Jenna Clarke can go to hell

rosscoact said :

Meh, I could give a damn, I live in Gungahlin, the most beautiful part of Canberra which somehow gets bagged by knuckleheads who wouldn’t have a clue.

What should I care if a few knuckleheads who wouldn’t have a clue want to bah Canberra as a whole?

Anybody who bags where someone lives is insecure about their own lives to the extent that they need to denigrate others just to feel adequate about themselves.

And on behalf of the rest of canberra I thank all gungahlinites for making housing more affordable in the older suburbs.

For people whose idea of a full life is daily drinks on a deck overlooking a harbour, and eating out at a top restaurant four or five nights a week, and season tickets to what Sydney has on offer in arts & culture, why sure. I don’t know how, when and where a tiny privileged elite clinging to the sandstone cliffs got to be put forward as representative of all of Sydney, but it’s just a nonsense. Canberra has very democratic access to the cultural institutions, an amazing academic life on tap, physical beauty, nature and all – and frankly it is about as easy to get to the Sydney Opera House from Canberra as it is from the far western suburbs of Sydney. So all this cr*p knocking Canberra is basically from a bunch of journalists who live in a two-up, two-down in Marrickville and fantasise that they are living the same life as east-eastern suburbs Sydneysiders. Name me any Sydneysiders outside the freebie elite who actually go to Sydney’s cultural institutions more than once every few months. What’s the diff between the life of the average Sydneysider and driving up from Canberra once in a while to check out what’s on offer at the Wharf or whatever?

Someone said something mean about where I live. Waaaaaah!

Who really cares?

When people talk about a city having ‘soul’ i believe what they’re referring to is essentially only possible by having a high concentration of people living in preferably affluent areas such as New York,London,Hong Kong,Tokyo etc.Obviously Canberra is nothing like those cities given its small population living largely in a giant suburbia although in recent times that has changed somewhat due to a greater focus on high density housing which has made the place more vibrant.

Sure it isn’t as exciting as Sydney or Melbourne but who wants to crawl along in traffic,pay exorbitant prices for parking and breathe the crap air? Certainly not me!

JC said :

Hey JB before basing the article did you actually read it, or did you just read the headline? From what I read in it there wasn’t much bashing on behalf of the BBC, instead I read an article that presented the views of others (including the Canberra Times entertainment editor), but the general jist of the article was ABOUT how others bash Canberra, without the actual article bashing Canberra. Considering Canberra bashing is a national sport I don’t see an issue with the article the way the BBC presented it. Unless of course you support censorship where no touchy subject should be discussed.

PS as for Andrew Ure comment, clearly he has never noticed the streams of traffic leaving Sydney every Friday and returning Sunday evening.

I don’t actually think Jenna Clarke did much wrong either…a few selected quotes that don’t explain the context or the total of what she was asked? They surely didn’t ring her up and ask her to criticise the place, but maybe she was bagged by the BBC also?
As for this Andrew Ure..he just comes across as a dickhead. Comments like that make you realise he’s as shallow as puddle, you just know the type.

Everywhere else I’ve worked has been far bigger than Canberra, with more people, more pubs, bars, fast food, more concerts, more sport….more interesting maybe? Also more rapes, more crime, more shootings, more bad behaviour, more social breakdown, more congested traffic and transport, less organisation….just more difficult and less comfortable to live in. Exciting for a period, but it wears you down mentally.
It seems to me that a lot of people who criticise Canberra for what is is, don’t have much solid experience of living anywhere else….a few months placement in London or poncing round Europe on the train is not the best way to compare it favourably to places like Canberra, just the same as a backpacker extolling Sydney doesn’t know how it would feel if you actually had to live there, pay the going rate to be afford to live there, and then actually get to and from work 5 days a week just the same as you would anywhere else. You soon get bored looking at the harbour bridge when you’re worrying how to pay so much for a rental where you’ve just got a view of buildings and no room to swing a cat. Oh but it’s Sydney? So feckin’ what. Bricks and mortar are the same everywhere…your soul comes from inside you, not a place.

The strength of Canberra is that it IS different and that it’s not Sydney. There are lots of young people who won’t realise that until they get older and have experienced a bit more of the world and it’s hardships elsewhere, then it will finally hit home that not following the “norm” is actually a bit radical.
I’ve got absolutely no doubts that Canberra will become more and more desirable, none at all.

Roundhead89 said :

Pathetic article from the newspaper run out of town by The Canberra Times.

And Riot-ACT!

Even if I had access to free, on-call child-minding, there is more on over the next month or so than I could possibly hope to go to. The You Are Here festival has many events listed that are inventive and questioning, for example.

These are the views of the entertainment editor! It is actually quite funny, in a mordant way.

dpm said :

I see the CT is bagging the BBC article, but fails to mention one of its own staff was involved with the bagging. Odd, really….
Perhaps the CT article should say: “Critics (including own own CT reporters) try to rain on our birthday parade”? 🙂

Whoops, I forgot the link:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/critics-try-to-rain-on-our-birthday-parade-20130309-2ft9j.html

crackerpants said :

There was this in the Weekend Australian Magazine – the only mention of Canberra’s centenary is where it’s dismissed as “a nonsense, a contrivance”.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/heart-of-the-nation-mount-taylor-2606/story-e6frg8h6-1226593171250

Pathetic article from the newspaper run out of town by The Canberra Times. I saw the headline about Mt Taylor but there was no mention of it at all in the article, not even in the caption of the pic taken on Green Apple. Interestingly The Oz’s tabloid cousin the Tele did a far better article on the centenary yesterday.

I see that as a positive statement and very accurate. Canberra’s attraction, (to me,) is not in its vibrancy, as it is not a vibrant city, it’s in it’s quiet slow pace of life. If you have only lived in Canberra, and not in a real major capital, then you could be seen as bad as some of the “Canberra-Bashers” who knock the place on scant experience. I’ve lived and worked in three capitals, (Cardiff, London, Berlin,) and stayed in many more. As what is normally perceived as the expectations of a “capital city” Canberra does not measure up in any way shape or form. But there again, I could also say, based on firsthand experience, that London, Cardiff, Berlin, (as well as Tokyo, Amsterdam, Paris, Mexico city, Barcelona, Rome, Prague, Marrakesh, Tunis, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Dublin, Dubai, Santiago, and others,) are not great cities to live in, despite being full blown capitals, as they do not meet my requirements for a place to live in. Yet Canberra does, precisely for there reasons others may knock the place.

Let’s face it folks, Canberra is a nice, safe, small, rural, quiet, unassuming, and if anything rather dull, place to live.

Meh, I could give a damn, I live in Gungahlin, the most beautiful part of Canberra which somehow gets bagged by knuckleheads who wouldn’t have a clue.

What should I care if a few knuckleheads who wouldn’t have a clue want to bah Canberra as a whole?

Anybody who bags where someone lives is insecure about their own lives to the extent that they need to denigrate others just to feel adequate about themselves.

I see the CT is bagging the BBC article, but fails to mention one of its own staff was involved with the bagging. Odd, really….
Perhaps the CT article should say: “Critics (including own own CT reporters) try to rain on our birthday parade”? 🙂

Hey JB before basing the article did you actually read it, or did you just read the headline? From what I read in it there wasn’t much bashing on behalf of the BBC, instead I read an article that presented the views of others (including the Canberra Times entertainment editor), but the general jist of the article was ABOUT how others bash Canberra, without the actual article bashing Canberra. Considering Canberra bashing is a national sport I don’t see an issue with the article the way the BBC presented it. Unless of course you support censorship where no touchy subject should be discussed.

PS as for Andrew Ure comment, clearly he has never noticed the streams of traffic leaving Sydney every Friday and returning Sunday evening.

There was this in the Weekend Australian Magazine – the only mention of Canberra’s centenary is where it’s dismissed as “a nonsense, a contrivance”.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/heart-of-the-nation-mount-taylor-2606/story-e6frg8h6-1226593171250

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

I don’t think we’ll ever stop the Canberra bashing while we have the likes of Jenna Clarke and ex Canberran Andrew Ure. and others who seem to be disgruntled with their life here. I love Canberra and have done so since 1975 and always will.

The Canberra bashing won’t stop until the Federal politicians go and play somewhere else, and then Canberra will rapidly slide into obscurity.

And good to see the CT referencing the story, without linking it, nor making any comment that Jenna Clarke contributed to it.

Typical cowardly Canberra Times

Jenna Clarke is a perfect example of crony, I-was-rejected-by-Cosmo-so-I-write-trashy-newspaper-pieces journalism. Whether or not you agree with the likes of Paul Sheehan, Peter FitzSimons and others, who write about a plethora of topics, at least they write columns that force you to think and examine issues. You may even hate their opinions, but they engage you enough to facilitate critical thinking.

How Jenna Clarke is paid probably $100,000+ to write brain damage-inducing horses*== is beyond me.

I spent the night at Enlighten. It was awesome. People everywhere, all of them having a great time. This festival really has very quickly discovered and established a wonderful niche and long may it continue.

I hope the tea and scones at Jenna’s grandma’s were up to scratch.

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

I don’t think we’ll ever stop the Canberra bashing while we have the likes of Jenna Clarke and ex Canberran Andrew Ure. and others who seem to be disgruntled with their life here. I love Canberra and have done so since 1975 and always will.

Righteous. I’ve been here since 1976 after living in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and various country towns. I love the place and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

The headline for this post says it all. To all the naysayers, a full moon, two fingers and a resounding Fcuk You.

Maybe we should change the name and have Canberra just refer to the parliamentary triangle. The same thing the US did the same with Washington and capitol hill as its new metonym.

Well you couldn’t really get more grandma-ish than Robyn Archer, could you really?

I don’t think we’ll ever stop the Canberra bashing while we have the likes of Jenna Clarke and ex Canberran Andrew Ure. and others who seem to be disgruntled with their life here. I love Canberra and have done so since 1975 and always will.