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The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.182 - 27 July 2006

Contents

Family activities
Saturday in Design
Reader feedback
Art
Theatre
History
Citizenship
From the White Hat Inbox
Music
White Hat – The Typographic Sleuth
Country Victoria
The White Hat Quiz

Family activities

On Sunday there is a Munchkin’s Market selling kid-related stuff. Take the kids along and keep a dressing gown in the car in case someone makes an offer for the clothes they are wearing. Also on Sunday is a family concert featuring Mozart at BMW Edge. On Saturday there is a ‘Cheap Dog and Cat Microchipping Day’ so don’t bother turning up if you have an expensive dog or cat. Details of all these at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Lifestyle/Children.asp

Saturday in Design

SATURDAY IN DESIGN On Saturday a number of design stores and outlets in the city and inner suburbs will be showing off their latest range. You buy your ticket for the day and there are minibuses that can ferry you around between the various stores. Alternatively you can use your own car, bike, pogo stick or skateboard to make your own way. It is not cheap but we would thoroughly recommend it as an efficient way of seeing what is currently available in Melbourne for designer furniture, lighting as well as exterior and interior design. We would recommend getting started early if you want to take in a good range. Expect to be offered finger food, wine and champagne at a number of the venues. Maybe the minbus would be the best option. If you want to be taken seriously in the design community we suggest you search out those black-rimmed glasses that went out of fashion at the end of the 90s and gentlemen should also shave their head. Full details at: www.saturdayindesign.com.au Just the place to pick up that designer vase to go in your new apartment at the Docklands.

Reader Feedback

READER FEEDBACK “Dear Mr Hat Something odd seems to have been happening since you changed over to your new delivery day and system. I now get five White Hat newsletters delivered each week. I have let it go for a while, hoping that the repetition of reading each newsletter five times may have helped me to complete the quiz, but alas it doesn't seem to be helping. It is no major problem, and does add to the quaintness of receiving your newsletter. It did also start me down the path of pondering what an appropriate collective noun for white hats might be ... a waggle? a heading? a wellspring? a wisdom? ... but that might perhaps be a fruitful competition for your readers, to provide an alternative source of warm inner glow for those of us who feel intimidated by the quiz? By the way, if the alternative is cutting me out of the subscription altogether, or retaining the five weekly deliveries, please leave me on the list! I continue to love your work. Regards Rob”

Thanks Rob. By the way, it takes a long time to mail out this newsletter (it will be a bit shorter since we have removed Rob’s duplicate listings) and depending on what interruptions from paying customers occur in the process some of you will get it on Thursday and some on Friday. We are trying real hard to get everyone’s newsletter out on a Thursday.

Art

ART Next week the Contemporary Art Fair at the Exhibition Buildings gets under way. Details at: http://www.artfair.com.au/ There is an introductory lecture on the Art Fair on Monday evening. On Tuesday evening at the Potter Museum at Melbourne Uni there is a discussion with the Melbourne painter Jon Cattapan. This conversation is in Italian but, let’s face it, all Melburnian’s have to learn some Italian, some Greek and some Vietnamese – otherwise we would starve. Details of both these events at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Events/ForumsM.asp

Theatre

THEATRE The opera Lakme continues at the Arts Centre and at the end of next Week, Don Giovanni opens at the Athenaeum. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Music/Classical.asp Next week the play Not Like Beckett opens at the Malthouse. Regular readers of this newsletter probably know that White Hat is camera shy and can rarely be coaxed to face the camera. However while attending a preview of this show I was having a quiet discussion with several newsletter subscribers when one of the paparazzi snuck around the front and took a photo. To find out what White Hat looks like from the front and more details of the show go to: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Newsletter/Hidden/Photo.asp

History

HISTORY On Sunday the Royal Historical Society (not to be confused with the Royal Society) is having their annual book fair. There are usually some great bargains for those interested in history. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Festivals/FairsFetes.asp At the State Archives Centre on Monday there is a presentation on Cultivating in the Goldfields. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Events/ForumsM.asp

Citizenship

CITIZENSHIP On Tuesday evening Sir James Gobbo and others will be speaking at a free forum entitled “Citizenship & National Identity - What makes us 'Australian'?” White Hat will certainly be there because we think that is one the most important questions to ask (and at least try to answer) in oz at the present time. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Events/ForumsM.asp

From the White Hat Inbox

FROM THE WHITE HAT INBOX

“Thank you for your wonderful newsletter—the three of us in our office look forward to it every week—but having visited your website can find no information on that pre-eminent Australian, Bert Newton. Surely this is an oversight which will soon be corrected. Martin”

We also had this personal message:

“hi from nat at venus bay. guess what! we got a small parcel yesterday form craig addressed to the 2 of us and labeled “t 4 2”. it was a letter t for the computer so i now have a t even tho i put it on upside down and cant remove it. y don’t you come down 2 lovely venus bay and visit us. were easy 2 find. in the park is a row of neatly parked camper vans but ours is at an odd angle so that the feng shui inside the kombi lines up properly. would luv 2 c ya. nat.”

Music

MUSIC On Sunday you can hear big band jazz at Dizzys. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Music/Jazz.asp At this time of year there are also plenty of classical music performances – may of them in churches. Nowadays most churches are heated and have padded seats. However it is always worth checking this out in advance. For instance the Presbyterians may feel that pandering to these bodily comforts is just the first step on the slippery slide into all manner of sins of the flesh. Subscribers to our classical music newsletter will receive another edition soon. Alternatively you can find a comprehensive listing of concerts at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Music/Classical.asp

White Hat - The Typographic Sleuth

WHITE HAT – THE TYPOGRAPHIC SLEUTH (Off topic and only of interest to pedants) This newsletter has been published most weeks now for a number of years and has prompted reader feedback on issues as diverse as eating kangaroo meat to advice for professional women from New York attempting to re-establish contact with the love of their life from Australia. However, nothing seems to have prompted continued feedback quite like a little observation we made some time ago about a double space after the full stop. We could have quoted Rutter’s ‘The Elements of Typographic Style’— “In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period [full stop]. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation.” —but we didn’t.

However we thought we might make a little space (spaces come in en-spaces, em-spaces, hair-spaces and other measurements) to occasionally comment on the typographic habits of our readers. We don’t pretend to be able to analyse handwriting (White Hat’s own handwriting resembles a thumbnail dipped in tar), but we do feel that you can tell something about a person from their typographic habits.

For instance Martin’s feedback above leads us to believe that he either went to a good school (maybe in Clyde) or has since become interested in writing or publishing. Within the one sentence he uses and understands the difference between a hyphen, and an en-dash, and an em-dash. On the standard computer keyboard you are only presented with one option—the hyphen key after the zero—but if you are submitting work for publication or to a reputable institution (unlike White Hat) you need to distinguish between these three lengths of ‘dash’. It’s easy enough with most word processing software such as Microsoft Word. Type in ‘option--the’ and the software will automatically change it to the correct punctuation of ‘option—the’ with the appropriate em-dash. However if you are using a simple text editor or database, you probably have to head a long way out of your way to produce the correct punctuation. Hence much of White Hat’s website and newsletters are not strictly correct in terms of such punctuation. If we were to spend the time making it strictly correct for you pedants out there then half of the submitted events would never appear on the website and you would probably get a newsletter twice a year, and yes (em-dash) I can hear you say (em-dash) that would probably be a much(hyphen)welcomed improvement to your day(hyphen)to(hyphen)day, 24(en-dash)7 existence. In the meantime White Hat appreciates Martin’s attention to detail even though most of it will be lost in this plain text newsletter (em-dash) pity!

Country Victoria

COUNTRY VICTORIA This weekend there is a Blues Festival in Echuca with bands and busking all over town. There is a Glenlyon Food & Wine Festival and possibly an Emerald Winterfest (em-dash) we are having trouble contacting the organisers. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/victoria.asp

The White Hat Quiz

THE WHITE HAT QUIZ

How well do you know Melbourne?

Melbourne and science.

 I've enjoyed the challenge once again. I have to say it is getting harder, though. I used to just forward you on to my husband and he would sometimes email any answers he had. Now I have to contend with my 9yo daughter's eager questions and suggestions as she peers over my shoulder. Until next week, LP”

Thanks for that. Question 1 referred to David Warren and his invention the Black Box Flight Recorder. And I should mention that we probably got question 8 wrong. I think De-Anne Kelly is not currently a Federal Minister but a parliamentary secretary.

Now to this week’s quiz.

We received the following submission for listing on the White Hat website from the Maude Ute Show (The town of Maude [as in ‘Come Into the Garden . .’] is south of Werribee): “Trophy for First, Second & Third place. New Judges will be used this year. Other activities include Fire truck pull, Secret Event, Live Band and other events. Run by the Maude CFA to raise money for new equipment.”

Call us suspicious if you will but I expect there is a story behind the 6 words “New Judges will be used this year”

So for this week’s quiz we invite readers to write us a very short story (50 words or less) giving us your imagined reason behind these words. (For those of you who work in the talk-based industries it may be a real challenge to keep it under 50 words.)

No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow.