Lord Downer of Mayo has his house on the market, whatever could that mean? The property can be viewed here, and some pictures are below.

At a time when the Sydney Morning Herald is cutting back on its reviews, strange that it should run not one but THREE reviews of Big Day Out.

The Australian Graduate School of Management recently amalgamated with the Faculty of Business at the University of NSW to become the School of Business. What is probably not known to those outside the university is that the specialised information facility, the Frank Lowy Library, also ceased to exist. This dedicated information resource, set up to take care of the needs of both Faculty and students at the AGSM, has been relegated to part of a floor of the main library at UNSW — people are rather unimpressed since the main Library itself is running out of room. The amalgamation of the records of the collections is not complete, and neither are the student records, with the consequence that not only is the AGSM collection impossible to access, and this by MBA students who probably opted to do an MBA there because this Library was available to them, but even if it was, they couldn’t borrow!! Most of the suppliers to the Frank Lowy Library have not been informed that their services are no longer required, and even the Bloomberg terminals are still rigged up there with no-one to use them. Bloomberg sets up its own dedicated lines and supplies its own terminals at enormous cost. The only alternative our best and finest business minds have, with faculty resigning in droves, is to try somewhere else – Melbourne perhaps – since this amalgamation has not been thought through properly and has become a complete shambles.

What’s happened to Caroline Overington of the Oz? No stories have been published under her name since 22 November, 2007. Has she been fired?

Last night Canberra Terminal Airspace was closed by way of a NOTICE TO AIRMEN or NOTAM; this was due to staff shortages on the “CENTRAL HIGH ROSTER” from Melbourne Centre; this includes enroute controllers and terminal controllers. The one, terminal rated controller for the afternoon shift was at work from 1400 until 2300 (normal closing time for Canberra). The morning shift extended their shift from 0700 until 1700 (10 hour maximum shift length) to “provide a break”. But they too were solo from 1200-1400. The above mentioned NOTAM was published around 1400, the airspace was shut for 30 minutes from 1900-1930. A Virgin aircraft with destination Canberra departed without receiving the NOTAM; they did not carry sufficient fuel to hold; so the poor terminal controller was “directed” to keep the airspace open until 1912 when the Virgin aircraft landed. This then enabled the controller to enjoy his 18 minutes “rest and comfort break” for the 6 hours of solo operations, from 1700-2300. This is safety Airservices Style, it’s beyond a joke. To add insult to injury, the closure was against the published contingency plans, which clearly state (in paragraph 5.4) that Temporary Restricted Airspace shall not be used for contingency procedures. Airservices claim “all the time” that they have a robust safety management system “SMS” but they routinely ignore it. On the run plans, for god only knows what reasons, presumably to hide the evidence, are against the safety system ethos; I hear a safety assessment (SCARD) wasn’t even conducted. Not good enough. PS: Did you hear about Melbourne Tower closing on Friday night?

Did you hear about Launceston Tower closing early yesterday and opening late today due staff shortages? Also Melbourne Tower was closed on Friday and Monday nights for the same reason. Also heard rumours of Canberra Tower closed too.