“Tanti-social” toilets in Coburg

What larks to see Media Watch pick up on the Moreland Leader’s sub-editing issues. And following The Republic’s exposé on Coburg’s über-toilet scandal (see post below), the Leader ran a campaign to “stop the tanti-social behavior” in Coburg toilets.

You what?

Tanti-social issues are one thing (and don’t we all have ‘em?), but spelling ‘behaviour’ American-style is just a steaming pile of jobbies. Still, bottoms up to the Leader subs who remembered to replace “Toilet headline in here thanks ta” with:

Toilet backflip a big relief for Coburg shoppers

It’s punny, innit? (I bet you can think of a dozen variations — “Shoppers’ fears flushed away” and so on.) The story then describes a dangerous Alan Jones phenomenon in Cobes that’s threatening family values:

A lack of toilets in the central shopping district had forced families and parents with prams to use underground toilets also used by men cruising for sex.

I’m just busting for A Current Affair to pick up on this one. Read the full report here.

A toyme in the loyfe of a Cobufoyle

It’s been a very Coburg toyme.

• The excellent Cobes butcher that sells free-range meats twice gave me a voucher to Baker’s Delight™. I’d rather eat my mother-in-law’s year-old kidney fry than bread from Baker’s Delight™, but Bloke on The Avenue was with me and it was simply against his high principles to waste a freebie, so we had Bakers Delight™’s dinner rolls with our bbq. (They were better than anything m-i-l has served up.) The second time Little One was with me and he, too, insisted on an anemic-looking Pizza Roll. To the chicks at Baker’s Delight™, you have to pronounce that “Peeetsa Roewell.” Or they don’t understand you.

• Bladder bursting, I queued for at least 15 minutes to get into Coburg’s new multimillion $ state-of-the-art stainless steel space-aged-unisex-self-flushing-self-cleaning-auto-loo conveniently located next to the library. Have you seen the boastful public notices about this beast? It’s intuitive, you know — you don’t have to touch anything. Kewl. But when I finally got in, I washed my hands, grotty after aforementioned Peeetsa Roewell (okay, I shared it with Little One, and it was ace). Which automatically flushed Loo before I’d done my business. Wasteful! I scolded Loo — and to get back at me, after I’d done my business, it wouldn’t let me wash my hands a second time. Did not compute. Hence it wouldn’t automatically flush (IF=handwashing THEN=flush). I had a bit of explaining to do to the next person in the queue.

• Under duress, I took some Easter Bunny colouring sheets from the supermarket counter for Little One and his Little Brunswick Mate to colour in. Only they’re not innocent bunny colouring sheets: they’re the Coles® Land of Cadbury™ Colouring® Competition™. Little One and Brunswick Junior wanted to enter their fine colouring, but alas, I secreted their entries to the recycling bin, as the Conditions of Entry™ says their addresses and details will remain the property of Coles® for all time for marketing purposes and whatever other purposes Coles® deems fit.

• I took down a hoon’s details with full intention of dobbing him in. What an aresehole, scooting between traffic at 150k with his doof-doof. I got home and inertia set in.

The FLY!

Should I be worried? Can I take precautions? Do fruit fly like quince?

The news that a backyard in Ascot Vale has been quarantined after the discovery of fruit-fly has me in a small, but still significant, panic. How many backyards between that one and mine, and how many contain fruit? I’m guessing, not many, and all of them, respectively.

My grandparents lived near the NSW border and so I grew up spending a large part of the summer holidays parked on the side of the road while grandma force-fed us fruit prior to us being inspected at the fruit-fly post. Apparently this was because the alternative, throwing the fruit into the bin provided, would be ‘wasting it’. Should we be setting set up a Checkpoint Charlie at Puckle St? Destroying our fruit? Checking it? I’m off to do some research, what does fruit fly look like and what should we be doing? (Of course I could have done that before I posted but that would go against the spirit of the internet now wouldn’t it?)

Headline in here thanks ta

Moreland Leader’s savvy-sub-editors working overtime.

But if you want to witness the nadir of suburban newspaper reportage, read Helen’s post here.