AS WIN Television fantasises about being taken seriously in Canberra after decamping the broadcast of its local news service from Kingston to Wollongong following the defection of three of its key journalists, CC discovers that the sports newsreader replacing the departing Greg Thomson appears to have a rather revealing past. 

Google the name Amy Duggan and it won’t come up with much. But switch to her maiden name, Amy Taylor, and the former Matildas player and sportsreader’s nude photos and saucy bikini shots for calendars and lads’ mags are there for all to see.

The presenter replacing the hard-working Danielle Post is a Wollongong-based stranger called Kerryn Johnston. Dear Peter Leonard, who made WIN so much a part of our community, must be spinning…

Taught a lesson

AT an upmarket southside primary school, an impish – and rather political – relief teacher was surprised to see a prominent sign on the notice board: “Special ALP Meeting – Tuesday afternoon”. So she wrote neatly beneath it: “Subject: Should Julia stay or go?”

Next day she discovered her helpful words erased… and learned that ALP stood for “Accelerated Learning Program”!

Where’s Zed?

A MYSTERIOUS email observation from someone (who can’t spell) called canberraliberal@yahoo.com.au says: “Just a quick email to let you know that, while Kate Carnell, Margaret Ried [sic], Simon Shiekh [sic], and many others were in the gallery watching Gary Humphries’s Validictory [sic] speech Zed Sasejia [sic] was not. It seems strange that Zed was missing from this important speech, in fact very few current MLAs were present.”

So we asked the endorsed Liberal Senate candidate why they didn’t front. And we’re still none the wiser. He or she hasn’t responded.

Brave boys survive the polio parade

OUCH! These brave little boys at Turner School in June, 1956 emerge unscathed and proudly certified from the new school’s queue for a polio injection in this Australian News and Information Bureau. It was the first year the Salk polio vaccines started in Australia. The school, one of the oldest in Canberra, this year celebrates its 60th birthday and is looking to contact former staff, students and families to join in its celebratory ‘50s style Tea Party on Thursday, August 8. Call 6205 6622 or email tnrp@turners.act.edu.au

Oi, oi, oh!

“WHEN Heinz sacked their workers and dumped our farmers I was pretty-well convinced there would be many Aussies who would be prepared to pay 30c more for a beautiful Australian product that employs

Australian workers receiving Australian wages. How wrong I was!”

Yep, another familiar whinge from food entrepreneur  Dick Smith in his latest newspaper campaign bemoaning the failure of his tomato Ozesauce in generating only 1.6 per cent of the market and the looming prospect of it’s being dumped from Coles.

Oddly, beneficiaries of his press campaigns are never independent papers like this one, but those owned by the American Rupert Murodoch’s US-based News Corp and by Fairfax, who have been shedding Aussie jobs for a couple of years now.

Suspended belief

FIRST it was suspended coffee, where a customer buys anonymously for someone who can’t afford a cup, and now comes the uncomfortable-sounding “suspended massage”.

A mobile massage service is inviting clients to add $5 to their next visit to pay for a 15-minute massage for women who have been subjected to domestic violence.

All very laudable, but CC wonders how these acts of public generosity (and useful cashflow fillips) are acquitted when a business is, in effect, behaving like a charity, with none of the governance responsibilities beyond good intention.

Hmmms

HOW about the Canberra printer who charged a $50 fee to quote on a $150 job!

THE Tuggeranong Community Council’s “Valley Voice” e-newsletter, a potpourri of politics and local news, lists the ACT Government among its “supporters” despite the council characterising itself as a “voluntary, not-for-profit, non-political, community-based association”.

DESPITE dedicating their work to getting married, only one of the seven all-female team of Canberra-based “Hitched” magazine has tied the knot.  “I don’t know if I even want to get married, but it’s fun writing about it,” editor Renee Douros defiantly told “CityNews” .

NO place like… “Am sitting here at 8am in Toronto and it flashes on the news that some Aussie politician has said Mandela is dead and another one has been attacked by a roo while jogging. It’s a small world!” writes  “CityNews” dining reviewer Wendy Johnson, who is holidaying in Canada.