<IMAGE REMOVED COURTESY OF THE AGE>

On a day when swopping your staid work clothes for a loud shirt shows your support for the hearing-impaired people, good senior citizens of Melbourne decide to do swop their everyday wear for a commando look.

Clearly, it seems the only way to get anyone in Melbourne to take notice is to go topless. No doubt inspired by our Indian cab drivers several weeks ago, I think it’s about time someone put an end to all the topless shenanigans. It’s funny now, old people going topless, but who gona laugh when there are topless International Students demanding concession tickets and equality with Australian students?? Or topless Sydenham line passengers wanting an extension to Zone 1 stations to Watergardens as Sydenham currently has the least number of Zone 1 stops? How about topless motorists staging a protest against higher fuel prices? Are we gona have a topless protest just coz Mr John Smith isn’t happy?

How about just going completely nude? That’ll make a statement.

Image from The Age.

Oh boy Melbourne really likes fucking with the Western suburbs. Have you guys not noticed how bad news from the supposedly richer and more Anglo (read: less immigrants) Eastern suburb is always lame one liners like ‘Missing Dog Found’ or ‘Fire In Camberwell Put Out No One Is Seriously Injured’ but news from the Western suburbs always come out bad.

‘Woman Found Murdered And Dumped In Footscray’

‘Gang Fight In Sunshine Believed To Be Racially Motivated’

And I remember reading this in the papers once, it went something along the lines of:

‘I was sitting in Sunshine train station, where the bus depot is, and I saw gangs of Vietnamese and Africans sitting in groups. Sunshine and the Western Suburb is a dangerous place to live. The difference races do not integrate and they clash often.’ - some bloody politician

It infuriates me when I see how biased the media is towards the Western Suburbs. I’ve been living here for over half a year now, and although I cannot say that it’s the safest area, the old rhetoric such as ‘OMG you live in Sunshine? You’re gona be fucking murdered.’ is so old.

The Western suburbs, particularly Footscray and Sunshine, have definitely cleaned up and if anything, young couples are looking towards these areas for their first homes.

But I digress.

Now would anyone believe me if I told you there’s a conspiracy by Connex to screw Western Suburbians as well?

Well, two things.

How else does one explain why at peak hour in Melbourne Central platform 3, there are 2 EMPTY trains leaving for Cragieburn within 5 minutes of each other while the PACKED LIKE SARDINES train leaving for the Sydenham line leaves every 20 minutes.

Also, why are there less Zone 1 stations in the Sydenham and Werribee lines compared to every other lines? People living in the North, East and Southern suburbs have Zone 1 stations extending as far as Huntingdale or Reservoir, while the Westies have to cough up Zone 2 fares. This isn’t so apparent along the Werribee line, as the first Zone 2 station - Aircraft - is considerably far away from the Melbourne City Loop. But along the Sydenham line, how is Ginnifer a Zone 2 stop? It’s only 9 stops out of the City Loop!

Here’s a link to the Connex train network and tell me I’m wrong!