My Photo

Irony Alert!: This blog may be a tad contrary.

« travelling south | Main | the Olive Pink of Merri Creek »

March 18, 2010

Comments

Pavlov's Cat

I love your vision of the skyline, which I remember from doing that drive so many times. It reminds me of Little Helen's view of the city towers reflected upside down in the doorknob (?) in Little Helen's Sunday Afternoon.

'I've also been told that women over the age of 45 don't get noticeably drunk in polite Melburnian society.'

I believe that was me, but that's not quite right -- what I said or meant to say was not so much that they didn't, just that a dim view would be taken if they did. Not any open condemnation or anything as crude as that, just a slight drawing aside of silken (black) skirts.

craftydabbler

It sounds like you had quite a journey. Did you take your cats with you on the drive?

elsewhere

No, PC, it wasn't you -- I think you told me they did get drunk!

Cd -- no, hopefully the cats are still alive. They're being looked after by a childcare worker back in Alice, to be escorted over here later.

Coy Lurker

Ah, Elsewhere, for thy sings against Melbourne PC, thou shalt be forced to buy some Fowlers Vacola bottling ware and join the Ceres chook group!

Pavlov's Cat

I've heard good things about the Ceres chooks: carefully, nutritiously fed and therefore producers of superior eggs. Not so sure about the Fowlers Vacola etc, but.

suze

As one gets older, can one say with any certainty that 'Melbourne/Sydney/any city is the kind of place where people..."? I'll be interested in your response to that in six months time. Maybe it's just me, but my life is less and less enmeshed with the public/social as I get older and so that city-specific-culture has less and less application. (Or maybe I'm not noticing but it retains its power.)

Coy Lurker

Don't get me wrong Pav, I love chickens - the happier, freer, and more able to indulge in dust-baths the better. But I don't feel I need to wear uber-serious specs and talk competitively about my home bottling efforts indulge my chook-love. Perhaps just the Melbourne PC of an era, but Elsewhere will know the era of which I speak.

Account Deleted

Skyline Views!

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, El. Forget Melburnian PC. You'll have to teach those Southern folk that a Whitefella who has talked about Blackfellas in their presence has been there, done that, has acknowledged, and been acknowledged.

Sorry to see you go from Country, Nungarai. By the way, one time, that Pussy Cat in Adelaide, asked someone in Melbourne: Who is Greg Winterflood?

Tjilpi thinks that was a bit cheeky coming from a city bound Whitefella.

elsewhere

Well, that made my day, Tjilpi!

I have been amused so far by the fact that the only older women to wear shorts in the office have been from the Far North.

Suze -- I'll be interested to see what I think re: the issue in 6 months' time. I'm sure you're probably right about the relative sameness of some of the southern cities, and pockets of very similar subcultures existing within each. I do think that Melbourne tends to be more Establishment-oriented and more openly supportive of cultural interests, whereas Sydney is libertarian in outlook and more hedonistic/materialistic in comparison. But I'm sure they're more alike than unlike in many ways. By contrast, places like Darwin and Hobart are very different in tone to Sydney and Melbourne.

There is a tendency to give more airplay in the south-east to what used to be referred to several years ago as 'symbolic issues' in Aborgiinal affairs and more emphasis north of various borders on so-called practical issues like basic access to health, housing and education, plus substance misuse, custodial + family violence type issues. The um, obsession with issues along the lines of flag-waving, naming and catering can seem somewhat quaint and amusing from a northern perspective, very 'east coast' and more the preoccupation of 'whitefellas'. But that could be the subject of a whole new post.

Mel

Welcome, Elsewhere! Pleased to have you back in my city, although devastated that Carlton is not cool any more…

elsewhere

Thanks, Mel.

I seem to remember that when I first came to Melbourne as a young gel about twenty years ago, people were muttering even then about How Carlton Wasn't What It Used To Be...i.e. as cool as it was in their youth. I guess those people would be in their 60s by now (the Garner/Pram Factory generation).

Who indeed is Greg Winterflood?

Francis Xavier Holden

I've heard good things about the Ceres chooks: carefully, nutritiously fed and therefore producers of superior eggs.

The Ceres chooks, like their neighbours and egg eaters, would need to be suitably post grad educated, university employed, cashed up, dressed down, across issues, and PC, in a myriad of ways yet to be deciphered and documented, and able to simultaneously condescend, avoid and support the underclasses and government schooled yobs driving holdens and fords whilst lamenting the lack of bicycle lanes and parking spots for BMWs, Volvos and Pious green hybrids.

Stephanie

Ooh er... This is v. exciting. I hope to see you at Piedimonte's any day now... or taking a lesson in proper Melbourne behaviour from the girls (as we quaintly call them) in the chook co-op at Ceres.

Northcote is v. cool, these days, I agree. More funky cafes than you can shake a stick at; and more cute little shops with surprisingly expensive clothes inside.

elsewhere

Great, I'll look forward to tipping trolleys at Piedimonte's!

(It seems the Ceres chook co-op is getting something of a work-out.

TimT

Melbourne welcomes back The Goddess Who Bringeth The Rain.

elsewhere

Or maybe just Teh Goddess.

Rain clouds over the south side of the city when I got up this morning...I told you I'd bring the rain.

genevieve

'Melbourne has the skyline: it seems so sudden and so unreal, it almost looks like sf.' HEH. TEh Ballard town.

The comments to this entry are closed.