DON’T let anyone tell you Geelong’s not a smart city. And edumacated as well.
According to Australia’s biggest bookstore, Bookworld, Geelong is the third most well-read city in the country.
That’s not a bad guernsey to garner; the bronze came behind Melbourne’s silver and Queanbeyan’s gold.
Interesting to note other place-getters: Maitland 4, Brisbane 5, Toowoomba 6, Sunshine Coast 7, Sydney 8, Adelaide 9 and top ten wooden-spooner Hobart.
GEELONG’S edumacated history buffs will know the first recorded burial at Eastern Cemetery occurred 175 years ago this week.
Poor Hugh Niven, a Scottish settler, was the first soul laid to rest there, way back on 23 September 1839.
Good thing is, despite its antiquity, the old boneyard’s still taking new arrivals – another 10,000 under new plans.
“This cemetery is one of those rare large cemeteries from Victoria’s colonial era to still be accepting internments,” Health Minister David Davis said.
Fancy that, too, a health minister fronting up for a photo op at a dead centre.
Politics, meh …
LARA Chamber of Commerce president Lorel Robinson is hard to miss at the best of times. Add a shock of pink hair and even the members at the MGC knew she was in the house at the Geelong-Hawthorn qualifying final. Local pollie John Eren, who shouted Lorel to the game, didn’t miss out on the photo op either.
Paralympian Richard Colman will be the special guest at the Lara Chamber of Commerce dinner on 28 October. Lorel promises her hair will be a different colour, but you’ll have to attend to find out which one. Phone her on 0425 802 725 for tickets.
VICTORIA Police called a press conference this week to make an announcement that they would not be making an announcement on crime statistics.
The no-information information session was headed by top cop Ken Lay.
It did not take much detective work to understand why, the last chief commissioner left that post after releasing questionable crime stats prior to the state election. He went overseas, not Overland, to Tasmania.
QUICK tip for the environmentally-aware and sensitively-skinned: Anglesea River is acidic yet again if you haven’t read the signs.
No fish are reported to have turned belly-up in the water as yet but Surf Coast shire and the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority will be running a workshop with the river’s working group to keep folks up to date on its status leading up to summer.
