| Author | Message | ||
     David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 3607 Registered: 04-2003 |
Vladimir's perspective: "Some people pay super crazy prices for personalised number plates in Australia. And some of those prices do not make any sense at all. The Department of Public Fleecement must love this caper. I have a personalised plate - V16 I have had it advertised for quite sometime and have been offered recently over six times the amount I paid for it which I refused because I like the plate and I don't really need the money. Possibly and foolishly I will accept 175 times the price I paid for it and any owner of a V16 Cadillac, Marmon or Cizeta would consider this amount beer money or thereabouts. Then again that in itself could be a mistake because I could win the lotto (or appear in a habitable planet light years away instantly) and buy a V16 Cadillac but not have the plate. One personal plate I do like is the Queen's. You know the jolly old Crown. Looks supercool on the back of the Phantom. I intend to go one better. I figure red background with golden not yellow hammer and sickle bunged right in the middle. In Queensland ( which enjoys a monopoly on loony laws ) it's illegal to drive an unregistered car with an legal temporary permit whilst displaying any number plates. Nor can you move a left hand drive car with a legal temporary permit even though you can have a fully registered left hand drive car (after decades of left to right hand drive conversions and all the chronic vandalism that entailed)." . | ||
| Trevor Hodgekinson Experienced User Username: wm20 Post Number: 161 Registered: 11-2006 |
Kerry Packer owned quite a few vehicles. He was Australias richest man all of them had standard issue NSW number plates on them. One of the reasons why he continued to amass a fortune where as the ego merchants continually went bust taking investors money with them. One time he bitched at me for taking too long to turn up with proof images ( nothing went to print unless he had given it the tick ). I responded that after 3 it was impossible to park as the roads went to clearway and if he did not want his time wasted he could reopen the dock to delivery parking. His reply was "there are 4 loading positions on Elizabeth St and 10 more on Castlereagh St and you will never have money if you pay for what you can get for free. " | ||
| David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 3611 Registered: 04-2003 |
Trevor, Packer would have been more concerned using his loading docks to get copies of the afternoon Daily Mirror out on the street than the cost to you of being fined for illegal parking. As we know and given the fact all Sydney CBD loading zones are continuously occupied; your chances of finding a vacant space were virtually zero. . | ||
| Trevor Hodgekinson Experienced User Username: wm20 Post Number: 162 Registered: 11-2006 |
By that time Murdoch had the Mirror which was printed at Surry Hills Nothing was ever printed at the ACP head office. The Womens Day and funny enough the Weekly as well were both printed in Zetland by Magazine Printers a joint venture . Magazine moved to the old CIG site installing a Webb press that was way too big so it got sold to Federal Publishing when Stokes tried to be another packer. The city dock had space for about 40 cars and eventually he gave me a key. It was only active from 4 pm to 1 am . As for city loading zones they have become chronic and over 300 have gone due to the light rail. Despite the fact that Sydney CBD commercial office space is more expensive that Manhattan Island , apparently the mamgement companies were all going broke so they used the "terrorist" scare to shut down their loading spaces and the management of those was about the only reason for having on site building managers . The Council had to approve this which they did and to compensate for these now missing internal spaces they changed a lot of metered parking to loading . However despite their being a supposed gain in the number of spaces they forgot to account for the fact that if you are 2 blocks away then it will take you 10 times as long to make a delivery. Which is why you see most food delivery vehicled double parked directly in front of the shop they are delivering to. Way way back the council was going to set up warehouses on the perimeter and all deliveries were going to be made to them . The council would bulk them so there would be fewer delivery vehicles as each shop would only get one or two deliveries a day. They got the maths very wrong but they did buy up a lot of the space around Pyrmont & Ultimo which 30 years latter they quietly sold to housing developers. Not uncommon for a small coffee shop to be paying in excess of $ 2000 / week rent back in the 2000's . This put lie to the claim that penalty rates were forcing shops to close on the weekend , become unprofitable & close down. In reality there was not enough foot traffic to cover costs except at either junk food outlets or high end resturants . Getting way off the topic of personalized plates . When I was Regal Rolls all of the cars had REG number plates, as they could be bought for a once off $ 50 as a standard plate out of sequence. The number after the REG was the model year then S for Shadow so REG 75 S was the last lead car . This was good for me because I could easily identify my cars in photos where we had used some subbies or we were subbing for some one else but that is as close to personalized plates as we ever got. And what most do not know, the personaized pates division was sold off to private enterprise so the government gets diddly squat from the excessive fees charged for them . You will find the company with the license is closely affiliated with the current government who follows the mantra of the excessively wealty Privatise Profit - Socialize losses . This suits them well because they make the profits while avoiding taxes thus avoiding the losses. Not much has really changed since the day of tennant farmers & landlords. | ||
| David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 3617 Registered: 04-2003 |
Trevor, Where was the "Daily Telegraph" printed in the 1960's when it was owned by Frank Packer? As a teenager, I can remember walking past the Consolidated Press building on corner of Park and Elizabeth Streets and seeing delivery vans loaded with newspapers in the loading dock. I always assumed the Consolidated Press magazines were printed elsewhere as they were in colour on better quality paper and the newspaper printing presses of that time could not provide the quality required for the more expensive magazines. | ||
| Trevor Hodgekinson Experienced User Username: wm20 Post Number: 163 Registered: 11-2006 |
They had several presses in Alexanderia. In the 60's is a bit before my time. I did not get into transport till the 80's when all of the foundries closed down . However I have been to every floor in the 4 buildings that form ACP and there was no obvious signs of it being a news print shop, ceilings are way too low. However I could be very wrong because ACP also owned a brace of buildings in Bligh St , Hunter & O'Connel Sts where the company HQ used to be. The lower floors on these buildings would have accomodated news paper printing quite well. Probably because government was based down that way. The Bulletin was down the bottom of Hunter St & Macquarrie Media ( 2GB) was one building away from ACP in Bligh St That building is now a Chinese resturant and they use the Auditorium as their cellar. Apparently the space under the sloped floor is part of the down ramp to the basement |
