OK, folks – quick quiz time: complete this saying: “Pride goeth before….” If you said “a fall”, you’d be wrong. And yet almost everyone would say that. The actual quote is “Pride goes before DESTRUCTION, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) – but we almost always shorten the verse. It’s a…
Can the Australian government’s proposed new media laws save troubled newspapers and other legacy media outlets? Or is that the wrong question to be asking? It’s now two weeks since the government confirmed plans to significantly change media ownership laws, which could prompt a whole swag of mergers and acquisitions as old-school news organisations battle…
It’s the worst-kept secret in Australian radio: Easy 2CH is no more. From today, the station has adopted the ‘Magic’ moniker – and, in general, the Magic format. It’s still calling itself Magic 2CH in Breakfast – but certainly by 2pm, it had adopted the Magic 1170 callsign – bringing it into line with the branding…
One of the more popular ‘cruise ship’ destinations in Vanuatu is “Mystery Island”, at the south of the archipelago that makes up that country. It’s actual name is Inyeug island – and it’s an uninhabited island about a km off the larger Anatyeum. But why Mystery island? Well, there are two theories – and both…
I took a cyclo ride in Ho Chi Minh city a couple of weeks back. He said he wanted VND500,000 (about $US22) for a half hour ride. I told him that was ridiculous, and offered him VND200,000 (about $US8) – a fair rate, I thought. We haggled, and ended up at VND350 – that’s $US15,…
I think it was a 1986 Apple commercial that first introduced me the concept, but it’s a metaphor that has stuck with me for three decades since then: “It is difficult to remember, when you are up to your neck in alligators, that you originally set out to drain the swamp!” I find that I spend…
A few weeks ago I was accused of being, and I quote, “Another doomsayer doing his level best to kill off commercial radio.” That’s because I had the temerity to suggest that DAB+ Radio, or Digital Audio Broadcasting, risked going the same way as AM Stereo – into the dustbin of ideas whose time never…
I had reason, during the week, to use a famous line of Ralph Waldo Emerson – the one about a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds. It was from his essay, ‘On Self-Reliance’ – but as I looked it up, it struck me that I hadn’t read Emerson, or Thoreau, or their ilk since high school…
If you go to Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) in Vietnam, whether you book any day-tours around the city or just follow the guide-books, there are a number of places that are almost guaranteed to be on the itinerary. There’s the Notre Dame church, the Central Post Office (NOT designed by Gustave Eiffel,…
I was at a small restaurant last night, which we’ve been to regularly – and as it turns out, we were the only customers seated there. There were probably two reasons for that: One was because the heavens opened just moments after we arrived, so that would have deterred people thinking about whether to go…
Cairns Communications 