NEVER SAY NEVER

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Those who decry modern technology today will maybe live to forever regret having made the statement. We for one, one day might regret even publishing The Astonisher but progress we have got and we are going to have to embrace it. Of course we will resist it every step of the way, why change things just for change sake?

Back when a Hansom Cab used to take me to school, that’s if I wasn’t walking both ways uphill, and barefoot in snow, I blabbered and blustered over allowing children to have calculators in the classroom but the sky didn’t fall in, they can’t read an analogue clock but that’s a petty matter, we wandered what they would ever do if their batteries ran flat. Now many of them are now solar powered.

We tut-tutted about computers being allowed into schools even before you could put them in your back pocket. Technology has advanced even now to the point where a standard mobile phone has more capacity than Australia’s first big computer which took up an entire room.

RDJ-FM community radio was once offered a free multi-monitor computer system that a law firm was disposing of. But you’re going to need a separate room to put it in. It’s really big it has the capacity to work ten terminals and has a massive 2 Gigabyte Tape Drive. We declined the offer, not because it was old but because we didn’t have the space for it and it had to have its own air-conditioning system to cool it.

Even earlier when working at AGL in Sydney I always admired the fellows in their white coats, fiddling about in their air-conditioned glass-paneled room changes big reels of tape from one machine to the next like projectionists in a theater. Upstairs about 50 women typed out punch-card manually received from the meter readers for the computer to send your bill. It was a huge leap forward technologically from when little metal capsules used to be sucked along tubes to the accounting department or even before that fired like a tethered rocket across the room to the cashier who would then rocket it back to your counter.

Yes we have come a long way from those heady days of advancing modernity. We now know that we are part way along that journey. From listening to transistor radios and Walkman tape machines, to carefully centering vinyl discs of varying sizes and revolutions to the mobile phone that does everything today and will possibly even wipe your arse next month.

Lets face it, Nobody wants to return to the good old days of homophobia or xenophobia, sexism or racism even though our religious and political leaders would like us to. But here, before we end we would like to issue a word of warning. Just because it exists doesn’t mean we have to have it. Life is for living not shopping.

Yes we must progress but for heavens sake only progress as far as we want to and not where we are told to. Don’t get caught up in the hype of bigger houses on smaller blocks of land, changing your mobile phone every year, signing up to lifetime contracts we will never need and gift card we will never use. We have a policy, even when going crazy at auctions. There are two states of mind when considering a purchase. Do we need it, will it make our life easier, better, more productive? Or do we want it, just so we can say we have one, use one or just want to flash it around.

POLITICAL PROSTITUTION

Despite all the bullshit about 'small business is the engine room of our economy' the big banks, supermarkets and oil companies continue to dominate the decisions of our government. Even Golden Showers Shire has its share of self-interested bureaucrats who just want to please the Chardoney-end of Bannockburn and not the normal powerless residents of its smaller villages.

The supposed advantages of mega-mergers that have taken place over the last thirty years in drug companies, airlines, banking conglomerates and mining magnates have supposed to have been to make the economy and the country more robust, save money and bring down prices. Rather than see to it that Australia looks after its own economy our companies, more than likely owned by overseas concerns want to take on the world with the crazy belief that they are God's gift to the world and our 25 million can compete toe-to-toe with the other 5 billion pairs of feet on our planet (apologies to any one-footed residents).

The reality is we end up with near monopoly power by a few companies willing to spread their money into other peoples businesses and exert pressure on our governments any which way they can.

Alphabet is one such company only intent on controlling our every move to their profitable advantage.

Take the spurious example of the CSG miners warning that Australia is likely to run out of gas in the next twenty years but failing to mention that we are selling it overseas in quantities that in one year we sell about ten years supply of our own consumption, and might we add, at prices that we could only dream about.

I don't see the point of our politicians saying the country is not cost-effective (the constant blame on wages and not on compliance costs) or efficient enough to make our own stuff at competitive prices when they could halve the cost of energy tomorrow and allow our home-grown businesses to succeed.

Big chains beat out string every time. The large companies don't need to be competitive they just buy out the competition and maintain prices they want. I know of no example where prices have gone down because a company has merged and become more efficient. We'll keep the analogies coming by saying that the big fish are constantly gnawing on the vitals of the smaller fish all the way down the food chain.

The bigger is better complex does not hold true either, Dunbar numbers disprove that theory, and companies these days certainly don't put the welfare of their customers first. More and more the corporate circus calls out to us 'come in suckers!'.

Unless governments put in place protections for the electors, the spate of naughty banks and finance companies, insurance, aged care and the death industry will continue to run amok with millions in customers funds when financial protections for the customer are removed in return for big political donations, Deregulation actually promotes efficiency and competition is a myth that our politicians fall for every time an industry wants to increase its power and profits.

Bigger business doesn't always provide bigger returns for the owners either, as Board members and CEO's share management fees in the millions every time they make a decision to spend our money. Selling off your own arse in big business is more common than rent boys along 'the Wall'. (Sydney joke)

WHERE HAS CAPITALISM GONE?

As a committed Socialist and a firm believer in balance and fairness for all I am often referred to by the disparaging description of 'red ragger'. On the contrary I am surprisingly a keen supporter not only of true democracy (representing the electors not the party) and true capitalism (the free market opportunity).

Capitalism:

I buy something from your shop which you buy from a manufacturer, who pays workers to make the product I buy. They, the employees in turn, with their wages, buy my product which I pay someone else to deliver from a factory of workers making my whatnots. That is a manufacturing economy.

I walk into a Sandwich shop which makes me a salad roll. They made up the roll from ingredients, hopefully, sourced locally, grown by small farmers producing high quality fruit and vegetables which they sell to the roll-maker. The grower then buys my product and the cycle starts again. This is an agricultural economy.

My car breaks down and I take it to a garage and engage, hopefully a skilled mechanic, to make the necessary repairs they identify. I pay the mechanic either with my product (bartering) or with the money you gave me when you bought my whatnot. This is called a service economy.

In a way all of these different activities interact with each other and an advanced economy produces everything its population needs and sells the surplus overseas.

Communism:

If you take all three examples given above and change that free choice to ownership by the state, where the government controls how much is made, when it is made, where it is sold and at what price. They determine how much workers will be paid, the hours they work, the holidays they don't get and set the rate for bribes. It's like Animal Farm everyone is equal, some are more equal than others and we will determine how equal you are.

The only good side to Communism is the governments ability to direct entire economies and populations, see also China, unlike the exciting mess of capitalism, in to producing things faster to the detriment of the quality that competition creates.

Socialism:

This is where I stand. Socialism is really Capitalism with the exception that the investors, the shareholders, the management and the future of the company are all determined by the members or employees. In a sense we already have a form of socialism with the RACV or Credit Unions, members joining together for a common cause, or Dairy Farmers who, as individuals cannot provide both supply and distribution themselves so join together as a group to market their product.

Socialism is NOT Communism. Socialism is those who create the economy should share in the economy, reward for hard work and dare I say it, nothing for the slackers and some social help for those who can neither work nor malinger.

Look at our planet peoples. We all stuck on this rock together so we should work together. The rich are getting richer through corporate tribalism and as we see, tribalism (Corporations) destroy everything in their path and entire economies for the sake of a few Boardroom Emirs.

CAPITALISM IS DEAD, LONG LIVE GREED

If you know of Stalin, Hitler, Mugabe and Murdoch get ready for the unparalleled evils of Woolworths, Coles, Apple and Google.

Far for it for a socialist to preach on behalf of capitalism but I have, and still maintain, a certain respect for the free enterprise system of times past. To me true capitalism is the right for every individual to make his or her way in the world as they see fit, to produce things, to sell things, to make profits and to employ others to do the work for them. I think I have said before that capitalism is really a system of ‘perpetual motion’ each action in turn producing another action which, in the fullness of time, brings us back to the start and the process begins again.

Each complete cycle hopefully adds just a small amount to the domestic product of the nation which should be enough to allow the population to grow and be gainfully employed, for wages and conditions to slowly improve and bring an entire nation into a state of comfort, and lay the groundwork for our future generations. Control of wages and subsequent prices while still remaining free and competitive is important to avoid unreasonable inflation which eats away at wages and conditions and begins to create poverty rather than prevent it.

I would have thought it fair that an owner should be compensated ten times more than his lowest paid worker. If a standard wage for the worker was $800.00 a month then it is reasonable that an owner be allowed to earn $8,000 in the same period. After all the owner is the one who puts up the money and takes the risk so they should be compensated accordingly.

In recent decades however we have seen owners (or at least the Executives on behalf of the owners) earn in excess of 200 times more. If the average wage was still $800 a month an Executive can now rip off

$ 160,000 before it reaches the bottom line and subsequently what the owners or shareholders will receive. This has meant owners still receive about the same as they did before except a fortune has been redirected, almost fraudulently, before the benefits flow on to the workers or even the purchasers of the product.

What we see in this new century is no longer benefiting from the sweat of your brow or the result of your intelligence but the acquisition of wealth through acquisition. Take the supermarkets. They have not benefited from good business or even fair trading. They have not sought to be faster, provide a better product, a better service or to fairly compete on the open market. They have borrowed from the Financiers and bought out their competitors or subsidized prices below cost to their competitors, they have acquired wealth by bribery and stealth and not through good business acumen.

A former Woolworths Executive decried the fact that the producer of a product no longer decided on the price it would sell for to make a fair profit, but that the supermarkets now dictate to the producer, even to the point of driving them out of business, the price which the supermarket will pay regardless of the value it will eventually sell for. This tactic of course drives out competitors who try to buy and sell in a fair trading environment.

Cashed up supermarkets then buy up huge swathes of other businesses as well, adding to their outlets for distribution and putting further unfair pressure on the rest of the engine of the economy, smaller businesses. hotels, service stations, distribution systems, credit cards, telephone companies and advertising agencies, hardware stores, liquor sales, chemists, newspaper outlets and dozens of other ‘hidden’ acquisitions which will force out their competitors. The Australian supermarket system, as with its media ownership, is the most noncompetitive in the world, little wonder shoppers now look overseas for their purchases and deny our local economy the opportunity to engage in true capitalism.

BE A SAVVY BUYER

MORON IN A HURRY - Would an unthinking person expect to believe that what they saw was what should have been seen.

Seek the best deal around – Oh how many times have I bought something off the cuff to find the same product 20% cheaper at the next store. Now I go for three quotes/prices every time. Don't be swayed by rewards as nothing these days is free and certainly avoid entering spurious competitions on shop counters.

DECREPIT ANNUATE - Would a person of advanced age and weakened mental capacity be able to differentiate one from the other. As a decrepit myself sometimes you have to look for the finer details on labels (yr/model/etc) instead of just believing both products look the same.

DEVELOPING INFANT - Would a child of tender years understand the image or the process.

Is it simple even for a child to recognise what is happening in easy to understand terms, in other words avoid legal documents that seem not to be in everyday language.

REASONABLE PERSON - Would a normal citizen expect to receive what was promised.

The Extended Warranty is not worth paying for. 12 Months is standard but even after a few years should a product, like a brick, break down in five years you may still have legal rights to compensation in cash or kind. 'That the product did not live up to realistic expectations'.

Naturally if you Nuke every meal in the house of 12 months you might expect the microwave to break down from exhaustion but if its is 1-2 times a week you should expect it to last past 5 years.

ALTERNATIVES – I buy my microwaves at physical auctions for about $20 a go and run them into the ground. It's a far cheaper option and you have a chance to see it before you buy. Having said that avoid on-line auctions unless you check them out. Some, maybe even eBay, might keep telling you that you've been outbid until you reach almost the retail price – then add postage, Sucker !!!

AVOID PHONE SALES – I always request what they are selling by email as confirmation of who they are and what they are selling before I proceed. If they can't provide you with what is really a 'Letter of Authenticity' with which you might be able to take legal action against them tell them to piss off until they do.

FINALLY – If you are ever in doubt contact ASIC or your State Consumer Affairs or even better CHOICE Magazine.

IT AIN’T FAIR - I GOT NO JOB TO PAY FOR STUFF I WANT TO BUY FROM CHINA

In Linton, as the rest of the country we pay as much as 50% more for on-line products than the average world customer. It’s called ‘geo-blocking’ where, like film and TV classifications countries are assigned a financial formula to ensure that the price they pay in India is relative in terms of GDP as Australia. There overall prices are far lower so that global corporations can compete against the local product and if you buy on-line in Linton the overall prices are higher because our wages are higher and global corporations can charge more and still compete against the local product.
Put another way, if a pair of shoes can be made in China by Nike for about $15.00 they can afford to sell them in India for about $20.00 lower than Indian retail and delivered direct from China (a billion potential customers is also a good incentive). In the United States where wages are higher they can sell them for $180.00 or more, while other stores have to pay rent and staff and the like to sell shoes Nike can just sell direct door to door and even discount against there own shops and retailers.
In Australia, despite the fact we think we have the highest wages but don’t, our minimum wage is far higher than the U.S.A so in G.D.P terms we can afford to pay even more, so the shoes will retail here for $220.00, again, delivered straight from the factory with no middle man no locally employed sales staff and as a result extraordinary profit margins.
The major retailers will tell you that ‘price, price, price’ is all that drives their customers. Locally made comes second and quality is sacrificed to price every time. Consumer organisations will tell you that ‘parallel imports’ where shops like Sam’s and Reject will ‘wholesale’ direct from India at  far less cost and thus sell the product far cheaper does nothing for our local economy. Great they say ‘it drives down prices’ but at the same time we are deliberately under-pricing ourselves and driving holes through our employment figures.
What is better - an additional 10% and full employment or 10% less and longer dole queue’s. Already to keep down unemployment statistics a ‘job’ is defined as about 8 hours work and not the 20 hours it used to be.
Here is some sage advice, admittedly information we got through subscribing to ‘Choice’.
When buying on-line (and we only do it when it cannot be obtained within 50Km) we can go through a whole process to purchase something ‘we could not find in Australian shops’ (in our case a Koran in English) only to find at the checkout that it could not be shipped to Australia. Fortunately we already have a spurious overseas address so we arranged for the book to be sent from the U.S address to the school in Bangladesh which was our target destination.
According to Choice these third-party delivery services such as MyUS.com, Lil’ Shoppa, HopShoGo and Bongo give you an American address for parcel forwarding and they can send it on to Australia. Some companies such as Price USA even buy the product on your behalf and use their local agents to ship it to Australia. But be warned - they are not free - they all have a fee of some sort hidden in the pricing structure commonly called ‘package and deliver’. So one needs to watch out for the additional costs.
If the product is not available in Australia then you have no other alternative than to either pay the extra or look for a locally made equivalent product which gives Australians work and probably works out about the same in overall costs. I believe that there are many out there that buy a bargain on-line only to find after the final bill comes in they could have bought it cheaper in Linton.
Regardless of what we are shopping for purchasing overseas can have major problems - no warranty for a start - faked parts is another - and medicines? No - unless you want to kill yourself (seriously).
Being obsessive-compulsive the Astonisher lives by an astonishing number of self-imposed rules and protocols designed to keep idle hands busy. Our policy in general is:-
1: Buy in Linton
2: Buy in Ballarat
3: Buy on-line in Australia
4. Buy where available.
We always believe the Australian economy must come first (a pity our elected representatives don’t care about that) and will lobby for a GST to be applied to all on-line purchases not just those purchased in Australia. If we want a level playing field then we have to apply the same taxes across the board regardless of price or origin. We don’t have GST on goods under a certain value as the bean-counters say it costs more to collect than what they will collect - what they don’t tell us is that GST on pricier items will more than cover the cost of collection on the lower end of the scale - let Peter subsidise Paul. They’re just too lazy and complacent and worried about getting home for the X-Factor to bother putting it in place. Why increase our workload?
The State Liberal Government was turfed out because it allowed 60% of green waste to go into land-fill (only Labor is that wasteful?) but they did rule that ‘geo-blocking’ was in such a grey area in regard to World Trade Regulations that they shouldn’t make it illegal to flout the rules governing such practices. ‘If one could one should’ was the outcome. Pity they don’t like that concept when it comes to personal taxes. Apparently it’s the downloading and not the smuggling of USB sticks up our arse that makes the difference.
Just as a demonstration of differences between countries. Taxes for on-line purchasing in America are for any purchase above $15.00 and in the U.K it’s $25.00 (so much for the too expensive to collect argument) but in Australia the maximum that does not attract taxes is $1,000. Basically Australians can buy almost anything they want and our politicians couldn’t give a toss.
There is another way to get around your Internet Shopping problems. You can save yourself some time and money by getting yourself a legitimate U.S downloading address using a VPN (a virtual whatever) through Free and Paid VPN servers. Readers should Google TorVPN, Logmein Hamachi ( a sort of Beam-me-up Scotty type site) Hotspot Shield, HMA. IPVanish (sounds more like a slash in the dark) and Overplay. You connect to your VPN server (which pretends to be your computer - good if you’re also Julian Assange) and allows you to set up an account and use a legitimate U.S postal address. One is not quite sure if the Sheriff has realised yet that there are 17 million people living in a two-bedroom flat in Little Rock.
Yet another alternative to VPN, if you spend quite a bit on imports (GMH for example) is to adopt a US based domain name such as un-block-us.com for about $5 a month. The Astonisher gets many Linton stories through our domain in Croatia to protect our local sources.

Again - rerouting your internet connection through a DNS server (we know that one to be Domain Name Server - Duh!!!!) by changing the setting on your computer (in our case permanently on another computer but not something we can tell you how to do - a Geek did ours for us) can also trick the site you’re attempting to hack (line through) access into believing your computer is in that country.

A word of warning at this point. Be warned about the possibility of bill-shock from excess data usage charges on the faster 4G network if it ever gets to Linton which has been found to increase data usage by up to 50% in some cases. Much of this caused by the multiple routing and other data sapping uses you might put your computer through for some of these exercises.

After whining on about buying Australian I’ve just realised I’ve told you all about not employing local talent with the exception of local geeks setting up nefarious ways to beat the system.

COMMONWEALTH BANK IMPRESSED BY HACKERS’ ABILITY TO RUIN PEOPLE’S FINANCES MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN FINANCE SECTOR CAN



In the wake of several massive data breaches that exposed the sensitive personal information of 143 million customers, executives from Atlanta credit agency Equifax said Friday that they were impressed by the hackers’ ability to ruin people’s finances much more efficiently than their company can. “We’re truly amazed by the effectiveness and sheer speed with which the hackers wrecked so many Americans’ financial prospects—it usually takes us years to devastate someone with a bad credit score,” said awestruck Equifax CEO Richard Smith, noting that Equifax’s traditional process of slowly chipping away at a customer’s credit rating due to late payments on credit cards with arbitrarily raised interest rates or an inability to pay off subprime loans made them “practically a dinosaur” in comparison to cybercriminals who could wipe out someone’s financial standing in mere minutes. “It’s taken us a long time to get to the point where we can ensure that someone won’t ever get approved for a loan, can’t apply for a mortgage, or might not even qualify for basic car insurance, so it’s honestly humbling to see these hackers do it in just a few keystrokes. But we’re going to learn from this and use it to motivate us to sabotage people’s finances much more efficiently in the future.” At press time, Equifax announced it had laid off 80 percent of its workforce in favor of one Latvian hacker who could destroy millions of customers’ credit ratings overnight. 

Executives of Australia’s Commonwealth Bank, themselves embroiled in a series of hacks, money-laundering and customer-based stealing activities, recently sent three of its top executives on an all expenses trip to Atlanta via Hawaii, Los Angeles, Houston, Las Vegas, Chicago, Washington D.C (see also Madame Lash) and New York (see also Trump Tower).

Equifax which has no relationship to Equinox were unable to hack into their own system to demonstrate how hard it was for anyone else to get past their firewalls.

Expect more from the Commonwealth Bank in the ways that your money can be made to fall into a black hole. 

“ITS GOLD, GOLD, GOLD FOR LINTON””

Despite constant denials to the contrary the recent find of an enormous lump of gold (about 300 grands worth) in one piece at Edinburgh Reserve has prompted a surge in Detector Sales and a flurry of activity by hump-backed tourists swaying from side to side around the artificial lake.

Once the site of the Edinburgh Gold Mine, which it is said still consumes much of the rainwater running along that part of the highway, it had only a short period giving up its treasures and the mine along with its Stamping Battery closed around the early 1900’s.

Not deterred by the fact that gold became too expensive to mine for the better part of the 20th Century, the sale of the Ballarat Gold Mine to Japan has seen the value of gold ascend to record highs and made it a profitable pursuit for those willing to put in the time and effort to sell our birthright at fire sale prices. Will the recent find set off another Linton Gold Rush? We would be astonished if it did but it might put us back on the map so that even our neighbours in Ballarat can find us.

We believe that the current Gold Bubble, which is reminiscent of the famed Tulip Bubble as recently as 1637, has seen unscrupulous speculators in the precious metal move from offering to repair pensioners roofs to pawning their gold teeth. Someone will lose out and it will be those who can least afford it.

CAPITALISM CANNOT ETERNALLY PROSPER

The world is still recovering very slowly, along with the dismal 5% that superannuation is paying at the moment (even banks can afford 5% on some Savings Accounts) but some of us still seem to be optimistic about the future. Maybe it’s because some pundits including myself believe that Capitalism as we know it is dead and that something else, maybe Co-operatism or Localism will take its place.

Capitalism is dead? Yes. Capitalism used to be the closest we will ever come to perpetual motion. That elusive invention that will keep going without the use of any external force. It did exist but the financial sector decided that it was not making fast or vast profits and replaced it with a thing called the Market Economy, not based on the traditional market as we know it but upon the New York Stock Exchange where imaginary money is perpetually heading into Banks. This force then evolved into a device used by all Stock Exchanges to make money from money and to force the making of widgets to become a by-product that money would buy and not what the country should produce.

Let me try to explain it in a different way. The concept of capitalism being perpetual motion came from the fact that people wanted to buy widgets to improve their life. So they got a job which paid a wage which allowed them to buy widgets. When widgets were bought they had to be replaced in the shop so more were made for selling and so it all went in circles seemingly forever. To encourage people to make improved things like iWidgets every time something was made or sold it was for a profit. This profit was also used to buy designer widgets for people with more money than you or I were earning making these things in the first place. People were even gainfully employed getting widgets going again when they broke down. And so goods, services and money went around and around, making work for people so they couldn’t sit around on their arse all day watching cooking shows, and life in the 20th Century was good and productive and everyone was happy.

Then along came the Creative Accountants. Too many widgets were being repaired and people were not consuming enough widgets. Lets invent the 5 year lifespan so every five years they will have to be replaced, then we’ll be able to make things so cheap they’ll be cheaper to replace than to repair. The chemical and oil companies kept inventing new materials they wanted us to make widgets from so they began building widgets out of things that could not be repaired at all but could be ‘recycled’. This meant that instead of repairing widgets we recycled them and so perpetual motion began to morph, not into more jobs, but into cheaper and cheaper disposable widgets. The end result of this was there were many holes in our planet that we could fill up with all this thrown-away stuff and it would smooth earth out so that it could all have a level playing field.

As a result of widgets becoming cheaper some people began to make much bigger profits and paid themselves more money than they were worth. Now these rich vagina’s wanted even more money so they could be richer than Gina Reinhardt and become a God themselves.

Eventually even the 5 year plan failed to make big enough profits Apple and Microsoft (two evil widget makers) invented the idea of ‘upgrading’ and produced new models every six months to keep us buying new things and sending the old to the recycle bin just to keep ahead of the iWidgets owned by our friends.

All this frantic activity appeared not to be duplicated in the bedroom which produced a dismal outlook for the future as busy consumers had no time to have, raise or educate children. So the Government following the advice of big business began importing more people so that our economy could grow and more money could be made. Making money was good and making more money was even more gooder.

This new economic system has not produced a level playing field but has piled all the money at one end where rich people spend it on redesigned houses and fannies while at the other end they sleep on the street in redesigned boxes and sell their fannies. This is not good. Co-operatism must be the end result, either that or we Putin everything back into a socialist state where the poor stay poor and the rich get a bullet between the eyes.

LEADING UP TO PISSING OFF THE PUBLISHERS

Firstly, as I travel around in the back of Mr.Man's Ute, I have been studying a lot of little towns around the country to see what they do and where our town might pick up a tip or two. There's the Big Gumboot at Tully, the Elvis Festival at Parkes, Cow Patty Bingo or a Poop Pool.



I even attended the Big Ute Muster up near Deniliquin with my wool dyed Gun-metal Grey and pretending to be a Blue Heeler. There are Fringe Festivals for those with pony tails and Pyramid Festivals for those who believe only in the esoteric like Madoona. There are Art Festivals that feature such world famous artists as Usha Seejarim and Bongi Bengu. There is Nude Olympics at Maslin Beach, Tuna Tossing at Port Lincoln, Gumboot Tossing, Midget Tossing and Wife Swapping somewhere. If these under-developed villages can do it so can we.



To get myself up to speed after being transported to Golden Plains I even attended a local Marketing Seminar last year at Scarsdale Pub sponsored by our beloved Council. That in itself was a remarkable experience. You may have met the type, marketing people like me I mean. Extreme extroverts constantly smiling and never sitting still for more than a few seconds, talking ten to the dozen and, if they are that way inclined will call you 'Darling'. They have a way of bouncing around the room so that your eyes rattle like pinballs, more than likely dressing in the latest teen fashions which don't suit them, shimmy a lot, try to make you sing stupid songs and convince you that the Telephone Cleaners are the ears of your Sales Team.



We are ideas people. We can contemplate our navel for days, daydreaming comes easy to us, we use our imagination not or brains. Don't ask us to put anything into action. We Market Products we don't do action, we don't do work, to be exact we don't 'DO' anything.



Beside sometimes citing the bleeding obvious, marketing is about selling your product to an unsuspecting public, we can also impart some knowledge that it takes prospective customers five looks at an add before it sinks in permanently, thus the need to advertise at least five times in the Herald or that Direct Mail is by far the most effective means of advertising (the Herald goes to individual letterboxes), and offering free coffee to entice people into your shop is cost effective. How little does a cup of coffee cost if you’ve got the time to chat with potential buyers?



See … I'm marketing again without thought. I don't do 'serious thinking'.



Offering Free Coffee does not always work if you are a Barister (Coffee Maker not those who wear curly wigs) Grocer or Take-away shop.



Maybe some non-sensical tourist attracting activities might inject some of that country spirit into many of our more mundane and sedentary pursuits like watching the grass grow or even eating it like I do.



And now I get serious. A month or so back, and the reason why there has been a break in the publication of my column I unintentionally upset several humans in Linton with some of my more 'madcap' material. Whilst I do not retract anything that I said I will say that as a sheepish animal who abhors confrontation I certainly did not set out to upset but rather to entertain and if some people who are devoid of a sense of humour have taken offence then I apologise.



My feelings about newspapers are that they must represent all of the people and print both sides of a story where possible. There is a grim future in store for the print media in the next decade as the major papers increase their price or reduce their circulation to the point of only being available on the Internet. The outlook for National and Metropolitan Newspapers is eventual extinction.



I would expect that Regional and Local Newspapers and Newsletters will need to also undergo fundemental changes. As local news and views will no longer be seen in the major papers, smaller newspapers (and I include The Miner and The Courier in this) will be the only available outlets for local information. Internet Service Providers that feature the latest news whenever we activate our Internet connection will not bother to cover what Golden Plains Equestrians are doing nor the operating times of the Histrorical Society.



Active readership, which means opening up and perusing all the pages, depends very much on newspapers being up to date, active in local happenings, voicing opposing views, generating discussion and sometimes being deliberately confrontational. I have read many community newspapers in my travels. Some of them are extremely active and informative whilst others look not unlike TV guides or excuses for reprinting standardised Press Release (sometimes the same thing appearing in half a dozen papers) and certainly do not interest people enough to even read past the front page.



In the end if community papers are to survive they must attract Advertisers. Potential sponsors, supporters and commercial businesses are not interested in advertising in papers that people do not read.



Folgenderer Monat, Butch