For many years our forever vigilant observer and often tongue-in-cheek commentator, Oxley the Explorer, has provided our print readers with interesting, entertaining and at times even quizzical snippets from his travels around the bush. While reception hasn’t been great in a lot of areas he visits, he has decided it’s time to get online and share his observations with The Land’s ever growing digital audience. Here are this week’s “Oxleys” for you to enjoy. Oxley would also love it if you could send anything you have seen or heard around the bush that might be worthy of his column to oxley@theland.com.au
Online banking reaches new heights in the Gulf
THE Gulf country has challenges we southerners can barely imagine, so, effective use of resources calls for ingenuity to get even the simplest task done. Internet connection is dodgy everywhere, however, a colleague of Oxley’s related how the chief financial officer of a large cattle enterprise has to take to the skies once a week to pay the wages. Around 2am is the best time to connect, so, up in the helicopter she goes in order to get connection and pay the employees.
Oh, what’s in a name?
IT ALWAYS makes Oxley chuckle when he meets people whose day job perfectly matches their name. His dealings with Stock and Land journalist Don Story always drew a wry smile, same too with the newspaper’s stud stock sales representative-come-editor Tyson Cattle. But Oxley raised an eyebrow recently when he met a lady by the name of Drinkwater who peddled communications for Coca Cola Amatil.
So who’s the competition?
IN A week when it’s been so hot that bats have been dropping dead from trees in their hundreds, the reality that such extreme heat in NSW is unprecedented is somewhat sobering. But, it was the focus on NSW laying claim to all of the hottest locations in the world that caught Oxley’s ear. It’s a great conversation starter, but one must remember the Northern Hemisphere is in the depths of winter.
