Prince Philip Died from drinking Queensland Beer
We’re being flooded with obituaries of all sorts about the recently-demised prince. To be honest, as a republican-sympathising publication, TT couldn’t give a xxxx for news of the royal family. But some of the reports blasted out immediately after his death were sent with great haste, if the following is anything to go by.
Let that be a lesson to you about the dangers of XXXX. Forget toxic Queensland beer – look what it’s done to Katter, Canavan and co., we rest our case – and stick to good Tasmanian beer like Cascade or Boags or MooBrew or Fox Friday or Hobart Brewing Company or too many to mention really!
The Gambling lobby 1
We occasionally get requests to put ‘sponsored posts’ on Tasmanian Times. Recently we had this approach:
Hey, I hope you’re the right person for this! đ
I really appreciate that you talk about gambling addiction, here:Â https://tasmaniantimes.com/
Recently, I came across a useful guide for people with gambling addiction problems (like many people!), here:Â https://xxxxxxx.com/
I read a lot of similar guides before, but this one is quite thorough and opened my eyes to risks I never even previously considered (!).
Maybe this could help your other readers, as well, if you add it as an additional resource to your page?
Their ‘resource’ (link above is not real, but we did have a look) is fair enough, and is possibly a legal requirement of the country in which they operate. But there are two things seriously wrong with this.
The first is that that it’s hosted on the same site as the lottery flogger. Yep, while you’re reading about problem gambling you’re right under the top menu that has ‘Best Lottery Sites’ and ‘Tools’ (so-called strategies) and links to lottery-playing sites and syndicates.
The second is that even while you’re reading about gambling addiction a pop-up advises you when the next lottery is about to go off. Get in quick!
Suffice to say that these exploitative bastards are not interested in problem gambling at all, but simply trying to plant their noxious seed on Tasmanian Times.
Anyway we decided to ask Rebecca who she was working for. She said:
Thanks for your reply but I am just a visitor of your website. I just wanted to point out that it would be nice if you added that link to your website since it isn’t there right now. đ It would give a good value to the visitors/readers of your website. Let me know if you decide to use/mention the link on your website since that would mean that you understand my point of view as a visitor of your website.
So Rebecca Hall of privacybrands.com, you aren’t a paid flog for gambling sites trying to slip backlinks into wee corners of the internet? We doubted it. “Lol, stop lying,” we replied.
Thanks for your reply. What are your conditions for link insertion in one of your old posts?
Kind regards, Rebecca
Not happening.
The faceless men
We were devastated that Liberal candidate for Franklin Dean Ewington only lasted three days of the campaign before pulling his candidacy, due to being a bit of a contrarian ninnywuss on coronavirus. His likeness would have been a godsend to cartoonists for what is going to be a very long month.
We couldn’t help but notice the similarity between Mean Dean and the ThumbThumbs henchmen of 1990’s movie Spy Kids. Perhaps they were the prototypic faceless men of the Australian Labor Party? Terrifying.
RIP Van, you were weird and pointless but we loved you
With Hobart’s in-formation NBL team eventually plumping for the name Jackjumpers, and an accompanying mascot, there were consequences. No we don’t mean having to spend the next few years with the overhype of the world’s most boring professional sport, where people with growth abnormalities wearing badly-designed shorts take polite turns to score points until someone doesn’t and therefore loses. Although there’s that.
No, we mean the sad demise of the mascot-that-never-was. Say goodbye to the standard bearer of the unselected Tridents, Van the Tasmanian Sea Devil Dog. So many questions: how does he breathe under water? Is there undersea roadkill for him to eat? Has he been de-clawed so as not to puncture the basketball? Does salt water prevent facial tumour disease from developing? This is such a strange mashup of everything that it’s kind of loveable.
Need a name for your new post-punk band? Van the Tasmanian Sea Devil Dog. You’re welcome.
The Cuba of the Southern Hemisphere
Is there any more shambolic ‘respectable’ publication than The Spectator? Under the leadership of ranty Rowan Dean, a deranged wallywog who makes random text generators look like Encyclopedia Britannica, you’d be hard-pressed to say no.
For no reason at all that we can think of, Tasmania was in their sights this week. Allegedly, we are the Cuba of the southern hemisphere.
What set them off appears to be the ALP in-fighting, fairly well covered by now across the press.
Hence The Spec going culture war, again:
âOver the past couple of days, reactionary elements within the Tasmanian branch of the ALP have launched extraordinary attacks against progressive people in the party,â state party president Ben McDonald declared when quitting as a candidate yesterday, accusing this revanchist cabal of âan attempt to further their personal political agendas and undermine the Labor Partyâ.
âReactionary elementsâ? âProgressive peopleâ Personal agendas undermining the glorious Party? It all sounds positively Soviet.
Do we have a Cuba off the coast?
Umm, ‘revanchist cabal’ were their words, so it’s almost like they are trying to be the story they want.
It’s all a bit sad, innit?. I supposed with all the elegant baroque architecture one could easily mistake Clarendon Vale for Havana. But could we please have a bit more bolero?
The Gambling Lobby 2
Hobart man ‘playing it cool’ after discovering life-changing TattsLotto win at work enthused the headline.
We sometime get these from lotto and lottery companies, more or less every time there is a major winner who is a Tasmanian. They inevitably contain the earth-shattering news that someone who just jagged a large amount of money was a bit excited.
Speaking with an official from The Lott this morning, the overjoyed winner admitted he was still struggling to comprehend the news of his win.
âI was in shock when I first saw Iâd won!â he laughed. âNormally, I receive an email saying how much I have won, but this time the email said they couldnât reveal how much the prize was worth, so I knew something was up. It was very strange! I felt weird! I scanned the ticket using The Lott app, and thatâs when I saw I won division one. I just couldnât believe it! My heart wouldnât stop racing. I was at work too, so I had to play it cool, but I was screaming on the inside.”
You know, last year TT asked The Lott how much money was won and lost on instant scratch tickets in Tasmania. The Gaming Authority releases information about poker machine spends, so we thought this information would be available to the public?
The reply came:
During FY20, there were 937,522 wins on Instant Scratch-Its tickets sold in Tasmania. These wins were worth $6,958,313.
During FY20, there were 29,156,157 wins on Instant Scratch-Its tickets sold across Australia (excluding WA as Instant Scratch-Its arenât sold there). These wins were worth $235,251,294.
Unfortunately, we donât release sales figures.
What do you think? Do you think we are entitled to know how much is lost by our community by this form of gambling? In fact all forms of gambling run by for-profit companies? Well, are we?
Hickeygram
Independent member for Clark Sue Hickey kindly gave TT a short interview at the Tasmanian Electoral Commission the other day. She was there, along with some other candidates and members of the public, to watch the drawing of lots for positions on the Clark ballot paper.
She left suddenly, before the event was finished, and we were able to ‘doorstop’ her on the way out for a few minutes.
After we published the interview, TT received an angry phone call from her assistant Duncan demanding that we replace the photo. When we asked if the Sue Hickey team had another photo from the event, they said no. We had two other photos, but both were unsuitable (1 face not really visible, 1 blurry and overexposed); we explained that her early departure meant we hadn’t had the chance to take many photos. Another assistant then came on the line (hello Sandra!) and whined some more, complained about ‘dead eyes’, and even offered to get Sue to do a mock up somewhere else in the same vest and they would send that in.
TT pointed out the photo was captioned as being at the event, showed Sue Hickey concentrating on the drawing of the names (she was), and it had not been retouched in any way apart from resizing. While it may not have been the photo they wanted, TT stands by it as an accurate reflection of her presence at the ballot ceremony.
Sue Hickey to her credit later called and apologised, saying ‘I’m not precious about it, don’t worry.’ Thank you.
Advice to all candidates: you don’t get to tell the media what photos to publish, and please make sure your staffers understand that.
Much Was Given by Ever Given
That ship stuck in the Suez Canal was a memer’s dream. Now that she is finally free and on way, let us pay tribute to the best via the Twitter thread linked below.
Toon by Chaz Hutton.
This is an TT occasional column calling out public relations spin, egregious stunts and media manipulation. The ânewsâ doesnât just magically come into being, it is created. We want to lift the lid on some of the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes. Tips are welcome! Send your information in to [email protected].
