READERS may be familiar with a barney over an Aussie flag on the roof of Singleton's Caledonian Hotel, which Singleton Council wants removed, saying that it was put up without a development application on a building of local heritage significance.
Publican Brad Hill has also become something of a public figure up that way because of his stance against various aspects of this country's COVID restrictions, which saw him slapped with thousands of dollars worth of fines, on the one hand, but gaining a solid group of supporters on the other.
Now, another Singleton business has tipped its hat to The Cali, and put its own "red ensign" on the roof. And Topics hears there might even be more pop up around the capital of the Upper Hunter.
When we rang Scott Yeomans of The Hunter Jewellers in John Street, Singleton, yesterday, he told us he had ordered the sign from a local printers, and put it over the original shop sign, which he said was looking a bit faded and in need of replacement.
"I didn't really know Brad before COVID started, but I thought what he did during the lockdowns was quite brave - I was not so loud about what I thought - and then I read about troubles over the flag and I could see he was battling on a few fronts," Yeomans said.
Having ordered his own flag, he put it up on Saturday. It didn't take long before someone came in to ask what it was all about.
"Good on ya," is how the jeweller describes the public reaction so far.
Brad Hill is also quietly happy that someone else has taken up "the cause" as he sees it.
"I think it's fantastic," Hill told Topics yesterday.
Hill says his stance at the height of the pandemic had him and The Cali tagged as "anti-vaxxers" but he says now "that was never the case".
"We were saying, vaxxed or not vaxxed, it doesn't matter, you're welcome."
His refusal to toe the official line may have made him a pariah in some eyes but he says more and more people have come to him since then to say they had changed their minds about the pandemic and now applauded him for his "freedom" stance.
The flag might be a separate issue, but both Hill and Yeomans see themselves in opposition to "suffocating bureaucracy".
Hill says he has been contacted by supporters across Australia and internationally.
Not only has it become a holiday snapshot destination, it's a stop-over for like-minded individuals, including "convoys" of people driving to Melbourne this week for the latest Australian Freedom Rally - described as "five packed days of marches and events" starting today and finishing Tuesday.
And speaking of bureaucracy, Singleton council says it is "working with the Caledonian Hotel.
As Rampaging Roy Slaven would say, "make of that what you will".
Surely seller sets the price?
TOPICS was bemused yesterday to hear that the European Union had set a "price cap" on purchases on Russian oil as part of its suite of economic retaliation to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Fair enough. We're not endorsing the invasion, but last time Topics looked at the basics of economics, the seller set the price, which a buyer could accept or reject.
The European Union is certainly free to reject the price that Russia is asking. As long as it accepts responsibility for its freezing masses, come winter.
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