PROTECTING YOU

I write to you from victory towers this morning after reading that Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has successfully passed a bill in the House of Reps, protecting journalists who have to keep their sources secret.

It is now expected that the bill will likely pass in the Senate.  

Which newspaper did I turn to for such life-altering news? 

I can't tell you. Its a secret. 

What page did I find the article on? Call me back in fifteen minutes. (Note to self: turn voice mail on) 

My new best friend says I don't have to disclose any of that namby, pamby, info. What is his or her name? Can't tell you. Not because of Wilkie's bill but because I have a terrible time remembering names.
   
Consuming a healthy hot breakfast that did involve the assistance of up to three different sauces - which I won't reveal - I was taken ill due to a problem of the unknown kind and had to go for a walk.

Where did I walk to on my walk to recovery? 

I tried to find the name of the damn place but some pot smoking goose went out on an all-night high and sprayed out the name of the area right below the "Welcome to" sign. 

Which in a way I guess is a good thing because that means the source of my breakfast cannot be identified and therefore can't get any free advertising...the cheap bastards! 

The story was 3 paragraphs long but the journalist who wrote it appears to be very shy as a byline was not included.  
  
Somebody at the secret paper needs to tell their editor that protecting sources does not include the name of the journalist even if the pen-pusher is the reader's source of information.

Because if reader's are allowed to be protected from poor sources of information and entertainment, well I guess the curtain is going to come down on a lot of people who should be recycling coke cans and not their careers.  

Mine is not included, of course.  

If we really are serious about protecting our sources why is Matt from Pyrmont being credited in something confidential with spotting Ronan and his family at a place called flying fish?

I didn't mention the above celebrity's full-name because I wanted to observe Ronan Keatings privacy ..ooops. 

Sorry, I'm a columnist and these new laws are a bit like riding a bike with training wheels on a cycleway built by Clover Moore. I need some time to get used this new world of protectionism. 

Matt , who spotted Ronan, obviously is very protective of his privacy, therefore he should have been given a red alert protective pseudonym such as Dick Fitzwell or Juan Kerr. 

The last thing we need is a celebrity tracking down a celebrity obsessed fan and revealing their weekend habits. May God help us if fairness ever makes its way into the mangled mess that is journalism. 

Somebody needs to protect us from ourselves and Andrew Wilkie, you are the man for this job. 

I salute you.

Image credits:

1. Newpaper - Wikimedia Commons.
2. Ronan Keating - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vagueonthehow/ (Wikipedia)

PLEASE PASS THE COOKIES

Sunday afternoons are a strange phenomena. 

It's a time for spiritual solitude from the excessive consumption of cosmopolitan capitalism.

Disrobing to the displeasure of most of the local wildlife, my jolly neighbour and former advertising sales guru at radio 2UPU, Nigel Knobb, heads into an oceanic cocktail of whipped-cream for a few strokes around the heads of Crown Jewel Point.. 

This inevitably results in nearby illegal Japanese trawlers mistaking Nigel for a beached whale. 

Adjusting the speed (not speedos) and technique of his strokes, my fearless pal's flexible freestyle made returning to shore a sure thing. 
  
Celebrating the fact that his rump survived another round of near-misses with a single-flue head harpoon, he and his sheila do the Big Brother bum dance near a tribe of snobs in the hope that they'll feature in the next day's edition of Celebrity Confidential.

Some people just can't let go of their high-profiles and sadly, Nigel, is a member of that collective.  

So far, no luck. It seems the waiting list to get favourable mention in the tabloids is longer than that of any metropolitan public hospital. 

But I digress. "Carry on, Columbus!", you scream.

Nigel and I then head off for another ritual feast at our local Chinese restaurant, U Bi Dim, to heap more praise on the fighting human spirit that has preserved able souls such as he to continue surviving the battle of the high seas. 

As an hour of leisurely laughs combined with honey-soy chicken, a bottle of french plonk and the occassional bout of feortan draws to a close, my waiter insists I open my  complimentary fortune cookie.

Waiter: Mr Cartonne, it bad luck not to read your fortune
Me: But I'm already fortunate enough. I've had a long-career writing about Nigels.  
Waiter: But u deserve more luck, you very good customer.
Me: Oh, I get it. This is your subtle way of telling me I forgot to tip you. Well, okay. Here's a tip; Don't eat the pork and plum sauce, it'll give you the shits for a week. 
Waiter: No, I already have da shits. Mother-in-law living with me for week. Perhaps I need fortune cookie too.

Eventually I succumb to his superstition and rip to shreds the cookie batter. 'What blessing will I be told today?', I ask myself.

'You will have more sex this week'
'Times are changing. And you should change your underwear'
'Happy wife equals clean house. You will buy new house to find happyness.'

Alas, I get none of the above. Instead I am dealt the following forecast:

At any moment on any given day, your interests and online viewing preferences will be tapped into by a data exchange and sold in bulk to advertisers who will then send you information related to your browsers viewing habits.

This detailed pathway into the future was eventually confirmed as correct by the Sydney Morning Herald on October 5 in a special report compiled by Technology reporter, Nicky Phillips, titled "Inside the cookie monster - trading your online data for profit.

We learned that our online data pertaining to what we search via our web browsers is being tracked without our permission and/or knowledge by advertisers and data collectors using what is best described as 'covert devices'. 

That's right. Our children need to sign permission slips to go on excursions to the Zoo but technical giraffes in large corporations are allowed to go for a cyber-walk in our homes without knocking on the door.  

That's because they climb through our WINDOWS.  

 The devices used to avoid basic manners such as asking our permission, take the form of cookies, beacons and flash cookies.

Cookies are the small text files that are loaded onto a user's computer. Beacons are tiny invisible graphics, similar to cookies, that are also used to track a person's online movement.

Any website requiring Adobe Flash videos may use these cookies. However these are easily deleted by visiting the Adobe Website.


Cookies are managed by the web browser and therefore you can set your web browser to not accept third-party cookies. Beacons are a different story. They can't be deleted and are not run on your computer.

You can however opt out of being tracked by publishers, advertisers and date collectors by visiting the National Advertising initiative's opt-out page. 

A word of warning to my Generation Y friends. If you do opt to block all cookies from all websites on Internet Explorer, you will not be able to access entry to your facebook profile. How you'll cope, is utterly unimaginable. 
  
This story raises a number of interesting issues for future consideration by our nation's brightest journalists, academics, writers, consumers, business folk, politicians and other esteemed airheads.  

• Privacy. Where does it begin and end on the internet?
• How often are the self-regulatory policies of e-commerce firms reviewed by an independent, external source?
• Who can copyright the information collected? 
•  Is not the consumer who owns the information vehicle that examines what is online via a subscription service paid for by the individual or group within the household entitled to be an automatic shareholder in the business profiteering off our interests?
• Should governments set-up hotlines run by volunteers  to help the privileged and those dialing the wrong number to have their cookies stamped "private" by their Internet Services Providers?
• Will the next free-trade agreement include eliminating tariffs for hackers?
• Find out if our governments really believe in equal-rights by testing the acceptability levels of consumers who also covertly implant rogue tracking cookies without authorisation into the computers of advertising companies. 

Remember this scene in Seinfeld:

TEL: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service.
JERRY: Oh, gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later. 
TEL: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that.
JERRY: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home.
TEL: No.
JERRY: Well now you know how I feel. [Hangs up]
 
I wonder if the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will allow computer consumers to wear the other shoe just for a day and start collecting unfettered data on corporations. I have grave doubts.

Am I cooking up a storm about this? Maybe. 

The last-time I checked, people were willing to help companies with product management by way of focus groups. 

This is where a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging and then get PAID for providing commercially beneficial information (CBI).

But now the advertising world and its associates want the same type of data and insight minus the obligation to give as well as take.

If our information holds a currency value to focus groups, the same law of give and take should apply to the data collectors who are obviously very shy or just sneaky. 

Whilst I wouldn't trade my information for monopoly money, I'd re-consider becoming an information consultant for the right price, say, a buy 1 cheap, boring DVD, get another 1 free for your mother-in-law voucher at any of the major retail chains.                                                                                                                                                                     
While we wait for the Geoffrey Robertson's of the world to take a closer look at the ethics or lack of in regards to self-regulated corporate cyber shenanigans, I'm going to head to my pantry for another cookie. 

At least if I spill any crumbs, no tech-head can find out what type of biscuits I eat and then send me 10 million pieces of junk mail featuring more junk food I shouldn't be eating if I want to make it to one-hundred. 

THE ROYAL PUNT

"STOP THE PRESSES. I WANT THE BEST JOURNALISTS IN THE CHEAPEST SEATS ON THE NEXT PLANE HEADING FOR LONDON. AND SOMEBODY FIND ME THE WORK EXPERIENCE KID. I COULDN'T CARE LESS IF HE'S AT HOME ASLEEP AND WE DON'T PAY HIM. GET HIM BACK IN HERE. I NEED A COFFEE CAUSE IT'S GUNNA BE A LONG NIGHT FOR EVERYONE" - some sleep deprived editor of a daily metropolitan news bureau. 

For any news editor who stumbles into a late-breaking international story of Paris Hilton proportions, the above reaction is pretty normal not to mention common.

It took a while but the royal family story of all stories for 2010 finally unfolded before our very eyes with word coming from Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth II has canceled a Christmas party for her staff this year due to the tough economic climate. 

Such disbelief has not taken my heart ransom since buying a non-refundable copy of The F Word only to learn it is a book about real-life feminism and not the history of the most important piece of profanity ever invented to describe one's work colleagues in the media. 

UK newspaper,The Sun, is reporting that her majesty thought it best to "show restraint" instead of a good time for the 1200 guests who included staff from three royal residences and the queen's private estates.

In the only good news, sources close to the family believe her majesty's corgis will still receive their bonus doggy biscuits made from a recipe not even Colonel Sanders could crack. 

The party, which is held every two years, normally costs around 50,000 pounds (80,686.69 $AUS). That's about thirteen and half thousand more than the average full-time adult total earnings ($62,116) in Australia. 

But hang on a sec.  

If there's one thing we've all learned about event management, it's that the "show must go on", a famous phrase used predominantly in the entertainment industry, meaning regardless of what happens (such as the lead singer breaking a nail), the show still goes ahead for the audience.  

There are four moments of orgasmic pleasure I look forward to on an annual basis.They are in no particular order of preference.

1. Finding a taxi to take me home on New Year's Day.
2. Completing my tax returns with the most important person in my life. The accountant. 
3. Beating my ex-wife in an ebay bid to buy something nice for my current missus.
4. The all-you-can drink office christmas party   

Noel Coward wrote a song in the 1950's aptly titled "Why must the show go on?". 

Lizzy, after discovering that office-party hangovers cost the British economy £66.5 million, your economic prudence is understandable if not admirable. 

Oh, if only we the people could knight you with the John Howard Medal for spring financial cleaning on the balance-sheet.   

However, I'd like to present you with some very good reasons why the Royal Doulton's should still come out of the cupboard and create some christmas cheer this festive season, even if it involves no-frills products. 

THE CHRISTMAS BONING

Where there are are lights, mobile phones with recording features capable of being uploaded onto You Tube and lots of booze, there is an opportunity for some festive workplace reform.With governments constantly tinkering with industrial laws to give the impression that they care about employees more than they do employers, it'S getting harder and harder to strike-out the Mr and Mrs annoyings of this world who spend more time sitting around debating who should win Big Brother than actually contributing value to the labour force. 

The office christmas party is the one last bastion of hope for immediate dismissal. 

A favourite strategy of bosses with no ethics is to research which members of staff are on the verge of buying a demtel tv product to bring each other down and then sitting them together side-by-side on the table closest to the bar. That's not such a fruitless information exercise for management to undertake following a study published in the Sunday Times which revealed that one in two office parties ends up with colleagues fighting.

Naturally, this will give rivals X and Y the chance to slog it out over their long list of grievances between the starter and the main course, spoiling the event for everyone and giving people an excuse to go home early. By this stage, it will become evident someone needs to walk the plank and there are plenty of witnesses to back you up if your decision to axe X and Y is appealed in some silly tribunal.  

Industry insiders have known for centuries that the best Christmas gift of all is not under the tree but in the human resources department labeled under a file called mistakes to be fixed - these people.Let's face the facts.Unemployment is the gift that keeps on giving people a reason to get off Santa's naughty list next year. 

FOSTER MULTI-SKILLING 

You won't find a better opportunity to sample some of your employees hidden skills than during the staff celebration of yuletide. Upon discovering your Butler knows how to photocopy his buttocks,you can promote from within the next time you need to hire a new secretary. Skills development at Christmas time. Isn't that the greatest gift of all? 

RE-DISCOVERING TRUE LOVE

In a recent survey undertaken by Australian telecommunications company, Telstra, more than 2 out of 3 Australians under the age of 35 admitted texting or calling their ex lovers after going out and drinking too much. Can too much eggnog have that effect on people? I don't know but I do know this. We are taught in Sunday School straight jackets that God brought his son into the world via a stable to an unstable planet as an act of love. Love is the essential theme of Christmas.

It was James Earl Jones who once wisely told us that, “one of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.” If free booze and an office christmas party is the social laxative that can unmute people's true feelings and help them re-connect with the former love of their life or experience a clinch under the mistletoe to get over the ex spreading rumours about impotence on facebook, surely this is more important to the well-being of society than simple economics. 

Love, not money, makes the world go round. 

What else would you like to see canceled in 2010 as part of the well-to-do's socio-economic image enhancement? 

Send your suggestions via the comments section below or email yours truly at mickcartonne@gmail.com.  

All wishes will be forwarded onto Santa Claus.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls 

LETTER OF THE WEEK

Joe Bloggs

16 Working Class Ave

Strugglefield

Private Post-Code 

Donald J Trump
The Trump Organization
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear Donald (or Mr Trump)

You are no apprentice when it comes to great television. Without a doubt, you are a media extraordinaire whose creative vision is never distracted by the other duties in your life.

I realise you probably have 100 private calls going through to your exclusive voice mail right now, so I'll cut to the chase.

The jerks on Wall Street are up to their old tricks once again.

My mates in the Wall Street Journal reckon that 35 wall street firms including banks,hedge funds and money managing groups are preparing to pay a record $US 144 billion in compensation and benefits.

When I first saw the words "compensation" and "benefit", I immediately did my best impersonation of former NSW Premier John Fahey doing a Toyota "Oh what a feeling" leap into the air after Sydney was awarded the 2000 Olympics.

Unfortunately the landing wasn't so comfortable, especially when learning that all the energy I invested into my jump was for nothing.

It turns out these payouts which include bonuses, premiums and stock options are going up by 4 per cent on top of the $US 139 billion that was forked out last year. 

That's despite the fact that the profit of those firms is still 20 per cent less than what they were making in 2006. 

And you can bet that most of it is going back into the coffers of the same highly compensated individuals that pre-GFC proved to be as competent as the Wet Bandits in Home Alone 1.

They took a risk you and I would not take by developing a bad business model called sub-prime loans whereby banks started lending money to those who were at a high risk of defaulting on their loans, so they could buy a house. But too many people at the top lacked the courage to say "NO" when it mattered and the commonsense to listen to their head, not their greedy hearts. 

In other words, just like the Wet Bandits, these people turned on the taps, left the financial water running for too long and then flooded the world's most vulnerable individuals and groups with problems they neither instigated let alone could afford to fix. 

Dancing with the Unemployed quickly became a concept relevant to millions right around the world but with advertising revenue in the shit-house, obviously someone in TV land didn't want to give those in business another reason to tighten their belts. 

Julianne Schultz points out in the Griffith Review in her essay End of another Era, that "each of the major recessions of the past century has resulted in a profound economic re-structure; from agriculture to industry, from industry to services, from local to global." 

Nothing is mentioned about converting from insane, reckless cowboys to intelligent professionals. 

That's because today's article in the Wall Street Journal merely confirms that the culture of not thinking has not changed, that rather the boofheads are having to be dragged kicking and screaming into buying shares in that thing called a CONSCIENCE. 

The mistaken conventional wisdom of the high end of town is to take a top-down view; do whatever it takes to stay at the top.

Clearly there is a need for a new type of vaccination to cure a syndrome that too many of America's jet-flying, limousine lovin' financial leaders are suffering from; excessive executive total pay.   

And who better to inject a sense of common sense and reality back into the lives of these beavers living in financial fantasy land than television where powerful idiots who think five holiday homes are more important than creating an economic environment where we can all afford one home, can be subjected to entertaining forms of accountability. 
  
Super Wall Street Nanny would involve the top 30 richest executives on Wall Street being locked into an office block for six-weeks. They would be assigned the portfolios of 30 people who were left worse off during the global financial crisis and would have to make them financially better off. 

Each week the executives are judged on how much money they make their clients.  If they are worse off than when they started or if commissions on their clients profits are too high, the Wall Street Nanny can spank the execs in a number of ways by spinning the wheel of misfortune.

A great assortment of punishment prizes could be won by the talented stars of the show including such great economic windfalls as:

• Mansions being turned into homeless shelters
• High-maintenance luxury cars being crushed.
• A revelation being leaked to one of the wives about the six mistresses located in Bermuda, leading to a costly divorce settlement.

And if they take any form of incentive compensation or throw in anything remotely dubious and unnecessary into the paperwork, for the simple act of getting off their bums and turning up to work, they are given a bonus punishment: spending a night in a haunted house with Bernie Madoff.

For those not familiar with Bernie, he was an investment manager who set up a $50 billion fraudulent hedge fund that was perpetrated at the expense of rich professionals, not poor suckers.

Viewers could award the executive a mystery bonus by participating in a poll. I vote for a lead pencil with an eraser on the end to pre-emptively rub out all the future cock-ups in the finance and banking sector.

This might seem like an extreme punishment. But reality television should after all represent real conditions that real people really experience in the real world. 

Such a reality television program could send out a clear, fair and simple message to the greedy vermicious knids running the economic universe we all rely on: stop short-changing the less well-off and start giving them a chance to take a dump in a home they own. 

What do you think?

At last glance on the world market ,shares prices have risen in renewable resource supplier, Stupidity Unlimited Inc. 

Your creative pal,

Joe Bloggs 

THE LEAD BALLOON AWARDS

One powerful Liberal in the audience heard 'the lead balloons landing all over the room.

The year was 2006 when I first stumbled across the famous expression "lead balloon". 

American in origin, its first usage was in the Mom-N-Pop cartoon that was syndicated in US newspapers in June 1924.

Its definition is that of something considered not popular by people. That could be in the form of something spoken or an action. 

Ironically the use of the coinage early on also went down like a lead balloon and did not return into mainstream dialogue until after World War II.

Gaining some traction over time, it has become a useful idiomatic expression in a 24/7 news cycle where a poor choice of words or an ill-advised action from those in the public eye is quickly judged.

Not a week or a day goes by without someone veering from the script, thereby providing the light-relief material for a weekly news wrap-up appropriately christened the lead balloon awards.

And this week's winners are:

GOLD 
  
1.The biggest legacy (of Commonwealth Games) is Olympics. Cricket is the most popular sport in our country but it is played by just 10 countries. Olympics has all sports. We have to ensure that Olympics comes up. This is our opportunity and CWG will help - Chief Organiser of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, Suresh Kalmadi suggesting that the games have been such a success, his next focus will be securing the Olympics in 2020. This is despite crowds being non-existent at some events and some serious infrastructure issues including a giant scoreboard at the venue for Rugby Sevens, crashing to the ground.


SILVER 

2.  I'm a parent, I have daughters. I mean, how would I really sound, as a person, walking around my house [saying] 'Bitch, pick this up.' You know what I mean? I don't cuss," - US rapper, Eminem, declaring bad words have no place in his home with children around. Yet he will continue producing music with profanity in it that will end up in other homes that may have children in it. 


BRONZE 

3. I'll get rid of that woman, you watch. Eighty-year-old woman trying to run the town. Go to the retirement village, you old clown - Radio shock jock, Kyle Sandilands, having an on-the-record temper tantrum in the media in response to a proposal by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to close pubs and clubs at midnight and send people home at a  reasonable hour. Sandilands, having bought into a few Kings Cross nightclubs, would be affected if the proposal were successful. We are reliably informed by King Kyle that Clover Moore has no clue what the majority of us really want. Which majority is that, Kyle? I'd like to meet them sometime. Sandilands has obviously never been introduced to the wisdom of Otto Von Bismarck who once advised all diplomatic combatants to, 'Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rule of politeness.' 


Image credit: Salvatore Suono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

THE RIGHT TO NOT TURN RIGHT

Welcome to Mosman, home of the Bold, the Beautiful and some of the silliest ideas suggested, writes Mick Cartonne. 

This week in urban affairs, the rest of Sydney was shocked to learn that a proposal was being put forward to Mosman Council recommending the installation of a boom gate that would only allow street access to the residents.

To me this was simply confirmation that Napoleon was spot on the money when he once told the world: "In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."

In other words, road usage in Bay St, Beauty Point, would become exclusive.



View Larger Map

The public argument being presented to Mosman Council on Tuesday night was that rat-runners would have to stick to the main road (Military Rd) instead of using the narrow Harbourside St to beat city-bound traffic. 

Sadly the minutes of that meeting are not yet available on the Council's website but when they are, you can rest assured, that this MP (member of the public) will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.  

Calls for this extreme measure in part have been prompted by fears that when the Roads and Traffic Authority expands the capacity of the Spit Bridge (more commonly known as the Shit Bridge when you're sitting in traffic for 20 minutes because someone returning home on their Yacht is taking in the view of Middle Harbour), peak-hour use of the sacred back streets will get worse. 

And to no one's surprise this idea, of course, was proposed by one of the local councillors. The man responsible is the right-honorable Cr Jim Reid. 

Reid told Daily Telegraph this week that people who live in Beauty Point (are all the people living there really beautiful?) are affected with "dangerous AM peak traffic travelling at inappropriate speed and manner along narrow and twisty residential roads. Residents deserve a solution."

He added that previous attempts by the council to close off the deviation had been met with "obstruction and lame excuses from the RTA who demand it be open". 

In other words, madness was given the red light. 

It was thought that a rate levy or charging for cards could pay for the gate.

Residents, applying basic economics, felt the boom gate was pointless and expensive and that a right turn into Bay St could be banned for good to keep out non-residents. How thoughtful of the locals.  

It was also felt that the gate would be a target for vandalism. Geez, I wonder why?  

Well, Jim, there are plenty of ways to stop the hoons without disturbing innocent motorists such as myself who pass through the area as is the right of every person on the road.

Please tell me if you've ever heard of the following:

• Speed Cameras
• More Speed Cameras
• Narrowing the street by convincing residents to park in it instead of their driveways. So, a few millionaires might go to work with a dent in the back of their BMW's. I'm sure they can afford to buy a new one on their lunch-break. 
• Request more traffic enforcement in the area concerned.
• Buy radar guns and let the locals stand at the side of the street and record drivers' speeds. In fact, you could make three-times the revenue by renting the radar guns to residents and adding a tax to the rent.   
• Build more speed humps
• Add removable mats that look like pot holes onto the road. Some motorists will try and straddle it, but most I'm pretty sure would hit their brakes hard and slow down.    

Get the general idea, Jim? 

Road and Transport polices developed like the one proposed are as ridiculous as amateur hour at open mic night. 

Won't it be fabulous when the time comes to sell the house and those interested in buying the joint can't be bothered filling out an application form to be given clearance to enter the street? 

Perhaps then the exclusive citizens assembly might then re-consider rolling back this policy. 

This is not an isolated example of outdated ideas coming to life in Mosman. 

Who could forget the brilliant plan to ban personal trainers at Balmoral Beach because it destroys the local's sun vista and disturbs their precious sleep? 

Or how about banning dogs from outdoor seating at cafes. And don't get me started about the introduction of parking metres right by the beach.

Next I suppose they'll be charging people for removing their clothes at Obelisk Beach. 

The residents of Mosman and their local government might like to take some advice from Julia Gillard and start moving forward instead of bending over backwards.  

I have to be fair though.

Not all incentives to avoid snooty suburbs can be blamed on acts of local government. The price of dinner or coffee in ritzy areas is offensive enough. 

Then there are those well-to-do cougars wearing all sorts of jewelry and driving home in the latest anti-environment sports car who love to stare at you as if you're from another planet. 

This novel idea simply adds to the aggravating fact of life that the mentality of some people in affluent areas, is that they are special. 

Reality check; they are not.

No matter the volume of their wealth, who they associate with let alone what class of seat the well-off may fly, one day they'll end up incontinent like the rest of us. 

The only difference is they'll be ruining a more expensive brand of adult nappies. 

90 per cent of us can't afford to live next door to Australia's Next Top Snobs. Now they don't even want to breathe in our car fumes. I am outraged. 

So the next time you seek asylum from the heat and decide to travel to Manly beach via the Spit Bridge, those from the East, the West and the South, be warned; 

The residents of Mosman will decide who comes to their area, under what circumstances and by what roads.That being everybody's else's but theirs.  

Don't be alarmed, just be alert.