Just following-up the post the other day about high fuel prices, more than anything, hopefully forcing action on public transport. TonyH pointed me to this excellent article by George Monboit, who notes that so far there is no such action, and that high fuel prices are in fact the biggest thing currently helping to reducing ... [More]
Public transport is by its very nature a social experience. Which probably explains the number of Overheard in Melbourne posts from PT. It’s not all people with noisy phone ringtones, those with annoyingly sniffly noses, and raucous teenagers. These are the people I’ve randomly run into on the train/tram/at stations in the last couple of ... [More]
Sometimes I’m up late. Sometimes it’s close to midnight. And sometimes, I decide to stay up just that little bit longer, to midnight, to check tomorrow’s newspaper. Because The Age usually pushes its new stories onto their web site at midnight. The front page may not be updated, but the National news page is. I ... [More]
I was helping on a PTUA stall back in January, at the Sustainable Living Festival. It was interesting to talk to the different people coming by. One guy expressed disappointment about car pollution. He said some people would never want to part with their cars. This is not an opinion I entirely agree with. People ... [More]
I’m a St George Bank customer. Given the proposed merger, it seems that soon I’ll be a Westpac customer, despite what Westpac management are saying. During yesterday’s briefing, Ms Kelly was adamant the branch network would be maintained, saying even when a St George branch and a Westpac branch were side by side in the ... [More]
On the grade 5 class contact list, there are 19 kids. Of those 3 (including mine) have two home phone numbers.
Doctor Who fans, rejoice. Acclaimed writer Steven Moffat, who wrote some of the most memorable (and Hugo-award-winning) recent stories such as Blink and The Empty Child, has been appointed the next Lead Writer and Executive Producer of the show, taking over from sometimes-loved, sometimes-loathed Russell T Davies. “My entire career has been a Secret Plan ... [More]
Is the fact that your car is not in your driveway an advertisement to potential burglars that you’re not home? A lot of people drive every day. So if the car isn’t there, it may be a good sign that nobody’s there. One exception might be in a one-car family where there are often people ... [More]
It would seem that big chunky cars are a symbol of luxury in automative design. Like that new big chunky Chrysler 300C that they keep advertising on SBS on Saturday nights — a snip at $54K for the base model — it might just beat the luxury car tax. It looks like a big fat ... [More]
It apparently happened about 8:30am overnight, but was only noticed at 8:30am. A 20 year old man decided to do a bit of “train surfing”. He touched the wires. Zap. Dead. By the time I went through at about 9:30, they were cleaning up the scene. Not that you could see anything; bystanders were kept ... [More]
Complete strangers say odd things to me sometimes. And it’s not just asking for directions. Middle-aged tipsy lady on the way to the football one Friday night: It’s that man off the TV! Me: [non-committal] Lady: Yes, you are… who are you… the opposition health spokesman or something? Me: Umm no, I’m a public transport ... [More]