Sniffing out tasty Adelaide and SA tidbits
This week, sporting events just keep giving, City Council turns over more than a new leaf, a “Red Baron” debate for Anzac Day and The Pub Test asks who killed the radio star.
Premier diversity call on blokefest
Well, the state has now heard it from the Premier himself: footy is different to other events because it embraces people from all backgrounds.
When questioned about whether the cost of bringing the weekend’s footy bonanza to SA is around the $15 million figure being bandied about by media outlets, the Premier this week insisted it was impossible to comment due to commercial considerations.
But he was quick to say that if that is the figure, “geez it’s a pretty good return on investment”.
Not to mention the fact that the state knows footy is a bit more inclusive than other events held in SA.
“The thing that makes footy different to other events is that it brings together people from all backgrounds,” he insisted at a press conference this week.
Judging by the commentator, player and press conference leaders, he may not be specifically referring to gender diversity.
Leaf it to me
Autumn is upon us, and so too is another problem for the Adelaide City Council.
The city operations team, already stretched by major events, predicts it will need to sweep up 320 cubic metres of leaves every week until the end of June.
According to council manager Noni Williams, that will be enough to fill Town Hall’s Colonel Light Room 12 times over, with the total autumn collection forecast to be 3800 cubic metres.
Councillors were reassured by a slideshow presentation on Tuesday that “all available resources (machinery and team members) are directed to keeping the streets as clean and free of leaf as possible”.
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But Williams said there were sections of the city that are receiving higher falls.
“To respond to this, we have increased our services in this space this year, so we’re now providing a daily leaf fall service that occurs every morning,” she told councillors.
The InSider wonders if Adelaide’s autumnal downpour would be better left to cover up King William Street, following Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith’s description of it this week as “the least well-maintained ceremonial street that I have ever seen”.
What’s all the noise about?
“Golf But Louder” may be the catchphrase of LIV Golf, but residents living near the usually staid Grange course would rather the organisers kept the decibels to themselves.
It’s not so much about the expected crowds and commotion for one homeowner whose backyard backs onto the course, but the fleet of catering trucks and generators that have been parked near her fence for the past week.
Without any warning or even a friendly “guess what” from the organisers or golf course, the diesel generators have been roaring and rumbling 24/7, forcing the resident to attempt to sleep in the front room with earplugs as the house vibrates around her.
And that’s before the music started…
Singing to a different tune
Questions over the state paying to host the Saudi-backed LIV Golf competition prompted the Premier to tell ABC Radio Adelaide that if opponents looked at the decision with “a degree of intellectual honesty” they would understand the reasoning.
He cited Australian trade and diplomatic relationships with Saudi Arabia as reasons why claims of “sportswashing” over the government’s human rights abuse record relating to issues including executions and women’s rights could be pushed to the side.
Critics may be feeling a little confused, after the arts community was warned earlier this year that the Premier thought about pulling funding for Writer’s Week over two of its speakers having controversial views about Israel and Ukraine.
Malinauskas announced that he would personally boycott Writers’ Week events.
“Open-mindedness does not oblige us to give a platform to hate speech, or let dangerous falsehoods go unchallenged. Nor does it mean letting any provocative blowhard hold forth on whatever fantastical claim they feel like sharing – after all, that’s what Twitter is for,” he said at the time.
The Twitter tit-for-tat
Elon Musk immediately switched his focus from failed space launches back to paying for blue ticks today, meaning this week’s schoolyard brawl between two SA political parties no longer has his tick of approval.
Given that the rants happen on Twitter – a platform pretty much only used by pollies and the media that must follow them – taking the time to copy, paste and post must just be cathartic for the two staffers tasked with composing these tweets for so few followers. The Libs media channel has 4874 followers while SA Labor has 14,000.
Better than some old soup cans
If the twits above need lessons on real reach in Adelaide, they should follow the 160,000 pundits on Reddit’s r/Adelaide.
This week they were celebrating the Art Gallery of South Australia’s new Goon Bag exhibition.
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While it is actually AGSA’s Andy Warhol inspired Silver Cloud Studio, the masses were quick to point out that if you just added a Hill Hoist you’d have the most South Aussie gallery ever imagined, or make them out of stainless steel and plonk them between the pigeon and the Mall’s Balls as a new state emblem.
Art critic John McDonald might agree that it’d be money well spent.
Taking care of old stuff
Old age homes are usually in the headlines these days, but this week the Greens are drafting a bill about homes – more specifically buildings – that are old.
They’re insisting that the Planning Minister have the power “to direct owners of heritage buildings to undertake specified works to bring the buildings up to scratch”.
“It’s time to strengthen our heritage protection laws to ensure that our iconic heritage buildings are not lost to future generations,” said Greens Planning and Heritage Spokesperson Robert Simms MLC, referring to the empty buildings on North Terrace.
The irony wasn’t lost on The InSider that the buildings along North Terrace are mainly empty because strict heritage protection means they can’t easily be transformed into anything useful.
The Pub Test
Turns out many punters don’t tune in, so The InSider had to do a pub crawl to get answers to this week’s query about radio rankings.
Starting at The Austral, moving to the Cranker, then the Exeter, and finally UniBar and the West Oak, it took five pubs to discover that while people were surprised that Triple M topped the second GfK ratings survey of the year, they were more surprised that anyone still listened to the wireless.
“Triple M… I don’t know about that…” said Kylie, a 24-year-old bartender at one of the watering holes. “I don’t know anyone that listens to Triple M. I don’t even really know anyone that listens to the radio though. So maybe all three total Adelaide radio listeners are listening to Triple M?”
Conor, a 20-year-old chef agreed.
“I don’t listen to the radio. I’m more of a Spotify man myself.”
Fellow hospitality worker, Jack, said he mainly listened to Nova but the 20-year-old wasn’t surprised Triple M was on top given “how they have all the footy stations and celebrity stuff.”
“Triple M should not be the top station…they talk too much crap and don’t cover enough good news,” he said. “It ain’t right.”
But 42-year-old tradie Brett was having none of it.
“I can see it being true that Triple M is on top, the music they play is pretty commonly liked by Adelaide people, and probably attracts a lot of viewers,” he said.
Stuff you should know…
Today is the anniversary of the death of the Red Baron in 1918, an occasion that has pitted usually friendly nations Canada and Australia against each other since that historic morning over the trenches of the Somme… which makes for perfectly acceptable debate over a tot of rum in your local RSL on Tuesday.
According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Captain Arthur Roy Brown of the RAF 209 Squadron entered into a dogfight with the “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen and his cousin, novice pilot Wolfram von Richthofen. The “Red Baron” broke off to pursue Canadian pilot “Wop” May, who was on the tail of his cousin.
Brown saw that his friend May was in trouble and disengaged to attack Richthofen’s red Fokker triplane. By now, the German ace had violated all three of his cardinal rules of aerial combat: never fly alone, low or over enemy lines.
Brown fired a long burst from behind and pulled out of a steep dive to avoid a collision. Richthofen’s Fokker continued over Allied territory and was fired at by British and Australian soldiers until it crashed into a field. Brown was and still is officially credited with shooting down Richthofen.
The Australian account is of course different.
Duntroon graduate Leslie Beavis was commanding officer of the 53rd Battery of the 14th Field Artillery Brigade and he reported in dispatches that “the Lewis gunners were standing to their two guns, which were mounted on posts and fitted with A.A. ring sights, and as soon as the Sopwith Camel was clear of the line of fire the guns opened fire. Immediately the red triplane turned sharply to the north, became somewhat unsteady in its flight, then went about N.E. and hit the ground 400 yards N.N.E. of where the Lewis guns were. There was no third plane (presumably referring to Brown’s plane) within a radius of at least 2000 yards.”
One thing is certain, no one will be arguing when the Last Post is sounded on Tuesday.
