Loading
Kyle's Rant

Kyle’s Rant

Kyle’s Rant

17-03-2024

By the time you read this the feathers will have settled, the pink boas put away to live another day and the glitter swept from the floor.

more

Kyle’s Rant

02-03-2024

And to all the corporate idiots who shouted from the rooftops “print is dead” as we started our fledgling magazine in 2013 with a rag-tag gang of volunteers - you just weren’t paying attention!

more

Kyle’s Rant

19-02-2024

I don’t need all the mod cons in my car. I have a little noise which comes from the passenger seat if I am about to run into danger, it normally squeaks “chout” an abbreviated “watch-out”.

more

Kyle’s Rant

05-02-2024

What a rip-off this summer has been - and in the wake of the Bureau of Meteorology declaring an El Niño event underway on September 19 last year, which should have meant a hot dry summer.

more

Kyle’s Rant

20-01-2024

As we all settle down into the rhythm of 2024, it is worth considering our New Year's commitments and resolutions and if they are likely to be stuck by, or just drunken rhetoric and false promises.

more

Kyle’s Rant

25-12-2023

Christmas started way too early this year with the first signs, including mince pies, making their annual debut hot on the heels of the Halloween landfill which wrapped up in early November.

more

Kyle’s rant

11-12-2023

What’s going on with sizes? The other day I did my usual pre-summer shop for a set of jandals, or as they are inappropriately called thongs, ready for the summer.

more

Kyle’s Rant

27-11-2023

The trouble with getting to the upper end of middle-age is tolerance and the words “that’d be right” seem to come out with every other sentence.

more

Kyle’s Rant

12-11-2023

So, the No's have it. Well it was an overwhelming No in terms of The Voice vote, and it (The Voice) is probably doomed to being kicked down the road like an unwanted can.

more

Kyle’s Rant

28-10-2023

When I was a wee lad, depending on where at the time we lived, bearing in mind I went to 13 schools, I would nip down to the local dairy, which was what we Kiwis called a milkbar, not the local farm.

more

Kyle’s Rant…

15-10-2023

The TV show “The Block” maybe coming to the Daylesford township, or at least it was coming to town until a few objectors, climbed onboard the “Leave our pretty town alone” train and stopped it in its tracks.

more

Kyle’s Rant

01-10-2023

Initially I thought when the pandemic came into our worlds in March of 2020, it would leave by the end of that year.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-09-2023

For those of you that have heard the story of The Local’s birth, you may find this read interesting as it is amazing how fact changes to fantasy with 10 years' history and perhaps a little embellishment under the belt.

more

Kyle’s Rant

03-09-2023

Every year for the past 39 years, since I was 17, I have done a first aid course. The first one was for my skipper's ticket which involved a little bit more than your average, what is now day course, plus home study.

more

Kyle’s Rant…

21-08-2023

I am not much for Facebook in fact my FB friends could be dead and I wouldn’t know, but the other half told me recently of a post that made me wince from the Hepburn Shire Council (HSC).

more

Kyle’s Rant

08-08-2023

LAST week I found myself in one of my worst nightmare scenarios, waiting outside a shop near the food court at Wendouree Shopping Centre.

more

Kyle’s Rant

24-07-2023

WHEN I first started turning out these rants 10 years ago, the best subject matter I could dream up was potholes, drivers and idiots.

more

Kyle’s Rant

08-07-2023

Humans on mase are filthy creatures, by and large their time is taken up by the need to constantly tend to their orifices.

more

Kyle’s Rant

24-06-2023

I AM seriously concerned about the price of living and the potential recession we have on our hands, and I don’t get it.

more

Kyle’s Rant…

11-06-2023

I bought my first house in the early nineties when I was a young fella in my twenties. I had had a bit of bad luck with employment and was bouncing around on a lot of low paying boats and ships, when finally, I got the call.

more

Kyle’s Rant

29-05-2023

Recently we got ChatGPT to write up a piece of editorial, which it quite frankly penned from its electronic anus. See below.

more

Kyle’s Rant!

16-05-2023

DONNA and I have decided to hit the road for a bit of time away over winter. We did the same journey a while back but this time it has to be planned within an inch of its life.

more

Kyle’s Rant

30-04-2023

JUST back from visiting my dad in NZ. Left on Saturday, back on Wednesday. Long enough.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-04-2023

WHEN you live in the district for a while, as with my experience living here since 2005, you see life change, particularly as people age.

more

Kyle’s Rant

03-04-2023

A RECENT trip to Lorne bought back some memories of 2020. You remember, the beginning of the pandemic.

more

Kyle’s Rant

19-03-2023

THE world has gone and gotten into a “woke” tangle of unpicking history and misunderstanding around every corner.

more

Kyle’s Rant…

04-03-2023

IT ALL started innocently enough, writing that is, when this mild-mannered photographer started banging away on the keyboard to produce this rant back in September 2013.

more

Kyle’s Rant

19-02-2023

IF YOU are sick of people bagging the Hepburn Shire Council then it’s time for you to turn the page. For the rest of you I have a tale to tell that will have you saying “that would be right” under a slow, shallow exhale.

more

Kyle’s Rant

05-02-2023

HAPPY Australia Day. That seems wrong. Do we even celebrate Australia Day any more? And if we don't, why the public holiday?

more

Kyle’s Rant

22-01-2023

I AM never too sure when to stop saying Happy New Year. Is it after the first day of the New Year or do we wait about a week or so?

more

Kyle’s Rant

25-12-2022

JULY 20 1969, 3.17pm American EST, a huge shift in human history began. Neil and his band of merry men landed on the big cheese.

more

Kyle’s Rant

WE HAVE an amazing collection of towns and villages here in the Central Highlands of Victoria, each having their own unique history and vibe.

more

Kyle’s Rant

29-11-2022

AS IF things aren’t bad enough, the bottom feeders have stepped it up a whole other gear in terms of brassy, ballsy rip offs.

more

Kyle’s Rant

14-11-2022

WITH Halloween done and dusted for the year, the wigs, hats, and assortment of “scary” things have been popped into landfill to be marvelled at by the apes that take over the world in 200 years.

more

Kyle’s rant

30-10-2022

DOROTHEA Mackellar wrote: "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.

more

Kyle’s rant

14-10-2022

I SPENT a couple of years in the Hepburn Shire Council, starting as a volunteer at the Visitor Information Centre, and with that my stellar career in the Tourism Department had begun. It was just one of those times in life that you find everything simply works out.

more

Kyle’s Rant

30-08-2022

FIRST we had AusNet. Proposed high voltage transmission lines across Hepburn and Moorabool shires - with a terminal station at Blampied.

more

Kyle’s Rant

18-08-2022

I watched in disbelief as the newsreaders banged on about the subject of house prices to alarm the viewers and get the most valuable of all currency, ratings.

more

Kyle’s Rant

05-08-2022

"So, there’s that one and that one", the waitress declares. She is, of course, talking about the two menus as she handed me a non-Covid-friendly, sticky laminated glimpse into the hygiene of the kitchen.

more

Kyle’s Rant

22-07-2022

I DON'T seem to have much luck with online ordering.

more

Kyle’s Rant

09-07-2022

I WATCHED with interest our first intergalactic space launch from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Just a couple of days prior we had been reminiscing about our trip to Cooktown.

more

Kyle’s Rant

24-06-2022

ON THE road again. This is the first long road trip in years, weighing in at a whopping 4000 kilometre drive with an average 400km under the tyres per day, and things have changed in the 27 years since we last made the trip.

more

Kyle’s Rant

05-06-2022

BODY image is a strange thing, these days it is a subject of taboo due to woke principles and body shaming culture, but did you see the BPAY advert on TV with that big fat guy in the bath?

more

Kyle’s Rant

26-05-2022

BY THE narrowest of margins the better of two weevils have won the race, we have chosen one white balding 50-something-year-old chump over another.

more

Kyle’s Rant

14-05-2022

THE world is buggered. Interest rates are spiking, the cost of living is up and we are all going to die. Or so the media would have you believe.

more

Kyle’s Rant

27-04-2022

I DO love this country but my God we pay a lot of tax.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-04-2022

Estimated travel time: New Zealand to Melbourne - 23 hours. It’s not a flight you would choose. But sometimes they choose you. And you know what? Travel just isn’t fun anymore. A cautionary tale follows.

more

Kyle’s Rant

01-04-2022

THE Local started on September 2, 2013, due to a combination of happenstance, and has been driven forward into the present with tenacity from the crew, the reckless and rambunctious business acumen and photography skill of yours truly as well as the skill of the editor, keeping a steady hand on the tiller.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-03-2022

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide, foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law, rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

more

Kyle’s Rant

01-03-2022

I DON’T get a lot of feedback on my columns, I am sure they generally get ignored as the paper makes its way to the woodbox, however my last column ruffled a few feathers. Well actually, just one feather.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-02-2022

WHAT is going on with the potholes? Driving around the Central Highlands is like a stint in the Dakar Rally. Instead of the obligatory scattering of gravel and stomp down that may last a day, the good people on the roadworks seem to have given up.

more

Kyle’s Rant

07-02-2022

THE summer holidays have ground to a halt, our New Year's resolutions are a bit of a distant memory and we have wheeled the dumpster fire known as 2021 into the back lane, filled it with accelerant and let it rip.

more

Kyle’s rant

07-12-2021

THE topic of the moment is The Rex in Daylesford and the abhorrent waste of ratepayers' money. I do intend to get to that after this quick community safety message.

more

Kyle’s Rant

28-11-2021

THE world of digital news combined with the pandemic has not been too kind on traditional community newspapers, who have been slow to change their ways and have as a result perished or become solely digital in the new media landscape.

more

Kyle’s Rant

11-11-2021

I KNOW I should thank my lucky stars living the life I live and being born into a first world community, having hot dinners on the table every night and a reliable car to run around in.

more

Kyle’s Rant

25-10-2021

“IT is what it is.” What bottom feeding, low-life, full of bovine excrement idiot came up with that saying? What does it even mean?

more

Kyle’s Rant

11-10-2021

“ALL welcome, no judgement” is the sign above the doors and in the social media of a few local businesses in the Central Highlands.

more

Kyle’s Rant

LAST week I hired a post hole digger from the blokes at Kyneton Hire. The reason for the post hole digger procurement was as an easy way to plant a few plants that have grown too big for their pots. The cost was $90 for a 24-hour hire and when you are looking down the barrel of a dozen or so big tree holes, a bargain by anyone’s calculation.

more

Kyle’s Rant

12-04-2021

WHAT a whirlwind time it’s been with paracetamol falling down the medical stairs of trust to be branded a placebo, and now the federal government declaring that AstraZeneca be not administered for under 50 year olds, due to blood clot concerns.

more

Kyle’s Rant

29-03-2021

HOW often have you heard “We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes right now” or “all of our team are busy, please hold and we will answer your call as soon as possible”? All while patiently waiting on the phone listening to music from the 1980s that is designed to take you back to a simpler time and calm you down.

more

Kyle’s Rant

15-03-2021

SO, ARE we on Team Markle or Team Queen or Team “don’t give a toss”?

more

Kyle’s Rant

01-03-2021

THE other day I went on a photoshoot - I know, no big deal but bear in mind during the pandemic the old camera bag sat in the corner and collected dust.

more

Kyle’s Rant

08-02-2021

THIS year I find myself dragging my feet. I am technically challenged once again and feel like my cobwebbed brain is just not keeping up.

more

Kyle’s Rant

15-02-2021

AS YOU are probably aware, unless you have been under a rock somewhere, we have had another couple of recent slip-ups from the hotel quarantine.

more

Kyle’s Rant

25-01-2021

THE few people I know, know I have a boating lineage. I like a sailor’s life and feel most at home aboard a vessel plying the brine.

more

Kyle’s Rant

18-01-2021

I WROTE a rant a couple of editions ago that declared I was done for the year and asked if, for one edition of our free reading offering, you (the readers) wouldn’t mind popping your own rant in the allotted space.

more

Kyle’s Rant

21-12-2020

I DON'T have a lot to add to these Christmas festivities except “we don’t know how lucky we are mate” - that is, us living in the land down under compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

more

Kyle’s Rant

14-12-2020

RECENTLY we visited the city (it was a Monday and dead) and once we had checked into our hotel room, a ritzy two-bedroom apartment on the 22nd floor for under $200 (cheap as, bro), we were off for lunch.

more

Kyle’s rant

07-12-2020

CRUISING around the world on giant cruise ships is my idea of luxe. I am not talking about those boats that have a maze of slides running over the top of them for the kiddies to enjoy or the craft that have a giant ball on the top for the best view.

more

Kyle’s Rant

30-11-2020

ANOTHER year is ending, the hint of Christmas is in the air. I can tell by all the sales emails that are pinging into my inbox. What is this Black Friday rubbish that keeps hitting my spam account?

more

Kyle’s Rant

16-11-2020

AS WE come out the other side of the lockdowns and the sheer terror that formed our Winter in terms of the pandemic, I wonder what we have learnt as a race.

more

Kyle’s Rant

09-11-2020

TOURISTS: A species of humans not in their home habitat, usually identified by the wonderment on their faces as they amble around the streets, brains in neutral, on the hunt for coffee and nourishment.

more

Kyle’s Rant

02-11-2020

RECENTLY I invested in a new iPhone, after all, the old one was five years old and according to one taxi driver it made my hands look big. Wrong. And yes, it was an old iPhone 5.

more

Kyle’s Rant

26-10-2020

WOW, I have hit the dizzying heights of being an influencer. Well not just me, The Local. Well not actually just The Local. We intercepted a general media shout-out by a media campaign company to do with organic natural chicken jerky.

more

Kyle’s Rant

05-10-2020

I HAVE never been one for settling down. The fact I went to 13 schools in my childhood as my father chased the fish might have something to do with that, but I find myself having lived in the Central Highlands for 15 years now.

more

Kyle’s Rant

28-09-2020

WHEN making rules such as mask wearing, the various layers of government must have to apply a “slippage” rate. That is a rate for the 15 per cent of society who are colloquially known as “dipshits”.

more

21-09-2020

LIKE a lot of people, over my life I have suffered with body image issues. I reckon it started in the 70s, trying to figure out my mother’s diet fads. There was the grapefruit diet, the F-plan and lots of cottage cheese and rice cakes stuffed into the fridge and pantry.

more

Kyle’s Rant

14-09-2020

A FEW months ago, a TV advertisement popped up with a little girl who shrieked at her mother for using excess water to pre-wash the dishes before they went into the dishwasher.

more

Kyle’s Rant

07-09-2020

WHEN I was growing up, we had TV One - and that about describes the choice of entertainment as we only had one channel up the top of the North Island of New Zealand.

more

Kyle’s Rant

24-08-2020

GEE, I am starting to miss my family and that feeling has been doubled down by the border closures. I guess I am lucky to still have a mother and a father but I now realise that I haven’t given them enough attention over the years with distance being the tyranny.

more

Kyle’s Rant

17-08-2020

SOMETIMES I wonder what sort of new phrase paradigm we have dropped into? Stay with me here.

more

Kyle’s Rant

10-08-2020

A SOVEREIGN citizen is someone who believes that he or she is above all laws and a member of a political movement of people who oppose taxation, question the legitimacy of government and believe that they are not subject to the law.

more

Kyle’s Rant

03-08-2020

WHAT a weird world we live in. It seems like during the middle of last year I am planning out 2020, then the bushfires hit and then we land straight into a pandemic.

more

Kyle’s Rant

10-02-2020

SO FAR 2020 has been a tough year for not only Australia but the world.

more

Kyle’s Rant

27-01-2020

IT'S been a scary few months with the bushfires wreaking havoc across the country.

more

Back to top