Poor old King Edward VII, former monarch of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India, now reduced to the laughing stock of Geelong.
Well, his statue keeps copping it, anyway, this week overlooking the intersection of Moorabool and Brougham streets with a bright orange safety cone atop its head.
It wasn’t the first headwear to disrespect Eddie’s noggin, with garlands of local foliage, empty beer cans and even discarded clothing also taking pride of place at times.
He might literally be made of stone but our Ed’s had tough life, starting with his years forlorn in a council depot with a missing head. Then in 2014 he was restored and installed at his current site, only for onlookers to complain his new head was too big for his body.
Now he’s the regular target of larrikins with mischief on their minds.
As the saying goes, heavy is the head that wears the crown, or, in this case, the safety cone!
Meanwhile, another, somewhat smaller local head was also recently crowned.
Jan Juc’s John ‘Sparrow’ Pyburne received a Service to the Industry Award at Australian Surf and Boardshorts Industry awards in Sydney last Friday (pictured).
The award was in recognition of the slightly-built Sparrow’s “45 years of innovation” since the foundation of Rip Curl as the man behind the Torquay company’s world-renowned wetsuits.
As another cold winter sets in across local beaches, local surfers snug in their high-tech wetsuits should raise a hot choccy to toast Sparrow’s success, and urge him toward the final breakthrough – a waterproof fly!
On a less-celebratory note, a great big up-yours to A Current Affair for Monday night’s hatchet job on Geelong.
Yes, like everywhere, Geelong has its share of drug abusers. And, yes, they create problems, just like in many other places.
But on what grounds did A Current Affair’s outrageous report sensationally label Geelong “ground zero” for Australia’s “ice epidemic”? Official statistics? Scientific research? A vox-pop survey in the mall at least?
Nope, nope and nope. All A Current Affair needed was a tawdry recent report linking “most” of several local murders in the past five years to ice. That’s all.
Based on actual experience as a viewer, and without needing this new low-standard of evidence, all Double Take can say is: Thanks for nothing A Current Affair, ground zero for crap TV.
