Dated, Dull And Daggy In Kl
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday September 19, 1998
THE pride engendered though seeing Aussies flock to the winner's dais in Kuala Lumpur is somewhat diminished by embarrassment at the ghastly clobber they are compelled to wear. Those tracksuits are a joke. Over-complicated design, crook graphics, dated, dull and daggy. The green panels on the inside of each leg resemble nothing so much as a droopy dhoti. How much smarter all the other athletes look in plain colours. Less is more.
TWENTY-ONE good reasons why the Hannibal Lecter cab cages should be junked:
1. Drivers hate them.
2. Passengers hate them.
3. Drivers can't hear directions unless the passenger screams like a banshee.
4. Passengers can't hear what the driver is saying unless the driver yells loud enough for his voice to penetrate the thick perspex of his capsule.
5. Drivers can't hear how loud the music on their radio sounds in the back seat.
6. Passengers can't ask them to turn down the volume because they can't make themselves heard.
7. Persons of even moderate build feel uncomfortably cramped in the front seat because the cage occupies at least a third of the space intended for the paying passenger.
8. Passengers are even more cramped in the seat behind the driver with a clearance for knees of less than 25cms in some vehicles.
9. When a cab stops suddenly, passengers unlucky enough to be squashed in behind the driver are hurled forward and can suffer a nasty crack on the head.
10. The rigid backs of the capsules mean that drivers can't adjust their own seats and so are often as uncomfortable as their passengers.
11. The driver cannot open or close a rear passenger window without getting out of the car.
12. The slot for money is placed in a monstrously awkward position.
13. Cylindrical cash containers in some capsules, in addition to being awkwardly positioned, are not large enough to contain a Cabcharge docket.
14. The driver has to be a kind of Houdini to insert and remove cash, charge forms or cards from the cash hole.
15. Passengers often can't see the meter and are therefore easy prey to unscrupulous drivers.
16. They are killing off the time-honoured Aussie tradition of sitting up front and chatting with the driver.
17. Sydney is meant to be a friendly place and these things send the wrong signal.
18. Screens were fitted in New York cabs some years ago. Most have now been removed, and New York is a more violent city than Sydney is.
19. They're ill-designed.
20. They're ugly.
21. They're ineffective. Vide last weekend's attack on a driver where his "safety" screen offered zero protection. The solution is blindingly obvious. Surveillance cameras of the kind installed in Western Australia (which immediately halved the number of attacks) and wider use of credit cards so drivers are not forced to carry inviting amounts of cash. Such a system is in operation in Brisbane.
BRETT Murphy writes of an EFTPOS-like machine in use in Brisbane cabs and I saw a couple of them when I was up there on Wednesday. No carbon, no chance of using a cancelled card, just a neat print out. And best of all, no white-knuckle ride with a driver trying to imprint a card while swapping lanes at 100km/h and tuning the radio.
JOE KLEIN, the "anonymous" writer of Primary Colours, recently penned a telling piece on President Clinton for the New Yorker. Writing about some of the curious goings-on behind the scenes in the Clinton White House, he noted that "the public never saw all this because Bill Clinton was protected by the most sophisticated communications apparatus in the history of American politics. The amount of money and energy spent on polling, on market testing every new idea, every turn of phrase, was phenomenal." Clearly, the flaks had insufficient time to research the word "inappropriate".
ECCENTRICITY is not encouraged in our society, which may be why someone wants to knock over one of the city's quirkiest dwellings and replace it with a warehouse. Twin Palms Oasis, a home in Botany, is not a Verge or Greenway classic, but it is a form of self-expression and epitomises a particular sixties taste. As such, it should be retained. Good to see the National Trust coming out in support of its preservation.
TO Byron Bay last weekend, world capital of aromatherapy, transcendental meditation, essential oils, hair butter and veggieburgers. First time I've ever been there, but not the last. Ravishingly beautiful, of course, but man has not deferred to nature and the architecture is often unsympathetic. I had been told about the famous ferals, and a wide assortment were on display, in town for the annual NORPA Street Festival last Sunday. So vivid was the raiment of these northern exotics, so extensive their piercings, so extraordinary their dreadlocks, so comprehensive their tattoos, that my T-shirt and cotton pants marked me out as both visitor and dull conservative.
A BY-PRODUCT of the trip was the discovery of Taylor's, a small (six-bedroom) resort just out of town that's garnered a slew of tourism awards including a gong from this journal as one of the State's five best gourmet retreats. Owned and run by two escapees from Sydney, Ross Skinner and Michael de Laurence, it's idyllic, perfectly managed, serves splendid food and there's nary a tattoo, dreadlock or nose ring in sight. I felt most comfortable there.
NEVER knew others felt the way I do about rucksacks on public transport. Numerous readers have written, describing unwanted, unskilled cosmetic surgery performed by a young person slamming a rucksack into an innocent's face and damage to seated passengers ranging from attempted scalpings to serious rearrangement of preferred hairstyles. One reader, Marilyn Long, says that rucksacks are not the only problem. Backpack type handbags and daypacks are also a menace. "If you're travelling on trains or buses," cautions Marilyn, "take a bicycle helmet".
FOR most people, Saturday arvo is usually dedicated to leisure pursuits. It is therefore not the best time to be watching an arts program on TV, but one must be grateful for any crumbs thrown to the culturally inclined. And doubly grateful to SBS for the excellence of its programs at that time. Some superlative productions of opera have been aired in recent weeks. Today's is especially noteworthy, a co-production from San Francisco Opera and the Kirov in St Petersburg of Ruslan and Lyudmil, conducted by one of today's most admired maestros, the volcanic Valery Gergiev. Watch out for the delicious young Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, whom I heard last April in New York. She looks delectable and sounds even better.
POLICING THE FOOTPATH
OLYMPIC CITY: a weekly feature in which we air a reader's suggestion for a modest initiative to make Sydney a more appealing place in the run-up to the Olympics: From Stephanie Beggs of Seaforth: "I suggest the reintroduction of a yellow line down the centre of city footpaths. Hopefully, this would give some discipline to the present haphazard progress of most pedestrians. It appears it is only the older generation that remembers this was a very satisfactory method of keeping people to the left. Many continue to observe that rule. Of course, if introduced, it would have to be policed - a good way to help some of the unemployed. The suggestion for a hanging garden from the Cahill Expressway, if implemented, would be quite delightful."
lschof @ozemail.com.au
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald