The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.137 - 12 August 2005

Contents

Theatre
Food
Reader feedback
VP Day
Fashion
How Melbourne Works
Music
Rainbow Warrior
Making money from a website
Forums
More on naming of Melbourne’s suburbs
Advance warning
The White Hat Quiz

Theatre

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theatre, Andrew Lloyd Webber is back! Sunset Boulevard is playing at the State Theatre from the 17th to 20th of this month. Details at Theatre in Melbourne/

Food

This weekend is the specialist cheese expo. The Southgate progressive dinners are also back each Tuesday night – three courses in three separate restaurants. Details at Food & Wine in Melbourne.

Reader feedback

“We (myself, husband and 5 and 8 yo) decide to take your advice on Sunday and headed into the city using our Sunday Saver tickets. We didn't quite make to The Potter as we got side-tracked visiting The Magic Tent at the Art Center, followed by a visit to The Ian Potter Centre where the kids took part in the NGV's Biggest (Kids) Drawing Ever. We now have to make sure we go back in Sept for them to see the finished product. We then caught the tram to Gasworks where we had a lovely time talking to Children's Illustrator Ann James. My daughters were thrilled to be read a book which doesn't go on the shelves for months yet (they were told they only about the 10th people to hear it) and then we had a leisurely browse of the bookshop while the rain poured down outside. The girls chose a book each, raced back up the stairs to get Ann James to sign the one illustrated by her, and then we finished with hot drinks in the cafe and a look at some of the artwork. A great way to spend a rainy day and it cost us very little.
Leanne”

“Hello Dear White Hat You make me feel quite famous! Thanks for the reference...
Best from nita as of nita.com.au:”

“We use the White Hat newsletter in our tourism classes at [xxx] TAFE and the students particularly look forward to the Melbourne Quiz…. Would you please forward us the answers with the quiz so that the lecturers can use them in class. … We will use them only for teaching purposes and will not pass them on to anyone else.
Judy”

Judy, we can’t forward the answers because we don’t know them until our readers send them in. Maybe you could adopt the same principles with your exams.

VP Day

Monday marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII with various celebrations in the city including a free concert at the Town Hall. We urge people to celebrate more responsibly than they did after the war – remember that those celebrations resulted in the baby boomers. Details at Shrine of Remembrance.

Fashion

There is a new fashion bazaar for young local designers this Sunday at Fed Square. Details at Fashion in Melbourne.

The Rodin exhibition at the GPO finishes this weekend, so you can head off there and admire some sculpture and check out the new styles at the same time. I assume they will have a casting of ‘The Kiss’ so I do hope the couple are suitably clothed in the new season’s fashions and colours with only a little midriff showing. Details at Exhibitions in Melbourne.

How Melbourne Works

This is a great week for those interested in how things in Melbourne work. There are lots of free site visits to places like the Commonwealth Games Village, the Craigieburn Bypass, the aviation museums at Moorabbin and Point Cook, Channel 7 Digital Studios, Williamstown Shipyards and lots of other places. Go along to the Yarra Trams control centre to learn about the special techniques they use to ensure that your tram always passes you while you are half way between stops. Go along to the Bionic Ear laboratories and see the stockpile of cochlear implants caused by people delaying their operation until Australian Idol has run its course. Go along to the Newport Power Station and see the origin of the warmies. Follow the life cycle of beer by going to the Carlton & United Breweries one day and the Werribee treatment plant the next. This week is both science week and engineering week and details of the free activities above can be found at Forums in Melbourne.

In the White Hat experience of showing special visitors (keynote speakers, visiting dignitaries, independent travellers and the like) around Melbourne, the most frequent (and fruitful) questions are about how various things in Melbourne work. For that reason I expect you will see Judy and her tourism students at many of these events.

Music

This week there is a concert by musicians from the Buena Vista Social Club (or ones who once knew a person who had been there). There are classical concerts by Pro Arte and Duo Sol at BMW Edge, Melbourne Musicians at Como and St John’s Southgate, and e21 at North Melbourne Town Hall. Details at Music in Melbourne.

Rainbow Warrior

While walking along Lygon Street the other night White Hat came across a group of students talking excitedly about the visit of the Rainbow Warrior. I couldn’t help noticing that they were having their discussion about saving the planet at the outside tables under the large greenhouse gas producing heaters while the café sat perfectly warm but empty. The scene was repeated all along the street You can do your bit to save the planet by visiting the Rainbow Warrior at Station Pier this weekend. I expect large crowds so take the tram, a good book, a cut lunch and be prepared to wait in queues if you want to go on board. Details of the Rainbow Warrior visit at Station Pier.

Making Money from a Website

Like most websites, White Hat carries a number of links to other sites and products whereby we earn a small commission if somebody clicks through and buys something. We try to keep these links relevant and not too obtrusive. Thus if you go to our Williamstown page you will find our own information on the place and probably some links to activities and accommodation in the area. Similarly if you go to any one of our 200 Significant Australians you are likely to find links to some recommended books available through amazon.

That should work – we’ll be rolling in cash. The trouble is that many users are school children doing assignments. They don’t have a credit card so they are not going to buy anything. If it’s the parents doing the homework for them, they are probably using the internet because they are not prepared to use a library so they certainly won’t be prepared to buy a book – particularly if it could arrive after the assignment is due and the knowledge gained would therefore be useless. Schoolkids mean lots of hits but no income. “Go away son, you bother me.”

Then came those Google ads you’ve seen on most websites where Google determines the content of your page and auctions ads to people who want to attract people interested in that topic to their site. They don’t have to buy anything – just click through to the other site and we get (say) two cents each time. “Come back sonny – where are you?” Now the little darlings come to our site and are distracted by some little shiny thing on the side of the page, click through and two cents falls out of our phone into the till. We don’t know what ads Google serves up but we wouldn’t be surprised if the little darlings searching on the founders of Melbourne, land briefly our John Batman page and head off immediately to a site selling the latest Batman DVD. The income stream seems only limited by the supply of schoolkids with a short attention span and lack of task focus, and that doesn’t look like contracting any time soon.

But hang on. Someone has just paid for them to transfer from a site where they are not going to buy anything to another site where they are not going to buy anything because they still haven’t got a credit card. So the business model also requires a supply of advertisers with a short attention span and lack of business acumen. Ah well, they’re not in short supply either.

This has resulted in a large number of websites out there whose sole purpose is to earn money through Google ads. That means that people search for a topic, find a site that looks appropriate, but when they get there click through to another site. The plan seems to be to make yourself seem attractive in theory but when people get there they find you so dull they immediately want to go somewhere else – a bit like some of those blind dates your friends set you up with. Maybe White Hat should go and strip all the interesting information off our website. However this currently fashionable business model does not appear to us to be sustainable.

Sigh! It looks like we’re not going to get rich overnight. Still – I suppose we’ve got staying power. There aren’t many newsletters that have been coming out consistently for five years or more. So next time you’re on the White Hat website don’t feel guilty about clicking on one of those links that heads off to another site. All those two cents add up. Better still, if you buy one of those Pacific cruises or skydiving experiences through our site it might bring in enough money to free up time from other tasks to get this newsletter out earlier.

Forums

The Sunday Soapbox of free forums on a Sunday continues at the Arts Centre. This weekend is a forum on theatre superstitions – just the thing for those in year 11 studying “the Scottish play”. There is also a seminar on Doing business with China. Let’s see – if everyone in China would pay one cent for a newsletter on great things to do in Beijing . . . There is also the grand final of the Moot court competitions in the wonderful setting of the historic Supreme Court buildings. Details of all these at Forums in Melbourne.

More on naming of Melbourne's suburbs

Last week Andrew gave us a comprehensive account of the naming of Melbourne’s suburbs. He has added the following:

“Dear White Hat Thank for your kind and most generous critique of my [response].

I wish to clarify that my contribution was not intended to be a definitive essay on the naming of Melbourne’s suburbs but rather, to provide some background information and to develop an argument as to how the evolutionary process came about. Therefore information presented in the contribution is not necessarily fact beyond all reasonable doubt. It is interesting further to consider the origins of Melbourne’s suburban street names as opposed to the ones in the CBD. Perhaps something to consider for a future issue.

There was also a small error contained in the article that I would like to correct. The sentence beginning “In the case of Hartwell and Shenley, located within the City of Camberwell…” should have read “In the case of Roystead and Shenley located within the City of Camberwell”. Hartwell is still thriving, with a post code and a station on the Alamein Line. Apologies to residents of Hartwell for the oversight.”
Andrew”

Andrew also submitted some interesting information on the inner and outer circle rail routes of Melbourne, but since I know you all have a short attention span, I will hold that over to another newsletter.

Advance warning

The following week (20th-28th) is the RACV Homeshow with lots of soft furnishings.

hange them? 3) The Ballarat suburb of Cape Clear is nowhere near the sea. How did it get its name?

The White Hat Quiz

How well do you know Melbourne?

Firstly a reminder of last week's quiz.

A number of Melbourne’s suburbs have changed their names.

1. What are the current names of Hotham and Sandridge?
2. What were the original names of North Coburg and Carnegie and why did they change them?
3. The Ballarat suburb of Cape Clear is nowhere near the sea. How did it get its name?

We had a number of responses, but none of them complete, You had all better go and eat more celery. So here are some answers:

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.

Now to this weeks quiz. How things in Melbourne work.

1. At certain intersections the tramline points seem to change as if by magic to the route that tram is taking. How do these points ‘know’ when to change?
2. The acoustics in the Melbourne Concert Hall (sorry Dick – Hamer Hall) can be varied from dry to lively. How?
3. How does one become a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club?
4. How do you know if State Parliament is sitting and whether the Governor is in residence?
5. How do the umpires know that the ad break is finished and it is time to bounce the ball?
6. Fed Square will gradually change colour over the next few years. Why?

In the end don’t worry if you don’t know how things in Melbourne work. You can always invent a conspiracy theory.