Public meeting

Linkup Melbourne has organised a public meeting for Thursday 31 May, details here.

If you saw this earlier, I'm afraid I was a bit inaccurate in my description. Apologies for that, it is actually a public meeting.

Confession time...

If you're wondering why there's so little commentary on the daily Connex commute, there's a good reason - I'm not doing it any more! That's right, the Connex Whinger has given up on Connex.

It came about after the broken collar bone several weeks ago. Travelling on an overcrowded train is a significant challenge when you're carrying an injury. People bump and jostle you just trying to sqeeze in - it's not their fault but that doesn't make it any less painful (nor any less annoying).

So I'm pretty much a bus convert as things stand today. The morning bus is pretty reliable, although experience suggests it can be more than five minutes EARLY and up to ten minutes late. At 7:00am though the traffic is fairly light so we generally get a good run and I'm in the office a few minutes earlier than if I'd caught the train. Given that I only leave the house five minutes earlier, the door-to-door travel time is about the same. But MUCH less crowded!

Getting home is not so great, as the traffic is so bad after 5:00pm. While the bone's healing, I'm making the effort to get out of the office before then, but that's not really sustainable. I guess I'll try it a few times and inevitably I expect I'll be back to the evening crush with Connex, unless I can convince myself that cycling home in winter is preferable.

Anyway, for now I'll continue to post about the many issues that arise almost daily about Connex and Kosky. Feel free to keep the comments coming.

A couple of conversations...

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: Hey Bruce, your train set is a shambles and the proles are emailing me to sort it out

Fat controller: Hi Lynne, I thought you had your spam filter set to max so you didn't see those?

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: One got through from Bracksy. Anyway mate, gonna have to fine you $10m

Fat controller: Yeah no worries, cheque's in the mail

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: Thanks mate, see you for a glass of Chardy next Thursday


Next Thursday...

Fat controller: Hey Lynne, the usual?

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: Yeah, thanks Bruce

Fat controller: You know, we're struggling to meet financial targets this month

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: Oh dear, how much are you short?

Fat controller: Umm, about $10m will cover it

Cloth-eared nuff-nuff: No worries mate, cheque's in the mail! Cheers!

Fat controller: Cheers!


http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/late-trains-fines-hit-62m/2007/05/13/1178994997217.html

While we're talking about The Age, have a look at Alan Attwood's comments...

I have a dream in which an army of commuters - all of us from the 8.17 or 8.33 or the 8.44 via the Loop - stream out of Parliament Station, past the newspaper guy and Louis the Big Issue vendor, and head not to our offices but across Spring Street to the steps of Parliament House. There we gather in an angry mass, serried ranks of pent-up frustration, doing a Peter Finch and declaring we're mad as hell and are NOT going to take it any more.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/commuters-sick-of-hearing-apologies/2007/05/13/1178994989570.html

I'm up for it, anybody else want to join in with Alan's protest?