The White Hat Melbourne Newsletter

Archived Newsletter No.202 - 11 January 2007

Contents

Taste of Falls Creek
Art & Sculpture
Mandolins, Piano Accordions & Harmoniums
Markets
Music
School holiday activities
Tennis
Melbourne’s Hidden Gems
Go Sailing Day
From the White Hat Inbox
Coming Events
Zoo
Bring out your inner Indian
Summer entertainment
Country Victoria
The White Hat Quiz

Taste of Falls Creek

This year’s Taste of Falls Creek event will take place in Fed Square in the city on Saturday rather than at the Chalet in Falls Creek. Head along and taste some of the fine foods and wines from the district. Details at Food & Wine in Victoria.

Art & sculpture

This weekend the Summer Arts Festival commences on Herring Island with art & sculpture exhibitions changing every fortnight. A great place for a picnic.

Mandolins, piano accordions & harmoniums

If you area big fan of these instruments (and aren’t we all) then you have an exciting week coming up. On Saturday you can attend the Malvern Town Hall for a concert featuring mandolins and piano accordion then on Sunday you can hear mandolins and guitars as part of the Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields Festival. You can find details on our Mandolin page.

We have a growing section of our website dedicated to music and we first put up the Mandolin page a few months ago. For some reason which we don’t understand we quickly became the ‘go to’ mandolin page. (For several years we were the ‘go to’ site for bratwurst because of a little article we wrote on the bratwurst shop at the Vic Market. Now that page is rarely visited – bratwurst lovers are fickle people.) We were suddenly getting visitors from around the world. “What are you doing on the computer in your bedroom, Sven?” “I’m looking at dirty pictures mother.” “That’s alright then – just as long as you’re not developing an unhealthy interest in the mandolin.”

Similarly our harmonium page quickly became very popular. Hardened long-term readers of this newsletter (only hardened readers survive long-term) will know that the harmonium is different from the American Organ remembering that Michael, a particularly hardened reader, explained it to us in a newsletter in 2005. So Wednesday is a big day for harmonium lovers because at St Thomas Aquinas Church in Clunes is a concert called ‘Jim Forsyth Explores Harmoniums’. Details on our Harmonium page.

Markets

This Saturday there is a craft market at the Botanic Gardens. This market runs during the summer months on the second Saturday of the month. The date for the next Lt Malop market/fair/celebration in Geelong has been announced as 9th February.

Music

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival has renamed itself as ‘Melbourne Jazz’ and has announced its festival artists and dates. Details at Jazz in Melbourne.

The Melbourne International Music Festival (music in this case meaning rock, pop and blues) after two seasons. They failed to recognize that people’s tastes were turning to the music of the mandolin, piano accordion and harmonium. However the East Coast Blues Festival is filling the void and will be educating the aquatic life at Point Nepean in the nature of the blues and rock.

School holiday activities

Most of the standard places have special school holiday activities for kids. For instance the Melbourne Museum has a special Bug Circus every day featuring circus performers. There are also special activities at the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks, the Zoo and the Aquarium. You will need to check to find whether these entertainments are included with the cost of admission.

The ‘Action Pack’ sports coaching for kids continues at Royal Park as well as fairy activities in the Flagstaff Gardens.

A couple of hints – the queue on the footpath outside the Aquarium can become quite long at peak time. Also remember that the Polly Woodside is currently closed for a year or more. Details of all these at Children's Activities in Melbourne.

Tennis

On Monday the Australian Open Tennis commences, but you already knew that. Details at Tennis in Melbourne.

Melbourne's Hidden Gems

Art Deco Melbourne

Later this year, Melbourne hosts an international Art Deco conference so I thought over coming weeks we may mention a few Art Deco gems of Melbourne.

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.

Go Sailing Day

Sunday is another Go Sailing Day where yacht clubs around Victoria offer free experiences in sailing. It’s getting to that time of the school holidays where sending the kids out with Captain Bligh doesn’t seem a bad option. But it’s not just for kids. Keep it in mind for a romantic outing – the sea air, the salt spray, the streaking makeup. Yacht clubs such as Albert Park, Cowes, Lysterfield, McRae and Merricks (but not Lake Eppalock) are taking part. Details at Sailing in Melbourne.

From the White Hat Inbox

 “Dear Sir,
I am an Indian musician residing in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. I play Mandolin, Keyboard and Harmonium. My speciality is playing Indian classical and light music on mandolin. I am certified to play for All India Radio Station and TV programs. I have participated in various classical concerts, light music programs for both traditional folk songs and as well as popular Indian movie songs. I have also accompanied folk dance troupes to cultural festivals in Ukrain and Poland. I have also performed on mandolin and Keyboard for studio recordings of many cassettes and albums. I have worked as a music arranger and music director, and I have also created my own music. I have performed with many well known music groups as a music arranger and keyboard & mandolin artist. These programmes have also been transmitted live by ETV Gujarati, NDTV, RadioMirchi and Door Darshan. I would like to participate in your musical albums or programs, please let me know how I should go about it. I am sending a recording of my short performance on mandolin (Raag Yaman Kalyan). Give me a chance to meet you personally for more detailing of my activities and live demo. I will be highly obliged if I am given a chance. Hoping to hear from you soon.
Thanking You, D. B”

If any of you would like to hear D.B’s enclosed recording (which is very impressive) send us an email to mandolin@whitehat.com.au

“Hi,
I am a peruvian modeller and I have information about a WWII czech tank, (I think an Skoda 38) in Arequipa, Peru. Maybe you know somebody interested on this one. I will send photos on a next e mail. Thank you
L”

L has not yet sent us a photo of his Peruvian tank so we cannot forward that yet. (We must have mentioned a tank museum somewhere on our site.)

We also received this personal message:

“hi from portc, im staying here until the big swim in a weeks time then I go an do the enrolment guff for monash. mikey, i met him at nye & hes really cool & youd like him, sez i shouldnt rush it. hes just about to start his 5th gap year. ill pay u the money for that phone soon. love nat”

Coming events

In the following week There is the Frankston Sea Festival by the Bay, the Docklands Invitational Yacht Racing, the Midsumma G&L (that should get through the spam filter) Festival, the Cottage by the Sea Queenscliff Fair, the Yarra Valley Medieval Festival, the Portsea Swim Classic and the Eva Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco. For details go to our home page and select the appropriate weekend from the drop-down menu of events.

Zoo

The Zoo twilight entertainment sessions begin next week with the first session featuring Kate Ceberano. A picnic on the grass, a glass of champagne, live music, the smell of animal poo – what more could you want?. You can also leave your children for a sleepover at the zoo. Send them along in their older clothes so that if little Oscar gets swallowed by a python at least you haven’t lost those expensive designer clothes you bought him at Christmas.

Bring out your inner Indian

Come St Patrick’s Day every Melbournian claims to have some Irish ancestry. And now once the sound of a tabla is heard and some Bollywood music starts up, good Melbourne girls like Maureen O’Flaherty claim they have Indian blood in their veins. Good Bollywood dancing contains a strange mixture of abandonment, discipline, grace and veiled sexuality. But get your standard anglo-celtic-greek-italian-middle-eastern-chinese Melbournian up there to Bollywood music and they will show that they have latent Indian blood and can demonstrate all the qualities of Bollywood dancing (except maybe the discipline and grace bits, and maybe the sexuality could do with a few more veils). This Sunday at the Docklands you can take some free Bollywood dance lessons. You can get yourself in the mood by listening to D.B’s Indian mandolin recording.

Summer entertainment

The free summer entertainment continues. Next weeks free painting sessions are at the Docklands. The free weekend entertainment in the Fitzroy Gardens features De Jah Groove with hip-hop on Saturday then on Sunday is a ‘Little Big Band’, learn the Jitterbug and Lindy Hop with Swing Patrol followed by Steve Purcell’s Pearly Shells.

Country Victoria

This weekend in country Victoria there are various concerts at the Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields, The Timboon Rail Music Festival & Market (featuring Jazz and other music), the Bass Coast Agricultural Show, the Portarlington Mussel Festival, the Levendula Harvest Festival and the CLOGS Lantern Concert at Mallacoota (Mallacoota is the place you get to just before you run out of Victoria.) For details go to our home page and select the appropriate weekend from the drop-down calendar of events in Victoria.

Here at White Hat we are working on a new product especially for use in country Victoria. The new in-car GPS navigation systems are all very well but the voice instructions can sound very mechanical and lacking in humanity. The White Hat Navigation System will solve all that. Let’s say you are in Ballarat and anxious not be late for the harmonium concert in Clunes. You type in the destination and the voice informs you – “Go straight up Sturt Street to the Arch . . The Arch . . You know, the archavitrie, then on past where the 3BA building used to be, I don’t think its there any more. Keep going past the Burrumbeet Racecourse on your left. There’s a really shady bookmaker there – short with long hair, and he . . . You’ve missed the turnoff! Do a U-turn. Back to where the Harrison farmhouse used to be. You remember the Harrisons. The eldest daughter had tickets on herself but never did any good but the second daughter married the nephew of . . You’ve missed the turnoff again.” It may take a little longer there than using current models but we believe the more human interface will make it a real winner.

The White Hat Quiz

How well do you know Melbourne?

First to last week’s quiz. John was first with the correct answers.

“This is John holidaying at portc where I keep trying to spot Nat. Here are my answers.

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.

Too easy. John”

Well done John. It didn’t seem “too easy” for most. We had very few correct answers.

Now to this week’s quiz.

Some Art Deco buildings in Melbourne.

1. A Melbourne tourist attraction features an Art Deco entrance with its own name making up a large part of the façade. What is the name of that attraction?
2. A Melbourne football ground features a curved grandstand in Art Deco style? Which ground?
3. A luxurious getaway in the Dandenongs is in impressive Art Deco style. What is the name of this residence and for whom was it built?
4. What iconic train used industrial Art Deco streamlining?
5. The David Jones store on the south side of Bourke Street Mall has an impressive Art Deco façade. Who was this store built for?

No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow.