The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.129 - 3 June 2005

Contents

Vietnamese Festival
Truncated newsletter
Theatre & comedy
From the White Hat inbox
World Environment Day
Exhibitions
Fairs & fetes
Reader feedback
Seniors activities
Survival guide for blokes
Medical Research Week
Superheroes conference
The White Hat Quiz
Country Victoria

Vietnamese Festival

This Sunday there is a Vietnamese Festival at the Immigration Museum. If you can’t make it, don’t worry because every weekend there is a riot of wonderful fresh and cheap Vietnamese food at Footscray, Richmond and Springvale. Details at Ethnic & Religious Festivals in Melbourne.

Truncated newsletter

Last week some of you received a blank newsletter. We are not sure what caused the problem so please let us know if it happens again

Theatre & comedy

A new improvised theatre event commences this week in Fitzroy called The Cave. This will be a regular event. Details at Theatre in Melbourne.

From the White Hat Inbox

“Hello my name is Stacey. I'm doing a project on Albert Namatjira and i was wondering if you can answer me this question. Why is he work valued by others? If you could get this question answered by next Tuesday(7/6/05) that would be great. Thank-you for reading my e-mail and i do hope that you can answer my question. From Stacey. Please Reply to this e-mail address (xxxx).edu.au that is my school one or this one hippie_chick(xxx)@hotmail.com Thank-you again.”

World Environment Day

All sorts of workshops and activities to celebrate World Environment Day. Learn how to reuse and recycle, learn how vegetarians can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, learn about renewable energy. For my part I am going to save energy by not using apostrophes for the rest of this newsletter. You can add them yourself and the boss will think youre working (did you spot that one?). (Last week at the Melbourne Cemetery I noticed they had put up a large impressive sign at the entrance to the garden celebrating all Australian prime ministers. The expensive new sign reads “Prime Minister’s Garden”.) The environment day celebrations are at the Collingwood Childrens Farm.

Exhibitions

The irreverent Bald Archies are in Melbourne for the first time at the Meat Market. Details of this and other exhibitions at Exhibitions in Melbourne.

Fairs & fetes

This weekend is the Rotary book Fair at Albert Park. See Fairs & Fetes in Melbourne There is also the Hawthorn Craft Fair, so if your supply of crocheted toilet roll covers is running low you can head over to Hawthorn. Details at Craft & Collectables Fairs in Melbourne.

Reader feedback

“Dear Whitehat
For some time I've been a subscriber, and always look forward to your news, and historical bites. My father is visiting Melbourne this week. He travelled on cable trams when he was a youngster sent from Hobart to look after his grandmother. He is interested in visiting the cable tram houses and was wondering if anyone conducts tours of any of these? He knows of one on the corner of Gertrude and Nicholson Street, and he understands nearly all of the houses are still standing.
A phone call to Yarra Trams, who he believes now owns these houses, yielded nothing (the phone wasn't answered), and knocking on the door yielded nothing either.
Can you help?
Regards,
The M- Clan”

To my knowledge, the only one of the old cable tram houses which retains some of its equipment and is open to the public is the one at Kew. It is only open on the second Sunday of the month; however you may be able to track someone down who can sneak you in privately. You can find details of this and other tram and train museums at Steam Trains in Victoria.

Seniors activities

If you have elderly relatives visiting, there’s always plenty to do in Melbourne, particularly for the cost-sensitive (“we wouldn’t have thrown out those cans in my day”). On Wednesday there is a seniors bike tour. Next week there is a historical exhibition of the work of Travellers Aid. You will find numbers of suggestions at Seniors in Melbourne.

For subscribers who are of mature years I offer a word of warning. Stay active in mind and body because I believe that not long from now, nursing homes will start force feeding their residents with a diet of “greatest hits of the 60s, 70s & 80s”. This would produce a strong argument for voluntary euthanasia.

Survival guide for blokes

A community service feature

At great expense we have employed David Attenborough for the following voiceover:

“Every year at this time something in the deep primeval race memory of the female species stirs and little gatherings of furtive females gather on street corners. Looking suspiciously over their shoulders they proceed down the street only to be met by other small groups. There is a sense of urgency as they quicken their pace and meet with yet other streams coming from different directions. The small crowd further quickens its pace and some elbows are raised and harsh words spoken. As the spawning mass grows larger, behaviour becomes more frantic and vast rivers of the female species converge upon the ancient tribal ritual of the winter sales. Helplessly pressed forward with this seething mass are innocent husbands, fathers and boyfriends who must muster all their survival skills if they are to make it through to spring. They must learn to recognise that even though some may look like a little Kylie on the outside, once they have the scent of a sale in their nostrils they become an Amanda Vanstone on the inside. In the heat of the feeding frenzy, behaviour which would get six weeks at the tribunal is passed over as standard. Language has all but disappeared at this stage and is replaced by unintelligible gibberish containing words like Nicola Finetti, Bettina Liano, and Blondies who all have sales at the moment.

But let us turn our attention to the hapless groups of the males who have been trapped in this seething mass. In one corner is an experienced group who have learned to survive a number of seasons of this frenzied mass madness. They have formed an escape committee and have sent out an emissary. Being careful to avoid the alpha female he singles out one of the weaker females and when she is particularly distracted in a minor fracas (technically known as a price negotiation) delivers his message “we will be at the pub over the road” and the lucky group of males makes a hasty escape. Thus one generation of males is able to teach survival skills to the next generation. The younger ones may look strong but they will never survive without the skills that can be transferred from the old battle scarred veterans.”

At this point we might fade out David Attenborough and offer some suggestions of safe havens for hapless males caught up in this frenzy. If you find yourself in the city for the Myer and David Jones sales, see if you can make to the last performances of “Weary – The Play’ at the Athenaeum. Saturday is the last day I believe. Otherwise you could examine the second hand motorcycle parts in Elizabeth Street. You might have no interest in motorcycles but its a better alternative than going to the Myers and David Jones sales.

If the swarm has headed to the sales in Swan Street and Bridge Road you could head off to Encels and examine the latest high tech audio and video. After all, with all the money the females are saving, you will be able to buy something quite expensive. You could head over to the MCG and have a chat with the statues of sporting greats that have been sprouting around the outside.

If the hordes head off to the warehouse clearances in Smith Street Collingwood, there is always cosy little Leicester Arms pub in Gold Street with its open fireplaces. If you are there on a Saturday, you could always have lunch at the Robbie Burns in Smith Street. With a name like Robbie Burns it is easy to guess what sort of food they serve. Yes, that’s right – Spanish seafood. A bar meal on a Saturday (theyre not open on Sunday) will get you first rate seafood at a very reasonable price. Turn off the mobile phone have a sangria or two then switch the phone back on and tell them where you are.

In the meantime, best of luck. May you be one of those who meet in the spring with wondrous stories of survival.

Medical Research Week

This week Australia celebrates its world class reputation for medical research with numbers of exhibitions and career information days. A number of Australians have won Nobel Prizes for science and medicine research as against only one for literature, so we have put details on our Australian Nobel Prize Winners page.

You may want to turn up early at these events because they often prove very popular. You will find large numbers of fine young people anxious to investigate how they can do something worthwhile with their lives – the others are at home watching Big Brother. At the recent synchrotron open day, the crowds were about ten times larger than predicted – and at least some of those present were clutching our newsletter description of how a synchrotron works. (We were later approached by both a university and a national research institution for permission to use that newsletter in a suitably acknowledged manner.)

Superheroes Conference

Time to wear your underpants on the outside and head off to the superheroes conference at Melbourne University. Who knows, you may even meet Eric the Electron. Superheroes travelling by tram should be warned that they may have to walk up to 50 metres further because of the new disability-friendly superstop, and it is evils such as this that superheroes were created to fight.

The White Hat Quiz

How well do you know Melbourne?

Last week we asked you several questions about one of Melbourne’s greatest sons, Percy Grainger.

The closest answers came from Lisa

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.

I now know more about Percy Grainger that I ever dared contemplate. I love the newsletter and look forward to its arrival each week.
Best wishes,
Lisa
Clyde, the celery growing capital, Victoria, Australia”

Thanks Lisa. Actually, we should have specified that we were looking for a plaque in Melbourne, so we will make the first question a little more specific. On the footpath in a suburban Melbourne street is a plaque celebrating Percy. Where is that plaque and why is there?

So to this weeks quiz. Many people in the last week have pronounced themselves to be experts on the Australian legal system and declared it to be superior to other systems. On the corner of William and Lonsdale Streets you will see a number of court buildings, plus one block further away on the corner of Williams and Latrobe is another large court. We have seen tour guides who can talk endlessly about the architecture of each court but do goldfish impressions when asked by overseas visitors what happens in each of the courts.

So here is this week’s quiz:

1. What are the the courts mentioned above?
2. In no more than two sentences each, what sort of cases go to which court?
3. In any of these courts will you find cases with judges but no jury?

Country Victoria

On the Queens Birthday long weekend there is a winter wine festival at Mornington, the excellent steam and horse festival at Echuca, Rhapsody in June at Port Fairy, the Casterton Kelpie Festival, National Celtic Festival at Portarlington and a winter wine and food festival in the King Valley.

Meanwhile, this weekend there is the Rushworth Possum Walk, Winterfest in Warburton, and in Clyde, the celery capital, they are getting excited about the next White Hat Quiz. Details of all these at Victoria.