Overheard conversations

When you overhear things in cafes, it can sometimes lead to questions. Today’s question is; What is it with Queanbeyan and guns? For those non-Canberrans among my readership, Queanbeyan is a NSW town that borders part of the ACT and whose proximity to the main population centres of Canberra is largely seen as a reason why the ACT doesn’t really need slums. Now, for those of you who may not know, Michael Diamond – one-time gold medal winner for Australia in the sport of trap shooting – lives in Queanbeyan. Our newest shooting gold medallist, and the first woman to win a gold medal for Australia in her event, Suzanne Balogh (now with Accurate Spelling[TM]!), also comes from Queanbeyan.

Why do people in Queanbeyan seem to excel at shooting? Is it because shells are cheaper than lamb in the local supermarkets? I don’t think it’s because Queanbeyan is a lawless wasteland of Mad-Max-ian proportions, with rag-clad gangs of yahoos seeking to rob the honest, hard-working folk of their fuel and tradable goods and so it is essential to know how to shoot to defend you and yours. Queanbeyan is a lawless wasteland of Mad-Max-ian proportions, with rag-clad gangs of yahoos seeking to rob the honest, hard-working folk of their fuel and tradable goods where it is essential to know how to shoot to defend you and yours, but I don’t think that’s the entire reason that Diamond and Balogh excel at the sport. If environment was the case, then America’s pistol team would be full of gangbangers from LA and Miami (after all, UIT usually involves .22 target pistols, so Tony the Squirrel might have to leave his Glock at home).

Of course, it might just be that the Australian Trap Shooting Training Camp (or equivalent) is in Queanbeyan, and so that’s why they all live there, but I'm still curious to know why Queanbeyanians shoot so well. Any suggestions would be gladly accepted.

On topic, and making for a very long post, is something that is a source of frustration, and not a little genuine anger, on my part. I would like to complain about the coverage of Suzanne’s Balogh’s gold medal on the Canberra Times site this morning. I realised this morning that in my initial posting of the news of the win, I may have neglected – through no fault of my own – to spell her name correctly. I sought to rectify this situation and so jumped onto the Canberra Times site to look up her name and what letters went together in what order to spell it. This was at about 9am this morning, Australian time, so a good 12 hours or so after Balogh’s win. Could I find anything on her in our local paper? No. I tried headlines. I tried sport. I even tried to search on “Trap shooting”. What did I find? An article on Michael Diamond. It contained interviews from various international trap shooters saying how wonderful he is, and what fine form he has. There were only two mentions of Vella (a name check in the headline and a one line coverage of his bronze medal) in the article.

I know the point of the article was to look at Diamond, but could the coverage not have gone to Vella? Or Balogh? Why does Diamond deserve such coverage? He failed to qualify. In fact, he probably shouldn't have gone to the Olympics at all, given that he narrowly escaped having his shooting license revoked for, as I understand it, pretty serious violations of the storage rules for firearms in NSW. While there are other issues I may have with Diamond (not least of which being his current poster-boy status for the Radical Right in the SSAA), I still don't know why I couldn't find a single mention of a successful and first time female Gold medalist on her local newspaper's site 12 hours after the event, and yet could easily find a laudatory (if that's a word) article on a man who FAILED TO QUALIFY! Please, as they say in the funny pages, explain.

Four Things I Learned Recently;

1. Apparently, Magnas have a habit of losing their ability to idle without stalling for no readily apparent reason.


2. Valentino's Cafe makes an awesome fried egg and chipolata breakfast.


3. Happy Days Amusements have gone back to actual money for most of their games, rather than the tokens.


4. When funds are limited, and so is attention span, lurking in Civic can get very boring.

==========
"Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers. *Ha!* You didn't know I was going to say that!"
- Jack Slater, Last Action Hero