Antler Luggage - more than a pretty suitcase?

Dear Team Antler,

Last year I had to update my luggage on account of my daughter reclaiming her Ripcurl holdall when she departed for Rome.

Somewhat disconsolately, I set about looking for my own baggage, and I duly selected a chocolate brown medium-sized suitcase from your range costing $245.00 AUD. Paid for by credit card on October 4, 2012, the transaction was processed on October 8, 2012.

And off I trundled to Canada and France in January 2013 as is my wont this time each year (a work thing).

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered somewhere between 'pancakes' and 'croissants' that I could no longer manoeuvre the retractable (ha! ha! ha!) handle to either go up or down on my brand new suitcase.

Completely inconvenienced by this product failure, I resolved to return the bag when I had a spare day that did not entail rain to the Sydney Luggage Centre in Mascot where I had bought it from and request either a replacement bag or repairs to fix the faulty feature.

Thus this afternoon, single-handely dodging rain clouds and semi-trailers, I set off from Newtown to Mascot with the offending suitcase strapped to my bike.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that Antler's customer service had finished for me when I walked out of the shop last October and was not going to be returning any time soon.

The very minute I explained my mission, I was regaled with the shop assistant's opinion that the fault was highly likely to have happened as a result of the airline's negligence and therefore was nothing to do with Antler and the Sydney Luggage Centre.

I remonstrated that irrefutable evidence pointing to such a conclusion was scant, and that it was disappointing it couldn't be repaired without me incurring the quoted repair fee of $88 AUD. As our conversation progressed, it started to dawn on me that my suitcase had probably never been fit for purpose...

"Had it been in the hold?"
"Did it travel on the carousel for any time?"

It's a suitcase, of course it went in the hold and on the carousel...after all isn't that what suitcases do? Personally I'm always anxious when they're not in the hold or on the carousel! And anyway, aren't they supposed to be capable of a long-haul trip or two without malfunctioning prematurely.

At no point did I ever entertain the notion the suitcase was intended to be a decorative feature in my home or anywhere else for that matter - the intention at purchase was always that my suitcase would travel on planes and carousels in a robust manner, in fact in a manner fit for purpose.

So dear Team Antler, just to recap, I would like my suitcase repaired without incurring the $88 fee and if that turns out not to be possible then I would like a replacement.

Thank you in anticipation of a response.

Kind regards,
Sue Abbott
Freedom Cyclist
@freedomcycliste

Vive le Sydney Morning Herald

(Image: screen capture, SMH)


Update: Thursday, August 1, 2013
...rather read twitter

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Update: Wednesday, July 31, 2013
...oh dear, I'm still bored, and Peter Hartcher, I can't forgive you re JG...and one more thing, you're totally wrong with 'Voters now at ease blah blah blah...' because...oh I've just remembered, I'm not a 'voter' anymore due to self imposed ban to take effect this coming election...

(sigh...not looking good for me and SMH)

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Update: Tuesday, July 30, 2013
...still hate its tabloid format, and will never be able to forgive how it treated Julia Gillard - ho hum what to do - don't want SMH to fall over but in all honesty it's really boring...

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After a month travelling in Europe and getting my news via various online portals, I decided that the time had come to call it quits with the Sydney Morning Herald...basically before they did with me!

Long before I'd departed for Vienna, journos interviewing journos (common on Radio National these days) had been talking up the SMH paper 'dumping me' and that this 'once-upon-a-time-unimaginable-act' would happen sooner than later...

...so rather than wait for that dreaded day I thought I'd get in first; I'd show me I could manage without our daily connection; I'd show me I could manage to inform myself with screens and 'ceiling wax and other fancy stuff, oh Puff...' (whoops, I digress!) and that once I got back to Australia, I'd never buy the SMH again - I'd see, I could do it.

Only I couldn't.

30 years in Australia, 30 years reading the SMH...

...I just can't walk away - so if someone has to do the walking in this relationship, they're going to have to do it!

In the meantime, first thing when I wake up tomorrow...

...I'm going to rush up the street to the corner shop, choose the neatest folded one, buy it...then rush home, hold it and read it...

...only 1 more sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Honda funds helmet law research

(Image: 2008 Pedal and Motor Cycle Helmet Performance Study brochure)


Thinking back to Dr Dinh's letter in the MJA and his claim that ‘this Sydney based study was the first to place motorcyclists and pedal cyclists side by side,’ I want to know why didn’t the media ask whatever happened to the University of New South Wales School of Safety Science’s Pedal and Motor Cycle Helmet Performance Study in 2008?

Was that study ever completed or was it affected by the confusing closure of the School of Risk and Safety Science?

Has that study been re-purposed into the new one mentioned by Dr Dinh, providing a reconditioned weapon for the helmet lobby in their quest for constant PR?

And just as it was troubling back then to discover that UNSW research staff also worked for one of UNSW’s study’s funding partners…

…so it is troubling now that a slick of oil can be seen behind the new combined pedal and motor cyclist helmet study. In the MJA, Dr Dinh notes that funding was provided by Institute of Injury and Trauma Management and St George Honda Trauma and Critical Care Research Programme.

Can information be objective when motor-vehicle companies are behind the research?

Could there be a conflict or a perceived conflict of interest?

Perhaps Honda could just stop making killing machines if they want to help?

Whatever, could our media please start quizzing the spin - because as I've mentioned before, that's what's doing the rounds at the moment...with their blessing.

WTF, America...go home and take your bombs with you

(Image: screen capture from The Guardian)


Breaking news from The Guardian...

So my question to you, my democratically elected representatives in Canberra, tell me this, why do we have to play 'War Games' with the Americans?

They're big, they're bullies, and they don't give a shit about our environment - it's too too sad

Anyhoo, because you're not, I'm screaming from my rooftop:

"GO HOME, AMERICA, WE DON'T WANT YOUR BOMBS ON OUR BARRIER REEF!"

The Bus-Driver-Parent - Sydney's full of them

(Me & my colourful Gronnigen cardigan)


Darling niece on Sydney bus travelling along Parramatta Road text me this arvo to say that bus driver had been swearing away at some pedestrian he had just missed when suddenly he said out loud to all of them on board:

"Where's her helmet?"

Darling niece looked up and burst out laughing...

"...because there you were cycling by wearing black cardigan with colourful flowers! - can't stop laughing - HA! HA! HA!"

You, my dear Australian, still need bicycle helmet law

(Cycling in Pienza, Tuscany, Italy)


When bicycle helmets were launched onto the unsuspecting Australian public in 1991, their illusionary allure of safety was pedalled further by those who had an interest in them...aka helmet promoters - no surprise there.

But why did the Australian media just parrot the delusion in their annoying pollyanna manner which has continued to this very day?

I will never get why the Australian media didn't see that mandatory helmet laws were just a pseudo-solution to road safety, nor will I ever get why they embraced them so wholeheartedly without questioning any of the data presented whatsoever.

Brilliant PR, brilliant spin, yes...but as a result helmet promoters and their industry of manipulation have hoodwinked the Australian public without ever being properly held to account - ahem, 4th estate, where are you?

What really intrigues me is that more and more whether via travel, or blogs or other social media, we're discovering for ourselves the big world out there uses bicycles mostly without helmets yet instead of us then thinking something like...'ok maybe it's not so bad after all - why don't we try it too'...we succumb to neat little 'psy-op' manoeuvres that deftly remind us that despite fabulous overseas bike share programmes and fabulous bicycle cultures anywhere-else-but-here we Australians still need bicycle helmet laws - why do we fall for that crap?

If the ABC had someone doing a 'video news release' (VNR) from Leipzig on The Business last week, why didn't they have someone covering Velo-City 2013 in Vienna, just down the road.

Arguably one of the biggest bicycle conferences in the world with all 'Matters Bicycle' completely covered, the Australian mainstream media were sorely missing in action - pathetic, and there's no way I'm going to fall that neat little brainwashing message broadcast on The Business whispering to me that 'no matter what you see around the world, you, my dear, still need your mandatory bicycle helmet law.'

Bullshit

The medium is the message

...love how the 'medium' embedded itself in these Florentine traffic 'messages,' influencing how I perceived them!!!

Long live street art and its artists