Chips may be the go for tracking
This week, JOHN ANDERSEN shares the unfortunate experience of a visiting couple during their drive through some of the remotest areas in Australia
TWO weeks ago a couple I know drove an expensive European car from Brisbane to the Tableland and from there to Georgetown.
By the time they got to Georgetown – bitumen road the entire way - warning lights had popped up on the screen.
So they rang the dealer in Brisbane, in this case Audi, who said, “don’t worry, we’ll have someone there in one hour”.
The husband responded, “I don’t think you appreciate where we are”.
For those unsure of its location, Georgetown, in the Gulf Country, is 547km north-west of Townsville and 376km southwest of Cairns.
Long story short, they were able to drive their car back to the coast, but it makes you wonder why these expensive European cars or any cars for that matter are not fitted with a chip that alerts the dealership there is a problem.
The Townsville Bully editor in an editorial this week promoted the idea that in order to reduce car theft, immobilisers be installed in vehicles.
These would allow police or some other authority to track and stop stolen vehicles. The heavy machinery industry already has such technology in place.
I spoke to Nathan Timms in the Townsville Komatsu office this week.
Their machines are fitted with a Komtrax chip. For example, if there is something going wrong with the hydraulics, Komtrax sends a message back to the office which then alerts the operator.
No matter if it’s in the middle of the Simpson Desert, Komtrax knows precisely where the machine is and can direct a diesel fitter to the site via Google Maps.
And if the machine is stolen, Komtrax can track it and if necessary shut the machine down so that it can’t be moved.
Pretty good.
Why then isn’t there something like this on cars?
“We’ll have someone there in an hour.” Yeah, right, and JC played on the wing for the Ross River Redskins.
MOVER AND SHAKER
ANYONE doubting the forces driving more and more women towards a career in politics should have a word to Shannen Oversby.
I spotted her wearing this cleverly worded sweater in a coffee shop in Malanda last week.
Why then isn’t there something like this on cars?
It’s a pretty good contemporary spin-off of the old favourite, “a woman’s place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant”.
But, coward that I am, I didn’t run that one past Shannen.
MEMORIES OF GOOD OLD DAYS
FORMER Townsville publican Ron Stone sent me this message after the piece last week about the royally-named pubs in the city such as the Empire, the Royal and the Commonwealth.
“Your piece about The Empire Hotel and the Monarchy in the NQ Weekend brought back some droll memories about how I’d antagonise Steve, the publican at The Empire in the late 1960’s
My wife and I were running her family’s pub, the Victoria Bridge hotel (at 1, Palmer Street, where ‘Jam Corner’ is now), while the family was overseas in about ‘67/’68.
In those days, most South Townsville pubs opened behind closed doors every day at about 4.30am, to serve the wharfies, night workers etc. Once in a while, I’d dash out before my shift started at 10am, round the corner to the back door of the Empire, stand to attention in the doorway, salute, and call out, “God save the
Queen and the Empire”.
Steve would yell at me, “Go home, you Pommie B......”, only in more explicit and coarser terms. (I came to OZ with a mate some years earlier on the old Ten pounds scheme, and we wandered around finding work until I eventually got married in Townsville).
As you’d remember, the old pubs then catered for men in the bar, drinking only 7 and 5 ounce Cairns’ draught, with the odd rum chaser, although some pubs did go to the trouble of providing small metal chairs and tables out the back for a lady or two to indulge in a shandy or a Starwine, or even a port and lemon if they felt like a cocktail!
Publicans were a close-knit community in the 60’s and 70’s, often playing pranks on others, and even occasionally visiting other pubs to shout the bar and tell a lie or two!
Not sure if that still goes on today.”
Thanks Ron, things have changed since then.
Women no longer have to sit out the back to have a port and lemon cocktail, which I might add, sounds like a brew you’d use to start a tractor.
And the larrikin, local publicans you speak of so fondly?
Sadly, they are now on the endangered species list, gobbled up by the soulless, corporate pub chains which have as much humour in them as a stump.
ICON TURNING 130
TOWNSVILLE’S St James Cathedral in Denham St is about to celebrates 130 years since the opening of its first part in October 27 1892.
It was a hard road building such a magnificent structure.
Although work started all those years ago, the cathedral itself wasn’t completed until 1960 after a major fund-raising effort was undertaken.
The 950 station owners in the Diocese were encouraged to donate the fleece from their black sheep to the cause and beef cattle growers branded calves “for the cathedral”.
Sugarcane farmers weren’t let off the hook and were asked to donate a percentage from each tonne of cane harvested.
A classy looking enamel car badge was given to those who donated 100 pounds sterling or more.
The cathedral would love to get their hands on one of the badges if there are any still around.
An album with more than 80 wedding photos has been produced and will be on exhibit.
There will be a dinner, concerts and tours of the cathedral to celebrate the milestone.
For more info on what is happening go to www.stjamescathedral.com.au.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP
THE Bureau of Meteorology hands over $70,000 of taxpayers’ hard-earned to a branding company which decrees that instead of BOM the agency will be hereafter and forever more be known as the Bureau.
When that news broke, all you could hear for a day or so, was…no, hang on, you couldn’t hear a thing, because all across this Great Southern Land ordinary Aussies, studiously going about their everyday business, were gobsmacked into silence.
“Nah, nah, that couldn’t be right,” you could almost hear the populace thinking.
It was right.
And it gets better. The bloke from the agency who pocketed the $70,000 has a new job.
Yes, with BOM. “Nah, Nah,” I hear you say. “That couldn’t be right.” Well, “yeah, yeah,” it’s right. Straya. A cove wouldn’t be dead for quids.