I received a response from Gai and also from ‘head office’. The head office one was a little less gracious and somewhat offended by what I said about you. However (and I think you might agree) if you’re a public broadcaster you’re going to cop broadsides from the public. It comes with the profile and the territory.

Keep up the good work (for Bendigo, not here) and ‘Stand by your man’.

Cheers,

Ray

Baldrick, I haven’t formed a firm opinion on the quarry yet but I think you’ll find there are residential amenity & noise issues, if not environmental ones. No doubt this is going to be a very hot topic so I’ll wait until I know more before I say more.

I’d be the first to jump up and down if there was to be environmental degradation of the area but my sources tell me that this area is already a massive mess from dredging from our wise forefathers. I understand that this is to be taken from the area to be used in landscaping etc. Now I might be wrong here and of course I haven’t been engaged in the exhaustive investigative journalism that graced the front page.

The term “quarry” conjures images of the Glenrowan quarry monstrosity and “mine” seems to be somewhat misleading as well. The images created from these evocative words can easily be misconstrued.

There are farmers in this area who have lost significant income and in this case it may well be that the landholder is trying to utilise “a useless wasteland” (does that compete with the journalist) to try to break even.

Hopefully the reality of this situation will come to light. I am intrigued as to what environmental or other damage will occur in this case. You know what? I might even read the entire application myself.

I need to explain in this forum the reasoning for what i do when you hear me.

the core audience i cover is central vic, the wimmera, and mallee and when i network to you while i try to “expand” the stories to take in your part of the world my main focus is and always must be the audience i talk with every day because when JT returns they are still with me and you are not.

It is not an ideal situation we all know that but we are funded by the taxpayer we can’t sell “ads” to increase revenue so we cut our cloth.

the answer as mentioned above is to basically strap JT into the studio chair and make sure he doesn’t escape!

However i am really, really impressed by your passionate desire for local stories and local presenters …thats the whole point of ABC local radio and what we try to deliver as much as possible

cheers
dull dave

(1) An official report that the Alpine council’s planning dept is in disarray, disillusioned and dysfunctional. A lot of ‘dises’ there … but not a lot of surprises.

(2) An application for a 5 hectare pebble & boulder quarry by the Buckland River in Porepunkah. That one is bound to be highly controversial and may even attract as much opposition as the Coles matter. Well, more actually. I think I might be opposed to it too.

More success? ‘Dull Dave’ Lennon is back on today but Gai Patterson from ABC Wodonga did the first half hour to make sure some local issues were covered. Gai also stressed that Joseph Thomsen WILL be back on air tomorrow. (It was Gai who sent me the reply yesterday)

my husband used to live in Albury. He’s still recovering

For some, it’s too late (Dave from …. ?)

Ditto. I’ve never been to Bright, but my husband used to live in Albury. He’s still recovering.

Re: Tigers – get stuffed.

P.s. No I’m not Bernie Finn

Maybe you deserved it !!!!

Anyway, I appreciate your contribution to this blog and … oh, sorry about the Tigers not being able to score for 80 minutes against the Saints.

And I admit, he’s not “the brightest penny in the box”.

But overall he puts a pretty entertaining show together and he does get across local issues – even if he’s not quite at grips with them himself.

What did he interview you about? (If you can say without revealing too much)

Me – “oh for phuksake” and I switch him off. Drives me batty.

He’s interviewed me before and everytime he paused I made a point to jump in on top of him.

We have the best local ABC station here in Hobart. Peter Cundall on talkback, Tim Cox the magnificent., Annie Warburton the culltured… and the music is so good I’ve often had to chase it down to get it onto my MP3 thingy.

It sounds like the ABC is letting you down – they’re supposed to be the voice of the country aren’t they? Not much use if the part of the country isn’t yours. Keep at them.