Something seems to be irreparably wrong with the Twitter integration on this blog. Is it a coincidence that it all broke just as an update (which I have not installed) to the Twitter Tools plugin was released which drops support for a few of the functions which broke? I don’t think so.
I probably won’t have time to fix or replace it before ACT election day, but I’ll see about replacing the twitter feed in the sidebar with one that actually works. As for how I get some of the integration functions back, I don’t know right now. That’s one for next week.
On Monday, as noted on this blog, Tony Abbott addressed the Institute of Public Affairs about the subject of freedom of speech. I consider myself privileged to have been there to see it, and found myself hoping that somebody would post the full video of the speech online for everyone to see as the grabs used by the media in their news reports, while capturing the bare point of the speech, did not seem to capture the full reasoning or argument behind the speech. Various media outlets have clearly noted and understood the reasoning, and echoed it in their own statements since Monday, but I don’t believe that the general public has been given the opportunity to date to hear Tony Abbott’s full thought process on the matter.
Today, I am pleased to be able to say, The Institute of Public Affairs have done just that.
The video runs just under 30 minutes. The IPA’s Chris Berg delivers introductory remarks for the first seven of those minutes, with Tony Abbott’s speech taking up the remaining 23 minutes. It’s well worth watching, or even just listening to. I think even those who disagree with Tony Abbott on this one will find this enlightening, even if it merely gives them a better understanding of where their own arguments fit in to the debate.
Some sad news from the US today in that Chris Stanley, an icon of the radio news industry, has passed away at the age of 64 from a heart attack.
Chris most recently worked for Fox News Radio, often reading night time news bulletins which aired during the daylight hours over here in Australia. Chris’ work at Fox was the first time I had heard his work, and I was immediately drawn to his natural radio voice, and his crisp and clear delivery. I heard many an international story explained in concise but thorough detail by Chris.
Chris worked for Fox News Radio for four years prior to his retirement at the end of April. Before that Chris worked in a few places, including CBS Radio News for an impressive twenty years which included work for their national service based in New York and their Los Angeles station KNX 1070. Chris’ other work included stints as the news director at stations WPIX New York, KPFT Houston and WBAY Green Bay.
I’ve had a look through my archives as I did have some recordings of Fox News Radio’s hourly newscasts going back in April, but it looks like I didn’t have them going on Chris’ final day. The last of Chris’ work I have is the last bulletin he presented on his second-last day on the air. As a tribute to Chris, here is that newscast, his 11pm Eastern Time newscast from Friday the 27th of April, 2012.
I extend my condolences to Chris’ family and his former colleagues at Fox, CBS and across the radio industry. Rest In Peace Chris, another great voice on the great radio in the sky.
I would like to take a moment to wish everyone reading this blog a very happy and safe Easter, regardless of whether you are observing the religious significance of the weekend or simply treating it as an extended set of public holidays.
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time may recall that in 2008 I briefly experimented with Twitter and, after a few days, closed my account as I deemed it to be a waste of my time. At the time, this was true…Twitter held no value for me. Of course, at the same time, neither did Facebook, and yet now I don’t think I would be able to function without Facebook (or at the very least, the withdrawal symptoms would be difficult for a while).
For Facebook, this changed for me in either late 2008 or early 2009, I don’t really recall which of those times it was, when a growing number of overseas friends meant that it was easier to stay in touch that way. Since then, Facebook has grown for me in to both a news source and a limited creative outlet. Unfortunately it also causes me to stretch myself a bit too thin. I am much busier now than I was in 2009 and, as much as I might try to write something of substance here on a regular basis, it just doesn’t happen as much as it should…frankly, I don’t have the time, so I opt for the easier option of writing a quick opinion on Facebook and then neglecting the blog.
It is not ideal, but it would be safe to say that Facebook has become a mini-blog for me, with a limited audience. There are some benefits to this as not everything that I write on Facebook is intended for a public audience, but there is a downside too. Despite the fact that I am not paid to blog (not even by “Big Oil”, despite my views on mythical man-made global warming…but if anyone from “Big Oil” wants to send me a cheque, I’ll gladly accept it), and despite the fact that I am busy enough as it is, whenever I let this blog sit silently for a few days, I feel guilty, and I feel guilty because I feel that I am letting you, my handful of loyal readers, down. I feel worse about this because I know that I’ve posted some thoughts on Facebook which I would have liked to blog about, but I never got around to expanding the Facebook thought bubbles in to meaningful blog posts.
This, for me, is where Twitter comes in…or at least, might come in. I have a small following on Facebook, a slightly larger following here, and potentially some people I would like to follow on Twitter. I can integrate Twitter with this blog, and Twitter with Facebook, whereas I can not easily integrate selected posts from Facebook with this blog…and given the way facebook like to mess with settings on a regular basis, I don’t really think that will ever be viable. So, to me, it stands to reason that if I can share my small thought bubbles both on Facebook and on this blog by sharing them on Twitter, and I can gain a new stream of information in the process, it may very well be the right thing to do.
That said, I am still a wee bit skeptical of the whole thing. It annoyed me last time, and it didn’t get off to a good start this time when my name was one character too long to fit properly and I had to drop a space to make it fit. I’m also not convinced that I can make my thoughts fit in to 140 character bursts (I used to struggle with the character limit on Facebook when that existed, and that was much larger than Twitter’s limit), but I’m going to give it a go and see what happens. If it works out, then it will solve a few problems, and bring this blog back to life in the process.
I still intend on maintaining this blog…that won’t change…and I won’t be letting Russian guests write more blog posts than me (you should see the column she submitted this week…if there’s a sentence structure in there, I can’t find it, so I’ve sent it back for clarification and hopefully I’ll receive a publishable version for next week), but I will also be sharing my little thought bubbles here as daily digests of my Twitter activities. If all goes to plan, that should auto-publish at about 9pm Canberra time, or 9pm UTC if the Twitter Tools plugin is as insane as it was the last time around. You can also follow me on Twitter @Samuel_SGS and I’ll see about adding one of those sidebar doohickey-thingamabobs.
At the very least, this should be an interesting ride. Hopefully a valuable one, but only time will tell on that one.
It is now official. Julia Gillard has won the Labor leadership ballot by a margin of 71 to 31. It’s a convincing victory and should be enough to shut down the Kevin Rudd party-damaging machine for a while.
This gives Julia the comfort of knowing that she has the support of the majority of her party, and the ability to quash concerns among the independents that she might not be able to have a stable government.
The questions now though are twofold:
1. What will Kevin Rudd do. He promised to move to the backbench quietly, but will he? That’s not exciting or important enough for his liking…I expect to either see him bide his time on the expectation that he will challenge again next year, or he will go to the crossbenches and hold some sort of influence with one of the deciding votes of the parliament.
2. What will happen to the Kevin Rudd supporters, especially the ones who walked in to the caucus room with him? If Kevin stays in Labor, then I expect his supporters to be shuffled out of important positions. A cabinet reshuffle might not be a bad idea anyway.
An exciting day, that’s for sure, but did it achieve anything useful? Probably not.
The media are all gathered outside the caucus room. I’ve been flicking between TV stations and was watching Nine for a while. During that time, they had a shot of the media gathered outside the caucus room with a Seven reporter (update: it was Alex Hart) prominently in the foreground of the shot, on the phone to someone.
Whoever he was on the phone with must have told him that he was on the rival network as he stopped, turned to the Channel Nine camera, smiled, and waved.
This was supposed to be yesterday’s second announcement.
Back in the middle of November (photos say November 13…I thought it was the day before that), there was an addition to my household. A little Jack Russell puppy who we named Pebbles.
Pebbles was only tiny at the time, and Nattie wasn’t quite sure about the idea of another dog moving in, but she seemed to tolerate Pebbles’ presence at first, and then slowly got used to the idea that the little dog was not “just visiting”.
Pebbles has grown quite a bit in the few months that she has been here, and when she isn’t running around with a toy or chewing on a bone, she enjoys a cuddle…or climbing on a person to lick their ears.
Over time, Nattie and Pebbles have become friends. It has taken some time and Nattie has made her authority clear more than a few times, but they quite like each other now…even if Pebbles is a bit more fond of Nattie than Nattie is of Pebbles.
Even though they get along, the difference in personality is stark. Nattie, at nearly 12 years of age, is more interested in relaxing than playing, while Pebbles is still a puppy with a seemingly endless supply of energy.
Here is a video of Pebbles playing on Friday night while I was listening to the AFL.
Patience is not Pebbles’ greatest strength. We had to wait quite a while when we went up to see the “good doctor” for her latest vaccinations, and she wasn’t in any way interested in sitting still.
If you’re wondering, the main reasons for getting a puppy were so that
A) Nattie would have a bit of doggy company in her senior years.
B) The puppy would grow up with another dog, hopefully reducing the anxiety of being separated from the rest of her family.
We took months to make the decision, and we could not be happier. Pebbles is a great addition to the family, and even Nattie seems a bit happier since Pebbles arrived.
Today, the 19th of February 2012, marks the 70th birthday of Radio 2UE’s current longest-consecutively-serving presenter John Kerr. There are one or two others who started before John, but they have worked elsewhere in the interim.
John’s current stint started in 1994 when he took over 2UE’s overnight syndicated program New Day Australia. John hosted the weekday edition of the show through until the end of 2005, and in 2006 took over the weekend edition of New Day Australia. John has occasionally filled-in on the weekday edition of the program since then and, until last year, regularly covered the Christmas Day 6am-midday shift. It is my understanding that John’s current contract provides him with certain lifestyle benefits while absolving him of the requirement to fill-in on other programs. John retains a loyal audience, despite not having as many affiliate stations as he did back when he was on the weekday show.
John has this weekend off, and I think he has next weekend off as well, which is great for him but unfortunate for me as it means that I can’t wait on hold for an hour and a half to wish him a happy birthday. I’m sure that John is having a wonderful break though, and it’s really fantastic that 2UE are able to give him time off for such a momentous occasion.
I have a present for John which I think he will really like, and I will be sending it to 2UE this week. There really is no point in sending it too soon as he won’t receive it until he next drops in to the 2UE studios, and I see no point in having certain foods which form the present spoil before he gets to them.
A very happy birthday John!
Samuel
(file photo: John Kerr at a listener lunch at Liquidity Restaurant in 2007.)
Just in case you happen to be the one person who is likely to try to visit my photo gallery today (it doesn’t get much traffic any more, one or two people a day at most), please note that it is currently offline for maintenance.
I’ll say more about this later today when I’m done. For now, you can try to visit it if you like, but much of it will be working sporadically for the next little while.
Update:The photo gallery is now back online. There are one or two minor changes, but I’ll address those in a separate post as, although the changes from a user perspective are small, the changes from the backend are not.
Good morning and Merry Christmas to all (and to all a good night if that happens to be your timezone).
I would like to wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas, and a joyous new year filled with many good things. Before we reach the new year though, I would like to offer you a Christmas present.
Over the years there have been many adaptions of the Twelve Days Of Christmas, but by far the best in my opinion is a BBC production titled “And Yet Another Partridge In A Pear Tree” starring Penelope Keith as the lovely and increasingly bewildered recipient of the many gifts of the twelve days of Christmas.
It is a comic delight, but it is also rare. Although the BBC do have it available to stream on their website these days, it has never been offered for sale to the general public, and the number of people on the Internet looking for an MP3 version of this marvellous production is nothing short of extraordinary. Today, as a gift to you, I offer an MP3 download of the best version of the Twelve Days Of Christmas in existence. Enjoy!
Merry Christmas from Samuel, Nattie and Pebbles (who? The long-awaited announcement will explain this shortly…although who knows what the definition of shortly is on this blog).
i was afraid that this would happen. Qantas have cancelled flights (including mine) in Canberra this afternoon.
My backup plan of a bus or train leaving Melbourne around 7:20am wasn’t able to be enacted as my flight was not cancelled until after that time, so I have had to enact my other backup plan of hiring a car. The joys of needing to be back at work at 5:30am tomorrow.
I chatted with Luke Grant on MTR 1377 this morning after 7:30 and he suggested that, seeing as I travelled to Melbourne to see Andrew Bolt, Andrew should drive me back to Canberra. I don’t think Andrew agreed because I didn’t get a call from him after his spot on MTR.
Oh well, as chaotic as this trip is, it was well worth it. Many thanks to the Institute of Public Affairs for putting on last night’s evening.
Before I go and work out where this car rental place’s CBD office is, here’s a photo of me with Andrew Bolt. I suspect that I should have used the flash.
Good morning to all the good folk of Young, listening through 2LF.
Welcome to my intermittently avid blog. There’s not much on here this week, and thanks to work commitments, there might not be much new content on here for a couple days. My “plan” to write at least something of substance once per day failed quite miserably this week, so I’m aiming to start afresh on Sunday, when I won’t be tired from being forced to sit through bits of overseas weddings between bits of domestic football. I’ll see if I can find the time to sneak in some interesting comments before then…but regardless, you can look forward to a full week-in-review on Sunday.
Thanks to Rob Harrington for inviting me on to 2LF this morning. I wish the good people of Young a lovely weekend.
Chris most recently worked for Fox News Radio, often reading night time news bulletins which aired during the daylight hours over here in Australia. Chris’ work at Fox was the first time I had heard his work, and I was immediately drawn to his natural radio voice, and his crisp and clear delivery. I heard many an international story explained in concise but thorough detail by Chris.
