Ekka time brings tears to this old bird’s eyes

FROM MY CORNER ... with Ann Brunswick

It’s almost Ekka time again and your favourite columnist’s eyes are getting just a little misty at the thought of the 10 days of excitement that are now almost upon us.

My eyes do it every year in fact, perhaps as some sort of Pavlovian reflex whereby the very mention of the word Ekka has the eyes watering. Do they do that simply to beat reality to the punch; showing off the symptoms of that ubiquitous Ekka cold or the effects of those dry and dusty westerlies that seem to spring up the moment the big ferris wheel starts to take paying passengers on the opening Thursday?

But if you must know, and I’m going to tell you anyway, those eyes might just be welling up a little with nostalgia too, ‘cos your Ann has had a soft spot for the Ekka every since he/she was a little boy/girl.
And as my loyal readers would know, your Ann is a sentimental old chook at heart which probably explains why the poultry pavilion has always been one of her favourite Ekka haunts. Along with countless other Brisbanites, the Ekka proved an annual benchmark to important stages in that rite of passage as your Ann’s unusual childhood unfolded.
That Ekka outing is warmly recalled when she first made the transition from the rather timid merry-go-round rides to the frightening Cha Cha Cha (Twister in later years). Only to find out a year later that the Cha Cha Cha was child’s play after all, compared with how easy it was to lose all your loose change on the Zipper or the contents of your stomach on the much-feared Vomitron as we called it back then. That landmark Ekka year when she proudly stepped out of the front gate with what seemed then like an unbelievable amount of money in her wallet/purse – enough seemingly to buy every dagwood dog at the show – with her proud parents/ guardian/ halfwayhouse supervisor beaming from the kitchen window as she made her first foray to the show, not only on her lonesome, but wearing for the very first time shoes. Then a few years after that, not just shoes but long trousers or a proper skirt with pleats and all, depending on how she felt about such things that particular morning. And then as the years unfolded, where sitting up on Machinery Hill tucking into the contents of sample bags way back when sample bags were exactly that – samples of all sorts of licorice and peanut-based goodies – was no longer her primary focus at the Ekka.
Where hours spent happily on the hill listening to John Nash call the main ring program made way for that nervous wait by the phone booths outside the police station next to the showbag pavilion wondering whether that “date” from school would in fact turn up. And the sorts of wildly erotic fantasies that swirled around inside his or her fertile teenage mind as to what just might happen on the Octopus down the SideShow Alley later that night if indeed he or she did show.
Ah, readers, the memories. Someone better hand your Ann a tissue right now! So maybe we can meet up at the Show this year. No doubt my annual request to be allowed to join the precision cars in my trusty LandRover will be meet with the usual stony silence. Pity. I think it would be spectacular addition to the program.
So until the RNA wakes up to itself, keep an eye out for me at the chooks. If not there, I’m usually in the front row of the fashion parade or on the floor of the original cattlemen’s bar.

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Have you noticed how quickly Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited fish-wrappers across our nation have embraced the whole issue of privacy, and the public’s right to it?

Odd isn’t it, that it takes just the hint of a public inquiry into the media sparked by concerns about the type of invasions of privacy practised by Rupert’s tabloids in the UK, and his Aussie papers embrace the whole notion of privacy as fast as a stand-up comic with a shaving cream pie in his hand.
Not only that, but they go out of their way to find examples of how the “big brother” federal government and its agencies are eroding people’s privacy by keeping tabs on them through various means. That wouldn’t be the very same government that wants to set up some form of media inquiry would it? Oddly enough, it is.
Who’d have thought it? News Limited tactics are embarrassingly transparent – embarrass the government in the hope of staying its plans for an inquiry. So, after years of heading the Right to Know campaign, News Limited’s local head honcho must now be planning a Right Not to Know campaign.
Well, he certainly proved he respected the privacy of Melbourne Storm players didn’t he?

***

The State Government has announced the installation of extra fixed speed cameras at six locations throughout Brisbane. The reference to “fixed” is not a slur on their reliability or the integrity of their readings.

No, it means that unlike speed cameras in the back of vans that can roam our roadways and pick off lead-foot drivers at various locations, the new ones will be concreted into position at locations deemed to be favoured by speedsters.
In unveiling the cameras the government expressed the hope that the new digital cameras will deter people from breaking speed limits. Well, we all know the answer to that. They won’t.
The location of existing fixed speed cameras is public knowledge, signs warn approaching motorists of their presence, yet they still catch hundreds of people a year whose fines add considerably to state coffers. Now it is not my argument that people should be allowed to break the speed limit.
But let’s not pretend that the cameras, especially fixed ones, somehow educate drivers not to speed. If they did, revenue from them would eventually be zero, and that’s not going to happen.
Any suggestions, dear readers, for a solution that might actually work?