The one we’ve got is supposed to be a waratah but it looks about as much like a waratah as a garbage bin and obviously the graphic artist who did it for the then premier Nathan Rees got things mixed up with the South African protea.

The cost of changing the logo would be huge but do we really want our floral emblem to look like a lettuce?

Our waratah is native to a small area on the central coast and grows wild in hilly areas near Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong and in the Blue Mountains.

In 1793 the English botanist Sir James Smith wrote in a publication: “The most magnificent plant which the prolific soil of New Holland affords is, by common consent of Europeans and natives, the waratah.”

And here’s our government logo looking like Seth Efrica’s protea.

 Lots of community groups use the waratah in their insignia. It was on the three shilling stamp issued in 1959 and again on the 30 cent stamp in July 1968.

And the artist who designed the stamps made the waratah look like a waratah.

Not like the protea we’ve got now.

Probably many people know our Lone Pine Avenue, originally known as Cemetery Lane, has a special link to the Anzacs and their famous assault in the Gallipoli campaign in the Battle of Lone Pine.

The attack launched by the 1st Brigade AIF in the late afternoon of August 6, 1915 pitched Australian forces against formidable entrenched Turkish positions, sections of which were securely roofed with pine logs.

In places the Aussies had to break through the logs to engage the defenders in hand-to-hand combat.

There were 7000 Turkish casualties and 3000 Australian, with seven Aussies being awarded Victoria Crosses for their bravery.

After the battle at least two pine cones were taken from the branches and brought home by Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith, who gave one to his mother in Inverell and she propagated the seeds 13 years later.

Two seedlings were raised and one was planted by the Duke of Gloucester at the Canberra War Memorial in October 1934 and the other was given to Inverell.

Our pine tree at the Bathurst Road and Lone Pine Avenue intersection is a third generation and was donated by the Orange branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia.

It was originally planted in Robertson Park but moved in 1939 to its present location to form part of a Memory Avenue.

Friday is Anzac Day and we should all do our bit by going to the march and then the service in Robertson Park to show our servicemen and women we haven’t forgotten.   

 A few years back Orange City Council took an unusual pacifist stand and put up signs on the entrances to Orange declaring us a “Nuclear Free City.”

That, of course, was despite the fact Orange Base Hospital had a nuclear medicine unit.

The then alderman Borrie Gartrell, who proposed the signs, said it was meant to be a symbolic move .

So can we now expect the council to put up signs declaring us a coal seam gas mining-free city?

The fact there’s no coal anywhere near us or that the state government has the say in issuing mining exploration licences anyway didn’t come into the council’s decision when it approved the ‘ban’ on coal seam gas operations.

Can we assume it’s another symbolic move?

A Saudi prince goes to Sydney to study.

A month later, he emails his father: “Sydney is a wonderful place but I’m embarrassed going to university in my gold Mercedes because all my lecturers travel by train.”

A few minutes later his father replies: “Stop embarrassing us. Go and buy yourself a train too.”

Those blue headlights on cars that now seem to be everywhere in Orange are a total pain in the neck.

You can’t see a thing when a car or one of our army of four-wheel-drive tanks fitted with these after-market searchlights blinds you for the rest of the night.

They fall roughly into three groups: high intensity discharge (HID), aftermarket HID conversions and halogen lamps that have had some types of aftermarket globes installed. Sometimes they’re called xenon or bi-xenon lamps.

But how the work experience people at the Roads and Maritime Services allows them we’ll never know.

The excessively glary lights dazzle other road users and create dangerous situations yet apparently they’re quite OK, otherwise the coppers would be out there handing out tickets left right and centre to Orange drivers who seem to love them.

And why is it legal now to use high beam in town?

Here's a useless tip for all you cooks.

A normal lemon contains about three tablespoons of juice but to get the most from it roll it on your kitchen bench, applying light pressure to burst the tiny juice-filled cells.

Or else give it 20 seconds in a microwave.

Then cut it lengthways rather than across and you’ll get about three times more juice.

Eat your heart out Jamie Oliver.