Snippets from My Newspapers.

 Taken from an article by Mike O'Connor (I could type out the whole thing but it is quite long):

"If you are looking for a place in which to hide from our politics and politicians, a town in Norway called Kirkenes, sme400km north of the Arctic Circle, is as good a place as any in which to do it. 

Alas, you can't hide forever and, in any case, it was so cold that I feared I was in danger of losing one or more of my more treasured extremities.

So, holidays done, we retreated down the green, serene and incredibly beautiful coast of Norway and headed back to dear old Oz.

When the jet lag fog cleared, I discovered that the federal government had been spending our money wisely in our absence with the National Gallery paying $14m for a 13-tonne chunk of fabricated stainless steel that is said to represent a snake eating ts tail.

The Australian newspaper's art critic, Christopher Allen, described it as "an example of the incompetent management of our Natinal Gallery" and "an absurd sum to pay for a work of debatable value." "

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"There are a lot of ferries plying Norway's fjords. Fortunately for the Norwegians, none of their maritime engineers sought advice from the Tasmanian government which bought  two brand new Bass Strait ferries for $700m, but forgot to build terminals from which they could operate. Both are now unusable and will be for years. Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockcliff described this state of affairs as 'disappointing' "

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"When we left these sunburnt shores, federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers was blaming the war in Ukraine for the inflation that is driving cost-of-living increases. When we got home, he was blaming the Israeli-Hamas conflict. He was unable to explain how this conflict only managed to affect Australia and not the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand, where inflation and interest rates are falling. It seems that if only the Israelis would stop defending their homeland, everything down here in Oz would be hunky-dory."

(definitely tongue-in-cheek here)

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"They have a lot of hydro plants in Norway, more than800 at the last count, and they build roads through towering peaks and drive tunnels inder fjords. Ninety years after construction began, we still haven't finished the Bruce Highway in Queensland."

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From Martin Klavins, Crafers West:

"Roman all over.

For crying out loud, lend me your ears! Maybe Rome wasn't built in a day, but by the time they finish whatever work they're doing on the Sout Eastern Freeway, the Romans would have laid down a lazy few thousand miles of roads (and a couple of aqueducts for good measure) Hail caesar!"

Me: some truth, some exaggeration, but I got a laugh from reading these. I do think however, that when it comes to "getting things done" there's far too much red tape and other legal hoops that need jumping through and a fair bit of holding back because some union or other doesn't agree with some rule or other.