The bells! The bells! | Mali’s Trolley of Busyness | All the way with LGA
This week, not all are in thrall with the bells of Town Hall, the Premier and ex-Shoppies Union boss becomes a trolley boy (briefly), and a council body spends up on a marketing coup.
Not all are in thrall with the bells of Town Hall
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Last weekend there was an extra jingle throughout the city as bellringers from across Australia and New Zealand gathered for their annual Bellringing Festival.
The Adelaide Bellringers, a volunteer group who – you guessed it – ring Adelaide’s bells, hosted the festival for the first time in nine years.
Celebrations included a civic reception hosted by Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, which was shaping up to be a jolly good chime until she was schooled about the apparently dodgy quality of Town Hall’s bells.
“I should say there was some dissent about the quality of our bells, which I found quite shocking,” Lomax-Smith told Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The bellringers questioned whether Town Hall’s bells were badly balanced, needed grinding, reweighting or rehanging.
Lomax-Smith chose to see the best of the clanger.
“Apparently they have an unusual chime that some people find quite endearing so I’m not actually sure where we stand with the bells, but campanologists take it very seriously,” she said.
According to the Adelaide Bellringers website, the Town Hall bells have been on the receiving end of criticism since 1935, with a “scathing” report criticising the engineers who cast them.
In that report, they were called “discordant in tone and out of tune with each other”. The bells, not the councillors. Although…
Everyone wants a piece of Pete
Peter Malinauskas is a busy man.
The Premier, like his predecessors, has his hands pretty full with that whole “running the state” business (not to mention four kids at home).
But Malinauskas this week wanted to provide a physical demonstration of just how many demands there are on his time.
Speaking to an audience at the Hawke Centre on Wednesday night as he unveiled his political donations ban, Malinauskas said: “When you’re in elected office as an MP, a minister or a leader, you are inundated – inundated – with requests for your time.”
“People naturally want an opportunity to explain their problems, celebrate their successes, advocate solutions, generate interest in their ideas.
“They want to see leaders interested in their concerns, as they well should.”
At this point, Malinauskas abruptly exited stage right.
It was his first pause in a rousing speech extolling the virtues of liberal democracy and referencing none less than Winston Churchill, Felix Frankfurter, William Boothby and Catherine Helen Spence.
The abrupt halt in proceedings had InSider theorising the Premier was off for a quick sip of water à la US Senator Marco Rubio’s infamous 2013 State of the Union reply speech.
But we were surprised to see Malinauskas return to the stage pushing a trolley (once a Woolworths trolley boy, always a trolley boy) holding a sizeable pile of documents.
Premier Peter Malinauskas’ trolley excursion: a story in three parts. Photos: Hawke Centre livestream
“This pile here – which I think achieves the dramatic effect I’m looking for – this is meeting requests that have come to my office just for the month of May,” Malinauskas explained, adding that the pile didn’t include cabinet meetings, electorate office requests or meetings with government officials and MPs.
The new resting place is expected to boost the daily tours of the ship which run daily and also encompass a visit to the lesser known, Annie Watt – a smaller ship known as a trading ketch and the Nelcebee, the second-to-last ketch to operate in South Australia’s coastal trade – which are housed in a shed adjacent the designated home for the City of Adelaide.
