Sometimes even the best help won’t do.
Oddie saw this firsthand in the News office this week, as editor Tyler Maher got down on hands, knees and back to install new office equipment.
The News has been blessed with a bevy of new starters, enough where its slightly compressed newsroom needed a new desk installed.
And, in lieu of any lackeys who knew how to handle a drill and some screws, our dear leader had to do it himself.
Turns out, kids these days — at least the ones who want to be journalists — aren’t coming out of school with an intimate knowledge of how to build a table.
The legs were put on backwards and a screw was found 20 minutes later having fallen out of where it was allegedly drilled in to, but as Oddie’s old man used to say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Goulburn Valley
While driving from Kialla to Shepparton this week, Oddie drove past a big black bus parked on the side of the road.
There were no markings along the side of the bus, and appeared to be no-one in it.
Oddie was puzzled — who could commandeer such a bus?
Why would anyone take such a vehicle on a drive to Shepparton?
Why was it empty?
Oddie could think of only one idea — that the bus had been brought to Shepparton by Hotblack Desiato, frontman of fictional band Disaster Area from the radio play/book/movie Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.
It remains to be seen if Mr Desiato is still dead for tax reasons, but could this be his famous stunt ship reincarnated in Shepparton?
The ship was described as “very clean, very sleek, and completely black. It was so extremely dark that it was hard to make out the shape, and it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it”, which fits the description of the bus Oddie saw.
Well, it wasn’t clean. Or sleek. And he could tell how far from it he was. But maybe? You never know.