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The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter
Archived
Newsletter No.163 - 24 February 2006
Contents
This week is the major Moonee Valley festival. Usually on the Sunday there are bands in the park and plenty of valley girls. There are festivals at Seddon, Altona and Ashburton as well as a Festival of Kites in Northcote. Details at Community Festivals in Melbourne. There is a Tibetan New Year Festival on the outskirts of Melbourne. Also a Pacific Islander Festival at the Immigration Museum. Details at Ethnic & Religious Festivals in Melbourne.
The Zoo twilight sessions end this week. Details at Melbourne Zoo.
Tonight (Friday) you can take your choice of free jazz and voice at Fed Square or music under the stars at CERES Park in Brunswick. On Saturday there is free orchestral music under the stars in Malvern (see Classical Music in Melbourne) while on Sunday there is world music at the Fairfield Amphitheatre.
“Hi there Thanks for the excellent weekly bulletin of events. As a 50 something single, is there a chance of including Melbourne weekend events for singles. The Age newspaper has the standard "big organisational players" which are fairly expensive and whose advertisements appear with monotony? Lovely if you could!
Shirley” “Hi WH, I think this service is wonderful for the knowledge it gives us locals and for the entertainment... no less than one laugh a week. Not that I’ve taken up with any of your suggestions so far but tonight I took the step/plunge and I rang the enquires number to be told...fortunately...that the call would cost me $4.95 per minute. so that put the kibosh on the call and the pre recorded message. Thankfully they told me first off. I'' try something else now.
K”
We’ve no idea what phone number K is referring to, but we’re glad she didn’t pay the money. “You are just so gorgeous White Hat. Thank you for the pleasure of reading your newsletter. I think if it was a weekly newsletter about the mating habits of the Taiwanese green snail I would still read
:O) Sue”
For those of you interested in the mating habits of the Taiwanese green snail, there are no particular events of interest this week. However we thought we would hide the White Hat Quiz up here near the start of the newsletter just to confuse those creatures of habit who automatically skip to the quiz at the end of the newsletter, or automatically open the newspaper to the crossword or The Truth to page three. Melbourne in the early days of European settlement was pretty much a wild west town and about as far away as you could get from ‘the establishment’ and still speak English. In the sprit of the verse: “Take me somewheres east of Suez
Where the best is like the worst
And there ain’t no Ten Commandments
And a man can raise a thirst”
this was a place you could come if you wanted to erase your past. If someone was vague about their background you knew that questions about their past were inappropriate. As a result, numbers of people of curious background have wandered through Melbourne and Australia. So here is a little quiz about some of them. - In the first weeks of European settlement of Melbourne, a strange “wild white man” wandered into the Batman camp at Indented Head. What was his name?
- By 1901 Melbourne had become the de facto capital of Australia. A charismatic politician whose past was vague – maybe Canadian, maybe American – and with a name that would please Joseph Heller, was to become a major force in the building of Canberra. What was his name?
- Some time ago in the Mildura region an enigmatic swagman would sometimes be fleetingly sighted in the bush. He would accept food left for him but usually repaid this doubly with anonymous maintenance work on fences, chopping wood, freshly caught rabbits, etc. By what name was he known?
- After the First World War a remarkable set of poems from an unknown digger-poet was discovered. So far-reaching was the spirit of this author that it still inspires countless post-modernist dissertations and even a novel that won the Miles Franklin award. What was the name of the poet?
- For a period of time, the mastermind of a high-profile crime in Britain lived anonymously in a Melbourne suburb. What was his name and what was the crime?
And finally, as a supplementary question, who wrote the words of the verse quoted above and what world class Australian singer made famous recordings featuring those verses?
While the media keeps bombarding us with promotions for manufactured commercial groups and geriatric rockers, country music seems to be quietly growing in its support throughout Victoria. This weekend you can head off to the Trafalgar Ute Muster and Country Music Festival or the Bunyip Country Music Festival. Meanwhile up at Mooroopna (a shortish drive form Melbourne) there is a family fun day with walk ups and there is a good chance they play both sorts of music. Details at Country Music in Victoria
This weekend is the annual Harvest Picnic at Hanging Rock where specialty food and wine producers throughout the state show off their wares. If you take the family just remember to count heads before you leave for home. Details at Food & Wine in Victoria. For those of you who are fans of the book (or film) ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ we can recommend a visit to the house and the very room where Joan Lindsay wrote it. Mulberry Hill was the home of Joan and Daryl Lindsay at Baxter and it has been kept just as she left it. Tours are available on Sunday afternoons. Details at Picnic at Hanging Rock.
On Sunday is the Tropfest short film festival at the Music Bowl. Details at Film Festivals in Melbourne.
The mysterious piano lady of Melbourne
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In the coming week there is a Couta Boat Regatta at Queenscliff, the Western Port Bay Festival, the Paynesville Jazz Swing and Blues Festival, the Gunbower Aquatic Festival, a quilt hanging in Loch (only two more sleeps) and the Tumbafest Food and Wine Festival. There is also the Pako Festa which originated somewhere back in the dreamtime when Geelong won their last premiership. For details go to our home page and choose this weekend from the the drop-down menu of events in country Victoria.
The Fashion Festival starts this week with lots of events – a number of them free. Time to practice your teenage pout; adopt some ‘attitood’ and hope you get mistaken for a visiting model. Details at Fashion in Melbourne. There are also numbers of free fashion events at Fed Square.
We received the following personal message. “working at the juice bar is gr8 and i should be able to pay you back for the fone soon. all our guys drink there – even craig. he drinx the plain juice cos he sez he doesnt want artificial additives – he hasnt been to the training courses and doesnt understand that they are really boosters. crystal sez that if i take a gap yr i should buy a classic kombi and she will help me decorate it and so im looking for a classic combi that is automatic. dont tell dad cos hes buying me the car to go to monash. love nat.”
The following weekend is the Knox Festival, a Hungarofest, the Banyule Festival, the Sydney Road Street Party, A Taste for Living at the Gasworks in Port Melbourne, the Boolara Folk Festival, the Oppy Family Fun Ride, the Taste of Tatura, the Wadong Country Music Festival and lots of other stuff. For details, go to our home page and select the appropriate weekend from the drop-down menu of events.
For those of you who have skipped straight to this part of the newsletter for the quiz, you will be disappointed to learn there is no quiz this week. However we have responses to last weeks quiz which asked for inspiring lyrics from their town, school or local institution. “Every night when I get home,
I settle down to prime time limbo,
When all the boys are gathered around,
Shouting Ita'a on TV!!!
(The ITA song by Cold Chisel.)
Susan”
Susan works in a major curriculum development organisation so you can see that literary education of your children is in good hands. “Dear White Hat, This was my school song and it always brings a lump to my throat. I am hoping that this will restore my virtuous reputation and secure my continuing presence in the White Hat Village. Hymn to St Brigid (Traditional)
Far above, enthroned in glory,
Sweetest saint of Erin's Isle.
See thy children kneel before thee,
Turn on us a mothers smile.”
Thank you. (We have omitted the remaining four verses). We assume the lack of apostrophe in mothers was due to you being on one knee while typing. If you promise to sing the school song every night for a month before going to bed then we won’t mention to St Brigid that you submitted “Berkshire hunt” to our rhyming slang quiz. “The best line in my high school song was:
"To live a life we aim to, most worthy full of praise"
Julie” “Hi White Hat I was lucky enough to grow up in sunny Yarrawonga and I remember as a young lad my grandfather (god rest his soul) singing:
I'm going back again to Yarrawonga
In Yarrawonga I'll linger longer
I'm goin' back again to Yarrawonga
Where the skies are always blue
Great memories!!
Cheers Luke”
Luke – thanks for the memories.
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