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The Best of the |
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25 June 2000 Queensland hogged the front page limelight for the second day running, this time with a trivial incident. A Darwin police motorcyclist fell off his bike as it was leading the torch relay in North Queensland. The impact of the accident flung him 40m from the crash point, wrote off his bike and held up the relay for about five minutes. The officer broke his wrist and had bruising, swelling and abrasions to his neck. 'Alice Springs most expensive place to build, and Darwin second' A study by Cordell Building Information Services has found that Alice Springs and Darwin were the most expensive cities to build in out of 30 capital and regional cities and towns in Australia. The extra cost (as usual) reportedly is largely attributed to increased (?) transport costs. Wonder what other 'remote' cities featured in the survey to justify this conclusion or why transport costs had increased and whether prices were lower than other cities before the increase. 'Deadly bug shuts down swim spot' Finally on page 5 we come to what should have been on the front page - another tropical hazard. The pathogenic amoebae Naegleria fowleri which attacks the brain and causes death has been found at Douglas Hot Springs, a popular NT tourist spot. The disease can only be contracted if the organism enters the body through the nose and is nearly always fatal if caught. Douglas Hot Springs is now closed to swimmers. Lesson in marketing 1 ‘First home buyer boom' In another inspired piece of unsubstantiated marketing, Territory real estate agents are forecasting a rush of activity next Saturday to coincide with the introduction of the GST, all because of the new first home buyers grant of $7,000. I wonder whether the rush of first home buyers will offset the falls in new home buyers who are facing up to 9% extra cost. Lesson in marketing 2 'What a corker' A Darwin pizzeria has been charging customers $1 corkage on soft drinks not opened by waitstaff, but by the patrons themselves. You laugh heartily until you realise that this is typical Northern Territory Service. 'Thousands enjoy Indian culture' It appears as though the last article (24 June 2000) on the Indian festival at Mindil Beach may have been prophetic. Indeed 'Tantalising taste sensations of Northern and Southern India were available, including spicy curries, rice cakes, dosas, chappatis, parathas, samosas and sensational Indian sweetmeats'. Obviously these prophetic journalists must save the publishers many dollars in salaries. 'Deadly bat disease is likely to spread' With no word yet on whether the Katherine South ruckus rid that area of bats, the discovery that a deadly virus that killed 84 people and ruined pig farms in Malaysia last year has been discovered in a fruit-bat found in most of South-East Asia. The Nipah virus is lethal to about 40 per cent of human patients. The disease is expected to spread as the Island Flying Fox is a migratory species. |
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