PARK! the herald angels scream ...

Wishing youse all a very merry Christmas but frankly I got very Victor Meldrew yesterday after a 3-hour drive from home when I joined the mongol hordes at the shopping mall. Just look at this selfish parking. and here is another one - who ignored the difficulty I had reverse parking into the spot behind him, despite my deliberate provocation of getting as close to his open window as possible,

that guy sat in his car reading with his foot on the brake for 40 minutes while I went and returned from the queue in the post office I just don't believe it or as That's So Pants would say "What is wrong with these people?".

I went to Casterton

It is only 30 kms up the road and very pretty in Autumn.
Dame Mary Gilmore, the woman on our $10 banknote lived in Casterton, Victoria in 1907 when this substantial hotel was designed and built.
However, she escaped and the hotel is now closed down. Young Mary Jean Gilmore had been taken by her husband to the Strathdownie sheep station and if I look up I can actually see the Strathdownie road from my window.  Vistas can be good out here in The Western District.
When that hotel was absolutely thriving in a wealthy community 30 years on, it got some neighbouring buildings in a completely different style.
Murrell's Shoes is charming example of Art Deco and has not been ruined:

It bravely faces the stonkingly Art Deco Casterton Town Hall. Totally Style Moderne in every way.

That dog-on-a-rock is there because Casterton [named for a place in Ireland] is the home of The Kelpie muster - an event where $12,000 has been paid for one dog [I wonder though, how mixed the seller's emotions were as he left without his clever doggie].  Those red dogs which are so focussed on sheep herding originated in the Victorian Casterton when it was noted by her Scotsman owner that "one of Kelpie's pups" would be just as clever at moving sheep as she was. There are A LOT of sheep around here.

No Kelpies needed at No Place For Sheep however. A most excellent Australian blog I commend to you. Follow the link to vent your spleen on Bananaby Joyce, Donald "7/11" Trump or the witless Tara Brown who has been in a slummy Beirut slammer for much more than 60 Minutes.

Cape Bridgewater, 3305 Vic.

St. Stephen's Day having lunch at the cafe on the beach with my friend Stephen and a walk through the fascinating rocky limestone tundra with mystical wind turbines all round. Packed with visitors and hikers and all wonderful - read this and then GO there.

over the hood

West out of Lake Bolac Victoria in a brief burst of sunshine in a day that otherwise just rained and rained, and here comes the 77th logging truck of the day.
They roar east, they roar West. After 6pm with no light but pouring rain, 22 of them hurtled past me in the 40 kilometres East of Skipton alone.
Please do follow the link for the story of the great twister of 2006.
I am out there, so you don't have to be.

My Western District Day

... comprised driving for 3 hours and meeting this roadside welcoming committee of Merinos in MERINO Victoria 3310
which is a lovely place. The pub has a movie theatre, beat that Melbourne.
Then I drove another 3 hours at 100 kms p.h. and am so weary I am doing this FFS.

Laborious victorius

Going down the road to vote in Buninyong.

getting closer. Mount Buninyong is a magical place.

Random outcome of a good close car park under those green branches saved me no time in the massive queue. Buninyong Primary School was the place, in one of those 'Gillard Government School Halls'. I wish time travel could have brought The Rev. Thomas Hastie who established the Bunny bush school in 1847. That horse float was a highlight.

Olley ¡Olé!

Every bit of the Margaret Olley story that I know seems incredible from the first to the last.

Bill Dobell's 1948 portrait of her was awarded the Archibald Prize - they "were both at a party given by Russell Drysdale. Margaret was wearing a fancy dress costume made from ex-war-supply parachute silk and sleeves from a friend's grandmother's wedding dress. Dobell asked if he could paint her portrait and she agreed. Olley recalled that she sat for him in his flat in Kings Cross wearing normal street clothes and an old battered hat, which she had decorated with flowers. When she saw the finished portrait, she was amazed because Dobell had not seen the fancy dress since the party. She later described it as "truly a magnificent work."
Dobell was seen running through the streets of Sydney with the still wet painting to get it to the Art Gallery of NSW before the close of entries".
And how amazing that 63 years later, Ben Quilty's portrait of her won The 2011 Archibald.

Miss Olley lived and painted for decades in what had been prior to 1964 a hat factory in Paddington NSW's Blue-Ribbon real-estate district and after her death it was no surprise that despite what must have been frightening condition it sold for $2.8m (actually with the 4-br terrace fronting Duxford St that she leased out, quite a bargain at 2.8).

Francis Bacon's studio was , in my opinion, his greatest work, and so it is with Olls.
Fortunately I am not the only one who thinks this way and the whole lot including her ashtrays with the butts still in them, has been packed in Paddo for travel up the highway to Murwillimbah and reconstructed so we can all make pilgrimages. Obviously we will merely be able to peep over the red velvet ropes to enthrall at this dust-free reassembled room built within the white-space gallery -
"the Margaret Olley Arts Centre in Murwillumbah early next year. The green kitchen, orange room and yellow room will be recreated.":

Lovely Kelim under all those bits and pieces - what tough rugs they are to survive 60 years without a good shake. Apparently she cooked a good roast and terribly important people dined there safely.
and

The most extraordinary achievement for all involved and I am just itching to get there.

 Read about it at this link - Known in her time as "Australia's greatest living legend", her work was predominantly still life and intimate interiors, much of which was featured in a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW in 1997. (In 2006 she donated more than 130 works valued at over $7 million to the Art Gallery).

SMH
Her handsome and historic Newcastle property.
Not all her stuff went up to the fab new museum though.
Until I went gathering links for this post, I had not known that Francis Bacon's studio was also relocated from London to Dublin. 
I just love the internet informing me every day of more than one new fact.

behind every successful man

Over at Twuntr, Scott Clarke  aka @Winetosser posits beautifully:

Peta: How did you handle the press?
Tony: I ran away.
Peta: You what?
Tony: I ran away and they chased me. It was cool. I won!

Peta: Did you say anything to them?
Tony: Nuh
Peta: Anything?
Tony: I might have told them
 to fuck off but they were chasing me. 





In this image, his Chief Of Staff Ms Peta*Credlin, is watching her PM giving a speech during the previous election campaign.

This is my photo. The stiletto heeled shoe came out of the ComCar first and alone, then the foot went into it. I liked her right from that moment.
Of course she is a Western District girl. They had driven that day from a Ferntree Gully speech to a 1pm Ballarat Party faithful gathering by invite.
See how tall she is - TA has to look up to her. Between these two photos they had a heads-together exchange, and before, he looked over at me to see if I was snapping them so I didn't.

Then The Candidate strides up a bluestone lane to a crowd waiting outside The Mining Exchange where local LIB members are waiting at an invitation-only occasion. HE immediately embraced the cardigan women waving placards protesting about puppy farms. It was genius for the next day front page Ballarat Courier, with him holding them and them holding small fluffy doglets.  Then he disappeared into the venue. The choice of ignoring several other organised banner wavers for the doggy sweeties was clearly arranged by cellphone well before he even turned that historic corner.
I would love to be that Malcolm Tucker puppeteer. I wonder if Ms Peta swears at Mr Rabbit?
I'd love to do that too.
Her husband is Bri Loughnane the LIB Party Director. It can't be easy. Do follow that link to a LIB refugee joke website he authorised and which will no doubt be taken down any minute.
UPDATE 25/10: it has it was, it's gone. the cartoon refugee boats LIB joke has gone. weasels. Now the schoolboy snipers pretend to be leaders they remove evidence of their nasty side.

not keen Keane

I get the bus. 
I got a MYKI on the first day it was sold in Ballarat in the winter of 2009. On arriving home I telephoned to register it and spoke with ‘Luke’. He gave me various security code numbers which I noted, but registering online-use proved too difficult for him to achieve and we both gave up. I should have realised how important this was.
I topped it’s balance up by $20 only days ago and used it normally on Tuesday 22nd January.
On Thursday 24th it was stone dead unusable. I bought a Daily ticket to travel.
On arriving home I went online to deal with my various MYKI numbers and ‘register’. 
No deal because ‘your MYKI has expired’.
I start from first-base to re-register and purchase online. DOB, address and phone are required in order to catch a bus. After giving all that, I got – ‘we already have that name’, ‘that email’ etc.

It would seem that I was supposed to organise my online use, and a new card, with transfer of my $20 balance, sometime before Wednesday 23rd January. 
 Where was that written? 
 How many thousands of similar balances are now in limbo?
‘Keane Australia Micropayment Consortium Pty Ltd (Kamco) is the Melbourne-based company

‘Kamco is wholly owned by Keane International Incorporated, a privately owned IT services company

From their ‘Overview’ page:
‘Employing more than 100 people in Melbourne, Australia, Kamco also boasts a dedicated team of software developers and testers in Hyderabad, India 
From their FAQ page: ‘Kamco is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. It also uses a dedicated development and testing team operating out of Hyderabad, India.’

‘Keane has been in operation since 1965, employing more than 10,000 people across 11 countries.
Kamco was formed in 2005 to bid for the New Ticketing Solution.

‘Kamco is a single purpose entity, established to build and operate the myki ticketing system on behalf of the State Government of Victoria.

In July 2005 Kamco was awarded the contract to build, operate and maintain the NTS (myki) system. Kamco is contracted to run the myki system for 10 years following implementation. Key among those subcontractors has been Giesecke-Devrient, which provides the cards and ACS Solutions Switzerland, which provides the software, maintenance, and: 1,000 ticket vending machines, 12,200 fare payment machines, 2,500 bus driver consoles, 1,000 tram driver consoles, 1,500 hand held devices for Transit Inspectors, 220 train station gates, 220 ticket office terminals, and 900 retail terminals'.  (for those 94,000 square miles of State - Ed.)

Keane Australia Micropayment Consortium Pty Ltd (Kamco) is at Level 14, 628 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
 I would like Level 14 at 628 Bourke to go down in history as the site of 

the Second Eureka Stockade.

post impression

When out and about, one sees other travellers. This one told me she hadn't stopped moving since her husband died. Her valise was a very visual start to a very visual day. Our train arrived -

and we travelled from the city whose flag is of The Southern Cross constellation, to the station named Southern Cross - from which one cannot actually see the sky at all.
Sky RADIANCE - the new exhibition of post-Impressionists curated by Dr Ted Gott at the NGV, was the reason to travel, and to meet another blogger and step through the entry with 750 other culturati in the first 30 minutes of viewing - and radiant they certainly were.
If you know nothing about art, and you are ever pressed for an assessment, it is always safe to say "well of course it's always about 'the light' isn't it?"
So many opulent golden frames ... and silver-haired women with geometric cuts (that would have thrilled Vidal Sassoon if he could have seen them. He actually shocked 'the world' 50 years ago with his creation so radical when compared with what went before; as these painting were in their time).

Usually, I can ignore any painting of a beach and a boat, but yesterday one was my favourite of the show. Georges Seurat painted Grave Lines on The 'English' Channel many times. the one in Melbourne is very small with an very very High-Relief frame that could not be a further contrast of the simple composition.

A picture of a painting is one thing, and getting close to one is another thing altogether. Seurat, bless his paint-stained fingers, can make a boat, and convey calm pleasure out of eight tiny tiny paintstrokes.
It truly is radiant and if you were stoned you could lose yourself in it for hours more than the prolonged contemplation this sober admirer (usually having the attention-span of a canary) was happy to give it.
I loved it enough to steal it for my own. My companion informs that the title role of Seurat was played by Mandy Patinkin in a film Sundays With George. It is probably just a lovely film, but Mandy creeps me out, even in Homeland. I think that's because I saw him in Yentl, where everything creeped me out.
Beaches and boats have the same effect on me, as a direct result of going to high school so close to the shore in a fishing town, that the 'art teacher' would always make us go down there for painting and drawing the many dinghies and moorings.
On one of these days a big slobby black dog came at the group full of enthusiasm and some of the prissy girls started shreiking which escalated the whole thing until the teacher ran across Point Nepean Road to the police station. Plod attended immediately and SHOT THE DOG.
When old people tell you youngsters how different life was before mini-skirts, you'd better believe them. The teacher was probably 22 and PC Plod probably the same.  If I could only go back in a Time Machine and knock their empty heads hard together ...