As I was waiting for the lights to change at Belconnen Way & Coulter Drive this afternoon, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a dark-haired male cyclist wheeling through the intersection. What particularly caught my attention was that he wasn’t wearing a bicycle helmet. A quick double-take confirmed something even more startling: [...]

Public servants and other employees who have secure employment and are happy doing what they are doing and where they are doing it have one major advantage: they are less likely to find themselves on the scrap heap when they are 60.
The federal and ACT public service, in addition to a swag of professional [...]

Check out this photo:
Can you guess what ABC News story it is being used to illustrate?
‘Appointment of government department supremos’ (fat cats — get it?)

This info has been posted on the Belconnen Community Council’s website:
A mixed use development is proposed for the corner of Eastern Valley Way and Aikman Drive in Belconnen Town Centre. This 3 700 square metre site is located behind McDonalds and the bowling alley.
The development will be approximately 35 stories containing commercial at ground [...]

I’m looking for suggestions for dishes which would be appropriate for a dinner to commemorate the 10year anniversary of the Canberra bushfires this Friday, 18 January.
While the obvious thing may be to take the family out to Smoque, I figure they’ll be crowded and it should be possible to produce something creatively appropriate. [...]

In what looks like another nail in the coffin of competitors to the big two supermarket chains — as well as validation of community concerns expressed during the mishandled draft Hawker Master Plan process — Woolworth has made an offer for the Hawker IGA.
There are a lot of interesting things about this, not least [...]

Having just received my jaw-dropping gas and electricity bills for the past quarter, I’m interested in those devices that give you real-time feedback about how much energy (let’s just worry about electricity for the moment) you’re using and what it’s costing you.
Same thing could presumably be achieved if the meters were inside the house, [...]

While I really don’t mind that my 22yr old son asks me to drive him around so that he doesn’t drive home after he’s been drinking — sign of a well-brought-up kid, and one of those times to be thankful that Canberra is so easy to get around — it did make me wonder why [...]

I am appealing to the collective memory of Rioters to come up with a piece of not-so-ancient Canberra history. 
We went on Tim the Yowie Man’s Weird Canberra tour last night and he was interested to hear about stories and events that he hadn’t previously heard about or hadn’t been able to confirm.
One thing [...]

Following on from the recent spate of community planning fora, and pronouncement about the ACT Govt’s commitment to engagement and transparency on these issues, we have credible rumours about the proposed construction of more than 200 units on a chunk of the Weetangera Oval. 
While some local shopkeepers (of whom there are precious few) have [...]

Haven’t seen any reviews of the Railway Historical Society’s restaurant train (to Bungendore & back).
Has anyone tried it? 
I am thinking of getting a few friends together to celebrate my birthday and wondered how it was in terms of quality and ambiance?

Thinking of going to Melbourne for a friend’s birthday, I consulted the rail timetable, as the train seemed to be a good option in terms of both comfort and environmental credentials. This, however, turned out to be a scripted joke of Monty Pythonesque proportions.
At  http://www.railmaps.com.au/journey_results.php?Origin=Melbourne, you will find straight-faced descriptions of 4 ways to [...]

We’ve had ‘Yes, Minister’s’ hospitals without patients, we have ‘service stations’ without service, and now we have supermarkets where customers do their own check-outs. 
I have just been to Woolworth’s at Belconnen where there was one single solitary human at one of the 20 or so check-outs. 
Customers who didn’t spot the checkout light at the [...]

Has anyone tried the new eating place at Mt Stromlo (Michael’s of Stromlo, I think it is?)
Haven’t seen any reviews or comments…. no one has really made a go of it there since the demise of Red Belly Black….

I was coming out of Calvary Hospital onto Haydon Dr. at 8.30pm on Sat. night and then turning right onto Belconnen Way. There were 16 000 people at a Brumbies match just up the road.  The lights to get onto Haydon Dr from Calvary were totally nonfunctional, as were the lights at the major Haydon/Belco [...]

Did we know this?
I’ve just been told by my partner, a manager in the building industry, that they (ie, local construction companies) had recently been notified that, by the end of 2010, all street-level car parks in Civic will be made multi-storey (with smaller ‘footprints’).
Has the rest of the community been ‘notified’?  Has [...]

This is a really delicate problem and I hesitate raising it, but am doing so in the hope that others share the shame…
When I go out for a meal, I look for healthy, low-fat, low-carb food that doesn’t include red meat. 
My partner’s idea of a perfect meal is sausages, peas, carrots & cheesey-creamy mashed potatoes [...]

I’m often (like now) looking for a place to meet a friend or two after work over a coffee or two and pre-dinner snacks.  Not a restaurant or cafe where you’re expected to buy a meal, not a bar (although being able to get a beer would be OK) and not a grotty take-away.  Most of [...]