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The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter
Archived
Newsletter No.199 - 7 December 2006
Contents
On Friday and Saturday the Australian Ballet School perform a full length version of Swan Lake at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Also on Friday, the Australian Dancesports competition begins at Vodafone Arena.
On 17th to 19th December Phil Zachariah repeats his now annual performance of 'Charles Dickens reads A Christmas Carol’. An actor, a lectern, a book and research on how Dickens held his audiences captivated while reading his own work make this a very special Christmas entertainment. Details at Theatre in Melbourne. For those of you who prefer your Christmas carols sung, here are some suggestions. Rejoice and be merry,
There’s carols galore
At Willy on Friday,
Next weekend there’s more, In Edinburgh Gardens
On Saturday night
Fitzroy kids with candles –
An ominous sight. On Sunday, Messiah
At Melbourne Town Hall.
Remember your bluff-sheet
And when to stand tall. On Monday and Tuesday
The songs don’t diminish,
They’ll sing them in Swedish,
Norwegian and Finnish. On Tuesday there’s carols
At good old St Pat’s
The Tudors ‘Sing Nowell’
To parents and brats. The nowells keep coming
At good old St Paul’s
With carols all sung by
The Phil, bless their hearts. There’s more flaming nowells
On Thursday and all
With host Dennis Walter
At Hamer Hall At Scotch on the Saturday
There’s no oom-pah-pah –
There’s carols in Latin
By Clemens non Papa. [White Hat footnote; Scholarly opinion is divided over the name of this Renaissance composer. Some believe it indicates ‘Clemens without a father’ while others believe it indicates ‘Clemens – not the Pope’ in order to differentiate him from the eponymous Pontiff. Although some commentators imply, albeit in blunter terms, that certain graduates of Scotch are without a legitimate father, we lean to the latter interpretation of the name.]
Then come Christmas Eve
There’s the one we all know – Every small celebrity
Oozing insincerity
Belting out a carol
At the old Music Bowl.
Rejoice and be merry
And all sing nowell,
If you want to sing carols, You can all go to:
http://www.whitehat.com.au/Music/Choral/Choral.asp
Despite a taxpayer subsidy of over $400,000 the Melbourne International Festival of Music and Blues has been abandoned after only two seasons. Maybe that will free up some money to support local garage bands. But not to worry. The highly successful East Coast Blues and Roots Festival held at Byron Bay will also present a festival at Point Nepean this Easter. We expect to have details on our website soon. Who knows – Point Nepean could become the new Byron Bay.
If you are buying for outdoor, active types you might consider gift vouchers for activities like seal watching or sky diving. You will plenty of options at Red Balloon Days (if you use the above link we earn a small commission and then there might be enough money for Tiny Tim to have a full helping of pudding this year) Now a gift voucher can cost a bit but can still look a bit puny. We suggest that you can bundle it up with some physical item that may be useful during or after the activity. Thus if you bought a voucher for seal watching you could bundle it with a pair of binoculars. If you bought a voucher for sky diving you could bundle it with a pair of fresh underpants.
We received a handwritten postcard from Bright. “hi, nat here this is this new postcard thingie i was telling you about. at the election i voted for the people who had a postcard with a dog on it explaining how to vote but I don’t think they won. crystal came back from the make poverty history concert & said it was awesome, but then she found 20c on the street yesterday & said that was awesome too. people are talking about skoolies week and it was only a short time ago i was there. cant wait to meet up with guys at portc. arent these postcards cool? luv, nat”
Johnathon informs us “have you seen the white hat meme on [a certain blog where people post their secrets on the back of a postcard]?” The postings Johnathon refers to suggest that lonely people going to cinemas should wear a white hat as a secret symbol. It’s never worked for me, but you might want to try it. If you don’t know what a meme is we suggest you go away and look it up. We don’t mention the name of the blog where people postsecret postcards since it usually contains information which may offend some viewers so we suggest you don’t try looking that up
Starting later this month, the stuffed bails that were used in the first cricket match against England will be on display at Melbourne Museum along with the charred remains of a racehorse in a small urn. The exhibition is called The Ashes and we only had time to skim the press release but we think we’ve got the information right.
This is the time of year when families are expected to send out a duplicated letter to friends and family updating them on what has happened in the previous year. As some of you may be new to this process we have produced a template below in which you can just substitute your own family names. If you already know how to write a Christmas letter you can jump to the next section. “Dear ___
[although this will be a duplicated letter, leave this section blank and fill it in by hand – that gives it a personal touch] Well, it just seems like a few weeks ago that I was sitting down to write to you about what has happened. How time flies. We trust that you and your family have had a wonderful year. Phillip’s investment property didn’t work out as well as we would have liked so we are still in the same house. However we do have a wonderful new bathroom with square washbasins and an Italian designed toilet bowl. Robbie is between jobs at the moment. All five employers this year have had unrealistic expectations and failed to recognise Robbie’s unique skills. He says it will be easier to find a job that suits his skills once he gets his licence back and that in the meantime he is increasing his knowledge base. He says that there are a host of useful skills to be learned from Oprah’s show. We will miss him around the house once he gets a suitable position but I’m sure he won’t desert us for a few years yet. Megan passed year 12 and has been offered Medicine at Melbourne Uni. Although there is a perfectly good nursing course at the local TAFE she is determined to go down to Melbourne Uni. We told her not to expect us to keep a bed for her here if she can’t cope. We hope she decides to at least be at the table during the season of goodwill. Oscar’s acne is starting to clear up and he is doing well at a sport called lacrosse where you run around a lot and hit things. His girlfriend has moved on and none of us here are upset about that. She wasn’t the right sort of girl for our Oscar. The bed-wetting problem we mentioned in last year’s letter seems to have cleared up. Little Jenny is doing well at jazz ballet and is really talented in the advanced way she can use a mobile phone. She doesn’t like us calling her Little Jenny because she is the only one in her class still wearing a training bra. Phillip’s work is still keeping him very busy and the partners at PQL Financial Services have no idea how to run the business properly. We were hoping that once Phillip got some assistance he would be able to spend more time at home, but now that he has a PA he seems to be getting home later than ever. It has been a difficult year for me what with the responsibility of choosing the bathroom fittings. However I have been able to release the stress through painting classes. Martin is my painting tutor and a very talented person. He says that my natural talents are unusual and that rather than concentrating on developing my painting skills by conventional methods I should just relax and just express myself straight onto the canvas. The results have been quite remarkable. Anyway I should hand over to Phillip now. Hello – Phillip here I hope you are all having a wonderful time. My work is coming along well and there are also some property investments on the side that present a wonderful opportunity for some of you. Julia is less tense now that the bathroom is finished, even if does look alarmingly institutional to me. We have been able to get a good balance to her medication and the painting does seem to be bringing out some of her primal thoughts. Anyway, back to Julia. Julia here again. Just to repeat, our family has had a good year. Phillip’s haemorrhoids did play up for a while but we upped the dose of phenoxitin and that helped keep them in check. [Another White Hat tip. Details of medical procedures and the drugs used help give your Christmas letter that personal touch.] Some of you will find a real surprise under your tree on Christmas morning. An original painting by me, and I can’t wait to see it hanging above your fireplace next time I visit. Once more, joy to you and yours during this wonderful time. Julia, Phillip, Robbie, Megan, Oscar and Little Jenny."
On Saturday the prodigious Grigoryan brothers on guitar perform with the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra. Also on Saturday the Surrey Hills and Eltham orchestras combine to perform Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. Details at: Classical Music in Melbourne. Both Kylie and Elton are performing this week but you all knew that. There is also Jazz at Shakespeare’s in Frankston the following weekend.
Friday night is the Little Malop Street Night Market in Geelong. There are carols in Mount Eliza (anything past Frankston is the country) on Sunday and this weekend is the Meredith Music Festival. Details at Events in Country Victoria. We know that numbers of our country subscribers are CFA and SES volunteers. We will be thinking of you this weekend and hope that the elements are kind.
How well do you know Melbourne? First to last week’s quiz A special entry came from Chas
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“There’ll always be a Yellow Wiggle,
While children watch TV
I’ll put it on and have a swivel,
Although I’m eighty-three.
I’m only eighty-one come Boxing Day but that doesn’t rhyme. The great grandkids love the Wiggles. This is my first entry to your quiz and your newsletter is one of the highlights of my week. It takes me a while to type so I don’t think I will be first. Charles (Chas)” Thank you Chas. I will be raising a quiet glass to your birthday on Boxing Day as, I suspect, will a number of White Hat subscribers. No quiz this week – go and clean your sandshoes instead.
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