Queensland’s Woombye has The Big Pineapple.
South Australia’s Kingston has The Big Lobster.
Coff’s Harbour, in New South Wales, has The Big Banana.
And now Geelong’s finally joined the esteemed ranks of Cities With Big Things.
Yes, after so many years waiting for an oversized novelty landmark to rise above the city, this week we watched in awe as dignitaries unveiled … drum roll, please … The Big Oil Tank.
Wait, what? The Big Oil Tank?
Yep, that’s now the city’s oversized icon after the good folks at Viva Energy invested a bucketload of bucks on building “Australia’s largest crude oil tank”.
Apparently the big barrel can hold 100 million litres of the stuff – enough to fill almost 63,000 standard barrels of oil. Or 40 Olympic swimming pools, which would make an interesting Masters Games spectacle.
Anyway, Double Take welcomes The Big Oil Tank – long may she rein (hopefully not rain) over the refinery at Corio!
On a somewhat smaller scale but of possibly similar impact, a Geelong Facebook user has given an ideal example of how DIY advertising can go awry.
The Facebooker, who will remain nameless, for reasons that will become apparent, decided to use the platform’s questionable advertising service to flog an old mattress.
Perhaps aware that the average Facebook ad lasts in the average feed for an average 1.7 seconds, the user accompanied the offer with a picture that was way beyond average.
But catch the eye it certainly did – for all the wrong reasons.
The mattress was there, all right, but, for Double Take’s money, the two fornicating dogs on top of it just somehow ruined the sales pitch.
“$150. Queen size mattress – hardly used,” the ad said.
No wonder!
Bellarine MP Lisa Neville might have overlooked an obvious alternative when launching a solar power plant at Barwon Water’s Black Rock sewage farm this week.
The $3.4 million plant’s 2800 panels would save Barwon Water “around $185,000” a year, Lisa announced, putting “downward pressure on prices for customers”.
All well and good, perhaps, but maybe our MP could have opened her eyes, or should that be nostrils, to the readily apparent on-site alternative – methane!
After all, the stinky flammable gas is an inevitable product of the sewage recycling process, it’s available day and night, and it’s already successfully recycled to produce electricity at landfill sites.
Too bad that Lisa failed to, err, sniff out the opportunity!
In the meantime, the government will spend up big on Black Rock’s solar panels while its methane – a more-potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – ends up … where?
Something stinks at Black Rock – but this time it ain’t the methane!
