so I was looking up this event, billed in The Age as "a Melway of song", and I also came across http://www.stoppingallstationsexcepteastrichmond.blogspot.com/...is there anything that we can't name after a daggy Melbourne suburb?

"the four seaons woven into one -
and that one season a perpetual spring,
Gives life and cheerfulness all around."


The greatest inconvenience, the new comer feels, is the dreadful hot winds which blow for short periods through the three summer months...

- George Henry Haydon, Five Years' Experience in Australia Felix, London, 1846.

Really good event @ St Kilda library last night - about 20 people came along, which is a perfect number for everyone getting to have a say. Quite a few people who'd come to Melbourne from elsewhere; they had a different pov about the city to those who'd grown up here, perhaps a little less averse to change?

And thanks to Gwen from a volunteer group at the SLV. They read and index the old Argus papers - a valuable job - and she brought a cool little editorial (or letter, I'm not sure) from the 1899 edition, waxing lyrical about the brave new city of Melbourne, its extent, its importance to the colony and its beauty - and bemoaning change, in this case the incipient addition of ugly plumbing with the coming of a universal sewerage scheme. classic stuff.

very grateful to Nick and Alistair from the library too, who set me up and stayed after closing to finish things off. :)

so Oprah has seen our city and will take back to the US a series of images...probably, yes, predictable, but also iconic, like the view of Flinders Street seen from Fed Square.

funnily and unlike some, I don't mind us spending squillions ($3 million) to get her and her acolytes over here. I figure it's likely to pay off in tourism...got to be better and more positive than Tiger Woods. and no, I don't watch Oprah. or Tiger.

want to argue with me? well get on down to the St Kilda Library, Carlisle Street, at 6.30 this Thursday the 16th: I'll be there, talking about the book, Melbourne and, I hope, your favourite images/books/films/shows about Melbourne.

another review:

"If you are looking for a quirky gift for the ultimate Melbournian this Christmas, pick up a copy of When We Think About Melbourne: The imagination of a city. Jenny Sinclair’s book explores what makes Melbourne unique, why we are such an ‘it’ city and what our collective imagination can create.....

The chapter on Melbourne’s souvenirs also managed to bring a smile to my face – who amongst us doesn’t have a Melbourne tea towel lingering at the bottom of a drawer somewhere?"

The Only Melbourne website has reviewed the book...I feel like I should be sending them a bottle of wine, it's so kind...

so we will have a new government. and with it, a whole new set of policies about everything from roads to the arts. fingers crossed for the city...

have just booked in to speak at the St Kilda Library in Carlisle Street on Thursday 16 December from 6.30 pm. Quite close to Christmas, but an easy to get to location for the St Kilda types; I'll be focussing on the St Kilda-related elements of the book, particularly photography, and talking about the cultural landscape of the suburb generally.

a little You Tube-assisted time travel: Melbourne trams in the 1960s, complete with plummy-toned voiceover and comments on "typical weather". Flinders Street trams....

there are lots more old tram vids under the history heading.


I was on 3CR's Published...or not program yesterday (to which I drove after starting out on my bike and being assailed by some "typical weather"). Had a good chat with the presenter, Jan Goldsmith, about the Melways, tourist cliches and why the book is such a personal perspective. There was also the pleasure of meeting my co-guest, Lloyd Jones.