Posts filed under 'Canberra Stories'
The Chief Turnip of the ACT, Jon Stanhope, has released a confidential document on his chief ministerial website (Warning, site contains large scary pictures at the top of every page).
The document he leaked was a confidential draft copy of the federal government’s anti-terrorism legislation. This was given to each of the state and territory leaders as part of the briefing they received on the new legislation.
The draft legislation is due before Federal parliament in a couple weeks, and will probably be refined by then, so not only is this leak a breach of confidentiality, it is also unwise and irresponsible. Not only has the chief turnip broken the trust between the federal and ACT government’s, he has also placed further sensible and logical revisions of the legislation at risk.
I will admit that it does appear to have a few rough edges, but these would have been revised before or during their time in parliament, and the early release has provided extra amunition for a propoganda campaign from the “no anti-terrorism legislation” camp. Already Green’s senator/leader Bob Brown has said that it contains a section which enables police to shoot to kill, and frankly, I don’t think anti-terrorism legislation would be complete without such a clause, and I strongly suspect that Mr. Brown has taken it out of context, and omitted any safeguards/regulations which would be part of the paragraphs in question. The federal government aren’t stupid enough to just hand out guns to the police and say “If you see something, shoot it.” They know that the “rogue senators” wouldn’t stand for it, and neither would the other parties.
ACT Shadow Attorney General Bill Stefaniak produced a press release in which he stated the obvious and true facts of the matter:
“I have to question the judgement of the Chief Minister to circulate this document on the world wide web when it clearly states on the front page ‘Draft-in-Confidence”
“To my knowledge no other Labor state leaders have sort to betray the Federal Government’s confidence in this manner.”
“Mr Stanhope was the biggest critic of the Anti-Terror approach that the Federal Government was proposing to take, but then, after a special briefing at the COAG meeting he finally realised the Prime Minister’s number one goal is national security.”
“Why then has Jon Stanhope betrayed the trust of the Federal Government and his state colleagues in posting what is a very private and confidential document to his personal website for all to see?”
“This is not a smart move and shows a severe lack of judgement on the part of the Leader of this Territory.”
“Jon Stanhope has embarrassed the ACT in his actions and will never be able to be trusted with confidential material of this nature again. “
Perhaps that is just it, perhaps the chief turnip only pretended to be pleased about the new legislation so that he could leak it in an unfinished and rough state which could ultimately destroy it. If so, then this has to be one of the worst cases of political grandstanding in the history of Australian politics.
Regardless of his intentions, he has leaked a confidential government document, and deserves to be punished. If his intentions were as I stated above, then a charge of treason should also be considered…after all, isn’t an attempt to unfairly influence the proceedings of potential anti-terrorism legislation an unusual form of terrorism?
I haven’t read the draft legislation yet, but I will make sure I get read enough to get an overview of it. As unfortunate as it is, the draft legislation has been viewed by so many people now, that it would be impossible to remove it from public knowledge, and to not get see some of it now would open myself up to manipulation by those of Stanhope’s ilk. I will not store a copy of the draft legislation on this site, but I will retain my two-pages-per-page double-sided copy of it for now, and if requested, I will shred it and make sure I don’t disclose any of the contents.
For now the offending document can be viewed from the Chief Turnip’s website (warning, site contains a large scary picture of Stanhope on every page), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is removed sometime soon…even if a court order is required.
Chief Turnip Stanhope is an outright twit, and shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office, he is a danger to our society, and can never be trusted with confidential documents ever again. The release of the draft legislation will hamper efforts to logically fix up any problems which may be part of the legislation, and has almost certainly fueled a proganda war between the “for” & “against” camps, as can be seen in the incredible amount of press releases relating to it.
Samuel
Disclaimer: Neither I, nor anybody related to this website can be held responsible for any consequences that may occur should you decide to view the confidential draft legislation, information provided here is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation, direction or otherwise that you should view the confidential document. Should you choose to do so, it is at your own risk. Comments which contravine this notice will be removed without notice.
October 15th, 2005 at 09:00pm
John B1_B5 had a rather interesting article about a Brisbane 400 Series Tram (circa 1958) on his blog recently. In it he mentions that the trams in Brisbane were very efficient “The beauty about the trams was that there was always one coming in the distance, and if it was too crowded, you just waited for the next one.”
Brisbane apparently had one of the best tram systems in the world and “a lot of Brisbane residents are STILL saying that it was a mistake to phase out the trams”.
Image courtesy John B1_B5
This got me thinking, with the rise in petrol prices recently, people are moving to public transport in droves, the only issue is that the people managing the local bus service (ACTION) know about as much about managing public transport as a tinned sardine does. They seem to be doing their utmost best to make travelling by bus a pain (Flexibus, Constantly making a mess of, and changing, timetables, seemingly at random, introducing uncomfortable and relatively useless green monstrosities, etc…) with the full blessing of the ACT government. (previously documented on this blog in numerous articles.)
The ACT government want to build an expensive busway which will cut two minutes from the trip between Belconnen and Civic, which will never get built because of groups like Save The Ridge and completely ignores the rest of the population. (At one stage, the minister responsible for the busway declared that it would cut 15 minutes from the trip, effectively getting you to Civic two minutes before you leave Belconnen, and vice versa)
Light Rail has been brought up as a possibility a number of times, but the seemingly useless local government have ignored it over and over and over.
This is what I would do with local public transport.
Light Rail going directly between town centres (IE. Gungahlin to Belconnen, Gungahlin to Civic, Gungahlin to Woden, Gungahlin to Tuggeranong, Belconnen to Civic, Belconnen to Woden, Belconnen to Tuggeranong, Civic to Woden, Civic to Tuggeranong, Woden to Tuggeranong and vice versa on each). This would be a high speed and quick service which would be expandable in the future and would be much quicker than current car transport and bus transport.
Trams travelling around town centres. Town Centres tend to be fairly large, they can be walked through, but it takes time, time which could be saved by having a low-medium speed tram service through the town centres, this would ease the problem of people getting off the bus/train at an interchange twenty minutes walk from their office on a rainy day.
Local Area Buses: Firstly, scrap Flexibus, buses are not taxis, taxis are, let it be. Then, buses going directly between a suburb and the town centre (so Braddon to Civic, Banks to Tuggeranong etc), these buses would go through most streets in the suburb, which would provide convenience to the commuter, and then go straight to the town centre…no more waiting through an archaic array of other suburbs.
I would also have area buses which would go from a town centre, through the main streets of a number of suburbs and then to a town centre (either the one it started at, or another one if the suburb is halfwayish between the two centres).
I would also release a mandate that the bus timetables be designed to get people to their destinations quickly, rather than sometime next week as tends to be the case at the moment. Why ACTION insist on timetables that get buses travelling at 30km/h is beyond me.
Naturally I would have combined areas for the bus/train/tram interchanges, this would make it much easier to use the services, I’m sure some planners would make sure these various centres are a long way apart, but that would defeat the purpose of useful and efficient public transport.
I would also ensure that all services use the same tickets.
I like this plan so much that I am now going to email it to various people who may be in a position to do something about it, or perhaps bring it to the attention of those who can do something about it.
Samuel
October 8th, 2005 at 12:03am
I can really only describe today as being long, considering that I was unable to sleep last night, it has been very long indeed, here is a fairly accurate summary of the day.
Midnight: Still at computer, reading emails and some websites, I had a cup of tea during this time.
12:30: This is when I went to have my shower.
1am: By this time I was in bed and seemingly unable to go to sleep and found myself listening to New Day Australia with John Kerr.
2am: Sometime around here I heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate, it turned out to be Nattie’s doggie door which I think may be developing a squeak, I fixed up a couple things, re-covered Nattie with her blanket and wrote an email to John Kerr in which I stated that I don’t email or call him nearly often enough.
3am: Still awake and in bed, it was around this time that John Kerr read my email and seemed quite pleased to hear from me again, he agreed with my statement that I don’t email or call enough.
5am: After dozing off briefly one or two times, and having had to get out of bed a few times (hourly) to turn the clock radio back on, I was still awake. By this time the “real” New Day program had ended and it was time for the 30 minutes of light news and information which is the last half hour of New Day which has replaced the 5am half hour of news. I still find it laughable that they have a sydney traffic update in the middle of this, they almost always say that “it’s not very busy at the moment”…they must be geniuses to work that out (or would that be genii???)
5:30: The 5:30 news arrived, and I promptly got up to make myself a cup of coffee, I went downstairs and covered Nattie with her blanket again (she actually does like it, she just can’t pull it over herself after going out to the toilet). I finished making my coffee and sicovered it was overfilled, so I had a few sips before going back upstairs and entering my room just as James Creegan was finishing the weather (in this case I am guessing at spelling of names), and I got back into bed humming Mike Jeffreys’ opening music. During the next half hour I enjoyed my Coffee, listened to Mike and noticed my curtains gradually getting lighter, this brought back memeories of work experience in July where it was still pitch black at 6am…not like October!
6am: After the 6am news I got out of bed and went downstairs, performed a number of household duties, and then had breakfast…which became a long and drawn out affair, I was in no real hurry.
7am: Well, I had only just started eating breakfast at this stage, and was doing that whilst listening to the radio and checking my email. Not long after 7am the Chief Minister made some curious comments about CCTV Cameras, it seemed to me that he was saying “We put in all these cameras, and now we have had a review and actually know how many cameras we have and how they work.” Just after his comments I got up (nearly finished breakfast) and tried calling 2CC but they had to talk to Jason Morrison (well, replay the call from before 6am anyway), so I called again during the 7:30 news and had a chat with Mike Jeffreys about the CCTV Camera comments and something he had spoken with Jason Morrison about…I think it was phone bugging in Indonesia…I think.
8am: At about this time I took Nattie for her morning walk, and then returned home, and decided it was such a nice morning that I would walk to work. I had a quick look for two A4 envelopes and discovered I was out of them, and I would “borrow” some from Dickson College. I eventually left home (knowing I was running late) at 8:35. I set a target of reaching the Ainslie shops by 9am, and at about 7 to 9 I realised I was going to beat that, in fact the Ainslie shops were almost out of sight when 2CC informed me that it was 9am.
9am: On the walk from the Ainslie shops to Dickson College I remembered the last time I walked from Ainslie shops to Dickson College, this was late last year when I caught a bus which was running late and spotted my normal bus with my bus driver friend just behind us. Unfortunately my getting off at Ainslie shops was mistimed as he drove by as I was getting off, and I had to walk, on this occasion I listened to George Moore on the way to Dickson College, today Lawsie was there.
9:15: I arrived at Dickson College, and to my astonishment was the first person, so I sat down and had a hard earned coffee. It is probably worthwhile noting here that National Walk To Work Day is tommorow, and I think I know why it is on a Friday. Most employees are less productive on a Friday, and they sure as heck don’t feel like working after walking to work, so having it on a Friday produces minimal differences in work outcomes, whereas my Thursday excersise made me somewhat opposed to the idea of doing much all day.
9:30: My direct boss who doesn’t have a key to get into the building arrived around this time, we stood around and chatted for a little while.
9:40: A person with a key turned up and we all entered, I requested two A4 envelopes and got them, then it was on to upstairs for the commencement of the work for the day. We (my direct boss and myself) went up to the IT office and discussed the work that needed to be done that day and I enthralled him (my boss) with stories of my journey to Erindale, and he read bits of this blog while I placed the letters and photographs for the various presenters in the appropriate envelopes and realised they are the lickable envelopes…so I got out the sticky tape as I dislike licking envelopes.
10:30: It was probably around this time that we went to do our first bit of work, which failed due to a poor computer case design preventing the installation of a new ZIP drive. The next bit of work involved me putting a couple programs on that computer, reading my emails again, and installing Windows XP on a computer while my boss and I discussed the working conditions of Australia compared to India. We also discussed briefly something which may or may not have been done by a junior employee (I’m a pretty junior employee myself, but I outrank this person, and in the scheme of things I’m not fulfilling a very junior job), as my contract is up for renewal I kept right out of that conflict.
11am: The direct boss left for a few minutes at 11am so I made a phone call to make lunch arrangements, which involved me walking to North Ainslie Primary School at lunch time.
Midday: After virtually no more work being achieved, I left for lunch at about 12:15 and arrived at North Ainslie at about 12:30, after spending some time their seeing that the IT people were having fun trying to get certain programs to work, the majority of us went to lunch in Dickson. Generally travelling in a car filled with people around my age would violate my personal safety policies, but this particular occasion didn’t because:
A) The driver is a close and highly trusted friend of mine who I believe to be a good driver.
B) It was a short journey.
If it had been a long journey I would have deemed it to be in violation of my personal safety policy.
We all spent a very long time in Dickson.
2:15: This is roughly the time I returned to work and and monitored a program installation while checking my email and writing for this blog…and had a cup of coffee.
3pm: At 3pm I left the college and went to catch a bus to Mitchell so that I could deliver the letters and photos (which I previously forgot to mail and decided mailing would now be inefficient), this also would allow me to catch up with some of the people at 2CC, so I made my way to Northbourne Avenue to catch the bus.
3:30: This is roughly the time I reached the nearest bus stop on Northbourne, and dicovered that the buses coming soon weren’t exactly soon or useful, but I ended up catching the first bus to come along anyway as it got me to Flemington Road, leaving me with a 10-15 minute walk to 2CC, I got there just before 4pm. I met the receptionist outside and had a small chat, after which I went upstairs and left the envelopes at reception. When I got upstairs Mike Welsh was in the middle of an ad break just before the 4pm news, so I leaned in the studio door and said a quick hello (I had previously emailed him to inform him that I would not be able to make it out to Ngunnawal to see him, and would be dropping by the studios this afternoon). I met up with a few of the people out there and had some good conversations before eventually leaving the air-conditioned comfort of 2CC for the outside world and a bus stop on Hoskins St, Kane Bond wasn’t there which was a pity as I wanted to say hello to him too. At about 4:20 my bus arrived and I got on and went to Civic on it, before walking home and arriving just before 5pm.
Since then I’ve had another coffee, and dinner, and a shower, and done various other things, and I’m now tired, so I’ll be going to bed shortly.
Anyway, that’s my long day, which involved far too much walking…I don’t have to work tommorow, so no walking to work for me…
Samuel
October 6th, 2005 at 08:24pm
As previously mentioned, I decided to take a journey out to Erindale shops today where Mike Frame was with the 2CC Kingswood. I also decided to document the entire journey, so if you’re after pictures of the Kingswood you will need to scroll down. All of the pictures here are thumbnails of the large versions, clicking on them will take you to the original large versions.
After some preperation I decided I should check what main items I was taking with me, naturally the radio came with me, as did the story of The Fridge which I was taking along to give to Mike Jeffreys (as previously documented) and a couple bus timetables for buses which pass Erindale.
On my way into Civic to catch the bus I passed one of the many construction sites.
I had lunch at a nice little coffee shop in Civic where I had a sausage roll and a coffee, after this I briefly met my bus driver friend, and then sat down to wait for the bus. I managed to take a picture of two of Canberra’s better, older, orange buses, just after I took the photo they both disappeared.
The first bus to turn up was one of those horrid green buses, I don’t like the green buses, they are uncofortable, noisy, rattly and have virtually no suspension. The older orange buses have a kind of bounce when they hit a bump, the green ones just go bang.
I decided to have a play with the video mode of my camera to demonstrate the horrid amount of noise the green buses make, it was impossible to hear the radio over the horrid thing. (Apologies for the file size of the video, I didn’t have time to play with the video)
Then a nice orange bus turned up, which I promptly caught. This bus lacked a ticket machine, so I did not incur any cost for this particular journey.
While I was on the bus I decided to try my hand at taking photos from moving vehicles, I think I ultimately showed that I am no good at that. The first picture taken on the way to Woden is of a flowerbed on Commenwealth Avenue designed to promote Floriade.
The next photo was of the Mint, for those that don’t know, the Mint’s main role is to produce coins.
It was around this time that I lost the 2CC signal or to be more precise, they stopped producing sound, 15 seconds later the emergency tape kicked in, it kept going through it’s initial ad break, played two different music returns and then launched into some bizzare program called “Down Memory Lane” which started with some semi-amusing alphabet song which sounds like it came from the 1940’s or 1950’s, the tape was then interupted and started from the begginning again, playing it’s ad break, two music returns and launched straight into that song again…this made me want to burst out laughing, but I managed to mostly contain myself. During this time I tried to pick up 2CA, but either I was in a bad spot (probably) or they were also off-air with no emergency tape.
Then we have a photo of my favourite set of trees along Adelaide Avenue/Yamba Drive
After this I arrived at the Woden bus interchange, unfortunately there weren’t any buses on my side of the interchange and I didn’t feel like waiting around for them.
From Memory the John Stanley show had returned to the radio by this stage, so I walked up some stairs and took a photo of the Lovatt Tower (formerly the MLC Tower), possibly Canberra’s tallest building. During this the 2UE news came through on 2CC for some unknown reason, their appeared to be some audio problems with it too.
After this I walked over to the bridge over the Woden Bus Interchange and took a photo of a rather odd and tall new apartment building, during this the local weather played, and then ads started.
After this I went and sat down on one of the many seats at the Woden Bus Interchange and noticed that one of ACTION’s interesting midi buses was parked in the layover zone, the midi buses are fairly decent, but I still prefer the orange buses.
2CC were still playing ads, and I can’t work out why, when they were about 10-15 minutes into a long set of ads I gave up and switched the radio off. Either somebody hit the wrong button a few times or something went seriously wrong.
Anyway, my bus arrived so I caught it, and took a few more of my “moving vehicle” pictures. Here is a slightly blurry one of the Woden Bus Interchange as I left.
And then we have yet another photo of the “Multiplex” buidling, now known on this blog as the “Multiplex Monstrosity”.
Next we having a picture of Mount Taylor, one of the smaller, less tree-filled mountains in Canberra.
The next photo was supposed to be of the nice scenic view towards the Brindabellas, but it didn’t turn out that way, if you look closely you can spot some of Canberra’s high voltage power lines, which, as previously discussed on this blog, carry radio signals very well, it was the first crystal clear on-bus reception I had all day.
The next thing that happened is I got off the bus, at the stop which the bus map informed me was the right stop…once again, ACTION prove they are the worst map makers on the planet. It did leave me with a good view though.
I walked down to the end of the street and still couldn’t see the shops, I was now very confused, I spotted a policeman conducting speed checks from his stationary motorbike, so I asked him if he knew where it was, and he gave me directions. On my way to the Erindale shops I spotted the bus stop I should have gotten off the bus at.
After a short walk, I spotted the Erindale centre, however I also noticed a sign advertising one of the non-Video Ezy video outlets, this had me mildly concerned, but I entered the centre anyway. It reminded me to a large extent of one of the smaller shopping centres on the sunshine coast, which has an almost identical layout. Video Ezy wasn’t in there, so I walked out the doors at the other end of the shopping centre and noticed the Video Ezy store in the distance, the zoom on the camera picked up the sign and the Kingswood fairly well. (I didn’t spot the Kingswood myself at the time)
The next thing I did was turn around and take a photo of the Erindale Centre.
As I got closer I took another photo of the Kingswood.
It is worthwhile pointing out that I hadn’t seen John B1_B5’s comment about him also going to see the Kingswood, so I was unaware that he was coming, and was surprised when he arrived. I didn’t recognise him at first, but I had requested that Mike Frame stand next to the Kingswood for a photo, and John B1_B5 arrived so we both wanted to take a photo of this, it was only just before we took the photos that we recognised each other. We promptly started a small competition to see who has the best Kingswood photos. My one of Mike Frame and the Kingswood is perfect with flaws…the only problems are that Mike blinked and I cut off some of the Kingswood…not to worry.
Next up we have a photo of the insides of the Kingswood, including the yellow mini-kingswood. The people in this photo are Mike Frame standing at the driver’s side door, one of the 2CC listeners in the background, and John B1_B5 standing behind the bonnet.
Next up we have the rather impressive signage on the rear window of the Kingswood, it is a good job, but as Mike Frame put it last time we met “It’s fine as long it isn’t raining, then you can’t see out of it” (paraphrased). This could become one of those photos used as memorabilia when 2CC turn 50 in 2025.
Then there is an unfortunately blurry closeup of the yellow Mini-Kingswood.
Next up is a picture of the competition entry box, John B1_B5 has a closeup of the poster on his site (link below).
The next shot comes with a large thanks to Mike Frame who allowed it to go ahead, this one is of John B1_B5 sitting in the Kingswood. (This is the one image that does not link to a larger version).
John B1_B5 spent quite a while chatting about many different and varied subjects, 2CC’s breakfast presenter Mike Jeffreys was going to turn up around 2PM, but it was closer to 3PM when he did eventually arrive. It appears to me at least that 2CC could make use of this picture with that large Video Ezy sign in the background.
Just after taking that picture I handed Mike Jeffreys the story of The Fridge
A little while later when I got the camera out again, after spotting a good photo opportunity, I took a photo, this one contains the Kingswood (naturally), in the bottom left corner of the picture is a golf club cover on one of the golf clubs 2CC are also giving away, the person on the left is Mike Frame, and the person on the right is Mike Jeffreys, whilst it looks like he is putting on an interesting funny pose, he is actually trying to get rid of flies. In the Kingswood is Mike Jeffreys’ son Jack who developed a game of climbing into, and out of, the Kingswood.
After this the discussions turned to the topic of Brisbane Trams (I’ll have more on that in the coming days) and how extremely efficient they were. Not long after this John B1_B5 left, and not long after that, I left. This is the bus stop I was planning on catching the bus from.
Naturally the bus was late, and just at the moment that I was planning on getting out the camera and playing with the video mode again, the bus appeared in the distance, however it turned the corner without stopping for me, and then stopped after turning the corner, apparently it is too difficult to turn after picking someone up at that bus stop.
I also caught a picture of some scenery I had been thinking of getting a photo of on the way to Erindale.
While I was on the bus I heard Mike Welsh have a conversation with Mike Frame…I didn’t catch the first part of the conversation, but I think Mike Welsh had been reading this site and asked if I had come out to Erindale, Mike Frame replied by saying that I had come, as had “another one of our listeners, John” and he also said that Mike Jeffreys had been there for “the last half-hour or so”.
Not long after this, I arrived in Woden
I noticed a green bus, so I waited for the next one, I took this opportunity to take a photo of one of those “If you see something, say something” signs alerting people to be wary of terrorists (presumably without alarming them…if you’re not Australian you won’t get the joke).
My 117 was running late, and the 312 (I think) came before it (both of which were nice orange buses), while I was in the queue for the 312, the 117 arrived, and as it was running late I caught that knowing that it would leave quickly. This one had a non-working ticket machine, so another free ride, although I had already bought a daily ticket, so it’s not overly free.
I decided to embark on another round of moving vehicle based photography…which produced some varied and dreadful photos, one of which was so bad that I deleted it as soon as it was taken. Here are the remains.
Firstly, is it Telstra Tower? And is there a photographic fog?
Next up we have a photo which was supposed to be of Mount Ainslie, Regatta Point and the War Memorial in the background, which was taken at precisely the wrong moment, and as such is a picture of a Commonwealth Avenue Bridge pylon, with bits of Regatta Point and Mount Ainslie…with some bridge bits.
I tried again, and this time got a picture of Mount Blur (aka Mount Ainslie) and Regatta Point Blur.
Next up is a reasonable picture of the approach to Civic, which also contains a bird and an unexplainable smudge.
Next up is another tilted picture, this one is of City Hill.
I got off the bus outside the Legislative Assembly (which has a more than fair share of scary people, and therefore doesn’t get a photo today), as it is quicker to walk home from there than the Civic Interchange. On my way home I passed through the Canberra Centre and noticed one of those little Canberra oddities, they hadn’t brought in the lightweight portable “long weekend trading hours” sign, despite it being nearly 4PM the day after the end of the long weekend. This poses a question…did they leave it out overnight or did the bring it out this morning?
After passing through the Canberra Centre I took a nice scenic photo looking up Ainslie Avenue towards Mount Ainslie.
I then went home and, as I was thirsty, made myself a cup of coffee which I forgot to photograph.
As for who had the better Kingswood photos, I think I got the better pictures of Mike Jeffreys, I think John B1_B5 got the better picture “Frame and Kingswood” picture, I think the rest are all so different that there is no way to compare them. He took some more detailed pictures of the car, whilst I took mainly overview pictures (and went on an insane marathon photo-taking-a-thon through Canberra).
You can see all of John B1_B5’s pictures on his website.
Well, that’s my story for today, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have 42,488 words (2,488 written & 40,000 pictured) not including this sentence or the next.
Samuel
October 4th, 2005 at 09:47pm
I appear to have an unusual desire to keep up with the presenter movements at 2CC, and being a public holiday today there were a couple.
New Day Australia was as per usual, with John Kerr doing his normal show.
Breakfast had one of this blog’s search terms hosting it, Mike Frame filling in for Mike Jeffreys. (He later went out to Dickson with the 2CC Kingswood, I was going to go out there and meet him, but I didn’t…I might go out to Erindale tommorow, I’ve never been to Erindale so it might be worthwhile taking photos.)
I missed all of the John Laws show, but from what I’ve been told, John Stanley did that show.
Afternoons with John Stanley was filled by John Mangos (confused yet?)
The drive show had occasional fillin Leigh Zaghet filling in for Mike Welsh…unfortunately this show was marred by the appearance of the ACTION misinformation officer Barb Barrett…based on the questions and the answers, I would say this was the result of a press release in which ACTION finally acknowledged that it’s petrol prices, and not service improvements which have increased their patronage. (Well, the Xpresso services may have helped, but those horrid green contraptions which rattle and shake to the extent that you feel dizzy didn’t. The only good thing about the green buses is the air conditioning, everything else is a cheap shambles. I’ll be sure to avoid the green buses during my journey to Erindale.)
None the less, I took the opportunity to say hello to Leigh, the last time we spoke was when he was filling in on The Trading Post, so it was good to be able to talk to him again.
I heard a bit of the sports show, it had the regular presenters…I didn’t hear any more though.
Nearly forgot, 2CC had local news this morning with Kris McKenzie, and took 2UE news this afternoon.
Anyway, as I mentioned I will endeavour to meet up with Mike Frame again in Erindale tommorow (Tuesday) and I will take the camera with me to take some photos. This could very well be one of the few chances I have to take a couple photos of one of the good orange ACTION buses.
One thing I should point out is that I am not guessing Leigh’s spelling, the USENET/Google Groups archives prove it. I stumbled across his name when I was doing research earlier this year and remembered which newsgroup it was in, just a matter of a quick search.
Samuel
Important Update
Mike Jeffreys will be in Erindale from about 2-3pm, whilst Mike Frame will be there from 2-5pm, I’m planning on being there from about 2-3ish, and I will also be taking Mike Jeffreys a copy of my story called The Fridge as we discussed it briefly this morning.
End Update
October 3rd, 2005 at 11:59pm
This is just something I’ve noticed lately, it would appear that government cars are immune from road rules, and the people driving them are free to drive in whatever manner they like.
This morning, for example, while I was taking Nattie for a walk, a government car went by, the driver was using a hand-held mobile phone and drove straight past a police car, the police weren’t in the least bit interested.
I have some friends who work for the government and have made use of government cars from time-to-time, and some of the stories I have heard are quite amazing. I feel compelled to share one of these stories with you.
This apparently took place on the Tuggeranong Parkway (for those of you who are not familiar with Canberra’s roads, the Tuggeranong Parkway is a long road with a speed limit of 100 km/h). A number of people I know were travelling in a government car which was travelling at 110km/h or more, there was a police car beside them, they waved to the police who simply waved back and then sped off with no use of lights or siren. Not only does this show just how much government cars are able to get away with, it also shows the general lack of observence of road rules that the police also seem to participate in. (This may also be the only known case of Government cars having more than one person in them at a time in the history of mankind…excluding politicians chauffeur services).
I find it mildly amusing that the police can produce press release after press release informing us that we all need to slow down and adhere to the road rules when they don’t do it themselves, and nor do they attempt to enforce the rules equally.
Despite what they may think, the road rules are there for all road users, not just private vehicles.
I suppose this raises an interesting question, if a government car gets booked, who pays the fine? The person driving it or the government?
In my view it should be the person driving it, although I think you will find it is often the government who end up paying the fine, and it is therefore fairly obvious why the police don’t bother to enforce the road rules when it comes to government cars…it isn’t going to have any effect on the driver, and the money from the fine would just go in a little circle…from the government to the government.
For some reason I am reminded of a time when I was on a bus on Antill Street in Dickson, I can be pretty sure that the bus wasn’t speeding, but it was going faster than the car in the left-hand lane…so the driver of the car starts hurling abuse at the bus driver, informing him that he should slow down and that he was an f***ing idiot, to which the bus driver replied “have a nice day”. It is interesting to note here that the car driver had to travel at a higher speed than the bus to catch up with it, and yet it was the bus driver who should slow down….anybody else see the problem here?
Anyway, back to government cars. In my view they should be treated just like any other vehicle on the road (with the obvious exception of emergency vehicles in emergency situations) and it should be the driver’s responsibility to pay for any infringement notices they may recieve.
Samuel
September 30th, 2005 at 01:03pm
My school term bus ticket arrived in the mail yesterday, but this one appears to have come from a stockpile of tickets, which is much different to the last two term tickets I have received, which were somewhat sequential.
The term two bus ticket had serial number 05 -270704- 02522
The term three bus ticket had serial number 05 -270704- 04819
The term four bus ticket has a very different serial number 05-100505-00946
Unlike the other tickets, this one appears to have had the words “Term Ticket” stamped on it.
I could make astronomical assumptions and calculations about the number of ticket sales, but the serial numbers are so different that I think this latest one is from an entirely different series of tickets.
Samuel
September 28th, 2005 at 01:35pm
It has often been said (usually to me) that 2CC has too many Mikes and Johns and that it must be an employment condition…to these people I am now able to inform you that 2CC have added a new employment condition. 2CC are now filled with “Classic Aussies” who go on tour with the Kingswood which 2CC are giving away to celebrate their 30th birthday.
Mike Frame is commonly regarded as both a Mike and a Classic Aussie, but today a new Classic Aussie emerged, Kevin Wolf, Kevin is not a Mike or a John, but does talk about sport an awful lot, which seems to make him a Classic Aussie. I am reliably informed that there may be more on the way (more Classic Aussies that is, not more Kevins…not that it would be a bad thing)…we will just have to wait and see.
Samuel
September 22nd, 2005 at 07:41pm
Today from midday to 2pm something unusual occured on 2CC, a local afternoon show hosted by Mike Frame.
I must say, I enjoyed Mike Frame’s show, and not being a huge fan of John Mangos, I found this show to be quite refreshing, and in fact just the way I would run an afternoon show, plenty of light banter and some good music too. Mike Frame had to go to Kippax, so the Drive show with Mike Welsh was extended by one hour so that it started at 2pm rather than 3pm.
I enjoy John Stanley’s show, but I’m not a fan of John Mangos…he doesn’t exactly sound awake to me, or interested in his show. I would be very pleased to have Mike Frame fill in for John Stanley while he is on holidays, unfortunately though i think it was for one day only, as I am led to believe this may have been the result of 2UE upgrades….which reminds me, I’m still waiting for some photos of the new 2UE studios….must contact that person again.
Still, Afternoons with Mike Frame sounds like a good idea to me!
Samuel
September 14th, 2005 at 02:51pm
Today was the day when the ACT Government sent the motorised tractor based lawnmower to the median strip on the major road near me. It’s a semi-regular occurence, and it has to happen, but at 8:30am? In the middle of peak hour?
That road is busy enough, and for a pedestrian trying to cross it, there are some safety issues. I personally use the median strip to assist in crossing that road as it is much easier, quicker and safer than using the footpaths. I cross one side of the road onto the median strip and then cross the road the goes across the major road onto more median strip and then cross the other side of the major road to my bus stop. This makes dealing with the traffic much easier as I only have to deal with one oncoming direction at a time and don’t have to worry about who might turn the corner without indicating. Here is a map to make it a bit easier to understand my journey.
The lawnmowers add an extra dimension of difficulty to this journey as they tend to act as if they own the grass, and anything on it is part of the grass and needs a good mowing. The exception to this is small children and the elderly, everyone else gets to run for their life.
I can understand street sweepers attending major roads at 5am and suburban roads during business hours, I can understand CityScape Services cleaning civic at 5am, I can understand commercial lawn and garden businesses doing their work during business hours, but I fail to understand why the government insist on sending large uncourteous lawn mowing tractors onto busy median strips in the middle of busy roads during peak hour. They are a menace, and they scare the oncoming motorists when they approach the road.
We have traditional business hours of 9am-5pm, so why can’t the government employ people for those hours unless the live in an office?
Beats me…
Samuel
September 14th, 2005 at 11:43am
For those of you who don’t know (and that would be everyone who hasn’t been to Dickson College), the Majura Cafe is a “most tuesday lunchtimes” cafe run by the hospitality students. It presents itself as a standard commercial cafe with that style of food and service (although the service is slightly more towards the restuarant style of service than the lunchtime cafe service). I have often thought about going, and last week on Tuesday I decided to try it out, and these were my findings.
On previous occasions I have heard of people booking tables for this cafe, so when I arrived I checked if I had needed to make a booking and was informed that I didn’t, and that I could take any seat I wanted. I decided to sit outside in a sunny spot. After I sat down, two other people asked if they could sit at the table I was sitting at, to which I gracefully agreed and a conversation began.
A waiter came and attended to the table and asked for our orders. It was a difficult decision, but I eventually settled on a quiche and a cappaccino (the quiche was the difficult decision). After this another waiter brought out a vase filled with water, I’m sure there is a better and more appropriate word, but vase is what I’m calling it.
After a little while, and at about the point in time where I was starting to wonder when the food would arrive, the food arrived. My quiche was served with an overly generous serving of slightly less than fresh salad. The cherry tomatoes were nice and fresh, but the salad was a bit dry, and there was far too much of it. I suspect they wanted to fill the plate, I suggest they get smaller plates.
Onto the quiche, it was interesting, it had a very nice crusty pastry, but the quiche itself wasn’t quite right, they had the right idea, but something went wrong. The quiche wasn’t fluffy, quiche is supposed to be at least partially fluffy, but this was solid, and didn’t have the right consistency, apart from which they used the wrong cheese, it overpowered everything else, which was unfortunate as everything else seemed to be just right.
While I was eating, I was starting to wonder when the drinks would arrive, and the discussion at the table turned to “I wonder if he wrote down the drinks?”, at this exact moment the drinks arrived, and I must say the coffee was excellent. This has to be one of the best cups of coffee I have ever had, smooth and consistent, and even the froth was just right. I was rather suprised by the coffee, as it takes a lot of practice to get coffee right, and everyone has a different version of “right”, but the hospitality students appear to have perfected the art of coffee making, and the Majura Cafe is worth visiting just for it’s coffee.
The atmosphere is interesting, inside they have a room with tables and chairs which is rather attractive, outside they have a nice little alfresco dining area which is also quite attractive, the path between these two places is where the payment desk (for lack of a better description) is placed as well as the door through to the kitchen. The whole area seems quite nice, and if you forget that you are in the middle of a school you can almost imagine it being a real public cafe in Dickson or Manuka.
There are two things however that need some improvement. One is the payment desk area, this lacks the ambience of the other areas…a couple fake plants would fix that, and secondly the noise from the kitchen, I’m all for kitchen noises, they make one feel as if the food is being prepared in a mystical and wonderful manner, what I don’t like, however, is yelling and screaming. When I am sitting outside I really don’t need to be able to hear the senior kitchen staff yelling instructions to the other side of the large kitchen, especially when they have rather piercing voices. Please keep your voices down or close the doors and windows when embarking on yellathons in the kitchen.
All in all, the Majura Cafe is well worth a visit, many staff and students at Dickson College regularly attend it, and I can understand why. Perhaps next time I will try something a little less ambitious than the quiche, something which doesn’t require as much specialised skill, as I believe fluffy quiches are a highly specialised skill.
The Majura Cafe does, however, make excellent coffee, and the pricing is very reasonable (I think my lunch was around the six dollar mark, I can’t quite recall), and I would be delighted to recommend them to anybody who is willing to try something slightly different.
As far as I can tell, the Majura Cafe has not been reviewed before (Google doesn’t seem to think so), so I am proud to be the first.
The Majura Cafe runs most Tuesdays during the school term and is located in the hospitality building at Dickson College, phone (02) 6205 6455 for more details.
Samuel
September 14th, 2005 at 12:42am
You may recall that a few weeks ago I gave City News the title of “Worst Newspaper In The Country” and that part of my criticism related to their anonymous editorial “by some anonymous person calling themselves “The Whip”, who…provides a fairly generic semi-relevant rubbishing of the news.”
I picked up City News when it arrived today and had a flick through, and was suprised to find an editorial by somebody with a name, Catherine Lumby to be precise. I decided that it would be worthwhile having a read of this new editorial, and was sadly disappointed.
I was expecting something with some relevance to the current world situation, instead I found myself enduring her writing an essay about her view of the definition of sexual harrassment, and then found that the entire thing had just been lifted from Crikey.com.au.
It reminded me to some extent of those columns you tend to see near the editorial and letters to the editor in a real newspaper, except that those tend to have some relevance to the news in the paper. At least those aren’t lifted from a website.
Perhaps City News would be better off calling it a “column” rather than an “editorial” as the term “editorial” in a newspaper indicates that the column is written by one of the editors and is related to the news. A “column” on the other hand is an opinion peice that doesn’t necessarily relate to anything, but usually relates to the news.
I suppose City News could just call it “Crikey Corner”.
If you want to read Ms. Lumby’s ramblings, it is currently available on the City News website and probably more permanantly on crikey.com.au.
Samuel
September 10th, 2005 at 10:35pm
In the circus of my life, alarm clock accidents can be minor disasters, making me late for various things, and in general, causing chaos. However after my latest alarm clock accident this morning I heard on the news that somebody else had a far worse alarm clock accident.
An air traffic controller at Canberra Airport slept in, effectively leaving Canberra Airport without an air traffic controller, and a rather worried Qantas flight circling, the pilots must have been very concerned as they wouldn’t have been able to make contact with the airport.
I would have thought that common sense tells you to have more than one air traffic controller scheduled at any given time…but this is little Canberra and I do have a category devoted to idiots…well done Canberra Airport.
Somebody from Canberra Airport did say that it was “unacceptable” and that they would make sure they had at least two air traffic controllers scheduled at any given time from now on, but it seems strange that they didn’t think of it in the first place.
Samuel
September 1st, 2005 at 07:13pm
I’ve held this story for a week now because I had far too many other important stories to run, and then forgot to run this one, so here it is.
Last week while I was choosing potatoes in City Supabarn I noticed a pair of people, aged around 13 or 14, taking note of the prices of various produce items and comparing them to prices at other stores around Canberra.
If this was a school assignment then that is fine, but the paperwork they were filling out seemed to be just a bit too professional for a school assignment, apart from which, I can’t imagine why a school assignment would have students comparing prices of onions, bananas, types of meat and other products. Even the most elaborate maths assignment doesn’t require that much leg work. Apart from which, it is hard to imagine a teacher realistically expecting year 7/8 students to go into multiple supermarkets in Canberra (and some of the names I heard were from fairly remote suburbs…relative to Civic) and complete those forms.
I would suggest that it was probably a job that they were being paid to undertake, either by a research company, an industry regulator, or a competing supermarket.
I did try to get a closer look at their forms by inspecting (and choosing) items near them, but I couldn’t get a clear look.
Regardless of what they were doing it for, it certainly breaks the old stereotype of the price checker being the well dressed man in a suit holding a clipboard and squinting at the price tags.
Samuel
August 28th, 2005 at 07:53pm
I love stories I can tie in with previous posts!
You may recall that a couple weeks ago I declared that City News is the worst newspaper in the country, and then regular commenter John B1_B5 noticed that they were using a picture containing some unknown model to promote a theatrical presentation (albeit supplied by The Canberra Theatre Company and not checked by City News).
Well this week they have a picture on the cover of “The Canberra Review” which promotes a new presentation of Romeo & Juliet and others by the Russian Ballet (you may recall from a previous post that some of this will be “the most captivating and sensual nude scenes ever”). On this occasion they appear to have the picture correct, which suggests to me that The Canberra Theatre took notice of John B1_B5’s phone call and/or City News want to retain at least one shred of credibility.
The real estate section, “City Property” is interesting this week. A quarter page ad semi-formatted as an article on page two, a quarter page article on page 16, an almost half page opinion piece on page 17…and the rest? You guessed it…Ads!
August 27th, 2005 at 06:37pm
Next Posts
Previous Posts
