Recycled tissues are back
I wrote in December that recycled tissues had disappeared from the supermarket shelves.
I did find an email contact for ABC Tissues (who make the Naturale brand) — they told me to expect their recycled tissues back into Woolworths/Safeway stores soon, in a new packaging.
Last week Flerdle commented that they’d been spotted in Brunswick. I still haven’t seen them in my local though.
But yesterday I happened to explore the new Carnegie Central shopping centre, which has a shiny new Woolworths supermarket. (Yes, the changeover from Safeway has officially started. It’s odd though, having a new store so close to the existing Carnegie Safeway, which is still open.)
And they had the tissues in stock.
Mind you in the mean time I’d made an effort to use hankies more than tissues, to help my depleted stocks last a bit longer. I hope/suspect the energy involved in keeping the hankies clean is less than it takes to produce the recycled tissues.
Still, it’s good to have the tissues available again, as I just can’t see the sense in chopping down trees to put my snot on.
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Enterprize
Whatever the reason, sometimes it’s great to try something new. The idea for this one came from noting the kids getting hooked on Star Trek.
Yesterday we headed out for an hour-long sail around the bay on the Enterprize, the replica of the 1829 schooner that brought some of Melbourne’s first settlers from Tasmania.
If you saw it launching from Gem Pier at Williamstown, you might be fooled into thinking this replica was diesel powered. But they only use the engine for the few hundred metres close to the pier — once we were well clear, the engine went off, and the sails went up.
Part of what made it really enjoyable was the crew wasn’t shy at asking the passengers to help. We all helped pull some ropes to get the sails up and secured, and a bit later on they enticed myself and then Marita to climb up the rigging. Obviously we had one of those namby-pamby safety harnesses.
The weather was gorgeous, the bay not too choppy, the view terrific, and it was truly wondrous to be moving along powered by nothing by the wind.
The cramped quarters down below and all the work the crew did gave a real taste of what life at sea might have been like in the 1800s — well, in nice weather, anyway.
After an hour we arrived back at Gem Pier, plenty of people watching from the pier. They really didn’t know what they missed, it was one of the best $50 (for the four of us) I’ve ever spent. I can’t recommend it enough.
- Enterprize web site, including sailing schedule and other details
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Pair of morons
What are the odds? Within five minutes of each other last night, I spotted two drivers yakking away on their phones as they drove down the street, both with personalised licence plates.
So, TOOZ and COURTZ… you’re a pair of morons.
Speaking of personalised number plates, why would you choose the plate MAGGOT?
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Tuesday afternoon
She looked about twenty. She sounded upset on the phone. She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, and her phone battery was running out. The heat in the tram was stifling. She hung up and started to sob. Then she collapsed.
She mostly fell downwards, and didn’t seem to bump her head. A couple of people helped her sit up, someone with first aid knowledge told her to sit with her head between her knees. Someone else called out for water. From somewhere in the crowd a bottle was handed to me, and I held it in front of her so she could drink from it.
We were packed into the 67 tram like the proverbial sardines. Apart from a mass of heat-related train cancellations, the Sandringham line had been suspended, apparently due to a disturbed man at Balaclava station threatening to jump from the bridge, and hundreds of railway refugees had crowded into the Swanston Street tram stop to look for other ways home. Just my luck to be on that line that night. Inevitably the first 67 tram that came was a Z-class — for the non-gunzels that means short, and in this weather, hot — and people headed to Balaclava and all stations beyond tried to cram on. It was further down St Kilda Road that the girl fainted.
She seemed almost apologetic, but we urged her to stay calm, to drink the water and take it easy. It was too crowded to get a message to the tram driver, and we kept on rolling down the street, stopping at what seemed like every single traffic light.
We talked to her, worked out where she was going. She made another phone call. Elsternwick. Yes, this tram goes to Elsternwick. Glenhuntly Road — a hotel? Yes, we go right past the Elsternwick Hotel. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to get out and sit and wait for a less crowded tram? No, she was in a hurry. It’s about twenty minutes. … Ten minutes … Almost there … This is your stop. Thank you. You’re welcome — hope your evening improves.
I went a couple more stops, to Elsternwick station, where trains were running further south. I’d been delayed by perhaps 30-40 minutes, but it could have been much worse.
…
So what are the root causes here?
Acting Premier Rob Hulls demanded an explanation. The short version is that the fleet and infrastructure aren’t designed to handle Melbourne’s hottest days. And it’s the government’s responsibility to upgrade it.
The Comeng trains (which accounts for more than half of the total train fleet) has air-conditioning which overloads on hot days. They’ve always been like that. Despite the fact they were all upgraded in the last few years, nobody thought to upgrade the air-con.
Some of the track on the rail network is susceptible to heat, resulting in speed restrictions, and unlike in Perth there seems to be no proactive work to prevent it.
And the incident at Balaclava? Probably unavoidable, but why do the contingency plans take so long to get under way, and why are the alternative routes often so poor — with trams and buses inevitably stuck in traffic (evidently the Roads Minister doesn’t yet quite grasp that tram/bus priority should mean the trams and buses get priority over cars), and most bus routes infrequent and not shown on most maps?
Melbourne depends on the public transport network to move hundreds of thousands of people a day. Sure, problems happen, but it shouldn’t fall apart when the weather gets hot. The system has to be better.
PS. Channel 9 story
Connex fined over train cancellations
Updated 17/3/2009: Added missing words “than half” in the sentence about the Comeng fleet.
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Harbourtown
Went with the kids last week to look around Harbourtown, the new bit of Docklands which has the big wheel in it.
Much of Harbourtown is looking a bit basic at the moment. The shopping centre is open, but half the shops aren’t, and some are obviously still getting stock in… the EB Games had big Sale tables with nothing on them.
Still, no doubt over time it’ll take off, with yet more places to part with your money.
We didn’t go on the Wheel itself, but if you think it looks impressive from afar, it’s doubly-so from below.
What interested me is the streetscape within that area of Docklands. It seems like someone’s learnt from the mistakes made at Southbank — which has wide boulevards which encourage lots of through-traffic and make the place unfriendly to pedestrians, and subsequently quite sterile. In contrast, here we found the main street in has one lane of traffic each way, plus segregated tram lanes. Even with few shops open, it was clearly more ped friendly, and through-traffic is kept at a distance, over on Footscray Road.
Given time hopefully the empty lots now being used as carparks will disappear to be replaced with buildings that are actually useful and attract visitors.
We caught a 48 tram back into the CBD, accompanied by a talkative tram driver on the PA doing the full tour guide bit, highlighting such public artworks as the cow up a tree, which makes me think I should do a re-visit to The Grooviest Thing in Melbourne.
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Who are you?
When I was younger I used to focus on a fairly narrow range of music, heavily influenced by what my peers had introduced me to.
One day circa 1988 Raoul brought over a VHS tape of some band he liked called The Who. It was a compilation called Who’s Better Who’s Best. I remember I sat and watched and was particularly awestruck by the final song on the tape: Won’t Get Fooled Again.
At the end, the lasers swirl around, the keyboard goes mad, Moon goes crazy on the drums, Townshend leaps through the air with his guitar ready to play the final notes, and Daltrey lets out a guttural scream of rage before sounding the warning to all of us: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Those of us who are miffed at Rudd’s position on climate change would do well to remember that.
(Still from the multi-angle feature from the movie “The Kids Are Alright” Special Edition DVD)
I subsequently bought the CD of the same name, and it went on high rotation. At the time a lot of my meagre income went on CDs, and I started buying up their albums as I found them. At the time, many weren’t generally available… I ended up with an imported copies of some.
By about the mid-90s I had just about everything there was to be had, and knew most of the songs off-by-heart. I ended up writing a spoof of The Who’s rock opera Tommy, called Pommy for the then-fledgling Toxic Custard list, based on the pretend heavy metal band Megabogue, an idea of Raoul’s from years before.
I look around at the poverty-stricken nation
Take a walk to the Army of Salvation
Smile and grin at the free food all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like Brian May
Then I get on my knees and pray..
We don’t get soup again!
At uni, some of my friends had similarly one-track minds when it came to music: Brian S was (and still is) a rabid Church fan; Peter B was known for loving Queen. The other one in our tight-knit group, Stuart H, to his credit, seemed to have a much wider musical taste, as I recall it.
My tastes eventually got wider too, and while my CD collection has pretty much stopped growing these days, the music in it is much more diverse. But while some older CDs have been cleared out, all of those Who discs are still in it — towards the end of the A-Z sorted shelves, you’ll find an awful lot of Ws.
Given they’re a band that peaked in the early-70s, and two of the original quartet have passed on, one could certainly argue that they’re past it. Over the years I played the discs less and less.
Then came September 11th, 2001.
Out of the terrorist attacks, came the Concert for New York City. I caught some of it on late-night TV. The Who performed four songs to an emotional crowd of NYC police and fire-fighters and their families. It got me all enthused again. Okay, so they were past their peak, but still rocking.
To my surprise, those songs are still ingrained in my brain. Who Are You, Baba O’Riley, Behind Blue Eyes, and Won’t Get Fooled Again.
They did play here in 2004, but I didn’t feel inclined to go. It was after bassist John Entwistle had died, and as Raoul commented at the time, “Who’s left?”
But I still love the music.
In March this year however they’re playing the Grand Prix. And this time around, I thought bugger it, I’m going.
$99 for general admission, with Grand Prix admission included. Not that I’m that interested in car racing.
Then I saw premium tickets were available, at slightly exorbitant prices. And I thought bugger it, if I’m going, and realistically this may be the only time I’ll ever see them live, I’m going to do it properly.
So I splurged. $175 for a guaranteed spot near the front. A Christmas treat to myself.
It’s certainly the most expensive single concert ticket I’ve ever bought. I’m looking forward to it. I expect to go hoarse singing along.
Tags: music, The Who, World Trade Center
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Easter Saturday
Apparently, officially, Easter Saturday is now called “The Saturday before Easter Sunday”.
That’s really not a very catchy name.
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On the phone
Dear TZO 421: If you have one hand holding a cigarette, and the other holding a mobile phone, how do you expect to be able to drive your car properly?
It’s astounding how many people drive along holding a phone to their ears. So stupid.
A couple of times earlier this century I tried having conversations with people while talking on a hands-free mobile phone. I quickly discovered that hands-free or not, it’s too distracting.
It didn’t amount to anything dangerous, but it was clear that for me, talking on the phone is way more distracting than listening to the radio, or talking to someone in the car, and the potential is there.
And so since then I have not used the mobile while driving, not at all. If I’m desperate to answer, I’ll pull over and do so; otherwise calls go to the voicemail.
(Well okay, I might look at a text when completely stopped at traffic lights, though I suspect that is technically illegal.)
Evidently you can’t report offenders like you can for littering, but you can have a whinge via the Rate The Plate web site.
Update 14/1/2009 America’s National Safety Council has called for an all-out ban on using mobile phones while driving, following studies that show hands-free phones pose as much danger as hand-held ones. — The Age: Drivers hold to hands-free phones
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