| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The White Hat Melbourne NewsletterArchived Newsletter No.191 - 12 October 2006Contents
Missing newsletter New markets & Fairs Continuing events Festivals Comedy Planning Reader Feedback Week of Italian Language Children & Family Dates to be confirmed The White Hat Quiz +----------------------------------------------------+ MISSING NEWSLETTER We noticed lots of people wandering in circles not knowing what to do last weekend in Melbourne because they had not received a White Hat newsletter. That is because we are flat out adding a back end to our website that will allow us to sell tickets and various other things as well as making our newsletters look pretty – you want pretty newsletters don’t you? – and so there will only be time for a couple of short newsletters until things are up and running – bother – it’s fallen over again – can you get a prop under that shaky HTML on the right – no further over.. +----------------------------------------------------+ NEW MARKETS & FAIRS A new farmers’ market associated with ‘The Slow Food Movement’ is due to commence at the end of this month at the Abbotsford Convent. This is not to be confused with the already established farmers’ market at the adjacent Collingwood Children’s Farm. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Victoria/Markets/Farmers.asp We have been notified of the Greendale market – we don’t know if it is new – but it is just behind the little waterhole once known as Pike’s Reservoir on the Western Highway. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Victoria/Regions/Goldfields.asp#Markets There is a Yooralla Market in Cranbourne and a book fair at the St Kilda Library. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Victoria/Markets/MarketsV.asp We have also created a new additions to our occasional markets page which lists festivals and other events known to have markets attached. See: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Victoria/Markets/Occasional.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ CONTINUING EVENTS The Age Melbourne Fringe Festival continues. In the last days there will be wars and rumours of wars and the alternative community will sell their naming rights to the mainstream media. Details at: http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/season/2006/ The Melbourne Festival of Arts has commenced with plenty of international artists as well as free community activities. Details at: http://svc057.wic028p.server-web.com/ (A URL like the one above is always suspicious, but it appears to be the ‘official’ one) The Melbourne International Tap Festival has commenced in Melbourne and I’m off to find a Shirley Temple costume. +----------------------------------------------------+ FESTIVALS Ladies. Can we interest you in bulging biceps, sweaty foreheads, leather aprons, pounding, pounding. This weekend is the Mont de Lacy Blacksmith Festival. Pump the bellows, more sweat, purge the hot metal, more pounding – no Nigel, I said this was for the ladies – and we urge ladies who are interested in the maintenance of the heritage crafts to make their way to the Blacksmith’s Convention this weekend. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Festivals/Heritage.asp This weekend is also the current incarnation of what used to be called the Lygon Street Festa – now with the marketing name “Celebrate on Lygon”. No longer the full street festival I suspect but we will go along and check it out, Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Festivals/Community.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ COMEDY Amnesty International has a fundraising night at the Comedy Theatre. It will be interesting to see who the standup comics feel are the accepted people to laugh at. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Events/ComedyM.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ PLANNING In the earliest days of European settlement, John Batman’s party made their way to Melbourne. One of their number, George Evans, ventured inland and set up a cottage near the present-day Sunbury which he called Emu Bottom. This was to be a sheep station. Later, the Clarke family would own an enormous tract of land stretching from Werribee through to Sunbury and built the mansion Rupertswood. Where are they now, I hear you ask. Well the Clarke family are still an important part of Victoria but no longer own vast tracts of land. And as for the Evans’ – well, with a Welsh name like that what could you expect? Anyway, we here at White Hat have always had a keen interest in Melbourne history and have been able to deduce that the demise of these families has mainly been due to the fact their womenfolk never really understood the importance of the party plan. If Mrs Evans had shown the local housewives how to save those little scraps of oxen in snap-tight containers and Lady Janet Clarke had not wasted her time with burning bails and building university colleges but selling face creams in conveniently-shaped jars and that real goldfields were not in Ballarat and Bendigo but the forthcoming areas like Taylors Lakes, then maybe both those families would still own vast tracts of lands. For those who would still like to learn the secrets of party plan success, there is an expo in Sunbury this weekend. White Hat may well be there – we don’t sell the plastic containers or the face creams or the wellness products – we just sell the motivational tapes – that’s where the money is. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Victoria/Regions/MacedonSpa.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ READER FEEDBACK “Hello White Hat, Thank you for wonderful laugh-out-loud commentary. Reckon you excelled yourself this week, esp re Dame Nellie. Makes endorphins reactivate. Does the writer have comedy gig somewhere around town? If not, he/she should! Cheers, CB” CB. Thank you for your support. I will always wear it. “Please help as Halloween is a big deal in our family but we are to wary to go trick or treating and would love to celebrate in any kid-friendly way possible, please send anything asap-thanks heaps- Gabrielle” If any subscribers have suggestions please let us know. “Dear Staff at White Hat, I normally enjoy reading your Newsletters but was offended by your lack of Cultural Sensitivity. Under your 'Other Festivals' section, you have written 'Also this weekend there is Chinese Mid Autumn Festival (think about it) in Dandenong' For your information the reason why the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival is in September (& hence YOUR "Spring) is because the Chinese, as do many other European and Middle Eastern cultures follow the Lunar Calendar for their festivals. A bit of lateral thinking and cultural understanding would be appreciated before such insensitive remarks written. Not Happy Jan or should this read, Not happy Xian, Maria or Mohammed.... Julie” Julie. That is exactly why we said "think about it" - meaning at first sight this may seem inappropriate but when you THINK ABOUT IT - the hemisphere China is in - then you realise it is appropriate. It was not meant as an offensive remark - quite the opposite. The organisers certainly didn't think so and thanked us for what we wrote. +----------------------------------------------------+ WEEKEND OF ITALIAN CULTURE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD The International Week of Italian Culture is being celebrated in Melbourne over a 21 day period. We will not make any further comment in case it is culturally insensitive. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Festivals/Ethnic.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ CHILDREN & FAMILY A lot of people search for ‘kids’ events and never make it to our website because we prefer to use the words ‘Children & Family’. We feel that labels such as ‘kids’ can be demeaning. On the other hand, had they chosen to search on the word ‘brats’ they may well have landed on our website. This weekend there is a concert for ‘young people who have not reached the age of consent and may not yet have a range of analytical skills or life experiences but whose considered opinion is just as valuable as anyone else in the community’ concert at the Iwaki Auditorium which has been unfeelingly labelled ”Family Classics for Kids”. There is also a Meccano Exhibitions. Meccano was an ancient art where kids learned how to use nuts and bolts and how to make and invent stuff and then went on to study at university and become engineers and part of the resources boom where they could name your own price. More recently, Meccano exhibitions have become places where kids can go and write an essay about what it would FEEL like to make stuff and ..” Anyway, whichever sort of kids you have you can head off to the Meccano exhibition. This weekend at Hawthorn Town Hall there is a Moon Lantern Festival. Like last weekend’s moon lantern festival in Richmond this is held in broad daylight in the middle of the day. Halloween is starting to look pretty good. Details at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Lifestyle/Children.asp +----------------------------------------------------+ DATES TO BE CONFIRMED When you visit our website for what’s on this weekend in Country Victoria you will find lots of entries with ‘date to be confirmed’. This needs a little explanation and it is probably easiest to go back to that committee meeting held ten days after the last festival. “That’s it. That’s it! This is the very last festival I’m doing.” “Now come on Maureen, you say that every year.” “Yes, well this time I mean it. I work myself into the ground and next year I have to come back and do the same thing all over again” “Yes Maureen, we all appreciate the work you do but you have to admit that this year was a great success.” “And George – the tourists get stuck in the mud and George has to get out with the tractor to pull them out – don’t you George?” “Yes Maureen, but I didn’t mind that much. At least it means we had enough rain to have mud.” “And then there’s the new one – you know who I mean – she’s not here yet – been here eight years and thinks she’s a local. A cappuccino trailer! We’ve never needed a cappuccino trailer before.” “Yes, but Maureen, There were queues there all day.” “Never needed one before! And those hippie market stall holders down at the camping ground. Heaven knows what they were smoking that night. And I’m told they were prancing around the campground with next to no clothes on.” “That’s right” says George. “I took the tractor down early in the morning just to see if they needed any help. I went down the next morning too. They weren’t doing any harm.” “Well I’ve had enough. This is my last year. Let’s just tidy up the books and get it over with. I notice the new one hasn’t turned up yet.” “You know, Maureen, the records show we had more visitors than usual this year. There were a number who said on the feedback sheet that they heard of us through the White Hat newsletter.” “White Hat! Never head of it! We had a great spread in the local paper.” “Yes, Maureen, but not everyone in Melbourne reads our local paper. We need to give them some dates for next year.” “Alright, so let’s settle on some dates – but make sure you put ‘to be confirmed’ just in case.” So the dates go onto our website as ‘to be confirmed’. “Hello – is the White Hat? My name is Maureen. We have this festival – no, no, not that one – that was set up by the new one. It didn’t work. She thought it would add a “new aspect to our community” – a few lonely city people came up and sat at the tables waiting for gourmet local delicacies to arrive (I told her that Peter does good stuff but you need to have the products on the tray by Thursday night because – but that’s another story) and there they were staring at each other over their soy lattes when the rain came and I didn’t want the town to get a bad name so I told her to take them to Sunday School Hall (you don’t know where the keys is? - everyone knows where the key is – on the nail at the back of the tennis shed) and I got George to bring some tarps on the tractor to put over the tennis court and sent young Jenny off to get her Uncle George from the golf course to bring some snags and chops and the BBQ from his butchers shop and Harold (he still hasn’t paid for his stall in ’78) to bring his squeezebox and pretty little Janet (she’ll get into trouble that girl if she don’t watch out) to bring her violin and we taught the visitors to strip the willow and most of them decided to stay on overnight and they all said they’d be back next year with friends. And the new one came around the next day and thanked me and said she had a lot to learn and I said we had had people who’d never been here before and who were coming back and she’s not too bad once you get to know her. Anyway this year’s festival is still on and I’m staying for one more year because Pauline (That’s the new one) said she would like to help me out and run the errands and learn the ropes and her mobile phone will be a help and she wants to use me as her ‘most admired manager’ case study for some sort of course she’s doing in the city.” White Hat would like to salute all the Maureens and all the ‘new ones’ out there. And George, we’re still on for that drop of scotch behind the tennis shed. +----------------------------------------------------+ THE WHITE HAT QUIZ How well do you know Melbourne? First to last week’s quiz
Back to school edition: It has become more difficult nowadays for teachers to set homework. If it only boils down to someone simply typing a given phrase into search engine then no-one has learnt anything so teachers have learned to be a little more creative. Here is our little back-to-school offering which may need a little more investigation than knowing how to type something into a search engine. 1. Name the only living Australia citizen to have won a Nobel Prize for literature. 2. Who was the first face to be seen on Australia television? (careful – don’t necessarily believe what you are told by the mainstream media). 3. Driving through Melbourne at night you will occasionally see blue reflectors in the middle of the road in what seem to be random positions. Why are they there? 4. One of the most recognised tunes in Australia was written by an Englishman in the 1930s. The tune goes like this (listen closely): “Bum-bum-di-dum-dum-dum-dum dum-dum. Bum-diddle-diddle-dah. Bum-bum-di dah!” (that’s already sent it to your spam filter) Who wrote the music, what is it called and why is it so well recognised? Send your answers to quiz@whitehat.com.au No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow.
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
