WANT to complain about ACTION? Well, don’t bother with its website. The bus company seems to have carefully moved it and left no signposts to where a grievance can be lodged. No complaints clearly lead to better service indicators!

CC’s public transport snout was upbraided by a driver in colourful language when the bus overshot the stop in O’Connor. He accused the passenger of pressing the stop button at the last moment (untrue) and then took loud umbrage at having the oversight brought to his attention.   

Aggrieved, our snout was moved to want to alert the driver’s employer to this odd approach to customer service.

But nowhere to complain directly to ACTION. He took to Facebook to discover that the complaint form sits peaceful and probably undisturbed on accesscanberra.act.gov.au, the Chief Minister’s special website that’s lofty aim “is to promote good governance and provide great service, with a particular focus on helping local entrepreneurs understand and comply with the regulations needed to establish a new business or hold an event.”

How this sits with having a whinge about ACTION is anyone’s guess, but the driver was reported.

Australians all let us unite…

YOU’VE gotta love them… those couple of faces in the T-shirted crowd we’ve cropped out from the amazingly well attended and shamefully under reported Gift of Life’s 10th anniversary walk around the lake are Sir Peter and Lady Cosgrove, of Yarralumla.

One has to salute the Vice-Regals for walking the talk when it comes to organ donation awareness.

The photo is by reporter Kate Meikle, who also scammed a selfie with a cheerful Lady Cosgrove during the early morning walk of 6000 people, but we’ll spare you that.  

The chips (and pies) are down

IN election year, CC imagines anything goes, but are we alone in thinking that announcing lower prices for, ostensibly, junk food at Canberra Stadium is really a good use of the Chief Minister’s valuable time in governing this troublesome domain?

The price of chips (down 20 per cent) and pies (down 18 per cent) would seem to be a government matter with the Chief opining: “We know that the price of food at GIO stadium can be a restricting factor for many families coming out and supporting our local teams on a regular basis, so starting at tonight’s game between the Brumbies and the Hurricanes food prices will come down.”

And down they came and up went the Brumbies to flog the Hurricanes!

National recognition for ‘Canberra Times’

“FAIRFAX Media’s ‘Canberra Times’ posted the largest decline across the Monday-to-Friday titles, with its sales down 18.7 per cent year-on-year to sit at 18,837 for the December quarter,” so intoned the national media website mumbrella.com.au reflecting a story unseen in the columns of the Fyshwick fish wrapper.

It did better by posting less-worse drops for Saturday (28,750), down 6.3 per cent and Sunday (19,700), down 8.7 per cent.  

Mick and the have-nots

IN faraway Tucson, Arizona (population 980,000), junketeering Planning Minister Mick Gentleman sent home an excited press release waxing  lyrical about the US city’s 10km light rail, which was opened last year and traverses the city’s university.

“It has been fantastic to see how light rail can transform a city, whilst carrying 4000 passengers every weekday,” Mick enthuses.

But then (and remember he represents the tram-deprived, southern Canberra seat of Brindabella) he makes the sort of comment that could cost him votes later this year: “There is a stark difference between areas of Tucson, Arizona, that have light rail and those that do not.” Like Tuggeranong, Mick.

Bring your own banner!

ODD or what? A collective of “ordinary citizens” from Can the Tram railing against Labor’s decision to build the tram is planning to protest outside the Assembly, in Civic Square. Fair enough, but oddly they’re going to be there for three consecutive nights (March, 8, 9 and 10) between 4.30pm and 6pm. “Show you care,” they say and “save our city from this unnecessary, costly and destructive project.”

But you have to bring your own placard.

Enter the plastic bollard

READER Ed Towner, feeling for last month’s victim of low bollards after she cruelly dented her car from unwittingly backing into a couple of them crouching in the John James Hospital car park, wrote to say the Cooleman Court shopping centre might hold the answer.

He says the steel shockers in the disabled-parking area have been replaced with plastic bollards on flexible bases.

“It seems that these type of bollards or a taller one that you could see might be a solution,” he writes so sensibly.

Breaking up is hard to do…

IN case you wondered, a singles website has surveyed 1900 single people and discovered the top five reasons for breaking up:

1.  Partner’s lack of love and attention (61 per cent)
2.  Partner’s poor sexual performance (26 per cent)
3.  Fell in love with someone else (26 per cent)
4.  Partner’s lack of career (15 per cent)
5.  Desire to try the single life (15 per cent)