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I wonder if this makes payment optional?

Beautiful British humour!

I had trouble in NZ pronouncing Manurewa. I thought I had the first part correct…

THAT Ford motor would be Hard to get and has structural issues. You could spend a lot on it, and is very much a collectors item. Maybe a 3.5 litre Alloy Rover V8? Nev

This is not really a gripe, just some observations for want of a better thread to post in. In some ways things are advancing and in other ways we're going backwards. I've noticed for a while now a lot of companies and organisations are becoming increasingly disfunctional. A lot are getting a fortress mentality where it's becoming increasingly difficult for customers and others to contact them. Too many working groups, team leaders, teams, team meetings, overseas outsourced support and the list goes on. It gives me the impression that a lot of people making the decisions these days wouldn't know if their arse was on fire. They think if you have enough blah, blah, blah, and keep kicking the ball around in circles, everything will work out. It's in government and regulation as well, or should I say over regulation. A good example I heard on the ABC radio today was that some operators of coffee outlets in Victoria are required to have up to thirty four different licences to pour and sell coffee. Another example of a disfunctional system is our banana quarantine system here in S.E. Queensland. I haven't grown any since the 1990's but am thinking of putting a few in again. The last time I grew them, the government took it very seriously. Non commercial household growers were only allowed to grow Lady Fingers and the suckers had to be sourced from a grower approved by the Department of Primary Industries. Transportation of banana material was restricted to certain zones (still is) and a strict planting window was in place with about a two month period that they were allowed to be planted. I got quite a shock last year when I made some enquiries into planting, as I wanted to do the right thing regarding disease control. Here's a comparison of how it was planting bananas in the 1990's compared to now. Back then I went to the local DPI research station for advice. They gave me a contact list of approved growers, and that was it. All I had to do was ring a nearby approved grower, buy the suckers and plant them. All legal and biosecurity compliant. Fast forward to now. Some time ago the DPI research stations stopped dealing with the public. Now they have no public phone numbers or any other way to contact them, and the stations are blocked to public access so you can't go and see them. Wanting to do the right thing, I rang the department headquarters in Brisbane and they didn't have a clue what to do. I then asked them if they had a list of approved growers and they said they weren't allowed to give out that information and suggested I contact the banana growers association. I rang them several times over a few days and nobody would answer the phone. They had a very loud recorded tune playing for waiting; it was the lyrics banana-nana, banana-nana excised from that kid's song and looped endlessly at irritatingly high volume. It was as if they were purposely trying to get you to hang up and go away. Nobody is going to sit there and listen to that for an indeterminate period of time. I think my record in all the calls was about 20 minutes of banana-nana, banana-nana and that was it for me. It's odd because the quarantine signs are still everywhere, and the relevant authorities' websites still bang on about how strict they are with banana biosecurity but government and the growers association are total fu*kwits about it. The problem with that is that people wanting to plant bananas are now just buying them illegally on FB Marketplace from backyarders. It's not legal to sell if you're not an approved grower and not legal to buy from non approved growers. The government and the growers association are talking the talk and not walking the walk. It's gone from a very efficient system to one that's completely disfunctional.

No. Didn't you hear that Donny renamed the country?

But who carries small change nowadays?

I was redundant years ago but the firm hasn't realised it yet so I'm still there.