Business – Page 62 – Michmutters

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Hatched scores Media Agency of the Year as Thinkerbell wins Full Service second year in a row

Hatched scores Media Agency of the Year as Thinkerbell wins Full Service second year in a row

The 2022 Mumbrella Awards ended at Royal Randwick, with Hatched winning Media Agency of the Year for the first time and Thinkerbell taking home Full Service Agency of the Year for the second time in a row.

Thinkerbell also won the Independent Agency of the Year category, in which it was highly commended (HC) in 2021.

The awards ceremony was hosted by writer and comedian Paul McDermott, as over 30 awards were handed out to the best talent and innovators across Australia and New Zealand’s marketing, advertising, media, production, PR and communications industries.

Howatson+Company received a nod as Emerging Agency of the Year, while its Rejected Ales campaign for Matilda Bay was crowned the Mumbrella Award for Insight.

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The rest of the Agency of the Year categories were split between Thrive PR (PR), AKQA (Specialist), Traffic (Promo or Experiential) and The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song (Creative).

72andSunny’s work ‘Helping You Help Them’ for Google earned it the Ad Campaign of the Year award. The campaign was showcased in 2021 to celebrate community helpfulness. For TV Ad of the Year, Special’s Christmas campaign for Optus, ‘Yuleglide’, received the crown.

Other brands and agencies winning the night include Half Dome, PHD Media, CHEP Network, Tourism Noosa, Broadsheet and more.

See the full list of winners below:

Winner: Remove The Barrier – Great Barrier Reef Foundation with Arcadia, Only Everything, We Are Different

  • Mumbrella Award for Bravery

Winner: NAB JAB – Six Black Pens & TBWA with Mindshare for NAB

  • Mumbrella Award for Culture

Winner: Half Dome

  • Mumbrella Award for Insight

Winner: Rejected Ales – Howatson+Company for Matilda Bay

  • Mumbrella Award for Innovation

Winner: The Rocket Stove – FINCH/Creatable

  • Mumbrella Award for Data-Driven Marketing

Winner: Real-Time Routes – PHD Media for Virgin Australia

HC: realestate.com.au Property Owner Track Acquisition – REA Group

  • Mumbrella Award for Collaboration

Winner: Performance Enhancing Music – CHEP Network with Spotify, Resonance Sonic Branding for Samsung Electronics Australia

  • Mumbrella Award for Sustainable Practices

Winner: Tourism Noosa Sustainability Programs – Tourism Noosa

  • Marketing Team of the Year

Winner: Uber

HC: Optus

Winner: The Trade Desk ANZ

  • Marketing Technology Company of the Year

Winner: Tracksuit

  • Content Marketing Strategy of the Year

Winner: Crime Interrupted – Host/Havas for Australian Federal Police

  • Best Use of User Experience

Winner: Planet Puberty – GHO Sydney for Family Planning NSW

  • Best Use of Real-Time Marketing

Winner: McGowan Sofa Bed – The Royals for Koala

HC: Federal Budget 2021 – Six Black Pens with NAB, Mindshare for NAB

  • Under-30 Achiever of the Year

Winner: Grace Watkins, CEO & Co-founder, Click Management

HC: Camille Gray, Strategy Director, Initiative Australia

HC: Kate Holland, Marketing Manager, UnLtd/MOOD

  • Industry Leader of the Year

Winner: Melissa Fein, CEO, Initiative Australia

HC: Nick Shelton, Director & Publisher, Broadsheet Media

  • Production Company of the Year

Winner: Mushroom Creative House

  • Best Use of Experiential Marketing

Winner: KFC Big Bucket – Prism Sport + Entertainment with Mediacom, Ogilvy, OPR, Geometry, Stanhaz Events, NRL for KFC (Yum)

  • Pro Bono Campaign of the Year

Winner: Donation Dollar – Saatchi & Saatchi for Royal Australian Mint

Winner: Yuleglide – Special with Finch, Flux and Universal McCann for Optus

No winner representative was present at the ceremony

  • Media Campaign of the Year

Winner: Origin SnackDown – HERO with UM, Channel 9 for Menulog

HC: Crime Interrupted – Host/Havas for Australian Federal Police

Winner: Helping You Help Them – 72andSunny ANZ with Finch, Thirteen & Co, Otis, Vandal, Atticus & PHD for Google Australia

HC: One House to Save Many – Leo Burnett Australia with CSIRO, James Cook University, Room 11 Architects, The Glue Society, OMD. for Suncorp Group

Winner: Broadsheet Media

HC: Man of Many

  • Full Service Agency of the Year

Winner: Thinker Bell

Winner: Thrive PR

HC: Eleven

  • Specialist Agency of the Year

Winner: AKQA

HC: Orchard

HC: Shadowboxer

  • Emerging Agency of the Year

Winner: Howatson+Company

HC: Campfire x

  • Promo or Experiential Agency of the Year

Winner: Traffic

  • Independent Agency of the Year

Winner: Thinker Bell

HC: Special

Winner: Hatched

HC: Initiative

  • Creative Agency of the Year

Winner: The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song

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Queensland mum Alexi Bennett, partner and kids forced to live in motel room amid rental crisis

Queensland mum Alexi Bennett, partner and kids forced to live in motel room amid rental crisis

A young family has been forced to live in a Gold Coast motel amid an ongoing housing and rental crisis crippling Queensland.

But even with a virtually spotless rental history, stable income and no prior issues with their previous properties, Alexi Bennett and her partner Tinei Tiumalu say they still can’t find a place to live two months after their troubles began.

The couple, who has three young children, had to leave their previous rental home in May after their lease was not renewed.

“We were effectively made homeless,” Ms Bennett told NCA NewsWire.

Ms Bennett first spoke to the Gold Coast Bulletin about her plight and how it left them with no place to go.

She said they were now living in a small motel room which cost $850 a week while she continued applying for new properties from the Tweed region up to Logan.

“We’ve been going through real estates, private rentals, Gumtree, even the apps that aren’t really well known and there’s still nothing,” Ms Bennett said.

“It’s just rejection after rejection, or we’ve been told it’s already just been leased.”

“It’s a daily thing now.”

Ms Bennett’s plight is just one of many stories amid a shocking housing emergency leaving thousands of Queenslanders struggling to find a home.

Last month, the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) revealed more than 50,000 Queenslanders were waiting for a home on the social housing register.

The QCOSS blamed unaffordable house prices, rising costs of living and a slew of natural disasters plaguing the state.

Ms Bennett, a qualified aged care nurse, with her removalist partner Mr Tuimalu, are financially able to afford a rental property but have been constantly rejected from applications.

“It hits you; it really brings you down,” she said.

“My anxiety is through the roof. I sit up at night looking at homes, it leaves you speechless.”

Ms Bennett said she was remaining as positive as possible in the face of the constant rejections.

But she admitted she doesn’t know what the future holds.

“I don’t want my kids to know this life or the amount of guilt around simple things,” Ms Bennett said.

“We can’t even have fish and chips on the beach or go to the Ekka because of the money we have to pay in rent.”

According to research group SQM Research, renting a house on the Gold Coast costs about $970 as of August 4.

The average cost of a unit is around $653 a week.

Earlier this month, housing campaign group Everybody’s Home released data showing the “red zones” where rent prices had surged ahead of wage increases.

Northern parts of the Gold Coast had an average increase of 15.1 per cent to $835.50 for a rental.

The Brisbane CBD had a 3.6 per cent rise to $556.60.

Read related topics:Brisbane

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China Evergrande to get $818mn for scrapping stadium deal

China Evergrande to get $818mn for scrapping stadium deal

Embattled Chinese property giant Evergrande has canceled a contract to build a football stadium in a southern city in return for 5.52 billion yuan ($818 million), it said in a filing.

The real estate behavior has been involved in restructuring negotiations after racking up $300 billion in liabilities in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown on excessive debt and rampant speculation in the property sector.

In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange late Thursday, Evergrande said “the group’s liquidity issue has adversely affected the development of and construction on the land” in Guangzhou.

The contract allowed for commercial and sports uses of the land for 40 years, as well as other business uses for 50 years, the filing said.

The latest refund will enter a project escrow account designated by the government and will be used to settle debts relating to the deal, Evergrande said.

Evergrande, one of China’s biggest developers, has scrambled to offload assets in recent months, with chairman Hui Ka Yan paying off some of its debts using his personal wealth.

Its troubles are emblematic of the problems rippling across China’s massive property sector, with smaller companies also defaulting on loans and others struggling to raise cash.

bys/oho/dan

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Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn’t bothered by $20 billion loss

Why Canva boss, Cliff Obrecht isn't bothered by $20 billion loss

Despite a $20 billion fall in its evaluation, a tumultuous economic landscape and a sudden string of tech companies announcing staff cuts and sharp declines, Australia’s start up golden child is not worried.

speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Canva’s co-founder Cliff Obrecht believed the bearish market would provide the company with lots of opportunities.

“These times of market uncertainty provide a lot of opportunity and other than the external valuation noise, it’s a huge opportunity for us to grow our business,” he said.

This comes as Australia’s largest venture capital firm Blackbird announced they had reduced the holding value of Canva by 36 per cent. Listed as Canva’s largest investor, with around a 14 per cent stake in Canva, this indicated a drop of about US$14 billion or A$20 billion, in the tech company’s estimated value.

“This holding value of Canva is the result of an independent valuation process that was completed by a big four accounting firm and adopted by Blackbird’s valuation committee, in consultation with our auditors,” the company shared in a statement to news.com.au.

Before this, Canva managed to more than double its worth in 2021. After acquiring a valuation of $19 billion in April 2021, the company skyrocketed to $54.5 billion just five months later.

In internal emails reported by Nine newspapers, chief executive Melanie Perkins said the company was set to mark its sixth year of being profitable. She also assured staff and said the company was still hiring, unlike some other technology companies.

“We had planned to dip out of profitability this year to invest in further accelerating growth,” she wrote.

“However, we changed course as soon as we noticed the macroeconomic environment changing and are now back to being profitable again this year, for the sixth year in a row.”

Founded in 2013, by Perth couple Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht, and Tasmanian developer Cameron Adams, Canva is a free-to-use design tool that allows users to create social media posts, graphics, videos and presentations.

Since then, it’s become Australia’s most successful start-up – a title it continues to hold. For scale, Australia’s second largest start-up, online payments company Airwallex was valued at $5.5 billion in November 2021.

It’s believed Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht hold a 30 per cent stake in the company, which given the most recent evaluation is close to $6 billion.

According to its website, Canva has more than 2000 employees and operates in 100 languages ​​and across 190 countries.

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Busted: Couriers caught throwing parcels at Mackay Airport

Busted: Couriers caught throwing parcels at Mackay Airport

Footage has been revealed of an Australian courier company throwing packages as far as 10 meters into the back of a delivery truck.

The Australian StarTrack company has been named and shamed by a local resident who captured two couriers hurling parcels into a huge delivery truck at Mackay Airport in North Queensland.

Mackay resident Ashlee Coath is calling for the workers to be sacked after her fragile parcel arrived broken.

Investigating the possible cause of the damage, Ms Coath said she figured out how it may have happened after she saw the viral video online.

“I put two and two together and I figured out that’s probably how it ended up breaking,” she said.

“I always say treat people how you want to be treated, and I believe that goes for things as well.”

But Ms Coath is not the only one complaining about the company’s parcel treatment, with other residents claiming their packages always arrive damaged.

On Thursday the company released an apology to its customers, saying the couriers’ actions do not reflect StarTrack’s standards.

“These actions are not in line with the high service standards we expect of our people, and we sincerely apologize,” a spokesperson said.

The incident follows CCTV footage catching a courier throwing a parcel over a 2m electric gate in March.

The courier, who the customer claimed was an Australia Post employee, appeared to check his surroundings before throwing the parcel underarm.

The footage then shows him taking a photo of the item on the front step to confirm the delivery.

Customers with concerns about mail delivery are encouraged to contact Australia Post on 13 13 18.

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New 2025 Land Rover Discovery set for luxury reinvention

New 2025 Land Rover Discovery set for luxury reinvention

Land Rover’s forgotten child, the Discovery, is set for a major reinvention under Jaguar Land Rover’s Reimagine strategy to halt sliding sales that are partly down to the introduction of the Defender.

Speaking to Auto Express, CEO Thierry Bolloré said, “We are completely reinventing Discovery. We believe there is a space for it, but we have to be creative. Defender is such a success that it has eaten a part of what was the territory of Discovery. Defender is a brand. We believe that Discovery could be a brand as well. We are looking at how we present our future line-up – it’s something we have in mind.”

Discovery sales have been squeezed not only by supply chain constraints but also by the arrival of the new Defender family – on sale in three bodystyles and with seating for up to eight people in 130 form – and the new Range Rover, which is also now available as a seven-seater.

“The Range Rover with a third row could play that role, but it’s not the same spirit as Discovery,” said Bolloré. “So once you consider the territory that is strong for Range Rover, strong for Defender – how do we make a strong territory as well for Discovery?

“We need to make a real family car for the most discerning families. Discovery has to, and should, play this role that could disappear from the market otherwise – in the luxury segments at least. The Discovery will be that car.”

A push upmarket for Discovery fits in with JLR’s vision for its brands of ‘modern luxury’ and would move it away from the Defender on pricing, with a less utilitarian and more upmarket design. “The interest in having the Defender and Discovery brands is that you’re occupying very specific spaces,” said Bolloré.

Our exclusive images show how a new, more luxurious Discovery could look, refining the styling of the existing car by making use of the latest engineering techniques to give a much sleeker look, as JLR Chief Creative Officer Gerry McGovern and his team have successfully done with the latest Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. Expect to see the use of flush glazing, super-slim hi-tech LED lights and pop-out door handles.

It’s too early to say whether a new Discovery would lose the controversial offset rear number plate, although insiders suggest that McGovern would stick to his guns and keep it, despite some customers modifying their own cars with aftermarket central plate set-ups.

Inside, there is likely to be a clear step up in both quality and technology, with the latest Pivi Pro infotainment and over-the-air software updates, while sustainable materials will also play a big part.

Land Rover Discovery - rear (watermarked)

A new Discovery would sit on a different platform to the current car, with electrification also playing a key role. But with strong sales potential in markets such as the US, Middle East and China, combining electrification with internal combustion engines will still be key.

That means the most likely solution is to put the next Discovery onto the same MLA platform as the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, which means a full range of internal combustion engines, including the possibility of two petrol and two diesel engines, plus a couple of petrol plug-in hybrid versions (with an electric range in excess of 70 miles) and the first fully electric Discovery.

In JLR’s most recent financial report, the brand confirmed that all JLR nameplates would be available in fully electric form by the end of the decade, which will include the next generation of Discovery. “Our strategy to deliver the future of modern luxury to our clients continues at speed as we accelerate our plans for an electric-first, brand-led business,” said Bolloré.

Placing more emphasis on luxury for ‘discerning families’ in the new Discovery, as Bolloré said, would likely mean a hike in prices from the current entry point of £57,225, with Land Rover targeting higher profit margins available in the luxury sector.

The upmarket move might threaten the Discovery Sport, though. Asked whether there was a future for it, Bolloré responded, “We don’t know yet. But a Discovery, yes.”

That could mean any expansion of the Discovery family would be upwards, rather than downwards with, perhaps, a long-wheelbase version of a possibility.

Land Rover is at the very early stage of reimagining the Discovery family, with the current model expected to carry on for a good few years yet.

Jaguar Land Rover’s latest financial results reported that £2.6billion of investment was planned over the next year alone, with much of that money being spent on the reinvention of the Jaguar brand.

However, Land Rover will receive its fair share of investment, too, with an all-electric Range Rover launching in 2024, plus a further five new Range Rover, Defender and Discovery models by the end of 2026.

Expect the new Discovery to be the last of those arrivals, which means a debut possibly three years away in 2025 before going on sale a year later in 2026.

Click here for our list of the best luxury SUVs on sale right now…

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Increases are creating opportunities in bonds but luxury property is taking a hit

Increases are creating opportunities in bonds but luxury property is taking a hit

Put another way, the RBA is presenting a certain solution (sharply higher rates) to an extremely uncertain prospective problem (inflation expectations) and destroying its optionality in doing so.

Even one of the RBA’s key board members, Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, says there is no real evidence of a wage-driven inflation problem and that most of Australia’s inflation is supply-side induced.

The concern is that one casualty of the RBA’s pre-emptive increases is the hope that Australian workers can finally secure wage growth of 3-4 per cent annually that is required to maintain inflation sustainably within the RBA’s target band.

If the inflation we are experiencing is predominantly driven by supply-side factors, as Kennedy claims, trying to crush it by suffocating demand could have deleterious long-term consequences for the labor market.

There is undoubtedly merit in firmly jawboning inflation expectations with the specter of a tough monetary policy posture, which is precisely what the RBA is doing.

But after promising not to lift rates until 2024 – which the RBA explicitly set in stone by establishing a never-before-seen 0.1 per cent yield curve target for the 2024 Commonwealth bond – it is suddenly reckless to smash the economy with more than 200 basis points of rate increases in just four months on the basis of a perceived risk the RBA has no conviction in. (That 200 basis points assumes we get another 25-50-basis point increase next month.)

Luxury property hits

Beyond consumer demand, another real-time casualty is, of course, the housing market, which this column has discussed at length.

I constantly come across real estate agents claiming how resilient “luxury” real estate is. There are numerous narratives bandied around, but the key message is that the top end of the market is “insulated” from the woes experienced across cheaper sectors.

This is completely inconsistent with our understanding of how luxury real estate behaves based on the available data. It is characteristically much more illiquid, procyclical, and tends to be more volatile than the mass market. It is also typically much more sensitive to big shifts in financial markets, which means that it normally leads the cheaper segments.

Luxury housing is once again getting smashed harder and earlier than less expensive sectors. Domain

Since December 2021, global equities have been smashed, crypto has lost more than 70 per cent of its value, fixed income has suffered record losses and house prices have been falling at a double-digit annualized pace. It would be hard to imagine that luxury housing would be immune to these moves.

A team I established in 2003 created CoreLogic’s daily “hedonic” house price indices, which was a global first at the time. One additional innovation we developed was a “stratified” version of these benchmarks that broke the housing market up into “cheap”, “mid-priced” and “expensive” areas. More specifically, CoreLogic city indices are divided into three sub-categories: the cheapest 25 per cent of properties; the middle 50 per cent; and the most expensive 25 per cent.

Examining the performance of these stratified indices over the past six months, it appears that this cycle is no different: luxury housing is once again getting smashed harder and earlier than less expensive sectors. In Sydney, the most expensive homes started declining in value in January well ahead of the cheapest properties, which only began falling in April. In Melbourne, luxury dwellings peaked last November while the bottom end of the market held ground until May. A similar story is evident across all the eight capital cities.

CoreLogic’s head of research, Tim Lawless, confirms this analysis, commenting that the most expensive areas are materially underperforming less expensive homes. In Sydney, for example, luxury home values ​​have fallen by 6.3 per cent over the past three months in contrast to the cheapest 25 per cent of properties, which have only declined by 1.7 per cent. In Melbourne, expensive homes have lost 4.5 per cent in the last quarter compared to just 1.2 per cent for the cheapest dwellings. And in cities such as Adelaide and Perth, where prices have risen over the past three months, the top end of the market has performed worst.

Appetite for bonds

The bond market is one area where much higher interest rates are now being welcomed (after a painful price adjustment).

Last week this column discussed NAB’s five-year, BBB+ rated Tier 2 bond, which paid an interest rate of 6.44 per cent annually, higher than the franked dividend yield on Aussie equities. NAB printed $1.25 billion from $2.4 billion of investor demand (we bid for $200 million).

The bond has since performed strongly, as evidenced by its credit spread tightening some 31 basis points, which pushed its price much higher. This presumably convinced ANZ to capitalize on the investor appetite for these securities with a similar five-year, Tier 2 bond issue on Wednesday that secured $3 billion of demand despite a lower 5.9 per cent yield. Once again, the $1.75 billion bond has performed well, with its credit spread tightening immediately after the deal printed by 17 basis points (we bid for $250 million).

Higher up the capital stack, Westpac issued an AA-rated, three-year senior bond on Thursday with a 4 per cent annual interest rate that quickly galvanized $3.7 billion of investor bids (we bid for $100 million). Post issue, this promptly tightened some seven basis points in spread terms.

On the same day, UK bank NatWest hit the Aussie market with its first-ever bond issue via a $600 million, A-rated, three-year senior-ranking security that paid a 5 per cent yield (we bid for $100 million). This also promptly tightened 17 basis points on its first day. For credit markets, these are big moves!

Finally, the Victorian government also got in on the action on Thursday, issuing an AA-rated, 11-year bond paying 3.83 per cent in annual interest, which secured $3.7 billion in bids and immediately performed. This offered a chunky, 68-basis point spread above Commonwealth bonds. The demand from local banks to buy state government bonds as a liquid asset has been so strong that Victoria has been able to issue $12 billion of debt since its May 3 budget, completing 56 per cent of its total $21.3 billion funding task for 2023 in three months (ie leaving them only $9.3 billion to issue).

So the silver lining of much higher interest rates is new opportunities. In late 2021, we were extremely negative on our own asset class: specifically, credit spreads and interest rate duration risk. With fully-franked Aussie equities only yielding 6.3 per cent, bank bonds paying similar interest rates appear much more appealing right now.

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Airline IndiGo claims to have halved passenger disembarkation times

Airline IndiGo claims to have halved passenger disembarkation times

A low-cost airline has come up with what could be a game-changing idea to get passengers off airplanes quicker and keep the jets in the sky for longer.

One of the frustrations of air travel is the slow process of leaving the aircraft, with passengers having to squeeze through a single left hand door at the front of the plane.

If you’re at the back of the plane that can mean long waits as sometimes hundreds of people disembark in front of you.

To speed this up some airlines, including Virgin Australia and Qantas owned Jetstar, regularly allow passengers to disembark from a set of stairs at the rear of the airplane.

But India’s largest carrier IndiGo has gone one step further and has introduced a third door for passengers to exit through.

And uniquely, the third door is on the right hand side of the plane which is rarely – if ever – used as an exit in anything other than an emergency.

The carrier reckons it could almost halve the time it takes to get passengers off the plane from up to 13 minutes to a mere seven.

“The new Three-Point Disembarkation process will be carried out from two forward and one rear exit ramp, making IndiGo the first airline to use this process,” an IndiGo spokesman told India’s Hindustan Times.

A video uploaded by Indian business journalist Sumit Chaturvedi shows the new process with passengers leaving an IndiGo Airbus A320 aircraft via the various ramps.

While the giant Airbus A380 “superjumbo” often boards and disembarks by three doors, this is the first time it’s been done for a smaller narrow-body plane typically used on domestic and short-haul routes, such as the A320.

“An A320 aircraft usually takes around 13 minutes for its passengers to de-board the aircraft. However, the new process will make the drill faster and will reduce the disembarkation time from 13 minutes to seven minutes,” the IndiGo spokesman said.

That could be good for passengers who won’t have to hang around on-board.

But it could be a boon for the airline too. The quicker passengers can leave the plane, the shorter the turnaround time to get it back in the air with more fare-paying passengers on board.

Do time savings add up?

However, some are skeptical of the airline’s claims.

Ben Schlappig of US aviation blog One Mile At A Time questioned if all the claimed time savings would occur in real-life settings.

“The process of actually getting out the door is one bottleneck, but I’d think that getting down the aisle is another thing that takes time, and that’s still an issue, even with a second door in the front.”

Why plans usually board from the left

Traditionally, jets board and deplane from the left, despite doors being on both sides of the fuselage.

This helps to keep passengers separated from ground crew in what can be a hectic and potentially dangerous environment. For instance, staff loading bags into the aircraft from the right don’t have to worry about tripping over travelers who remain on the left.

In addition, the right hand door is often used to bring supplies on board an aircraft, such as water and food, at the same time as passengers enter and exit on the left.

Initially IndiGo’s routes in and out of Delhi as well as the cities of Mumbai and Bengaluru will feature Three-Point Disembarkation. But the airline has said it could roll out the new process across the whole country and its fleet of 181 A320s in just 90 days.

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Owner of notorious Greek restaurant hits back over newlyweds claims of eyewatering prices and bad service

The owner of a restaurant that charged newlyweds a staggering $850 for a quick snack has hit back at the couple, branding them “liars”.

Alex and Lindsay Breen ordered just one beer, one cocktail and a dozen oysters — and were then hit with the eyewatering bill by the DK Oyster bar on the Greek island of Mykonos.

Lindsay said she asked for a drinks menu but was repeatedly fobbed off before finally giving in and ordering an Aperol spritz.

When the couple were ready to leave, they asked for the bill — but rather than giving it to them at the table, Alex was taken to a back room to pay.

On being shown the massive bill, Alex was shocked and asked for a breakdown, which they gave him in Greek.

DK Oyster owner Dimitrios Kalamaras.
Camera IconDK Oyster owner Dimitrios Kalamaras. Credit: Facebook

Feeling under pressure and getting a “sketchy vibe”, Alex paid the bill.

But DK Oyster owner Dimitrios Kalamaras said the honeymooners were out of their minds.

“This person who is trying to get famous through Instagram posts under the name of Lyndsay Breen, starts with a lie,” he told Kennedy News.

“She claims that she ‘repeatedly asked for a cocktail menu’ and adds that ‘the server didn’t seem to want to provide one’.

“Despite that, she placed an order. An experienced well traveled person … she did what most adults in the right mind would not do — she ordered drinks and food from a waiter who refused to present a menu.

“This false claim has been used so much against our restaurant by dozens of anonymous users in TripAdvisor that we decided to place three huge blackboards by the entrance of the restaurant displaying the menu and the prices.”

While the restaurant does have prices on blackboards, tourists say it is misleading with prices based on per 100g rather than the usual 1kg as is the norm at most eateries in Greece.

Mr Kalamaras added that if someone was unhappy with the service before they ordered, they could “leave or request to talk to the manager”.

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Ford axes Focus and Fiesta ST in shift to SUVs and utes

Ford axes Focus and Fiesta ST in shift to SUVs and utes

Ford has axed its popular Fiesta and Focus hot hatches as it focuses on utes and SUVs.

The brand ditched the regular Focus and Fiesta some time ago but continued to import the ST performance models in limited numbers. So far this year the pair has attracted only 183 buyers.

Ford President Andrew Birkic says the decision recognizes the fact that buyer tastes have shifted in recent years. He also hinted there would be performance-car replacements in other segments.

“Both the Focus ST and Fiesta ST have been segment defining hot hatches for Ford Australia and have put smiles on the faces of enthusiasts across the country and we want to thank those fans for their passion,” he says.

“But with semiconductor-related supply shortages and our focus on emerging areas of growth, we’ve made the difficult decision to call time on these iconic hot hatches in Australia. We look forward to sharing more about the next era of our performance vehicle line-up soon,” he says.

The move comes as somewhat of a shock as the brand has just started imported updated versions of both cars.

Ford says it has secured just 40 Focus STs for the remainder of the year, but Fiesta supply is likely to be more than that. The company will also look at trying to secure more vehicles from the plant in Germany if demand warrants it.

The move continues Ford’s shift away from traditional passenger vehicles to utes and SUVs, in particular the Ranger and the Everest wagon, which is based on Ranger underpinnings.

Between them, the Ranger and Everest made up roughly 85 per cent of Ford sales this year. The percentage would have been higher but sales have tapered off as buyers waited for the new models.

The new Ranger was launched last month and the Everest will follow shortly.

A new version of the Ranger Raptor will also arrive soon. It is powered by a potent twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine putting out a V8-like 292kW of power and 583Nm of torque.

Ford will also take the covers off an all-new Mustang at the Detroit motor show next month.

“The Ford Mustang remains the country’s most popular sports car and we’re preparing for the launch of the next-generation Ranger Raptor, which sets a new performance benchmark for dual-cab utes in Australia,” Birkic says.

Both vehicles could become sound investments for those buyers who snap them up, as discontinued performance vehicles have been attracting big prices from car collectors.

Second-hand versions of the Subaru WRX STI EJ25 Final Edition, which launched last year for $62,440, are selling for between $125,000 and $170,000.

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