Bushranger
Comeuppance for utility
On Monday, Darwin’s *ahem* highly competent electricity providers got a taste of their own medicine. “Our Darwin shopfront is temporarily closed due to an interruption to power supply at the Mitchell Centre. We apologise for the inconvenience,” the Power and Water Corporation said in a statement. Customers must have been gutted not to be able to pay their bills.
Slowly dehydrating
DEPUTY Chief Minister Nicole Manison left journos waiting on Monday for 16 minutes in the sweltering heat out the front of Parliament House this week, with rain threatening. The reason: difficulties sorting out the new governmental letterheads. Bushranger wonders how Mano will deal with more challenging changes the new gig brings.
Supremely imperial
GOVERNMENT bean counters will soon find out how much cashola, if any, they’ll have to cough up over the tear-gassing of six kids in custody. It’s all a drop in the ocean compared to the $50 million Royal Commission. Lawyers, trying to suggest one of the boys couldn’t possibly have had his hands slammed in a cell door hatch, got a prison guard witness to estimate how tall they were. Justice Judith Kelly chimed in: “I’m over 60 ... can we please do this in feet and inches,” she said.
Thanks mum
PARENTS have many endearing qualities, most commonly they are slightly embarrassing and a little bit crap with technology. Local ABC journo and donga aficionado Emi- lia Terzon can attest to both of these after her mum Elizabeth left a comment on the ABC News national Facebook page, which had just posted one of her daughter’s stories. “Great article darling love mum xxx.”
Lay off that whisky
GRIZZLED rocker Tex Perkins played to a sellout crowd at the Fannie Bay jail on Friday night. Perkins was covering a repertoire of Johnny Cash songs on his tour Far from Folsom. Organisers, however, seemed to have underestimated the booziness of Perkins’ audience. Heavy drinks were sold out shortly before 9pm.
Size does matter
THEY say size doesn’t matter ... but THEY obviously haven’t been to the NT. Did you know our treasure Uluru stands higher than the Eiffel Tower and even the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Statue of Liberty combined. Uluru stands at an impressive, and superior, 348m. The Eiffel Tower stands at 324m, The Great Pyramid of Giza is 139m high, Sydney Harbour Bridge is a piddly 134m, Big Ben an embarrassing 96m and worse still the Statue of Liberty is a slight 93m. #dotheNT
Cop crowd just looking
MOTORISTS driving down Bagot Road could be forgiven for being curious after seeing four police cars with flashing lights pull up but not breathtesting anyone on Thursday night. Turns out a male driver had hit a dog and called 000, but then called back because he wasn’t sure if it might not have been a person. Apparently it was a quiet night for the cops, because after radioing for one team to check it out, four teams rocked up.
Not all beer and skittles
IT’S national healthy eating month, posters in workplaces around the Territory say. Bushranger’s spies are reliably informed that one office, to celebrate, supplied its workers with beer and jellybeans on Friday.
Cos-no for good reason
BUSHRANGER this week has knocked back three separate submissions, each relating to NT News journo Craig Dunlop’s quest to become Cosmo Bachelor of the Year. Reliable sources say Dunlop has a girlfriend and is not, technically, a bachelor. Though, to be fair, no one at the NT News has ever met her or seen a picture. Digressing slightly, Bushranger has made an executive decision to not fuel Dunlop’s ego any further by posting about his “work“for other, less reputable, publications.
Mass exodus from carpark
Earlier this year, the good-humoured and innovative boffins at Darwin’s Bureau of Meteorology office developed a new scientific metric for measuring seasonal change in the Top End. It was called the Backpackers in the Carpark Index and measured the number of wicked campervans parked overnight in the carpark next to their office. At its peak, the index hit 12. The index was short lived, though, and results were only posted once on the office’s official Twitter page. Bushranger visited the carpark yesterday morning and can confirm the index has reached zero, suggesting the tourist season is officially over for the year.