Dispatches from the Edge of Reason
Gladstone's Bermuda Triangle Strikes Again! On the Road Again. Screw the Policy Police... Again. Happy Snaps... um, Again!
The Bermuda Triangle of Gladstone
It’s often joked that anything, or anyone entering Donald Trump’s orbit either gets screwed (often literally), ripped off, goes broke or winds up in jail/deported (take a hint Elon!), while Donny skips off trailing a pile of cash behind him, but still whining how it’s ‘SO UNFAIR’.
Well, here in Gladstone, we’ve got our own version of that phenomenon, a sort of Bermuda Triangle for heavy industry projects.
We locals call it, The Black Hole of Aldoga, (pronounced: Al - dough - ga).
I don’t know what the name means, but it’s probably Byellee for ‘the place where hopes, dreams, plans and new developments go to die’.
This is because, around Aldoga, new projects vanish faster than a pregnant secretary.
For those of you asking, ‘Where the hell is Aldoga?’, it is a rural patch of land north of Gladstone earmarked as the future hub of Queensland’s industrial might. Basically, a supercharger strapped onto our city, the State’s very own ‘Engine Room of Industry’.
Trouble is, anything that tries to fire up out there tends to:
a) go broke and shut down
b) get taken over and shut down
c) be overtaken by global markets and shut down
d) never get off the ground and shut down
The latest casualty? Twiggy Forrest’s much-hyped Green Hydrogen Plant.
Boom! Gone!
Actually, it was more like: Bust! Goooone!
So, now we have another name on a growing list of much publicised, failed ventures longer than a Centrelink queue on Monday morning.
At least, like the Shale Oil Plant (currently mothballed) they managed to put together some impressive looking buildings and infrastructure (if snatched glimpses from the highway are any guide).
It was supposed to grow into this, but the poor little guy never had the chance:
Still, most projects in Aldoga never even got past the ‘press release, shiny investors’ brochures and photo op in a hi-vis vests’ stage.
Some did manage, somehow, to get as far as bulldozing great tracts of bushland and pegging out a place for where the food van would park to feed all the workers that never came.
So, why do projects in this area have the same lifespan as a soap bubble, or a dropped chip in front of a seagull. Is there a curse on the place? Ancient burial grounds? Aliens? A worm hole?
I don’t know, but any new project crayoned in for construction at Aldoga is like placing another NRL footy team in Perth, throwing money at Qld Health or watching Elon try to launch another rocket/firecracker; basically, doomed to failure.
Whatever it is, if someone handed me the keys to a free house out there, I’d politely hand them back and walk away before the cursed winds of Aldoga whispered, “Strategic review pending…”, and I wound up standing, dazed and confused, on a freshly bulldozed front lawn, shaking hands with a wild-eyed CEO and a grinning politician who, between them, have a wheelbarrow full of glossy brochures for another multi-million dollar start-up with full state backing and all the credibility and long-term usefulness of a Trump University degree.
On the Road Again!
‘Where’s Dolly?’
Today trendsetters, Doll and I will be puttering out of Lismore and, hopefully, before the sun sets, we’ll be back in ol’ Gladdy town.
Doll was originally pencilled in for two shows this weekend, Morning Melodies on Friday, and the Diva’s Show Saturday night, but some scheduling issues meant Fridays show was cancelled earlier in the week.
The last time she was scheduled to play in Lismore (known to locals as, ‘The Wok’, because it was built in a valley shaped like the famed cooking appliance and in summertime gets just as hot as one… see, I do listen occasionally), the event was cancelled due to heavy rain. This year, they plunked her show in mid-winter, a usually benign time of year weather-wise.
Which was why we were stunned earlier this week when Ma Nature turned up the dial to: Wild, Wet, Woolly ‘n Windy as a ‘Weather Bomb’ rolled in from the Tasman to pound NSW’s already sodden coastline… again.
No wonder she’s referred to as a ‘Mother’!
Fortunately Lismore missed the worst of it, so the show went on!
More next week!
The Policy Police
See this sign:
That’s the sign at the airport which made me get out of my car and wander, lonely as a cloud, through the terminal last week while my unattended car sat out the front, directly under that sign.
Screw the people who insisted that sign be put up!
They’re the same geniuses who designed the airport to ensure you can’t get back to your car before the free 1/2 hour of parking ends, which means you need to take out a second mortgage to get your car released from the carpark.
And they’ve even placed Permit Parking Only spots across the road from the airport to prevent you parking for free and walking over to the terminal without having to worry about your wallet hemorrhaging cash because the plane’s late, or the baggage handlers are enjoying a long smoke break while the work experience lackey kicks the luggage around.
Now, I’m a law-abiding sort of bloke, mostly. I don’t go out of my way to cause trouble, and I’m always going to stand on the side of Safety First. But I sort of feel like it’s my duty to thumb my nose at the small-minded, money-grubbing bureaucrats putting up signs like this because ‘it’s company policy’.
Yeah? I got a few personal policies of my own I’d like to run by you mouth breathers.
Honestly, what did they expect me to say when I saw that sign?
“Oh well, I’d better sit here in airconditioned comfort Doll while you give yourself a hernia trying to get your suitcase out of the boot, then spend half an hour dragging it through the empty maze to the check-in counter.”
Everything about our, once user friendly, airport is now exercise in soul destruction. It’s not as if they’re dealing with the numbers of people usually pouring through the polished floor cattle yards found in terminals of bustling metropolises… metropolii?
Which was probably why I also wanted to undo all the clips on the crowd control queue barriers, but Doll insisted I’d filled my anti-authority quota for the day and didn’t want me to be too overstimulated.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to occasionally upset the sign posting, jumped-up little policy tyrants whose greatest regret in life was that they weren’t born into Hitler’s Germany (or Trumps’ Murica).
Mr. Manager, if you don’t want people parking outside the entrance doors, charge a reasonable price for carparking instead. Don’t want huge lines getting out of control at the check in counter? Hire more staff!
Trying to control people with signs because you couldn’t manage your way out of a well-lit room with an open door is not the answer.
Quote of the Week
Overheard while waiting at the checkout:
“I’m not worried about AI getting smarter, I’m more worried that people seem to be getting dumber!”
Happy Snaps
Rainy start to the week, but things brightened up considerably by Tuesday:
Barney Point Beach:
Agnes Waters:
Spotted a ‘Croc’ in the Agnes Water beach creek:
Lismore lights:
Stolen from Substack:
Summer in the northern hemisphere continues to inspire:
Hey, thanks for dropping by, and another HUGE WELCOME to our newest subscribers.
You people are Humungous LEGENDS!
Anyway, let’s do it all again next week, Zeus willing!
Cheers,
Gb
