• Del Amitri — Be My Downfall
• Jellyfish — I Wanna Stay Home
• Weddings Parties Anything — Roaring Days
• Ocean Colour Scene — Mechanical
• Paul Kelly — Love Never Runs On Time
• Corduroy — Mini
• Loudon Wainwright III — Grey In L.A.
• Weddings Parties Anything — Under The Clocks
• Jimi Hendrix — Hear My Train A Comin’
• The Beatles — One After 909
• Billy Bragg — Upfield
• The Badloves — Green Limousine
• The Who — 5:15
• The Beatles — Magical Mystery Tour
• Paul Kelly — Last Train To Heaven
• Queen — Bicycle Race
• The Who — Magic Bus
• Del Amitri — Sometimes I Just Have To Say Your Name
• Hoodoo Gurus — 1000 Miles Away
• Jimi Hendrix — Crosstown Traffic
• The Beatles — Ticket To Ride
• Billy Bragg — A13, Trunk Road To The Sea
• Jimi Hendrix — Day Tripper
• Lenny Kravitz — Mr. Cab Driver
• Paul Kelly — From St Kilda To King’s Cross
• Powderfinger — Passenger
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers — Runaway Trains
• Traveling Wilburys — End Of The Line
• Oasis — D’You Know What I Mean?
• Missy Higgins — Don’t Ever
• Urthboy — We Get Around
• Spiderbait — By the Time I Get to Howlong

And once that’s been answered, what others should I seek out and add?

Even worse, in parts of Koornang Road in Carnegie, two parts of the route run together.

To illustrate the problem, take a look at these two pictures, of bus stop signs on each side of Koornang Road near the corner of Oakleigh Road:

How would you know which bus stop to wait at, if you wanted to go to Brighton East, Elsternwick, or Chadstone?

It’s so dumbfoundingly confusing that they actually got the signs wrong.

The sign on the right is at the southbound stop, and despite what it says neither bus from there goes via Chadstone.

The sign on the left is at the northbound stop, and what it should say is that both buses from that spot go via Chadstone. After that they loop around and come back past here (southbound), to their final destinations.

(Admittedly these pics were taken in 2007; the signs may have been fixed by now — I haven’t checked.)

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

Last year I noted that the route map had actually been made more confusing, and that if the Metropolitan Bus Service Reviews couldn’t fix the route, they’d have failed miserably.

Well, the Review has been completed, and the final recommendations are out. It’s a little underwhelming, but among the changes they’re going to implement is the splitting of the 627 into two routes:

• 625 from Elsternwick via Oakleigh to Chadstone
• 626 from Chadstone via Carnegie to Middle Brighton

The southern end of the route is being extended from the middle of nowhere in East Brighton to Middle Brighton station, and the hours of the route will also be extended — though it’ll still be only half-hourly on weekdays, hourly on weekends.

So there you go. They may not be giving all of Melbourne a grid of frequent public transport services, filling in the gaps between the trams and trains with Smartbuses — you know, a public transport network someone can actually use by choice instead of a car to get places — but at least they’ve fixed this particular problem.

What is not clear is how many of the other recommendations of the review are actually getting implemented. The Department makes you ask to see the full review report, rather than just publishing it on their web site so you can see if for yourself against what’s being implemented. Sneaky, huh? I’ve asked for a copy, but it hasn’t arrived yet.

I’ll put my view, how I feel about it, then you discuss. Agree or disagree. Like always.

There’s no manual for this, and every situation is different, of course, so inevitably this will be a generalisation:

I think there are two reasons to go to a funeral.

1. You knew the deceased. Family or friend or acquaintance or colleague. You want to go and grieve for them/celebrate their life.

and/or

2. You know one or more of the bereaved very well, you are a good friend, and you want to support them.

Edit: Just to be clear, the rest of the text is about point 2.

How well should you know them? I think if you’re a good friend, or a close colleague, or you’ve known them a long time, then it’s appropriate, you should consider going.

But something I’ve noticed in a couple of cases recently, is people who work with a bereaved person, but don’t socialise with them (so they’re not a “friend”), have no strong personal link with the family, and didn’t know the deceased… being keen to attend.

I think this is inappropriate.

It’s absolutely important to show empathy, it’s important to listen, it’s important to act sensitively, it’s important to help where you can.

But to go to the funeral where you don’t know the person who has passed away, and you don’t know any of the bereaved very well?

I think no, you shouldn’t go. Give them some space to grieve.

And this is my main point: A funeral is an extremely personal and emotional event, and the bereaved people are at their most vulnerable.

They should be in a place where they can feel free to let their emotions out, as much as they want, without embarrassment or constraint, without any self-consciousness because of people they know, but don’t know very well, being there.

So I think, if you’re not close to the deceased or the bereaved, don’t go. Send some flowers instead. Or a donation to the designated charity. Or a card. Or a message of condolence.

Like I said, this is a generalisation, perhaps a bit black and white, but it’s how I’m feeling right now.

Agree? Disagree? Are there exceptions? Arguments for or against? What do you think?

PS. I should note that at my Dad’s funeral, I was not personally bugged by the presence of any other attendees, nor was I self-conscious at all, and did not feel constrained, which I think made the whole event very therapeutic for me.

ABC News 24 was the first HD-only channel.

There’s more on the way: Channel 7′s offering aimed at the male demographic “7-Mate” will also be HD-only.

Channel 10′s new “Eleven” will be SD, but it will replace the SD version of their sports channel “One”.

There are rumours Channel 9 will launch a new channel next year, and inevitably that’ll be HD-only, given they have to continue to broadcast their main channel in SD.

Time, perhaps, for those of you with no HD tuner to look into upgrading.

How many channels?

Once the commercial networks launch their third channels, by my calculations we’ll almost be at capacity, with 15, though it’s unclear to me if SBS has the right to put up any more channels.

Certainly things have grown since just a few years ago when there were 6 (analogue) channels: ABC, 7, 9, 10, SBS and Channel 31.

Note the graph is not linear. Based on some stuff from Wikipedia, counting distinct programming, and main channels only, not things like channels displaying TV guides, which were used at one time last decade. I may have missed a few minor and temporary ones, like that 3D test channel that ran for a while this year. That bump in 2001-03 was the ABC’s initial extra channels FlyTV and ABC Kids, both of which got canned.

Ian, an Englishman used to the old UK channel numbering of BBC1, BBC2, ITV (implied “3″), Channel 4, Channel 5 etc, once remarked to me that when they first discovered Australia had a “Channel 10″, they wondered if we also had channels 1 to 9. We didn’t of course, but now we do, though they’re not all numbered like that. (In the mean time of course, the UK has also expanded its channel range via digital… and interestingly, the BBC’s “CBeebies” and “CBBC” are similar to the ABC2 and ABC3 daytime children target demographics.

How many people are watching what?

Here’s some figures from OzTam, Melbourne between 6am and midnight, for all homes and including cable TV share:

• Seven   20.00%
• Nine   18.20%
• Ten   15.80%
• ABC1   10.50%
• GO!   3.90%
• ABC2   3.40%
• 7TWO   3.10%
• SBS1   2.80%
• ABC3   1.30%
• One   1.20%
• ABC News 24   0.80%
• SBS2   0.50%
• All cable channels   18.50%

ABC News 24

Despite glitches like those that affected Sunday night’s repeat of Insiders (where it started late, accidently switched to Inside Business for a mistaken minute or two, then flicked back but was cut short just as Barrie Cassidy made an interesting point), I’m very much enjoying ABC News 24.

This interesting piece highlights something that hadn’t occurred to me: because it covers major press conferences live and unedited, it’s proving a boon for niche journalists, such as the tech press, who are covering the debate over broadband, as they can’t afford to physically be at these press conferences, but can listen in via the TV coverage. And of course their readers, who can also watch the coverage for themselves.

The other day while opening the dishwasher, a “sproing” sound was heard, and now the door’s springy thing doesn’t work — that is, once open, it just drops down to horizontal with gravity, rather than a gentle drop or springing back towards closed like it was before. And it triggered an F1 alarm, which according to the manual is the Flood switch being triggered.

But does that affect the actual washing? Perhaps yes. On the first go, the F1 error triggered again, about halfway through. It used to do that with a U1 alarm. Then, as now, I’ve been able to run a couple of rinse cycles to get things finished, but it’s not as good, of course.

This is a Fisher and Paykel Nautilus DW920. It’s not clear to me how old it is, as I inherited it with the house in 2005. The manual says it’s from 2004, but it’s not clear if the unit is that old, or if that’s just when the manual was last revised — comments on the ProductReview site suggest this model goes back to around 2000.

It does appear that new springs (non-genuine) are available on eBay for about $15. Thanks to the interwebs, others have managed to replace the springs themselves. No doubt I’ll pay through the nose if I get a repairman out to do it.

Given recent experience with the fridge and the washing machine (and even the old car) — paying a bunch to find out something wasn’t worth repairing — I wonder if instead I should be thinking about replacing it altogether.

In the meantime, I hope this doesn’t mean I need to do the dishes myself.

Update lunchtime. Rae and Roger left comments about fixing it myself, which I’d agree with, but I just don’t have the time. I rang F+P this morning; someone will be out today (handy as I’m at home unwell, with two sick kids too). It’ll cost me $121 plus parts, which is expensive, sure, but it’ll be done quickly with no mucking about.

Update 2pm. The repairman came and went. $154.10 for his presence and expertise, 3 x washer spray arm bearings, 1 x door spring. Ah well.