Horse 916 - Baked Beans, Jam Sandwiches and Back Benches

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/pm/200809/20080915pm06-pensioner-parliament.mp3
Copy and download the MP3 - it's a lark!

In what will surely go down as one of the most memorable speeches in parliamentary history, Federal Opposition Leader Dr Brendan Nelson has condemned the Government over its refusal to increase the rate of the pension before May next year. He plans to introduce a private member's bill into Parliament to increase the base rate of the single aged pension by $30 a week, but he has not yet revealed when he will do so and accused the PM of failing to help older Australians and forcing them to live off "baked beans and jam sandwiches."


Yes, the state of pensions is shocking. Currently the single aged pension stands at a pathetic $273 a week. If you bear in mind that I pay $290 a week in rent, then it's very easy to see why something should be done yesterday if not sooner; quite frankly I slam both the Government for not already delivering on an election promise and the Liberal Party who whilst in Government had 11 years to think about it.

Addenda:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/16/2365586.htm
Updated 21 minutes ago
Malcolm Turnbull has seized the Liberal leadership from Brendan Nelson after winning this morning's party room ballot by 45 votes to 41. Julie Bishop was unopposed and will remain as deputy leader.
Dr Nelson called the spill late yesterday in a move designed to surprise Mr Turnbull, who had been on holiday in Italy last week. Dr Nelson has held the leadership since last November, when he won the job in a vote against Mr Turnbull by 45 votes to 42.

Now I ask all sorts of questions. Was Dr Nelson playing a bit of self-serving? Now that he moves from being Federal Opposition Leader to completely out of the Shadow Cabinet, does that now mean that he himself will have to decide whether to have baked beans or jam sandwiches for lunch? Perhaps he could be indulgent and have both.

Horse 915 - The Slime's Coming Home

Liverpool 2 - Manchester Utd 1
Tevez 3, Brown (og 26), Babel 77

The most heated affair in the English football calendar ended with a Liverpool victory for the first time in 8 years, this encounter was quite different to those in the past for this was not a battle to two giants but a tale of three howlers.

The first of which happened just three minutes in when Carlos Tevez was allowed to remain unmarked and unchecked within the six yard box; one can only wonder where Arbeloa was if anywhere.

The second howler was really quite strange. Xavi Alonso made a half-witted strike that in all honesty went nowhere near anything remotely useful, but somehow it took a deflection off of Evra, and Van der Sar pushed into an unwitting Wes Brown. Spaniard Alberto Riera had the intent of following it in, but ultimately Brown's touch was the final one before it dribbled across the line.

And this is where the catfight started...

Carrick was tackled in a cynical piece of skull-duggery from Mascherano who probably deserved to be sent off or at very least shown a yellow card, but mysteriously unlike last year, earnt nothing and Carrick hobbled off and was replaced at half time by a sheep (Giggs).

After the half Keane, Benayoun, Scholes and Gerrard all lined up to take shots as Liverpool started to assert themselves but it was Ryan Giggs volley perilously tipped over the bar by Reina which took the wind out of Liverpool's sails.

On 77 minutes, Liverpool's pressure paid off. Mascherano battled his way down the right and to the line, Kuyt took up possession and played the ball across for Babel to crack home.

From here the remaining 13 minutes sort of fizzled out which was a good thing as for the first time for 8 years, I was able to walk away from an evening without feeling bad about the encounter. And for about 180 minutes, Liverpool were top of the league which was made all the sweeter because to do so meant stuffing one up Man Utd.

Horse 914 - Making up Stuff

I had intended to write a piece on the failed Sydney Metro Link and how there wasn't enough money in kick for the project, so I checked out the website to do some ferreting:
http://www.sydlink.com.au/site/page.cfm
Fair enough, the website was still up despite the whole project being dropped on its ear.

Then I found this:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/commuting--endurance-sport/2008/09/10/1220857606769.html
Nathan Rees was making no promises as he made his first bells-and-whistles tour of Sydney's troubled train system this morning.
He listened closely to a dozen commuters, mostly students, as they detailed their experience of getting in to Sydney from his local station, Wentworthville.

I have a few problems here:
1. Nathan Rees did not catch the train this morning.
2. Today is not September 11 but September 10.
3. This does not appear in today's newspaper.



Does this mean to say that the Herald has published an article inline before the event has actually happened? Does the Sydney Morning Herald have access to time-travel? Have they published an event based on a press release rather than actual journalism (because if they don't have access to time-travel, then they could not possibly have sent anyone to Wentworthville Station this morning)?

Admittedly I am not surprised by the axing of the project:
http://jamisonprawn.net/2008/09/a-tops-day-for-nsw/#comments
Rob:
You think they can fix the roads/trains/buses by the time I get back? I love not having to worry about transport over here, it’s awesome :) I don’t think once have I seen a ‘peak hour’.
Rollo:
Considering that the railway line to Castle Hill promised by the Dibbs government in 1891 still hasn’t been built, don’t hold your breath waiting.

This still does not however excuse the Sydney Morning Herald for publishing news before its happened... do the words "making it up" mean anything?

Horse 913 - Expand the AFL to 20 Teams, not 18

I have been doing the look around at the various plans for expansion teams in the AFL, and come up with four jerseys and four teams that I think should be installed by 2012. If I was grand high poo-bah then this would be the plan of attack:

Gold Coast 17
http://www.gc17.com.au
GC 17, the Gold Coast’s bid for the 17th licence in the Australian Football League, tonight officially launched its name, logo, colours and mascot. Unveiled at a Gala function on the Gold Coast the club will be known and marketed as the GOLD COAST FOOTBALL CLUB or GCFC. Club colours will be red, gold and blue and the club mascot will be an iconic Gold Coast surf identity know as "GC ".
GC 17 will deliver its formal submission to the Australian Football League on October 13 for the 17th AFL licence. The group must satisfy the AFL it has met a set of key criteria including community and business engagement and the development of a football department.

This is the most serious proposal I have seen. There is a decent website, and from what I've seen is fairly sound. The QAFL is starting to gather momentum, what with the Brisbane Lions winning a couple of flags and what not.

If I were going to set up a team on the Gold Coast, I think I would call it Gold Coast 17. Hey? 17 was for many years the number of Queensland's favourite son, Dick Johnson; actually calling the club this would be a nice little quirk.


West Sydney Celtics
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/afl-eyes-ireland-for-celtic-team/2008/07/11/1215658137146.html?page=fullpage
THE AFL is considering a radical proposal to launch an Irish-dominated team in Sydney's western suburbs, which would perform before an international audience under the Celtic brand name. Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick confirmed last night that the Irish option was being explored as a possible basis for the competition's 18th team, to debut as early as 2012.
The "Sydney Celtics" plan was first put to AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou 18 months ago by Gaelic Players Association executive Donal O'Neill. It has gained momentum in recent weeks following player agent Ricky Nixon's talent-spotting tour of Ireland. Nixon has contacted Demetriou and Fitzpatrick in recent days and put forward a revised template for the AFL's 18th licence.

Whilst the idea of deliberately placing a club with "Irish" heritage is seen to be possibly counter-racist, I don't necessarily see this as a problem because it would probably be conveniently ignored like the Celtics of Boston.

As far as expansion teams go then in Australia, Sydney itself is the ur-example. The Swans shifted from South Melbourne to Sydney in 1982 and for a while were the darling child before fading into the doldrums, regaining fame with the Premiership in 1996 and again going on the slide of late.

The inherant problem is that although Sydney is Rugby League territory, there isn't a natural rival for them. West Coast has Freo, the Crows have Port but Sydney and Brisbane don't really have anyone. The Gold Coast and the Celtics provide those rivals albeit artificially and given three or four years this will flourish ala Adelaide and Perth. Green is also a natural opposite to red.

Tasmanian Devils
http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?client=1-3385-0-0-0
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24111247-5016971,00.html
Tasmania dream of entering the AFL big league is nearing reality with the announcement yesterday of multi-million-dollar backing for a future state team. The State Government has clinched a $4 million sponsorship deal with confectionery giant Mars.
In an unprecedented move in Australia, Mars is going to rebrand its main line of confectionery from Mars bars to "Believe" bars to help garner nationwide support for the Tasmanian push.

The following two are really me dreaming a little, though not without cause because it would appear that far richer people are also dreaming about this. Tasmania actually already exists in the VFL... ok so they finished dead last but you know fair suck of the sav. If Tasmania were to play in the AFL proper, then the money would in theory exist to at least bring the standard up. Tasmania already play out of Aurora and Bellrive Oval which means that their venues are decent.

Darwin
http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?client=1-4169-0-0-0
This is such a pipe dream, it aint funny. I would personally like to see the AFL run a team in the Northern Territory. The reasons are twofold:
1. The Northern Territory currently has no teams in any national sporting competition.
2. Since the Territory has provided so many top-class players over the years, it is only fitting that the AFL reward the state, even if it never makes a profit. Since AFL is really the only sport that's actually played up the top end save for a few paltry One Day cricket matches and the V8 Supercars at Hidden Valley, the state would actually have something to get behind.

As for the number of weeks to play out four extra teams - if they abandoned this whole NAB Cup rubbish, then that would give another few weeks at least. Playing through one and a half times like they do now brings the regular season to 29 weeks, which means if you had a four week finals series like they do now, means staring the comp in the last few weeks in February, which is currently about when the NAB Cup starts anyway aint it?

Horse 912 - Additional II

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/members.nsf/0/A340185149819E9CCA2572A7001486BB

The Hon. Nathan REES, MP

• Member of the Legislative Assembly
• Member for Toongabbie
• Minister for Emergency Services, and Minister for Water
• Member of Australian Labor Party

Oh my goodness. The member for Toonie IS the Premier of NSW...

TOONIE WINS!!!

Jack Robinson

Told ya!

Horse 912 - Additional

I wish the Prawn's posts were time-stamped because it appears as though we were pretty much looking at this as about the same time. I find this afternoon that he made this post:
http://jamisonprawn.net/2008/09/a-tops-day-for-nsw

The links provided herein:
Brian Robins
September 5, 2008 - 10:48AM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/general/costa-dumped/2008/09/05/1220121480254.html

Alexandra Smith and Brian Robins
September 5, 2008 - 12:52PM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nathan-rees-confirmed-as-new-nsw-premier-as-morris-iemma-ousted/2008/09/05/1220121494217.html

This makes me wonder about the value of traditional media, especially when you consider that because of the internet, amateurs like myself are going push-button publishing at rates faster than traditional print media. Even before people had bought today's SMH it was already out of date, and even then if you'd managed to get a rolling copy of the paper, by not long after midday it would still be out of date - but not us in the blogosphere. We were there reporting and making sense of the news even faster than you could say Jack Robinson.

Horse 912 - Give Me The Job!

Oh what a truly wonder state of confusion we live it, Victoria may have had Jeff Kennett bt at the moment we aint got anyone.

Last night, Michael Costa was politely run through by Morris Iemma and it was expected that Iemma was going to annnounce a cabinet reshuffle. Guess what? He did. Not less than 18 minutes ago, Morris Iemma shuffled himself out of the top job of NSW.

"You told me to throw myself into the role."
"OK, throw yourself out of it now."

Of course it's likely that Neville No-one Nathan Rees will take over the job, but given that he's only been an MP for 18 months, goodness know who's going to be Premier.

Look, I'll do the job if it comes down to it. Sure, I haven't got any experience at all at running a chook lotto at the pub, but if it comes down to it, I'm perfectly capable of sounding half-intelligent, making a total ass-hat of myself, getting paid $225,000 a year for doing jack squat, and then quitting after 9 months. I mean could I honestly do any worse?

Horse 911 - Please Hate US

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7597529.stm
Pakistan has condemned an alleged raid by foreign troops based in Afghanistan which officials say killed at least 15 villagers in a north-west tribal area.

The South Waziristan raid would be the first ever ground assault into Pakistan by foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Pakistan says the raid was a violation of its sovereignty. On Thursday a US missile killed at least five people in nearby North Waziristan, officials say.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said Pakistan will not allow any foreign power to carry out attacks on its territory, inciting a wider uprising in the border area.

This "War on Terror" might be an coverhead for all of this but surely this is starting to rank as a point of insanity.

To review:
Iraq was presumed to have been developing Weapons of Mass Destruction and a "premptive war" was declared despite no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction ever being found before or after the war. In the five years subsequent, Iraq still remains politically unstable with military insurgence and civil disorder frequently breaking out.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks the United States launched a military campaign to destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist training camps inside Afghanistan. The US military also threatened to overthrow the Taliban government for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden and several al-Qaida members. The US made a common cause with the former Afghan Mujahideen to achieve its ends, including the Northern Alliance, a militia still recognized by the UN as the Afghan government.
In late 2001, US Special Forces invaded Afghanistan to aid anti-Taliban militias, backed by US air strikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda targets, culminating in the seizure of Kabul by the Northern Alliance and the overthrow of the Taliban, with many local warlords switching allegiance from the Taliban to the Northern Alliance.

There is still a lot of sabre rattling with Iran because since 2005, Iran's Nuclear Program has become the subject of contention with the West because of suspicions regarding Iran's military intentions. This has led the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Iran on select companies linked to this program, thus furthering its economic isolation on the international scene.

Now we find that the US this morning has decided to strike the western provinces of Pakistan after the Pakistani government started taking a blind eye to any Taliban style exercises within its borders.

It should be noted that Pakistan differs from the above nations on two main counts:
1. Pakistan is a relatively democratic country and after Pervez Musharraf stood down, there were elections due to be held this Saturday Sep 6. However because US forces unilaterally decided to strike, the outcomes of those elections is almost certainly likely to produce a hostile set of circumstances.

2. Unlike Iraq which never had Weapons of Mass Destruction, or Iran which is presumed to have them, Pakistan is known to actually possess nuclear weapons, and given that they've just been attacked, is it really going to acheive anything by stirring up a hornet's nest? One sure fire way to make someone hate you is to punch them in the nose, which given what's happened this morning, is just not sensible.

I just don't think that strirring them up is a particularly wise idea, and inadvertantly have have already changed the course of an election to a state of direct hostility. Honestly, are the US deliberately trying to make everybody hate them?

Horse 910 - What Happened to Adrian

Between the films Rocky V and Rocky Balboa, we are led to believe that Adrian has died through some sort of natural cause in the eighteen years between the films. Notwithstanding the fact that in Rocky V, Rocky suffers brain damage and is forced to retire from the ring, so we can't exactly guarantee that his memory was all that brilliant to begin with (and certainly his acting wasn't).

Having said this, the above newspaper goes in part to suggest the previous untold story what happened to Adrian and what a gruesome tale it is. All those years of Rocky eating raw eggs must have left him with a Biotin deficiency. What we do know is that somehow, the Daily Express got hold of this article and ran with it - living with Rocky's rotten egg smell can't have been great.

Horse 909 - Song Chart

The subject of the following picture may be vaguely familiar to some people... it took nearly 5 hours to compile though:



I think it's time I had some time alone.

Horse 908 - Buses, Becks & Boris

What the heck was that?
The closing ceremony at Beijing had all the clout and pomp that it should have, except for 8 minutes of total and utter madness put on by the next host city, London.

Whilst I have no idea, I'm guessing that what London tried to convey with its red London bus, umbrellas, lollipop lady, graffiti and Jimmy Page is that visitors to London will wait ages for a bus and then along will come... Rain!
(In fact, if you see a lollipop lady during your trip, you will have come at the wrong time and missed the Games, because all of the kiddies will be on holiday).

Maybe, of course, the whole eight minutes was an exercise in self-parody. The red bus and zebra crossing is what the world expects of Britain's capital city and that is all they are going to give you. Talking of self-parody, enter Boris. Love him or laugh at him, he is not easy to ignore. Again, two interpretations:

1. Was he, with his untied suit jacket, hands in pockets and extravagant waving, mocking the self importance of the passing-over-of-the-Olympic-flag ceremony?
2. Was he insulting China and the IOC with his excessive informality?

Whatever the answer is, I thought him rather a refreshing change from the pompousity that walks with the Olympic movement wherever it goes. Anything with a Boris in charge be it Johnson, Yeltsin or even Badenov is guaranteed to not work quite properly and to be somewhat amusing.

Horse 907 - Green and Gold

Australia finally officially adopted green and gold as its sporting colours with the assent of the Govenor-General Sir Ninian Stephen in 1984. The exact colours were specified as being Pantone Matching System numbers 116C and 348C... but why? The common belief is that the colours were chosen because they are the dominant colours of Australia's floral emblem, the Golden Wattle, but I suspect that the reason is more pragmatic.

I've found references as far back as 1899 when the Australian cricket captain Joe Darling walked into a suit shop in London and asked for 15 green blazers piped in gold trim for the Australian touring side to wear. The baggy green it would seem actually predates Australia as a nation. It was officially adopted in 1908.

The Australiasian Olympic Team comprising of both Australians and New Zealanders wore gold and green at the 1908 London and 1912 Stockholm games.

The Wallabies who previously had played in blue or white, either chose gold after beating the All-Blacks 3-0 in a test series in 1928/9 or in 1931 with the commencement of the Bledisloe Cup.
Almost in defiance which is why I still don't know who took it up first, the Kangaroos played in green and gold hoops in 1928 against England. The fact that one would want to distance themselves from the other is logical but I don't know which came first.

Certainly by the time that the Melbourne Olympics of 1956 came around, the green and gold was more or less permanent and by the time of Sir Jack Brabham winning the Formula One World Driver's Championship in a car he designed and built himself it was well and truly established - his car proudly bore British Racing Green with a gold stripe down the centre.

The 2008 Australian Olympic Team however walked into the stadium in a flashy blue and white affair. Whilst the opening ceremony doesn't need the national sporting colours, the designers still succeeded in producing a really crap looking uniform.

Horse 906 - First Day Back at School

Sydney 0 - Melbourne 0

On a night where the wind cut through the crowd like a shining scimitar through so many soldiers, last night's affair was cold and clumsy. For Sydney's efforts they were denied by the woodwork twice and Melbourne were beaten by an invisible forcefield, which surrounded the goal - put it this way, it certainly was not Sydney's skill that kept them at bay for 90 minutes.

Payne and Cole made their debuts last night and two more players on the bench also made their first start in the 15. Bridge was still away in China after the Olyroos campaign and the "marquee" player John Aloisi remains injured. So with a depleted squad, Sydney were up against it. Or were they...

This game was played in the air, with more chips than you get with a piece of fish. Melbourne captain Kevin Muscat looked like a thug, and pretty well much cancelled both Corica and Payne up front.
At the other end, baldy-man Net Fabiano really only had Bolton to bet most of the time and he failed in that.

The newspapers described this as "entertaining" but me thinks that has more to do with the fact that they were watching froma little cosy press box. Down in the stands we must have missed that bit. Bore-draw? Not really, but not exactly the catfight we should have sen either.

Horse 905 - Lolly Water Cube

I should have realised this, but the reason as why so many world records have fallen at these Olympic Games... and it took NPR to find it:
The Water Cube pool also has 10 lanes instead of eight. Waves churned up during races don't bounce back into the swimming lanes. Waves that reach the sides are siphoned off by perforated gutters.
The Water Cube pool is close to 10 feet deep. That's 3 feet deeper than the pools of the past. The lane lines that separate swimmers are called wave eaters because they dissipate turbulent water. The goal is to make the water as flat and clear as possible, despite the churning that swimmers create.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93478073

What? Can I suggest that the "Olympic Pool" in the water cube is not really an Olympic Pool. I always thought that an "Olympic Pool" was only 8 lanes wide, and if this thing is deeper than what sort of rubbish is this? Don't they have Olympic standards for this sort of thing?

What happens to the records of the great Ian Thorpe? How about Lionel Rose? Ok, he was a boxer but what do you think Dawn Fraser would have to say? Already Michael Phelps is being touted as the "greatest Olympian of all time" by winning his 10th and 11th gold medals. Not to take anything away from the man because he did have to beat other competitors but he's won these latest ones in a great big smelly cheat-pool.

Should any of the records have any standing? What next? The Mens 196km Marathon? The Super 16m platform dive? And yet the IOC has the nerve to tell the comptitors not take drugs? If you're going to start changing the games themselves I say it scarcely matters.

What not just go the who shebang and have the Ultra-Drugged-Up to the Eyeballs Games? I want to see someone run the 89m sprint in under 4.4 seconds.

Horse 904 - No Longer a Billionaire

XE.com tells me this morning that:
1.00 AUD = 11.0121 ZWD
What's going on here? I thought I was a billionaire...

http://www.rbz.co.zw/pdfs/2008Julymps/mps.pdf
Notice: The Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD on August 1, 2008 at a rate of 10,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD. No new currency code has been issued, but the old ZWD currency remains legal tender until December 31, 2008.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has announced that it is going to fire Dr. Evil as its chief currency controller. No longer will it be possible to announce that you're a multi-billionaire when buying the local newspaper - how much is it? ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS



Inflation was running so rampant that it got as high as 2,200,000% (2.2 million percent), in fact it got so bad that the physical supply of cash just couldn't keep up with the cost of goods. Whilst it may sound appealing to have a net worth of $100 billion dollars, in Zimbabwe the amount was not enough to even buy a single loaf of bread!

The Zimbabwean central bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), has mismanaged this hyper-inflation and has ignored advice from the International Monetary fund (IMF), instead choosing to print money as if it were toilet paper (which went for $417 ZWD per sheet, not per roll, in March of 2006, according to a New York Times article). As more money is added to the supply, the value of each individual unit of currency falls, until the currency becomes worthless.

Sothen, what is the solution? Generally inflation can be caused by too much money chasing too few goods, and one possible solution would be to increase the number and amount of goods produced. The other, more obvious solution would be to decrease (or at least stabilize) the supply of money. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. This is especially true when your leader is President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the country for 28 years and was recently condemned by the international community for waging a campaign of violence against his political opponents. Mugabe is now threatening to loot businesses owned by foreigners, especially from the U.K., blaming them for his country's economic woes, all the while printing cash like there's no tommorrow.

Horse 903 - Triple Eight

oops

Ok so the date is 8-8-8. It's lucky according to the Chinese and for deliberately that reason why the Olympic Games "officially" start tonight. Having said all of that, a far more interesting Triple Eight is the point of discussion today.

Triple Eight Motorsport who run the factory Vauxhall team in the BTCC interestingly also happen to engineer a Ford team (Vodafone) in Australia's V8 Supercar team (go figure). For this year's Bathurst 1000, 888 are bringing reigning British Touring Car champion Fabrizio Giovanardi for a tilt at the crown. Basically, Australians beware... this guy is good.

The Italian, who has eight top-line touring car titles to his name in the European, British, Italian and Spanish championships, will contest the Australian V8 touring car round at Mount Panorama with Team Vodafone, who have won the event for the last two years.

He had planned to attend the race to watch his new teammate Matt Neal take part in the event, but his VX Racing team arranged the deal with their sister Triple Eight squad in Australia. Giovanardi will partner Briton Marc Hynes in a Ford Falcon, while previous winners Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup will share the team's other car.

Meanwhile 888's other front line driver in the BTCC, Matt Neal is also racing the Bathurst 1000 this year, driving for arch enemies Holden in the Supercheap Auto Racing team. That's not going to end in tears, is it?

Horse 902 - When Journos Steal

The difference between you and I is that you get deadlines and I write headlines... er...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/public-transport-better-on-your-bike/2008/07/31/1217097434118.html

WHAT does it say about Sydney that a 60-year-old journalist - on foot - is only just beaten to the city from Ryde by an express train and a limited-stops bus?
It says the following: The Sydney Morning Herald, the usual bastian of news reporting in this fair city that's built around a harbour has taken to stealing content ideas from BBC's Top Gear.

John Huxley, the Herald's associate editor, charged in to the CBD during Monday morning's peak hour in 80 minutes - almost the same time as thousands of commuters - using nothing but a pair of running shoes.
He'd need to run. I figure that the average running speed is about 6mph. Since the distance from Ryde to the city is 11.4 miles according to Google Maps, in 80 minutes he moves at roughly 8.55mph. For a 60 year old that's really moving.

It was the most revealing moment in the Herald's inaugural Great Commuter Race. Six reporters, six modes of transport, one destination. We wanted to find the fastest way from the leafy street in the North Shore electorate of Ryde where the Transport Minister, John Watkins, lives, to Parliament House on Macquarie Street. This is, after all, where he has to commute to each day if he is going to fix the mess that is Sydney's transport system.
We tried to make the race as realistic as possible by including in our calculations the time it took to walk to bus stops and alight from trains. And some of the results were surprising.

We had a team each on a train (there is no "Ryde" train station) and a bus, we had a motorist, a scooter-rider, and we had two of our more athletic staff under their own steam - a cyclist and, of course, "Hux", a marathon veteran.
The Hux? Some say that he expresses his feelings through his helmet... All we know is, he doesn't look happy taking public transport. Otherwise he's known as The Stig.

Ok, maybe that's enough bashing of the SMH... even the SMH admits when they've stolen something:
And the Transport Minister's verdict? "Your Top Gear-style transport challenge clearly shows the diverse travel options Sydney residents use to get to work every day."
My verdict? Watch out next week when the SMH drives across Africa, checks out Ford's new RS Focus, it puts celebrity Alexander Downer around it's track and let's The Stig loose in an Audi R10LMP... and on that bombshell, Goodnight!




May in a Mercedes GLK raced Hammond on a bicycle, The Stig using public transport and Clarkson by boat from Kew to London City. The Stig started on a bus, got on the Tube before taking the DLR. Series Ten, Episode Five