Items

• 
  2020-10-16

  Table showing media bias

  Experiencing coronavirus in the age of 24/7 news coverage, I imagine most people have become far more conscious of where they choose to get their news. I've been brought up an ABC @ 7 operator, and I count myself lucky. Throughout the storm of rating battles, exclusive reports and breaking news I have been confident that I could trust the ABC and my paper choice The Age. Trust might be naive but it seems like the only option. Every now and again I'll flick onto a commercial channel and find myself wondering, is this news? My mates have also become more conscious of their sources too, one of them got me onto 'Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty' on iView, making me even more skeptical about anything I read. I feel like the media almost have an almost more important responsibility to people than politicians. I wonder a lot, at the moment especially, whether news outlets are fulfilling their responsibility or is shock and clickbait bringing in the money that really talks.
• 
  2020-09-28

  Carrot in a box

  During Lockdown in the search for routine and some sort of normality, usually my weekdays finish with ABC News at 7pm followed by 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown at 7:30. Being a news snob I have always watched ABC, but recently 8 out of 10 Cats has become a new daily routine that provides regular humour relief from a bleak day inside. Hosted by Jimmy Carr and filled with stupidity as well as 'play-at-home' Countdown gameshow rounds, I have really fallen in love with it. The show is reliable, positive and immature, three things that are hard to come by at the moment. Further to that a pipe dream of mine is to one day live in the UK, and with borders closing until the end of 2021 that feels like a very long pipe, but getting to watch it even now makes me feel like maybe I'll watch it with a cup of tea in London somewhere. This particular clip was one of the funnier things I've ever seen on TV, let alone on this show, and made a mediocre night watching TV a conversational piece about a carrot in a box.
• 
  2020-09-10

  Retirement in the Rumour File

  My Dad used to listen to the rumour file every morning for work, I remember one time he had to work all day on something that broke on the rumour file that morning. As I've tried to be setting a new routine and waking up early, I've been listening a lot to Ross and (recently) Russell in the morning. It's nice to use live radio to feel connected during this lockdown, particularly when AW is so Melbourne based. I'm nowt alone either I think their ratings have gone up something like 30%. This guy rang up with a rumour about a former number one draft pick retiring this week. As a Carlton Fan and a receiver of many a failed number one draft picks, I thought it had to be one of ours. Sure enough, a few hours later news broke that Matthew Kreuzer was retiring. Another draft pick hampered by injury that never hit his prime into the Carlton graveyard. I still even now think of Kreuz as a pimply eighteen year old. At least I got to break the news to my mates and feel ahead of the curve, and the rumour file is really helping me get through.
• 
  2020-09-12

  Schofferhofer

  These two photos are of a glass beer bottle from a Belgian Beer Cafe. One of my Dad's mates knows the guy who owns it and although the cafe is in Malvern and the CBD, my Dad's mate has been helping him deliver them around Carlton/Fitzroy. Dad was getting them every week and he bought me one the other week so I could see what it tasted like. It was beautiful, rich and hoppy. We changed to Peronis after and it just wasn't the same. Dad kept bugging me about how much it cost and I told him I'd send him money but he didn't want a bar of me. When I spoke to Mum she said she told him that he wasn't buying me any food any more since I moved out, we aren't catching up for meals or coffee or anything, the least he can do is buy me beer. Dad likes to have everyone in the same place and I think he was flat I eventually moved out, especially when it's so hard to catch up at the moment, but being able to to share this together, even if we are apart, was comforting.
• 
  2020-09-03T12:24+10:00

  Billie's House

  Over the past few weeks, my girlfriend and I have been watching the Australian TV Drama 'Offspring.' When I say watching, I probably mean obsessing. With nothing to do we would watch a few episodes a day and finished all seven seasons in around a month. We like the show particularly because it is shot in and around Fitzroy, a place where we would often catch up with out mates over a beer or in the park at Edinburgh Gardens, I think seeing the characters in Offspring be able to go for a pint at the Union Club Hotel gave us some sort of comfort, and the pub is top of our first visit list when they open again. As we tried to create entertaining walks we would look for some of the houses they shoot in and this photo shows one I stumbled upon on a run, Billie's house in later seasons. Like any show you like to be where they were, becoming part of the story yourself, and particularly when there was not really much of a story in our lives in lockdown, it was good to be part of theirs. Now that we've finished all seasons and are adrift in endless Netflix menus, seeing the houses returns me to that place of belonging I had.