Okay Im pissed, I Went to the Big arches this morning and bought a whole bunch of stuff ( i dont do this often, i swear). There has been some claim about the size of the burgers and no one really has hard evidence. So i present the following to the jury:
The burgers are smaller
Ok I have no HARDCORE PROOF that they are, and Mcdonalds RELY on the fact that no-one takes photos of thier burgers every year for archive use, BUT i know.. Just compare a hash brown and bacon mcmuffin side by side, youll see what i mean. They let this slip.
The upside is that the muffins cant get much smaller, if they do, theyll be considered "Gourmet Canapes"
My hotcakes shrunk
A few years ago when hotcakes still came in foam boxes and the BB still existed, They both came in rougly the same size box as each other. A dissasembled sausage and egg mcmuffin + hash brown would be a compact fit into todays carboard box presented to me, even based on the small muffins currently used today.
One more thing: the syrup seems to alway last... as the hotcakes shrunk the syrup serving hasnt, its still huge. It was pretty much the prefect amount years ago,and again, It is around double what i feel most eaters require.
Items that look they could be shrunk further
Hash browns i reckon were actually smaller, and somehow either grew, or just look really out of proportion when compared to a muffin side by side. I would go as far claiming the Hash brown was near 50% the size of the ones today, or have the muffins shrunk by 50%??? Im not sure but ill be photographing more of my food from now on.
And Wheres my big breakfast, and why cant i get a shake at breakfast?
Its very upsetting Mcdonalds took away the BB, It will be remebered well. Some say its just an unmade sausage and egg roll with a hash brown, some say the scrambled egg was better for you than a fried one, but most agrgee that the ensuing hash brownie muffin was well worth it.
McDonalds dont understand, its wasnt about the eggs, it was about the labour of love, and how food tastes better when youve (assembled) it yourself
Now hopefully Mcdonalds are clever like i think they are and have a brand monitor going, and that youve picked up on this post.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
2011 BIG DAY OUT Promoters defend "Hardcore" Lineup
''We have ideas for what we want and a whole world full of brilliant music for us to explore each year,'' he says.
As well as EG cover stars Grinderman, Tool and Iggy Pop, Lees is particularly pleased with the return of Germany's Rammstein.
''Rammstein were here in 2001, co-headlined with Limp Bizkit, and when that act left the tour they took up the slot,'' he says. ''With their fireworks and effects, if you like hard rock, they are going to demolish the place.''
 |
| Headliners ... Iggy Pop(above) is back as are Tool (below right), while M.I.A is one of the few women appearing. |
''Primal Scream are bringing some female guest vocalists and a brass section,'' Lees says. ''It's a wonderful, uplifting experience.''
As for the newer acts on the bill, Triple J favourites Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and British rapper Plan B will be highly anticipated and, based on overseas reviews, British-Sri Lankan pop star M.I.A. could be great or a disaster. South African freaks Die Antwoord could also go either way.
More reliable will be the Black Keys, who have finally crossed over in the US, and LCD Soundsystem, who return six months after their triumph at Splendour in the Grass.
With Homebake in hiatus, BDO has the pick of the big Australian acts. Angus and Julia Stone, John Butler, Birds of Tokyo, Bliss N Eso and Little Red all make the cut.
21Yo fined for hiding "joke"camera in bathroom
A MAN who pleaded guilty to hiding a camera in a bathroom exhaust fan to spy on a 21-year-old woman sharing his Erskine home has been fined $1250
In Mandurah Magistrate's Court, the duty counsel said Craig Vernon Stone, 37, had placed the optical device in the fan as “a joke” on September 7 but the camera was not capable of recording footage.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Sandy Milligan said police had found no footage during their investigation.
Read the full story at inmycommunity.com.au
In Mandurah Magistrate's Court, the duty counsel said Craig Vernon Stone, 37, had placed the optical device in the fan as “a joke” on September 7 but the camera was not capable of recording footage.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Sandy Milligan said police had found no footage during their investigation.
Read the full story at inmycommunity.com.au
Clem7 bosses paid fat bonuses despite tunnel's poor performance
FIVE managers at RiverCity Motorways, the company that owns the troubled Clem7 tunnel, have been paid more than $1 million in bonuses.
Documents reveal that the five were paid the incentives based on targets which included opening the road and building strong relationships with stakeholders.
The payments have been defended by RiverCity chairman Robert Morris.
RiverCity Motorway Management Ltd on Monday reported a $1.67 billion loss for the year to June 30, and said its ability to continue as a going concern would depend on future traffic levels, the tolls the group was able to charge and arrangements with its group's financiers.
The massive loss was largely the result of the $1.56 billion writedown on the value of the Clem 7, due to much lower-than-expected traffic volumes in its first five months of operation.
Despite this, a quick look at the company's preliminary financial report reveals that CEO Flan Cleary was paid $370,960 on top of his annual salary of $410,670.
Chief financial officer Christine Hayward collected a $229,312 bonus on top of her $261,401 salary. Communications director Anthony Havers was paid an extra $189,013 on top of his $233,068 annual salary; engineering manager Colin Richmond also received $189,013 to supplement his $224,436 salary .
Former customer operations manager Teisha Peterson, who resigned earlier from her $166,645-a-year post, received a $115,326 bonus.
The company's report says bonuses are linked to the achievement of "individual key performance indicators" but are not "related directly to total unitholder returns".
RiverCity Motorway shares closed at 1.7 cents on Thursday.
Chairman Robert Morris defended the bonuses, saying the payments were linked to the completion and opening of Clem7.
“The remuneration of the company’s senior executives reflects the successful delivery of the CLEM7 seven months ahead of schedule, on-budget and to the required quality standards,” Mr Morris said.
“Delivering Australia’s longest road tunnel and establishing a new tolling business are massive undertakings.
“The remuneration levels reflect the significant contribution the executive team made during the three and a half year project delivery phase,” he said.
He said RiverCity directors"used independent advice on comparative companies when setting remuneration levels".
The bonuses come as it was revealed seven directors on the RiverCity Motorway Group board sucked out almost $670,000 in salary and fees over the past year.
Chairman Robert Morris, a former director at Leighton Contractors, attended 24 meetings in the year and was paid $205,000 in salary and fees, equating to roughly $8540 a meeting.
RiverCity's financial report, issued Tuesday, showed it paid a total of $667,660 in salary and fees to its board of directors for the year to June 30. That equates to an average cost of $26,706 for each meeting held by some or all directors.
The annual report said the directors ``note the group's ability to continue as a going concern'' will depend on traffic, toll prices and keeping its bankers on board.
The company has hired Integrated Management Information Systems to provide ``an expert view'' on traffic volumes and its report is expected by December 31.
Yesterday RiverCity directors were unavailable or unwilling to comment on the level of examination they required of the company's original traffic forecasts.
A spokeswoman for Ken MacDonald - who is deputy chairman of QIC Ltd and consults to law firm Allens Arthur Robinson - said he would not comment and that any questions related to his RiverCity role should be directed to RiverCity.
RiverCity's report shows Mr MacDonald in the year to June 30 attended 23 meetings and was paid $100,000 in cash salary and fees, equating to about $4350 a meeting.
There were 25 meetings of RiverCity directors in the year, including 15 full meetings of directors and the remainder involved meetings of up to six directors on risk and compliance, remuneration and finance strategy.
The company on Tuesday said that, after the weak traffic volumes in Clem7's first five months, its directors had ``considered a number of different traffic volumes and tolling revenue forecast scenarios''.
It said that - based on the directors' forecast scenarios - the group would have sufficient cash reserves on hand to fund any cash shortfalls for the next 12 months.
The company then said that directors were ``cognisant that a significant improvement in traffic volumes, revenue growth and close management of expenditure'' would be necessary for the group to stop drawing on cash reserves, meet its first debt covenant test in June 2012, and prevent default''.
See the financial report here.
Documents reveal that the five were paid the incentives based on targets which included opening the road and building strong relationships with stakeholders.
The payments have been defended by RiverCity chairman Robert Morris.
RiverCity Motorway Management Ltd on Monday reported a $1.67 billion loss for the year to June 30, and said its ability to continue as a going concern would depend on future traffic levels, the tolls the group was able to charge and arrangements with its group's financiers.
The massive loss was largely the result of the $1.56 billion writedown on the value of the Clem 7, due to much lower-than-expected traffic volumes in its first five months of operation.
Despite this, a quick look at the company's preliminary financial report reveals that CEO Flan Cleary was paid $370,960 on top of his annual salary of $410,670.
Chief financial officer Christine Hayward collected a $229,312 bonus on top of her $261,401 salary. Communications director Anthony Havers was paid an extra $189,013 on top of his $233,068 annual salary; engineering manager Colin Richmond also received $189,013 to supplement his $224,436 salary .
Former customer operations manager Teisha Peterson, who resigned earlier from her $166,645-a-year post, received a $115,326 bonus.
The company's report says bonuses are linked to the achievement of "individual key performance indicators" but are not "related directly to total unitholder returns".
RiverCity Motorway shares closed at 1.7 cents on Thursday.
Chairman Robert Morris defended the bonuses, saying the payments were linked to the completion and opening of Clem7.
“The remuneration of the company’s senior executives reflects the successful delivery of the CLEM7 seven months ahead of schedule, on-budget and to the required quality standards,” Mr Morris said.
“Delivering Australia’s longest road tunnel and establishing a new tolling business are massive undertakings.
“The remuneration levels reflect the significant contribution the executive team made during the three and a half year project delivery phase,” he said.
He said RiverCity directors"used independent advice on comparative companies when setting remuneration levels".
The bonuses come as it was revealed seven directors on the RiverCity Motorway Group board sucked out almost $670,000 in salary and fees over the past year.
Chairman Robert Morris, a former director at Leighton Contractors, attended 24 meetings in the year and was paid $205,000 in salary and fees, equating to roughly $8540 a meeting.
RiverCity's financial report, issued Tuesday, showed it paid a total of $667,660 in salary and fees to its board of directors for the year to June 30. That equates to an average cost of $26,706 for each meeting held by some or all directors.
The annual report said the directors ``note the group's ability to continue as a going concern'' will depend on traffic, toll prices and keeping its bankers on board.
The company has hired Integrated Management Information Systems to provide ``an expert view'' on traffic volumes and its report is expected by December 31.
Yesterday RiverCity directors were unavailable or unwilling to comment on the level of examination they required of the company's original traffic forecasts.
A spokeswoman for Ken MacDonald - who is deputy chairman of QIC Ltd and consults to law firm Allens Arthur Robinson - said he would not comment and that any questions related to his RiverCity role should be directed to RiverCity.
RiverCity's report shows Mr MacDonald in the year to June 30 attended 23 meetings and was paid $100,000 in cash salary and fees, equating to about $4350 a meeting.
There were 25 meetings of RiverCity directors in the year, including 15 full meetings of directors and the remainder involved meetings of up to six directors on risk and compliance, remuneration and finance strategy.
The company on Tuesday said that, after the weak traffic volumes in Clem7's first five months, its directors had ``considered a number of different traffic volumes and tolling revenue forecast scenarios''.
It said that - based on the directors' forecast scenarios - the group would have sufficient cash reserves on hand to fund any cash shortfalls for the next 12 months.
The company then said that directors were ``cognisant that a significant improvement in traffic volumes, revenue growth and close management of expenditure'' would be necessary for the group to stop drawing on cash reserves, meet its first debt covenant test in June 2012, and prevent default''.
See the financial report here.
Police Spray,Taser then Shoot dangerous Dog in backyard attack.
A HUSBAND rushed home from work after discovering his wife and her male dance-club partner had been badly mauled by a dog which police then shot dead yesterday.
Office worker Alan Edwards was alerted by police and arrived home 30 minutes after the incident, in which his wife Michelle and a male visitor, whom she met at St Marys Band Club, had sustained numerous bite wounds.
Police were called to the couple's home in Buckland St, St Clair, about 2.40pm after reports the dog - a four-year-old staffordshire bull terrier named Chopper owned by the couple's son - had attacked.
The dog turned on police, who sprayed it with capsicum spray and Tasered it.
While the dog at first ran off, it returned and was again hit with capsicum spray as it tried to attack a male officer, who shot the dog dead.
Police said it appeared only one dog was involved in the attack although there was another dog, an 18-month-old called Bella, that shared the backyard with Chopper. There was a fox terrier in the house.
Those dogs remained on the property last night.
Early reports suggested the dog in question might have been a pit bull terrier - a breed that has been banned in Australia since 2005.
But police last night confirmed that the animal was a staffordshire bull terrier.
The injured man and woman were taken to Nepean Hospital for treatment for serious lacerations and shock and remained there last night.
Mr Edwards said both dogs were normally kept in the backyard. He said he understood his wife was in the backyard hanging out washing when her friend arrived and probably tried to gain access by cutting through the garage.
The man, aged in his 50s, was attacked first, then Mrs Edwards, who is in her 40s, was bitten.
Mr Edwards said he could not understand the attack.
"Chopper was a lovely dog, this is completely out of character," he said.
"I don't know what would make him attack."
Teenage neighbour Luke Martin said he thought the dog was going to kill its owner and raced across the road to the couple's aid.
"I was inside the house when I heard someone screaming, then I saw one of the dogs latched on to the woman's arm ... there was blood everywhere," he said.
The 17-year-old grabbed a metal pole and started hitting the dog to try to get it to release the woman.
Fellow neighbour Letitia Gavin also saw the attack.
"That was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life," she said.
Office worker Alan Edwards was alerted by police and arrived home 30 minutes after the incident, in which his wife Michelle and a male visitor, whom she met at St Marys Band Club, had sustained numerous bite wounds.
Police were called to the couple's home in Buckland St, St Clair, about 2.40pm after reports the dog - a four-year-old staffordshire bull terrier named Chopper owned by the couple's son - had attacked.
The dog turned on police, who sprayed it with capsicum spray and Tasered it.
While the dog at first ran off, it returned and was again hit with capsicum spray as it tried to attack a male officer, who shot the dog dead.
Police said it appeared only one dog was involved in the attack although there was another dog, an 18-month-old called Bella, that shared the backyard with Chopper. There was a fox terrier in the house.
Those dogs remained on the property last night.
Early reports suggested the dog in question might have been a pit bull terrier - a breed that has been banned in Australia since 2005.
But police last night confirmed that the animal was a staffordshire bull terrier.
The injured man and woman were taken to Nepean Hospital for treatment for serious lacerations and shock and remained there last night.
Mr Edwards said both dogs were normally kept in the backyard. He said he understood his wife was in the backyard hanging out washing when her friend arrived and probably tried to gain access by cutting through the garage.
The man, aged in his 50s, was attacked first, then Mrs Edwards, who is in her 40s, was bitten.
Mr Edwards said he could not understand the attack.
"Chopper was a lovely dog, this is completely out of character," he said.
"I don't know what would make him attack."
Teenage neighbour Luke Martin said he thought the dog was going to kill its owner and raced across the road to the couple's aid.
"I was inside the house when I heard someone screaming, then I saw one of the dogs latched on to the woman's arm ... there was blood everywhere," he said.
The 17-year-old grabbed a metal pole and started hitting the dog to try to get it to release the woman.
Fellow neighbour Letitia Gavin also saw the attack.
"That was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life," she said.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
NATIONAL COURT DISGRACE - Former PM let off traffic ticket - Caught red handed by police.
Citizens are Crying FOUL at Former Prime Minister Paul Keating who has been acquitted of driving through a red traffic light in central Sydney, with a magistrate finding there was "reasonable doubt'' about the allegation.
The 66-year-old appeared at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday to defend the charge that he ran a red light on Australia Day this year as he was driving from his Potts Point home to visit his mother in the city.
Mr Keating, who was driving his daughter's green Peugeot hatchback, was issued a ticket by police officers who say they saw him drive through the red light at the intersection of Park and Pitt streets.
In his evidence, Mr Keating said he had accelerated through the intersection and the light was yellow when he crossed the stop line.
"The light was yellow, not a doubt in the world,'' he told the court.
He denied police allegations that he was impatient on the day and in a hurry after being held up by Australia Day celebrations, which had caused traffic congestion.
However, he admitted to driving in a bus lane in an attempt to ``shuffle'' through ``bumper to bumper'' cars.
"I must find reasonable doubt. I dismiss the allegation,'' Magistrate Carolyn Barkell said.
Outside court, the grey-haired Mr Keating told reporters he was pleased with the outcome.
"I think it's important that ordinary people in the community, having received an infringement notice for an offence they didn't commit, basically understand that the system is not loaded against them, that they're entitled to have the courage of their convictions and I hope today there is some social good in that outcome,'' he said.
This blogger thinks perhaps if the impatient Former PM had done more in his time to fix the transport problems in NSW, then he would have no need to use bus lanes illegaly and run red lights.
The 66-year-old appeared at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday to defend the charge that he ran a red light on Australia Day this year as he was driving from his Potts Point home to visit his mother in the city.
Mr Keating, who was driving his daughter's green Peugeot hatchback, was issued a ticket by police officers who say they saw him drive through the red light at the intersection of Park and Pitt streets.
In his evidence, Mr Keating said he had accelerated through the intersection and the light was yellow when he crossed the stop line.
"The light was yellow, not a doubt in the world,'' he told the court.
He denied police allegations that he was impatient on the day and in a hurry after being held up by Australia Day celebrations, which had caused traffic congestion.
However, he admitted to driving in a bus lane in an attempt to ``shuffle'' through ``bumper to bumper'' cars.
"I must find reasonable doubt. I dismiss the allegation,'' Magistrate Carolyn Barkell said.
Outside court, the grey-haired Mr Keating told reporters he was pleased with the outcome.
"I think it's important that ordinary people in the community, having received an infringement notice for an offence they didn't commit, basically understand that the system is not loaded against them, that they're entitled to have the courage of their convictions and I hope today there is some social good in that outcome,'' he said.
This blogger thinks perhaps if the impatient Former PM had done more in his time to fix the transport problems in NSW, then he would have no need to use bus lanes illegaly and run red lights.
Women's group slams 'tacky' bikini race
A women's lobby group says plans to race bikini-clad women down a horse track is "tacky" and "stupid".
The Gold Coast Turf Club's Bikini Track Sprint, being held in December, sees women compete in the new novelty event for the major prize of $5,000.
"Bikini and suitable running shoes are conditions of this competition," the club's website said.
"Competition is open to fillies and mares.
"Celebrate the first weekend of summer with live racing action, music and entertainment - plus a bevy of lovely ladies down the racetrack to win a mountain of cold hard cash!"
A similar event is held at the Hollywood Park race track in the United States each year.
Monday, September 27, 2010
New Delhi citizens left without transport after gov. "clean up" - 2010 Games
The Bluelines buses are being kept off the roads during the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games, leaving just the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses for the people.
Over 1,600 Blueline buses ply on 132 routes. They were pushed off the roads from Sunday till oct 16 to ease traffic congestion on Delhi roads. The routes on which the buses were taken off pass through central Delhi and near Games venues.
Daily commuters were in a fix as Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses were jam-packed. To add to the commuters's woes, the frequency of the DTC buses was also low.
The DTC plies 5,800 buses, including air-conditioned ones.
'I stood for more than an hour, but could not get into any of the jam-packed DTC buses. Though Bluelines were crowded, their frequency was better. And autorickshaws were charging more,' said Nikita Mishra, a resident of Nirman Vihar in east Delhi.
For Gautam Singh, a resident of Okhla with his office in Lodhi Road, the story was no better. 'Without the private buses, it is really difficult to commute because now the bus services are limited.'
http://sify.com/finance/commuters-suffer-as-private-buses-go-off-the-roads-news-default-kj1vEedbjic.html
Manning River Steiner School question over use of BER funding
A Steiner school's BER crisis shifted the focus to independent schools, writes Heath Gilmore.
The voluntary administrator Stephen Parbery laughs ruefully when talking about the financial and business acumen of the Steiner school he helped rescue.
A founding partner of PPB, Parbery is used to giving advice in corporate collapses including Ansett Airlines, HIH Insurance, Lehman Brothers Australia and ABC childcare centres.
But the chartered accountant admits to being in strange territory when Shearwater, the Mullumbimby Steiner School, asked to be placed under voluntary administration in March.
The school, located in the heart of the alternative lifestyle movement of Australia, was collapsing under a $10 million debt and the problem of misappropriating part of a $600,000 Building the Education Revolution grant from the federal government.
''Naiveness,'' Parbery says. ''Absolutely, that is the best word to describe how these people got themselves into trouble … these were well-meaning people who got into trouble when experiencing big growth in numbers and infrastructure but with little expertise in business and proper governance. We see it a lot with start-up businesses and clubs.''
Being naive, however, counts for little with a federal government under pressure. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations is investigating the use of BER funding at Shearwater and another Steiner school at Taree.
Last week the Herald reported that the Manning River Steiner School also used part of its $250,000 grant for a library to patch up its working budget. The school has declined to comment on its predicament.
Chris Evans, the new minister responsible for the $16.2 billion building program, views the misuse of money by the Steiner schools as a serious issue. His office was unable to rule out more schools emerging.
''The [department will] investigate all improper or inappropriate use of Commonwealth money,'' a spokesman for the minister said.
''The department is working closely with the Association of Independent Schools NSW to ensure they have been appropriately spent.''
The actions of the Steiner schools shifts the close scrutiny of the federal government's $16.2 billion building program to the independent education sector for the first time.
Earlier this year the Australian National Audit Office found 82 per cent of schools that were self-managing projects - mostly private or independent schools - believe they had received value for money compared with just 40 per cent for government schools.
The NSW government was pilloried for its handling of the federal grant money, with the construction of classrooms, libraries and covered outdoor areas costing double those of ACT public schools and Catholic schools in Tasmania and Queensland.
The Association of Independent Schools of NSW distributed $484 million in BER money to 327 participants in the primary school building program.
The association includes more than 340 schools that together enrol more than 135,000 students. The membership includes schools of many different types, sizes, religious affiliations and educational philosophies, ranging from private school including Shore and Wenona at North Sydney to Blacktown Youth College at Broken Hill.
Under a bilateral agreement with the federal government to act as a block grant authority, the association is required to validate the ''accuracy of information provided by schools or other parties''.
The government required the association to provide monthly reports on the school projects, including expenditure and the start and completion of construction.
The association's executive director, Geoff Newcombe, says appropriate accountability frameworks were put in place to monitor all BER projects.
He said project liaison officers made visits to the Shearwater and Manning River schools at various stages of progress, adding that these measures were effective and met their aims.
''It should be noted that under the BER program the initial assessment of a school's financial viability was the responsibility of the Department [of Education, Employment and Workplace relations]," he says.
Newcombe says appropriate processes were implemented effectively at the two Steiner schools, and that no government money was lost.
Wroth Wall, a solicitor and new Shearwater director, says the rapid expansion of the school, coupled with crippling differences within the community, flowed through to problems with governance.
The decision to place the school in voluntary administration left it with 10 weeks to find $2 million, or it would close.
Shearwater Action was formed to organise fund-raising, donations, community awareness and social media, including Facebook. Every Steiner school in the world was contacted to ask for their support.
Two benefactors came forward with loans. A grandfather of two students, Nigel Woodward, gave $600,000 and the Organic India company founders, Bharat Mitra and Bhavani Lev, gave $675,000.
''These fights are endemic in Steiner schools where groups are trying to run their own agenda. Authoritarian control is not well received,'' Wall says.
Authoritarian control, however, was implemented at the recommendation of receiver Stephen Parbery's team. The $600,000 BER grant was repaid in full. Bank and parent loans were renegotiated for repayment over a longer period.
Unsecured creditors compromised, with debt repayment of up to 12¢ in the dollar. All outstanding superannuation was repaid to staff.
New school directors were appointed with entrepreneurial, legal and accounting backgrounds.
More tellingly, a headmaster was installed and given day-to-day running of the school, which emerged from voluntary administration in May.
''Having truly independent directors with the required skills and management structure that has a headmaster reporting to the board was needed,'' Parbery says. ''Previously it was a clumsy organisational structure which was a committee of teachers, parents and others in control of day-to-day management. It didn't help in dealing with a crisis.''
The voluntary administrator Stephen Parbery laughs ruefully when talking about the financial and business acumen of the Steiner school he helped rescue.
A founding partner of PPB, Parbery is used to giving advice in corporate collapses including Ansett Airlines, HIH Insurance, Lehman Brothers Australia and ABC childcare centres.
But the chartered accountant admits to being in strange territory when Shearwater, the Mullumbimby Steiner School, asked to be placed under voluntary administration in March.
The school, located in the heart of the alternative lifestyle movement of Australia, was collapsing under a $10 million debt and the problem of misappropriating part of a $600,000 Building the Education Revolution grant from the federal government.
''Naiveness,'' Parbery says. ''Absolutely, that is the best word to describe how these people got themselves into trouble … these were well-meaning people who got into trouble when experiencing big growth in numbers and infrastructure but with little expertise in business and proper governance. We see it a lot with start-up businesses and clubs.''
Being naive, however, counts for little with a federal government under pressure. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations is investigating the use of BER funding at Shearwater and another Steiner school at Taree.
Last week the Herald reported that the Manning River Steiner School also used part of its $250,000 grant for a library to patch up its working budget. The school has declined to comment on its predicament.
Chris Evans, the new minister responsible for the $16.2 billion building program, views the misuse of money by the Steiner schools as a serious issue. His office was unable to rule out more schools emerging.
''The [department will] investigate all improper or inappropriate use of Commonwealth money,'' a spokesman for the minister said.
''The department is working closely with the Association of Independent Schools NSW to ensure they have been appropriately spent.''
The actions of the Steiner schools shifts the close scrutiny of the federal government's $16.2 billion building program to the independent education sector for the first time.
Earlier this year the Australian National Audit Office found 82 per cent of schools that were self-managing projects - mostly private or independent schools - believe they had received value for money compared with just 40 per cent for government schools.
The NSW government was pilloried for its handling of the federal grant money, with the construction of classrooms, libraries and covered outdoor areas costing double those of ACT public schools and Catholic schools in Tasmania and Queensland.
The Association of Independent Schools of NSW distributed $484 million in BER money to 327 participants in the primary school building program.
The association includes more than 340 schools that together enrol more than 135,000 students. The membership includes schools of many different types, sizes, religious affiliations and educational philosophies, ranging from private school including Shore and Wenona at North Sydney to Blacktown Youth College at Broken Hill.
Under a bilateral agreement with the federal government to act as a block grant authority, the association is required to validate the ''accuracy of information provided by schools or other parties''.
The government required the association to provide monthly reports on the school projects, including expenditure and the start and completion of construction.
The association's executive director, Geoff Newcombe, says appropriate accountability frameworks were put in place to monitor all BER projects.
He said project liaison officers made visits to the Shearwater and Manning River schools at various stages of progress, adding that these measures were effective and met their aims.
''It should be noted that under the BER program the initial assessment of a school's financial viability was the responsibility of the Department [of Education, Employment and Workplace relations]," he says.
Newcombe says appropriate processes were implemented effectively at the two Steiner schools, and that no government money was lost.
Wroth Wall, a solicitor and new Shearwater director, says the rapid expansion of the school, coupled with crippling differences within the community, flowed through to problems with governance.
The decision to place the school in voluntary administration left it with 10 weeks to find $2 million, or it would close.
Shearwater Action was formed to organise fund-raising, donations, community awareness and social media, including Facebook. Every Steiner school in the world was contacted to ask for their support.
Two benefactors came forward with loans. A grandfather of two students, Nigel Woodward, gave $600,000 and the Organic India company founders, Bharat Mitra and Bhavani Lev, gave $675,000.
''These fights are endemic in Steiner schools where groups are trying to run their own agenda. Authoritarian control is not well received,'' Wall says.
Authoritarian control, however, was implemented at the recommendation of receiver Stephen Parbery's team. The $600,000 BER grant was repaid in full. Bank and parent loans were renegotiated for repayment over a longer period.
Unsecured creditors compromised, with debt repayment of up to 12¢ in the dollar. All outstanding superannuation was repaid to staff.
New school directors were appointed with entrepreneurial, legal and accounting backgrounds.
More tellingly, a headmaster was installed and given day-to-day running of the school, which emerged from voluntary administration in May.
''Having truly independent directors with the required skills and management structure that has a headmaster reporting to the board was needed,'' Parbery says. ''Previously it was a clumsy organisational structure which was a committee of teachers, parents and others in control of day-to-day management. It didn't help in dealing with a crisis.''
KEEN paddlers are using pumpkins weighing more than 200 pounds to race each other in a local regatta.
And there's certainly nothing more fruity than a water race using giant pumpkin as a boat.
The Kürbis Regatta at the annual Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival, in south-west Germany saw a host bloated specimens being paddled in front of a former royal palace.
Much of the fruit – and yes they are indeed fruit, botanically-speaking – weighed in at over 200lb before having all their flesh scooped out so that racers can fit inside.
But the festival also sees a more traditional contest where gardeners around Germany see if they can grow record-breaking pumpkins.
Read more here.
And there's certainly nothing more fruity than a water race using giant pumpkin as a boat.
The Kürbis Regatta at the annual Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival, in south-west Germany saw a host bloated specimens being paddled in front of a former royal palace.
Much of the fruit – and yes they are indeed fruit, botanically-speaking – weighed in at over 200lb before having all their flesh scooped out so that racers can fit inside.
But the festival also sees a more traditional contest where gardeners around Germany see if they can grow record-breaking pumpkins.
Read more here.
BIG DAY OUT 2011 Line Up - Details
IT turns out we were right about Tool, Iggy and the Stooges, Grinderman and Deftones but wrong about Soundgarden for Big Day Out's 2011 line-up.
Instead of the reunited Seattle grunge gods playing their Badmotorfinger record to celebrate its 20th anniversary, it will be the Scottish Primal Scream performing their two-decades-young record Screamadelica, which is just as good.
The Big Day Out team had more than a few surprises in their first-round announce, which was scheduled to hit the interweb at midnight.
For Sydney festivalgoers, the major change is the event is back on Australia Day at the Sydney Showgrounds after a few years of Melbourne claiming the public holiday for event.
Mysteriously missing from the first reveal is Blink-182 who everyone thought was in since Channel V's Danny Clayton tweeted they were on the line-up a couple of weeks ago.
The ultimate festival band Rammstein are back for the first time in a decade, while other international repeat offenders include Lupe Fiasco and the John Farnham of dance, LCD Soundsystem, who allege these will be the last shows.
Newcomers include Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, M.I.A. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Jim Jones Revue, The Black Keys, Die Antwoord, CSS, Plan B and Crystal Castles.
The Australian contingent is stellar, led by John Butler Trio, Airbourne, Birds Of Tokyo, Angus and Julia Stone, Children Collide, Dead Letter Circus, Bliss N Eso, Gyroscope and Operator Please.
Tickets go on sale via bigdayout.com and ticketmaster.com.au on October 6, with a limit of four per person.
Instead of the reunited Seattle grunge gods playing their Badmotorfinger record to celebrate its 20th anniversary, it will be the Scottish Primal Scream performing their two-decades-young record Screamadelica, which is just as good.
The Big Day Out team had more than a few surprises in their first-round announce, which was scheduled to hit the interweb at midnight.
For Sydney festivalgoers, the major change is the event is back on Australia Day at the Sydney Showgrounds after a few years of Melbourne claiming the public holiday for event.
Mysteriously missing from the first reveal is Blink-182 who everyone thought was in since Channel V's Danny Clayton tweeted they were on the line-up a couple of weeks ago.
The ultimate festival band Rammstein are back for the first time in a decade, while other international repeat offenders include Lupe Fiasco and the John Farnham of dance, LCD Soundsystem, who allege these will be the last shows.
Newcomers include Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, M.I.A. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Jim Jones Revue, The Black Keys, Die Antwoord, CSS, Plan B and Crystal Castles.
The Australian contingent is stellar, led by John Butler Trio, Airbourne, Birds Of Tokyo, Angus and Julia Stone, Children Collide, Dead Letter Circus, Bliss N Eso, Gyroscope and Operator Please.
Tickets go on sale via bigdayout.com and ticketmaster.com.au on October 6, with a limit of four per person.
Michael Chugg's New Book "Hey You in the Black T-Shirt" - Sneek Peek
New Book out…interesting. I am not flogging the book, thought you may find it interesting ..beats news on Justin Bieber, eh! My Mate Paul Sinclair from Goanna Audiovisual An All Australian Sound, Lighting and Video Production Company - worked with Chuggi back in late 90’s on ill- fated PCMC (ATP~ Redfern, the concrete was still wet in the venue, literally) – the attempted Oz version of South x South West (pity it didn’t take off – great idea).
Prologue
I am the king. I must be the king because I'm sitting in the king's chair. Down at the other end of the banquet table is the queen's chair, but it's empty. The twenty or so remaining seats on either side are also vacant. Whole pigs, sides of beef, shoulders of lamb, chickens, ducks, turkeys, vegetables, fruit and bread lie waiting, begging to be eaten, but no one enters.
Champagne, brandy, wine and more crowd the parts of the table not occupied by food. Every night it's the same. I appear to be in a medieval tent, like something set up for a royal jousting carnival. It feels strange to be here alone, sad even, yet there's this amazing rush of wellbeing that comes and goes in my head. At its peak it feels like all I have to do is snap my fingers and anything I want - and I do mean anything - will be mine. When it subsides, futility and loneliness creep in.
This, you might think, is perfect fodder for the psychiatrist's couch; the recurring nightmare of a man who wants for nothing but who can't find happiness, a man too busy in the pursuit of money and power to appreciate the good things in life such as family or a few days lounging by the pool.
You'd be wrong. This is no dream. This is backstage at a Fleetwood Mac concert in Australia in 1977, nine months after their album Rumours went ballistic worldwide and just a few days after they arrived in the country for a tour that took in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland. The man sitting alone is me, Michael Chugg, thirty-year-old tour director for Australian rock promoter Paul Dainty and the person in charge of supplying the members of Fleetwood Mac with their hearts' desires for the duration of their stay.
Top of their list is a medieval marquee, complete with flags, bunting and carpets, to be erected backstage at every performance so that Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood can indulge their newfound superstardom in a private and suitably excessive manner.
Also on their wish list is Gatorade, a drink almost unheard of in Australia at the time, which we have to import. They want limes, not readily available everywhere and, as with all fruit and vegetables, banned from certain interstate transportation. For the first and only time in my life I'm a lime-smuggler. Their tastes in alcohol, not surprisingly, are five-star French champagne, Courvoisier cognac, Tanqueray gin and Pimm's, a drink I knew about only because my mum liked one on special occasions. And for every show there have to be six dozen bottles of Heineken beer, another exotic taste in 70s Australia, in the dressing room.
These requirements are above and beyond the security blankets they have brought along with them from the United States, such as a mobile gymnasium, two grand pianos and a masseuse. Only the masseuse and one of the pianos make it out of their flight cases during the tour. There was also cocaine - lots of it - although I wasn't aware of that at the beginning. An assortment of interesting people turned up with it. In Mac world, at the peak of their vacuum cleaner capabilities, whatever went up their noses was never enough.
In March that year we had toured ABBA, which was madness in its own way, but this was different. This was down 'n' dirty rock 'n' roll. 'The promoter's rep will meet the band's tour manager in the car park of Sydney Airport with two ounces of cocaine.' That was the instruction from the band's HQ in Los Angeles prior to their arrival.
I had made a rule, round about 1971 when I first started smoking marijuana, that I would never do powders. It was just a thing I had about heroin and all the other as yet unknown dangerous substances. When I was 18 and I had just moved to Melbourne from Launceston, guitarist Lobby Loyde gave me a purple heart one night and I didn't go to bed for three days. I talked everybody into delirium. I was a big enough loudmouth as it was without having all that shit in my body, so I never did that again. Marijuana was my drug of choice. I wasn't best placed to go skulking around Kings Cross in Sydney or anywhere else looking for marching powder. I knew a man who could and would, though, and his name was Ray Arnold. Ray was one of the best roadies in the business and a key figure in significant parts of my life. There wasn't much he couldn't do or fix.
I rang Ray and told him what I needed and arranged to meet him in the car park at Mascot the following Saturday morning. The deal was completed before Fleetwood Mac had left the baggage carousel. As it turned out, compared to the illicit drugs that followed them to Sydney, our stuff was pretty shithouse. I know that because the feeling of euphoria I had while sitting by myself in the marquee wasn't brought on by feasting on roast pork and sautèd potatoes. I broke my rule. I chopped a few lines of the good stuff. I bowed to peer pressure. If you didn't do it you weren't going to be part of the mob. You were going to be banished. So I did it and that was that. Cocaine remained one of my partners in crime for decades.
I spent quite some time in that marquee during the Fleetwood Mac Rockarena tour, either on my own or with various members of the 67-strong crew, or with some of Santana, Little River Band and Kevin Borich Express, who were also on the bill. I was managing Borich at the time, as well as working for Dainty. Every night a gang of us enjoyed the lavish spread of gourmet delights and copious amounts of grog that otherwise would just have sat there untouched. Courvoisier and Coke became my tipple of choice and I was drinking it for years afterwards thanks to the surplus from the band's ridiculous rider. Lighting roadie Peter Rooney and myself commandeered and customised a couple of road cases, which became the drinks stash that would be divided up between us when Fleetwood Mac had gone home. If you gave it back to the caterer, they would still charge you for it, so no harm was done.
None of the band lobbed even once into that marquee, never mind that it was their idea. All of them were too wired to eat.
The excess was outrageous. There was just too much coke and too much weed.
Although they didn't touch the food, the Mac pack did make significant use of the Heineken. Before every show I would do the rounds of the dressing rooms and backstage area to make sure everything was in order. It had bothered me at the first show, at the Sydney Showground, that many of the bottles had been opened but the beer remained untouched. When I made the same inspection in Melbourne a few days later, the same thing had happened. In fact all 72 bottles had their tops removed but every one of them was full.
I went completely berserk, as I have been known to do in stressful situations over the past forty-five years, screaming 'What the fuck is going on?' to anyone who would listen. Eventually one of their roadies took me up on stage, where they had two small tents, one on either side. In each of them there was a card table laden with bottle tops, sitting in neat little rows, with two caps pushed together, one on the bottom, one on top, to form a kind of capsule. I lifted one of the tops and saw the cocaine inside. During the performance, each of the band in turn would wander off to get a little card table action; all of them except drummer Fleetwood. His needs were somewhat greater than those of his colleagues, so he had his own card table within arm's reach just behind him.
I could have bought Fleetwood Mac enough bottle tops to fill ten dressing rooms for what they had cost with imported Dutch beer attached, but I guess that wasn't the point when you were as fucked up and successful as they were.
That was the most over-the-top, insane few weeks of rock 'n' roll debauchery I had been witness to in my career at that point, certainly from an act enjoying that level of success. That's not to say I had been a good boy myself up until then; far from it. I'd been living the life for about thirteen years, either on the road with bands or hanging out in the pubs and clubs of Melbourne or Sydney, working with people like Michael Gudinski, Roger Davies and Michael Browning, among others, all of us trying to mark some territory in the fledgling Australian rock business.
But for me that 1977 tour was the beginning of a new era, the entree to many wayward nights on the rock 'n' roll circuit with Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, The Police and a thousand others. At its most outrageous, the nights rolled into days and just occasionally days turned into weeks. In the 70s, 80s and 90s any night could be party night and there was always something, or someone, on hand to make it go with a bang. Show me a joint and I'll show you a line of coke as long as your arm.
The Rumours tour was hitched to the back of an album that had its roots in the diabolical personal affairs of the participants. Nicks had split with Buckingham, the McVies had done likewise and Fleetwood had gone through a divorce with his wife Jenny Boyd Fleetwood. Their artistic expression of these break-ups made them rich beyond belief. They were crazy by then, mind you, but they had hit the ground running in that respect, if you ask me. And yet they were really nice people too. When I went to Los Angeles the following year to set up camp with Borich and Richard Clapton, whom I was also managing by then, they were incredibly helpful. Bob Jones and Richard Norton, the two Australian security guys on that Aussie tour, ended up going to the US to work with the Mac camp.
When I look back on that period, I can see a few parallels between Fleetwood Mac and my own career, although I've toured more often than them, flown around the world more often than them, probably slept with more people than them too. I've been just as reckless, probably more obnoxious and on the odd occasion just as drug-addled as they were back in the day. And, just like them, I've survived. I've toured some of the biggest bands in the world and taken drugs and gotten drunk with many of them. If my life were to be defined by famous albums it would be a blend of Rumours, Highway to Hell and Blood on the Tracks, with a nod to my best mate Billy Thorpe's 'Most People I Know (Think That I'm Crazy)'.
I've been promoting, managing, courting, bullying and championing rock acts since I was a fifteen-year-old know-itall in Launceston, Tasmania, running dances and calling dog races to make a few quid. I've lugged gear, driven vans, collected door money, put up posters, nursed and endured egos, schmoozed, boozed, dined and done deals in every corner of the music world. I've made and lost millions on tours by international acts. I've helped raise millions for various charities. I've haggled over cents on a tour budget. I've abused people if I thought they weren't in the right and sometimes when they were, just because I could. I've made a habit of raising my voice to get my own way and I've earned a dubious reputation for invading the stage at hundreds of concerts I've promoted to mouth off at the audience. My singing voice is rubbish, but I can tell people in a crowd of 30,000 to sit down and shut the fuck up more effectively than anybody, if I think it's appropriate.
Oh, and I once had a gun pulled on me by a gangster, but I talked my way out of the situation. I'm quite good at talking.
That kind of resumè might slip perfectly onto the psychiatrist's couch at the beginning of this prologue, but that's just a small part of the story. I have spent a lot of time alone, in aeroplanes and hotel rooms, wondering what the hell I'm doing, but it would be wrong to paint myself as a solitary figure snared by my success. My life has been incredibly rewarding in all manner of ways. I have a young grandson. When something as wonderful as that happens, it puts everything else into perspective.
That said, doing what I do, promoting shows, I have been surrounded by the bizarre, the unscrupulous, the egotistical and the astonishingly talented, both on the stage and behind the scenes. I have seen excessive behaviour that you wouldn't believe, and half the time I was the ringleader. I have chased money for most of my life, but it has been incidental to what I love doing, which is putting on shows and seeing the excitement on people's faces. I genuinely love that. It gets me up in the morning.
I try to be as honest and straightforward as I can with people. It's not always the best thing to do, but if you don't, it just gets difficult. You tell someone what he or she wants to hear and it will come back and bite you on the arse every time.
I'm a poor boy from Tasmania who got lucky. I arrived on the streets of Melbourne in 1965, just at the right time, when rock 'n' roll was up for grabs and precious few people knew what to do with it. I still appreciate that opportunity and value it, just as I value many of the people with whom I started out and who are still around doing it because they love it.
I've been broke and I've been rich. In this business you can never guarantee anything. I've had bad times; times when I thought I had no future in the music industry. But I'm still here. And I love the limelight. I've been planning this book for a long time. I want to document my life and times. I want to be on the stage. That has got me into a lot of trouble in the past.
This time, I suspect, will be no different.
“Hey, You in the Black T- Shirt” by Michael Chugg with Iain Shedden. Published by Macmillan Australia. 1st October 2010. RRP $34.99
Prologue
I am the king. I must be the king because I'm sitting in the king's chair. Down at the other end of the banquet table is the queen's chair, but it's empty. The twenty or so remaining seats on either side are also vacant. Whole pigs, sides of beef, shoulders of lamb, chickens, ducks, turkeys, vegetables, fruit and bread lie waiting, begging to be eaten, but no one enters.
Champagne, brandy, wine and more crowd the parts of the table not occupied by food. Every night it's the same. I appear to be in a medieval tent, like something set up for a royal jousting carnival. It feels strange to be here alone, sad even, yet there's this amazing rush of wellbeing that comes and goes in my head. At its peak it feels like all I have to do is snap my fingers and anything I want - and I do mean anything - will be mine. When it subsides, futility and loneliness creep in.
This, you might think, is perfect fodder for the psychiatrist's couch; the recurring nightmare of a man who wants for nothing but who can't find happiness, a man too busy in the pursuit of money and power to appreciate the good things in life such as family or a few days lounging by the pool.
You'd be wrong. This is no dream. This is backstage at a Fleetwood Mac concert in Australia in 1977, nine months after their album Rumours went ballistic worldwide and just a few days after they arrived in the country for a tour that took in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland. The man sitting alone is me, Michael Chugg, thirty-year-old tour director for Australian rock promoter Paul Dainty and the person in charge of supplying the members of Fleetwood Mac with their hearts' desires for the duration of their stay.
Top of their list is a medieval marquee, complete with flags, bunting and carpets, to be erected backstage at every performance so that Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood can indulge their newfound superstardom in a private and suitably excessive manner.
Also on their wish list is Gatorade, a drink almost unheard of in Australia at the time, which we have to import. They want limes, not readily available everywhere and, as with all fruit and vegetables, banned from certain interstate transportation. For the first and only time in my life I'm a lime-smuggler. Their tastes in alcohol, not surprisingly, are five-star French champagne, Courvoisier cognac, Tanqueray gin and Pimm's, a drink I knew about only because my mum liked one on special occasions. And for every show there have to be six dozen bottles of Heineken beer, another exotic taste in 70s Australia, in the dressing room.
These requirements are above and beyond the security blankets they have brought along with them from the United States, such as a mobile gymnasium, two grand pianos and a masseuse. Only the masseuse and one of the pianos make it out of their flight cases during the tour. There was also cocaine - lots of it - although I wasn't aware of that at the beginning. An assortment of interesting people turned up with it. In Mac world, at the peak of their vacuum cleaner capabilities, whatever went up their noses was never enough.
In March that year we had toured ABBA, which was madness in its own way, but this was different. This was down 'n' dirty rock 'n' roll. 'The promoter's rep will meet the band's tour manager in the car park of Sydney Airport with two ounces of cocaine.' That was the instruction from the band's HQ in Los Angeles prior to their arrival.
I had made a rule, round about 1971 when I first started smoking marijuana, that I would never do powders. It was just a thing I had about heroin and all the other as yet unknown dangerous substances. When I was 18 and I had just moved to Melbourne from Launceston, guitarist Lobby Loyde gave me a purple heart one night and I didn't go to bed for three days. I talked everybody into delirium. I was a big enough loudmouth as it was without having all that shit in my body, so I never did that again. Marijuana was my drug of choice. I wasn't best placed to go skulking around Kings Cross in Sydney or anywhere else looking for marching powder. I knew a man who could and would, though, and his name was Ray Arnold. Ray was one of the best roadies in the business and a key figure in significant parts of my life. There wasn't much he couldn't do or fix.
I rang Ray and told him what I needed and arranged to meet him in the car park at Mascot the following Saturday morning. The deal was completed before Fleetwood Mac had left the baggage carousel. As it turned out, compared to the illicit drugs that followed them to Sydney, our stuff was pretty shithouse. I know that because the feeling of euphoria I had while sitting by myself in the marquee wasn't brought on by feasting on roast pork and sautèd potatoes. I broke my rule. I chopped a few lines of the good stuff. I bowed to peer pressure. If you didn't do it you weren't going to be part of the mob. You were going to be banished. So I did it and that was that. Cocaine remained one of my partners in crime for decades.
I spent quite some time in that marquee during the Fleetwood Mac Rockarena tour, either on my own or with various members of the 67-strong crew, or with some of Santana, Little River Band and Kevin Borich Express, who were also on the bill. I was managing Borich at the time, as well as working for Dainty. Every night a gang of us enjoyed the lavish spread of gourmet delights and copious amounts of grog that otherwise would just have sat there untouched. Courvoisier and Coke became my tipple of choice and I was drinking it for years afterwards thanks to the surplus from the band's ridiculous rider. Lighting roadie Peter Rooney and myself commandeered and customised a couple of road cases, which became the drinks stash that would be divided up between us when Fleetwood Mac had gone home. If you gave it back to the caterer, they would still charge you for it, so no harm was done.
None of the band lobbed even once into that marquee, never mind that it was their idea. All of them were too wired to eat.
The excess was outrageous. There was just too much coke and too much weed.
Although they didn't touch the food, the Mac pack did make significant use of the Heineken. Before every show I would do the rounds of the dressing rooms and backstage area to make sure everything was in order. It had bothered me at the first show, at the Sydney Showground, that many of the bottles had been opened but the beer remained untouched. When I made the same inspection in Melbourne a few days later, the same thing had happened. In fact all 72 bottles had their tops removed but every one of them was full.
I went completely berserk, as I have been known to do in stressful situations over the past forty-five years, screaming 'What the fuck is going on?' to anyone who would listen. Eventually one of their roadies took me up on stage, where they had two small tents, one on either side. In each of them there was a card table laden with bottle tops, sitting in neat little rows, with two caps pushed together, one on the bottom, one on top, to form a kind of capsule. I lifted one of the tops and saw the cocaine inside. During the performance, each of the band in turn would wander off to get a little card table action; all of them except drummer Fleetwood. His needs were somewhat greater than those of his colleagues, so he had his own card table within arm's reach just behind him.
I could have bought Fleetwood Mac enough bottle tops to fill ten dressing rooms for what they had cost with imported Dutch beer attached, but I guess that wasn't the point when you were as fucked up and successful as they were.
That was the most over-the-top, insane few weeks of rock 'n' roll debauchery I had been witness to in my career at that point, certainly from an act enjoying that level of success. That's not to say I had been a good boy myself up until then; far from it. I'd been living the life for about thirteen years, either on the road with bands or hanging out in the pubs and clubs of Melbourne or Sydney, working with people like Michael Gudinski, Roger Davies and Michael Browning, among others, all of us trying to mark some territory in the fledgling Australian rock business.
But for me that 1977 tour was the beginning of a new era, the entree to many wayward nights on the rock 'n' roll circuit with Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, The Police and a thousand others. At its most outrageous, the nights rolled into days and just occasionally days turned into weeks. In the 70s, 80s and 90s any night could be party night and there was always something, or someone, on hand to make it go with a bang. Show me a joint and I'll show you a line of coke as long as your arm.
The Rumours tour was hitched to the back of an album that had its roots in the diabolical personal affairs of the participants. Nicks had split with Buckingham, the McVies had done likewise and Fleetwood had gone through a divorce with his wife Jenny Boyd Fleetwood. Their artistic expression of these break-ups made them rich beyond belief. They were crazy by then, mind you, but they had hit the ground running in that respect, if you ask me. And yet they were really nice people too. When I went to Los Angeles the following year to set up camp with Borich and Richard Clapton, whom I was also managing by then, they were incredibly helpful. Bob Jones and Richard Norton, the two Australian security guys on that Aussie tour, ended up going to the US to work with the Mac camp.
When I look back on that period, I can see a few parallels between Fleetwood Mac and my own career, although I've toured more often than them, flown around the world more often than them, probably slept with more people than them too. I've been just as reckless, probably more obnoxious and on the odd occasion just as drug-addled as they were back in the day. And, just like them, I've survived. I've toured some of the biggest bands in the world and taken drugs and gotten drunk with many of them. If my life were to be defined by famous albums it would be a blend of Rumours, Highway to Hell and Blood on the Tracks, with a nod to my best mate Billy Thorpe's 'Most People I Know (Think That I'm Crazy)'.
I've been promoting, managing, courting, bullying and championing rock acts since I was a fifteen-year-old know-itall in Launceston, Tasmania, running dances and calling dog races to make a few quid. I've lugged gear, driven vans, collected door money, put up posters, nursed and endured egos, schmoozed, boozed, dined and done deals in every corner of the music world. I've made and lost millions on tours by international acts. I've helped raise millions for various charities. I've haggled over cents on a tour budget. I've abused people if I thought they weren't in the right and sometimes when they were, just because I could. I've made a habit of raising my voice to get my own way and I've earned a dubious reputation for invading the stage at hundreds of concerts I've promoted to mouth off at the audience. My singing voice is rubbish, but I can tell people in a crowd of 30,000 to sit down and shut the fuck up more effectively than anybody, if I think it's appropriate.
Oh, and I once had a gun pulled on me by a gangster, but I talked my way out of the situation. I'm quite good at talking.
That kind of resumè might slip perfectly onto the psychiatrist's couch at the beginning of this prologue, but that's just a small part of the story. I have spent a lot of time alone, in aeroplanes and hotel rooms, wondering what the hell I'm doing, but it would be wrong to paint myself as a solitary figure snared by my success. My life has been incredibly rewarding in all manner of ways. I have a young grandson. When something as wonderful as that happens, it puts everything else into perspective.
That said, doing what I do, promoting shows, I have been surrounded by the bizarre, the unscrupulous, the egotistical and the astonishingly talented, both on the stage and behind the scenes. I have seen excessive behaviour that you wouldn't believe, and half the time I was the ringleader. I have chased money for most of my life, but it has been incidental to what I love doing, which is putting on shows and seeing the excitement on people's faces. I genuinely love that. It gets me up in the morning.
I try to be as honest and straightforward as I can with people. It's not always the best thing to do, but if you don't, it just gets difficult. You tell someone what he or she wants to hear and it will come back and bite you on the arse every time.
I'm a poor boy from Tasmania who got lucky. I arrived on the streets of Melbourne in 1965, just at the right time, when rock 'n' roll was up for grabs and precious few people knew what to do with it. I still appreciate that opportunity and value it, just as I value many of the people with whom I started out and who are still around doing it because they love it.
I've been broke and I've been rich. In this business you can never guarantee anything. I've had bad times; times when I thought I had no future in the music industry. But I'm still here. And I love the limelight. I've been planning this book for a long time. I want to document my life and times. I want to be on the stage. That has got me into a lot of trouble in the past.
This time, I suspect, will be no different.
“Hey, You in the Black T- Shirt” by Michael Chugg with Iain Shedden. Published by Macmillan Australia. 1st October 2010. RRP $34.99
Where did the $3.5 Million $cientology Vault come from?
Speaking of $cientology - Im curious where this $3.5 million dollar library came from, Who is selling it, and why doesnt the "church" own it? Any comments?
"Hundreds of hours of recorded lectures and thousands of pages of written materials that have not been seen by the public for decades or have never been seen by the public"
Scientology & Dianetics Library
28,426 Scientology and Dianetics lectures, bulletins, coursepacks, checksheets, books, periodicals, and many other publications.
View it here http://cgi.ebay.com/L-Ron-Hubbard-Scientology-Dianetics-Library-/230504436824?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35ab229458
"Hundreds of hours of recorded lectures and thousands of pages of written materials that have not been seen by the public for decades or have never been seen by the public"
Scientology & Dianetics Library
28,426 Scientology and Dianetics lectures, bulletins, coursepacks, checksheets, books, periodicals, and many other publications.
The Library contains virtually every major title ever sold to the public. What is more, the Library holds hundreds of hours of recorded lectures and thousands of pages of written materials that have not been seen by the public for decades or have never been seen by the public. Many predate the Church of Scientology’s 1954 incorporation.
The Library’s emphasis is L. Ron Hubbard’s technical materials that were released during his lifetime in their original, unaltered form. These are, principally, lectures on reel-to-reel tapes, written technology on mimeographed pages, and other first edition publications.
Integral to the Library is its computerized database of all 28,426 items, complete with titles, dates of publication, index of each item’s physical location in the file drawers, and many more data.
This is not a haphazard mixture of random books and tapes or bootlegged downloads of the usual items. This is a bona fide Library of highly-organized, legally-acquired materials that were specifically sought out over a quarter-century. It is a Library of authentic LRH recordings and writings much greater than what is obtainable through the church, and factually containing millions of words on audiotape and in print that do not exist in the field, on the Internet, or anywhere else in the world except, perhaps, in church vaults.
View it here http://cgi.ebay.com/L-Ron-Hubbard-Scientology-Dianetics-Library-/230504436824?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35ab229458
Are Segways Safe - Millionare owner dies in Bizzare accident
The millionaire owner of the Segway upright scooter company has died in a freak accident after riding one of the machines off a cliff into a river.
Jimi Heselden, 62, plunged into the River Wharfe at a beauty spot close to his home on an estate in Boston Spa, near Wetherby, West Yorkshire.
It is thought he lost control of one of the all-terrain versions of the machine as he travelled along a rutted bridleway close to his estate near Boston Spa, West Yorks, on Sunday morning.
he narrow pathway is littered with tree roots and is rutted and uneven for most of its length, used mainly by walkers and ramblers.
After dropping from the bridleway, he is understood to have fallen 80ft over the overgrown cliff and his body was discovered in the river after a passer-by called the emergency services.
Police said his body was recovered from the river but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
His wife Julie and other members of his family were too upset to talk about the tragedy.
A member of staff at his home, known as Flint Mill, near Wetherby Racecourse, said: “We are absolutely gutted, no one wants to talk about it.”
The property, protected by electronically controlled eight feet high metal gates, includes a stable block and museum.
Mr Heselden, a former miner who made a fortune developing a blast wall to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, bought the Segway company in December last year.
he narrow pathway is littered with tree roots and is rutted and uneven for most of its length, used mainly by walkers and ramblers.
After dropping from the bridleway, he is understood to have fallen 80ft over the overgrown cliff and his body was discovered in the river after a passer-by called the emergency services.
Police said his body was recovered from the river but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
His wife Julie and other members of his family were too upset to talk about the tragedy.
A member of staff at his home, known as Flint Mill, near Wetherby Racecourse, said: “We are absolutely gutted, no one wants to talk about it.”
The property, protected by electronically controlled eight feet high metal gates, includes a stable block and museum.
Mr Heselden, a former miner who made a fortune developing a blast wall to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, bought the Segway company in December last year.
John Sweeney revisits the Church of Scientology
In 2007, while investigating the Church of Scientology for Panorama, reporter John Sweeney had a dramatic on-camera confrontation with a church spokesman named Tommy Davis. The church was accusing the reporter of bias and it attempted to stop the documentary from being broadcast - a campaign backed by Scientology A-lister John Travolta. Sweeney has returned to investigate the church again.
I never meant to shout.
Strangers had been on my tail. Scientologist Tommy Davis and his colleague Mike Rinder - my handlers - had been on my case, day in and day out.
They had taken me to an exhibit called 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' on Hollywood Boulevard, where a Scientologist told me psychiatrists set up the Holocaust. I feared I was being brain-washed.
And then I lost it - big time.
The Church of Scientology put out my impression of an exploding tomato onto the internet which millions had a laugh at courtesy of YouTube.
It was no way for me to behave. I apologised then and I apologise now.
Shortly after that programme, Scientology & Me, aired in 2007, I received a tip-off that Mike Rinder had left the church.
Three years on and my old adversary came to me to shed some light on what had been going on behind the scenes in the days leading up to my infamous meltdown and screaming session in Los Angeles.
Now an independent Scientologist, Mike is critical of the church and of its leader David Miscavige, who was actor Tom Cruise's best man at his wedding to Katie Holmes.
Mike, 55, wanted to meet and talk about his life in the church, which he was a part of from the age of six.
Read more @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9032000/9032278.stm
I never meant to shout.
Strangers had been on my tail. Scientologist Tommy Davis and his colleague Mike Rinder - my handlers - had been on my case, day in and day out.
They had taken me to an exhibit called 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' on Hollywood Boulevard, where a Scientologist told me psychiatrists set up the Holocaust. I feared I was being brain-washed.
And then I lost it - big time.
The Church of Scientology put out my impression of an exploding tomato onto the internet which millions had a laugh at courtesy of YouTube.
It was no way for me to behave. I apologised then and I apologise now.
Shortly after that programme, Scientology & Me, aired in 2007, I received a tip-off that Mike Rinder had left the church.
Three years on and my old adversary came to me to shed some light on what had been going on behind the scenes in the days leading up to my infamous meltdown and screaming session in Los Angeles.
Now an independent Scientologist, Mike is critical of the church and of its leader David Miscavige, who was actor Tom Cruise's best man at his wedding to Katie Holmes.
Mike, 55, wanted to meet and talk about his life in the church, which he was a part of from the age of six.
Read more @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9032000/9032278.stm
The age old Laptop Audio hum/buzz problem - What causes it and how to fix it.
So recently there has been a little buzz (pun? haha) about laptops, power supplies and audio issues, usually all related. Now this affects a variety of people who don't always comprehend the fundamentals of power and sound, and as i have little experience in the field, I thought id share my knowledge. Note this is article is actual OC from me, Something i don't do very often!
Now i don't like to crap on too much, in fact i have too much already, so down to business;
The problem here is we have old tech meets new tech.
The old technology is the double insulated plugs (that's a power plug with only 2 pins) and the new tech are the newer-age Switch-mode Power supplies now coming out with most laptops and netbooks.
The issue is that the switchmode transformer, whilst very efficient power-wise, produces a high-frequency (HF) Wave that cariies ever so slightly down the power cable to your laptop.
It then floats around inside with no where to go, collecting other stray poorly - shielded radio waves that reside in the computer. Now in a desktop we have metal inner frame, which is grounded to the world outside via your power cable and acts a perfect drain or "earth", somewhere for the stray signals to go.
Electricity, like us Aussies, is basicly lazy, So it will always take the easiest path to the ground.
Now, if you have no earth, like on a laptop with double insulation, But you plug in say a line out that goes to your PA, a Sound desk, Home Hifi, DJ Decks...some sort of amplifier, well these devices are all grounded, so the stray RF waves float long whatever cable you've plugged into the computer - The waves hit your sound mixer, deck , hifi or whatever but, as they are unbalanced, the RF noise has usually already been induced into the cable along the way, Once it hits your sound system, it get AMPLIFIED and becomes a BIG problem...
Remember, USB, Headphone and firewire are all unbalanced BUT shielded transmission routes, which makes another great breeding ground for RF problems.
Sometimes, if you have a metal/ aluminium laptop, YOU may be the path it takes to get to the ground.
So, how can i fix it man? Well there a few remedies to try:
-Make sure all your all you equipment is plugged into the same power outlet, 4 way strips / powerboards are fine unless running high powered amplifiers - they'll trip the board.
- Sometime those special power boards with surge filters and hum filters work, sometimes they don't.
- Check you have a 3 pin power plug on your laptop, if you already do:
- Try a DI Box, U can them from most music / Pro audio stores from around $50 upwards.
- Something like a di box but aimed at this exact problem is this thing from Trillium. Its an OZ product but they seem to ship worldwide..I haven't used it , nor can i recommend it ( nor get affiliate sales ect ect) but it looks the part. If it didn't work Id go straight back and choke them with it. But hey, im an angry sort of guy and you probably don't mind parting with the $38.50, so each to their own.
-If you using a USB or FIREWIRE cable, an earth lift cable is known to work, you ll prob need to make one as i cant find one for sale - ill update if i do.
- Another option, Though only ad-hoc is to run the laptop on battery power, this works by removing the problem all together, but creates more in the process.
-Often the cables are the problem all together, if you are using a $2 cable you will get $2 sound. You don't need to spend $260 on one cable but $10-20 should be the minimum spend per cable.
Other common Earth and Hum problems include:
Equipment on different sockets / phases
This really would be another post if i were to explain why, Lets just says its really important
Missing earth pins
May have been snapped in the past to solve another problem, or the wrong IEC or cloverleaf plug was used..ie a 2 pin instead of a 3 pin, or vice versa.
Equipment on same power circuit as a motor or compressor
This really interferes with things.. Do some troubleshooting and try a different phase, room, outlet, venue etc.
Same goes for Fluorescent lighting
Ditto. See above
Broken earth inside cable.
Its like not having one at all. Try some more troubleshooting by swapping your cables around - the process of elimination is painful, but well worthwhile in the long run.
Power transformers
All produce stray RF waves not just inside these, but some that also radiate out of it too. A coiled up cable near or on top of acts a nice antenna for these signals.
Note that all laptop makers do things differently and use use a varying quality of parts, assembly methods and transformers. This info may not apply to every single make and model in the world. Something else of note is that some cheap nasty Chinese adapters will do this, either they do not have an earth pin ( a luxury in china) or have really poor/non existent electrical isolation within the transformer.
Well Ive really tried to be quite comprehensive here,but im sure ive missed something - if you don't follow something, cant understand some of my jargon, hold different ideas or have something to add, i would love to hear from you below, and don't be shy to drop me a comment below.
Thanks
MC Checkers
Now i don't like to crap on too much, in fact i have too much already, so down to business;
The problem here is we have old tech meets new tech.
The old technology is the double insulated plugs (that's a power plug with only 2 pins) and the new tech are the newer-age Switch-mode Power supplies now coming out with most laptops and netbooks.
The issue is that the switchmode transformer, whilst very efficient power-wise, produces a high-frequency (HF) Wave that cariies ever so slightly down the power cable to your laptop.
It then floats around inside with no where to go, collecting other stray poorly - shielded radio waves that reside in the computer. Now in a desktop we have metal inner frame, which is grounded to the world outside via your power cable and acts a perfect drain or "earth", somewhere for the stray signals to go.
Electricity, like us Aussies, is basicly lazy, So it will always take the easiest path to the ground.
Now, if you have no earth, like on a laptop with double insulation, But you plug in say a line out that goes to your PA, a Sound desk, Home Hifi, DJ Decks...some sort of amplifier, well these devices are all grounded, so the stray RF waves float long whatever cable you've plugged into the computer - The waves hit your sound mixer, deck , hifi or whatever but, as they are unbalanced, the RF noise has usually already been induced into the cable along the way, Once it hits your sound system, it get AMPLIFIED and becomes a BIG problem...
Remember, USB, Headphone and firewire are all unbalanced BUT shielded transmission routes, which makes another great breeding ground for RF problems.
Sometimes, if you have a metal/ aluminium laptop, YOU may be the path it takes to get to the ground.
So, how can i fix it man? Well there a few remedies to try:
-Make sure all your all you equipment is plugged into the same power outlet, 4 way strips / powerboards are fine unless running high powered amplifiers - they'll trip the board.
- Sometime those special power boards with surge filters and hum filters work, sometimes they don't.
- Check you have a 3 pin power plug on your laptop, if you already do:
- Try a DI Box, U can them from most music / Pro audio stores from around $50 upwards.
- Something like a di box but aimed at this exact problem is this thing from Trillium. Its an OZ product but they seem to ship worldwide..I haven't used it , nor can i recommend it ( nor get affiliate sales ect ect) but it looks the part. If it didn't work Id go straight back and choke them with it. But hey, im an angry sort of guy and you probably don't mind parting with the $38.50, so each to their own.
-If you using a USB or FIREWIRE cable, an earth lift cable is known to work, you ll prob need to make one as i cant find one for sale - ill update if i do.
- Another option, Though only ad-hoc is to run the laptop on battery power, this works by removing the problem all together, but creates more in the process.
-Often the cables are the problem all together, if you are using a $2 cable you will get $2 sound. You don't need to spend $260 on one cable but $10-20 should be the minimum spend per cable.
Other common Earth and Hum problems include:
Equipment on different sockets / phases
This really would be another post if i were to explain why, Lets just says its really important
Missing earth pins
May have been snapped in the past to solve another problem, or the wrong IEC or cloverleaf plug was used..ie a 2 pin instead of a 3 pin, or vice versa.
Equipment on same power circuit as a motor or compressor
This really interferes with things.. Do some troubleshooting and try a different phase, room, outlet, venue etc.
Same goes for Fluorescent lighting
Ditto. See above
Broken earth inside cable.
Its like not having one at all. Try some more troubleshooting by swapping your cables around - the process of elimination is painful, but well worthwhile in the long run.
Power transformers
All produce stray RF waves not just inside these, but some that also radiate out of it too. A coiled up cable near or on top of acts a nice antenna for these signals.
Note that all laptop makers do things differently and use use a varying quality of parts, assembly methods and transformers. This info may not apply to every single make and model in the world. Something else of note is that some cheap nasty Chinese adapters will do this, either they do not have an earth pin ( a luxury in china) or have really poor/non existent electrical isolation within the transformer.
Well Ive really tried to be quite comprehensive here,but im sure ive missed something - if you don't follow something, cant understand some of my jargon, hold different ideas or have something to add, i would love to hear from you below, and don't be shy to drop me a comment below.
Thanks
MC Checkers
Sunday, September 26, 2010
How much we really rely on tech.. and what happens when it fails - Virgin -
There are frazzled parents at the limits of their patience, looking after bored kids giddy at being on their school holidays but frustrated at having nothing to do. Passengers milling around, trying to nap on a hard floor, anxious that the next announcement on the public address system will be the one that cancels their flight.
And all because of a computer problem.
It’s the second edge of the sword of connected technology: systems that make aspects of life easier, cheaper, faster and more convenient – until they run into a problem.
If a system crash that affects one airline can result in this kind of chaos, consider the chaos if something bigger failed, like Centrelink, or a bank.
And all because of a computer problem.
It’s the second edge of the sword of connected technology: systems that make aspects of life easier, cheaper, faster and more convenient – until they run into a problem.
If a system crash that affects one airline can result in this kind of chaos, consider the chaos if something bigger failed, like Centrelink, or a bank.
An open letter to Kristy Fraser-Kirk - Skank in the making.
Hi Kristy
I think youve got internet personality disorder... No amount of touchy touchy is worth this much.. not even rape victims get this much. Thanks for helping pull the world apart with endless litigation. Well all be paying more in retail next year thanks to this.
If you werent such a cowardless bitch in the 1st place and stood up for yourself, this would not be happening. Funny that you can show some clout on national TV but you couldnt to few retails execs?? I hope you get jack shit.
Regards
Checkers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY
During legal argument about the non-disclosure of names of some witnesses, Ms Fraser-Kirk's lawyers referred to the "media frenzy" surrounding the case.
Lawyer Rachel Francois told the Federal Court the publicist has suffered "intrusion and harm" and does not want others to suffer the same fate.
Ms Francois said evidence will be produced to show that she has developed an "adjustment disorder" as a result of the attention.
She said her client's home and her neighbours have been the subject of media attention and Ms Fraser-Kirk has to check under her car.
Ms Fraser-Kirk's legal team is seeking to keep the names of some witnesses in the case confidential.
Her statement of claim includes 10 witnesses, but her lawyers want the names of three to remain confidential.
The lawyer for David Jones has told the court there is no reason for the names not to be revealed.
"It's the simplest of requests," he told the court.
YOU TOO can be part of the action.. See http://www.kristyfraserkirk.com.au/ to send her mail or even call her! Its too good!
I think youve got internet personality disorder... No amount of touchy touchy is worth this much.. not even rape victims get this much. Thanks for helping pull the world apart with endless litigation. Well all be paying more in retail next year thanks to this.
If you werent such a cowardless bitch in the 1st place and stood up for yourself, this would not be happening. Funny that you can show some clout on national TV but you couldnt to few retails execs?? I hope you get jack shit.
Regards
Checkers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY
A court has heard a publicist suing a former David Jones chief executive for sexual harassment has health problems caused by media coverage of the case.
David Jones and its former boss Mark McInnes are being sued for $37 million by publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk, who claims the former CEO made unwanted sexual advances towards her.During legal argument about the non-disclosure of names of some witnesses, Ms Fraser-Kirk's lawyers referred to the "media frenzy" surrounding the case.
Lawyer Rachel Francois told the Federal Court the publicist has suffered "intrusion and harm" and does not want others to suffer the same fate.
Ms Francois said evidence will be produced to show that she has developed an "adjustment disorder" as a result of the attention.
She said her client's home and her neighbours have been the subject of media attention and Ms Fraser-Kirk has to check under her car.
Ms Fraser-Kirk's legal team is seeking to keep the names of some witnesses in the case confidential.
Her statement of claim includes 10 witnesses, but her lawyers want the names of three to remain confidential.
The lawyer for David Jones has told the court there is no reason for the names not to be revealed.
"It's the simplest of requests," he told the court.
YOU TOO can be part of the action.. See http://www.kristyfraserkirk.com.au/ to send her mail or even call her! Its too good!
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