Outback

Whenever there's any talk about communications infrastructure in Australia - broadband, mobile, anything - it's always constrained by the idea that whatever is provided has to be provided to everyone. Which means that we can't get high-speed broadband (or, as it's known everywhere else in the world, "broadband") in the densely-populated suburbs of Sydney until and unless it's provided to farmers in the remote reaches of the interior.

This is ridiculous - they've chosen to live in the middle of nowhere. It's part of the deal. They get vast empty landscapes, lots of quiet. We get coffee, newspapers, excitement. What next? They want equal access to avant-garde theater? Experimental cocktails? Fabulousness?

On a barely-related note, a week or so ago there was a news story about the distribution of obesity in New South Wales, by local government areas. The skinniest part of the state (meaning the local government area with the lowest proportion of adults who are obese) was, of course, the eastern suburbs. Where I live. Closely followed by the North Shore. Highest was around Newcastle. Then you have Penrith and whatnot. It's almost too good. The SMH sent a reporter to Windsor and interviewed a woman in a supermarket who said something like "there's not a lot of pressure to look good out here". Or maybe she didn't - the reporter may well have just made it up. Then for a couple of days, there were lovely mean-spirited letters in the papers from skinny people in the eastern suburbs and the north shore along the lines of "westies should lay off the chips and the coke".