Memorialisation (whatever that is) to cobblers’ shoe lasts, there’s no end to the excitement in “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE.  

BLINK and you missed this: the grand ACT Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Economy and Gender and Economic Equality is seeking submissions to its inquiry into memorialisation through public commemoration.

First question: what?

“This inquiry seeks to examine the promotion of equality and diversity in the people recognised through public commemoration (places, monuments, streets, and suburbs) in the ACT,” says committee chair and Liberal MLA Leanne Castley. 

Churlish, I know, but the second question: really? 

This is clearly not the one Leanne wants to hear, saying: “An important question to ask is whether there is a balanced representation in those individuals that are recognised and celebrated. 

“For example, in Australia, statues and monuments recording the achievements of men outnumber those recording the achievements of women.” 

[In a heartbeat, goodbye Meikle Street in Kenny!] 

“The committee is inviting the community to nominate women and non-binary people who could be commemorated in the ACT, and other suitable nominations, and suggested location sites.”

But no more “memorialising” heterosexual men, Leanne?

Fellow travellers on this committee are Suzanne Orr (Labor) and Johnathan Davis (Greens) and written submissions close on November 30 with public hearings next year. 

OVER the comfort of a Sunday afternoon lunch with some chums the table was reminiscing about the household skills of our fathers, including cobbling shoes on (what subsequent research tells me was) a cobbler’s shoe last, typically a cast-iron form shaped like two or three different sized feet.

In answer to the rhetorical question of where did all those lasts from all those years ago go, my friend David went rummaging and found his dad’s.

Here’s a picture of it. 

We also mused about our dads’ ability to fix things. And anyone with the misfortune of having to empty a father’s shed knows they had the tools to do the job. Mine did. 

So, I was buoyed by the news that a group of volunteers are preparing to open the ACT’s first tool and equipment library come spring. 

The not-for-profit Community Toolbox Canberra hopes to open its inner-north doors in September with the support of local sustainability organisation SEE-Change. 

How does it work? They say for the equivalent of buying one tool a year, members will be able to borrow a range of tools and equipment for DIY, craft, gardening and home projects, and recreational activities as the library collection grows.

They’re crowdfunding to raise the initial funds needed to launch at startsomegood.com/community-toolbox-canberra

WHAT’s in a name? Nothing and a lot, it seems. From Queanbeyan: a council spokeswoman says its No Name Lane could be renamed after the QPRC bagged a NSW government grant of over half a million coconuts to rejuvenate and “artify” No Name Lane and Blacksmiths Lane. However, one reason to keep the No Name is that Canberra’s No Name Lane was named after, not before, Queanbeyan’s. Let’s move on… 

SUE Dyer, my Downer snout, wrote in high dudgeon at this column’s revelation last week that ACT Greens leader and multi-pronged minister Shane Rattenbury chooses not to read “CityNews” and, she says, “uses tired, old, age and gender lines to dismiss some of those who deliver its articles week after week with professionalism and aplomb, as do their female colleagues”. 

Go, Sue: “He should try to keep up with what the intelligent and curious female component of the ‘CityNews’ readership finds useful and informative, particularly in relation to matters affecting his electorate of Kurrajong. 

“Ignoring or taking these voters for granted could be perilous for the Kurrajong Greens team in 2024.”

So there, Shane. Shane?

JEANNE O’Malley has written complaining of the loneliness of facing “an electronic wall of resistance” in managing the mandatory covid app sign into business premises. 

Here’s her problem: “I do not own a cellphone. I do not want to own a cellphone. I shop by myself. So how can I shop? 

“The ACT government website offers me no alternative. They say I can travel with a family member (if they have a cellphone) and have them sign me in. I don’t want to do this. So how can I patronise ACT businesses?”

I wrote back and said I was sure there was a manual check in option.

“Young, Ian, it ain’t! A stunned look, a wait-while-I-check-on-this (at Coles) or they rather thought they could sign me in (The Public),” she replied.

Anyone else having issues? (editor@citynews.com.au) 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon.