Cab Driver Quick With The Answers

The Age

Wednesday May 10, 1995

Bob Millington

NOT all visitors from Tinsel Town regard this city as the last stop before Antarctica. Chris O'Brien, of the Sydney-based computer company CDM, jetted into Tullamarine on Tuesday and flew out again full of praise for Melbourne and its helpful people.

Mr O'Brien took a cab into the CBD, then jumped out bearing his briefcase and sales pitches but minus his mobile phone. He didn't notice his loss for half an hour. By that time, however, the cabbie was hard at work. He was taking calls.

After the second ring the driver was greeting clients with, ``Mr O'Brien's phone". He figured out where Mr O'Brien was stationed and diverted calls there. Finally, he drove back into the city, delivered up the mobile phone and declined a tip for his trouble.

Chris O'Brien can't be sure of the cabbie's name, but Ian Roberts rings a bell. Whatever, Mr O'Brien is mighty chuffed at the standard of service we offer here.

As well he might be.

THUMP! On to news desks all over town yesterday afternoon plopped a release from Channel Seven, the hereditary owners of moving images from AFL matches, boasting that, on Today Tonight, ``Essendon's Michael Long tells what really happened in the Anzac Day clash between the Bombers and the Crows".

Maybe the South Melbourne-based televiser has trouble distinguishing between clubs of the flying variety. Or maybe the Magpies' Allan McAlister has cannily flicked the blame over to the Adelaide ball- kickers.

CLASS! Today an exercise in applied arithmetic. And, yes, you may use your calculators. Let us take this advertisement for Galaxy, a so- called cable TV provider, and its movie channel Showtime. Now (and pay attention, that boy there) if Galaxy is offering, as it claims, the ``big names of Hollywood" on an ad-free service, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and it says it has more than 300 movies a year (all right, Simpkins, we won't quibble; make it for the purposes of the exercise 300 and forget the ``more than"), and assuming that films last an average of 90 minutes, how many times will each movie be shown in 12 months? (Throckmorton, cease from stealing crafty looks at Timkin's ink-stained calculations, thank you.) Time's up! Well, who has it? Nineteen showings, Crabapple? Well done, boy. You're not as daft as you look.

Very well, for homework tonight a 500-word essay on the theme, ``Cable TV is as necessary for Australia as white ants are for picket fences".

Feel free to take either side.

A WASHINGTON pressure group, Tax-Off, is asking why, during the past six months, the US Government has allocated $47,000 to discover if pregnant fleas can hop as far as non-pregnant ones; $37,000 to learn how many eyelashes the average human sheds each day; $21,743 to find out whether blonde or brunette prostitutes have more clients; and, perhaps most significant, $204,098 on a phone survey to establish whether phone surveys work.