The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
Aldi West End opens in Montague Rd today, July 2nd
Aldi’s 337th Australian store opens in Montague Rd West End today. The supermarket chain specialises in providing a limited range of goods at prices well below that of traditional supermarkets.
The company is busy emphasising the positives which it bills as a ‘smarter shopping experience’. Fundamentally, the benefits to the community boil down to employment opportunities for some locals and an alternative to the Coles Marketplace.
Aldi has completely failed though, to engage in the community consultation that it has trumpeted as a key part of its entre into the market. Depending on your point of view, the general controversy about a wall of 12 and 15 storey apartments along the river either protects Aldi from specific attention or makes it more critical than ever, that they engage the community.
Westender put a series of concerns to them, including the impact of bringing more shoppers to an already crowded 4101, the creation of a new shopping precinct without any infrastructure investment, parking and employment issues.
Requests from West End Community Association were referred to the customer service department who politely declined to queries that “do not concern customer service”. Westender again offered the company the opportunity to break the Catch 22 and respond publicly to those community concerns. We have received a standard press release singing the praises of the supermarket and celebrating the liberation of West End from the Woes of Coolworks duopoly.
Many Westenders will no doubt welcome the opportunity to exercise more consumer choice, even if it does nothing to reduce food-miles, free farmers from enslavement to the supply chain or create a more integrated community on the Kurilpa Peninsula.
As your urban voice, Westender will continue to endeavour to place your concerns on the table and enable dialogue between those shaping the physical environment in which we live, work and study.
Tybalt and Mercutio cross swords in the market square
Kenneth McMillan’s Romeo & Juliet has not been seen in Australia before. That it is now here in Brisbane, with some of the British superstars occasionally in lead roles, is due to the hard work and vision of Queensland Ballet Artistic Director, Li Cun-Xin. Life-long dancer and corporate juggler, Master Li has set out to create a world class ballet company here in Brisbane.
Romeo & Juliet is the physical expression of that plan, writ large. Audiences love it.
Powerful dancing, riveting acting, brilliant staging, and compelling music, combine to immerse audiences in the emotional sweep of Shakespeare’s most famous work.
McMIllan’s choreography was daring in 1965 and remains powerful fifty years later. As you would expect of an Englishman it is faithful to the bard’s text but as a young man at the height of his creative powers, McMillan brought new expression to a classic art form. He was not afraid to bring the sex implicit in the work right into the fore or to send up some of the sillier parts of the discipline.
Mercutio’s extended death scene is almost parody, a precursor to Monty Python’s Black Knight twenty years later. THe3 choreography of the sword play is part-musical, part theatrical and part vaudeville. By contrast, the parting-is-such-sweet-sorrow scene simply and powerfully evokes the impossibility all new lovers face when separating after that first, mind-blowing bonk. We have all been there and Prokofiev’s score and Macmillan’s choreography carry us of into those tender memories. The Bard had a way with words, Macmillan and Prokofiev do it with human bodies.
Prokofiev’s 1940 score had challenged the Russian Ballet and won acclaim with audiences for twenty five years before Macmillan got the chance to reshape Leonid Lavrosky’s production thanks to a boycott of the British by the Russians. His rendition was further blessed by Nuryev and Fontaine, who only danced it because of internal politics in the British ballet scene. As is often the case, this rich series of accidents brought a masterful work to the pinnacle of success.
The sets and costumes we see at QPAC’s Lyric Theatre have been loaned by the Birmingham Ballet. They are sumptuous, classical and stunning. This is the technology of ropes and canvas or an earlier era refined and preserved in the arts.
Australian audiences, on the whole, are grateful for the opportunity to catch up on culture that has not been readily accessible here. We are such stickler’s for tradition that we plan to keep the Queen on our coins even if the Brits do not.
Of course, that does not satisfy everyone.
The diamond and sapphire empress grew up on Goethe and finds Romeo and Juliet’s obsession with romantic love somewhat puerile. As a Lifeline support worker she knows that suicide usually has more to do with money and terrible guilt than unrequited love, whatever teenagers flooded with hormones might feel.
MacMillan also assumes a certain familiarity with Shakespeare, almost evoking key phrases familiar to English speakers with his staging. In some instances the lack of words creates problems for newcomers to the tale. Why does Juliet recover from her vial of poison, when Romeo does not? What is the threat from her parents that makes it important to feign death in the first place?
Another friend and contemporary dance teacher was disappointed by the emphasis on tradition and the constraints on artistic freedom which that enforces.
Regular readers of Westender know that I love contemporary art forms that push the envelope. Shadowlands remains my favourite work of the year, so far. Regardless, the middleclass evolutionary in me wants to maintain a healthy respect for the classics and build on, rather than knock down the centuries of discipline that have gone into refining them.
Master Li’s strategy appears to be a combination of bringing the world’s best here, challenging and developing our local talent and building the framework on which a new generation might build creatively.
It is a strategy appropriately tuned for the current Government’s penchant for the corporatisation of the arts and the top-down delivery of culture. A survivor of China’s Cultural Revolution and the boardrooms of Australia’s finance sector, one can assume that Master Li will trim his sails as he must.
The Queensland Ballet is in good hands. Now, let’s bring down the ticket prices.
Chayan Sarkar with APSA Executive Chairman Michael Hawkins
This year, a new initiative called the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival (BAPFF) will take over the Brisbane International Film festival (BIFF), that was run by the Queensland government through the Screen Queensland for over 22 years.
Screen Queensland has agreed to support Brisbane Marketing in its endeavors to start marketing a new film festival called BAPFF, which will be run in conjunction with the APSA to showcase the best of APSA and the best of Asia-Pacific filmmakers and culture.
The eight year old Asia-Pacific Screen Awards, which is readily acknowledged as the highest accolade for films in the Asia pacific region, is headquartered in Brisbane and is an initiative of the Brisbane City Council.
APSA Executive Chairman Michael Hawkins believes that BAPFF will strengthen APSA’s profile both in the Asia Pacific region and locally while providing an opportunity for business ventures particularly as the host city of G20 summit.
“People wanting to invest in Brisbane want to be comfortable that their culture is understood, recognized and respected. Therefore the BAPFF is providing a platform for cultural exchange and is particularly important to educate Brisbane people about the cultures from abroad,” Mr. Hawkins explained.
“We are focusing on great movies that tell stories of cultural diversity and stories of different countries,” he said.
“We’ll have great content from India, China, Korea, Japan and other power houses of the Asia-Pacific film making industries. Each of those cultures will be very well represented while our jury president this year is the Iranian filmmaker and 3 time APSA winner, Asghar Farhadi”.
Whilst speaking about the endeavors of the BAPFF, Mr. Hawkins also acknowledged his support for the various film festivals from the Asia Pacific region, and especially commented on the success of the first independent, Indian International Film Festival of Queensland (IIFFOQ) which will be concluded at QUT on 2nd July, 2014.
A jury headed by Mr. Martin Brown, the lead producer of the movie Moulin Rouge that won the Golden Globe for Best Picture of 2001, will be selecting the winners for the Indian film festival.
This year, the IIFFOQ showcased a wide variety of acclaimed independent Indian films, including the movie Vihir (The Well), an Amitabh Bachchan production, which received a standing ovation at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Mr. Chayan Sarkar, a filmmaker, is the man responsible for organizing Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic 2011 visit to QUT to receive his Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his contribution to global creative industries, and is also responsible for developing the Indian Film Festival.
“This year’s film festival is the beginning of a wonderful cultural transaction between the Queensland government and India. We hope to carry on this tradition on a larger scale in the coming years, to introduce Australians to the profound treasure chest of Indian cinema,” Mr. Sarkar said.
Mr. Sarkar’s latest venture ‘The Sleeping Warrior’, depicts the subtle connection between Hindu spirituality and the Australian Aboriginal spirituality, and has won many accolades from critics and the Aboriginal community, but is yet to be released in Australia.
A family group setting up ready for a night of Moon viewing. Credit Celestron
Clear crisp winter nights are often the best for star gazing in the Australia but, it gets very cold, so don’t forget to rug up before doing any extended star watching. Winter sees our night skies dominated by the Southern Cross, sprawling Scorpio and Sagittarius, in which the heart of our galaxy hides, so it’s well worth stepping out into the chill for an astronomical thrill.
There’s a nice half Moon on Saturday July 5 and a good opportunity to take a photograph of it. There’s something magical about those pictures of the moonlight sky and dazzling stars, they convey a special something that daytime photos can’t. You’ll need a tripod to hold the camera completely still for clear pics OK. A shutter release cable is handy too.
Turn off the auto focus mechanism and bracket your shots, up to a couple of seconds, but not to long to avoid background stars having ‘tails’ on them. Point the camera at the moon, click, and keep the shutter open for the desired length of time. NEVER use a flash! Take several shots at different speeds and see which gives the best exposure.
Take the batteries you know you’ll need, as well as the batteries you think you won’t need and don’t forget to retain your ‘night vision.’ This is the process by which the eyes increase their sensitivity to low levels of illumination. In the first 30 minutes, sensitivity increases 10,000-fold, with little gain after that. But brief exposure to bright light temporarily rolls back this hard-won increase.
Got a smart phone? You can hand hold it over the eyepiece and careful aiming might get you a few nice moon shots. Email them to yourself. Now, go and look at the images on your computer and pick out the best one. Nothing beats trial and error, it’s the best way to build up experience and collect a good number of moon ‘selfies.’
Your scope may be modest, but don’t let that prevent you from using it! An inexpensive telescope that gets used is superior to a premium scope that sits in storage.
If your telescope is wobbly it may be time for a ‘tripod tune up.’ In most cases, the worst feature of a low priced telescope is the tripod and the head that holds the tube which lets it point to different parts of the sky. A telescope doesn’t magnify just the things you’re looking at – it also magnifies every wobble and vibration in the mount.
Does the view through the eyepiece dance around when the wind picks up? That’s probably because the tripod’s not rigid enough. Do you see wild vibrations every time you touch the focusing knob? The problem might be in the tripod, the head, or both.
To fix a bad case of wobbles, first tighten the wing nuts at the top of the tripod, where the legs meet the mount head. Shorten the tripod legs as much as you can. The lower the scope, the less it will shake. Tap the end of the scope while looking through the eyepiece and time how long the view takes to settle. A couple of seconds is fine, but 10 seconds is way too long.
An easy way to improve a tripod’s stability is to suspend a weight between its legs. Fill a plastic bottle with water or sand and hang it between the tripod’s legs. The extra weight will keep a light mount from swaying in the breeze, and it may help damp vibrations. A brick can be uses too. Hey, don’t laugh, home remedies like these do work.
Want a free star map of the night sky that you can download and print off for every month of the year? Thought so, then go to www.skymaps.com and select the map for the southern hemisphere. Print it off, head outside and get ready for some pretty easy stargazing! Get David’s free astronomy newsletter and a free 323 page e-book called ‘The Complete Idiots Guide To Astronomy.
To allow yourself the choice of retiring when it suits you it is important to start planning now
Westender readers are well aware of the changes to the pension brought in during the last budget. Since the mid 1980’s governments have been alarmed by our slowing population growth, the increasing number of people seeking a pension (Baby Boomer bulge), and a dwindling tax base to pay for it all.
No solution is easy or ideal and most solutions hurt somebody. This latest round of measures in our most recent budget is no different. This Liberal government still faces the same issues as the Labor government did 30 years ago, except it’s now worse. The facts are, it’s not so much a political or ideological decision, but a cold, hard, economic and demographic reality.
So if you are planning on retiring within the next 10 years or you’ve retired recently, it is important that you understand what the rules are, how you can adjust your circumstances to best create a comfortable retirement, and how to keep things flexible enough for likely changes in the future.
So what are the changes?
If you were born after 1952, the new rules mean that
you won’t have access to the age pension until after 65 (for many, not until age 70).
access to government benefits such as healthcare will be means tested.
If you became an Australian resident after 2001, then your access to pensions and benefits will also be reduced.
Overall, the government will reduce both the amount paid out and the number of Australians eligible for the aged pension.
How will this affect me?
If you have not yet retired, you’ll have to wait longer before you can receive the age pension. This means you may have to work longer, or work longer part time. That may allow you to build a bigger savings nest egg.
If you have retired, you may also have to consider things such as
home downsizing,
reconsidering how your investments and super are being managed, and
sadly for many, an adjustment to your everyday lifestyle.
This last point could affect your long term plans, like budgeting for a “once in a lifetime” overseas holiday. The spending of a lump sum early in retirement could have potentially devastating consequences later on.
The bottom line is that over time, we should all expect to receive less and less assistance from the government in our retirement. Thus, carefully managing our own finances now is crucial.
What can I do?
The best thing you can do right now is to seek expert advice. The major areas you will need your adviser to examine include reviewing how your investments have performed, where and how your money is invested (and why), your spending habits, how much income you require in retirement, if you have any large purchases/expenses coming up, and your current living arrangements.
A good adviser can then guide you through a series of decisions and solutions that both maximises your government entitlements and stretches your dollar further for a more secure, worry free, and above all, happy life!
We all pay good rent, don’t we? Some of us much more than others. We value our position, our store front in the street or mall and see it as a good return on investment – that money we put into “rent”. Why then do we as retailers neglect to value the frontage of our store? Why do we not put the same level of importance and value into our window or shop front?
There is no simple answer as to why we do not…. However there is a very simple answer as to why we should – Because when you look good, you sell more! Visual marketing helps your business grow.
So much of society today is based on looking good. We groom ourselves within an inch of our lives – hair styling, facials, waxing – you name it. We want to look our best. Well funnily enough the better your store looks the more inviting you are to potential customers – it’s not just about the product you wish to sell, but about the way you present it. Here’s a few tips on how to start to make your window & store look good.
#1 TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK AT WHAT IS THERE NOW.
The first step is to look at what you have, be critical… and see how you can improve. Look at simple things to start with :
Cleanliness – is your shop front clean, dust free, uncluttered.
Lighting – do you have sufficient lighting in your shop front / window to ensure that it shines for potential customers walking by.
Image – does your window / shop front represent your brand’s image at its best?
Displaying one item well may be more effective than crowding the window
These are all simple things to look at and fix – clean the window, wipe away any dead bugs (yes, there might be some there in the corners), change the dead light bulbs – all are an easy fix and a great start to looking good.
#2 CHOOSE THE RIGHT MERCHANDISE FOR YOUR SHOP FRONT.
There are different was to choose the merchandise for the front of your store :
Choose the newest stock and promote it to attract new customers.
Perhaps you have some older, existing stock that you want to sell but it simply won’t move – display it in a new way, maybe even use some form of props to freshen up the way it looks in-store.
Add signage or decals (stickers on your window) to attract attention to your merchandise.
If you have a lot of stock of 1 item to sell, you don’t need to show all of them – simplify your display and the way you merchandise to make it look more exclusive.
#3 LOOK AT THE STYLE OF SIGNAGE YOU USE.
All too often I go in to a retail outlet and am horrified by the over-use of signage and the style of signage. Here’s a few tips:
If it is too small it cannot be seen, looks messy and detracts from sales.
Do not hand write signage unless you have a REALLY nice style of hand writing – remember that a hand written sign will often look unprofessional if not done really well.
Be consistent in the style of signage throughout one display – if your signage is white onto black – ensure that all signage within the display is consistent in size and style. It makes the signage easier to read and your overall display appear much more professional.
Let’s face it we all want to sell more and my job as a visual merchandiser is not to sell BUT to get customers to walk into the store. Then it is up to you BUT if they aren’t walking in the door you don’t have a chance.
Remember when your store looks good you will sell more so keep it clean, keep it simple and light it well.
