Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner reportedly has some big plans to “supercharge” the city for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He’s even floating a plan for putting restaurants on Brisbane River.
I do hope he remembers that the last time we tried that, it didn’t end well.
I refer, of course, to Drift, the floating restaurant parked in the river off Milton, which had its moment, then lay derelict for a long, long time — and then, true to its name, partially drifted off during the 2011 floods and crashed into the Gateway Bridge.
Efforts to rebuild and reopen it failed.
Cr Schrinner might also want to familiarise himself with the fate of “McBarge” — a floating McDonald’s restaurant built for Expo 86 in Vancouver, Canada. It did not operate very long after the carnival was over and spent decades as a derelict vessel that partially sank in the Fraser River in March this year.
On a more general note, we might ask whether Brisbane needs more new restaurant precincts. A correspondent notes that, with few exceptions, these places seem to open up, thrive for a short while, and then the party moves on elsewhere.
He writes: “In my time in Brisbane I’ve seen any number of precincts open, only to drag trade from existing precincts with a net gain of pretty much zero.”
Blast from the past
Triple M listeners from three decades ago will remember Dave Gibson from his Triple M Breakfast show with Rob Duckworth and Lisa-Jane Stockwell.
Gibson, whose characters included the befuddled Aunt Gracie (known to Sydney audiences as Nanna) and Gloria (who sounded a lot like Alan Jones), has enjoyed a long career as a voice actor. Arguably, his most famous voice is that of the Gobbledok for Smith’s Crisps.
Anyway, he’s been back in Brisbane over the past few days, catching up with old radio friends, and visiting the sites, including Jan Power’s Farmers Market, where he observed on social media that there was “no love at the mushroom stand despite you-know-who being safely behind bars”.
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Kyle or no Kyle?
There’s been another twist in the long-running saga of whether the Kyle and Jackie O Show is coming to Brisbane to replace the local Breakfast program on KIIS 973
ARN’s Lauren Joyce has told Media Week: “I’ve said before, until we can prove their success in Melbourne, we won’t be taking them into Brisbane. That sentiment continues.”
Now those who care about all this are scratching their heads about the nature of the much-vaunted big announcement to be made at ARN’s upfront presentation next month
P.S.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw a post on social media from a shock jock complaining about the “decline of free speech in Australia”. This is a man with megaphone complaining about not being able to say the things he is actually saying on the airwaves for anybody who chooses to listen.
Perhaps he, or his bosses, should take note of how few people are choosing to listen to what he has to say and consider whether he’s worth listening to.
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz used to work as a producer at 4BC.