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The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.47 - 2 March 2003

Contents

Music in Melbourne
What's in a name?
Country Victoria
Free Museum Entry
Hidden Gems of Melbourne - Hidden Museums
Rod Quantock Bus Tour
Did You Know
Free Australian Books
Reader Feedback

Music

For jazz lovers, the Blues Train at Queenscliff is running this weekend. Details at Steam Trains in Melbourne & Victoria.
For families & kids there is an free concert of jazz, folk, comedy & cabaret at the Monash Civic Centre. Details at Children's activities in Melbourne.
For classical buffs, there is chamber music at Rippon Lea and the ABC free concerts continue. Details at Classical Music in Melbourne.
For opera buffs, Opera Australia’s season continues with Orpheus in the Underworld. We are promised a raunchy production with stockings and suspender belts but even Baz Luhrmann was not prepared to follow the dress codes of the original can can.

What's in a name?

Kylie Minogue is now simply Kylie. It shows that you have really made it when you just have a single name like Cher. (Of course the ultimate is to have no name and just be ‘formely known as …’) Even classical music has artists like Solomon and Kennedy.

Following this lead, White Hat Tours is now White Hat.

Over the years, we have expanded from just offering tours. The tours still operate – in fact we hare currently snowed under with bookings.  However, we will be dropping most of the smaller public ones so that we can concentrate on other things – including getting this newsletter out on a regular basis.

Kylie, of course, could have decided to call herself Kylie Melbourne. Back at the end of the 19th century, Australia’s first international superstar decided to name herself after Melbourne – Nellie Mitchell changed her name to Nellie Melba. If she hadn’t we would now be driving up the Mitchell Highway and eating Mitchell Toast.

Country Victoria

The Beechworth Harvest Festival is on this weekend. To see Victoria at its Autumn best, the best route is, of course, the Melba Highway. You could always stop off at the Melba Museum in Lilydale along the way. Details at Events in Victoria.

Free Museum Entry

Entry is now free for children and concession card holders to the Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks and the Immigration Museum. Adult prices drop to $6 which is also great news. Thanks Steve – this is just as significant as when Jeff removed all entry charges from the gallery. Museums are faced with a dilemma regarding how to remain viable. The Melbourne Museum, like a number of others,  seems to have chosen the route of becoming an edutainment theme park. This often results in a downward spiral as it attempts to chase its newly-found patrons downmarket. There is nothing wrong with entertaining while educating – our tours are based on that principle – but it is unfortunate when the underlying rigour starts to disappear. You could go the museum in its old incarnation and follow through a line of investigation. Now some of the only systematic displays are likely to be specimens taken from the collection, arranged by a ‘conceptual artist’ and labelled with emotive words reflecting that artist's distaste for museums and systematic study.

Fortunately there are numbers of well-researched and informative museum displays around Victoria at any one time – and most of them have free entry. In Melbourne, displays at the State Library and Postmasters Gallery are consistently good and sometimes stunning. You can also find first rate exhibitions in country Victoria. We recently visited the John Quick exhibition in the Old Bendigo Post Office. It shows what can be done by taking a small but important subject an treating it very well – excellent stuff. If you call at the Melba Museum you will find a small but very good presentation. The adjoining Lilydale Museum contains, among other things, a small temporary and inexpensive display based around washing day that for the thought and content behind it puts many of the displays at the Melbourne Museum to shame.

Perhaps the edutainment theme parks have sprung up to cater for schools who offer content-free education or parents who don’t want to take an active role in their own children’s’ learning.. This is a real pity, because Melbourne offers great opportunities for families to explore various themes together. They could go out on a Ned Kelly Trail or a Burke & Wills Trail or an Inventions Trail or a Business Trail. If there is any interest, I could look at including some suggestions and details for parents in this newsletter. If you would be interested, let us know at:

If you feel that new age fuzziness is slowly replacing informed rigorous thinking in our education system, you may wish to attend a talk by a prominent member of the CSIRO regarding these issues. Details at Forums in Melbourne.

Hidden Gems of Melbourne

Melbourne's 'hidden museums'

Melbourne has numbers of hidden historical gems which are generally not open to the public because they are privately owned or part corporate or government properties with limited access. However the owners will often arrange for a visit from people who have approached them in civil manner. This will sometimes require references indicating that the person is a mature and responsible person who is a researcher in the particular area and has a knowledge of , and can be relied upon to observe, the appropriate social mores and protocols for a guest under such circumstances. Here are some of our favourite places.

Please note: This section of the newsletter has been removed as it forms part of a forthcoming publication or because it is forms part of our Questing activities. If you find yourself on a tour where the guide is White Hat Accredited they are likely to know the answer to many questions you may have in this area. All guides on White Hat Tours are White Hat Accredited.

Rod Quantock Bus Tour

Rod Quantock no longer does his well known tram and bus tours. However we have been informed of a special one-off tour in conjunction with an international conference. Details at Comedy in Melbourne.

Did you know?

During the depression, one Melbourne suburb renamed itself after an American industrialist and philanthropist, in an attempt to attract funding from him. Maybe we can look forward to Gatesville or Murdochtown.

Free Australian books

A number of famous Australian books are freely downloadable on the Internet One book closely associated with Melbourne is C.J.Dennis’ Sentimental Bloke. Some of these poems are set at the Vic Market . Ginger Mick flogs bunnies there. Rabbits are now $8 each at the Vic Market – underground chicken is now more expensive than the above ground variety. Anyway we consulted the Sentimental Bloke about our name change. He reminded us about the first time he went to The Princess Theatre with his posh new girlfriend to see Romeo & Juliet.

“Wot’s in a name?” she sez …An’ then she sighs, An’ clasps ‘er little ‘ands, and rolls ‘er eyes.
“A rose,” she sez, “be any other name Would small the same.
O w’erefore art thou Romeo, young sir?
Chuck yer old pot, an’ change yer moniker!”

Reader feedback

"I just wanted to say congratulations on such a fantastic website, it puts the government tourism sites to shame. Not only on quantity but quality."
Katt, 4 May 2003

"For your information neither NSM Importers or BAS Foods , both in Victoria St, Brunswick stock Harissa paste, the soul of ME cooking. I drove across Melbourne to Brunswick to visit these stores to buy Harissa - a complete waste of time Fancy finding two Middle Eastern food outlets that do not stock Harissa !!!!!"
Regards Kevin

Kevin has been consulting our pages on Food Stores in Melbourne. I am similarly surprised. I buy harissa in a sort of toothpaste tube from the Vic Market. I buy it from Jim Papadopoulos' Deli (I think he's Irish). However it is never the same as the freshly made item. If anyone would like our recipe for harissa, send us an email at: harissa@whitehat.com.au (You might also like the recipe for Peach Mitchell)

In the meantime, that is all from the artist previously known as White Hat.