Categories
Consumerism Doctor Who

Spotted at Minotaur

I’ve shopped at Minotaur Books for decades. I first found it in the early 80s when it was at the top end of Swanston Street. Then it moved to a multi-level shop in Bourke Street. Then to its current home in Elizabeth Street. It’s always had way more cool stuff than I could afford to  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne transport

The new Swanston Street superstops – do they work?

Last week the first of the new Swanston Street tram superstops opened. On Monday I went down at lunchtime to have a look, and came across Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, City of Melbourne planner Rob Adams, and Yarra Trams’ Michel Masson all down there having a look, and talking to the media about it. Robert  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Beating the Metcard/Myki fare rise

As feared, the government will go ahead with the 5% plus inflation public transport fare rise in January, for a total of 8.6%. (It’s unclear if they’ll go ahead with the second one that Labor planned, in January 2013.) Metlink has posted the full list of metropolitan fares for 2012, as well as regional fares.  ... [More]

Categories
Bentleigh transport

A steam train passes

This afternoon I heard steam train whistles, and after some digging, discovered it was R-class R707 headed down to Frankston, and that it would be coming back a little later. Happy to take a break from the sorting out of paperwork that I’d been doing, I took a punt at the time it would pass  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

The Age’s Liveability survey – and where it fell down on transport (Service quality matters more than infrastructure)

The Age last Friday released its liveability survey of Melbourne suburbs. Top five were pretty predictable: South Yarra, East Melbourne, Armadale, Hawthorn East, and Toorak. From what I can tell, it’s an update to a survey done in 2005, using the same methodology. This time however they didn’t put out the full breakdown of figures,  ... [More]

Categories
Movember

Bye bye Movember

I’ve got through Movember. I shaved the mo’ off. Ultimately, it was always going to go after the month was up. By week three I thought I’d got used to it, but in the final week, the itching seemed to get worse. Maybe I was conscious that it was about to come off. It’s certainly  ... [More]