Just quickly...

The problem with these ’emergency drills’ is they leave out the most important factor, the actual emergency. Should you encounter or be inconvenienced by one of these performance art spectaculars, add some realism and urgency by lighting something.
You’ll be doing us all a favour.

Talking about Ainslie, and hijacking a thread in the traditional RA way…

From Gungahlin we often hear (boy do we hear it…), and see Mounts Ainslie and Majura backlit by, a half-hour of massive explosions that must come from the defence playground in the Majura valley.

Don’t mind the fireworks, but I have two questions:

1/ why can’t they let us know so we can get up on one of the mountains to watch it?

2/ why does it always have to start at 11.10pm? Why wait until everyone is asleep and then wake them up again, thereby ensuring you can’t get back to sleep for the rest of the night? It must be REALLY loud over at Watson and Hackett.

And what about the emergency services on top of Mount Ainslie tonight? Any news?

Meanwhile no one’s mentioned the big blaze out at Oaks Estate last night – looked pretty impressive and there was nothing good on TV. Scrap car yard apparently

Nope, it was an “exercise”.
I had just finished shopping at Woolies at about 6pm and when trying to walk back through the shopping centre to get to the carpark was confronted by a temporary barricade manned by security staff who advised us we’d have to tramp all the way back round the outside of the centre to get to our car because they were conducting and exercise.
The War on Terror knows no inconvenience!
(Not that I’m particularly worried about a slightly longer walk back to my car, but my heavily pregnant wife wasn’t impressed!)

Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist being a bigger tool than usual!

I wonder if it might have been a anti-terror exercise, as the emergency services are usually tight-lipped about them, aren’t they?

A fire?