Posts filed under 'Canberra Stories'
As you may recall from this post (I have been referring to previous posts a fair bit recently), 2CC will be running an outside broadcast from the grand opening of Bunnings Belconnen. To my horror I have discovered that this Bunnings store will not feature a cafe and I will have to add “picking up coffee” to my schedule. Either that or taking coffee in a thermos.
My plan for the day is below, but right here I am reproducing the multi-page advertisement that Bunnings took out in The Chronicle (click to enlarge).
Yes, that’s right, Australia’s favourite children’s entertainer (although you don’t have to be a child to enjoy his show), Humphrey B. Bear will be there to entertain all and sundry from 7pm-7:30pm. He will be performing a special show at that time, and I hoping that he will be walking around the store for a little while before that. He probably wouldn’t be great on the radio (he doesn’t speak out loud), but it would be nice to get a photo of him standing next to Mike Frame at the 2CC outside broadcast.
Anyway, Friday for me will involve leaving home at about 8:45am so that I can be slightly early to CIT, find the correct room (J028) and hopefully be there at the commencement time of 9am. As previously stated, this “Introduction to working in your chosen profession” class, assuming that it sticks to its name, will be one of the greatest pieces of irrelevant snoring material ever to be produced by an educational institution…I’ve already worked in my “chosen profession”, why do I need to have it explained to me for five hours?
My theory is, the earlier I get there, the earlier I can get out of there. With any luck there will be a break which includes 11:30am-Midday so that I can enjoy Best Of Laws in its broadcast form.
When the class ends at 2PM, what follows will depend on what happened during the CIT class. If there were no break (they may find me a bit agitated if that is the case), I will need to decide where to have lunch. However, as I suspect that there will be lunch and morning tea breaks, I will make my way to the Civic bus interchange and catch an intertown bus to Belconnen. With any luck, I will be able to catch a nice orange bus, and avoid a horrid green contraption. Due to the fact that I will be pressed for time, I will probably catch the first bus I see. It will probably be around 2:10 or 2:15 when I reach the Civic bus interchange.
One of the many problems with ACTION’s new green buses is the way they interfere with the AM signal, this generally means having to listen to 2CC over strange buzzing and whirring noises.
When I get to Belconnen (approx 2:30), I will enter Westfield Belconnen, walk to the food court, and visit one of the coffee shops I like out that way, pick up a take away coffee, walk out of the shopping centre, onto Benajmin Way and head off in the direction of Belconnen Way, and somehwere up there I will find Bunnings Belconnen. I suppose it will be close to 2:50 when I get there.
I intend on being there for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, after which I will probably head back to Westfield, have another coffee, and head home. Of course, taking coffee with me in a thermos might be a better idea, but I will make that decision on that morning.
Anyway, it should be a good day!
Samuel
February 7th, 2006 at 11:49pm
“More” is probably the wrong word in the title, as it is really just the continuation or the underground cabling mentioned in this post from Thursday, and if the paint marks on the grass are anything to go by, it will probably continue for the better part of the week.
Sunday appeared to be a day off for the cabling people from UEA Civil & Trenchless Contractors (trenchless because they have an underground drilling machine which removes the need for trenches along the entire length of the cable), and as such, seemed like a perfect time for a few more photos.
First up, we have one of the holes they dug recently, presumably to check the progress of the conduit along the drilled hole.
Next up we have the conduit, the company sign (UEA Civil & Trenchless Contractors) and a digging machine.
And finally, the digging machine from another angle.
The first time I saw one of those digging machines (which are much more compact than a backhoe) was while I was walking to Primary School, probably during 1996 or 1997, when Reid Court and Braddon Court, the public housing apartments for the elderly on Ainslie Avenue (the brown buildings in the previous post about the underground cabling) were having the internal grounds refurbished, which included landscaping work, and resealing of the carparks.
Samuel
February 6th, 2006 at 03:29pm
This morning, as Nattie and myself went for our morning walk, we spotted some rather interesting work being carried out. The work seemed to involve new underground cabling and large orange conduit.
After our walk, I returned to the scene with a camera and took these photos of the action, by this time the sun was high, and the road was bright.
Samuel
February 2nd, 2006 at 09:31pm
Today has been rather interesting on 2CC and 2CA.
Firstly I was awake briefly at 6am and noticed the news was not introduced with “I’m … with Capital Radio Network News”, instead being introduced with “I’m … with 2CC News”. At this time I thought this might just be 2CA not taking the 6am news, or perhaps 2CA taking Sydney news, and then I thought about their recent listener feedback survey which was designed to help them improve the station, and suddenly thought that they might have dumped the news altogether. I was tired though and decided to worry about that later and went back to bed…more on that later.
9am rolled around and I heard Lawsie make his triumphant return to the airwaves, where he instantly asked the audience if they still want him to start the show with his snippet of useless information. I sent him an email about this which follows:
Hi Lawsie,
Welcome back, it’s great to hear you on the wireless again. I sent you a Christmas card late last year (it probably arrived just after you left), I hope it got to you safely.
Please don’t take away my daily dose of useless information, you’d be amazed how much easier life is when I hear a piece of trivial information in the morning which reminds me that there is still plenty to laugh about in this world. Sure, I’ll probably forget what the useless information was by midday, but at least it makes me happy in the morning!
By the way Lawsie, it’s now the Chinese year of the dog, so Nattie, my lovely little Jack Russell Terrier, says “woof” to you.
Have a great day,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
Lawsie sounded a bit gruff this morning, but that is probably to be expected from someone who has just returned from eight weeks holidays.
Around 1pm I was walking down to civic with my radio to get some lunch, and had a bit of trouble with the 2CC signal, so I flicked across to 2CA who would be running the news, only to find that they were finishing the weather and running an ad (at least, I think they were finishing the weather), so I flicked back to 2CC and rotated the radio which made the signal clearer.
I decided to investigate this at 2pm, and started monitoring both stations sumultaneously at 1:55, 2CA were in the middle of an outside broadcast from (I think) The Hellenic Club with a DJ that I don’t recognise, possibly confirming last year’s rumors that Brian James was leaving 2CA. There were a couple promos from the new female voiceover person, which reminded me of the local commercial FM stations, which were followed by her introducing the news at 1:58. This was from the 2CC/2CA newsroom, but was branded 2CA news, had a different sport intro which included the newsreader reading the sponsor message, and concluded with the newsreader reading the weather (new ground for 2CA who used to have the DJ read the weather) and fading into the next song on “the new sound of 2CA” or something to that effect.
At this stage 2CC were half way through their news with the same newsreader, which leads me to believe that 2CA news is prerecorded, probably at 10 minutes to the hour. This would easily enable the 2CA panel operator to choose an appropriate point for the song to appear under the newsreader. I must say that the few minutes of 2CA that I heard sounded pretty good, I haven’t really spent long enough listening to decide whether I like the music lineup, and I really do dislike news which isn’t on the hour (it’s a pet peeve, it drives me up the wall as I am used to news on the hour and often work out the time based on it), however flexible news does make music programming much easier to manage as you don’t have to deal with precise timeouts and the difficulties associated with it.
In related news, Mike Welsh is on holidays for two weeks, with Mike Frame filling in this week, and a “Pete” being eluded to as the fill-in host next week. I suppose this could be occasional traffic reporter Pete Lusted, or perhaps Peter Cochrane who filled in for Welshy at one stage last year. Of course, it could be a Pete that I have completely forgotten or don’t know about, but I would be willing to put my money on Peter Cochrane.
Samuel
January 30th, 2006 at 04:39pm
Ex 2CC Newsreader and current 2UE political reporter James Goodwin is leaving radio for the realm of local television. At the end of this week, James will move out of parliament house, and into the Win Television studios located nearby in Kingston. James will, not surprisingly, be a senior reporter.
I suppose James is trying to get some on-camera and on-air experience before making a move to something bigger than Win Local News. I’ve never understood the fascination with Win News, I always preferred Prime News and Ten Capital News over Win. Win have however, to their credit, become the only commercial television local news bulletin provider in the ACT (no, those 60 second ad break local news segments on the other commercial stations do not count).
Win do have this habit of treating even the most trivial story with the utmost seriousness, sometimes with a bit too much seriousness, however I’m sure it all looks good to prospective employers. Marguerite McKinnon is a prime example, having spent five years covering Legislative Assembly minister statement sessions at the back door, and the occasional other venues of MLA press conferences and meetings. Marguerite went from Win to 2UE (is James going backwards here?) and became the Federal Political Reporter where she “followed Prime Minister John Howard on his tour of Australia” (quote from her Seven News profile, which contains that stalker-like sentence, Maybe Seven should rewrite that) and is now working at Seven as a Senior Reporter.
Anyway, I will miss James’ detailed news reports from parliament house and his occasional detours into mitchell to fill-in as a news reader. Best of luck James!
Samuel
January 24th, 2006 at 03:02pm
Isn’t this just fantastic, CIT spend a week bombarding television advertising space (and possibly FM radio advertising space, but I wouldn’t know about that) with a message about CIT direct enrolment information being available in the Saturday 21 January edition of the Canberra Times.
This was important to me as I needed this information about times and dates for enrolment, so on Saturday I rearranged my busy morning schedule so that I could go down to the newsagent (which was closed, ended up going to the supermarket) to buy the Saturday Canberra Times. To my horror I discovered that I had to pay $2 for this overabundance of classifieds and commentary on the social goings-ons of groups that don’t interest me (coupled with the occasional news story). Considering that Sydney’s Sunday newspapers cost about the same price here in Canberra as the Saturday Canberra Times, I would consider the Saturday Canberra Times a ripoff.
I wouldn’t have minded paying this fee and rearranging my schedule if this was the only way to get the information, as the CIT seemed to imply in their advertisements. However, today as I look at the CIT website, what do I find but a freely downloadable 1.1 MB PDF version of the miniscule direct enrolment guidebook.
Was it really too hard for the CIT to say “Check this Saturday’s Canberra Times or see our website”? Considering that many students work on weekends, surely this would have made life easier for a vast majority of those who are seeking enrolment in CIT courses.
I do hope the Canberra Times gave CIT a percentage of the sales revenue for this, as the number of papers sold would surely have been above average thanks to CIT’s advertising…who knows, maybe this theoretical payment helped cover the cost of the advertising…or did I just unwittingly donate $2 to Rural Press? If so, can I claim that back on tax? No!…Hmmm, funny that…
Samuel
January 23rd, 2006 at 02:32pm
The ACT Government has announced an additional 22 mobile speed camera locations. Whilst I’m glad they are monitoring more areas, I don’t approve of the publication of camera locations.
The ACT government have this strange theory that publicising speed camera locations will slow people down, ultimately though, all it does is give motorists a chance to slow down near a speed camera and speed up again once they pass it.
This thread on Canberra Cruises proves this theory, as it clearly shows that people there might slow down around the cameras, but they won’t slow down elsewhere. So what to do?
Well I was chatting with 2CC’s Mike Frame today just after he interviewed an ACT government spokeperson about the new cameras, during this interview Mike seemed to agree with the idea of notifying motorists of speed cameras. I said to Mike that I think we should do away with the conspicuous white vans for speed cameras, and should just have random vehicles in random locations with the speed cameras. This would have much more effect on motorists’ speeds as they would need to avoid speeding altogether in order to avoid fines, demerit points and other punishments. By the end of the conversation Mike seemed to agree that I had a good point.
I really think that the idea of speed cameras being pure revenue raisers is nonsense…if people obeyed the road rules there would be no revenue from speed cameras.
Another thing which I think would help make the roads safer is a licence fee system based on the number of demerit points the licence holder has attracted (I use the word “attratced” because I can’t work out whether one gains or loses demerit points). For example, 0 points = free licence, 1 point = $100 licence, 2 points = $200, 3 points = $400, 4 points = $800, 5 points = $1600, etc.
Of course, an increased covert and marked police presence would help. Covert speed cameras would help keep speed down, whilst covert police cars would help keep other road rules in an unbroken state as you would never know when the police might catch you. Marked police vehicles and foot/bicycle patrols would help keep general law and order in check. It’s pretty simple, but I suppose it just requires funding…
Samuel
January 21st, 2006 at 07:30pm
It was rather nice to wake up to the rain this morning. A nice grey morning with the pleasing pitter patter of rain on the roof and a good drnching for the garden.
The Bureau Of Meteorology’s weather radar in Captains Flat near Canberra shows that there was quite a bit of rain, but it appears to be subsiding. With any luck we may see more, I wouldn’t mind a few days of light, steady rain.
Samuel
January 18th, 2006 at 10:27am
As some of the Canberra readers may have noticed, The Warehouse (formerly Clints Warehouse) in the Tuggeranong Hyperdome has closed, however, my sources inform me that this is temporary.
This particular store was bought out by ADS (Australian Discount Stores), so whilst it may look like it is closing down, it is merely preparing for a relaunch with a different owner and possibly a different layout. I’m sure the people at The Reject Shop which is located directly above The Warehouse will not be overly excited to find out that they aren’t losing the competition.
I’m not sure when it will reopen as ADS, all I know is that it will be soon.
Samuel
January 12th, 2006 at 11:47pm
I was taking Nattie for a walk this morning as I usually do, we were walking around Argyle Square, which is a block of private townhouses on Ainslie Avenue, near Civic. As we were walking along Allambee Street, there was a government pather on the other side of the road, having his morning tea break. He was sitting under a tree, with his car radio on, and from a distance I thought I could recognise a voice, as I got closer I heard someone talking about sharks, and then hear Tim Webster, who was interviewing a shark expert.
I was tempted to say hello to the pather, but Nattie just wanted to keep walking, so we kept right on walking.
Samuel
January 10th, 2006 at 11:10pm
Canberra, with it’s surrounding bushland, has quite a bit of wildlife, some of them have chosen to live in urban gardens but remain mostly unseen. Occasionally they venture out and are sighted by residents.
Yesterday the possum which lives on the next block paid my block a visit, and with the heat, took shelter on top of a bush covered outdoor cupboard. Here are some photos of this nice possum.
Nattie wanted to chase the possum, but was restrained. The possum eventually went on its merry way at about 8:30pm, after a bit over 12 hours on top of the cupboard.
Samuel
January 9th, 2006 at 05:26pm
One thing I have noticed over the last week or so is that the people who think that Summernats is a good idea generally belong in one or both of the following categories:
- People who don’t live in the inner north of Canberra.
- People who think the only way to have fun is through loud noises, preferably whilst intoxicated.
I’m sure they enjoy this event and it’s inherent noise, smoke and pointlessness, in fact I’m sure they enjoy it, because they carry it out of the venue at the end of each day and continue it on suburban streets. The lovely loonies who bring their high-powered vehicles into Canberra each year aren’t content with watching others perform unusual activities in an enclosed environment, no, they feel a need to keep everyone else awake for many hours afterwards.
It is the general attitude of this group of people which becomes very annoying, they tend to think that the best way to drive a car is with a flat foot, especially when on a suburban road, couple this with the loud vehicles that these people generally drive, and suddently you will understand why I was still awake at 3 o’clock this morning, despite attempts to go to sleep.
I’m sure there are some genuine car enthusiasts who can behave themselves and not feel a need to wake up northern Canberra, and I’m sure Summernats does wonders for the local economy (especially the petrol stations), but it has a rather negative impact on those who live anywhere near it.
Organiser Chic Henry was on 2CC a couple weeks back telling us all that the people who don’t like Summernats don’t like noise and generally have something wrong with them…well sorry Chic, but you’re wrong. I don’t mind noise, but I’d rather not have it outside my window at 3am, I also don’t like the undesirable element which are generally attracted to your event, the ones who manage to drag Canberra’s road safety level to record lows (no pun intended).
Whilst Chic maintains that Summernats is a fantastic and safe event, reality shows it is anything but safe. For example, last night a ute in one of the parades managed to lose control and plow into a crowd, injuring four to six people, depending on your news source. Watching the footage it is quite clear that the driver was a goose and the fencing was completely inadequate.
According to Channel Ten, Summernats organiser Chic Henry says there’s always an element of danger associated with motor sports. Chic is right about that, but there is a vast difference between most motor sports and Summernats, the fencing. Most motor sports have a proper concrete barrier or similar with proper fencing above it, Summernats has a puny little fence that could probably be pushed over by an average grown human.
Add to that the fact that it was possible for a semi-streaker to get onto the arena under the location where a crane was about to drop a car on to a caravan (proper fences would fix that) and then they missed the caravan anyway, and you really have a very unusual definition of “safe” in Chic’s dictionary.
When Chic was on 2CC as previously mentioned, he was talking about how Summernats almost didn’t survive when they had to find a new location a few years ago…wouldn’t it have been brilliant if it hadn’t survived? Absolutely fantastic in my view. According to the ABC Television News, crowd numbers were down this year, which is fantastic as it might be spelling the beginning of the end for this strange annual annoyance.
News reports indicate that Chic will review safety procedures, well I’m going to give him some free advice. The best way to make the event safer is to not have it…there! Problem solved! Alternatively, move it to the middle of nowhere…that will, at the very least, make Canberra’s roads a bit safer…and let the loonies make as much noise as they want with nobody getting annoyed…won’t stop the injuries though.
If Summernats leaves Canberra I’ll be pleased, if it disappears altogether then I’ll be over the moon, as the world will be slightly more sane!
Samuel
January 8th, 2006 at 06:47pm
This morning I made the journey to my local ACT Government Shopfront (oddly named “Canberra Connect”) with some fairly important papers, only to discover that they have all taken the day off. Perhaps they were confused by the change of public holidays by ACT Industrial Relations minister Katy Gallagher and didn’t realise that today isn’t a public holiday, maybe they thought that it would be nice to have another day off.
Either way, they have flown in the face of just about every other ACT government agency, as the rest all seem to realise today is not a public holiday, and in the process inconvenienced a lot of the ACT public, who walked up to the doors of Canberra Connect agencies to find a “We are closed” sign. In fact, a family was walking there at the same time as me, and were equally disappointed.
This will only make the queues worse tomorrow and Friday…
Samuel
December 28th, 2005 at 12:28pm
Whilst I was not glued to the radio, I did endeavour to check what was happening at the top of each hour, and although I missed that on Boxing day, this is a fairly close schedule of events.
Christmas Day:
Midnight: New Day Australia with Stuart Bocking
6am: The best of the Mike Jeffreys year (Including local news on the hour. News on the half hour also occurred for some of this time).
10am: The emergency christmas music. According to the first ad break (straight out of the 10am news), this was supposed to be George Moore and Paul B. Kidd, but something went wrong and we had a rather enjoyable couple hours of Christmas Music, and more hourly local news.
Midday: 2UE’s Christmas Around The World. 2UE brought us Christmas songs from various corners of the globe.
2PM: Glenn Wheeler
6PM: Mike Williams.
Boxing Day
Midnight: New Day Australia with John Kerr.
5:30-9am: I wouldn’t have a clue. Sorry, I wasn’t listening.
9am: The John Laws Morning Show, with Tim Webster
Midday: Afternoon’s with Stuart Bocking filling in for Murray Olds filling in for John Stanley (The promos said Murray was on, the presenter didn’t).
3PM: A surprise, The Steve Liebmann Drive Show (Filling in for Steve Price)…live from Sydney, and on again tomorrow. Steve did a surprisingly good job of making the show as non-Sydney centric as possible, and mentioned 2CC every time he mentioned 2UE, well done Steve.
6PM: Sports Today
8PM: Nights with Glenn Wheeler filling in for Stan Zemanek. I Can’t confirm if Glenn was on as I didn’t hear it.
December 27th, 2005 at 01:47am
Carols In The Park seemed to go quite well, with plenty of entertainment and a spot of good weather (although it did rain here in Reid, which isn’t far from Norwood Park). 2CC ran a simulcast of the event, with a Mike Frame outside broadcast thrown in. 2CC gave listeners the chance to ring in and wish people a merry christmas, I thought they would be run off their feet with callers, but they weren’t, and half an hour into the broadcast I became the first caller. I wished Cheryl (A nurse who lives near me and listens to 2CC) a merry christmas, to which Mike Frame announced that he has a sister named Cheryl who is a nurse, unfortunately we didn’t have time to work out if it was the same person or not.
The carols went well, 2CC took ad breaks during carol breaks, and continued to run the news on the hour. The thing that had me concerned was their plan at 9:30 when the carols were due to end, obviously they couldn’t return to Sydney programming and mess up the advertising schedule, so what to do?
9:30 came around and Mike Frame announced that they would play christmas requests until 10pm, he said goodnight, and somehow, with a combination of requested music, promos and generic ads the staff in the Mitchell studios managed to time out for the 10PM news perfectly. Well done!
Apparently Norwood Park plan on doing it all again next year, the only thing I can advise is that they schedule it for a night when free-to-air television isn’t running a different carols ceremony, as Channel 7’s screening of “Carols In The Domain” may have cost Norwood Park a few people.
Overall the event went well, and everyone at 2CC did an excellent job, hopefully the Aurora coverage went just as well. I might just take this opportunity to wish the couple who got engaged just after 6PM at Norwood Park all the best for their wedding and the future.
Samuel
December 18th, 2005 at 11:10pm
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