STOP PRESS | Service seems to be lacking in a consumer-driven world

You didn't get out of the car. The attendant took your money, returned with the change and off you went.

Then in 1976 when petrol was 16.64 cents a litre oil companies introduced self-serve with the promise prices would drop and we'd all be better off.

Four years later in 1980 the price had doubled to 32.07 cents a litre and it's been going up ever since, hitting highs of 152 cents. Present prices in Orange are around 120 cents a litre and on the rise.

Yet the only attendant in sight stands behind the register to take your hard-earned cash and there's not the slightest hint of any service.

If you need to check tyre pressures you have to head off to another part of the driveway, usually in a far-flung corner that requires a road map to find.

So a trip to the petrol station is not only expensive but a pretty bleak experience.

Don't you reckon it's time they became service stations again.

It's interesting to note US states Oregon and New Jersey still have laws forcing petrol station attendants to provide a full driveway service to reduce injuries like slipping over or exposure to petrol fumes while they look for safety issues like worn tyres to tell drivers.

Because of Covid-19 Oregon is now allowing self-service in some all-night stations so they can reopen but attendants are still keeping an eye out from a safe distance.

Thousands of caper white butterflies have fluttered into the district on their migration in search of food, a phenomenon that's fooled entomologists.

The butterflies lay their eggs on caper bushes that only grow in western Queensland and northern NSW so it's a mystery why they fly away from these vital bushes that rarely grow here or farther south.

Their behaviour seems to defy nature's survival laws because insects just don't commit suicide.

Entomologists speculate the migration might be a genetic relic from hundreds of thousands of years ago when the climate might have allowed caper bushes to grow in southern Australia.

The butterflies are splattering cars on most roads out of Orange making a visit to the car wash a must.

Talking about insects the near-deafening high-pitched shrill of cicadas is also here after they've emerged from the ground after five year's incubation.

Bursting into song all over town they're the only insects that can produce such a unique and loud sound with some of the larger species like the green grocer belting out more than 120 decibels the same as a jet engine. No doubt kids are out to catch some black princes before the birds get them. That's if they're not stuck inside on an iPad.

Driving to the garage to get a pink slip, Fred says to his mate Bill: 'I'm turning left now, can you stick your head out the window and check whether the blinker's working?'

'Sure,' says Bill. 'Yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is...'

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