still doing the intro for their news bulletins if I’m not mistaken) will be filling in for Pete Graham on 2UE’s Saturday Night Live show for the month, and Rowan Barker, formerly 2GB’s breakfast newsreader, will be filling in for John Kerr over the same period.
Nothing on Fairfax Syndication’s “temporary format changes” page yet…but that’s hardly surprising.
Some days I just love spammers. Who here remembers that post last year about the people who had scattered traffic cones across Coranderrk Street? Well a spammer found it yesterday by googling “traffic cones au” and subsequently sent me the following email.
from Jerry Johnson revjerryjohnson500@yahoo.com
to samuel@samuelgordonstewart.com
date Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:41 AM
subject To Order
signed-by yahoo.com
Dear Valued Customer,
Hello This is Rev Jerry Johnson and I want to purchase 500 quantities of Traffic Cones with it’s description as follow,
Let me hear back from you with good price on this product and Also advice me on the forms of payment that you accept. Hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Rev Jerry Johnson.
Things is, based on the headers, this email was actually sent through Yahoo webmail. Either the spammers are becoming less efficient and manually sending message in order to get more of them past spam filters, or somebody just decided to continue the fun of that blog post.
Either way, it amused me considerably when I saw it.
Ain’t migraines wonderful…you have half a dozen things planned for the day, and you get none of them done. It’s wonderful!
Anyway, without an ado or anything else getting in the way, this aircheck comes from the afternoon of the 6th of April, when news of the Abruzzo earthquake was just starting to filter through.
Incidentally, this Saturday marks the day on which I can release a particular aircheck under the three month rule, so there will be an out of cycle Aircheck Sunday on Saturday.
Copyright notice: Copyright on this audio is jointly held by Samuel Gordon-Stewart and Australian Independent Radio News and is made available for personal use, and “fair use” as defined by copyright legislation only. This audio may not be redistributed without the prior written permission of either copyright holder.
I just thought I would pause to mention that the previous post, about Maritz’s column being on unplanned leave, is this blog’s 3,000th post. Not bad for a blog which has been active, for all intents and purposes, since the 17th of April 2005.
3,000 posts in 1,583 days. 1.895 posts per day. One post every 12 hours, 39 minutes and 50.4 seconds.
Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about those days where I wrote nothing. The busy days quite easily made up for them.
Samuel writes: A couple weeks ago Maritz submitted a column and I rejected it as the main topic was a topic which, whilst newsworthy, was a topic which I had deliberately banned from this blog and, as far as I could tell, there was only one sentence in the column which was not about this topic, and it was an incoherent mention of her cat and “orange”.
Last week Maritz did not submit a column, and this week I don’t think she will either, because I received a call from her this morning at a not quite convenient hour (although with caller ID blocked, and me not having actually spoken to Maritz vocally before, it could have been anyone) informing me that she can’t submit her column this week because her computer is not working, followed by an incomprehensible phrase which may have been Russian, followed by the words “of do soon, must go for workings”. I tried to ask her to repeat herself, but she rushed off.
This week’s award goes to Van Morrison (aka George Ivan Morrison) and the feature song is Jackie Wilson Said, which is also the theme song for Tim Webster’s afternoon show on 2UE. 2CC also use an extract from the tail end of the song for Tim’s pre-recorded goodbye message at the end of each show.
Unfortunately the only video I can find of Van Morrison performing this song is of one of his later “I’ve really forgotten how to sing this song, but I’ll try and fail anyway” efforts, so instead you get a cut down version of the song on some bloke’s skiing video!
As I noted earlier this morning, Countrylink had an open day at the Canberra Railway Station this morning to celebrate their refurbished Travel Centre (which seems to be code for “booking office”) and, albeit not mentioned on their website, refurbished trains and new staff uniforms. As part of the open day, they had free return train trips to Queanbeyan, and 2CC were broadcasting live from the train station.
I went along shortly after 7am, stopping off to pick up a packet of Tim Tams for Mike Frame and the 2CC team. Below you will find photos of the train station, a trip to Queanbeyan and back, some video footage, and a photo of 2CC’s Mike Frame and Garden Gurus. As usual, all photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.
First up, the front of the railway station, where a sausage sizzle was being set up when I arrived.
Inside, 2CC were busy running their gardening show, anchored by Mike Frame and horticulturalised (for lack of a better word) by the Garden Gurus Merylyn Condon and Judy Refshauge (sorry, I’m not sure which one is which in this photo…I have never been able to work it out).
Inside the railway station, staff seemed almost excited about their refurbished Travel Centre, which spent most of the morning (while I was there anyway) dealing with enquiries.
They were also giving away balloons (and exploding many of them accidentally as they filled them with helium, producing a decent bit of atmospheric noise for the 2CC broadcast).
I quite liked the model train.
The train station has a coffee machine which produces a heated beverage which I wouldn’t call coffee, but I had two cups anyway. The first one was a sensible temperature, but the second one was so hot that I needed to use a padded sleeve of my top to hold the cup, in order to avoid being burnt.
The first free return trip to Queanbeyan started at 8am, which is well and truly after the morning Canberra to Sydney train departed at 6:37am, and was followed by other free return services every 45 minutes, except for a window of time around the 11:21am arrival of the Sydney to Canberra service (those passengers would probably have received a surprise when they got off at the busy open day).
To board the train, naturally you had to be given a ticket. They were using different colours of tickets for each trip, although I don’t think they were actually checking them. Amusingly, the tickets they were using were the Countrylink luggage tags.
Countrylink stations have interestingly elaborate identifying signs on the platforms.
The train to Queanbeyan and back had three cars.
Once on the 8am train (the first of the day), I noted the view, and the rather oddly worded sign (from a passenger’s perspective).
As the train took off, I noticed the collection of carriages at the Canberra Railway Station.
The 8am train travelling under the Monaro Highway.
And then under Ipswich Street in Fyshwick.
A video from the train as it passed Fyshwick and travelled under the Newcastle Street overpass. Apologies for the dodgy frame rate of this video.
(The original video can be downloaded by clicking here)
Video of cows in fog which the train passed on the way to Queanbeyan.
(The original video can be downloaded by clicking here)
A picture of the Queanbeyan Train Station. There was no time to get off the train as it only stayed at the station for a few moments.
A video of the train departing Queanbeyan.
(The original video can be downloaded by clicking here)
On the way back, the most spottable sight was the Direct Factory Outlet sign.
The train then arrived back at the Canberra Station, about 25 minutes after departing.
ct width=”425″ height=”344″>(The original video can be downloaded by clicking here)
I also filmed the departure of the 8:45 train.
(The original video can be downloaded by clicking here)
And before I left the platform, I noticed that the door to the luggage room was open, and lockers could be easily seen. Two of the lockers had old radio station stickers on them, one for 2CC.
And one for 2CC’s then supplementary FM station, Kix 106 (now Mix 106.3).
I then stuck around until 9am to see the end of 2CC’s garden show (which managed to get me roped in to doing the prize draw, to select that day’s lucky caller), and say toodles to Mike Frame who, incidentally, once he gets back from holiday in a couple weeks, will be 2CC’s permanent weekend morning host…and it’s fantastic to have him back permanently!
And that was my morning at the Canberra Railway Station open day. There is a similar event at the Goulburn station tomorrow which will be attended by 2CC’s sister station in Goulburn, 2GN. I, however, will not be there.
I see that Superintendent Mark Colbran has done it again, using words of deceit to scare the public.
One driver, a 17-year-old man from Gilmore, was detected driving 45km/h over the 80km/h posted speed limit on Adelaide Avenue in Curtin about 10.30am. A total of 13 traffic infringement notices were issued by police at this location.
[..]
“These results have not come from a specialised operation or identified initiative – they are the results of every-day policing, and drivers who flaunt the speed limits and put your families and love ones at risk need to lose this mentality that they won’t meet with any consequences,” Supt Colbran said.
Ah, sorry Mark, but you had one of your RAPID and vehicle inspection operations at that location, at that time. Technically, this might not be a “specialised operation”, but those of us out here in “sensible use of phrases land” regard having a bunch of police officers and vehicle inspectors congregating in one spot to check drivers’ speed, licences, cars and breath alcohol content, to be an “operation”.
If you hadn’t used the phrase “these results have not come from a specialised operation or identified initiative”, then I wouldn’t have a problem with your statement, as these operations have certainly become a very regular sight on Canberra’s roads in recent times and can be considered “everyday policing”, however you have a careful balancing act to perform. As the head of traffic operations (ooh, that word again) and the head spokesman for traffic operations, the increase in number of these operations with the recent addition of vehicle inspectors has and will annoy a lot of people…if you’re honest about your intentions, and honest about your methods, then the vast majority of us mere civilian drivers will respect the job that you and your staff are doing, however every time you bang away at your keyboard to write misleading drivel, you lose points.
You have a simple message to convey Mark: “do something wrong, and we will catch you”. It’s a good message, but you will have a much better chance of getting your message across if you convey your message accurately and with integrity. If not, you can bleat about how “disappointed” you are all you like…but the public doesn’t like dishonest or misleading officials, and will treat you, and through you your officers, with contempt.
* Live radio broadcast by 2CC
* Free entertainment
* BBQ
* Free train rides to Queanbeyan and return
* Meet some Raiders players from 9.30am-11.30am
* Chance to win a signed Canberra Raiders jersey
* Discount admission voucher for the Raiders vs Dragons game on Saturday night
* $30.00 return tickets to Sydney, $50.00 return tickets to Melbourne. Must be booked and paid for at the travel centre on the day*.
* Make a booking on the day and enter the draw to win a family trip for 4 to Sydney including return first class rail, 2 nights accommodation, entry to Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife World plus a cruise on Sydney Harbour.
* For more information contact CountryLink Canberra Travel Centre on (02) 6208 9700
2CC will be there from 7am to midday broadcasting their usual Saturday morning programming, although I think I’ll be out of there by 9:30am to avoid the Raiders players.
Meanwhile it looks like the Capital Radio Network are making the most of Countrylink’s open days. There’s an open day at the Goulburn railway station on Sunday which will be attended by 2GN.
Incidentally, if you, like me, are wondering why railway stations would be having open days…apparently it’s to celebrate some refurbishments of the travel centres at the railway stations, and the stations themselves.
It should be an interesting morning…it’s just a pity that there doesn’t appear to be any mention of a tour of the refurbishments.
4BC Drive presenter Michael Smith examines what’s in our atmosphere, and how much we’re polluting it.
Here’s a way to understand Mr Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere that we want to rid of human carbon pollution. We’ll have a walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. 10 metres left.
9 metres are argon. Just 1 more metre.
A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.
A bit over one foot.
97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.
That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.
And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.
Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre.
And that, Mr. Rudd, is why an Emissions Trading Scheme is pointless, and why, Mr. Demetriou, your night games under lights with teams being flown all over the country, are not heating the planet.
I’ve been offered money to work on Sunday and cover news and sport, including Andrew Demetriou’s ludicrous “Green Round”. Capitalism defeats my objection to the AFL’s cuckoo greenie loopyness, and my boycott is therefore off, and I get to revel in the nuttery of having footballs and umpires which blend in with the grass.
If it weren’t for the fact that the AFL teams are still flying all over the country and games are still being played under lights, I might take it a bit more seriously and continue my boycott…however considering that it’s just a laughable token gesture, I will just write to Andrew Demetriou to express my disgust at his strange “Green Round” instead.
The bottom line on this is, if I can make a profit from some cuckoo bloke’s nuttery, then why wouldn’t I? I’m profiting…the AFL are losing by buying the greatest con of recent times, carbon credits. I win and capitalism wins. I’m much happier now.
