The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.167 - 24 March 2006

Contents

Last of Comm Games Entertainment
Singalong
Melbourne’s ‘Private’ Hidden Gems
Comedy
Festivals
Events & Market Organisers
Music
Other events
What Makes Melbourne Special?
Reader feedback
Advance notice
The White Hat Quiz

Last of the Comm Games Entertainment

We are coming to the end of the games, and there are only two major free entertainments left at the music bowl. Tonight (Friday) is the 1812 Overture (complete with canons) and Saturday is Bollywood at the Bowl. Details at Sidney Myer Music Bowl. If you enjoy the flavour of the subcontinent make sure you get to travel on the Karachi Tram on the city circle route. It is great fun.

The entertainment in the Alexandra Gardens has also been first rate and you can find details of remaining entertainments on the appropriate dates of our Calendar of Events. After the games are finished things slow down a bit. Next week the football starts, the Grand Prix is in town and soon after that we have the Flower and Garden Show and the Comedy Festival.

Singalong

Next Friday expect to see lots of girls in size 14 white dresses with blue satin sashes making their way through Melbourne to Her Majesty’s for the Sound of Music singalong. And if the rest of the family can’t make it because they have to stay home and clean their sandshoes – don’t worry. The girls will come home and sing it all over again.

Melbourne's 'Private' Hidden Gems

Like any city, Melbourne has a number of commercial and government buildings which are not open to the general public, but for those there on business offer numbers of hidden vistas, and unexpected gems. One such building is Harry Seidler's Shell Building.

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.

Comedy

If you enjoy improvised comedy, there is an in improvised whodunit at North Melbourne this weekend and an improvised comedy show in Fitzroy on Thursday. Details at Comedy in Melbourne.

Festivals

Many festivals have been rescheduled or cancelled rather than compete with the Comm Games. However we believe that this weekend the Pascoe Vale Community Festival is still operating as are the Sumnation World Cultural Festival at Sandown and the Hume Multicultural Festival. Details at Festivals in Melbourne.

Event & Market Organisers

White Hat has an impressive list of traders and entertainers who are available for events and markets. If you would like information on these, send us an email to events@whitehat.com.au

There is also a school choir and orchestra visiting from Brisbane in early October which is available to provide entertainment for suitable events. Let us know if you might be interested. We would also advise organisers to consult our calendar of events before finalising a date. For instance this coming weekend there is a busker’s festival in Mortlake on Saturday, and on Sunday is another festival on the other side of the state in Yackandandah also wishing to attract buskers. We have the most comprehensive listing of markets, festivals, classical music etc in Victoria, and consulting our calendar can help you avoid such clashes.

Music

On Saturday there are concerts of indigenous dance and music at BMW Edge and on Sunday there is world music in the forecourt of the Melbourne Museum. On Thursday is the start of the Brunswick Music Festival. Details at Music Festivals in Melbourne.

Other events

Starting Wednesday is a French Film Festival. Details at Film Festivals in Melbourne. On Thursday is the first of several free forums in the Capitol Theatre called “Thinking games – exercises for the mind”.

What Makes Melbourne Special?

The Commonwealth Games are drawing to a close and at White Hat we are a little concerned that visitors to this city may go home without ever knowing many of the things that make Melbourne Special.

Visitors who attended the opening ceremony will now know a few of the quirky things that Melbourne produced but will possibly go home without knowing that this city also produced the world’s first commercial refrigeration plant, the black box flight recorder, the bionic ear and numbers of other things which have improved the lives of many people around the world.

Visitors might have attended much of the cultural festival associated with the games but may go home without realising that Melbourne produced one of the world’s greatest opera diva’s who named herself after the city and “put Australia on the map”, that one of our greatest horseman was also our first world class poet with a statue in Spring Street and a bust in Westminster Abbey. They may attend the music bowl without knowing it is there because a man called Simcha Baevski pushed a trading cart around the Bendigo goldfields. And they may go home without ever having heard a note of music by our quirky home-grown genius Percy Grainger.

Visitors may return home thinking that Melbourne sporting crowds are characterised by the insultingly parochial television coverage or the lack of respect shown by spectators deserting a stadium before a medal ceremony in which there is no Australian. Visitors may not realise that this is merely a crowd used to reality television that prefers cool sports like swimming (where you can understand that the person in front is winning) or athletics (although the staggered lanes can be sooo confusing). Visitors may not realise that a genuine Melbourne sports crowd is capable of cheering on a Yanas Kuros, providing a ticker-tape parade for the West Indian Cricket Team and celebrating the achievements of Vladimir Kuts. Visitors will return home knowing that Melbourne is the sporting capital of Australia, but may not realise that it is the headquarters to 6 out Australia’s top 10 companies and has Australia’s largest container port. They will possibly be unaware that this city was instrumental in gaining the 8 hour day, Saturday afternoons off and the Basic Wage and that it is a great centre of philanthropy with 80% of Australia’s philanthropic trusts registered in Victoria.

Visitors may return home knowing the names of a number of Melbourne sports people but may not know that the sporting background spreads wider. That at various times in the past you could find a young man in Northern Victoria riding his bike like the wind and who the French would later dub “Oppy”. That over in Western Victoria a young Aboriginal called Johnny Mullagh was strapping on a pair of pads to have a go at a strange whitefellah game, in the Otways an old codger called Cliff was running around his property in gumboots, in Gippsland a farming family by the name of Roycroft were grooming their horses while in a city pool hall a young man called Lindrum was setting out to become the best in the world at his sport

Visitors will return home knowing that Australia punches above its weight in sport but may not know that it is even more renown on the world stage for its contributions to areas such as science and medical research. It would be nice if visitors to Melbourne went home knowing the names of not only some Australian sports people and their achievements, but knowing the names of some Australian Nobel Prize winners and their achievements.

Now it could be that the closing ceremony will fill some of these gaps, but in the meantime it would be helpful if some of you local subscribers put on your white hats and head out there to help our visitors understand a number of things that make Melbourne a special place.

Reader feedback

“I love your message to visitors. I couldn't have said it any better!!! Keep up the good work White Hat. Kind regards,
Carly”

“Keep up the good work. Thanks to White Hat I’ve usually got somewhere new to take the kids most weekends.
Pete”

“Dear Whitehat,
Love your weekly newsletter. Here is a question I hope yourself or the readers maybe able to help me with. The Archibald prize is fast upon us and I remember a few years ago (or maybe 7 or 8) the finalist had there paintings displayed at the Arts Centre in the gallery beside the concert hall, this was a free exhibition and open for a week or so after judging. Where do they display these now? I tried to find out in 2005 and gave up as I could not find any info on the web. I'm sure there are many whitehat readers who would enjoy this display, hope you can help
Thanks Karen”

“Hi………………love your newsletter, can you please send it to my home email address below as well, sometimes it gets ‘mail marshalled’ at work, it gets picked up and referred to as ‘trash’……….computers obviously don’t have a brain. I drop whatever I am doing when it pops up on the screen…….it’s a ‘must read’ to me!!
Have a great weekend………..Judy”

Advance notice

The following weekend there are festivals in Williamstown, Kew and Pakenham. In the country there is the Man from Snowy River Festival in the High Country, The Basin Music Festival, the Mortlake Buskers Festival and Beating the Retreat at Queenscliff. Also there are outdoor performances of Shakespeare in the Grampians. For details go to our home page and choose the appropriate weekend from the drop-down menu of events.

THE WHITE HAT QUIZ

How well do you know Melbourne?

Melbourne and abbreviations.

1. Where in Melbourne would you find The Espy? - The Esplanade hotel, St Kilda 2. Where in Melbourne would you find Y&Js? - Young & Jacksons City, Swanston St 3. Where in Melbourne would you find the Ming Wing? - Menzies Building Monash Uni, Clayton 4. Where’s Willy? - Suburb of Williamstown, find it over the westgate Bridge! 5. What gummunt department is known as Shrubs & Grubs? - Department of Sustainability and Environment?

Now to this week’s quiz.

No prizes for correct answers – just glory and a warm inner glow.

The White Hat Quiz

How well do you know Melbourne?

First to last week’s quiz. We had numbers of correct answers but the first one came from Svetlana Dicto from Black Rock.

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.

Congratulations also to Sarah, Glenn, Judith, Yvonne & Jacinta. Jacinta also pointed out various previous names of said gummunt department. For the benefit of those who don’t know how things work, each time there is a change of gummunt, departments get a new name and a new logo so that the new new gummunt can be seen to be making important changes. A set of chairs is then placed in the middle of the room and if, when the music stops, you don’t get a chair you are declared redundant. Those who did get a chair recover the card taped to the underneath of the seat to find what their job title is for the next 18 months.

Now to this week’s quiz

Melbourne women

1. Who or what is Pretty Sally?
2. What Australian institution is referred to as ‘Aunty’?
3. What culinary establishment was operated by ‘Ma’?
4. What was the name of the Sentimental Bloke’s piece of skirt?
5. Has Victoria ever elected a female premier?
6. Name the Melbourne business woman who was presented the Legion of Honour for her services to French music.

No prizes for correct – just glory and a warm inner glow.