John Elliott’s Mondays Aussie Congratulations

As the Federal politicians were having a short break, there was nothing of significance coming out of Canberra but sport and some other interesting events deserved congratulations.

Sport - Congratulations to Black Caviar and her trainer Peter Moody  for being winning the awards for Victorian Racehorse of the Year and Hoysted Medal respectively.

Sport – Congratulations to Whobegtyou for winning the first PB Lawrence Stakes at Caulfield on Saturday. This race was named after my close friend Peter Begg Lawrence (Pongo),who was VATC Chairman for many years where he and I completed our MBA at Melbourne University together back in 1965. Up until this year, this Group 2 race was called the JJ Liston Stakes. Well done Pongo.

Business – Congratulations to Qantas for introducing a package deal for couples flying together on international business class trips where Qantas have used extensive newspaper advertisements of Dame Edna Everidge and Barry Humphries sitting together to promote this new deal. Trick photography you might ask. Apparently Sir Les Patterson refused to sit next to Dame Edna for this advertisement as he claimed he always flies first class overseas due to his Federal Government appointment many years ago; old habits die hard.

Transport – Congratulations to Allan Fells and his 15 member team appointed to head an overdue inquiry into Victoria’s Taxi industry where major reforms are planned. The first item on his agenda should be to send all Taxi drivers to map reading and geography classes so they can work out which way is north and east and ban taxis using GPS’s, they’re a waste of time and money.

Demography – Congratulations to the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages confirming the name John and its interrelated name Jack has dominated the rankings of popular boys names over the last 11 decades. Jack was ranked no.6 from 1900 to 1930 but John was number 1 during the 1930s and 1940s slipping back to second spot in the 1950’s  and number 7 in the 1960s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Jack come back as number 8 but was top of the charts for the 2000′s.

Given Jack’s name has dominated these charts for some time, its time to watch Ray Charles play his top selling “Hit the Road Jack”song.

Please click here to watch the recent article and film clip on Ray Charles.

Have a good week and Go The Blues!

John D Elliott