SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN: These signs in all council's parks and reserves aren't winning too many friends. There's no model planes, no horses, no golf, no shooting, no dogs and no camping. And there's seven general warnings of things you should look out for including uneven ground and falling branches and trees. Visitors to Orange could well ask “what can you do” in our parks.
AT a rough guess it's a bad dose of the flu complicated by hay fever and could well be a touch of potato blight.
Certainly the recommended treatment included throat sprays, cough mixture, tablets, cough lollies, VapoRub, lavish quantities of cold Coke and boxes and boxes of tissues.
It was all very lowering.
Speaking brought on fits of coughing and spluttering so it became a matter of being only able to listen when people wanted to talk and there was no chance of capping someone's story or going one better.
But driving improved out of sight. Rather than yelling at some idiot who changed lanes and cut you off in a roundabout, they instead copped a couple of fingers and it was amazing what that achieved.
But enough is enough.
More than fed up with coughing, sneezing, sniffling, wheezing and generally panting around the place like a steam train while nothing improved, it was open warfare.
After going through the medicine cabinet without success, it was time for the piece-de-resistance, a cure-all guaranteed to fix everything from snake bite to a broken leg.
For this concoction you need a big mug. Half fill it with neat scotch, top off with milk, pour into a saucepan and warm it on the stove.
Add a great blob of butter, three spoons full of sugar and a sprinkling of nutmeg on the top.
Mine is sitting there steaming, hissing and ticking away like a time bomb and without even touching it you can feel it's going to work.
All this may seem at variance with the expert medical advice doctors can give but at least it should stop the coughing.
And it's perfectly painless.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
Now that Orange people in their unlikely wisdom have voted for a popularly elected mayor, it opens up the race for all sorts of candidates.
There's your friendly plumber who has always given you good prompt service when you've needed him to fix a dripping tap. And he can tell a few good jokes.
And what about your hairdresser? She's a fountain of knowledge when it comes to talking about everything and everyone while you're having a cut or a colour put in your hair. That's good qualities for a mayor.
Of course highway patrol police are out because they win few friends handing out blueys to erring drivers.
But, remember the time your car broke down in the rain and a friendly taxi driver stopped to help you get it going? Nice bloke, he was. He'd make a good mayor, wouldn't he?
Your kid's soccer trainer is another option. He gets on well with everybody, is always smiling and has won a couple of premierships to boot.
So it's endless.
If candidates for the prestigious job have the necessary qualifications of being able to kiss a few babies, open a couple of flower shows and shout a few beers at the pub now and then, what more could you ask for?
Well done, Orange people.
Hell of a ride
A highway patrol officer pulls over a nun and tells her she's driving too slowly and could she go faster.
The nun says: "Oh, I saw the sign with the 32 and assumed the speed limit was 32 km/h."
The officer: "No ma'am, the highway number is 32. The speed limit is 80."
Then the police officer looks in the back seat and sees two other nuns shaking like leaves.
"Excuse me, Sister," he says. "But is anything wrong with your two colleagues?"
"Oh, probably because we've just come off state road 157."
Ring the till
You might have noticed another new word has popped up on the horizon. Cha-ching.
If you happen to be shopping in Big W, it's on signs everywhere and is also broadcast through the store's PA system: “Cha-Ching.”
What does it all mean? Who knows?
The word apparently comes from the sound a cash register makes when its drawer is closed after money has been put inside. Cha-ching.
It can be used in conversation to indicate someone has made a healthy profit from selling something: "I got $80 for an old radio. Cha-ching."
Cha-Ching is also the title of a song by Canadian pop rock group Hedley.
It came out in August 2009 as the lead single from the band's third studio album and ended up reaching the Canadian top 10, peaking at number six.
Its chorus goes like this:
“We take off all your clothes, we strike a Playboy pose
If you wanna go far, if you wanna be a star
Then you gotta bring it
Cha-ching.'
It's all very mind-boggling but there's also a smart phone money manager application called Cha-Ching and it's designed to make things much easier for you to part with more dollars in stores.
