Many commenters are aghast at City Hall’s funding of a rap song dedicated to Geelong mallrats – but they certainly can’t argue with the return on investment.
After all, like it or not, the whole point, according to City Hall, was “getting people to think and talk” about the mall and central Geelong.
Well, think and talk they sure did, with the City initiative inspiring hundreds of social media posts and news reports spanning the length of the land.
Even Melbourne’s Channel 9 news had a crack, travelling down the Westgate to film locals in the mall for a smirking report to return to smirking presenters Peter Hitchener and Tony Jones.
So, full marks to City Hall for starting the conversation – but a whole lot less for what it ended up being about!
Meanwhile, possibly lost in all the brouhaha was the message of local rapper Fatty Phew, which sounds like a good name for a roadhouse baine-marie.
‘Stop seein’ us as a problem and start helpin’ with ours,’ he raps in contemporary victimhood style.
So, according to the funded Phewster, the situation in the mall is our fault. Not the fault of the miscreants swearing, fighting, spitting and generally running amok.
At the risk of starting some kind of duelling rap-rock showdown, Double Take would like to respond to the mallrats situation with the words of the great George Thorogood.
‘Get a haircut and get a real job’.
They may only have a few opportunities to spotlight AFL games each year but at least Kardinia Park’s light towers now have another use: training rescue teams.
Onlookers gasped last Friday as fire-fighters hung suspended from the 73-metre towers during “high-angle rescue training” with other emergency service crews.
The session allowed the crews to learn the ropes – while learning how to use each other’s ropes, explained the CFA’s Tony Field.
The crews worked on systems for saving people stranded on structures such as Melbourne’s ferris wheel and wind turbines.
“When our ladder platforms can’t bring them down we have to lower them down,” Mr Field said.
And now when they get down, they can also thank the Kardinia Park lights!
Well, Geelong’s $645,000 vision looks set – we’re going to be a Clever and Creative City-Region.
That was the outcome of last week’s Our Vision talkfest at The Pier, which hosted more than 300 participants to choose one of four paths forward for Geelong following consultations involving 16,000 contributors.
The crowd at Saturday’s Our Vision Assembly overlooked the preferred vision of Geelong’s three council administrators, for a Caring City-Region, going with the clever, creative option instead.
Which begs the question: if Geelong’s future is “clever and creative“, what are we now? Stupid and uncreative?
Over to you, administratoroonies.
