The Lonely Planet Christmas party - and Cliff gets arrested!

G'day

I know, I really must stop with these sensationalist post titles, but I couldn't resist - and when the weather's been as bad it has been this whole weekend I need every bit of fun I can get. But you'll have to read on to find out what on earth I'm talking about.


So Friday 26th was my last night in the LP flat on Melbourne's Southbank. Rain stopped play and I needed to pack anyway so the last few hours were spent indoors. I certainly know how to rock a Friday night. At least the sunset was spectacular in amongst the monsoon showers.

View across Melbourne toards the port

And then Saturday it was goodbye Southbank, hello Albert Park (so posh I have ex-Neighbours actor Guy Pearce as my near neighbour! Is that actually posh?). More soon on the new place.

Saturday was also the day of the Christmas party. I'll let the photos do the talking...

Luna Park, St Kilda - scary entrance

Normally busier than this I'm guessing on a Saturday night

The Lonely Planet employees band - loud!

Cliff's party shirt - louder (the band asked me to turn it down as they couldn't compete). The glamorous cabin crew is friend and colleague Marg (somehow not deafened despite close proximity to the shirt - and now I think I've milked the 'shirt/loud' joke as much as I can).

The other cabin crew members

Apart from loud bands/shirts and colleagues dressed like slutty stewardesses (their words not mine) there was also the chance to have 'fun' on the rides. Given the still-torrential rain it didn't look promising but I headed for the dodgems as they were at least under cover. My excitement was slightly tempered by the dodgems controller guy who certainly didn't see his role as putting the fun in funfair and warned us at the start that deliberately bumping other dodgems was not allowed and he would stop the ride if anyone did it. Somebody should explain the point of dodgems to him. Driving a dodgem car without bumping other dodgem cars is just driving!


And so to Sunday and my arrest. Ha ha! Actually it was a visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol, something I'd been saving for a rainy day and so Sunday was perfect!

And when I say arrested what I really mean is that as part of the visit you get to be pretend 'arrested' and processed in the original holding block where those arrested but not charged yet would spend the night. This place ran until 1994 which is a bit scary given the conditions.

No, I hadn't used this.

Prisoner Wilkinson: convicted of crimes against fashion

The rest of the gaol (not sure what the olde worlde spelling is all about but that's what they use) was excellent if a bit gruesome, with cell after cell telling tales of nineteenth-century murder with accompanying death masks of the murderers. Most famous of these masks (and of the gaol's former prisoners) is Ned Kelly.

The main corridor and cell doors

Kelly's death mask

Kelly, a folk hero or vicious murderer depending on your point of view, evaded the police for years, holding up banks and even whole towns, until eventually being captured in 1880. He was sentenced to death and hanged on the scaffold below - his mother, also a prisoner, was working in the laundry nearby when he was executed.

Trapdoor under the rope; release lever to the right near the door

Just round the corner from the prison is the equally excellent State Library of Victoria.

State Library with statues of St George killing the dragon and, er, Joan of Arc (?)

As well as being open to study even on Sundays (take note British Library!!) it has a beautiful domed reading room...

And some interesting exhibitions including one on famous Victorians which includes Ned Kelly's fairly effective but cumbersome (it weighed 50 kilos/7 stone 8) metal armour. I say fairly effective because, as you'll notice, there were no full leg coverings and this weakness is what the police took advantage of, shooting Kelly in the legs so they could arrest him.

So, all in all, and despite the best efforts of some truly awful weather, it was a pretty good weekend - unless you were John Brumby, leader of Victoria's Labor (sic) party who did really badly in the state elections and looks likely to lose power. So it's g'bye from him, and g'bye from me.

Cliff

Waxing and thongs

G'day

Before you get the wrong the idea, yes, there was waxing and yes, it was connected to thongs but remember that thongs in Australia are flipflops in the UK. Mud or crystal? Ok, let's start at the very beginning (altogether now: "a very good place to start").

So the weather forecast towards the end of last week was for blue skies (see the pics in the last post) and high temperatures and I decided that seeing as I would be wearing thongs/flipflops like a true Aussie for at least a few days I would get a pedicure. You might think it's a waste of money paying someone else to cut your toe nails but I thought $30/£18 was worth it and headed off to a place in Richmond, a suburb to the east of Melbourne's city centre which I'd wanted to explore anyway. The pedicurist (?) was very friendly if not massively bright (when I asked her if she could recommend any Australian TV programmes she suggested Family Guy and The Simpsons), and did a good job on the old feet. It was just as she was finishing the pedicure and telling me (unprompted) where to find the best nightclubs in Melbourne, that she asked if I'd be interested in having anything waxed.
"No. Thank you," I said.
"It's a $10 special offer for first-time customers," she said.
"No. Thank you," I said, remembering The 40 Year Old Virgin.
"It's not painful," she said, "We could do your neck. A lot of men get hair on their necks in between haircuts so we could give that a try."
Suddenly it didn't sound like such a bad idea as she was right - I hadn't had a haircut for a while and there was indeed some hair on my neck. Next thing I know we're in a small room and she's smearing hot wax on my neck and shoulders ("Hey, I didn't say anything about shoulders...").
"Here we go," she said, "and you should watch Modern Family, that's really funny."
If you've ever been waxed before you can probably guess where this is going. She merrily chatted on while yanking off bits of paper (or something) while I winced and whimpered like a dog that's been shouted at. Basically it hurt a lot. And I got a bit of a rash (not noice). And I won't be doing it again. Though I do have a very smooth neck....

And that's kind of been the high/lowlight of the week. The heat broke on Wednesday and it's been torrential rain for the last 24 hours (am hoping it will stop before the work Christmas party on Saturday - not much fun going on the rides at Luna Park if it's pouring down. Though I probably still will - you can't beat a good rollercoaster or the dodgems, even in the rain). Photos to come.

G'bye for now.

Cliff

Landmarks of Melbourne: part 2

G'day

So finally, and after many false starts, the weather is set to get warm. Indeed hot, with temperatures next week heading for the mid-30s mark (that's mid-90s in old money). Let's see how this ginger, pale-skinned Pom survives.

In the meantime, what with the nice weather and all, I've been out and about snapping away with the camera again, taking shots of some more Melbourne landmarks.

The Yarra
This is Melbourne's river. The name Yarra is aboriginal and means 'clear water' but either the aborigines were being ironic or it's got a lot dirtier since (probably the latter).

As you can see it's popular for rowing (quite a few clubs along the banks) and the views of the city are pretty spectacular.


The Royal Botanic Gardens
Yes, 'Royal' - the queen is queen of Australia too. And these gardens are pretty regal. There's the big lake ...

...with rather large eels (kids were stroking them when I took this photo!)

And there are trees like this Elm, a species that was almost wiped out during the 70s in Britain (due to Dutch Elm Disease) but which survive here in abundance.

And there's also this flower which you see everywhere but whose name I know not. Answers on a postcard...

Plus more wildlife in the shape of black swans - Australia's contribution to swan colours if my primary school teacher told me right.

Plus the gardens are not a bad spot for a wedding (this was one of two on the day I was there).

And they even have some history in the form of Governor La Trobe's cottage. Before you get too excited though this is almost entirely a reconstruction, it wasn't in this location originally and it's not open to the public. Such little respect for history...

Shrine of Remembrance
Yes, I know this has been included before but this time I got to go inside and was surprised to find it hugely interesting.

There's a photo exhibition of images taken by two young men from Victoria during World War I. They served in France, both survived and came back to Australia. The photos lay in a cupboard for years and were nearly thrown away during a clear-out but a family friend recognised their importance and now they're on public display.

Also in the exhibition is this British flag, flown in Malaysia before the Japanese invasion in World War II and then flown in Changi Prison in Singapore by British and Commonwealth troops who were POWs there. If you look closely you can see inmates' graffiti.

But the main reason for the existence of the Shrine is, obviously, to remember Australia's in general, and Victoria's in particular, dead, and a slab of stone is the main focus for commemoration. Each 11 November at exactly 11am the sun comes in through a hole in the shrine's wall and crosses the slab, highlighting the word 'love' (the whole inscription reads 'Greater love hath no man' - it should continue to say 'than this, that he lay down his life for his friends' but I'm guessing there wasn't space). Or at least the sun lit up the slab at 11am until Australia introduced Daylight Savings in the summer (putting the clocks forward). Now, when the dignitaries all gather at 11am, it's really only 10am, astronomically, and so they've had to set up a series of mirrors to reflect the sun down onto the slab at the right time for the service.

And here's the view from the top of the shrine. The long road leading into the distance is central Melbourne's Swanston Street and no building is allowed to obstruct the view along it to the Shrine.

And finally a shot of the view from Lonely Planet's roof terrace (as mentioned in the previous post, this is one of my favourite things).

And the view at sunset from my flat (but only for the next week - no, the view's not going to disappear in a week's time but I am, as after the 27th I'll be in Albert Park, a very posh bit of Melbourne apparently, so obviously I'll fit right in...).

More soon but for now, good day.

Cliff

A few of my favourite (and not so favourite) Melburnian things

G'day

Just over three weeks in and ...

These are a few of my favourite Australian things

• No feet on the seats on trains - even though the seats on all the trains are arranged so that you could easily put your feet on them (a la typical Londoner), Melburnians actually take notice of the sign asking you not to put your feet on seats. Incredible. Good on yer Australians.
• Big M - this is nothing more than chocolate milk which seems to contain the same ingredients as Pringles. At least that's my excuse for being addicted to it. And also to Weet Bix (Ozzie Weetabix). Weet Bix + Big M = perfect breakfast (my colleagues disagree heartily).
• South Melbourne Market - I'm not known for my interest or indeed patience with markets, especially ridiculously expensive ones (£12 for two balls of mozzarella!) and yet I love this market just a ten minute walk away from where I'm currently living, primarily because the sell macaroons and veggie dumplings.
• The view from the LP office - Lonely Planet's location in a not particularly desirable neighbourhood of Melbourne (generously called 'up-and-coming' Footscray by estate agents) is (almost) made up for by the incredible view from the rooftop terrace. The whole of Melbourne's CBD (central business district) is there in front of you. And that's where we have end of month drinks - noice.
• The sense of humour - like the British sense of humour (dry, sarcastic, mickey-taking) but with a whole new range of phrases used for comic effect.

These are a few of my not-so-favourite Australian things

• Strawberries - apparently it's not the season for them and so I shouldn't have expected them to taste great, but surely they should have at least tasted like a strawberry? Instead they tasted so bad I threw them away after eating just three.
• Public transport - I've yet to catch a train that's run on time. Never will I complain about London transport again - but don't hold me to that.
• Vodaphone Australia - seriously, 11 hours to send one text?
• Early closing - all the shops in the CBD shut around 5.30pm. Not very handy when you finish work at 5.30pm. And late night shopping is Friday - who wants to shop on a Friday night?
• TV/radio - I'd begun to doubt that British TV is as good as we're led to believe but faced with Australian TV... let's just say there are so many adverts during the programmes that you forget what you're watching.
• Locusts - predictions of plagues of locusts all over the press at the weekend. What next? Frogs, dead first-borns?

Melbourne miscellaneous curiosities

• People walk around barefoot. Outside. In the streets. Why would you walk around barefoot outside in the streets? They're dirty and there's bits of glass and pebbles and things. You're not on the beach, you're on Flinders Street.
• The sun is always to the north. I obviously know why this. I'm south of the equator; the sun is always positioned within a few degrees of the equator; ergo in the southern hemisphere the sun will always be to the north. Still freaky though.
• The Labor Party spells it name Labor but otherwise the word labour is spelt labour. What's that all about?

 
Next time more photos, less musings. Honest.

Good on yer.

Cliff
   

It's getting hot in here!

G'day

29 degrees C today which sounds quite a bit better than what's hitting the UK at the moment.

And it was also Remembrance Day - 11th of November. I was wondering over the last week whether it would be such a big deal in Australia. Obviously thousands of Australians came over to Europe to fight in the trenches and, most famously, in the Turkish campaigns such as Gallipoli, but whereas in the UK people start wearing poppies a couple of weeks before Remembrance Day itself, here there was little evidence of it having the same significance. Until today. Today people on the train to work were wearing poppies. There was a one-minute silence at 11am (ignored by the one of the Victorian government's departments which led to them being criticised on the tv news). And the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne (see photo below) was the scene of wreath laying and a field of poppies (just visible in the foreground of the photo) had been planted for the occasion. Almost hundred years after World War I and empire and mother country are long-forgotten, but there are certain shared experiences connecting Britain and Australia still.

Shrine of Remembrance - modelled on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Turkey, one of the Seven Wonders of the World

Landmarks of Melbourne: part 1

G'day

The weather's been a lot kinder this weekend so I've been out and about, exploring the city and photographing some of Melbourne's landmarks. Buckle up. Here we go...

First off, Rialto Towers. This was the tallest building not just in Melbourne but in the whole of the southern hemisphere until they built ......

... the Eureka Tower. Gold plated at the top (seriously) and part of the viewing platform involves a section of floor that suddenly goes see-through so you're looking straight down 300 metres/1000 feet. Noice!

Then there's Swanston Street, one of the CBD's main streets.

 It's a bit tatty down the bottom end but there are some noice buildings all the same, like the old town hall.

And just round the corner you have the 'Paris' end of Collins Street:

(Not sure which bit of Paris this is supposed to be!). Similarly close are:

Flinders Street - one of the city's main train stations. Facing it is  ...

... Federation Square (known as Fed Square), a newish cultural centre where you can visit such delights as ...

The Ian Potter Gallery with lots of art including a whole floor dedicated to ....

...indigenous (not aboriginal) art. And also part of Fed Square, but sadly not visited by yours truly yet (and possibly ever) is ...

Nearby is pedestrianised Bourke Street where Christmas has come early. Here's the queue to see the Christmas display at Myer (Melbourne's biggest department store). The theme this year is The Nutcracker.

And this is the rather noice Victorian Royal Arcade, slightly spolit by cheap Christmas deccos (as I'm sure Australians call decorations). And no, I didn't venture down to the Dungeon of Magic.

And last up in this batch of Melbourne landmarks is the city's main art gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria (not sure what's 'national' about it as Victoria isn't a nation!).

Things I have learnt

• Don't talk about 'getting on' with people. It doesn't mean that you have a friendly relationship with them. Well, it does, but in the sense of 'pashing' them. Which means 'snogging'. So 'getting on' with someone actually means 'getting off' with them.
• Dooners are duvets, and Manchester is bed linen in general (so when you go to Myer department store you shouldn't be confused by signs pointing to Manchester!).

Things that have made me laugh
I already knew (and maybe you do too) that Australians call flip-flops thongs, but that didn't stop this email causing an extended chuckle when it was sent round to everyone at Lonely Planet's Melbourne office (I've left out the person's name as apparently she got quite a lot of mickey-taking for it):

Subject: Left thong.

Dear Spam

I have broken my left thong, does anyone have a spare I might borrow for an hour or two at lunchtime?

Many thanks!

Comedy gold!

More landmarks and lessons learnt soon.

Cliff

Everyone likes a cockatoo

G'day

Hozitgahn?

So the rain continued until yesterday and even today (Wednesday) it's a bit nippy and cloudy. Hum. On the plus side, you can't complain (lest you end up sounding like a whingeing pom) about a country where they give you a day off for a horse race. Yes, Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day and we got the day off which was noice. I went over to Captain Cook's Cottage, transferred to a park here from his hometown of Great Ayton (near Darlington!) in 1934. Not sure why it was brought over, though apart from some rather dodgy (allegedly) Yorkshire accents on the audio guide, it was all rather pleasant and the on-site historian was very excited to meet not just a Brit, but a Brit historian and one who was born just down the road from Captain Cook. Forty-five minutes after I'd mentioned these facts to him I regretted doing so.

And then as I was waiting for the tram home I saw a cockatoo! Yes, here is the (very white) bird itself (apologies for the blurriness - the photo was taken on my phone camera and I was pretty thrilled to see it):

And apart from cockatoos (everyone likes a cockatoo) other things I'm enjoying include:

• lots of different flavoured tofus in the supermarkets (of little interest to anyone else I'm sure)
• music at the train station. Footscray Station (nearest to the Lonely Planet office) has music on the platforms in the evenings. First time I heard it I thought it was just some annoying bogan playing it through their phone, but no, the likes of Kylie and the Bee Gees (Staying Alive) are played on all the station's speakers. There seems to be an Aussie theme (I think the Bee Gees grew up in Oz) so I'm looking forward to INXS and Midnight Oil. Not looking forward so much to Rolf Harris and Men Down Under.
• Total Wipeout on TV. And not just the UK version but the US version too, with enormous Americans (obviously) falling off the big redballs. Oh yes.

Things I'm not enjoying so much

• Melbourne is SUCH a car city with pedestrians very much second-class citizens. Trying to cross the road is a tiresome endeavour - jaywalking is technically illegal and traffic lights can take anything up to five minutes to change. Crossing one street diagonally the other night took me eight minutes! I almost forgot where I was going.
• Estate agents. There are virtually NO furnished flats to rent in Melbourne and when you enquire about their possibility with an estate agent they reply as if you've just told them you've shat in their coffee.
• The tap water. Bad, really bad (but safe - apparently).

And that's it for now. Weather is set to improve so I'll have to get out with the camera again and snap some more pics. See you soon.

Cliff