...in the middle of the Story Bridge and bought a bottle of milk. Sometimes I would sit the Alpine's tyres in the tram lines, after the trams had stopped for the night, and drive a few miles along Ipswich Road without having to touch the steering wheel.
-Hugh Lunn, Head Over Heels
The Cold War Survivors Playing Walking Wounded Under the Story Bridge in Brissie - September 2001. Sadly that week New York was covered in ashes ... ( l-r: Hugh Lunn, Media Dragon, George Negus) Liquid Word Pool: Keeping the Dreams and Promises Alive
The Blog, The Press, The Media: Mystique Boys Always Laugh: Hugh Lunn with X-Rated Rob
Anyone who has picked up a book by Hugh Lunn knows they're in for a humorous rollercoaster read and his column My Back Yard is no different.
Every week Hughie writes this column in Queensland's Sunday Mail "Homefront" section, which they hide inside "Escape". The latest feature is entitled ‘Why the big dry is a dam shame’ and describes a mate of mine who like Phil, Vanessa, and Margaret made my subtropical life around the Sunshine Coast - Scarecrow shire line rather colourful 2000-2004 AD:
Almost everyone in Queensland used to have a few chooks in their back yard. But in Scarecrow Shire people are waking up to find a quarter of a million chooks in their neighbour’s backyard. Fowl smells are not paltry said my Scarecrow mate Rob, who can create a sensational front-page newspaper headline in a millisecond. When he heard that some locals were going to protest about the latest chicken factory-farm, Rob predicted: Shock tactics for battery hens.
He’s full of ideas. While the Brisbane City Council flies in experts from Sydney and overseas to talk at its ‘Ideas Festival’ at the Powerhouse, they ignore superior nearby talent. When it seemed James Hardie was not going to adequately compensate asbestos victims, Rob said: It has been put in the too-Hardie basket. Now that TV finds that it’s news to film men mindlessly spinning cars around and around, wasting rubber and petrol, he just says: Where there’s smoke, there is tyres.
Rob may have only finished second to a truck driver in the Ekka banana-eating competition when he was 11, but he can still think of a better anti-smoking slogan than any high-charging international ad agency: Smoking can cost you an arm and a leg. To solve the lack of organ donors in Australia, he has a simple solution: Just announce that people who have signed up to be organ donors get organs first. [Same applies for blood]
When politicians blame Hollywood for encouraging teenage smoking via puffing movie star celebrities, Rob looks up and says: Simple. Classify movies with smoking in them R-rated. One night, a federal politician was complaining on TV that migrants all want to live in Sydney, and won’t go and live on our extended sunlit plains. Quick as a flash, Rob quipped: The Afghans might. According to Rob, when single mothers are sent back to work instead of looking after their own children, they’ll be able to get jobs looking after other people’s children.
He’s too smart to be taken in by numbers. Statistics show that it’s unbelievably rare for a naked driver to be involved in a car accident. So, to be safe, we should all take clothes off before we get behind the wheel. He impressed Helen by observing that every garage sale has a tea spoon collection in it. How then, does Rob see the dead grass, dry creek bed, empty dam and dying trees in today’s Scarecrow Shire? Water Torture.
• Open the door Lunn, you Bastard Boy, so I can punish you for your sins [Hugh was a war corresondent in Vietnam Tales from a War Correspondent ; Head Over Heels - Unabridged - Hugh Lunn ]
• · The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen; Brisbane Icon Discusses:Fact or Fiction?
• · · She wanted to go on every trip, and for as close to free as possible Marla Ruzicka: The Girl Who Tried to Save the World; Jennifer Abrahamson Marla Ruzicka - 1976-2005
• · · · In the US media, a mission to explain has been replaced by a mission to avoid A Study in Emasculation; The head of the US chapter of Amnesty International, William Schulz, did what more people should do when up against the right-wing attack machine: Liberal Oasis
• · · · · Blogs can boost your career by demonstrating your knowledge of a chosen industry ; Technorati set to break 11 million blogs tracked
• · · · · · Craigslist ... How classifieds work online ; 'Rape club' taken off Australian website 46 registered users