Grrrrr... Queensland GoVia Complaints

Crossing into Queensland has always disturbed me, mainly as a result of my experiences there during the Jo Junta, so it came as a pleasant surprise to discover no toll gates when I went over the Gateway Bridge on the way to the Sunshine Coast recently, despite the heavy traffic. On the way home, the traffic was even worse. There were signs about etoll or summat but I knew not what they meant.

It came as something of a surprise to get two letters in the mail today demanding the toll plus a $20 administration fee. I phoned them and it was explained in no uncertain fashion that Queensland GoVia would escalate the "fine" considerably if I did not pay up, and then put it in the hands of debt collectors if I still didn't pay.

I think the word incensed would describe my reaction to this discovery. I paid the $40 "fine", along with the toll.

It is almost impossible to find the phone number of a human being working for these people, but one of the way to complain to Queensland GoVia is via this email address:
Mik Browning
QUEENSLAND MOTORWAYS LIMITED

qml_administrator@qldmotorways.com.au

Grrr...

Frere's Crossing

Short pants. Felt hat. Funny handshakes. Dib dib dib - oh no, that was the cubs. It's Boy Scouts I'm on about.

As a scout I'd go with the other lads and often Jim the scoutmaster all over - Jamborees, shooting trips to Tenterfield and the Piliga Scrub, long bike rides, scuba diving, horse riding, boat trips up the Hawkesbury River, water skiing... and of course camping. We camped in the Blue Mountains, the Royal National Park, the South Coast, lots of places. One favourite was Frere's Crossing, in bushland at Kentlyn not far from Campelltown. I'm reminded of this because there's a story in today's Herald about a girl who has gone missing after setting off to go camping at Friars Crossing (sic).

Yesterday I returned from a visit to a friend's farm in NE Queensland. Our mutual friend John Woodrow, one of the founders of that farm, lived in Leumeah in a spot I would pass when hiking up the hill to go camping at Frere's Crossing back in the 60's. In the early 70's I would visit John in Leumeah. In the late 70's I had bought a business in Liverpool and was looking for a place outside of Sydney and not too far from the business. At a dinner party in Sydney I was introduced to people who had a place at Campelltown which would be for rent shortly, and I subsequently moved into it. The house was in Kentlyn (the PO called it Leumeah) just up the road from John's place and just a few km from Frere's Crossing, Kentlyn.

I should add here that I had not for one moment mentioned Campeltown when speaking to people about a house outside Sydney, and in fact the very first time I raised the subject was that occasion. It probably sounds incredible, but that's how it happened.

And there's another connection with that area - the station before Leumeah is Minto, and I used to go train-spotting there on occasion with Richard Eslick, a school friend.

Ain't life strange!

P.S. My friend wrote recently (Nov 2010) to tell me he too as a boy scout camped at Frere's Crossing. John Woodrow introduced us.

There's That Word Again

Thursday I phoned the dentist to book a checkup for Friday. That afternoon a filling fell out. Prescience is not the word I was thinking of, but it fits. Also that morning, I continued a strain of increasingly silly emails with one which contained the lines:

Ahoy me hearties. Yo ho ho and batten down the cabinboy. Death to the French!

which of course sounds more like Jabberwockian than English if you're not party to the the preceding year or two's correspondence and even then would be difficult to fathom and possibly lead you to believe that you were reading the ravings of segregated madmen. You'd be part right on that, too. My point is that I almost never speak of sailing so the word batten rarely gets a mention. Today's A-Word-A-Day word is Batten. (and yes DD if you're reading this, hang-gliders do have them too as you pointed out to me sometime in the recent past.)

Two days later, in a similar vein...
I phoned a friend in Canberra to inform her that our meeting in late July would have to be changed. Another voice came on the speaker phone - it was a mutual friend who was also my list to phone about another meeting in Qld and whose cellphone number I didn't have - he was there for one night only, his first trip to Canberra in years, and this was my first phonecall to our friend in ages.

Synchronicity.

A couple of months back, it had been on my mind for some weeks to phone a friend who I thought must be back from Africa by now, so I did. There was silence for a moment on the other end, then a puzzled response, something like "why are you phoning me now", or somesuch. And then a shriek - I don't believe it, she said, I've just walked in the door a few minutes ago. She had been away for two months, and our communication during that time had been limited to a postcard.

Flat Earth II

ABC TV aired The Great Global Warming Swindle in 2007. A poll of 2500 readers showed, to my amazement, that almost half did not believe that "human activity is a significant contributor to global warming".

The page contains some very useful links on Global Warming including:

The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle

ABC Science Online's Bernie Hobbs "There's nothing like an accurate, well researched documentary to help make sense of a complex issue like global warming. It's a shame that The Great Global Warming Swindle isn't one." ABC Science


Ask An Expert

Experts answer your most common climate change questions. ABC Science

Flat Earth Society

The SMH reported today that a member of the board of the Victor Chang Foundation wrote an interesting and entertaining letter promoting "healthy smoking". Australian businessman Murray Clapham writes "The real argument is here in Indonesia some quite remarkable Indonesian scientists and doctors have discovered that cigarette smoking can, with specially treated cigarettes, significantly assist people's health and has the potential to cut health costs around the globe," says the Herald.

For an ex-smoker like myself, this is wonderful news. I simply can't wait for these new healthy cigarettes to become available.

More Flat Earthing
I have a friend staying. He's frighteningly bright and very well informed, but his good looks and charming demeanor are not enhanced by an unfortunate cant to the right. Last night over dinner he informed me that although it was true the earth was warming, it was not as a result of human activity (as 35,000 scientists would testify) but for other reasons. And anyway, he said, if the Iranians or Indonesians or Chinese engage with others in a decent dustup then the changes we're speaking of now will pale into the shadows.

I suspect that Dr Death, as he's known to all who love and admire him, will be casting his vote for the Budgie Smuggler.

As for the 35,000 bods who support DD's view it seems likely that none are members of CSIRO which says on its website "Human activities are changing the climate - Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are 90% likely to have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century."

And this blog writes "Dr Ayers said the trends in temperatures backed up UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings showing human processes, such as burning fossil fuels, was the main cause of global warming."
Dr Ayers is the director of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. He's probably not one of the 35,000 either.

Interesting link on Global Warming:
http://www.crikey.com.au/topic/australian-bureau-of-meteorology/

Clash of Titans

As a result of a recent spate of attacks against the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, Google has announced it will no longer co-operate with China's censors.

This effectively hands their market share (currently over 30%) straight to Baidu.com, Google's main rival.

However, in 2006 Google dismissed rumours that it was going to close Google China because of Chinese government censorship. In June of that year co-founder Sergey Brin insisted that the search giant will continue to operate in China.

Seeing Red

The latest climate change conference is over. It was attended by all the great leaders, all the great thinkers. All agreed that something must be done, and someone must do it. Someone else.

Follow the leaders. Follow the lemmings.

Some studies describe climate change deniers as delusional. Should you come across such a dinosaur, here are some links you can send them.

Changing global temperatures from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Cold comfort: the psychology of climate denial

And I'm really not sure whether to thank Tony Abbot here for ensuring that the vast majority of Australians are made aware with crystal clarity that climate recidivists have a very special agenda - one that has little to do with saving the planet. Tony is looking to succeed Latham as Australia's most unpopular leader of the opposition in living memory.

..........
P.S. Dec 2011. Tony may be unpopular with many, but he's hugely popular with the press barons who have excelled at repressing his numerous gaffs and putting his very brave and embattled rival Julia Gillard in an invariably bad light. One such baron controls some 70% of Australia's print publications. It's a free country, what's unfair about that?