Clancy . . . overflow . . . the best bits . . . funnies

In the UK the 4500 members of the GPMU are voting in favour of strike action to reject a Confederation of Paper Industries offer of a pay increase of 2.85%. According to a report on Print Week a Scottish paper mill manager, cognisant of unremitting mill closures in recent years described the union action as; “ They are like lemmings to the cliff face.”

There were 17 mills in Scotland, now down to ten. There are around 80 paper and board mills in the UK.

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In case you missed it in the Heidelberg article leading this bulletin

www.print21.com.au/index.cfm?art=1197&comid=1&issue=125

Heidelberg’s five web specialists, led by industry veteran Jim Wand, are transiting to Peter Kirwan’s regional Goss International operation later this month. In the Australasian region Goss inherits a huge installed base of commercial webs, with at least three new machines going in, including a M850C at Webstar in Sydney. The Heidelberg/Goss deal is all down to geopolitical commerce but local Heidelberg honcho, Andy Vels Jensen, is sorry to see the business go.

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OK, here’s the deal; if you front up at the Inspire’04 forum at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney tomorrow (Fri 13 Aug) and you'll learn, network and could win Adobe Photoshop CS, valued at over $1200. If you say you are a reader of Print21Online you’ll be able to get the ‘early bird’ rate of entry $75, even though you’re as late as late can be. Convener Garry Knespal assures there is a good roll-up already booked for the event, which looks at design through to print, technical and business issues. He also assures Clancy the offer is worthwhile taking up.

Over to you.

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You have to hand it to Michael Halley of the Australian Institute of Packaging for faith in his fellow members. Writing an account of the latest meeting, he extolled the plain speaking of presenter Mike Crabb on the technical aspects of three dimensional [3D] scanning.

His manner ‘made everyone feel as though they were an expert,’ wrote Michael. ‘Simplified, a very high resolution digital camera is used to take photographs of an item, with the operator capturing critical reference points that are identified by optical bar-coded dots and scale bars. Once the photographs are on file an advanced topometric sensor converts the data to what are termed high-density point clouds, which allows accurate capture of the measurement and shape of the subject.'

We all clear on this?

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It’s getting bigger, and faster, all the time. NUR Macroprinters, which describes itself as a leading supplier of wide-format inkjet production printing systems for the out-of-home advertising market – as opposed presumably to the in-your-loungeroom advertising market – is testing its Expedio 5000 superwide UV inkjet press. The five-meter wide machine is the first roll-fed wide-format inkjet production press equipped with UV-curable inks. Because of its UV capability the press can use a wide range of substrates to print eight-color, 720 dpi, at speeds up to 150 square meters (1600 square feet) per hour.

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And in the same mode, Jet Technologies, the supplier of Ruco UV screen printing inks and Apollo conventional screen printing ink is now the official distribution agent for SPS cylinder screen-printing machinery in Australia and New Zealand. SPS is one of two major manufacturers of swing cylinder and stop cylinder screen-printing machines in the world.

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And finally . . . here’s one from Betty Kenny, Supervisor of REIV Bookshop & Stationery Department, who knows a good yarn when she hears it.


This guy was hitchhiking near Terang, Victoria, on a very dark night, in the middle of a storm. The night was black, he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him and no cars went by. Suddenly he saw a car coming towards him. It stopped.

Without thinking much about it, he got, closed the door and then realized there was nobody behind the wheel. The car started moving slowly. The guy looks at the road and sees a corner coming. Scared he starts to pray, begging for his life. Just before he hits the curve a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel. He’s paralyzed in terror, and can’t move. He sits there, frozen, as the car continues on and every time it nears a curve the same thing happens, the hand appears and steers the car around the bend.

Finally, gathering strength, he gets out of the car as it slows on a turn and runs to the nearest town. He doesn't look back! Wet and in shock, he goes to a pub and asks for two shots of whiskey, and starts telling everybody about the horrible experience he just went through. A silence enveloped the crowd when they realized the guy is crying and isn't drunk.

About half an hour later, two blokes walked in the same pub and one said to the other. "Look Bill, there's the wanker that got in the car when we were pushing it!"