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Canberra Today 16°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Canberra Confidential / Kevern write a book

WHAT SNAPPERS SEE: “CityNews” photographer Gary Schafer took this haunting image of the Queanbeyan weir flowing just after sundown after some rain the other day.
WHAT SNAPPERS SEE: “CityNews” photographer Gary Schafer took this haunting image of the Queanbeyan weir flowing just after sundown after some rain the other day.
Kevern write a book

“@Rudd2000: Both Labour and Lieberal parties terrified ebola come to Australia in case it beat them in Newspoll.”

That’s a taste of local journalism academic Scott Bridges’ 3000 tweets over nine months from his satirical Kevin Rudd twitter feed, a feed which amassed 5000 followers before he shut it down.

The morning after Rudd announced his retirement from the parliament on November 13 last year, Bridges began tweeting, inviting followers to “#imagen Kevin Rudd never fired and still PM today?”

Using the mangled spelling and syntax appropriate to certain timely internet memes, @Rudd2000 painted caricatures of federal politicians and other members of the media/political class.

In addition to “Kevern”, @Rudd2000 chronicled the lives of figures such as “Ablo” who has a seemingly insatiable appetite, “Crag Thomsen” who is down on his luck but loves to party, “Scot Moronsen” who takes delight in others’ misery, “Toney Abert” who is a world expert in lying and the ever-lovable “Emmo”.

Now there’s an ebook and a print version of Bridges’ favourite tweets, and after covering production and distribution costs, all proceeds will be donated to the UNHCR under the name “Scot Morensen”.

More information at editia.com/books/kevern-write-a-book/

‘Celebrities’ on the run

THE Heart Foundation has inveigled 11 locals into the line-up for the Canberra Celebrity Heart Challenge, a 12-week campaign designed to improve its participants’ heart health through exercise and better nutrition.

Unsurprisingly, they’re also tasked with raising funds for the Heart Foundation and the celebrity who raises the most will be acclaimed, rather grandiosely, “Canberra’s Biggest Heart”.

And the willing “celebrities”? There’s Deputy Chief Minister Andrew Barr, developer Maria Efkarpidis, dancer Melissa Gelonese, publisher Tim Benson, retailer Kevin Phelan, PR practitioner David Pembroke, development bureaucrat Dan Stewart; radio manager Eoghan O’Byrne,  academic Nick Klomp, blogger Amanda Whitley and leasing agent Theo Dimarhos.

Green drinks

green drinksOTHER than creme de menthe, CC can’t name any other green drinks. But there’s one that pops up every month at King O’Malley’s Irish pub in the city.

Called Green Drinks Canberra, it’s an agenda-free and non-politically aligned networking tummy rub “for those interested in environmental sustainability and eco-efficiency,” say the organisers.

Apparently Green Drinks runs in more than 600 cities worldwide.

Next event is from 5.30pm on Tuesday, September 9. All welcome, no bookings and no cost beyond drinks, green or otherwise. More information at greendrinks.org/Canberra?

 

Tackling Block

TAX-return accountant H&R Block is refusing to remove its latest TV advertisement that features, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a captive elephant.

PETA Australia director of campaigns Jason Baker says captive elephants, which are used for entertainment in Asia, are stolen from their mothers as babies in the wild – “an extremely traumatic experience for these social, family-oriented animals.”

Others are born into captivity and spend their lives in chains when they’re not “working”.

PETA says it has provided H&R Block with information about this cruel industry, but to no avail, leaving Baker to “encourage all taxpayers who want companies to demonstrate integrity and ethics in all aspects of their business to take their custom to a company that doesn’t support elephant abuse.”

DSCN4540Seasonal adjustment

IS it autumn or spring, asks Laurie McDonald, who took this photo on spring’s first blush in Watson, on the corner of Northbourne Avenue and Phillip Avenue.

The chook challenge

chick on treadmill with work out gear_DWHERE on the CC news desk we see some odd things, none more odder than a quest for the nation’s super chook. But given the number of backyard chooks in Canberra (there are 345,267 Australian households with egg-laying hens, that’s 9.8 per cent of all egg production) we felt duty bound to alert everyone about joining the search for Australia’s fittest and healthiest chook competition.

“If your hen or rooster has a special talent or simply that indefinable X-factor,” then the poultry food sponsor wants to hear from you.

The winning chook will receive a year’s supply of nutritional supplements and a prize hamper, and the top 12 finalist chooks, including the winner, will feature in a calendar. Entries to the Sustenhance Facebook page.

 

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Ian Meikle, editor

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