
Eagle-eyed Aussie points out the tiny error on a sign passed by thousands of commuters every day at Sydney's Central Station - so can you spot it?
Central Station in Sydney, which is visited by over 250,000 commuters every day, is a major hub for trains, the Metro, and Light Rail services.
Among the familiar sights is the iconic 'Central' signage seen across multiple platforms, but there's more to it than meets the eye.
An eagle-eyed Aussie shared a photo of one of the 'Central' signs and questioned why the 'C' was in a different font to the rest of the letters.
The C is also noticeably smaller, appearing to be done in a lower case style, compared to the other letters in the word central.
The smaller 'C' can be found between platforms 20 and 21 at Central Station, where both platforms serve the City Circle line.
The photo sparked a flurry of reactions online, with other Aussies admitting they had noticed the detail before and found it deeply irritating.
'This has driven me mental for so many years! It's been like this for so long,' one frustrated Sydneysider commented on the Reddit thread.
'This is frustrating to become aware of,' another wrote.
'I noticed this a few years ago. It upsets me to no end,' a third said.
Others found the situation funny, making fun of the typographic mishap.
'Because they obviously pressed Shift while Caps Lock was on!!' one joked.
'Yep, unfortunately now we all C it,' another said.
'The usual C is late for his shift because of train delays. This is the apprentice c standing in. Just doing the best he can,' a fourth added.
Other commenters added that the sign may be that way intentionally, similar to the slanted 0 on the front of Number 10 Downing Street, the London residence of the British Prime Minister.
According to the BBC, the '0' in the number 10 is deliberately tilted, a subtle nod to the original sign, where the zero was poorly fixed and sat at an angle.
Central Station opened in 1906 and was previously built on the site of the Devonshire Street Cemetery.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The dark side of Australia's cost-of-living crisis exposed
A dark side of Australia's cost-of-living crisis has emerged, with the stress of making ends meet linked to a rise in animal cruelty. RSPCA NSW CEO Steve Coleman told Daily Mail Australia that financial pressures facing millions of Aussies were partly responsible for pets being abused or neglected by their stressed owners. It comes as RSPCA NSW announced it would be temporarily closing its online cruelty reporting portal due to the high volume of complaints. 'Whenever things are tough on the economic front it generally results in an increase in cruelty complaints,' Mr Coleman said. 'In the last couple of years it (animal cruelty complaints) has definitely been related to tight budgets on the home front and people not being able to afford their vet bills.' Mr Coleman, who joined the RSPCA in 1991, said the organisation also had to help victims of domestic violence by taking their pets and looking after them while they found safe accommodation. 'The number of people with pets who have become homeless has also increased. A lot of people with pets haven't been able to afford their mortgages,' Mr Coleman said. 'At the core of it, the economy definitely hasn't helped. There are a lot of social challenges at the moment. It's a tough economy.' The Covid pandemic resulted in a huge demand for animal adoptions which left the RSPCA in NSW with empty shelters. Now, close to 70 per cent of households have a pet and many are struggling to look after them. Animal cruelty isn't limited to physical abuse, it also includes failing to take pets in need of medical assistance to a vet, often because of the costs involved. Mr Coleman said there was currently around 800 animals sitting on a 'surrender' wait list, but the RSPCA doesn't have the capacity to take care of them. 'What we say to them is we can't take the animal right now, but what we can do is try and help you maintain your connection with your animal so you don't have to surrender it,' he said. 'That may be that we fund a vet bill for a couple of hundred dollars that they can't afford.' Mr Coleman also said weather also played a role in the amount of animal cruelty cases reported to the RSPCA. 'Typically, if we go back a few years before the economy started to crunch we got more complaints during the summer months,' he said. 'In summer months when feedstocks dry out we'll get more livestock-related complaints around drought-related issues as well.' The RSPCA NSW recently released a statement saying it was temporarily closing its online cruelty reporting portal. 'Like many organisations, we face significant challenges when supporting animals and their guardians, and while enforcing animal welfare laws with limited resources,' it said. 'Due to the high volume of cruelty complaints we are currently receiving, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily close our online cruelty reporting portal. 'This change will help us manage case intake more efficiently by ensuring that our team can effectively triage the animals who need us the most, through reducing lower-priority and duplicate reports. 'Animal cruelty reports can still be made, as they always have been, via our phone hotline, which remains operational and staffed.'


Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The important recycling rule that most Aussies break on bin night
Have you ever gone to toss something into the recycling bin – a jam jar, a pizza box, a takeaway container encrusted with yesterday's lunch – and wondered if you're doing it right? Perhaps you asked yourself: should I scrub the jar with hot water? Scrape the mozzarella off the box? Wash off that palak paneer? Research shows most Australians believe they are good recyclers. But only 25% of people separate waste correctly and up to 35% of recycling goes to landfill unnecessarily. And one in four Australians tends not to rinse or empty food containers before sending them to the bin. The problem is not helped by different recycling practices between councils, which causes public confusion. So just how well does recycling need to be rinsed? What should you do with your plastic lids and pizza boxes? And will robots one day work it all out for us? The problem of contamination Mechanical recycling methods – such as shredding and melting – struggle to operate when food and other residues are present. In fact, one spoiled item might ruin the entire cycling batch. Queensland's Goondiwindi Regional Council, for example, said nearly a quarter of its kerbside recyclables collected in 2022–23 was contaminated and sent to landfill. Some councils use 'advanced materials recovery' that can tolerate lightly soiled recyclables. These facilities use mechanical and automated sorting processes, including optical sorters and artificial intelligence. But other councils still rely on human sorting, or basic mechanical systems, which require items to be relatively clean. Be a tip–top recycler While local recycling capabilities come into play, as a general rule, rinse containers when you can. As well as avoiding contamination, it helps reduce smells and keep bins clean. The best pre–cleaning method for recycling depends on the type of packaging. Paper and cardboard: these items must be clean and dry – no exceptions. Paper and cardboard absorbs contamination more than other materials. So if it gets wet or greasy, it can't be recycled – though it may be compostable. So for pizza boxes, for example, recycle the clean parts and bin the parts that are greasy or have food stuck to them. Unfortunately, traditional cardboard coffee cups are not usually recyclable in Australia. That's because the plastic lining inside is bonded tightly to the paper, making it difficult to separate during standard paper recycling. However in some areas, programs such as Simply Cups collect coffee cups and recycle them into sustainable products such as asphalt, concrete and building products. And in some states, such as South Australia and Western Australia, single–use cups lined with polymer are banned and only compostable cups can be used. Glass and metals: these items are washed and processed at extremely high temperatures, so can tolerate a bit of residue. But too much residue can contaminate paper and cardboard in the bin. So rinse glass and plastic to remove visible food and empty liquids. Just a quick rinse is enough – there's no need to scrub or use hot water. But not all glass and metals can be recycled. Mirrors and light bulbs, for instance, are treated in such a way that they melt at different temperatures to other glass. So check before you chuck. Plastics: rinse plastics before putting them in the recycling bin. It's important to know that the numbers 1 to 7 on plastics, inside a recycling symbol, do not necessarily mean the item can be recycled in your area. The number is a code that identifies what plastic the item is made from. Check if your council can recycle that type of plastic. Complicating matters further is the question of plastic lids. On this, guidelines differ across Australia, so check your local rules. Some councils recycle plastic coffee–cup lids while others don't. Likewise, the rules on plastic bottle lids differ. Some councils allow bottle–lid recycling, but even then, the processes vary. In the Australian Capital Territory, for example, a lid larger than a credit card can be put in the recycling bin, but consumers are asked to remove the lid from the bottle. But Brisbane City Council asks consumers to leave the lids on. Meanwhile, organisations such as Lids4Kids collect plastic lids and make them into new products. The future of recycling Recycling methods are evolving. Advanced chemical recycling breaks plastic down into its chemical building blocks. It can process plastic types that traditional methods can't, such as soft plastics, and turn it into valuable new products. AI and automation are also reshaping recycling, by improving sorting and reducing contamination. And closed–loop washing systems, which filter and reuse water, can clean lightly soiled recyclables. Other innovations are emerging, too, such as dissolvable packaging and AI–enabled 'smart bins' that might one day identify and sort materials – and maybe even tell consumers if items need rinsing! And goods can also be 'upcycled' into higher value products such as 'nanomaterials' or hydrogen. But upcycling still requires clean, well–sorted streams to be viable. And until all these technologies are widespread, each of us must help keep our recycling systems working well. Pooria Pasbakhsh is a research fellow in polymer upcycling at The University of Melbourne.


Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The crisis brewing in Sydney - and it has alarming public health consequences
One of Australia's biggest cities is facing an exploding rat population, with the vermin immune to poisons and becoming disease super-spreaders. Sydney, known for its iconic harbour, vibrant city and bustling food scene, has become inundated with rats. The presence of rats in urban spaces has always plagued major cities around the world, but experts have seen the population skyrocket since the Covid pandemic. The exact number of rats in Sydney is unknown and difficult to ascertain as a population count would quickly become outdated since a rat pregnancy only lasts three weeks and can produce more than a dozen pups in one litter. However, a wave of viral videos showing rodents invading human spaces highlights the booming number of rats in the city. In January, at least half a dozen rats were spotted scurrying around the kitchen of a popular late-night kebab eatery on Oxford Street in Sydney. One month prior, Sydneysiders were left disgusted after footage captured giant rats 'brazenly' running wild at the food court in Westfield Parramatta, in Sydney's west. Owner of Pesty Girls pest management Nathaly Haeren believes rats have become a problem 'all across Sydney'. She said she has seen an uptake in requests for pest control, with calls surging to record levels since the Covid pandemic. Ms Haeren explained the visible presence is due to the increase in construction sites across the city, which push the rats above ground. Not only that, but ever-changing waste pick-up cycles mean bins are sitting outside for longer, giving rats an abundance of food on the street. 'It's the destruction they cause that blows my mind, that scares me, because I'm competing against them,' Ms Haeren told The Guardian. 'Rats need to keep gnawing to keep their teeth down. Their strength is like iron. And they can flatten to the size of your thumb - they've got hinged ribs … I need to be 10 steps ahead.' The owner and operator of pest control business MOA Contract Shooting said he has never been in higher demand. Mr Bankowski, who has run his business throughout NSW since 2015, has had to deal with rat outbreaks at shopping centres, warehouses, chicken farms, and food manufacturing sites. 'We've had sites where we've shot over 650 rats in four hours. The whole back of my HiLux was covered in rats - 15 cm deep,' Mr Bankowski said. Mr Bankowski has found that the common pest management method of eliminating the source of the infestation and then laying down traps and bait is no longer sufficient. He explained that about 20 per cent of a rat population is typically immune to poison, which means they survive, breed, and create a colony that is completely resistant. New research has found that black rats in Australia have developed a genetic mutation that increases their resistance to one of the most widely used poisons. The study, led by Edith Cowan University PhD student and environmental toxicologist Alicia Gorbould, identified the mutation in more than half of the black rats tested in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney between 2021 and 2024. The mutation suggests the rats have developed resistance to second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, also known as SGARs. Ms Gorbould also expressed fears of a public health crisis, warning that Australians may be using larger quantities of poison in an attempt to rid their homes of rats. However, instead of working effectively, this could introduce more poison into the food chain and waterways. 'If you're using one of the baits that don't work … people will probably try to use more, and more, and more,' Ms Gorbould told Daily Mail Australia. 'And so it's feeding back into that cycle of increasing the rates of resistance in the population, increasing those non-targeted poisonings, and then we're ending up essentially with a public health issue because we've got these rats that can't be controlled.' In 2019, Sydney experienced its first outbreak of leptospirosis—a bacterial disease spread through rodent urine. The outbreak killed seven dogs and was linked to a surge in the rat population across Sydney, as the city faced 'unprecedented' levels of construction. Leptospirosis can also be fatal to humans. Rats are known as super-spreaders of human diseases and parasites, and have been directly linked to dozens of illnesses including Lyme disease, plague, and typhus—primarily through fleas. Rat-borne diseases are also believed to have claimed more lives over the past 10 centuries than the total number of people killed in all wars combined. According to a spokesperson for the City of Sydney, the greatest health and safety risks posed by rats are disease transmission, structural damage, and food contamination through their urine, hair, and faecal matter. Council also received a surge in reports of rat sightings and complaints from residents living in social housing estates, where shared communal bins are used. In just one year, council spends an estimated $240,000 on pest control, operating a 'risk-based rodent control program' alongside the conventional use of rat baits. More than 100 staff and contractors oversee the program, which takes place on streets and in parks, and uses 40 electronic multi-catch traps in areas where rodent activity is highest. Council also uses rat bait on a quarterly basis in a bid to prevent the rodents from becoming resistant to the poison. Ms Gorbould said Australia has been using the same poison for more than 50 years and urged the country to adopt a more coordinated approach to rodent management. Others have suggested reintroducing Australia's native bush rat into the city. Conservation Biology Professor at the University of Sydney, Peter Banks, believes native rats could help combat invasive species such as the black rat and the brown or Norway rat. Mr Banks, along with other academics, is currently running programs to reintroduce bush rats to areas around Sydney Harbour. The aim is to block black rats from invading the area and replace them with bush rats, which do not carry harmful diseases. Mr Banks added that bush rats do not smell, live in hidden burrows separate from humans, and do not feed on trash but rather on seeds, fruit, and nectar.