The ethics that create a great school
Recent Notes 38: A special dictionary

Rattling a stick inside a swill bucket

BERNARD CORDEN

Corden  Road signs & billboards Brisbane
Traffic lights, road signs & billboards clutter drivers' vision at this  busy Brisbane road junction

 This is the full text of a letter from Bernard Corden which has just made its way to the desk of the Honourable Bart Mellish MP, Queensland Minister for Transport and Main Roads, and Minister for Digital Services.  I feel sure the Minister will never before have received a letter composed with Bernard’s awe-inspiring literary flourish and precise application of the English language - KJ

BRISBANE - The Queensland Government is currently promoting its Road Safety Week, which it officially launches on Monday 26 August 2024.

The state-wide campaign includes numerous warnings displayed on electronic signs installed over Brisbane’s busy inner-city bypass and implore motorists to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel.

In both carriageways on the same stretch of road, an incongruous series of glittering and multicoloured gigantic billboards are strategically mounted on neighbouring properties within the surrounding thoroughfares.

This lurid display of inveigling iconography is wilfully designed to distract motorists and other road users.

Moreover, it garners attention for an extensive range of goods and services that the lumpenproletariat and other gullible consumers want but never really need and the contraptions typically thrill for a nanosecond and last just a tad longer.

The beguiling advertisements frequently feature junk food, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, captivating internet deals and countless trendy gadgets, which predictably include the latest smartphones and other electronic doohickies.

Planned obsolescence ensures most items are promptly redundant and the defunct objects usually end up gathering dust on a cluttered shelf in a recycled computer store or suburban opshop until they are eagerly acquired by some furtive trainspotter or loitering rock spider.

Attempts to identify which socially autistic panjandrum within local or state government sanctioned installation of these hideous eyesores or the specific department that receives its cut of the bountiful advertising revenue are extremely frustrating and often futile.

The ceremonial nightmare is shrouded in a miasma of obfuscation and rapidly degenerates into a war of attrition.

A tyranny of bureaucracy prevails, which ensures any complainants reach a call centre to endure excruciating looped renditions of Fűr Elise or Greensleeves.

The relentless torture is inevitably exacerbated by an intermittent and sinister recorded message…. “Thank you for holding, your call is important to us and is being monitored for quality and training purposes”.

Furthermore, truth and accountability are nonchalantly sacrificed to secure the lucrative income and protect reputations of the relevant apparatchiks and other enigmatic bureaucrats.

Meanwhile our national road toll escalates and any subsequent coronial inquests are carefully orchestrated to protect the interests of a corporatised or captured state.

Beneath the alabaster of humble inquiry, sympathy and sensitive acknowledgement lurks a denial of the agenda concerning how the circumstances of death can be established without apportioning blame or liability.

It casts a disturbing spectre over the entire charade, which is an anachronistic forum involving an adversarial wolf in inquisitorial sheep’s clothing.

It can be superficially beckoning although it is usually very disappointing and provocatively painful for many of the grieving families.

Bereaved dependents soon discover the theatre of law has very little to do with the discovery of truth or realisation of justice.

Many are often left chasing smoke with plenty of unanswered questions blowing in the wind like withered synthetic flowers and fluttering plastic windmills at a makeshift roadside traffic accident memorial.

Back in the 1930s, George Orwell’s fine polemic, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, bemoaned materialism and described advertising as rattling a stick inside a swill bucket.

How many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

Corden  Billboard at entrance to a Brisbane vehicular tunnel
Billboard at the entrance of a Brisbane vehicular bypass tunnel

 

 

Comments

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William Dunlop

My dear Bernard. Will that mean a name change is called for the Bruce Highway! The Albo Gallimaufry Way, perhaps.

Bernard Corden

Meanwhile, the Australian prime minister announces a $7.2 billion upgrade of the Bruce Highway:

https://www.pm.gov.au/media/7-2-billion-new-funding-australian-government-fix-bruce-highway

This should ensure there is sufficient room for mounting a gallimaufry of electronic advertising billboards in both carriageways.

Bernard Corden

My dear William - War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.

William Dunlop

My dear Bernard, 'Lickspittle' comes to mind concerning 'officiationers' Ministers of the Crown! Blair is in my maternal. Best regards, Wm.

Lindsay F Bond

There was a Transport Minister Hamill, "who wanted to ban crosses and flowers being placed on the highway in memory of road accident victims."

https://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/city-beat-hamills-high-flying-role/news-story/

Was it not from the 1990s, that policy for revenue from billboards?

Yet it's all under control in a 'Roadside Advertising Manual' (for Practitioners).

Bernard Corden

It is well worth noting the distinct absence of advertising billboards immediately outside the Brisbane Grammar School for Girls on Gregory Terrace.

Bill Corden

It's a different continent but we are in Vancouver, Canada, with the same "hide and seek" policies.

It's impossible to find a bureaucrat who can give you an answer and whenever you do get one, they play hot potato with the question....

The most recent egregious and unannounced change came at the City Hall level where they removed online organisation charts that gave the email addresses (and phone numbers) of each and every staff member.

They replaced them with a multiple choice trouble line that has about a thousand options to report your problem but which has none that suit your own cause.

Lindsay F Bond

Elegant erudite eke emphasising enticing errantly encumbered eyes.

But, Bernard, Look, about Queensland,

Don't you flurry about that.

See: https://www.smh.com.au/national/dont-you-worry-about-that-20050425-gdl6zb.html

Bernard Corden

My dear William,

I spent last Saturday evening at the newly opened Queens Wharf Integrated Resort Development in Brisbane, which is never referred to as a casino by any cabinet ministers.

It was somewhat disappointing that there was no commemorative statue of the former Minister for Everything BFC in the concourse. Perhaps there was insufficient room.

William Dunlop

Bernard, they sadly lack the capability of the former Minister for Everything From the Democratic Jo' Show, Russell Hinze.

Bernard Corden

The official response I received was rather insipid and failed to address any of my concerns, which were merely diffused and defused into a quagmire of bureaucracy.

If I may paraphrase the late Wayne Goss, it should come as no surprise that the Queensland electorate will be sitting on their verandas wielding baseball bats come the evening of 26/10/2024.

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