In praise of the passing parade

Who am I

2011-08-26T14:29:00.002+10:00

I wonder if I am the bastard child of a stolen identity.

I was born at the start of World War II. I never knew my father; there is no name on the birth certificate, and my mother wouldn't speak of him. I was later adopted, and given a totally new name.

However, a favourite uncle once told me that my father was “ a bloke called Gerry Lovis, who died in the Pacific, on the way back from the war.”

I couldn't find anyone of this name in official war records. Good old Google didn't give me any clues in searches I made for the holder of that name. The web site ancestry.com was no help.

However, a year or so ago, I found a newspaper article. Published in 1941, in the local paper in my

Barrier Miner Broken Hill, NSW Wednesday 22 October 1941

ALLEGED FALSE NAME ON TELEGRAM

ADELAIDE, Wednesday.-Francis James Reynolds Reardon, bricklayer, of North Terrace, Hackney, was remanded until Friday on a charge of having on. September 29 wrongfully signed a telegram with the name of another person, Jerry Lovis, without his authority, contrary to the pro-visions of the Post and Telegraph Act. - He was allowed bail in a bond of £50, with two sureties for £25 each.

Police Prosecutor Crafter said that defendant originally came from Broken Hill, and had been living in Adelaide for the past few months. He was employed on casual work at the Abattoirs. On September 29 he sent a telegram from Adelaide to a man at Broken Hill requesting £4, and signed the name of Lovis without that person's authority. When questioned, he admitted having done so, and that he had received the money and had retained possession of it.home town of Broken Hill,

This story raises a few questions. Who was this Jerry Lovis? How did the perpetrator, Reardon, know that someone in Broken Hill would respond to a request for money from Jerry Lovis. Did he make the request to my family, or to the Lovis family – there were a few families of that name living in Broken Hill.

My mother was living in Adelaide at the time. So there's a possibility this was the Jerry Lovis in my life. There's also a possibility that Reardon spun her a yarn, told her he was Lovis, got her pregnant and disappeared into the night.

Bloomsday

2010-06-16T16:11:00.004+10:00

Today is Bloomsday. Sadly the tribute event I went to this year seemed to be a bit tired and lacked some of the joy and popularity of earlier years. The organisers and readers were in top form, but the audience was a letdown; participants were more notable for their wrinkles than their youth.
Bloomsday has been celebrated for decades on July 16, in Dublin, London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne, and hundreds of smaller cities and towns.
In other years Bloomsday started in Sydney with a kidney breakfast in an Irish pub, and became a moveable feast, calling in at different venues during the day. I’ve been to readings in Government House, hospitals and cemeteries, because all these institutions appear in Ulysses.
Bloomsday is traditionally a day for enthusiasts to get together and read the James Joyce book Ulysses, for fun. And for others to come along and see what all the fun is about.
Described by some as the greatest novel written in the English language, and by others, as impossible to read or understand, Ulysses is simply a yarn about a single day in Dublin in 1904.
Many people know a few facts about the book, but haven’t felt a need to do heavy research on the tricky bits in the tale. For example, we mostly know James Joyce’s story is supposed to make references to the version of Ulysses written by the ancient Greek story teller Homer, but how does the chapter called Telemachus in one relate to Telemachus in the other.
Well, there’s no need to go into these mechanics of literature. Joyce’s Ulysses can be read and enjoyed by the same sort of people you’d bump into in a tour of Dublin, normal people who don’t need a Master’s degree to have a bet on the horses.
The opening chapters start with breakfast for three main characters – Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly, and a student, and finish at 1.00am the next morning. During their voyage around the city, Joyce records what they do, what they think, and how they mix with each other in the city.
I’ve read Ulysses three times, more if you count the times I didn’t finish, and the times I I only opened a passage or two.
Ulysses is mainly an aural work. The story is best told when read aloud, and when I hear others read, I catch ideas and shades that I totally missed on my own.
When I can listen to someone with an Irish brogue read a chapter, it makes ten times more sense again,
I’ve learned that I will fail to see most of the sense, and fun if I just read it alone and quietly. Each chapter adopts a different style of English. Some of the chapters, especially when Joyce writes what the characters are thinking, sound quite different to our normal ways of reading a novel.
Hence – Bloomsday. People gather on July 16 to listen, and enjoy listening, to professional readers tell the story, or even have a go at something quite foreign, reading aloud to themselves or a friendly group, in public. Normally, if you try to read a book aloud in the train, or in the library, security guards are called.
But Bloomsday is a day for sharing the story, You listen while others read, and others listen if you want to have a go at reading aloud, and then its quite a jolt when they laugh at one of Joyce’s jokes that you hadn’t realised was there, until you sounded the words.
Along with the story being told, a good Bloomsday works best with Irish music, heaps of food, some drink, and a sense of shared fun with others.
This year it was hard to find out where the Bloomsday meetings were. After much web surfing, I found there was one to be held in a library, and another in a pub. I went to the library one. The organisers had done Ulysses proud. They had one of the top Irish groups in the town play before and after readings. They had a table stuffed with sandwiches and cakes, fruit and savouries. All free. Leopold Bloom would have been impressed.
What I missed was a cross section in the crowd. Where were the civic leaders, and other poobahs? More importantly, where were the kids, who might have got up and danced while the oldies hugged their cups of tea. Perhaps the kids went to the pub event. Maybe next year.

Did anyone notice

2010-06-13T11:11:00.003+10:00

I can’t be there, so I have to wait for a review, any review will do, for the grandly promoted World Premier of Why Muriel Matters, tonight at Adelaide Town Hall, for the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe Festival.
Today is the centenary of a rollicking good lecture in a packed Adelaide Town Hall, on June 13th 1910, by Muriel Matters, so the play holds some relevance
I’m interested, because Adelaide has always taken its early role in the evolution of Womens’ sufferage quite seriously, and Adelaide born girl Muriel Matters was a leading participant in demonstrations in Britain for votes for women.
Muriel was a recognised actress in Adelaide before she left for Britain, with a good sense for stunts that would win attention to the suffrage cause.
She was one of two women in 1908 who chained themselves to the ‘grille’, a piece of ironwork placed in the Ladies’ Gallery of Parliament that obscured their view of the male proceedings.
It was Matters firm conviction the grille was a symbol of the oppression of women in a male-dominated society and should be removed. Her non-violent solution to the issue was to chain herself to the grille
Police couldn’t separate Matters and associate Helen Fox from the grille, so eventually the grille was removed completely, with the women attached and carried to a nearby committee room. A blacksmith was brought in to detach the women from the ironwork and they were sent to Holloway Prison for a month.
Six months later 1909, when King Edward officially opened Parliament for the coming year. Matters decided to hire a dirigible air balloon to gain attention to the suffrage cause. Her intention was to drop WFL pamphlets on the King and the Houses of Parliament below. Unfortunately the wind blew their balloon off course so she never made it to the Palace of Westminster. Instead, Matters dropped her handbills about votes for women on London suburbs, from a height of 3,500 ft.
The next year she gave three talks in Adelaide, where she advocated for prison reform, equal pay for equal work, and, naturally, for the vote to be granted to the women of Great Britain. Matters is reported to have presented the audience with "illustrations related to the movement, and donned a facsimile of her prison dress."
A modern day fringe cabaret performance, about a woman who made world wide headlines and packed her home town hall, sounds interesting

A good butcher is hard to find

2010-05-11T16:06:00.000+10:00

My grandmother was a farm and station cook. I grew up eating delicacies that were left after the owners in the big house, and then the staff, had their prime cuts.
Then we ate like kings, eating brisket, boiled sheep’s head, stewed kidneys,, pigs fry, sweatbread casserole, stewed tripe, and on Sundays – roast rabbit.

I now choose to live in a cosmopolitan area of Sydney, where there are Asian, Mediteranian, Arab and African migrants. So there is a solid market for cooks who want traditional ingredients for their dishes.

There are three or four independent butchers in our small suburb. The competition is tough, for quality, variety and price. On Easter Saturday the queue at Supreme Souvalakia , a wholesale butcher in the high street, starts at 6.00 a.m. and winds around the block till late afternoon.

Forget the $40 a kilo lamb cutlets and the Wagyu beef. This is a time for eating economy meals at home.

At the bottom end of the contemporary meat scale, there’s supermarket meat, wrapped in heavy plastic, tough and chewy. ( The meat has the same nutritional value as the plastic packaging.

Butchers in shopping malls specialise in novelty meat, covered in mysterious sauces and marinades to hide the fat, gristle and discoloration. The cost is higher than in the supermarkets, but if the meat has been ground or pounded, it can be easier to chew than the cheapest steaks from the chain stores.

Independent butchers in the high street have to follow the whims of trendies and the yuppies, in order to survive. If the latest glossy cookbook suggests a particular recipe or cut of meat, that’s what the independents have to display in their windows. And very little else.

At growers’ markets around town there’s a few herdsmen selling enough of their stock to pay their bank managers for a week- good fresh meat, but a very limited choice.

Occasionally I find a real butcher. Years ago I supported a butcher who bought the prime prize winning steer from the agricultural show each year, and rationed cuts of the animal to regular customers. It was good eating. Perhaps the best hamburger mince I ever brought was from the on-site retail shop at the city abattoir.

The variety of sausages on sale at most butchers are a worry. What’s in them? I think most butchers use anything that can’t be sold as dog food in making their sausage. The trick is to waste nothing.

When I asked a butcher for cow’s cheeks the other day, I was told, “that’s junk, we just mince them up”. Yet at several of four star restaurants around town, cows cheeks is one of the highest priced plates on the menu. Trendies can easily be duped.

The difficulty is to get good value at bottom price. That means skipping snooty meats and rediscovering proteins our grandparents knew when meat was scarce.

ANZAC Day and Twitter

2010-04-25T08:09:00.005+10:00

Some of the new technologies get bad press, and often that criticism is well earned, but today something like Twitter shows another side of the coin.

Most of the public ANZAC coverage consists of comments from media stars and community bigwigs. Twitter is letting ordinary people have a say, to share what they see or feel about the commemoration.

As I watch, about 10 new messages are posted every minute on the subject of ANZAC day. Here’s a sampling. It’s like seeing a telegram every ten seconds, and this is moving to watch.

up early, will be outside for sunrise to pay my respects to the ANZACs on this day
I miss not being home for Anzac day this year. Thanks to all the diggers.
just got back from seeing the WWII memorial in Washington where there were a number of veterans, quite fitting on ANZAC Day. Lest we forget
Tropic: Thousands of people have packed Townsville’s Strand Park for the annual ANZAC Day dawn service
Anzac Day memorial service at the local RSL club due to rain: Lest We Forget
Trooper Mark Donaldson VC, who attended Sydney's dawn service, will lead today's march - a direct link with past heroes

While the parades, the reunions and the services are wonderful, there are huge numbers who can’t be there. Twitter also serves, because it helps people who can’t attend participate in their own ways.

Old time radio

2010-04-12T19:44:00.001+10:00

Now is the ‘golden years’ of radio, all over again.

If you want to hear some of your own rustily remembered favourite old-fashioned radio programs again, scroll down this page and enjoy the flood of memories from just a small selection of what’s available.

Radio got into my head in the ‘40s, as I marched around the living room to instructions from ‘Kindergarten of the Air’. In the fifties, sitting in the dark with toasted cheese sandwiches for Sunday night dinner by a fire of burning logs, I listened in the semi-dark to noir thrillers and gossipy serials, with my parents instead of doing homework. In my room I used a self-made crystal radio set to try to hear naughty late night jazz and comedy from far-away Sydney.

The web has brought all these programs back to life. I can listen to music hall, swing bands, detective serials, day-time soapoperas and long-gone quiz shows.

Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until the 1950s. During this period, when radio was dominant and the airwaves were filled with a variety of radio formats and genres, people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs.

Here’s a link to a few of the programs I can access through the web. Some are direct broadcasts from 80 year old DJs, some are scratchy collections of old vinyl and reel-to-reel tapes.

Radio Five-O-Plus
For seniors – Music from the 20s to 60s A continuous play list

Radio lovers
Free programs from back in the days when sitting around the living room radio was a family tradition. MP3 downloads, like single 78’s, not streaming radio. Old and scratchy

Reminiscing with Bob Rodgers
Radio 2CH in Sydney, 6 Hours on Saturday night (Sydney time), direct online broadcast

Sounds of the 60s
A couple of hours of music on the BBC from the 1960s, including the hits, rarities, EP and LP tracks and stories behind the songs. Weekly, can be saved as MP3 or heard any time for the following week.

OPEN Source recordings
Listen to this collection of 78rpm records and cylinder recordings released in the early 20th century

Radio Days
Old Time Radio including drama, comedy, mystery, and news

Classic Oldies
Schmaltz from 50s 60s and 70s– a great long list of stations. With non stop good and bad selections Scroll half-way down their webpage for a lot of rubbish, but some gemsThis list was correct in April 2010. If there are any changes or additions to be made, please let me know

A handkerchief is not to be sneezed at

2010-02-17T14:32:00.002+11:00

After decades of being confined to the back of the linen cupboards, the humble handkerchief is making a comeback into popular favour.
Australians, living in a land of sweat, allergies and runny noses, are looking at the cost of tissues on the environment, and discovering some starting realities.
The Australian connection to handkerchiefs goes back more than 200 years.
Elizabeth Thackery, the first female convict to set foot in Australia in 1788, was deported from Britain after being found guilty of stealing five silk handkerchiefs.
Until recently, a handkerchief was an essential personal possession. As a child I was not allowed out of the house without a fresh cotton handkerchief.
As a young man I carried two handkerchiefs, thinking the spare might be useful for a damsel in distress. As a young father I was given a handkerchief or two as Christmas, birthday and father’s day presents.
The secret of a handkerchief is that it is made to be reused. A handkerchief is a product of bygone days, of thrift and products made to last. Tissues are a product of a marketing culture, of disposable, single use comsummables.
Now flimsy nonwoven tissues have almost made the use of handkerchiefs redundant.
I have one remaining handkerchief, ironed but seldom taken out on a journey.
Tissues are ubiquitous. I don’t have to walk far to find a fresh tissue or paper napkin I can ‘borrow’.
When I have a cold, my bed, office, car and bathroom are ankle deep with used scrumpled tissues.
But I believe that when I have a cold, a handkerchief is gentler on my nose, as cheap to replace as a boxes of tissues, and less likely to spread viruses.
The first tissue napkins were introduced in the 1920's. Now about 21 million tonnes of lightweight tissues are produced each year, used mostly in place of handkerchiefs. Each year Australians reportedly use 273 000 tonnes of tissue products, mostly imported from China.
Some people think the time has come to make an issue of tissues, advocating more frequent use of handkerchiefs , to help the environment.
Not having to wash yuckie used handkerchiefs on laundry day might be one argument in favour of tissues. But there are other considerations
Rebecca Blackburn from G magazine used data collected from a 1995 Duke University research on paper and from Cambridge University research into textiles in 2006, to make comparisons of environmental impacts, between a single use 1 g tissue versus a 15 g cotton hanky that could be reused (by washing) 520 times.
According to the research there are four main considerations in the hanky vs tissue debate: water used in making and maintaining the product, energy consummed in manufacture, waste after use and comparative costs between buying tissues or hankies..
Water
A lot of water is used to make each of these products. It takes around 2.2 Litres of water to produce one paper tissue. There is no real cost of maintenance.
It takes 165 Litres of water to grow cotton to manufacture a single hanky, and then it has to be washed after each use.. An additional 0.15 L of water is required each time the hanky is cleaned. But the hanky will be used at least 520 times, which means the agricultural water and the washing water comes to 0.47 L each time you take it from your pocket.
So the clean cotton hanky wins by more than a nose, using four and half times less water than a clean tissue.
Energy
It takes three times more energy to grow trees and produce pulp to manufacture a fresh fibre tissue compared to a producing a fresh cotton hanky.
To make a tissue takes 0.013 kWh. While it takes 0.78 kWh to produce a cotton hanky - spread over 520 uses this works out to be only 0.04 kWh per use, including washing and drying. Since laundering is the main source of energy use, just switching from tumble drying to line drying will reduce energy use even further, to 0.02 kWh.
Waste
Not surprisingly tissues create a fair amount of waste. Once a tissue has been used it can't be recycled, so it ends up in landfill. A single virgin fibre tissue creates about 1.3 g of waste, including waste from manufacturing. Manufacturers are reluctant to sell tissues made from recycled paper because they say they can't make them soft enough.
Surprisingly the greatest source of waste from cotton hankies is due to the coal mining waste created to make electricity needed for laundering. One cotton hankie produces 0.05 g of landfill-bound waste for each use, which is 26 times less waste than a tissue.

Next Australia Day

2010-01-27T20:02:00.000+11:00

A meeting of Aborigines at the Australian Hall in Sydney in 1938 issued a proclamation that on 'the 150th Anniversary of the Whiteman's seizure of our country' passed unanimously a resolution protesting at the whiteman's mistreatment of Aborigines since 1788 and appealing for new laws ensuring equality for Aborigines within the Australian community’
Peter Garrett gave his 2009 Sorry Day speech (May 26) standing in First Fleet Park. He said that Sorry Day still exists because the first Australians are coming last and it’s time that changed.
Today, many indigenous Australians claim Australia Day is “Invasion Day”
To make Australia day more inclusive, some more substantial tribute to the Aborigines that were here to see the arrival of the first Fleet at Sydney Cove is needed, something more than a separate day to be sorry for injustices.
Perhaps this First Fleet park could serve better as a tribute to Australia Day for all, by being renamed Reconciliation Park.

First Fleet Park

2010-01-27T20:00:00.000+11:00

At least you can see some of the modern Australia Day celebrations on Sydney Harbour, from First Fleet Park.
All the city council tells us about this park is that “It’s a stone’s throw from the Harbour”.
The park is nestled between the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the overhead railway station at Circular Quay.
The only apparent link between the park and Australia Day is a little brass plate up in George street, attached to a sandstone wall.

First Fleet memorials in the city

2010-01-27T19:56:00.001+11:00

Across the road from the first fleet flag pole in Jessie Street Gardens, is the First Fleet memorial. ( This is Loftus street, remember, not Jessie Street. Jessie Street was a noted feminist in Sydney)
The memorial is called The Bonds of Friendship, by sculptor John Robinson consisting of two interlocking rings and is located in the northern section of the park. It is meant to reflect the original landing place of the First Fleet and was a gift from the City’s sister city of Portsmouth, England.

The Sirius Anchor

A cannon and anchor taken from the First Fleet flagship, HMS Sirius, were placed nearby, in Macquarie Place park. Macquarie Place Park is on the corner of little known Macquarie Place, and Bridge street. It should not be confused with Macquarie Street, home of the NSW Parliament.
The Sirius, named after the brightest star in the sky, was registered as a 'sixth rate' vessel.

Claiming Australia

2010-01-27T19:54:00.000+11:00

A part of the legal process for claiming a new colony in 1788 was to plant the flag. That moment would seem to be a reasonable important event in Australian history.
It took me a year to find out where the arrival of the first fleet was solemnised, by Captain Arthur Phillip raising the Union Jack.
I asked the City Council, I asked at the library, I asked at the Sydney Museum. I rang the Australia Day committee. They didn’t know. I eventually found the answer in a book about Sydney by Ruth Park.
The exact location where the first flag in Australia was saluted, on January 26th, is in Loftus street just alongside the City Library in Customs House at Circular Quay.
You can sit in the Paragon hotel across the road, and with a fine rum, ponder what the sailors and soldiers and convicts of the first fleet thought of this little ceremony. The first official Australia day
A replica of that Union Jack hangs limply on a tall flag pole surrounded by official inscriptions, wanting a breeze on most days.
Passers-by can barely see the flagpole. It is surrounded by a fleet of modern buses, waiting for their timetables to send them on journeys around Sydney.
I asked a dozen bus drivers what they knew of the flag. Most of them, parking here for ten years or more in their bus driving careers, did not know there was a flag pole there, let alone why it was there.

Camp Cove 1788

2010-01-25T16:30:00.005+11:00

Now, just inside the entrance to Sydney Harbour at South Head, at the headland to the west of Camp Cove in Sydney, is a small neglected memorial stone, with tributes to the short stay of the First Fleet while they looked for a site to establish a new nation, or at least a site for a penal colony.

Leaving no hint of their arrival in Kurnell Australia in 1788, the First Fleet had weighed anchors and followed the coastal cliffs to Sydney Cove, then turned in through the heads. The officers of the First Fleet seems to have looked at Manly, and moved on immediately.

Property next to Watson’s Bay looked like better real estate for a new world, than Brighton. They set up camp here on 21 January, 1788. But they were determined to find even better land and water for their colony, so a few people rowed down the harbour till they discovered Circular Quay.

When I found this memorial at Camp Cove a few years ago, it was covered with cobwebs on Australia day. This year the cobwebs had been blown away, and it was in reasonable condition. But still lonely looking, and its importance apparently forgotten by people celebrating Australia Day.

Botany Bay

2010-01-25T16:16:00.005+11:00

When the First Fleet arrived in Australia they had followed a map left to them by Captain Cook. So they steered for Botany Bay, wisely by-passing Tasmania and Victoria.

The first vessel of the fleet arrived there on 18 February, 1788. There is no tribute, no marker, no memorial spot at Kurnell to suggest that the First Fleet might also have visited the landing spot where Cook’s crew came to shore. There’s plenty of historical acknowledgement to Cook's visit, but nothing about the First Fleet at Kurnell.

Instead the monument to the first white immigrants is way over on the shallow side of the bay, in the suburb of Brighton. I can’t imagine them even considering pitching tents there.

Kurnell is a poor place to want to build a new country, but Brighton is worse. But that’s where the grand monument to the arrival of the First Fleet sits on the shore.

What the Captains of the First Fleet vessels might have found at Brighton probably looked bad for chances of success in their new world mission. But further around in Botany Bay, there’s water deep enough for ships, where Sydney’s industrial harbour now operates.

Perhaps they thought the French were already there, and didn’t chance further exploration in Botany Bay. The French certainly arrived in Botany Bay a few days later, hard on the heels of the British First Fleet . Hence we have the suburb of La Perouse on Botany Bay to remind us of their early presence in 1788.

The monument to the First Fleet, at Brighton today, is peeling and torn, a good meeting place but no one sitting around the model ship on the day I visited could tell me why it was there.

Neglected parts of Australia Day

2010-01-25T16:01:00.005+11:00

One of the good parts of living in Australia is the larrikin response to political officialdom and business control of holidays.
So it’s laid back fun to enjoy barbeques and mateships that thrive on Australia Day. It’s exciting to go to some of the suburban ceremonies, when new Australians get their certificates of citizenship, and swear allegiance to the Royal family of Australia
Australia Day is meant to celebrate the formation of a nation, based on the arrival of the First Fleet, in 1788.

The First Fleet of 11 ships led by HMS Sirius, left Portsmouth in 1787 with more than 1480 men, women and children onboard.
Those Brits landed in Sydney Cove in 1788 and started to rearrange the place. They brought a ready made population of their unwanted convicts and felons.
Just a few decades ago some bright government clerk thought that this event would be a good focus point to celebrate as our national day.
Some indigenous people still feel a bit resentful about British colonisation of Australia in 1788. Some of the rest of us think it’s a bit peculiar to still be carrying the British Union Jack on our national flag, so long after we left home, breaking away from the Mother Land.
Over the years a number of memorials and monuments to the achievements of the first fleet have been established around Sydney harbour.
These monuments now seem to be ignored and forgotten on Australia Day

Year of the extinct tiger

2010-01-13T19:44:00.005+11:00

This February will see the start of the Year of the Tiger, in the Chinese calendar.
There are two extraordinary animals in that calendar.
One animal, the dragon, is already extinct and considered to be a myth. The other animal, the tiger, is nearly extinct, and is rapidly entering halls of mythology.
The world’s tiger population is at its lowest level ever, with possibly as few as 3,200 remaining in the wild.
It is estimated that one Bengal tiger dies every day. Just over a century ago there were more than 40,000 alive in India - now there are just 1,800.
Three subspecies of tigers –　 the Bali, Caspian, and Javan tiger – have become extinct in the past century. And a fourth may be on its way... many scientists believe the South China tiger is "functionally extinct".
Ironically, in the Year of the Tiger, the World Wide Fund Nature (WWF) has launched a last-ditch attempt aimed at saving the species. There is a desperate plan to release zoo tigers back into the wild
A plan has been adopted to help the South China tiger, A team is rearing zoo-bred tigers in South Africa and hope to release them in China.
The fewer tigers there are, the more financial there is to kill the rare commodity
At current availability, a tiger carcass can fetch up to $50,000, skins can reach up to $20,000, while a kilogram of the creature's bones can sell for about $6,000. And a tiger penis, for use in so-called virility pills, is priced at $28,000 for 100g.
Other people make a profit from tigers in other ways. In the interest of the tigers, here’s a few links to tiger related interests around Sydney, with a hope that you might see how relevant tiger mythology has already become to our culture.

Balmain Tigers football club

Tiger airways

Tiger beer

Winnie the pooh

West Tigers

Richmond

Tasmanian tiger

Tiger Moth

Paper Tiger

Tiger shark

Tiger eyes

All things tiger

Of course, no review of Tiger lore is complete without reference to one of the most famous poems refering to Tigers:
Tiger tiger burning bright William Blake

Artistic license

2009-10-11T18:35:00.007+11:00

If journalists wrote with as much hyperbole as some artists use to describe their works, Rupert Murdock would be a poor man.
Sydney is running a spring event called Laneways by George, as a part of their response to criticism that Sydney lanes are used as rubbish tips, compared to the lively lane scene in Melbourne. I think the Council has just proven that Sydney is way behind Melbourne.
I wandered the streets today, trying to find inspirational art in the laneways of the city, guided by a glossy brochure funded by the council. Mostly, I found amateurism and art on the cheap.

Much money appears to have been spent putting together one installation called "Seven Metre Bar" in Underwood street.
This was how the brochure promotes the work:

"On current trajectories polar ice cap melts will drown Underwood street. So do we raise the bar? At 7m above sea level this collaboration between an artists, architect/gamer and landscape gardener combines the landscape of weather, and architecture of catastrophe and the technology of games. Intense weather projections flicker across the storm surge detritius and build in ferocity in response to increasing bar patronage"

What are they talking about? There's a great distance between their idea, their actual project, and any relationship to real life. Here's what their version of art imitating life looks like:

Try telling the people who have suffered in recent tsunamis that this expensive pile of trash in a back lane of Sydney, called art, will stop the rest of the world experiencing a fate similar to their own.

Sydney doesn't need a tsunami, real or artisitic, to show the world the dreary world that exists in the city lanes.

Laneways by George

2009-10-11T18:01:00.006+11:00

Sydney doesn't understand use of laneways. I am beginning to think the town doesn't understand public art either. Put the two together and we have a laugh.
The City Council is running a project called Laneways by George, as part of the annual Art and About event. I don't know if what I saw was the art, or rubbish left by people for the Garbage collection on Monday.
The works had little to do with the descriptions given in submissions to the Councils, and printed in the guide.
See for yourself. above is the image and description for one lane.
The brochure says:
" The Meeting Place is a playful installation which encourages participation and interaction whilst heightening the experience of moving through the urban space. Compressing the pedestrian path and framing a sliver of sky accentuates the unique city space. Strangers walking through the lane must negotiate with each other to gain passage through th and meet in the process."
Here's what I found, following the organiser's map.

Rusty dust

2009-09-27T18:10:00.003+10:00

The country came to the city this week, in a big way.

The town was full of relatives of the famous worry-wart, Chicken Little, spreading fear because according to them, "The sky is falling".

Simply - the slickers had never experienced a decent dust storm before.

The dust storm blowing top soil from the far west of NSW brought a massive demonstration of the power that farmers need to deal with every season. I have seen heavy dust storms in Adelaide, Broken Hill and Melbourne, events which only happen in extreme conditions. Sometimes the light through the airborn dirt is grey, sometimes white and sometimes red.

Farmers see regular local dust storms , and may swear a bit when it happens, but they don't cower under their donnas.

The amazing reaction of people who have ignored the drought for decades was revealing of how isolated and insulated from nature most city cousins can be.

I heard words like 'Armagedon', 'fear' and 'Apocalypse'. I know of one person who was too afraid of the weather to come to work. I saw one story written by a juvenile journalist, talking about Sahara sand storms. Other comments forecast that this was proof of global warming.

No worry, it will soon all blow over, and be forgotten.

I like it that I still call Australia home

2009-08-22T17:45:00.004+10:00

If I wasn't here already, I'd want to come here, after seeing the new Qantas advertisement. Here's one version on youtube.
I don't fly Qantas myself when I go visiting friends and family, this airline has positioned themselves in my mind with an idea they might be for overseas travel, and they have an undeserved reputation for being expensive. A few times when they have flights going where I want to go, at times I want to go, at a price that doesn't aim itself at executive travel, its been a good experience.
Generally I fly with their cheaper offspring Jetsar. They are a mass marketed pain, but not unbearable. I have learned to travel in the morning, when problems haven't had a chance to cascade into late flights or even cancelled services. The few times a flight I am on has been cancelled, I have been bumped to a fairly close flight with Qantas. I just can't stand the happy chirpy friendly nonsense from rivals, Virgin airlines. I want to be left alone with my book an short flights.
Anyhow, I don't care how much schmaltz is in the Qantas ad. It is feelgood, lump in the throat, wet in the eye, warm and fuzzy, you bloody beauty bit of aussie culture.

I didn't start the fire

2009-08-07T19:58:00.001+10:00

A couple of new pics I’m pleased with on Flickr.
I woke early this morning to the sound of crackling. It couldn’t be hail, too much snapping to be distant gunfire. With sleep out of my ears I recognized the sound of burning wood crackling. I couldn’t see anything out the windows on either side, so I thought there might not be immediate danger. Lots of sirens. I thought this was a bit too much to try to investigate in slippers and bathrobe, so I pulled on some clothes that might be OK if I needed to walk on burning coals. When I got there only one brigade had arrived. By the time I left there were ten, including two long ladder trucks. The police wouldn’t let me get too close; bastards, they let late arriving media though the tapes, but I got a couple of shots early before the media had the easy job of photographing in the light.

Travels without my wallet

2009-07-07T10:27:00.000+10:00

I noticed nothing amiss till I got to the supermarket checkout, and discovered my wallet was gone.
It had been lifted expertly from my hip pocket as I browsed the aisles. Damn.
First task was to stop my bank accounts and get new cards. That means changing the details on all automatic withdrawals, before I got a bad credit rating.
I had to stop my library card, get a new drivers license, get a new medicare number for the doctors, change my lottery registration.
For two weeks I lived with little receipts to show that I was a citizen, before the replacement cards started to arrive.
My biggest fear was the dreaded “identity theft”. Would another me start to bob up somewhere around the world, running up debts, committing follies, claiming my vote, turning me into a shadow-like doppleganger.
Then on Sunday, an express parcel appeared stuffed into my letter box. Funny, that. The post doesn’t deliver on Sunday around here. My name address was printed on the front quite clearly. The sender’s name and details, however, were scrawled in such a way as to make it impossible to write and say “Thank you”.
Most of the money was gone. All the cards were intact, and I now have a set of useless duplicates.
Where in the world has wally wallet been?

On street photography

2009-06-29T20:03:00.000+10:00

Henri Cartier-Bresson was an inspiring photographer.
He worked in a time of innocence in photography. People were pleased to have their image taken – street photography was new, and to have a photographer point a camera was a taken as a compliment.
Not now.
This weekend I saw an almost Cartier-Bresson moment, three women in black leaving a church, the light was right, and the image frame almost good. OK, there was no real ‘moment of decision’, nothing extra-ordinary was about to happen, but I did the best I could capturing the street scene in front of me.
Next minute a big burly Greek was in my face asking what I was doing. I think he knew I was taking photographs, what he wanted to know was why. People today are so suspicious, so untrusting.
The worst subjects today are workers. Cartier-Bresson recorded wonderful images of French factory workers, artesians, and tradesmen. Their modern day counterparts shy from camera. They believe they are being set up by cameras to ridicule, exploit or threaten their incomes. I tried to take a photograph of a telephone linesman; within minutes a union representative drove up and asked me what I thought I was doing. It wasn’t a question asked without threat.
I have tried photographing sweepers, painters , couriers, construction workers even school crossing monitors, all treating me with the same mistrust as the phone worker, and skepticism that I was just an amateur hobbyist interested in their work.
Today I can’t take easily take photographs of kids playing in the street, without being threatened by parents or passers-by, I can’t photograph drinkers in a pub without fear of reprisal for interfering with their privacy. Too many people want anonymity in their faceless street work or guarantees of payment or fame in return for them allow me to capture an image of their presence in the street.
The friendliest, most generous people in the street are buskers, the homeless, or those who are used to be stared at because they have some disability. Often they are willing to work with me to help me get a unique image, and they want nothing in return, other than my brief interest in their lives.

Through a dirty window, darkly

2009-06-20T17:00:00.003+10:00

Midday on a wet day in Sydney, nearly the winter solstice . Looking south from Broadway.

Winter chill

2009-06-14T13:19:00.003+10:00

Its so cold and grey today. nearly the winter solstice.
The temperature brings a time of sneezes and sniffles, of dry skin and heavy electricity bills.
Last night I put flannalette sheets on the bed, brought out an extra blanket and dusted off the winter weight doona.
Before going to bed I had a hot curry and a glass of rum, but I was still shivering. So I did some exercises under the blankets to try to generate some warmth.
Its what people used to call a three dog night. Spare a thought for those sleeping rough, without shelter.
Poor public servants, down in our capital - Canberra - have none of the luxuries like cardboard box sheets to keep them warm in their boarding houses and communal dormitories.

Dawn Chorus

2009-01-12T18:52:00.001+11:00

The beginning of the 2009 Sydney Festival saw a beautiful sunrise at Sydney’s Balmoral Beach, at a rare free event: an outdoor choral concert starting before first light and ending as the sun began to climb into the sky.
The Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, about 100 voices, sang from a natural sandstone amphitheatre on the beach just below Mosman, while most of the audience sat on the sand or watched from the promenade. The audience stretched back along the sand halfway to nearby Chinaman’s beach. Every tree was crowded with those who could climb looking for a vantage point, and on the backdrop of the natural bush and rocks on an island headland.
The choir sang sacred and secular music from several centuries ago, songs about sunrise and beaches, with four new works especially commissioned for the event
The concert began at 5.30am. You had to be there early. I arrived before 5.00 to grab the very last parking spot, as a Kookaburra was either complaining about intruders, or laughing because he got the last worm.
Latecomers who arrived after 5.00 were flustered because, they said, they couldn’t find a park in the dark; one woman told me she left her car two km from the beach, and she arrived as a rousing version of “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” finished the 45 minute performance.
Those who didn’t bring a themos and picnic breakfast scrambled away desperate for morning coffee.

Stuff I didn't know about Sydney

2007-10-20T16:29:00.000+10:00

I will become a tourist in my own town, starting tomorrow. It takes an outside eye to see your own hometown in new light. The London Times has a feature on Sydney, revealing all kinds of ideas I had either forgotten or didn't think were important.

2007-09-02T17:12:00.000+10:00

Sydney citizens had a last chance to see our Opera House up close yesterday, while grungy looking fences went around the perimeter for APEC big–wigs like George Bush and Vladamir Putin. The rabble proof fence went up and we were shut out for a whole week. It doesn’t matter that most Sydney people never go to the Opera House; we could if we wanted to. Anyway, The government gave us a holiday on Friday to get over the stress of traffic jams.

The most amazing part of the secure zone circus is the alarm siren broadcast through loudspeakers on high poles all over the Sydney. When I heard the test yesterday I had no idea what the weird woop woop was, or where it was coming from

Race relations at Royal Randwick

2007-08-26T21:47:00.000+10:00

The Royal Randwick racecourse, to the east of Sydney, looks empty and abandoned. It is empty and abandoned, except for a few gardeners. The fences and gates are locked to both horses and punters, because of a scourge of contagious horse flu, from the Centennial Park stables, across the road.
Next year the stands may well be overflowing with 500,000 pilgrims in place of punters. The Catholic church wants to hold a Papal mass there, celebrated by Benedict XVI as part of World Youth Day celebrations.
This will be the fourth papal mass there, following similar events in 1973, 1986 and 1999 with John Paul II and Pope Paul VI.
The 2008 mass is expected to shut down racing at Randwick for 10 weeks. After been closed for the flu, that's a lot more disruption to the flow of bets and prize money, and horse trainers and owners want compensation, reported to be in tens of millions. That’s not to be sneezed at.

Don't fence me in

2007-08-12T14:18:00.000+10:00

A huge concrete and wire fence, a"ring of steel", is to be built around Sydney's CBD for next month's APEC meetings. I guess this is to keep demonstrators away from the heads of state, but it also keeps Sydney-siders out of their own city.

The photo shows the start of a security fence being built at Circular Quay, across from the Opera House. What can we call it?

Security plans so far make the fence sound like the Berlin wall or the Iron curtain. Australians don’t have walls in the open air, we have fences, such as the rabbit proof fence or the dingo fence. Named after its cuase, this could be 'The Bush Fence'.

What will this fence look like? Will it be drab austere blank concrete base, or water-filled plastic tubs. Will it have the menace of a Jeffrey Smart painting such as ‘The Cahill Freeway’?

Or will it be any match for the brilliant Melbourne gateway installation, know as ‘cheesesticks’.
And what will happen to graffiti paint on the concrete, under laws in the time of the fence? At present there’s a fine of $2 000 or 6 months imprisonment for wall art. Will heavy fines be imposed for the inevitable graffiti on the APEC fence? If we can’t have a bit of Aussie disrespect painted on our own Sydny fence, will the town council pay to have flowers hide the concrete, or pleasant murals painted on the surface to take away some of the draconian concrete and wire austerity, and keep away the even more depressing and inevitable hip–hop 'tags'.
There’s plenty of precedent for murals on concrete barriers. See some of these examples show the way Sydney might go if fence mania is unchecked:

Muralists add beauty to Baghdad

Graffiti artist Banksy has painted some irreverence at the West Bank barrier

New Town street art

2007-07-23T20:55:00.000+10:00

There's a new name on the walls around the village of Newtown - a couple of blokes working under the label of "crazy circus art movement'. Watch out. They could be coming to a wall near you. I met them last week while they were canvansing owners of commercial centres for permission to use their walls. They've already appeared at the famous Mays Lane. This one below appears on a house at the bottom of O'Connell street. Perhaps, with a few more walls to practice on, they could improve.

Sydney Harbour Bridge birthday

2007-03-20T19:53:00.000+11:00

Today was the 75th birthday of the Sydney Harbour bridge. No big deal, I thought. Who gets excited about an insignificant anniversary for a pile of old iron. The only reason so much money was poured into the celebration was the state government election next week; the old folk wisdom of giving the suckers bread and circuses was well designed to distract the hapless voters from the problems with this crumbling overburdened state. The Harbour bridge is the only serious asset not falling apart.
But then I got an email from the indigious group trying to promote reconciliation between the white and black tribes. I had marched across the bridge with them in 2000, for "Sorry Day"
So I thought I'd like to go with them again.
It was a great way to spend a late Sunday afternoon. On the bridge there was a smoking ceremony, supported by the State Governor Professor Marie Bashir AC
Using a good old gas lighter to set fire to some twigs and eucalyptus leaves, the smoking tray was carried across the bridge as light gradually faded.
The government gave a coloured cap to every one who walked across the bridge ( 200 000 people), and those who went after dusk had a little torchlight built into the ochre cap.
While we walked across the bridge, indiginous music was pumped across the bridge, along with smoke machines pushing more burning eucalyptus.
It was great fun, but with failing light, my video at YouTube shows a bit like the Blair witch project

Sydney Festival 2006

2006-01-16T15:40:00.000+11:00

Be jealous. Be very jealous. Saturday night the Sydney Festival organized Jazz in the Domain. Feature groups included the Preservation Hall Jazz Band , and theDirty Dozen Brass Band , from New Orleans. At least 80,000 Sydney syders sat on the lawn to hear some of the best music imaginable, in real New Orleans humidity.
PHJB were good, a bit ragged, but they had just flown in from New York. Outstanding was the trombone player –raucous enough sound to blast barnacles from the hull of a ship. The short time they played was a little disappointing.
The DDBB were sensational. They started by marching through the crowd and that meant marching through the picnics and random wine glasses.
Feel sorry for the broadcasters, ABC, who sent the concert out live. The poor sound technician, trying to keep up, shoving through the crowd with a boom mike. Listening on the radio might have been a bit boring, because it was a fairly monotonous march they had to play through the crowd, especially when band members became separated in the pushing and shoving melee, before they fought their way back onto stage and started playing for real.
Many years ago I was astonished at hearing Blood Sweat and Tears for the first time at a live concert; The Dirty Dozen were wilder and a whole lot louder.
The baritone sax dominated, how the sound people even got close to balancing the noise from the other instruments is a wonder.
Pity about some of the stuff they played; this was a quick introduction to the sound of New Orleans for those who had grown up with comparatively tame local “trad” jazz. I would like to have heard some of their great tracks, like “ Take your hand off my leg”, but I can’t expect too much in one night, for free.

pub at Cronulla Beach

2006-01-02T20:16:00.000+11:00

This is the scene, a popular bar at Cronulla Beach, deserted, on Saturday afternoon, a week after the summer riots in December 2005.