A brolly good idea if I do say so myself

FROM MY CORNER ... with Ann Brunswick

The recent rain sparked an idea in my mind that could help the Brisbane City Council escape the seemingly unsuccessful CityCycle bike hire scheme. The concept came to me during a walk through the CBD during which the rain began to fall – heavily. The rain caught me without any protection, having left my umbrella at home.

So the thought occurred to me, why not a City Umbrella scheme? It is a simple concept, having umbrella stations at strategic points around the CBD. It would work pretty much the same as the bike scheme. You would obtain an umbrella the same way as a bike, by signing up to the scheme and swiping your card when you took a brollie, and have your hire time and fees calculated when you returned it at any other City Umbrella station.
The backer of the cycle hire scheme, the outdoor advertising firm JC Decaux, should view my idea as a winner. After all, the big money-spinner for the company in the bike scheme is not the hire fees, but the sale of advertising space on the bikes as well as its ability to have the BCC allow it to festoon the inner-city with those small vertical billboards that eat up space on our footpaths or the much larger ones that provide unmissable eyesores elsewhere around the CBD’s edges. So a City Umbrella scheme should appeal.
The Decaux people could sell ad space on the umbrellas. Plus the sort of downfalls we have experienced in the past few weeks would have kept even those few brave souls who actually use the City Cycles off the road. But they might still need an umbrella.

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This is yet another item falling into the “is it just me?” category. I tried very hard to watch and become enthused about ABC TV’s two-part series about the birth of Cleo magazine. But part-way through the first night of Paper Giants my TV set was switched off.

To my mind it was a very pedestrian treatment of an already fairly well-known story. It also appeared to be an excuse for the cast to frock up in flares, big floppy hats, oversized sunglasses and other 1970s gear.
Besides, it was somewhat annoying having to listen to Asher Keddie’s lisping. I understand that the producers’ final audition shortlist was her and Daffy Duck.

***
Have you ever visited a speciality music or movie shop or department store and bought a CD or DVD? Admittedly they are now regarded as “old” technology, but of course you must have had the experience of purchasing one at some stage in your life. Of course you have.

Now try to remember, was the music CD or movie DVD in the case you took to the counter when you paid for it? Of course it wasn’t. It was somewhere in the back of the shop or under the counter, and the staff member who took your cash or credit card details had to spend a few moments to retrieve the disk matching the case you handed over – all to prevent people not like you stealing the covers with the actual disks inside.
To my mind it is not a very difficult system to run. So why doesn’t it apply to computer software? In a week or so, the subscription for the anti-virus protection on my home PC will expire, so a few days ago I bought some new software. I took the A-4 size box off the shelf, paid for it and took it home. Of course you know what comes next. The box, about 3cm thick, was completely empty except for a folder containing the CD and just slightly bigger than the disk itself.
In fact the box could have accommodated about eight of the folders. So if it were imported, most of the shipping costs would have been for thin air. My point is, why don’t IT stores do what other stores selling information disks do and keep the actual disk folders under the counter while displaying an information sheet on the shelf?

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Late one night last week my slumber was disturbed by the sound of some unidentified mechanical device making a distinct, repetitive thumping sound. A walk to my front door soon helped identify the sound’s origin – a very large and noisy road construction machine.

It was being followed or preceded by several big trucks, a police car and lots of roadworkers in their luminous safety vests. It was then I remembered receiving in my letterbox a circular from the Department of Transport and Main Roads kindly advising me that such roadworks were being undertaken and would need to be carried out at night to avoid traffic disruption.
I retrieved the departmental letter and re-read it. Yes, it did tell me roadworks were being scheduled for several nights. However, it also said “work will start on 28th March” and should be completed “by 30th April”.
Given that my slumber was disturbed in the second week of May suggests those running the department are quite happy with a margin of error of around six weeks in the advice they give taxpayers.