The locksmith came on Saturday and fitted shiny new locks, gleefully pointing out the deficiencies of the old ones.
Then, with the benefit of a small metal tool from his locksmith’s opened the filing cabinet with the lost key, which took all of 2 seconds.
Remembrance Day at Flinders Street Station, 11am this morning.
Two police stop the traffic. The crowd stops moving, and grows silent. A bugler plays The Last Post. A minute’s silence. Then the Rouse. A simple, yet moving commemoration for the war dead.
Sometimes I find Friday’s casual day a stress. I find normal weekdays easier — any idiot can look half-decent in an expensive suit.
(Have I told you about my suit? It’s really nice. It was pricey though. It’s so expensive that it doesn’t have a pocket for small change. The makers must have presumed it would be worn by kings and presidents, who never have to carry money.)
I thought I had it figured out: that right balance of casual dress without looking slobby. But this day last week, I had a meeting with people I didn’t know, which complicated things further. I thought something a little more formal was required.
I should have just grabbed my work gear but left the tie behind. Or done my usual Friday thing and worn my nice stripey (horizontal) top with jeans and sneakers.
But no. Out came the stripey (vertical) shirt (aka The Party Shirt). The cotton pants. Put them on. And plain black shoes.
I looked in the mirror. Hmmmmmm. Shoes not really working.
Let’s just throw in a looming deadline, too. The 8:06 and 8:17 express trains are ideal. They stop only three times before reaching the city. If I miss the 8:17, the next is the 8:31, stopping all stations, which reaches the city 21 minutes after the 8:17 does. So I was keen to save those 21 minutes, and get the 8:17, particularly since I knew I had to nip out of work for something else during the day.
I switched the black shoes to the (shudder) old brown shoes. Then, at 8:06 (the station is ten minutes’ walk away), I grabbed my Myer’s bag full of stuff (which is used to avoid having to carry a briefcase home on Friday nights) and headed out the door to catch the 8:17.
I waltzed off down the street. But something was troubling me. I looked down. Ooh. These trousers just weren’t working. They must have looked better on the rack. Maybe they should be worn with the Birkenstocks, lazing about the house or something. But not with Real Shoes.
In my mind I could hear Wallace, frantically calling: “It’s the wrong trousers! The wrong trousers! Stop them, Gromit!”
A U-turn back down the street, into the house. Found my black-blue jeans. On. Bolted out of the house. I glanced at the time. 8:11.
I sprinted down the road and just made the 8:17 (a minute or two late). Out of breath, sweating, but made it.
The train quickly spirited me to Parliament, as I read my newspaper and pondered if any of my neighbours had seen me depart the house twice in the space of five minutes, wearing different pants.
Off the train, I walked down Collins Street to work, rather self-consciously wondering how I was looking, in my jeans, old brown shoes and the Party Shirt sticking out. I’ve been told by She Who Knows that such a shirt must never, ever be tucked-in. The problem is the Party Shirt is kind of big and long and billowy. When I’m walking it looks a bit like a pregnant lady’s shirt. I’m probably better suited to a shorter, slimmer shirt.
I looked at my fellow CBD-dwellers, at least those who were male, between 20 and 50 and wearing casual clothes. He’s got cotton pants. They look okay. He’s got old brown shoes too. Oh dear, maybe not so good. Damn, look at him, he’s got sneakers. That could have worked. Oh, him — he looks fine. Sticking out slim shirt. Sneakers. Hey, he has a Myer bag with his stuff in it too!
Today, I’ll try and do better.
(Edited to clarify this describes last week.)
It’s almost two weeks since I moved. When they were shifting the filing cabinet, the movers handed me the key for safe keeping. I put it somewhere safe.
So safe than I still can’t find it.
All the papers I immaculately filed over the past few weeks are locked away where I can’t get at them. Sigh.
Tony reckons one can open a filing cabinet easily with a plastic ruler — he’s seen it — though he doesn’t know enough about it to give me detailed instructions. Google offers as much information at Tony on this. I’ve done much fiddling with a ruler, poking it around in the gap, but had no luck.
Thankfully I’ve got a locksmith coming on Saturday anyway for something else. He says he can open it.
I’ll be interested to see if he uses a plastic ruler.
This is one of the silliest things I’ve seen in quite some time…
At my very rough estimate, the signs are about 20 metres apart. By my (admittedly sometimes dodgey) maths, driving at 40kmh you’d cover that ground in 1.8 seconds.
(10 points to whoever guesses where it is.)
When I moved, I rang up the phone company to get my new number, which like the old one, is silent, to dodge telemarketers. I also asked if it was a fresh, unused number, and the operator said it hadn’t been used in five years. Excellent.
And to avoid telemarketing calls, I’ve started quoting a 7010-xxxx number if any company demands my home phone number when I think they have no good reason for having it. ‘Cos it’s not like banks, airlines, charities or newspaper/magazine subscription people ever ring you up to tell you something important. No, it’s always marketing. When it’s something important they write you a letter instead.
Why 7010-xxxx? In the 03 region, 7010-xxxx is allocated for use in works of fiction. So it should get past any pesky data validation that these companies have. And they can ring the fictional Daniel.
The only people I want ringing me at home are those friends and family members I’ve given my number to.
That’s the theory. But alas, a few days after moving: *ring ring* The display said it was from an Out Of Area number.
I picked it up. Silence for a few seconds. I should have known to hang up.
“Is Mr Van Ferdinand there?”, a subcontinental voice asked.
Sigh. “No, you have a wrong number”, I replied, not giving anything about my name away.
She apologised for having out of date data (very out of date if this number was last used five years ago), then said she’d talk to me instead, and without taking a breath started to tell me about how wonderful Optus is.
At the first opportunity I got to get a word in edgeways, I said rapidly “I’m not interested, thank you, goodbye” and hung up.
It would seem I haven’t quite avoided them.
(Updated Sunday, and Monday)
The Age has launched a major series of articles about the public transport system. Well worth reading. I (and the PTUA) don’t necessarily totally agree with the myriad of points of view expressed, but it’s good to see this debate getting the attention it deserves, which will hopefully convince the government to do something.
While a third of Melbourne has usable (but crowded and slow) public transport, two-thirds do not, so it’s no wonder they’re not using it. The government claim to have already spent up big on improving the system, but market share isn’t moving markedly, so it’s obviously been mis-spent.
The story has also had TV (channels 2, 7 and 9 on Saturday; channel 10 on Monday) and radio coverage.
I know there’s plenty of people out there who want to see an improvement. Now is the time to make some noise. Approach your local MP; write a letter to the local or metro papers. Get in there now while it’s topical.
Wednesday night’s trip home wasn’t particularly pleasant, with many trains running late, and lots more cancelled — three in a row for my station, in fact. Lots of waiting around and sardine-like conditions.
But that’s nothing compared to Thursday morning, when storms caused a signal failure at Caulfield knocked out trains completely for about 90 minutes during peak hour.
And it’s not the first time this kind of thing has happened, either. In February there were massive (bigger) disruptions due to storm damage, which was described at the time as a “once in a hundred years”. Apparently not.
With no movement on upgrading signalling system protection (how hard is it to make something lightning-proof, anyway — conductors and surge protection aren’t exactly rocket-science) and back-up systems, and two-thirds of new transport money going on roads, you can bet it’ll keep happening.