It doesn’t take them long to answer the call to gorge themselves, does it!
The supreme wind, that was Cyclone Debbie, still fighting for life, bent on destruction; and they come out to feed and fill their coffers. Who, what, are these creatures that crawl from the mud and slime left by Debbie?
Their name is ‘Coles’, and it is ‘Woolies’, and no doubt ‘Aldi’ and ‘IGA’, will join in the frenzy, all pleading for sympathy, and our financial support to help them through the disaster, not of their making. Crying tears of delight and joy, as they rush to clear their shelves of ‘fresh’ fruit & veggies.
But have no worries, have no fear, for they will find the fresh fruit and veggies, that our bodies crave, and at great expense; which they have to, regretfully, pass on to their faithful.
But where is all this fresh goodness to be found?
Why in their own warehouses of course! Dribbled out in minuscule quantities, often, at the highest price that they believe they can gouge from the desperate starving masses.
I kid you not!
Yesterday, I actually went to the supermarket, and lo and behold, in the ‘Fruit & Veggie’ section, disaster had struck. Most noticeably in the ‘Banana’ section, it was bare except for a very small number of loose, sorry, bedraggled looking specimens, that had somehow managed to survive the disaster.
I doubt not, that if I return and check today, there will be a fair quantity of ‘fresh’ bananas which they’ve managed to acquire, but unfortunately they will have to charge $19.99 kg. not the usual $2.99 kg.
Would you believe that during a newscast before Debbie struck, a spokesman for a supermarket chain warned that this will happen?
Now the thing is, the majority of the country’s banana production is located in the north Queensland regions of Kennedy, Tully, Innisfail, Atherton Tableland, Mossman, Lakeland and Hopevale.
All of which are some hundreds of kilometres north of Bowen and Proserpine. And Debbie turned south after hitting the coast.
Bowen is the renowned ‘Tomato’ capital of Australia; grows and supplies them the year round, they grow cantaloupes and mango’s too, not many bananas though; Proserpine has a sugar & tourist industry, bananas? Not really!
Once again, capitalism rears it’s ugly face!
Here are some photographs taken by our ABC of the aftermath, which may be of interest to my overseas reader/s
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/cyclone-debbie-aftermath-gallery/8395494
LordBeariOfBow 
That isn’t even profiteering. It is downright swindling.
Wow, that weather made quite a mess, didn’t it? Boats and rooves were flying all over the place.
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They have the bananas in store for months before the hit the shelves. i’m damned if I know why our ICAC doesn’t hit them hard.
Some good pictures in that lot, they’re courtesy of our ABC, the Australian equivalent of the English BBC, The commercial stations here I don’t bother with. Glad you enjoyed them, well at least I think you may have. XD
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“They have the bananas in store for months before the hit the shelves.”
I don’t understand that statement. Per my experience, the window for bananas (just ripe to too ripe) is not that long. We buy bananas from local vendors and even if I buy them green, we’re talking 3-5 days before they are too ripe. The commercial varieties (typically larger and cheaper) don’t last that long.
As for as I know, you can’t freeze them to keep them for any length of time.
Anyway, the pictures are what I expected for a cyclone (a hurricane for us). One difference here is that many stores donate water and food for the emergency areas. Private outfits also provide succor.
. . . perhaps it’s not capitalism . . . perhaps Australians are greedy, period.
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As a boy growing up in England, a place where bananas don’t grow, I remember eating bananas that came from who knew where; over the seas some weeks away by sea………….
Bananas can and are stored for several weeks, this is part of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#Storage_and_transport
It’s not the Australians that are greedy, the multi-nationals who just about own everything here now are,
😦 👿
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Read the article . . . no month-long storage. A few days.
And, sure, blame the foreigners, but I’ll wager the locals are not only complicit, but also responsible for what happens locally.
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I wonder how long it took, the slow moving freighters,from christ only knows where, to travel to England, back in the 1940’s (and during the war, in convoys), and then shipped around the country. Considerably more than the few days you mention.
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The other Great White Fleet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_boat_(ship)
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Cyclones here, Hurricanes there and Typhoons in Asia, I think I prefer the name typhoon, as you probably know it means ‘Supreme Wind’, which is apt!
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. . . the diet is responsible for supreme wind . . .
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I suppose that depends if one eats their Spam cooked or straight from the can
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Like most pure foods, Spam does the body no harm . . .
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Massive storms can disrupt both production and distribution systems. But price gouging is all too common. It’s a despicable practice.
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That hits those that can least afford it usually! 😦
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Brian,
one word, “profiteering”. I hate supermarkets.
Neill.
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Correction, a typo: “profiteering”.
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Looks okay to me! have you been drinking again Neill? 😈
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Yes, he has been!
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Yes it looks pretty obvious does it not
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Brian,
I think I might have been imbibing. Does your blog have spelling correction? I could have sworn, that I had left out the “i” in “profiteering”.
Neill.
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I must admit that I did put the missing i into the word. I was being cheeky XD
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Thank God and the Archangel Michael! i thought I was losing my mind and it was time for me to go to the Home for the Bewildered.
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The cyclone didn’t even make the back pages here, but it looks hugely destructive! Glad you are okay, despite the paucity of bananas!
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Bowen, Queensland, is 1935 km from where I live in Sydney, which is an easy number for me to remember, and would you believe that today, we are experiencing very high winds, and storms, caused by th death throes of Cyclone Debbie.
We were warned that this was going to happen.
But, as the new incumbent of the Oval Office will tell you; there’s no such thing as climate change!
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Glad I attached that link with a few pictures XD
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Greed in endemic – just read the following in today’s SMH:
Bronwyn Bishop rails against socialists while collecting a $250k pension from taxpayers
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/bronwyn-bishop-rails-against-socialists-while-collecting-a-250k-pension-from-taxpayers-20170329-gv9kjc.html
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If that’s you Ira, then you’ll know my views of that parasite
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Bananas are so green and hard when they are picked they need a little nudge when they arrive.
At any one time, in Coles and Woolworths distribution centres and across Melbourne in warehouses, thousands of boxes of bananas are stacked in specially designed rooms. Over five to seven days, the bananas are heated to between 16 and 18 degrees. Food-grade ethylene, a man-made copy of the hormone bananas naturally release, is added to trigger ripening and create uniform yellowing.
So of course they have them in stock. And don’t worry about people who will say anything to defend the huge international conglomerates’
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My chum Emilio, who hides behind the name disperser, enjoys getting me going. I do believe, he has as much, time for the multi-nats as we do.
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well the bugger got me
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I’ve referred to him in stronger terms so feel free to get right into him.
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May I call him a train station?
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NEVER !!! Not even that! XD
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Two against one, eh?
. . . meh . . .
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That’s fair enough after all we’re just couple of colonials.
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Me too!
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. . . not hiding behind anything; the name has always prominently featured on the sidebar of my blog . . . for them who can read.
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Well that lets me out! 🙂
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So, now we’re supposed to go and look at your blog? Does it have pitchers?
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Hey Emilio; Yvonne is a Canuck, one step up from a Yank and I’m the mug in the middle XD XD 😈 🐻
Ah what a fun page is Lordbeariofbow.com
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Canadian, Australian . . . aren’t they pretty much the same?.
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Not really the Australians speak English, sit at table correctly, and the Canucks are influenced by the Yanks and are therefore somewhat sloppy XD
But they are still both colonials XD.
And as I said, I’m the Colonial Administrator!
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Are not pitchers what Americans pour beer into? What we in the civilized world call jugs!
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No jugs on my blog . . . they attract the wrong kind of people.
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Careful what you call jugs, mate! Especially around a Yank, or even a Canuck.
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Why’s that Yvonne? I recall many years ago working at a pub in Carnarvon WA and the Yanks would come down from their camp at Exmouth and always order a “Pitcher of Beer” never a pot or schooner, always a pitcher
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Well, a picher is one thing, but a jug can be many things! For example: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jugs
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Completely inane and I think typical .
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No need to visit the blog . . . not only I’ve already filled my quota of Australians, but I don’t need nor want the responsibility of enlightening yet another continent.
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. . . e, no; non ho niente di bevere. Solo fotografie e parole saggie.
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and not too many wise words unfortunately, seems it’s up tome to supply those 😈 🐻
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Yes; you’re always complaining I don’t write enough.
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you forgot a word after enough!
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Sorry; you’re always complaining I don’t write enough, you old coot.
. . . how’s that?
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that’ll suffice
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You made me wonder, how long does it take for truck load of ‘nanas to come from sunny North Queensland to Melbourne, by road. I reckon it’d take longer by rail?
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couple of days? ??
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from NQ to Sydney’s 2000k at least, plus another 1100 or thereabouts, with compulsory rest stops has to be at least 3 full days I reckon could be 4 with good conditions all the way
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yes. probably
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They can’t keep them for months, as El-Bob charged in his original statement:
http://www.samcooks.com/food/fruit/bananas.html
Also:
http://www.tropicanabanana.com.au/about-us/our-history
Damn conglomerates! They supply these stores:
http://www.tropicanabanana.com.au/retail-partners
I do enjoy getting people going but usually, they get going on their own.
There is one easy answer to price gauging . . . don’t buy the bananas. As far as I can tell, it’s not one of the foods necessary for survival.
Also, one could, if one were so inclined, to always have emergency stores available (except bananas) for exactly those times when them nasty Australian conglomerates crank up the prices. I suggest a couple of cases of Spam ought to do just fine.
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Thanks EJ, I needed a good laugh, and I’ll leave you with the Spam XD XD XD
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Here in the States, we call it ‘scalping’ and depending on the drastic-ness, it is illegal.
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It probably is here too GP trouble is our pollies are in their pockets, and they’re the ones that make the laws to accommodate these scalpers, so they never get prosecuted.
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Sorry to hear that.
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But they’ve gotta make a profit, innit?
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Of course, they do so much for the community how can we ever begrudge them a small profit now and then!
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Ah irony. Woolies in Gladstone flooded due to ex-TC Debbie’s torrents…
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Thats a disaster for the people of Gladstone, Woolies will make them pay for it, even though they’ll have ore insurance coverage than they’ll need!
Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Always appreciated. XD 🐻
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This was a most lively discussion engendered by your blog post, M’Lord. Sometimes your stalkers take over the funny farm, it seems.
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Surely you don’t think disperser is an escaper from the funny farm?
I enjoy these discussions kind of livens my pages up a bit,
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It seems he is the founding member of the farm, perhaps.
Hey, you know that your pages are already lively, don’t you?
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Well this one has certainly earned that appellation, most of my stuff is treated with kindness and the respect & consideration that people, well the Chinese do, for we the elderly.
I don’t think I have any Chinese followers, disperser is some sort of Italian/Croatian/ Serbian refugee I believe which lets him off being all o those things that nice people are XD 👿
I wonder if that’ll get a blast XD XD XD
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I hope so!
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I am the un-nice personified . . . it’s what people like about me. Also, if you’ve ever been around Chinese tourists, you’d have a different opinion of how nice they are. Japanese as well, for that matter.
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I’ve actually had quite a bit of experience with Chinese tourists from when I was a volunteer at the Museum, I found no fault with them.
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That’s the beauty of much of humanity . . . they’re oblivious.
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I must admit that I’m completely lost now, does anyone now what the hell we are all rambling on about? I know this is filed under the Rambling heading but this is ludicrous.
Something to do with oranges of lemons was it?
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I think you were giving us a recipe for boiled fruit cake, or something. Or, haranguing us about train/railway stations.
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I actually make an excellent fruit cake, but I don’t boil the fruit, I soak it for a couple of days in booze glorious booze
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Well…finally made it to a safe spot into which I can enter my comments. First, over here in the US of A we did hear all about Cyclone Debbie–with lots of pictures. On the national news. We’ve had horrendous tornadoes coming up through the South this week–got to the Philly area today, minus tornadoes. Mainly rain and gusty winds that sent garbage cans flying! Thanks for posting the pictures. What a mess….
Finally, no, that kind of price gouging wouldn’t happen here. Probably because we have way too much stuff already in the grocery stores, and people tend to hoard when they know bad weather is on its way. Though sometimes the bananas (that have to be transported by truck from warehouses and can’t because of weather emergency status) run out.
This is a raucous and highly entertaining page of comments! 🙂
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It certainly has been that Louise; would be nice if all posts were as entertaining.
Though the cyclone is long gone the aftermath is horrendous!
Widespread flooding even down into NSW has occurred, with the tragic loss of life of a mother and 2 of her children; one child an 8 year old daughter managed to get out of the vehicle swim, in the raging flood waters to safety and run 200/300 metres to the nearest home to raise the alarm, But they were unable to rescue her mother and siblings, that is a real story of an heroic child who now will live forever thinking she failed to save her muumy and younger brothers.
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