Thursday, May 26, 2016

Equal Measure!


Taken in the yard of the Wayside Tavern last night.
Empty beer kegs to be returned to the breweries.


Those with a sharp eye and experience in the Australian beer industry will have noticed something:
Half of are from the XXXX brewery.

Half are from the Carlton brewery.

Carlton & United Breweries selling draught beer in equal quantity to XXXX.

I've never seen this before.  Not in a pub with a static clientele of Queenslanders.


A few years ago CUB came up with a new beer, which has been making steady inroads into XXXX's market - culminating in this photo.

For the past few decades XXXX has held an overwhelming majority of the market share in Queensland - especially non-tourist areas, and those places without large numbers of internal immigrants from the deep south of this great nation.

Though it must be noted that XXXX was never as popular in the north.  Being a southern Australian beer it was never able to glean in the north the same strength of brand loyalty it got in its southern home base.

So continues life behind the bar!


Monday, May 23, 2016

000

Made Two triple-Zero calls this week.
Was wondering if there'd be a third - to add symmetry (Three Zeros - Three calls)
It was not to be.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Welcome to Australia


One of the more maudlin moments in internet history was the sudden and unexplained disappearance of: "Cigarette Smoking Blog" by Helen Rittelmeyer.

Though discovered only a few weeks prior to its demise, it was one of Mine Host's favourite reads.

Riveting content.  (Subject matter that appealed heavily to Mine Host)
Well written.
Now gone.

The authoress had apparently moved from North America to Australia, and compiled the above list of pros & cons to life in Australia.

She list the following as "positives" about Australia:
Good weather  -  Depends which part of Oz.  (Apparently much of North America has quite bleak weather)
Lamb very cheap - Is this true?  Why would anybody notice?  Beef is the one natural food on this planet.
Kookaburras - Agreed, lovely sound.
Women glow, Men chunder - A common enough sentiment, though not often one hears North Americans spruiking it up as one of Australia's more pleasant aspects.
Never have to learn Civil War history - I don't understand the question.
Monarchy -  Easy to see why she'd think this - when you consider some of what gets voted in as President over there.
True Love - Can't argue with that!

Sharp-eyed Helen Rittelmeyer has detected a couple of areas in which Australia could do with some improvement:
Bourbon very expensive - I do not understand the question.
Upside-down - Ms Rittelmeyer clearly has her desk globe inverted, this is easily rectified.
Get hit by car b/c looked wrong way crossing the street - I do not understand how this can be.
Bad coffee - Nobody from North America is in any position to level such an accusation at Australia.  In fact she should go to jail just for saying this.
Fewer magazines to write for - She's clearly so starstruck by love that she's overlooked such things as, telecommuting, or the internet.
Miss U.S. Friends - Is this the title of a beauty pageant?

We'll vote later on whether she can stay here.
Mine Host strongly urges a "yes" vote.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Office of No Fact Checking


The Fair Work Ombudsman is among the more intellectually substandard of government agencies.

An example:

A disgruntled former employee made a complaint against Mine Host (this is quite common in the hospitality industry).

The Fair Work Ombudsman's first move is always to take a couple of months to get around to looking at the complaint.

Their second move is always to place a phone call to the "employer" (the actual terminology in their literature was "wrongdoer").

However this phone call is placed not to Mine Host, not even to the Wayside Tavern, but to the public bar of a pub some 1,900 km distant.

This other pub's name is nothing like the Wayside Tavern.  There is no connection.  No mistake.  Calling the wrong premises is deliberate.

The FWO staffer spills everything to the barmaid who answers.
She laps up all the salacious details and writes everything down (all the better to gossip about later.)

Her boss happened to take the next call, and pointed out that they were calling the wrong pub.

This did not bother the FWO, who said this was "not their concern" and pressed on regardless, informing the bemused publican of all the penalties that would apply not to him, but to Mine Host, etc etc etc.

The colleague publican phoned Mine Host, to inform him that the Fair Work Ombudsman was telephoning random total strangers to blab confidential information.

Mine Host phoned to the loose-tongued one at the FWO, a Mr. Duck O'Prewse-Coe (that is how his name sounded, he spoke broken English and was culturally most unfamiliar with Australia).

Mr Ducko was unmoved when Mine Host appraised him of Commonwealth Privacy Legislation.  Mr. Duck retorted to Mine Host that all that stuff "didn't matter".

Hmmm.... we'll see about that.

Mine Host then enquired why the Ombudsman would do something so utterly stupid as to phone a total stranger more than a thousand miles away, and blab confidential information to them?

The response (note: I am not making this up) was that the person making the complaint must have "given the wrong number then", as if that absolved the public servant of any blame for blabbing confidential information to random strangers.

Mine Host casually enquired of Mr. Ducko if the Fair Work Ombudsman ever did any of their own research - for example verifying phone numbers (say via the White Pages) - y'know, just to avoid situations that may end up with them being fired from government service for breaching privacy legislation, that sort of thing?

Mr. Ducko seemed to not understand the question.

Mine Host then asked:  Why had Mr. Ducko blabbed to a low-level staff member at the other pub, instead speaking to the manager?

Mr. Ducko seemed to not understand this question either.

The matter to'd and fro'd with a few phone calls over the next couple of weeks.

Somewhere, in between phone calls, Mr. Ducko must have done a bit of research into the provisions of the Commonwealth Privacy Legislation.

For in subsequent phone calls Mr. Peruse-Coe seemed to no longer be dismissive and buoyant about Mine Host's mention of said Commonwealth Privacy Legislation, in fact he seemed most strained and unwilling to dwell on the matter.

Mr. Ducko proved to be most receptive when Mine Host pointed out a fatal flaw in the complaint.  Mr. Ducko latched onto this flaw (like a blue heeler with lockjaw) and wasted no time in declaring the case "closed".

Follow up paperwork swiftly arrived confirming the matter was dead.

So continues life in over-regulated small business Australia.