Categories
Australia Media TV

It’s All Happening In Fitzroy

So there we were, out on a sunny Saturday afternoon for a bit of a walk. we’d already been over to Brunswick Street for a bit a lunch (where there was an amusing incident with a newspaper) and then wandered up towards North Fitzroy and over to Rathdowne Street before heading back towards home. As we reached the town hall, though, we noticed that Channel 9 were there, setting up to film the series finale of their property reality show, The Block.

As we stopped to watch for a bit, we almost literally bumped into presenter Scott Cam, who was pacing up and down practising his lines:

Scott Cam learning his lines...

“Shall we get a pint and watch?” I asked Sal, and as there was a free table outside The Napier across the street, we sat down with a Mountain Goat Hightail Ale and a glass of Chardonnay and gawped for a bit as a series of cars pulled up and deposited a series of increasingly ridiculously overdressed real estate agents and their hangers on at the steps of the town hall, much to the bemusement of the hipster Fitzroy locals having a fag outside the pub.

Some of these agents were familiar faces to us: we spent the best part of a year going to open for inspections in the area before we found our piece of Collingwood, and I recognised a good few faces in the crowd from those days (including the agent who sold us our house, and who I remember having a massive phone argument with when she wouldn’t pass my offer on to the vendor…)

After the agents came the contestants, past and present, posing for photos on the steps of the town hall:

The Block Auction, Fitzroy Town

The Block Auction, Fitzroy Town

Considering how many people had apparently invaded Cameron Street for the open for inspections, there were surprisingly few members of the public hanging around: just the aforementioned bemused hipsters outside the pub, a few passers by, a couple of kids and us.

As the auction itself was held behind closed doors, we finished our drinks, wandered over to take a few photos and left them to it. As I was taking the last of my shots I turned to my left to see a Channel 9 bloke with a camera pointing it directly in my face. So should you happen to watch the show tonight keep your eyes peeled for a skinny Brit taking his photo of the day…

Josh and Jenna, The Block

Categories
Australia Music

Do You Remember The First Time?

So asked the giant green letters scrolling across the roof of Melbourne’s oddly shaped, boxing ring slash gig venue Festival Hall on Friday night, shortly before Jarvis and his reformed Pulp took to the stage to ask the same question in song form.

Well yes, Jarvis, I do actually. For me it was the 23rd February 1996 (15 years ago–gosh does that make me feel old…) half a lifetime ago on the other side of the world, in what was then the Manchester Nynex Arena, although to this day I’m not entirely sure who Nynex were, and why they were ever sponsoring a music venue in Manchester. This of course was in the days following that little incident at the Brits (Jarv was even interviewed from his dressing room before the Manchester gig by Chris Evans for TFI Friday).

Pulp are one of those bands that I really never thought I would see live again: even when they announced they were reforming to play the Isle of Wight, not to mention Wireless and that surprise Glasto set, all of which we narrowly avoided on our recent trip home, I thought I’d missed my chance.

There’s been some water under the bridge for the band as well as me in the intervening 15 years, but their set on Friday was remarkably similar to the one I saw them play in Manchester, and Jarvis was on good form, at least once he got his shoes sorted: after Do You Remember The First Time? he called back to the stage crew for a change of footwear, blaming the slippy Festival Hall stage. “They’re not orthopaedics”, he reassured us in his Sheffield deadpan as he put his new shoes on, before giving them a little try and announcing “oh yeah, you’re in for a show now…”

And we certainly were. Sadly they apparently played their last ever Australian show at Splendour last night, but I’m glad I was there for this one.

Categories
Misdirected Emails Religion

From The Misdirected Emails File

Once again, a somewhat baffling not-quite-spam message arrives in my inbox, intended for one of the other Matts.

I can’t help thinking that the author of this message could have phrased that last line a little better…

To: [A Different Matt]

Greetings All

Thank you Matt and Jennifer for your insights. I appreciate the distinction ..having a critical spirit or critical thinking. Many times when I take a hard line I question it after the fact.I I expect when we take a hard line it will be to the improvement of the overall Joac Ministry. If I am going to hold David’s feet to the fire…I expect my feet to be held to the fire. I look forward to us building relationship with each person on the Uganda Board, each child in the family home. I believe we have a unique Us Board that is helping the Lord build his kingdom in Uganda. Thanks Jenn for the photo of the kids with the black shoes. That makes what we do worthwhile. Touching each child.

Blessings
John

Categories
Australia Finance

My Favourite Transaction

Some time ago my bank here in Australia added a somewhat baffling new feature to all their cash machines. Now, every time I go to take money out, the machine asks me if I’d like to save this particular amount of money as my “favourite transaction” (which then gets saved on the initial screen so you can select it quickly next time).

I’m sorry, what now? I’m supposed to have a favourite transaction? Well I don’t remember them asking the pop stars of Smash Hits that question back in the 80s. To be honest, Mr NAB, before you asked I hadn’t even given a second thought to what my favourite amount of money to take out of my account at any given time might be. I guess it depends.

Perhaps the bank likes to think that its customers hang around discussing this, arguing High Fidelity-style about their top 5s (“…oh man, ‘fifty bucks from my savings account, no receipt, on-screen balance’ is where it’s at. Best. Transaction. Ever.”)

What makes this annoying is that even after you’ve given in and selected your favourite, it keeps asking you. Every time you select an amount that isn’t your favourite, the machine asks you if you’d like to save this one instead. Well if you think I’m so fickle that I want to change my favourite transaction every time I use your ATM, then you haven’t really understood the concept of a favourite, have you?

So they’ve added a feature of dubious usefulness at the expense of forcing everyone to click through an additional screen every time they use the machine. Hmm. I’d call that one a UI-fail.

It’s almost as annoying as those Barclay’s machines in the UK that ask you if you’d like an “advice slip”. I’m always slightly disappointed when the ensuing piece of paper that spews out of the machine just tells me how much is left in my account, rather than that I should “dump my partner”, “quit my job”, and/or “never eat yellow snow”.

Categories
Australia Media Shoddy Journalism

Lies, Damned Lies, and Exchange Rates

According to today’s The Age:

RISING living costs and a surging Australian dollar mean it is now more expensive to live in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth than in London, Vienna, Rome or New York.

A startling claim, I’m sure you’ll agree, but something doesn’t quite ring true for me about this. Why should a “surging Australian dollar” make it more expensive to live in an Australian city? A surging Australian dollar might make it expensive to visit an Australian city, but for anyone living there–earning a salary in the local currency–it should surely make the cost of living cheaper. Apart from anything else due to lower prices for imported goods.

So I downloaded the free report (from here) and of course the introduction makes clear that any conclusions you might draw from the report about the cost of living anywhere outside the US are somewhat flawed:

There are two major reasons why a city’s cost-of-living index will change over time: exchange rate movement and price movement. Since a common currency is required in making a comparative calculation, all local prices are converted into US dollars, which emphasises the role of currency
movement.

So, essentially, it’s not a cost of living survey at all. It’s a cost of visiting from the US and paying for things with US dollars survey.

Elsewhere in the introduction, we have this:

Of particular note is the rapid growth in the relative cost of living of Australian cities. Sydney and Melbourne are ranked sixth and seventh respectively and are closely followed by Perth and Brisbane in 13th and 14th place in the ranking. This is the culmination of a remarkable rise in the cost of living in Australian cities over the last decade, a period in which the value of the Australian dollar has moved from around 50 US cents to passing parity with the US dollar earlier this year.

Well yes of course, if you’re going to convert everything back into USD then it’s hardly surprising that if the Aussie goes from being worth 50 US cents to 1.07 USD that would make those Australian cities seem hugely more expensive, relative to the US. It doesn’t mean that those cities are actually that much more expensive for people who live and work there.

The article in The Age concludes with the following:

Melbourne was among the most expensive for a daily business trip at $US760 ($A711) a day – made up of one night’s hotel accommodation, two meals, two taxi trips, a daily newspaper and a drink at a bar. Sydney came in at $US627.

This I find truly baffling. Without subscribing to the detailed city information, I can’t get any more information about how these prices are broken down for Melbourne. All it tells me in the free report is that:

Daily business trip rate consists of one night’s accommodation in a hotel, one two-course meal, one simple meal, two 5km journeys by taxi, one drink in the hotel bar and one international foreign daily newspaper.

Ok, so let’s be generous and assume that the hotel costs you $300 (that’d get you into almost any of the 4/5* major CBD hotels), and let’s allocate $200 to the meals (this is for one person, remember…) The 5km taxi rides shouldn’t cost more than $15 each and even the most expensive hotel bar will probably serve you a drink for under twenty bucks.

Even staying at a top hotel and eating very well, I can’t get much above $550. Where’s the rest of that cost coming from? Unless it costs $150 to buy a “foreign daily newspaper”, it just doesn’t add up.

*

Of course despite the name this isn’t really a cost of living survey at all, as the report itself makes clear:

The Worldwide Cost of Living survey enables human resources line managers and expatriate executives to compare the cost of living in 140 cities in 93 countries and calculate fair compensation policies for relocating employees.

Which is fine and all, but maybe our newspapers shouldn’t just be blindly reporting on it as an example of how expensive our city is without making that clear…

Categories
Australia Media Music TV

Having The Most Successful Show On Australian TV Must Be Such A Pain

Funny. Only the other day I was reading an interview in the weekend paper with the host of Channel Ten’s long running weekend morning music video show, Video Hits, which mentioned how profitable it is for the network:

At Ten, Video Hits is seen almost as part of the furniture, having been on-air in various guises for 25 years.

“It’s one of the most profitable shows on the network”, she says.

[The Age Life And Style, July 2, 2011]

Two days later, up pops new Ten CEO Lachlan Murdoch to cancel it.

It seems an odd decision to me, as surely it must have been a relatively cheap way of filling a lot of airtime. I wonder where the nation’s viewers will have to turn now to get their fix of music videos and sport.

Oh. That.

Even odder, though, is this quote at the end of that article from The Australian:

Mr Murdoch, who flagged the cuts earlier this year, blamed rising costs in news, the multi-channel Eleven and Ten’s hit show MasterChef Australia.

Quite. Having the single most successful reality ratings juggernaut on your books (which must surely pull in significant sponsorship revenue if the incessant product placement is anything to go by) must be such a burden. I’m sure the other free-to-air networks–who have been relentlessly throwing their own imitations at the TV wall in an attempt to make one stick–must feel your pain.

Categories
Misdirected Emails Spam teh internets

You Have Got The Wrong Person

I’ve written before about some of the random emails I get from time to time that were supposed to go to a different Matt (we really need a word to describe this phenomenon; “spam” just doesn’t quite cut it), but I was reminded recently that I never actually posted my all time favourite.

This one was apparently successfully sent to its original recipient, who then tried to forward it on to someone she knew called Matt.

I have no other comments to make that can possibly do justice to this, so I will simply reproduce the email in full below–typos and incorrect “yours” and all.

Enjoy…

Date: Nov 3, 2010
Subject: Sweet, Loving Email
From: Estefania
To: Matt

———- Forwarded message ———-

Stephenie,

Lets get a few things straight about this past weekend. I was going to wait and give you the chance to reach out to Lauren and I. Clearly it was foolish to think you would try and make this right or work this out. Your actions and total lack of respect makes this easy.

First, you did lie about what you did in our bed and it is a big deal. Having sex in someones bed without their permission or them even knowing about it is not right and not respectful inspite of what you think The other person has apologized to us for disrespecting our home and told me what happened. You as a guest in our house had no right to use our bed for your selfish reasons and invite your former boy friend over. The fact that you don’t see anything wrong with that demonstrates how little respect you have for your former friends or their home. We left our home and went somewhere else to sleep so you and our other friends had a place to stay. We gave up our room for your guys. It is absolutely my business if friends have sex in my bed without asking first when my wife and I have given up our bed for guests. So you invite your ex boyfriend over and sleep with him in our bed and when confronted lie about it? Classy.

As a side note, you were so concerned with Colin trying to get with your friend that you confronted him in public in front of our friends while intoxicated and incited a fight. Yet you left them alone together in another room as you hooked up with your ex? Or was it just talking according to your story? Either way, Hypocritical.

Second, even though you were disrespectful to Lauren and I (never once apologizing for the way you acted, never once expressing appreciation that we gave up our room for you or thanking us for allowing you to stay in our apartment) the lying is what makes this worse. You have a problem telling the truth and that’s your fault. Not Mike, Colin, Lauren or I, that’s your fault. Good look being an Army officer and lawyer when you don’t have the integrity to tell the truth when asked.

Third, against my better judgment, I agreed to Lauren having you as a bridesmaid because at that time you were friends. I sincerely thought that you had dramatically changed since college. That was a mistake. The disrespect you demonstrated at our wedding was abhorrent. Attacking your former boyfriend in front of OUR friends and OUR family was disrespectful to us on our wedding night. How dare you act like that? It further demonstrates that you have no respect for others and your former friends. Reminds me of the drunken fights you use to start in Gainesville that nearly led to arrests; now your have graduated to disrupting weddings.

Fourth, your not a victim; your the problem. You instigated a fight with Colin by accusing him of behaving a certain way with your friend. That is very hypocritical on your part and again disrespectful. However, the worse part is that the fight in the car could have gotten someone killed. You continued to anger Colin to point where he tried to attack you and I had to restrain him while trying to control the car. Instead of allowing cooler heads to prevail you continued to incite him with accusations that he cheated on his now deployed girlfriend. All of this demonstrates that you are in instigator and a dangerous one at that. Again, reminds me over your countless actions in Gainesville.

Fifth, at any point you could have accepted responsibility and simply apologized for your actions. Whether you agreed with being confronted or not, it was your choice to either apologize or offer some appropriate response. You did neither. Your response was, and I quote, “Do you want to inspect my vagina to look for semen?” Again, very classy Stephanie. And you wonder why I have no respect for you and your actions.

Sixth, you never should have involved OUR friends in your actions. They were not involved, did not want to be involved and also do not appreciate you involving them. Unfortunately for you, they also are aware of the truth, your lying and you ability to put on quit a performance. Just like Lauren and I are not fooled by you; they are not fooled by your either. My friends that witnessed you behavior first hand and saw how your tried to provoke Colin think you are psychopathic nuttjob. It was a good try on your part but they all see through you and realize your not the victim; your the problem.

Because you have bad mouthed Lauren and I to our friends, when I am asked about this little episode by the friends you have involved in this, I will make sure the truth is established. And it will be made clear that you were given the opportunity to make this right and you choose not too. You defriend us on facebook like a high school kid instead of acting like an attorney and an Army officer by reaching out to fix the relationship. Again, thank you for making this part easy.

Again, instead of trying to apologize for your actions, you have taken the path of feeling sorry for yourself and being the victim. Your not.

Lets remove all doubt as to why we are no longer want you as a friend. For the record, we are tired of your and your childish behavior. We are tired of the disrespect and lying. Lauren and I are no longer your friends those reasons. We don’t want you involved in our lives whatsoever. Just so your clear, you have lost our friendship because of your lying, deceit, selfcenterdness, disrespectful attitude and lack of integrity. And total failure to even attempt to apologize or make this right. You are the same person you were in Gainesville, always selfish, always the victim and never one to take responsibility or try to make things right.

You made this choice. Even though it is sad that things ended this way, we are actually very relieved not to ever to deal with you or your needless drama again.

This will catch up with you one day and karma will pay you back in full. You will reap that which you sow Stephanie. Count it.

To quote you “have a good one”

Jeremiah

Categories
Australia Media Politics Shoddy Journalism

Dear World’s Media

I know I shouldn’t expect people to, like, know stuff any more and I know it doesn’t really matter, but I post this here because:

1. I can’t believe that I seem to be the only person in the world who has noticed; and
2. It’s not often that that English degree I spent three years studying for comes in handy.

According to the story on the front page of today’s The Age, and apparently every other media outlet in the world, President Obama, speaking at a white tie function at Buck House last night, “concluded his toast with a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III“:

Obama concluded his toast with a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III.

‘To her Majesty the Queen, to the vitality of the special relationship between our peoples and in the words of Shakespeare, ‘to this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

Except he didn’t, did he, because that quote isn’t from Richard the third, it’s the John of Gaunt, “This Other Eden” speech from Richard the second:

This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

(Funny how he left out the bit about “against the envy of less happier lands”, can’t think why…)

It’s the sort of thing you might expect a good sub editor to pick up.

Oh. Oops. This is the sort of thing that happens why you sack them all, isn’t it…

Meh. Richard II, Richard III. It’s all the same thing really isn’t it?

Categories
teh internets

Escape From The Mobile Web

I’ve moaned about stupid design patterns on the mobile web before, but here’s another example of just how frustrating it can be when web developers decide to lock you out of their site just because you happen to be using a mobile device.

This time the culprits are Singapore Airlines, one of my favourite airlines. Shame their web presence sucks.

I have a flight coming up shortly and there’s a great big flight cancelling ash cloud floating over Europe at the moment, so I thought I might check the airline website for an update on any cancellations.

Unfortunately if I head over there on my iPhone, I get this:

20110524-212656.jpg

Oh great. I’ve been “automatically redirected to Singapore Airlines mobile which is optimised for mobile devices”. I just love it when that happens.

Ok. Let’s click the link to go to their mobile website:

Um. Ok. Sure. I’ll agree to anything if you just let me in to your site.

But then there’s this:

What? I just want to look at your website to find out whether you are cancelling flights. Why do you need my phone number? What are you going to do with it?

But ok I’ll type in some random numbers just to get through the next hurdle. Finally we get to the site:

Oh. That’s it? There might be a link to flight status down the bottom, but that means putting in an individual flight number or route. If you just want to find a general news item about the ash cloud like the one they have on their full desktop website but you happen to be using an iPhone or similar then you’re out of luck.

No link to go to the full site. Nothing.

Thanks web development team at Singapore Airlines. I love it when developers decide on my behalf that my device isn’t capable of rendering their site and lock me out.

Luckily, there’s a solution to this and all other future annoying mobile web related issues: a bit of Googling leads me to this website recommending an app called “Journey Web Browser Lite”–a Safari replacement that includes one genius feature: browser user agent spoofing.

Settings -> Pretend To Be -> Firefox 3.0

In your face annoying web developers:

(Also: look! Look at that battery meter: it cost me 5% of my battery to take those screenshots. Gotta love the battery life on a two year old iPhone…)

Categories
Shoddy Journalism

£136.40? No Wonder They Paid Cash

Can’t help thinking there might be a missing word in this headline or something.

£136.40 cash paid for UK's most expensive flat ever

Either that or property prices back home have taken a massive hit…