To the national capital where the good people of Canberra have voted to adopt as their ‘fossil emblem’ a marine anthropod, the trilobite Batocara mitchelli.
The Australian Capital Territory’s fourth community emblem after the Royal Bluebell which is its floral emblem; Southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby its animal emblem; and the gang-gang Cockatoo as its bird emblem, the Batocara mitchelli may be a little harder to find in the flesh than most of the others.
That didn’t stop the ACT’s Chief Minister hailing the city’s new emblem however, declaring it could be “used to raise public awareness and conservation support of a species.”
PS-sssst! isn’t sure how much public awareness or specie supporting old Batocara mitchelli will get around to doing.
Particularly as the Chief Minister pointed out it “became extinct 250 million years ago”.
Still, if you’re going to have a ‘fossil emblem’ you may as well have an old one!
Click goes the page change
Special mention of Jaron B of the federal Department of Health now who responded to a recent change in the format of PS News that saw a ‘click’ added to the process of opening the news and feature pages.
“I enjoy reading the various articles that you put in your PS News, but why don’t you reduce the number of clicks it takes to get to read the articles?” Jaron asked interestedly.
A good question which the sharp PS News had a sharp reply to –that occasionally a reader or two would complain that a public service story hadn’t been covered when they thought it should have been, but in fact they had missed the story because they only read one story and left.
Redesigning the pages and making another minor change ensured all readers could see all the stories at the one time and PS News explained this to Jaron.
Jaron replied:
“Your comment about ‘finding news stories after readers had been complaining that we hadn’t been running stories when we had’ must have something to it,” Jaron replied.
“While I was on the news page, I saw the story about the first aid hours discount for learner drivers, which I was not aware of and was not on the email.
“So your new arrangements plan works.”
Thanks Jaron.
And we were just hoping to be helpful!
News about news
And while on the subject of the small rejig of the pages on PS News, Mr Google has reported that the new format has increased the readership of PS News’s news pages by 515% with all nine editions now in the top 33 of its website data when it used to attract only one!
In language we trust!
Almost the end of the year, another in which the poor Australian language has continued to be embarrassed as of some of its most logical, popular and meaningful words are misused …. Yet again!
No. 1 is Bathroom!
What do those people do in toilets that they have to call it a bathroom? Do they really have to do their toiletry in a Bath?
Have they no regard for the next person?
Toilets for toilets and bathrooms for baths says PS-sssst!
No. 2 is Math!
Why do so many people only learn one math at a time in their arithmetic classes? Why not learn the lot of them?
If they have to learn their maths one by one it will be a long time before they get to use arithmetic, if at all!
QED!
Air servicing for Santa
And finally, as Santa Claus makes his presence known for Christmas in 2022 Australia’s own AirServices Australia has met the great man to confirm his secret flight path being set up for Christmas Eve.
Airservices declared it had allocated a special call sign – ‘Sleigh Rider One’ – as well as issuing a special NOTAM flight notice to all pilots to ensure Santa has a clear path in Australian airspace on Christmas Eve.
“Santa will visit the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, where he then crosses into Australian airspace around Norfolk Island to zig zag his way up and down the country,” Airservices CEO Jason Harfield explained.
“He will exit Australian airspace by sunrise just over the Cocos Islands.”
Mr Harfield said Santa would be cleared to fly below 500ft so he could skim the rooftops and deliver his presents quickly and quietly.
“Our air traffic controllers, engineers, technicians and aviation rescue fire fighters will all be working hard throughout Christmas,” he said.
And a special Facebook page had been set up for everyone to trace Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve, and it can be accessed at this PS News link.
Merry Christmas Santa!
Until next year…..
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