Covid-19... the upsides

[onetrack]

We just have beggars outside our Coles. Despite all the warning signs, and getting moved on, they're generally back again within a few days.

 

Now, with the virus regulations in place, most have been rounded up and placed in empty 4 star hotels. I wonder what the eventual damage bill will be.

[willedoo]

Free beer. Pubs in Western Queensland are opening this weekend and allowing up to twenty customers. The brewery is trucking out 3000 litres of free beer to mark the occasion. The catch is, it's XXXX Gold; they should pay you to drink that stuff. ☹

[Marty_d]

Free beer. Pubs in Western Queensland are opening this weekend and allowing up to twenty customers. The brewery is trucking out 3000 litres of free beer to mark the occasion. The catch is, it's XXXX Gold; they should pay you to drink that stuff. ☹

Ah come on, it's improved markedly since the old days. I think it's "XXXX" because they can't spell "Beer" now, but back a few years it was because they couldn't spell "Piss".

[Old Koreelah]

...beer brands and footy teams: the really important stuff we should be arguing about.

[Yenn]

Forex has never been good since they had a strike in about 1971. That was when I discovered SA beers while I worked in Cobar. I put it and Fosters in the same category, only drink it if nothing else is available and I feel like self abuse,

[old man emu]

A C-19 upside.

I've just finished washing all the doors, bench tops and window sills in the kitchen, and an doing some restoration work on the stove controls. My kitchen is C-19-proof!

[willedoo]

Forex has never been good since they had a strike in about 1971. That was when I discovered SA beers while I worked in Cobar. I put it and Fosters in the same category, only drink it if nothing else is available and I feel like self abuse,

Some people used to say it went to the pack after Alan Bond bought it; that they must have changed the recipe. XXXX was often predominate in remote areas of Australia. I was told that it traveled better than the Carleton beers and arrived at the pubs in better condition. It's also one of the few that could be consumed at room temperature (Kimberley Cool), straight out of the packet without the taste altering much. I remember the Carleton and Swan beers weren't very good unless chilled.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Guest

[pmccarthy]

Forex has never been good since they had a strike in about 1971. That was when I discovered SA beers while I worked in Cobar. I put it and Fosters in the same category, only drink it if nothing else is available and I feel like self abuse,

After you've been pig shooting at Cobar, a couple of Southwark Premiums at the golf club go down really well.

[onetrack]

Alan Bond FXXXXXX everything he touched. He destroyed the value of most the businesses he purchased. He couldn't run a business at a profit if he tried.

His main aim at all times, was to get hold of businesses that had good cash flow, or had large cash reserves, and rape the cash flow or cash reserves.

 

Few people know that at Alan Bonds "business height", he owed so much money to Wardleys Bank (U.K.), that Wardleys installed one of their managers in an office right next to Alan's - and Alan could not make out a cheque for more than $500, without getting the approval of the Wardleys manager.

 

That was 1986, when he was set on taking the Americas Cup. He had the hide to go and ask the Wardleys bloke for money to win the Americas Cup.

The Wardleys bloke said, "How much do you want?". Bond said, "Ahh, probably about $20M". The Wardleys bloke just laughed and said, "If you want $20M to go play with boats, you'd better sell something you own outright!"

 

Bond promptly said, "O.K., I will". So he went and sold about 6 local businesses he'd recently bought, for sums around 20% less than he'd just paid for them. He got his $20M in a couple of weeks.

Those businesses were promptly raped by their new owners, with many people losing their jobs, and superb, tightly-and-long-held agencies going to the companies that snapped them up.

 

Bond was that arrogant, he wouldn't even wait for management buyout offers that were made for those companies.

He reckoned he couldn't afford to wait for management to put finance deals together, so he sold them to cash buyers for lower amounts.

I reckon the lineup to piXX on Bonds grave must stretch past the cemetery entrance.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Bond, like Skase and Elliot, were a blight on the Aussie business landscape. They have a lot to answer for. Skase's wife still thinks they are hard done by.. There was another bloke - can't remember his name - had business interests in Shepparton and got all the investors on board to swan about in a private jet before they had turned a profit. I knew an angel investor and told them to pull out PDQ as anyone who does that is burning $ that could be going to getting the product ion the shelves and money in the door. Obviously, the chap was charismatic as my mate had full faith in him.. The angle investor lost about $100K.

 

I know not too many of you like Aussie Rules... This is an article of a bloke I used to go to high school with. Skase couldn't pay him $300K owed for the sacrifice Fidge made... Hard knock life. Nut managed a darned lavish lifestyle in Spain until his death.. And his "friends" didn't pay for it... as was claimed.

 

Although I despised Fidge through envy - they bloke out-marked my 5' 6.5" frame and managed to snare the one girl that may have kept be in the convict colonies (Oi! I heard that collective sigh of relief from you fellas), he was (and probably still is) a good bloke - not the sharpest knife but not dull either - but in this case, a misplaced loyalty.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Guest

[Jerry_Atrick]

Forex has never been good since they had a strike in about 1971. That was when I discovered SA beers while I worked in Cobar. I put it and Fosters in the same category, only drink it if nothing else is available and I feel like self abuse,

Over here, whenever someone asks if I want a Fosters, my stock standard answer is, "No thanks.. Australia exports only its crap. Myself included!"..

 

A C-19 upside.

I've just finished washing all the doors, bench tops and window sills in the kitchen, and an doing some restoration work on the stove controls. My kitchen is C-19-proof!

There's a ticket to London waiting for you.. Our kitchen needs a clean

[old man emu]

There's a ticket to London waiting for you.. Our kitchen needs a clean

 

Great:ecstatic:

But just to warn you. I don't wash windows. That's not my Formby

[Yenn]

Do you lean on lamp posts?

[old man emu]

Only until a certain little lady comes by.

[spacesailor]

HO me, HO my,

That certain little Lady.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

Question:

Whose version do we know - George Formby or Herman's Hermits?

[spacesailor]

Goerge Formby,s of course.

I don,t remember hearing the Hermans version,

spacesailor

[onetrack]

Hermans Hermits version of "Leaning on the Lamp Post", was only ever recorded as a single for the U.S. market - and Peter Noone exaggerated his British accent when he recorded it.

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Guest

[spacesailor]

It,s good, but is it good enough.

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTaZTj1a4og "

Just hit the youtube bit, to play it.

Love his Ukulele playing at the end, Looks like a Bango to me.

He did the Army, Navy, Air-force. and police force, as well as the Barmaid.

spacesailor

Edited May 17, 2020 by spacesailor

[old man emu]

"Leaning .." as well as all the Hermits' songs were very popular in Australia. They held the No 1 spot for four weeks in May 1965 with Mrs Brown you've got a lovely daughter, and a week at No 1 with No milk today in December 1966. In the same years that had Top 5 hits as well.

[onetrack]

Herman Hermits hit song times bring back some great memories for me. Probably the best time of my life, and I didn't know it. Young and bursting with teenage enthusiasm, and the songs were just the greatest.

The problems we had initially (when the Beatles hit the scene) were generally getting hold of a portable radio, it was still the days of mantle radios!

Then I got a new EH Holden ute, and it had a radio in it! And it had the powerful 179 engine! Woo-Hoo! I was the street drag king - and the new British Rock hit songs just kept on coming!

As well as Herman, there was the Searchers (Love Potion No 9), the Troggs (Wild Thing), the Casuals (Jesamine), Chris Farlowe (Out of Time), The Yardbirds (For your Love - Heart Full of Soul), The Who (Happy Jack - Pinball Wizard), The Small Faces (Sha-La-La-La-Lee) - the list goes on and on and on!!

Edited May 17, 2020 by onetrack

[old man emu]

In the Summer of 61/62 Charlie Drake's My Boomerang Won't Come Back was No. 1 for 12 weeks.

 

Here's a road map to Nostalgia: List of number-one singles in Australia during the 1960s - Wikipedia

[Yenn]

I looked at that list of No 1 singles above and there were a good few that I liked. What a pity that the ABC never plays any of them, but runs some God Awful stuff that I doubt anyone finds good. My memory of those times is the non stop playing of The Beatles songs and while they are OK occasionally, they were well overdone at the time.

[red750]

For anyone who likes music of that era, there is a program on Foxtel called Jukebox Saturday Night which plays all the old video (movie?) clips - Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Deltones and the like. It used to be hosted by the former 3UZ DJ Kenny Sparkes until he passed away. Much younger dude does it these days.

[old man emu]

I find that there is a black hole in the Australian music history. The Summer of 63/64 was the summer of Surf Music. Little Pattie was Stompin' at Maroubra, The Atlantics were sending out the boom of Bombora, and the Deltones were Hangin' Five. But the Beatles arrived on the charts in December 1963, and surfing music faced a Wipe Out