Posts filed under 'Canberra Stories'
After a week of unusual weather conditions preventing the hot air balloons from flying above Canberra, they were able to go up this morning, and should be able to do so again tomorrow.
Nattie and I won’t be letting the forecasted overnight low temperature of -1 degrees celcius get in our way…we’ll be making our way down there in the morning with the camera. I’m led to believe that 2CC’s Classic Aussie Mike “Frame in the Plane” Frame (more on that shortly) will be flying away in one of the balloons. Nattie and I will try and catch up with him.
Samuel
April 22nd, 2006 at 02:36pm
ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope has been in the news a bit lately, one of the many reasons is a possible plan to close some schools, and the ABC had a rather interesting article about that yesterday.
The article featured this baffling quote from the Chief Turnip
We cannot continue to sustain a government school system where there are, in the context of the level of expenditure, which we make or investment in education and maintain a school system at that level of under use.
Even if you change a few words it still doesn’t seem to make sense, and as such it is impossible to work out whether or not there is a typo in amongst that. I decided to send a copy of the quote off to the Plain English Campaign, and nominate Jon Stanhope for a Foot In Mouth award, which is awarded for “a baffling quote by a public figure”.
Shortly after sending an email to the Plain English Campaign, I received a response from Dave Smith. (We previously met Dave on Samuel’s Persiflage #1.) Dave said
This certainly deserves a nomination for the foot-in-mouth award and I will see that the judges get it.
He also went on to say that
The judging for the awards will take place in October. I will let you know if your nomination wins in November.
It will be interesting to see if our Chief Turnip wins this prestigious award or not, it seems like the kind of award he could be very proud of.
Samuel
April 20th, 2006 at 08:49am
On Sunday afternoon I was doing a spot of grocery shopping in City Supabarn, paid for the few iems which were required, got my change and receipt and left.
A short time arriving back at home, I checked the back of the receipt paper to see if there were any useful deals on the advertisements.
Did you spot the error? Lets take a closer look.
Yes, that’s right, Magnus Advertising sent Big W’s receipt paper to City Supabarn. Seeing as the only Big W store in Canberra is based in Woden, I wonder if they got Supabarn’s receipt paper?
Samuel
April 18th, 2006 at 12:32pm
Many Canberrans would be familiar with Mark Carmody, host of 666 ABC Canberra‘s gardening show. Mark has been hosting this show for many years, and has been a welcome addition to many households on a Saturday morning, but he has decided to hang up the garden microphone, and ride off into the distance, on a riding/driving tour of Australia.
Mark’s ABC predecessor and current host of the 2CC gardening show, David Young, wished Mark well on his journeys, and paid tribute to him this morning.
I suppose this means that people who are after wireless horticultural advice will turn over to 2CC from 7am-9am every Saturday and Sunday to hear the excellent “David Young’s Garden”. I’m a long-time listener to David’s show and I think David has a very relaxed manner of dealing with things, which is the perfect way to start the day. I’m sure that Mark’s listeners will agree with me once they make the switch.
For the record, the ABC website offers the following information about Mark:
Mark Carmody
Gardening
Even if you’re not a gardener, you’ll enjoy starting your weekend with Mark from 8.30am each Saturday morning.
Mark has over two decades of gardening experience, including being head gardener at The Lodge during the Fraser and Hawke years, and at the Tindal Air Force Base in the Northern Territory.
He currently works for the Department of Urban Services and his formal qualifications include a Certificate of Horticulture from the Canberra Institute of Technology and an Associate Diploma of Science (Horticulture).
Best of luck Mark, I hope you enjoy your journey around Australia, I know many Canberrans will miss you, and you can rest assured that David Young will do an excellent job picking up all of those questions that would have been directed at you.
Samuel
April 15th, 2006 at 08:25am
Now that Greg “Robbo” Robson has left 2CA and Daniel Gibson has quite happily filled the void on a temporary basis, the question of who will take over the show permanently needs to be answered.
I suppose it is quite possible that Daniel will just keep going, and the fact there really aren’t any “filling in” lines to be found anywhere on the air could be proof, that being said, I do have to wonder about his full time position at Prime if he did decide to take on Breakfast radio on a permanent basis.
I do find it curious that there haven’t been any ads on radioinfo for the position, especially seeing as 2CA did say that Daniel would only be there “until a permanent replacement is found”, and Capital Radio tend to advertise just about everything on radioinfo.
This got me thinking about the recent ad for a Senior Journalist at 2CA/2CC, and the timing of it in relation to the announcement of Robbo leaving. I have no idea about the details of Robbo’s contract, but I would imagine that there would have probably been at least a 2 week notice period, which considering he finished on Friday would have started on Friday the 17th of March, only three work days before the Senior Journalist job was advertised on Wednesday the 22nd of March.
As I suspected that the Senior Journalist ad was indicating that one of the existing newsreaders was leaving, it all clicked…Kris McKenzie has been filling in on a couple of 2CC’s shows recently, he is great talent, upbeat and bubbly, and would probably fit right into 2CA’s “New Sound” format. The three workday gap between the dates listed above would be more than enough time to sign a presenter up as the new breakfast host, and file a job advertisement for the new host’s old job.
Naturally I’m speculating, but I’m not pulling names out of the air, as you can see I have given this some careful consideration, and it works…whether it turns out to be true or not is something we will just have to wait and see.
Samuel
April 5th, 2006 at 09:46am
My backyard is a place which some small gecko lizards have decided to call home. They were first spotted about a year ago, at which time there were probably two or three, and have since multiplied. Baby lizards have been spotted a couple times, but overall the lizards like to live in the nice leafy and plant covered sections of the backyard (which is most of it). I have been waiting for a good photo opportunity for a while, and was very pleased to get one on Sunday afternoon, when one of the lizards spent a bit of time on the garden path.
Nattie is, for the most part, at peace with the lizards, although she does occasionally try to chase one, but they manage to scurry off under the vegetation before the “big furry monster” gets to them. Nattie probably looks like some kind of big furry monster to the lizards.
Samuel
April 4th, 2006 at 09:08am
It looks like there are a few changes on the way at ACTION in the coming months.
Firstly, I have it on good authority that the timetables will be changed in August, which means drivers will be given new shifts (or more correctly, they will choose new shifts), and a new rostering system will be in place. I’ll address these points in a moment.
Secondly, the word from inside ACTION is that CEO Peter Wallace is resigning, I can’t confirm this, but it certainly seems to be the buzz eminating from ACTION insiders at the moment.
Now, back to the timetables, it was mentioned on a bus enthusiast website a few weeks ago that ACTION are going to change the timetables (Comment by Busnerd, 4th from top) to a new system which will “cut travel times to that of a private car”, a feat which is impossible for many reasons. Anyway, I decided to follow up on the story and was told by ACTION insiders that August is the proposed date for the new timetables, apparently this will also mean a change in rostering to help get drivers onto weekends. It is also possible that Flexibus will be scrapped (about time!), and standard route services will return to nights.
All of this is still well and truly up in the air at this stage, and may turn out to be incorrect if ACTION management change their mind, although from what I’m hearing, it seems pretty definite.
Samuel
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:41pm
I am pleased to be able to confirm that AFL did not get the chop in 2CA’s recent format change, and will be broadcast again this year, continuing to make the Capital Radio Network the sports leader in Canberra, with the excellent 3AW AFL coverage relayed on 2CA, and the excellent 2GB NRL coverage relayed on 2CC, with 2CC’s own local team covering Raiders matches not covered by 2GB.
Samuel
March 30th, 2006 at 09:16am
According to Radioinfo, Greg “Robbo” Robson is leaving 2CA’s breakfast show at the end of the week, and taking up a full time position with Motto Media and Fyshwick.com. Robbo, who has been a stalwart of Canberra media over the last three decades, took over the breakfast show when Daniel Gibson left it for his full time weatherman position on Prime, shortly after Prime and Ten Capital closed their local news services.
Interestingly, Daniel Gibson, who was doing night-shift for 2CA last time I checked, will be hosting the breakfast show until 2CA find a permanent replacement. Whether he will take time off from Prime to do this remains a mystery, as does the length of his temporary breakfast assignment.
I suppose the really big question here is, who will take over the breakfast show permanently? George Gibson loves playing music, maybe he would be willing to move to Canberra for a few years…although with the “New sound of Canberra’s 1053 2CA” in force, they might be looking for somebody a bit younger.
I spent a morning with Robbo while on Work Experience last year, and whilst I can’t say much for confidentiality reasons, I believe that I can tell you that he seemed fairly pleased with the progress of Fyshwick.com, and also seemed to be enjoying the breakfast shift. I am not in the least bit surprised that Fyshwick.com now requires him on a full time basis, considering the sheer volume of ads that they seem to have on both television and radio for their Fyshwick based clients.
2CA is quite clearly a different station to what it was in 2000, with practically the entire lineup of on-air talent being different. If I remember rightly, they even used Macquarie National News back then, and didn’t have a traffic reporter, which is a very big difference to the current situation where they share traffic reporters and news resources with 2CC.
Anyway, I wish Robbo the best of luck, and will have to remember to give him a call later in the week to convey that message, I also easgerly await Daniel Gibson’s temporary return to Breakfast, as I have fond memories of the last time he was on the breakfast shift. Perhaps I should track down my recording of the time I won a vegemite T-Shirt by singing the Vegemite song. I might do that and share it with you in the next couple of days.
Radioinfo also reported that Canberra radio will be in survey mode again soon, which poses two questions:
- Will ABC Local Radio waste taxpayers money on pointless giveaways and ads on Commercial Television?
- Will the changes at 2CA make a difference to their ratings results?
For the former I would have to say “probably”, and for the latter, well, only if they advertise the changes. There have probably been some people who have converted from one of the FM music stations through word-of-mouth recommendation, but I don’t think anybody will really know or care unless 2CA actually advertise the fact that they have a new sound and new presenters.
None the less, Canberra radio is looking pretty exciting for the next few weeks!
Samuel
March 28th, 2006 at 10:50pm
Last Sunday was Black Opal day, the feature day of the Canberra horse racing calendar. Southern Cross Ten were broadcasting live from Canberra’s race track, Thoroughbred Park.
This is something which should be commended as it shows as comittment to local television and the local community, as well as setting an example for the other local stations which haven’t ventured out of the studios for a live broadcast since…well…I don’t think living memory goes back that far. A live broadcast of a sporting event is no easy task, especially for a station that hasn’t done anything like it since stopping live local news bulletins from a studio about five years ago.
Anyway, the coverage got underway at 2:30pm
Our host was Alison Drower (rhymes with “grower”), who appeared to be in front of a green screen, with the background footage superimposed. The studio was probably up in a corporate box somewhere, and I don’t know why they stuck the netting there, but they did, and it made for an interesting background.
On 2CC that morning, Mike Frame announced that he would be part of the coverage, adding “colourful local racing personality” to his business card on top of “2CC’s Classic Aussie” and various other titles. This got me thinking…what titles would people get? Mike Frame appeared, with Ex-Fill In Prime TV Weatherman David Honke (pronounced Honk-EE).
David Honke did not get a title
Despite hiring Mike as a “colourful local racing personality”, they gave him the easier to fit on to the captions “Racing Commentator”. It is worthwhile pointing out that Mike worked for SSS FM, Canberra’s old ACTTAB funded community racing station, and former inhabitant of 103.9MHz, long before News Radio moved in from their old 1440KHz (AM).
Mike and David spent a bit of time talking, before we went to Simon Dearing and Julie Nehme, the fashion and crowd reporters for the day. They started off in a bad for TV shaded area next to a sunny area.
Later on we saw ex-2CC newsreader Guy Sweeting talking with Canberra race caller Tony Campbell about the history of the Black Opal and what will happen today.
Near the end of the interview, and in a different location, we finally see the face of Guy Sweeting.
Tony Campbell then did a “phantom call” of the race.
Mike Frame appeared again, interviewing Gratz Vella, the trainer of One Time, a horse running in the Black Opal
We then saw One Time having a bit of a roll in the sand.
The first studio guest was Camille Ducker, head of Fashion and Design at CIT, mildly eccentric, but great fun to interview…or so it seemed.
Julie Nehme appeared again, this time with Fashions On The Field
Simon Dearing then went to the opposite extreme and found the people who were looking somewhat odd for the day.
David Honke then had a chat with local bookmaker Roger Norton, who has been at every Black Opal.
He even got a title of “Bookmaker”
David Honke then had a very interesting chat with Ted Doon, the jockey who came second in the inaugural Black Opal of 1973. This is an interesting story because it came down to a photo finish, and apparently an earthquake a week beforehand had moved the photo finish camera slightly out of allignment, and cost him the race…according to him.
David and Ted did a rerace, won by Ted
And the photo finish from 1973
We got to see the crowd quite a few times, and it looked like a good turnout.
Mike Frame had a chat with Gary Buchanan of the Canberra Racing Club about the training pool.
And a horse in the training pool.
Alison then had another studio guest, this time a short interview with John Crommie, Manager of AAMI Insurance in the ACT/Regional NSW area. This mainly involved their reasons for sponsoring the Black Opal.
Next up was Kevin Sweeney, who has been involved in every Black Opal since the first. Guy Sweeting did this inerview.
The horses enjoy Kevin’s company by the looks of it.
Then it was time to cross to Mike Frame in the bettin ring to tell us who the punters thought would win.
Alison’s hat decoration managed to move the netting a few times
We headed back to Julie Nehme who had Trish Hanrahan telling us about the winners of Fashion In The Fields. Apparently we saw the winners briefly…but it was that brief that it could have been anyone.
Simon Dearing checked with the racegoers who they thought was going to win
Then it was time to head back to the studio, where Mike, Alison and David conducted an in depth look at the race
They appeared to have fun too
The analysis continued as the Sky Channel footage started to roll in and ruin the lovely green oasis images which Southern Cross Ten had been producing all day.
The all important race list was shown
Now bored of watching Sky footage of horses slowly entering the barrier with no race caller, we went back to the studio
Race Caller Ian Craig appeared, and Sky footage returned to the broadcast, but the barrier attendants had to push a horse into the barrier, it didn’t want to budge for a while though.
Finally the race was ready to go with light flashing and Ian Craig ready for the 1200m Black Opal. The Cyclist at top right made it just in time for the race and television coverage, arriving just moments before this picture.
“They’re off in the Black Opal”
They were pretty spread out through the back straight.
Coming around the home turn
With 200m to go One Time is in the lead
With 100m to go Down The Wicket is flying up the outside
Down The Wicket wins the 2006 Black Opal, followed closely by One Time and Luvuleo
Back to the studio with Mike, Alison and David while we wait for Sky’s interview with the jockey.
A race replay while we wait.
Alison tears up her non-winning ticket.
According to the ACTTAB race board’s offical results display, the first six horses were 8 (Down The Wicket), 7(One Time), 2(Luvuleo), 4(Solar Mighty), 14(Ellas Bar), 9(Navaho Trail). Down The Wicket ran a time of 1 minute, 9.94 seconds, with the last 600m taking up 35.84 seconds. Down The Wicket beat One Time by a long neck, and One Time beat Luvuleo by 1 length. The track was good.
There was some post race analysis with Mike, Alison and David.
Unlike Mike Frame, Julie Nehme tipped the horse Mike said would win, and it did. Simon wasn’t so lucky.
Alison informed us that Sky didn’t provide an interview.
And that it is time to say goodbye.
It was then time for the extensive credits, and the Southern Cross Ten logo, before they returned to pre-recorded programming.
Well done Southern Cross Ten, you did a fantastic job, and let’s hope that more of these “live and local” events occur. It is good to see that regional television is still alive and kicking. Well done to all involved!
For the record, the ACTTAB dividends were as follows:
8. Down The Wicket: Win $35.10, Place $7.00
7. One Time: Place $7.30
2. Luvuleo: Place $2.60
Quinella 8-7: $325.40
Trifecta 8-7-2: $9830.10
Exacta 8-7: $1102.80
Running Double 6-8: $341.90
Scratchings: 3-6-17-18
Samuel
(Update: It would appear that Southern Cross Ten misspelled Simon Deering’s name, and I did too as I based my spelling of names on their spelling of names. Sorry about that.)
March 24th, 2006 at 03:30pm
I could have been certain that I’ve written about CIT charging “Student Association” fees, how horribly wrong it is, and how it should be illegal under VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism) before, but I can’t find any record of it, so I’ll provide some background.
CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology, for those of you who have been wondering) has a student union called “CITSA”, or “Canberra Institute of Technology Student Association”, they also charge all students a compulsory CITSA fee, without forcing anybody to join CITSA. From memory, this fee is around $60. I can’t remember the exact details of the VSU legislation which was passed by parliament last year, but I know that students are no longer allowed to be forced into a student union, the thing I’m not 100% sure about is if educational institutions are allowed to charge a student union fee, I think they can’t, and I’m 95% sure that they can’t, but as I said, I can’t recall the exact details of VSU.
If, for some strange reason, VSU does not cover this, then it is an outrageous loophole, and one the legal teams who drafted the VSU legislation should have picked up on very early in the piece. VSU is very important as it means I don’t have to be a part, by connection, of some strange angry chanting mob taking over Civic with five dozen different campaigns at once, most of which I would disagree with. I would be more than happy to pay a bit extra for food or drink in exchange for not giving a student association a lump sum every six months.
On this topic, I overheard some CIT (possibly CITSA) officials talking in Cafe Yala the other day. Whilst I didn’t catch every word, and didn’t want to appear to be eavesdropping, I did get most of it, and the basic message of their conversation was:
- CIT is the only educational institution in the country to charge a compulsory student union fee
- The legality of it is unclear, and if possible would only be through a loophole
- They have already received at least one complaint by phone
- One complaint to a federal MP would probably be enough to bring the whole sordid little scheme crashing down
The officials in question saw me standing there near them waiting for my coffee, looking somewhat distant and focussed. It is surprising that they had that conversation at a reasonable volume in public and in front of, when I am known to carry a recording device with me, especially during lectures. The fact that I appeared to be concentrating on something else does not alter this, as I was nearby for plenty of time before I looked like I was concentrating on anything.
It is a pity that I didn’t turn on my digital notetaker as I would have loved to record that conversation, alas it didn’t really last long enough, and I didn’t want to scare them off by searching through my bag for any length of time, which would probably have made it harder for me to hear the conversation anyway.
Samuel
March 24th, 2006 at 08:00am
Regulare readers would know about the recent Campbell High School P.E. Class story (see here and here if you would like to catch up). Well yesterday, at some time between 2PM and 8PM while I was at CIT, Gai Beecher, the principal of Campbell High School rang and left a message on my answering machine.
The short summary of the message is that she thanked me for the recent letter of praise, saying that it was nice to receive positive feedback from the public…or something to that effect, I don’t remember the exact words and the message has since been deleted.
I can quite honestly say that it was my pleasure to be able to send a positive letter, especially seeing as they had worked on fixing a problem.
This does highlight a couple things though:
- People (myself included) are most vocal when they are critical of something. I was quite critical of the initial problem, due to the unsafe nature of the problem, and the fact that it showed a (probably unintentional) drop in standards since I was last at Campbell High School in 2003.
- It is important to give credit where credit is due. It’s fine to be critical, but it is pointless to not give credit when you see a change for the better in whatever you were critical about. I often raise concerns about this, that and the other, but I like to be able to follow through to an outcome of some sort. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is not, in this case it was, and I am happy about that.
Campbell High School (and all schools for that matter) probably don’t hear from the public very often when they set a good example, but I’m sure they hear all about it when they don’t. It would have been all to easy for them to ingnore my gripe as being “just another angry letter”, but they didn’t, and for that they are very deserving of praise.
I must say that Mrs. Beecher’s phone call was a very nice gesture, and one which I have taken the time to return. I rang her office earlier this afternoon, she was unavailable at the time, but I left a message for her, assuring her that I received and was very grateful for her message.
Hopefully we can now close this chapter and move on, with the knowledge that everything turned out for the best.
Samuel
March 23rd, 2006 at 03:47pm
According to a job advertisement on radioinfo, 2CA & 2CC are looking for a “Senior Journalist”. Does this mean that either Kris or James are leaving us? The ad certainly makes it sound that way:
You’ll be responsible for all operational duties in our small newsroom – as well as a weekday news shift. There will some occasional overtime weekend work.
It seems that most of the 2CA/2CC journalistic talent gets snapped up by 2UE, and in some cases television stations (Aela Callen went to Seven, James Goodwin went to 2UE and then WIN). None the less, if somebody is going I will miss them, and I’m sure I represent most, if not all, of the listeners in wishing them the best of luck.
Of course it is possible that 2CA/2CC are just adding another person to the news team now that they are producing seperate bulletins for 2CA and 2CC.
As has been said by many people on many occasions….”Only time will tell”!
And before somebody suggests it, the timing of Editorial Echoes ending and this job ad appearing are purely coincidental…besides, I don’t fit the criteria in the job ad.
Samuel
March 23rd, 2006 at 08:06am
Wayne Mac is currently on Mix 106.3 cohosting the “Cold 30” program…there is a webstream on the mix website for those who are out of town.
Edit: Whoops, forgot to mention that Wayne’s playing hits from 1977! Doing a great job too…you’d never know he left radio.
Further Update: The number one song from the week of July 13, 1977 was “Walk Right In”.
Samuel
March 22nd, 2006 at 08:24pm
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