Flannies were de rigueur for the Region Media team when we farewelled Michael Weaver. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Readers aren’t persuaded that we’re completely ready for an active transport change in the ACT, according to our weekly poll.
We asked whether you’d make the switch to electric bikes or scooters, following a six-week ACT Government initiative designed to enable employees to replace their car commutes with active travel.
But despite $39,572 in funding and support from the Government’s Community Zero Emissions Grants Program, readers weren’t sure that as a city we were ready to make the move away from vehicles.
The lack of dedicated bike lanes and alternatives routes away from main roads concerned many readers, some of whom said they’d otherwise be willing to change their commutes.
Others pointed out that it’s not only about congestion-busting and reducing our emissions, but also health benefits and changing poor lifestyles.
We asked Will you ditch the daily car commute for active transport alternatives? A total of 785 people responded.
Your options were to vote Yes, all it takes is some energy and education to make a difference. This received 26 per cent of the total, or 207 votes. Alternatively, you could choose to vote No, our transport and infrastructure aren’t good enough to make this feasible. This received 578 votes, or 74 per cent of the total.
This week, as the winter chill descends across Canberra, we’re wondering about your preferred way to beat the cold and stay comfortably toasty.
Our good mate Michael Weaver has made his next career move (to the ANU’s media department) and the Region Media crew gathered to farewell him at the Royal in Queanbeyan, where the steaks are very big indeed and very good.
Weaves is an actual Queanbeyan local who lives in and loves Q-town, so in his honour, the crew donned our flannelette shirts and ugg boots to farewell him in both comfort and style.
Our chief sub-editor, David Murtagh (a man who loves nothing more than fine jazz and a good book), conceded that he’d never been more relaxed in his life than while wearing a flannie and eating an enormous amount of red meat.
The humble flanno is both comfortable and stylish, say Region Media‘s leadership team. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The only absent staff member was our head of HR, Mr Smiggle, who wears a flannie to work throughout the winter but has been refused entry to the Royal.
But is it a flannie, or a flanno? Weaves surprised us all by referring to the latter.
The Macquarie Dictionary’s Australian word map says that ‘flanno’ is mostly used in Queensland. ‘Flanno’ is probably more popular, in Brisbane anyway (among those who actually wear them), than ‘flannie’, according to the dictionary.
Sub-editor Gavin Dennett, a born and bred Canberran whose family used to own the Lyneham bakery, reckons the historically correct local term is a ‘booner doona’.
The debate comes hot on the heels of impassioned arguments over whether anyone has ever called Queanbeyan ‘Dreambeyan’? (No, according to almost everyone), so perhaps some further explanation is needed from the RiotACT archives.
“When I grew up, we had Booners, aka Westies. A Booner’s thick checked flannie was a Booner Doona. A Booner lived in Kambah or Charnwood, wore black jeans, desert boots, a Metallica/Megadeth t-shirt and smoked winniebloos. Bogans were what my cousins in Melbourne called their version of booners. Can we keep what few Canberra-specific terms alive???”, asked a correspondent called Growling Ferret back in 2006.
Our poll this week asks:
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