Archive for the ‘Grumbling’ Category
Getting Australia back on track,might well lead to a dead end.
Sunday, April 13th, 2025I just couldn’t help myself.
Sunday, July 2nd, 2023
So many people around the world think it, I just had to visualise it.
This logo stands for nothing, just like the company.
Monday, June 26th, 2023
PwC or Price Waterhouse Cooper, is a company that is well known in financial circles.
But now it’s known nation-wide – for all the wrong reasons.
I had heard of PwC but never been exposed to their corporate identity, until now.
However as this visual abhorrence keeps on featuring nightly in the news, I realised that there was a real connection between the logo and the company image – both are bad.
Below is a quote from the ABC’s business reporter, Daniel Ziffer, that really sums up just how rotten they are:
(PwC) “…..being involved in shaping secret government tax plans and then creating and selling a scheme to thwart them to multinational companies dubbed the ‘Dirty 30’.”
Now, in a last minute act of guilt, they have sold off all their government business for $1.
Of course this doesn’t take into account the millions they have already made fraudulently.
PwC is a large company and I am sure they would have paid a respected design firm a good price for this logo disaster.
I can only speculate that the client got their way with the design and the designers just took the money and ran.
If I were them, I’m not sure what I would be more embarrassed about now.
The logo or the company it represents.
When a good idea gets compromised.
Saturday, May 27th, 2023
Supermarket trolleys have been around for quite some time.
The first one was invented in June 1937 by Sylvan Goldman, the owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma, USA.
He simply took a folding wooden chair, attached wheels to the legs and a basket on the seat. He had already pioneered the idea of a self-serving store, so this was a natural progression.
Sylvan saw it as a way to get customers to purchase more, because they could carry more, on each trip to the store.
They were also seen to be of benefit to the customers, especially getting around the store and then to their vehicle or whatever form of transport they used to get home.
However now, because so many are abandoned, they are seen as nuisance.
And the supermarkets only have themselves to blame.
When some supermarket chains introduced the ‘pay to borrow’ concept the number of abandoned trolleys reduced dramatically.
The refundable $1 and $2 coins was enough incentive for people to return them to the racks.
As is always the case, there were still lazy buggers who couldn’t be bothered and didn’t mind forfeiting their money. However this was counteracted by the people who couldn’t see the money go to waste. They were very happy to get some free cash and would willingly return other people’s trolleys, even if it meant a short walk back to the supermarket racks.
Then the supermarkets introduced plastic tokens, to replace the real money, and the entire system started to fall apart.
And they gave the tokens away.
Now there was absolutely no incentive to return your trolley. Which is surprising, from the supermarket’s perspective, as a trolley can cost anywhere from $300, for a basic model, to $600 for a large child enabled one.
Some local councils put the onus of retrieving abandoned trolleys back onto the supermarkets. But this is just a bandaid and doesn’t take into account the inherent laziness of many people.
Apparently Coles are currently trialing the use of a QR code on their trolleys.
Firstly you have to download the app, then sign up to a Coles account. Once that is done you then have to scan the trolley and purchase a refundable digital token worth $2.
Once you have returned the trolley and rescanned the code again your money will be refunded.
So paying for a trolley has come full circle.
However this also has its downside.
With more and more personal data being compromised, just look at the Lattitude Financial debacle, people are unwilling to sign up to yet another scheme.
Then there’s the fact that we still have a large group of ‘Boomers’ who just don’t get the digital age. They still visit a bank, carry cash and post letters to their friends.
They are being left out of so much and now the simple task of getting a trolley might yet be another example of contemporary life just abandoning them.
Why the supermarkets don’t just return to the old system of ‘cash for a trolley’ is beyond me.
Whatever happened to original architecture?
Wednesday, April 26th, 2023
In domestic architecture the ‘Hampton Style’ is popping up all over Australia, even in Hampton, here in Melbourne.
But it’s not from here.
The current iteration comes from The Hamptons, on the East Coast of Long Island in New York.
Even this style was influenced by Colonial India.
The Indian Bungalow, known as a ‘Bangla’ originated in Bengal between the 1760s and 1850s and was developed to house British colonial officials.
This style was first introduced into Australia in the 1840s and became known as the ‘Queenslander’.
In the past, the United States had Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) and Australia had Robin Boyd (1919-1971). However in the last 50 years, no one seems to have stepped up to leave their mark on domestic architecture.
I have always bitched about the lack of originality, especially in the US.
However now we seem to have adopted their boring approach of just copying the past.
Breakdown 2022.
Saturday, January 28th, 2023
2022 was a year of breakdowns, here they are in order of their demise.
While we were at Sorrento I decided to clean the lenses of my sunglasses.
I was in the front seat of the Subaru at the time and as I was cleaning one the of the lenses popped out of the frame and vanished under the front seat.
I tried to retrieve it but the more I searched the further I pushed the lens beneath the seat.
I even asked the Subaru dealer if they could search for it when I next took it in for a service.
They say they looked but couldn’t find it, however I don’t believe they did and just put it into the ‘Too hard’ basket.
In the end I had to get two replacement lenses, as I was told that there would be an obvious colour difference if I only got one.
Just before we left to go on our trip to Europe, the heater in the Sandringham dishwasher stopped working.
We had no time to replace it and just had to put up with dishes that were washed but never dry.
This was in May and we didn’t get to replace it until October, when we returned.
We had to wait for over a week for it to be installed, with three attempts before they got it right.
Firstly, when the new machine arrived, it was found to be damaged and had to be returned to the warehouse.
Then, when the replacement arrived it was only accompanied by one guy. We needed two, as it had to be moved up two fights of stairs.
Two guys came with the first machine, why there was only one on the second delivery is a mystery.
Finally they sent out a technician and this time he was accompanied by a big burley guy who could have lifted the machine up the stairs on his own.
While we were in Europe we heard, via the people who were staying in our apartment, that the reverse cycle air conditioner had stopped working.
It wasn’t a small job as the main unit, that sits on the roof, needed to be replaced as did all the wall units.
From all accounts it was a bitterly cold winter in Melbourne, so it needed to be fixed quickly.
Fortunately Geoff, our tenant, works in the aircon business and through his contacts was able to get a new machine installed quickly and all at a very good price
While we were travelling with Ev, Steph and Aida in Portugal, Thea became ill.
She lacked energy and struggled to do some of the usual, touristy things. By the time we reached Granada in Spain, for Brianna’s Birthday, she was barely able to climb up a short flight of stairs.
Once we got to Barcelona, the last stop before flying to Rome for the son of a friend’s wedding, we decided that she should see a doctor.
The hotel was great and got us an English speaking doctor within a few hours.
After the doctor’s visit Thea was immediately sent to hospital and there diagnosed with Severe Anaemia. After four days of tests and blood transfusions she was discharged. But not before we had to pay a hefty fee for the hospital’s services.
As a result of this we missed the wedding, which had been originally planned for 2020, postponed to 2021and finally arranged for 2022.
There were associated expenses, that followed Thea’s hospital visit and this all mounted up to quite a lot.
Once we returned home we were then faced with the task of getting the travel insurance company to cough up.
They eventually did, which was a relief.
On our trip though England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales my small Sony RX 100 camera decided to stop working in Northern Ireland. It was a lost cause as I couldn’t take a shot or even get the camera to shut down.
Fortunately the memory card was still readable and I could download the shots that had already been taken.
I was then forced to use my full size Olympus camera with the associated three lenses. Even though it is a relatively small camera, the entire package weighs a bit and I had a sore back for a few days.
Not long after we returned home and settled back into our apartment the washing machine gave up the ghost.
We had to wait two weeks because Miele wouldn’t allow their installer to put our old Bosch dryer, which was still ok, onto their new machine.
Basically they wanted us to buy a new dryer.
We went back to where we purchased the machine and got their installers to do the job.
The actual installation was a nightmare, as the installers weren’t permitted to do anything mechanical, apart form connect the new machine.
They wouldn’t remove the dryer, from on top of the old washing machine, as this would require removing two screws. In the end I unscrewed the dryer and showed them that it was now free from the old washer.
They reluctantly removed the dryer, installed the new machine and put the old dryer back.
Even then there were still issues.
Once they wheeled the old machine down to the garage and started to load it onto their truck they discovered that it still had water in the drum.
They then refused to take it away and suggested that I would need to get the council to remove it.
I then pointed out to them that the machine was standing right in front of a drain, in the garage floor and all they had to do was open the washer’s door and tip the water out.
Some sense prevailed and they finally took it away.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Once we looked at the installation of the new machine we realised that it had been connected to the hot water tap, not the cold, as it should be.
We had to then get them back again.
I try and do the right thing and back-up my computer on a weekly basis.
I use two drives, just to be sure, which is fortunate as the newest drive, a Western Digital, which was still under warranty, stopped working.
We then had fun getting the money back form Office Works. They wanted the old drive returned, which I wasn’t willing to do, until I had removed all the back-up files.
Not that easy when I couldn’t even see the drive on my Mac.
Fortunately Thea managed briefly to see it on her PC and wiped the disk clean.
Then the Subaru had a flat tyre which couldn’t be repaired and had to be replaced.
And finally, just to end the year, Thea picked up her second dose of Covid and that was after she had already had five vaccinations.
Apart from losing confidence in things mechanical, I have also lost faith in the people who install them.
This has certainly been a year of ups and downs.
The (break)downs are listed above but the ups were most certainly the trip to Europe and catching up with Hayden, Andrea and Brianna in Berlin. As well as the wonderful two weeks we spent with Ev, Steph and Aida in Portugal and then Briana’s birthday celebrations in Granada.
It was very special to see the two cousins Brianna, aged 3 and Aida, 18 months, meet and start a friendship.
There was also all the other travelling we did to Switzerland to see Denis and then the month and a half driving around England, Scotland Ireland (North and South) and Wales.
These adventures will be the subject of further blogs this year – that’s when I actually get around to doing something about them and assuming that nothing breaks down.
A total disaster.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2022
Total, the French multinational petroleum company, has decided to move into the area of sustainable power and rebranded itself as TotalEnergies.
This move to green energy is laudable, however the newly developed name and logo is to my mind, a fiasco.
It’s too complex, too long and not memorable, or even aesthetically pleasing.
The company website goes to great lengths to rationalise the new design. Which is in itself is an indication that it’s not self expiatory.
‘Total’ as a word means ‘complete’ and ‘absolute.’ So why not stay with a perfectly simple name and let the design and the accompanying PR do the work.
After all isn’t a picture worth a thousand words.
This whole project has been over thought and I can see the client’s ‘guiding hand’ being a major factor in this disaster.
A developer’s dream.
Tuesday, April 19th, 2022
The Burnham Beeches Mansion sits within the ‘Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens’ in Sherbrooke.
It was originally built for the sales magnate Alfred Nicholas, the founder of the Nicolas Aspro company, in the late 1920s and 1930s.
It now sits idle and in disrepair, much like the gardens.
It was built in the Art Deco Streamline Modern style and designed by architect Harry Norris.
Norris was also the architect of the Coles Bourke Street store (1930), which he designed for G J Coles. This was after he was sent to Europe and North America, by Coles, to study the latest trends in chain-store design and construction.
Harry Norris was a neighbour of Alfred Nicholas and the two became friends.
The brief to Norris from Nicholas was to build a house with: “Fresh air, sunshine and an outlook of command, yet under control”
The design is said to be reminiscent of an ocean liner. There is a deco zig-zag design on the wrought-iron balcony balustrades and Australian motives of koalas and possums, in moulded relief, on the reinforced concrete walls.
After the death of Nicolas in 1937, his widow Isabel and their two children lived there until the outbreak of war in 1939. It was then loaned out and became a children’s hospital.
Between 1948 and 1950 it was redecorated and then in the 1950s and 1960s two additional wings were added.
From 1955 it housed the Nicolas Institute research centre until the gardens were donated to the Shire of Sherbrooke in 1965 and named the Nicholas Memorial Gardens.
The house was eventually sold in 1981 and became a small hotel for about ten years.
Since then there have been a number of attempts to redevelop the property but unfortunately nothing has come of them.
Burnham Beeches is a wonderful example of the Art-Deco style and must be preserved. All it needs is the right developer, who has cash, taste and sense of history.
Hierarchy.
Sunday, October 31st, 2021
I have been trained in typography and that can sometimes lead to a lot of frustrations.
Badly kerned type (the space between letters) is one of my pet gripes, as is over leading (the space between lines of type) and an incessant use of capital letters in headlines.
Just look at any American newspaper and you’ll get my drift regarding the last complaint.
There are many more that annoy me but these are a hinderance to legibility and therefore communication, and that pisses me off.
All this training has its downfalls.
I am so used to reading a page, according to the rule of hierarchy. And when it’s not applied properly I misread things.
Hierarchy is the order in which elements are placed on a page. It’s another technique typographers and designers use to aid comprehension.
When pages of type are designed by people who have English as a second language it becomes even more frustrating for me.
By not fully understanding the language, the designers place the elements in the wrong order and that disrupts my comprehension.
I spent five minutes looking for a particular item on a menu, until I discovered it was there right under my nose.
This isn’t their fault, it’s mine.
The problem is that it doesn’t follow my rules and I was blind to it being done another way.
It’s time to throw the rule book out and start to see things for what they are, not what I expect them to be.
Look where Donald is now.
Tuesday, June 17th, 2025We have been travelling again.
This time is was a return trip to Granada to meet our newest granddaughter.
On one of our trips into the centre we visited the Duck Shop.
And look what we found.
These shops are all over Spain, selling a huge variety of rubber duck bath toys, many have a contemporary theme.
Apart from Granada, you can also find stores in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Segovia and San Sebastián.
We have often shopped here or in the Barcelona store to take gifts home.
I certainly won’t be taking this Fascist Floaty back to Australia.
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