Dryad Musings » News Topics

Dee Why Armed Robbery

Alex — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:41:02 +0000

This was yesterday’s new headlines in the local Manly Daily yesterday after the terrible event on Monday. It seems that the Northern Beaches is fast becoming as unsafe a place to live as the rest of the world.

Dee Why is very local to us and we have a fair few friends living there so we were all a bit shocked to hear the news. Fortunately no innocent parties lost their lives.

The armed robber was shot dead by a guard when he tried to rob an armoured van outside Dee Why RSL. He has not yet been identified. There was one innocent bystander injured by a shot in the foot but luckily no one else was injured.

For the full story go here.

Whatever Happened to Jennifer?

Alex — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:01:39 +0000

All has gone quiet after the last message from Dom on the 1 Oct. However, my friend John kindly pointed out this classified ad which shows the following pictures demonstrating the first set of messages:

I hope no one minds me reproducing them here but I imagine eventually the original ad will be removed and it’s always nice to have pictures to illustrate a story. I have been a little lax with pictures lately.

John has obviously been doing a little bit of research and also pointed out that Sydney considered this story newsworthy as it appeared at www.news.com.au here. It doesn’t look as if we are any further to the truth but reading the comments, many people think it was an advertising scam. Nobody mentions the third day’s message and it doesn’t look as if we are any further to the truth.

So I guess here endeth the story of Jennifer…

Swine Flu Fever

Alex — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:31:23 +0000

While Mat and I were in the UK last month the top topic on the news was Swine Flu, with outbreaks popping up all over the place. Though no one in the UK had died from it people were in varying states of panic, mostly due to, in my opinion, over reactive media and their love for blowing things out of proportion for the sake of a good story.

However, on our reintry to Australia, apart from having to hand in a medical declaration at passport control and have an infra red scan of our body temperatures as we left the plane exit, everything was relatively quiet.
I did receive a little bit of ribbing from our flat mates and work colleagues as my allergy to tree pollen was in full swing so I was fairly snotty and sneezy.

Since weâ€™ve been back though, media attention has been growing with the first confirmed case announced last week. Yesterday morning, as I was listening to Merrick, Rosso and Kate Richie on Nova 96.9, they declared that within the next year every Australian will know of someone that has contracted or will themselves contract Swine Flu; apparently 1 in 5 will get it!

Today the news advised that there are 33 confirmed cases of Swine Flu in New South Wales and 147 in Australia.

Considering the size of Australia this doesnâ€™t seem a lot to me and as yet, again, no one has died from it. In fact as far as I know the only deaths have occurred in Mexico where the thing originated and in America.

Chris and Irina – I would be very interested to know the state of Swine Flu in Kazakhstan – is it in the news yet and are there any confirmed cases near you?