IT’S a “Rust Dragon” and it won Caitlin Dobbs the Canberra Potters’ Society’s 2014 Best Young Person award. The Potters are staging their student/teacher exhibition at the Watson Arts Centre, in Aspinall Street, in an annual celebration of the talents and creativity of the students who attend pottery classes and the teachers who share with them their skills and love of clay.

It’s on until June 14.

Kebabs rule, okay?

TRIPADVISOR.COM has compiled, from 785 Canberra restaurants, the capital’s most popular and the surprise of the Yarralumla Pide House at number four must be galling to the six posh ones that follow in the top 10. Anyway, here they are: 1. Farmhouse Restaurant, Pialligo; 2. Courgette Restaurant, Civic; 3. Pomegranate, Kingston; 4. Turkish Halal Pide House, Yarralumla; 5. Les Bistronomes, Braddon; 6. Sage Dining Rooms, Braddon; 7. Black Fire, Braddon; 8. Ottoman Cuisine, Barton. 9. Aubergine, Griffith and 10. Olive at Mawson.

Roo-de awakening

CC became an autumn traffic-accident statistic last year following a glancing encounter with a bounding kangaroo. Now motor insurer AAMI’s new-claims data has confirmed that animal collisions on Australian roads increase by 30 per cent in the colder months.

Analysis of almost 19,000 animal collision claims nationally last year reveal that claims start to rise in May with the peak danger period between June and August, when drivers are more likely to be on the road at dawn and dusk, which is primarily when animals are on the move. Around the ACT the most dangerous postcodes, in descending order, are 2600 (Canberra), 2611 (Weston Creek), 2620 (up to the border with Queanbeyan), 2905 (Calwell) and 2609 (Symonston). And the 2620 postcode from the ACT, through Queanbeyan and beyond, is the nation’s worst. Panel beaters rejoice.

Dying for more?

FORMER UC vice-chancellor Prof Don Aitkin may have set something of a world record for a sequel with just – this week at Paperchain in Manuka – launching “Turning Point”, the second of a planned trilogy, to his 1981 fictional novel “The Second Chair”.

The third instalment (“Nobody’s Hero”) will come a little sooner and is slated for next year.

The world has changed since “The Second Chair” and Aitkin, with his original publishers long gone, turned to self-publishing and he’s thriving on it with at least four more books underway for his Danbee Books entity.

For those who follow these things, Aitkin told CC that the first book had lots of sex, there’s a little in the finale but nothing in the new volume, which must confirm it’s fiction because the story is set in the Swinging Sixties!

 

A lady who likes to lunch

ANNETTE Aitkens has been dressing up and loyally lunching monthly at the Hotel Kurrajong (give or take the odd refurbishment) for the past 40 years. Annettte was born the same year as the Queen and these days has stepped her lunching up to fortnightly.