REGULAR readers will know that this column can’t resist dozy bureaucratic cock-ups and this is a doozy. Spotted by one of CC’s favourite sharp-eyed snouts, who was city bound along the Barton Highway, near Gungahlin.

We’re thinking of offering TAMS the services of our revered proofreader Glenda Anderson. Can you spot the difference? ‘Cos all the resources of our Most Glorious Leaders didn’t. It’s the spelling of Clarrie Hermes/Hermies Drive in consecutive signs. How is it possible? Does no-one check these things before they are committed to giant, costly signs?

Just to ensure they correct the right one: Hermes is correct. The drive is named after Clarrie Lindsay Hermes (1920-91), the ACT’s chief magistrate between 1980 and 1984.

AND it’s not only Clarrie being remembered; former, long-time Chief Minister of the ACT Jon Stanhope’s turned up in a “Canberra Times” online heading as: “ACT’s John Stanhope back and in the job queue”. It was corrected.

Here come the meatballs!

WHILE competing furniture retailers glower at all the free media and fuss Ikea is attracting, the latest being the sod turning ceremony which flushed out the Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and her deputy Andrew Barr to the dusty site at Majura Park, which the Swedish company promises to transform into the largest stand-alone retail store in the region at 26,000 square metres and attracting more than a million visitors annually.

Clearly chasing the Costco gourmands across the road, among Ikea’s first-year projections are the nutritional revelations that it will sell 24 tonnes of meatballs (the weight of two fully loaded double-decker buses); 23 tonnes of cinnamon buns (apparently equal to the weight of 22 African elephants) and, most depressingly, 300,000 17-centimetre hot dogs that, if laid end to end, equals 53 kilometres, the distance from Canberra to Yass!

AS the ACT government pulls out funding, the tireless Coralie Wood’s annual Canberra Area Theatre Awards have been saved by the NSW Government, which has coughed up $20,000 to support the highly valued local and regional amateur theatre awards.

Deputy Premier and Arts Minister Troy Grant turned up at The Q in Queanbeyan announcing the lolly while local member John Barilaro made no bones, saying: “Amateur theatre might not be ‘avant-garde’ enough for the ACT government to have any interest, however it is popular for regional communities and brings people together.”

And it has, the astonishing CATs turn 20 this year.

Motherhood takes a dive

AT the end of this month Kambah mum of five Maya Myers is planning to jump out of a plane and skydive 14,000 feet as part of the first Canberra team to jump for Support for Mums.

She won’t be alone, there is an army of plummeting mums all across Australia, taking the plunge on the same day to raise funds for the not-for-profit organisation that was set up to provide mums and their families with practical, short-term help with babysitting, cleaning, child minding and more.

“Having experienced some hardships and crisis in the past, I wanted to jump to raise awareness and much-needed funds to help mums like me who have needed support,” says Maya.

Any intending jumping mums contact alli@motivatingmum.com and sponsor a mum at mycause.com.au and search for MotherJumpers.

Frank talking

He replaces temporary announcer Rob Duckworth. Frank, aka Franko Vincenzo Movizio, “the inflatable sports reporter” of the Doug Mulray show, is back after a decade in Europe, where he gained a reputation for his offbeat sports commentaries. He hosted the English Breakfast Radio Show on 99.4FM Amsterdam.