If you are one of those smiling, doughy-looking characters who mean well but whose biggest thrill of the year is to light up your front yard with inflatable plastic creatures that have nothing to do with a southern hemisphere Christmas celebration while drawing 150,000 amps per minute from the grid, don’t read on as you will find this column offensive.
We flew into LA a few weeks ago and my first thought was tipping the staff. This is a costly consideration considering the exchange rate and the 20 per cent of the bill expected.
We picked up the ship in Los Angeles on November 7 for a 17-night voyage, down the west coast of south America through the Panama Canal and eventually onto Florida - where there is a bit of concern about a hurricane visiting the port at the same time we dock.
Just had the great-nephew over from New Zealand. I say great, not because he is great, although he is, but because he is my sister's daughter's child. So I guess that makes him great rather than grand. Not sure. Happy to be corrected.
Hepburn Shire Council will have to pull its finger out if it wants to keep visitors to the area. By the end of next year there will be 40 brands of electric vehicles sold in Australia and when they come to our little spot of paradise the EVs will all be vying for the total of six charge ports we have across our shire.
The cat is now out of the bag. TL HQ (AKA The Old Glenlyon Primary School) is on the market with rumours and speculation whirring about the future of The Local. (It's all good...)
I am definitely a dog guy. I have had cats in my life but just can’t warm to the claws sticking into me, and they think they are being funny by swiping at your ankles as you walk past.
What sort of skullduggery is this? When a poor struggling billionaire who beat accusations he had built his tech fortune on a fraudulent deal gets towelled over by a waterspout?
Recently it has come to pass that a lot of large news outlets including the ABC and the New Zealand Herald have turned to AI to write some of their stories. And being the curious bugger I am, I put the tech to the test.
If you need cheering up don’t read this column - it contains the misery- infused thoughts of a middle-aged bloke who has just realised he has no control over his world.
Did former Premier Dan Andrews deserve the nation's highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia for his service to Victoria, public health, policy and regulatory reform, and to infrastructure development?
What a weird world we live in. A couple of issues ago I wrote my column about mushrooms and how I would avoid scavenging them and stick to the greengrocer. And I don't know what happened over at Clunes, but it is such an unfortunate situation that will impact on the lives of so many for so long.
Japan is a country of juxtapositions. A Fuji photo booth sitting next to a plethora of vending machines offering porn magazines, smokes and booze in the middle of a rice paddy with a handful of workers and nobody else around sums it up for me.
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!
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
