THE UC Canberra Capitals continued celebrations well into the week after their drought-breaking WNBL championship win against Adelaide. Fans had the chance to thank the team, which had not won a premiership since 2008, with a ticker-tape parade through the UC concourse. Members of the victorious team arrived in a convoy of Audis to the wild cheers of the crowd that showered the basketball heroes with streamers and confetti.

HAVING a car stolen is traumatic, but when your vehicle is located wrecked the trauma takes on new dimensions.

Thieves recently stole a Canberra woman’s car and spent seven days clocking up six speeding fines totalling $1850, 16 demerit points and 3000 kilometres.

The spooky postscript to this nightmare is that the car was abandoned after hitting a power pole outside the woman’s place of employment just minutes before she arrived for work.

IRATE Canberra cabbies staged a peaceful protest outside the ACT Assembly presenting the Barr government with an “invoice” for $76 million. ACT Taxi Plate Owners Association Inc chairman Peta Ivanovski said: “ACT and interstate families have lost their life savings due to the government flooding the market with new taxi licences at a fraction of the price they paid”. Ivanovski said if the group did not receive compensation it would stand candidates at the next election.

A RETIRED AFL umpire may have provided proof that some are “blind” or at least “one eyed”. Canberra man-in-white Trevor Parkinson who officiated for more than 20 years from the ’60s to the ’80s posted a pic on Facebook after successful surgery to relieve optic nerve pressure. Parkinson says the constant taunts of “get your eyes checked” and “where’s your white cane?” were a part of the game, but made no difference to the decisions he made. There are a few around town who might argue the Ainslie games Trev controlled may have suffered from a lack of clear eyesight.

STILL on footy and multi-premiership-winning Ainslie coach Chris Rourke is receiving publicity he may not appreciate. Rourke pops up in “The Australian” newspaper’s latest crime podcast “Who the Hell is Hamish?”, billed as the “new ‘Teachers’ Pet’” (a podcast about teacher and rugby league player Peter Dawson who is now accused of murdering his wife). In “Who the Hell is Hamish?” journalist Greg Bearup tells of serial conman Hamish McLaren who swindled millions from his victims, including Sydney woman Tracy Hall, who lost $378,000. Hall learnt the painful truth about Hamish from his brother-in-law Chris Rourke, in a life-shattering phone call in which she asked: “Who the f..k is Hamish?”.

WHATEVER the future holds for Canberra radio’s Angie Clairvoyant, only she knows. After 14 years in the business beginning at Mix 106.3 and including stints at 2CA and 2CC, Angie says she is “hanging up my radio hat”. In a Facebook post Angie announced she was “ready for my semi-retirement” but didn’t reveal future plans.

AS for predicting the future of the man they call the nation’s best broadcaster, Alan Jones, not even clairvoyants are prepared to take a punt. But it hasn’t prevented wild speculation from many Sydney radio types. Latest word is that the Jones boy – networked to Canberra through 2CC – is to be replaced by another early-morning riser from another medium who is presently being paid a handsome wage (by the same company as Alan) to sit on his hands.

IT may not be long before pics of Canberra’s unwanted dogs are appearing on social pages. Social Dog Company founder Tatum Brown says events such as the “Canines, Cocktails and Catch-ups” at the Treehouse Bar in Civic give people wanting to rescue a dog or just hang out and relax, the opportunity to meet and greet in a social environment. Up to 40 people attended the last event to sip cocktails and mingle with the mostly greyhound crowd. The most popular cocktail is apparently a “Paw-tini”.