Published in the public interest, or near enough to it.

RAY CONNELLY POSTS SOMETHING OUTBOUND: THE BOX, NOT THE COUNTER, AND WHAT THAT DISTINCTION IS DOING TO THE DISTRICT

Thursday afternoon, four-twenty. Ray Connelly crossed to the red box outside the store and posted something. Not the counter. The box.

This matters because the counter has a keeper.

He has posted to Narrabri Steel Fabricators. He posted, in Edition 27, to a second Cairns address. He has, since arriving at the Henderson place, conducted his correspondence through Lorraine Apps at a frequency that suggests either trust or necessity, and possibly both. Thursday he bypassed her entirely. The box goes direct. Whatever left Redgum Hollow on Thursday afternoon will not be noted in any ledger Lorraine keeps.

Queensland is the inference. Nobody saw the address. Two people confirm it is the first time he has posted outbound through the box rather than the counter, and those two people are careful observers.

A man who has been methodically writing to fabricators, surveyors, and at least one Cairns contact now writes to someone he does not wish to have noted. That is not proof of anything. It is, however, an interesting editorial development, and this paper is in the business of interesting.

The stake is still in the ground at the east gate. Bruce Patterson slowed his ute near it Wednesday and did not stop. He looked.

THE FOURTEENTH OF AUGUST AND THE SIXTEENTH OF OCTOBER: DEB FORSYTHE IS NOW ON THE PRINTER'S CLOCK

The 16 October deadline is real. The printer is involved. A deadline that originates outside the committee is a different animal from one Deb Forsythe sets herself, and those of us who have watched Deb Forsythe set deadlines know she respects her own considerably.

A printer's deadline is non-negotiable in the way that only invoices and weather are non-negotiable.

Vendor confirmations are the pressure point being discussed at the store. A printed program requires confirmed names. Confirmed names require confirmed vendors. The festival is two and a half months from the fourteenth of August — the date this paper has understood to be the operational anchor since Priya Sharma named it, quietly, in Edition 26.

Deb has run stopwatches at the east gate. She has sat with Trevor Nance on Patten Road. She has, by every observable measure, taken this more seriously than anyone on that committee expected her to. Whether she has secured enough vendor confirmations to fill a program by the sixteenth is the question being asked with some delicacy by people who would prefer not to have Deb Forsythe hear them asking it.

The Gazette will report what it learns when it learns it, and not a moment after.

FOOTBALL: THREE HOME WINS, SIXTY-ONE THROUGH THE PUB, AND BINNILONG FALLS STARTS DOUBLE-TAGGING THE CORRIDOR

Redgum Hollow 12.7 defeated Binnilong Falls 9.4 Saturday. Three home wins in a row, which is a different kind of fact from one home win or two.

Steve-o kicked three from the corridor. In the third quarter, Binnilong Falls began double-tagging him. "They're planning for him" is being noted in supporter circles, and it is the right thing to note: when opposition coaches change their defensive structure around a single player in the corridor, that player has crossed a threshold from asset to problem — for opponents. Keith Orchard said "good corridor work" after the siren. Two words more than last week.

Sixty-one through the pub Saturday night. The parma special lasted thirty-five minutes. Macca said nothing about the speed of it, which is as close as Gary McKenzie gets to public celebration.

Steve-o drove to Tamworth on Thursday. Said supply run. Came back without supplies anyone could see in the tray. This is not football news. It is noted here because there is no cleaner category for it and because the question is hanging.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

On the rolls:

Marge, I was in the store Tuesday before eight and I counted them myself. Sixteen. I am not saying this is trouble but I am saying Lorraine wrote something down both times and the two notations looked the same to me from where I was standing, which is at least something.
— Name supplied, withheld on request

On the east gate:

Don't know why everyone's so interested in a bit of star picket. Ray Connelly put a marker in the ground. So does every landholder with a GPS and a plan. Some of us have been doing it for thirty years without it being news.
— D.H., Patten Road

Editor's note: The Gazette takes the point and prints it regardless. — M.H.

On the football:

Three in a row is three in a row. I've been coming to this oval since before half of you were born and I am telling you that corridor position is the difference. Don't let them double-tag him into the pocket. He's not a pocket player.
— Clarrie Burton

AROUND THE DISTRICT

• Spring has arrived technically. The district has not yet accepted this. No rain this week.

• The Wednesday bench sat empty Wednesday afternoon, except for Clarrie Burton and, briefly, a cup of tea Lorraine brought out without being asked. Forty minutes. Nobody interrupted.

• The Dooley circular is understood to have been discussed by at least one landowner on the southern boundary. Which one is not confirmed.

• The parma special will return next Saturday. Macca has not said this. It is understood.

• Bruce Patterson is fine.