Idle gossip from newspaper land. Which Sunday tabloid’s socialite chief-of-staff has taken a liking to several of her journos following a failed dalliance with a senior staffer in the PM’s office?

The Coles culture wars (continued). Speak to staff at Coles and they will tell you that the there are two groups in the executive team: the Poms who talk about the incompetent Aussies, and the Aussies who talk about the rather rude Poms and the way that they talk down Aussie retailing. This rumour indicates that Woolworths and Bunnings must have serious problems developing, as many Coles staff have escaped the pretentious management at Coles to work in an egalitarian environment. If  it’s taken three years for them to realise that there is a problem in their HR ranks, it may indicate just how important they rank the people aspect of retailing? Or are they just looking for excuses for poor performance?

Christmas won’t come early. Following on from news about Sensis canning pay bonuses, there will be none at Suncorp either this year due to the continued poor performance of the bank and the weather (Melbourne storms, Perth storms and Queensland floods). Seems that management and the board are not 100% aligned on this one, but the board will prevail and long-suffering staff will suffer for another year.

Entsch: if the Vikings survived so can we. The climate change deniers are alive and well in Tony Abbott’s coalition. The LNP’s Leichhardt (re)candidate, Warren Entsch, who has contributed plenty to climate change with his frequent flying around the world business-class, has told Far North Queensland’s voters there is nothing to worry about — they can all just get used to it and adapt like the Vikings did. He writes on his website:

Greenland was settled by Vikings and by the 1100s there were more than 3,000 settlements. As the Little Ice Age advanced so the Greenland settlements were disbanded and the last was known to have perished about 1550AD, a century before the coldest of the Little Ice Age.

For 300 years Earth has been recovering from the Little Ice Age. Mountain glaciers have retreated and high mountain passes of the Alps have opened. Archaeologists have identified artefacts from various eras corresponding with warming and cooling, and retreat and advance of mountain glaciers.

The arguments of the IPCC rely on an unchanging temperature record prior to industrialisation (that is, no Greco Roman warm period, no cold of the Dark Ages, no Medieval Warm Period and no Little Ice Age) to support their storyline of anthropogenic global warming. They claim that the warming of the past 100 years is unprecedented and therefore must be due to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide.

The data from Greenland shows a different outcome.

How to beat a hiring freeze. Victoria’s Department of Primary Industries is continuing to flaunt parliamentary scrutiny of caps on executive numbers by appointing managers as “senior technical specialists” and “principal scientists” even though their role is strictly management.

Newspapers free-for-all (the never-ending saga) 1: On Saturday Fairfax employed a heap of Gen Ys to hand out copies of the Sydney Morning Herald after the Swans-Freo clash at the SCG. Papers came in a nice handy thick plastic bag. Then on Sunday, different game, different city, same tactic: News Limited employed heaps of Gen Ys to hand out copies of the Sunday Mail after the Crows-Lions game in Adelaide. The plastic bag would have come in handy as it was rather wet…

Newspapers free-for-all 2: Five Dock Leisure Centre (haunt of local kiddie gymnastics parents, squash players, and fitness fanatics) now gives out free Sydney Morning Herald newspapers.

Newspapers free-for-all 3: The Canberra Times on Saturday is free at Fyshwick markets.