h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And, unlike what we're really thinking, won't get modded.

Correct.

What I'm really thinking on the subject is 100% unprintable.

I too have changed my allegiance from the BBC for news. I go to The Independent online, or Aljazeera on tv. CNN's not bad either. I find the BBC is too full of speculation and almost mindless games about "whose fault is it this time?". Very depressing and unconstructive.

Another one. Does this mean we have a quorum? Anyway, the BBC seems to be losing credibility at a rate of knots.

I might try The Independent too, once I get past the way Private Eye calls it The Indescribablyboring.

I don't actually find it boring It's steady reporting in my opinion. Nothing flash for sure, but I'm not looking for flash in a paper - I'm looking for information. When I lived in GB I read the Grauniad for years, and then was completely converted to the Indy in about 2001. It's a Serious Paper

I suspect I'd be a Grauniad reader if I were in the UK...

I read the Weekly Guardian proper, as well as the Indy online. That's because I do like a real paper to read over a good cup of coffee. However, I get a bit over-worthied by the Grauniad sometimes... It can be a bit too right-on

Oh, and another thing about newspapers. In Qld, it was shocking what passed for a *newspaper*: no more than either tittle-tattle or shameless lobbying for this developer or that politician

Ah, yes. Qld newspapers are almost as crappy as the Adelaide Advertiser or the Sydney Daily Telegraph. As for The Australian, it's so far to the right these days it falls off the side of my desk. I'm starved of decent newsprint, hence the eagerness to go to new online sources.

That's a bit cheeky of Private Eye.

In the early days of this Gulf War the Independent would use its entire front page to - well - I dunno what you'd call it, a mixture of poster, leader, opinion piece, graphic data and typographic art.

Here are some samples:

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/frontpage/images/indy_front_cover_1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/jonchoo/indienew.jpg

http://www.robedwards.com/images/2007/10/17/wastefrontpage.jpg

http://bristol.indymedia.org/attachments/jul2007/independent_10_7_7.jpg

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/iran.jpg

http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/p1_Independent_race_map.jpg

They are nowhere near as good at it as they were, and I suspect that a typographer with a good eye (and some strong political opinions) has left.

B

Thanks Ben, I'd never seen any of those anywhere before. The 'race map' was particularly interesting.

Meanwhile, back on the firefront, conditions today are expected to be particularly dreadful. The windspeed is a particular concern. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/01/2504372.htm

My mother tells me that a childhood friend of mine has been in the thick of the fight, getting evacuated by helicopter at one point and then returning to the firefront after a few hours' sleep. Heck.

Gawd... it goes on and on

There's been some rain, and the end is said to be in sight.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/04/2507510.htm

I wish I felt some degree of elation about this, but after almost a month it's hard to feel anything much.

What I can do, though, is giggle a bit. A colleague was stranded at Melbourne Airport last weekend; he decided to kill time in a bar, as one does. There were four Tasmanian firefighters in there who'd come to the mainland at their own expense to lend a hand. He decided to buy them a drink as a show of gratitude for what they'd done. All very noble of him, I know, but the next minute there were 25 of their friends in the bar too...

(No, they didn't all expect him to buy 25 more pints, but they gave him just enough time to feel disconcerted before letting him off the hook.)

Love it. There is always humour to be found in the blackest of times.

Websailor

That is a very *Australian* story, somehow.

Oh, I don't know, I reckon our firefighters would do the same

Websailor

Today's news - there's been some rain in Victoria, so all fires are under control at last. Bizarrely, there's even been some light snow on the highest peaks.

On the human front, the State Coroner is prepared to start releasing some bodies for burial. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25143308-12377,00.html

As far as I know there are still 37 people unaccounted for.

Let's hope the weather behaves and the fires can go out, that's if they don't still smoulder underground?

Sad news, but it will surely be a relief for some in a way

Websailor

It's five weeks today since the worst day of the bushfires. This post is by way of an epilogue more than anything else.

I was in Melbourne during the last week. There was a torrential downpour on the way into the city from the airport; people were coming out of shops and offices and simply standing and watching the rain fall and the streets running ankle-deep with water. It's been a while since I've seen rain like that; clearly the locals couldn't quite believe it either. From the plane I'd seen some hazy areas on the ground which seemed to be fires getting rained on. This seems to have been the case.

Every shop, cafe or other place of business had at least a poster or a collection tin seeking contributions to the bushfire relief fund. One set of posters were asking for help for 'Bushfire Santa', a campaign collecting toys for children who'd lost everything. Every community group, theatre group or artists' group in the city was also advertising some sort of benefit show. Posters in Greek, Chinese and Vietnamese carried the same sort of message - the words 'Bushfire Relief' being left in English.

[The biggest bushfire relief concerts are happening today - one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. Coldplay's on the bill in Sydney, among many others; in Melbourne, the stars will be Midnight Oil. They've re-formed for the occasion. Seeing as the lead singer is now the federal Minister for the Environment, it's thoroughly appropriate.]

It was slightly surreal. Central Melbourne is such a modern, slick, could-be-anywhere city of skyscrapers and trams, and it's come over all rural-minded. But it's not so divorced from the land after all.

As the flight home headed north we flew across great tracts of black landscape. This was the green welcoming woodland I've seen on every other trip. I could see one house that had survived; presumably the owners had stayed to defend it. There were unmistakeable signs of human life in a tiny little patch of land. Around it in the black zone there were small grey smudges to show that houses had once been there. Then the clouds covered the view.