The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.110 - 22 December 2004

Contents

A walk through Bethlehem
Last minute gifts
Children’s stuff
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Jazz convention
Reader feedback
A politically correct season’s greetings

A walk through Bethlehem

Until Christmas Eve, students, staff and parents of a suburban primary school present a living display of life in a small town 2,000 years ago. There are spinners, weavers, blacksmiths, potters, bakers and animals, centurions and Herod's palace. Details at Family activities in Melbourne.

Last minute gifts

You might still have time to pick up gift vouchers for a range of activities ranging from sky diving to swimming with seals at Outdoor/Adventure activities.

If you do purchase anything through the White Hat web site then keep a record of it. We are currently negotiating with a number of organisations who may be willing to supply free rewards (products, event tickets, etc) as a way of introducing people to their products. However they are only interested in people who have a history of having bought stuff. (Their experience has been similar to ours. We have offered free places on our tours in the past but not one participant has ever later come back and paid for a tour. Meanwhile many paying customers have come back again and again.) So, if you buy something through our website or have purchased a spot on one of tours keep a note of it. We hope to announce a White Hat rewards scheme in the New Year.

Children’s stuff

Next week there are two new free activities starting in the parks. Take the bub along and learn to sing a lullaby or even to improvise one.

You could also go along to Fairy Fantasies at the Fairy Tree. There you will find squealing three year old fairies, dainty fairies, fairies in Blundstones, fairies joined at the hip, young women who still can’t manage the real life thing, moth eaten fairies, belles dames sans merci, and fairies whose wingspan to mass ratio make flight seem highly improbable. Details at Fitzroy Gardens.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Continuing the fairy theme you can head along to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the magical setting of the Botanic Gardens at night complete with pyrotechnics. This has become a real Melbourne gem and an ideal place to take overseas guests.

If you can’t get along to the gardens and you love The Dream then keep an eye out for the old Hollywood version complete with Mendelssohn’s music, a very young Mickey Rooney as Puck and Jimmie Cagney as a splendid Bottom (that will get blocked by some of your spam filters). You are unlikely to find it at your video store – even ACMI doesn’t have it – but you might track it down on the internet See A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Jazz convention

Next week there is a major jazz convention in Stawell with over 200 bands from around the country and overseas. Details at Jazz in Melbourne & Victoria.

Reader feedback

“I love your newsletter. I have told quite a few people at work about it, who have also subscribed. Love the humour in it. Even if I have a full weekend, at least I can enjoy a laugh.
Cheers, Melissa”

Thanks Melissa. By the way, even though I have my spellchecker set to Australian English it rejects the English spelling of ‘humour’ and wants to substitute the American one. Maybe this is globalisation by stealth. Then again maybe it is so as not to confuse it with Renaissance concept of ‘the four humours’. If you are not familiar with them it is worth looking them up as material for fascinating conversation over Christmas dinner.

And to Spiderguy, I am afraid we are unable to comply with your request due to a shortage of dead bears in the local vicinity.

A politically correct season’s greetings

Thank you for all our readers who have sent in kind messages and season’s greetings expressed in a variety of terms.

I would like to respond but don’t know what terms are currently permitted. For a while we seemed to be heading towards a society like Singapore where people would happily celebrate a whole range of cultures and religions. I have been a welcome guest at friends’ celebrations of Diwali, Hanukah, end of Ramadan and some Aboriginal ceremonies to name but a few. However, somewhere along the way the multicultural agenda seems to have been hijacked by some who feel that it is not about expanded horizons and inclusiveness but rather about restrictiveness and that they will make the rules about what is allowable. For instance, my sister conducts a primary school choir in the country but has to get written permission from each parent before they are allowed to sing Christmas songs. The reason often given for preventing Australians doing things they have done for generations is that it might offend someone. Well, I for my part am offended by Australians speaking in American teentalk, junk science, drive time radio, faux Edwardian light fittings, Andrew Lloyd Webber, begonias, ABC advertisements, bimbo travel presenters, boofy travel presenters, bad conceptual art, easy listening soul, yet another performance of Les Sylphides, supermarket tomatoes, post modernist critique, advertising presented as news, the unexamined life, Richmond supporters, Hi-5, sushi with roast beef, badly made hipster jeans, well made hipster jeans, prissiness masquerading as manners, junk history, cover bands, the middle brow masquerading as culture, nil-all draws, small dogs, niceness masquerading as goodness, official merchandise, and the girl behind the counter at the local coffee shop who always thinks her current conversation with the waitress is much more important than taking my order – but does anyone care about offending me? No! It seems that much of Australian society seems to go out of its way each day to offend me. So Bah Humbug, I’m going to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

And if I’ve offended some of you out there by using those words, then don’t worry. We offend everybody equally in this newsletter and the time will come for the rest of them.