Humour with a capital letter

"Going Postal" is the story of arch-swindler Moist Von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) and the beautiful, vengeful Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy). It has been made into a movie, which is screening on ABC1 TV on Saturday 17th at 7:30pm.

From the film version

A life-long travelling con-artist & fraud, Lipwig's crimes finally catch up with him in the city of Ankh-Morpork. Faced with death by hanging, Lipwig is spared by Lord Vetinari (Charles Dance), who sees him as the perfect man for the role of Postmaster in the decrepit Ankh-Morpork postal service.
 

Faced with an almost impossible task, and making an immediate enemy of bloodthirsty tyrant Reacher Gilt (David Suchet), owner of the rival money-hungry Grand Trunk Semaphore Company's clacks communication monopoly, Lipwig's first instinct is to run. That is until he meets the spellbinding Adora. Captivated by her beauty and her brains, Lipwig will try anything to win her affections... little knowing the part he has played in her family's downfall.
Lipwig  has got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers' Friendly & Benevolent Co., or a midnight killer. Maybe it'll take a criminal to succeed where honest men have failed, or perhaps there's a shot of redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...

Sir Terry Pratchett is the second most-read author in Britain today, behind J.K. Rowling. His back catalogue, is the number one best selling of any author in the U.K. Pratchett is increasingly popular in the United States and is now the sixth most read non U.S.-author in the United States.

Full of the jokes, parodies, allusions and references which season the Discworld stories, you need to see "Going postal".

FJs don't measure up?

Headline in today's Age newspaper -Fletcher Jones on the brink

'Venerable clothing retailer Fletcher Jones last night became the latest casualty of the gloom gripping Australian retail, being placed in administration after 93 years in the tailoring trade.
The company joined a string of retail sector failures this year that includes outdoors wear chain Colorado, Borders bookstores, and fashion groups Ed Hardy, Bettina Liano, Brown Sugar and Satch.
Staff at Fletcher Jones’ 45 stores across Australia were told of the predicament at 4pm meetings yesterday.

Fletcher Jones stores will continue to trade while administrator Bruno Secatore of Cor Cordis assesses the company’s situation.
‘‘It’s business as usual for customers and everyone,’’ he said last night, after confirming he had been appointed.
Founded in 1918 in Warrnambool by World War I veteran David Fletcher Jones, the company expanded through the 1920s and 1930s to become a postwar manufacturing success story that at its peak employed 3000 at four factories.
But it was hit by the rise of Chinese manufacturing and the dismantling of clothing tariffs from the 1980s.
Fletcher Jones' current owners, the Dimmick family, bought it in 1995. They slashed the number of shops, closing stores in shopping centres where rent was expensive in favour of lower-rent shopping strips.
Sales increased, with the introduction of the GST giving the business a one-off boost as shoppers brought forward the purchase of items such as suits.
But by 2000, sales had again started to suffer. The turmoil in Australia's manufacturing sector has also continued, with receivers taking control of packaging group HP, which employs 300 workers making a variety of products including bottles for Dettol, Harpic and Finish.
National Australia Bank, which is believed to be owed more than $50 million, appointed receivers Greg Hall and Michael Fung on Tuesday.
Mr Hall said''The business is undercapitalised and that is the main factor that has led to the decision to appoint receivers and managers and voluntary administrators''.'

FJ's iconic gardens at the Warrnambool plant

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/fletcher-jones-on-the-brink-20111207-1ojb8.html#ixzz1fvAeK8p0

Peak oil!?

I've just finished listening to (as opposed to reading) Alex Scarrow's Last light and Afterlight, and I'm scared.
These books are fiction, but I started Last light when the English riots in August were happening (the looting, the arson, the loss of control by the police), were in fact paralleling the book, hence my apprehension & fascination with pilchards in tomato sauce.
The story was recommended to me as another in the post-apocalyptic theme. It takes a relatively common gist, our reliance on oil, but takes the premise up a notch.

I'm not that keen with how some of the deaths come to pass, or a generation-encompassing conspiracy, but the scenarios as the publicity states - is as real as tomorrow, and how long would you last.
Not wishing to ruin the story for others, but essentially it primarily follows the members of the Sutherland family after a massive oil crisis - what happens to them and to the rest of the world at large.
All I know is I'm stocking up the pantry with non-perishables!
Be prepared.

In the Shed

The interior of the Stick Shed

The Murtoa Stick Shed spans the length of five Olympic swimming pools. Built in 1941, it is the last remaining of the sheds constructed in Australia as a solution for grain storage during the World War II wheat glut. The Stick Shed demonstrates Australian ingenuity during a time of hardship, some of the purlins and rafters were connected with twitched wire - the farmers' answer for holding things together.

Unfortunately the Stick Shed was only open to the public on the Big Weekend, work is underway to enable more frequent Open Days, but nothing has been announced yet - watch this space.

Marmalake

Yesterday was an important date - it was the 70th anniversary of the Marmalake Grain Store. More commonly known as the Murtoa Stick Shed, construction began on 26th September 1941. Amazingly the shed was ready for its first shipment in just 4 months - January 1942. At a time when much of the building was done with little mechanical aid, and most of the workforce were away fighting overseas it is a wonderful achievement.

Builders photo

The shed comprised 56 rows of 10 poles to support a roof 19metres at the ridge and 270metres long by 60 metres wide. When full (by June that year) it held 3,381,600 bushels of wheat. And even more amazing there had been a 7 million bushel shed alongside this one, unfortunately it was demolished back in 1975.

ABC TV filming in the Shed on Friday

The Stick Shed has been in the news lately as

• work on the restoration nears completion

• the Shed will be open to the public on Sunday 2nd as part of the Murtoa Big Weekend

Check out The Age's video with facts, interviews, historic photographs & current video shots. And don't forget to also check my previous Posts with the "Stick Shed" label.

Rivers of time

Navigable aqueducts played an important role in getting Great Britain’s industrial revolution off the ground. In an age when railroads and commercial highways had yet to be invented, these elevated artificial water bridges proved their worth at the time and have continued to do so for over two hundred years.

The Lune Aqueduct (above) supports the Lancaster Canal and towpath over the River Lune in Lancaster, England. Designed by John Rennie following classical architectural techniques, the 19 meters (62 ft) aqueduct over the River Lune is supported by 5 arched brick piers. It was built between 1794 and 1796, and its cost ran way over budget preventing the Lancaster Canal from connecting to the main canal network via the never-built aqueduct over the Ribble river. The Lune Aqueduct not only looks Roman, it was built using Roman technology adapted by Rennie, to ensure the stone bed of the aqueduct would not leak, Rennie specified the use of Pozzolana powder, a Roman invention that allows concrete to set underwater. The Lune Aqueduct is still in use today.

Avon Aqueduct

 
 At 250 meters (810 ft) long and 26 meters (86 ft) high, the Avon Aqueduct is Scotland’s longest and tallest aqueduct. Built after a design by navigable aqueduct pioneer Thomas Telford, the Avon Aqueduct features a cast iron trough supported by 12 brick and masonry arches.
The aqueduct runs through Muiravonside Country Park, providing a spectacular scenic view from the park’s lush landscape or from the top of the aqueduct itself.
The Avon Aqueduct carried the Union Canal and is located near Linlithgow in West Lothian, Scotland. Three great navigable aqueducts facilitated water traffic on the Union Canal, which opened in 1822 and was closed in 1965, with the Avon Aqueduct being the largest and longest of the three.

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

Engineer Thomas Telford designed the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales.It is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britan at 1,007 ft (307 m) long, 11 ft (3.4 m) wide and 5.25 ft (1.60 m) deep, it carries the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee in Wrexham, northeast Wales.
The Pontcysyllte (pronounced “pont-ker-suth-tee”) Aqueduct may have been the height -literally – of technology at the time, but its construction involved some surprisingly unusual and ancient techniques. One example is the mortar used to cement the masonry piers: it was made from water, lime, and ox blood!

It is often the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in TV programs and tourist publicity shots. It was added to theUNESCO World Heritage List in 2009. The aqueduct is used regularly by pleasure boats and commercial “narrowboats”, and once every 5 years it’s drained (by removing a plug) for cleaning and routine maintenance.
More aqueducts at - you guessed it WebUrbanist's "Slippery When Wet: The UK’s Top 10 Navigable Aqueducts"

Blogging

Blogger has re-designed the look of this blog's design interface, so as well as working out where they'd placed some of the features, I thought I'd take a look at the Statistics page that pertains to this Blog.
And wow I knew Big Brother was out there collecting info on us all, but what I can retrieve was more than I'd imagined.
For example

• There have been 20,959 pageviews of the blog (an extra 3 just while I was browsing).
• The most popular Post (and third most popular) were on Shipwrecks. The second was on Street Art.
• Most everyone is searching on the ubiquitous Google, and looking for images at that.
• And the majority are coming from the U.S. (check out the map)

So to everyone out there - Thank you

Eyes wide open

I watched 'The War You Don't See' on the weekend, and I'm still thinking about it, questioning.
As John Pilger's site says "It is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims."
One of the best quotes was "investigative journalists are the biggest threats to a nation's security".

The art of the library

Sometimes I find it regrettable that Australia does not have centuries old buildings - castles, monasteries...libraries. While there are still beautiful Georgian buildings dating from late 18th century there isn't the art and the history.
Still there is Bountiful Books: 13 Incredibly Intricate Historic Libraries: Dark wood, dazzling details, leaded glass windows and tier after towering tier of books – classic historic libraries are a bibliophile’s dream. These libraries, dating from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, represent some of the most astonishingly beautiful book repositories ever built.

Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland
At Ireland’s oldest university Trinity College, home to the "Book of Kells", the ‘Old Library’ with its Long Room >> stuns with its dark wood, spiral staircases and seemingly endless aisles of books.
It was built between 1712 and 1732 and renovated in 1860 to include a barrel ceiling for a second floor of book shelves.
The largest library in Ireland, it has 5 million printed volumes with extensive collections of journals, manuscripts, maps and music.

Iowa State Capitol Law Library
Hogwarts immediately comes to mind with these photos.
A lacy white banister flows along tier after tier of books and down a beautiful spiral staircase at the Iowa State Capitol Law Library, located in the Capitol building.
The library provides Iowa lawmakers, lawyers, government employees and the public with a specialised legal collection of treatises and law books.
More libraries are featured at WebUrbanist

Books - in any format

Break out the bubbly

Just to commemorate - this is the 400th Bibliophile blog post!!

Scarecrow the Fourth

Eagerly awaiting the launch of Matthew Reilly's fourth Scarecrow novel "Scarecrow and the army of thieves".
Marine Captain Shane 'Scarecrow' Schofield battles a large and secretive terrorist group of evil villains - the Army of Thieves who have seized control of an island in the Arctic (sorry it's not the Antarctic) and apparently are about to destroy the planet, the US government are unable to prevent them, so the President has no alternative but to call in Scarecrow and his team.
Apparently it is typical Matthew Reilly - white-knuckle suspense and page-turning adventure and non-stop action!

So roll on October .

Bunkers new & old

Still dealing with serendipity, what are the chances of us discussing bunkers (the local one from World War Two) and the same day WebUrbanist having Bunkers Ours: the safe house is an open & shut case?


The Safe House located just outside Warsaw in Poland, is a shape-shifting, monolithic, urban bunker which adjusts its exterior to meet all your security needs from pesky tool-borrowing neighbours to a full-on zombie apocalypse. It's practically a fortress with an open, spacious interior with a huge living space spread over 2 floors with an adjoining swimming pool annex that's accessed via a neo-medieval retracting drawbridge. Huge, 2.8 metre flush-fitting shutters open up to 180 degrees or lie flat against the walls letting in light and relieving any sense of claustrophobia.
And our local bunker? The concrete bombing observation posts of the Air Navigation & Training School below.

Unshelved serendipity

I've posted before about the people at 'Unshelved' having a hot-line into our organisation, now someone from outside has recognised it too and emailled me the following - "You know when the car went through the wall. Maybe some talked...They are so close to truth its hard to believe. They have good sources for things that happen in libraries."

Under the Underground

Peter Ackroyd's London Under is a study of underground London, its original springs & streams, Roman amphitheatres, Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern tube stations.
In extending the Underground Rail system, engineers have found a 12th century quay, an Iron Age settlement, a 13th century gatehouse, a 900-year-old Cistercian monastery, sites which have been hidden for thousands of years.
As a long established city, there's heaps of history piled layer upon layer beneath London - the bodies, the buried rivers, the sewers all preserved in mud and clay.



While the book is a history, Peter also tells the stories that parallel this history - there are 44 'dead stations' abandoned by the Tube ; 'Toshers' the scavengers who prowled the sewers looking for item to sell ; the folly of the Thames Tunnel.
The book is only a slim 182 pages, and could have benefited from some colour photographs, but it is already popular with local borrowers already placing Holds on our copy.

Alone too

A bit excited that the new James Phelan book "Survivor" arrived today, especially as I finally finished the 660th page of Jean M. Auel's "Land of the painted caves" last night.
This is the second book of the "Alone" trilogy - 12 Days Later, chaos reigns in New York, pursued by the predatory Chasers Jesse finds unexpected friendship in three other survivors, but it comes at a price in a world where nothing can be relied upon...
If it is anything like "Chasers" will be a good read!

Lets light a candle

After almost 122 years the light at Eddystone Point in Northeast Tasmania was switched off in February, replaced by a balcony mounted plastic beacon.

Eddystone was the last 1st-order working light in Tasmania and was a key part of Tasmania’s maritime heritage.

Two main issues were used to justify the downgrading - custodians of the site, the Aboriginal Lands Council were concerned that short-tailed shearwaters (mutton-birds) were striking the light, and if opened for guided tours. The lense which sits on a bed of mercury presents a health issue. (though other lights with mercury troughs have operated tours for many years).

Eddystone was one of six remaining lighthouses in Australia still operating on mercury troughs - Cape Byron, Cape Leeuwin, Cape Naturaliste, Rottnest Island, & Cape Schanck.

The role of the lights as main navigational aids is diminishing and in some cases gone, but just wait till we have an electro-magnetic pulse which wipes out all navigation aids, or Patrick Tilley’s Fadeout scenario comes true, then we’ll wish for a candle!

Lilliputian libraries

Miniature books first came into fashion back in 1475, when the tiny tomes were produced as novelties, then printers began producing the small volumes to show off their skills.

It took a great deal of technical knowledge and talent to produce these perfectly printed books in such a minuscule size. Books are generally considered “miniature” if they do not exceed 100 mm in height, width or thickness, they all contain perfectly legible print just like their full-size counterparts and some even contain surprisingly detailed pictures.

Miniature books can come in all types of subjects from art to politics, to cookery and everything in between. Some also come with unusual covers made of china, carved wood or tooled leather.

More information and photos @ Weburbanist

Ararat in Lake Mungo

The DVD Lake Mungo (http://www.lakemungo.com/) is an enigmatic ghost story, a family drama, and a teenage girl with secrets.The story is a mocumentary with sequences of interviews and real time footage, it attempts to explore the unexplained paranormal activity (strange noises and apparitions).

Made in 2008 on a small budget, the mocumentary style looks authentic, with ordinary people recalling their experience to a documentary filmmaker.They even allowed the WinTV news crew to film the search newsreel (with real SES & police divers) as if it were a real normal segment.

The film-makers searched Victoria for the most appropriate locations and chose Ararat for the “beautiful and haunted-looking landscapes in the Grampians region…Lake Mungo couldn’t have been made anywhere else both aesthetically and practically”.

Mount Langi Ghiran is a star of the film, you see its brooding shape in many scenes. Was waiting to see when and how Lake Mungo would be introduced into the storyline. (oohh Y-Gen and their mobile phone cameras – a good reason to ban them).

People mention a resemblance to Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks (‘Palmer’ not withstanding) yes, there are similarities, only it doesn’t descend to the same level of weirdness. The story has an original slant and builds an eerie atmospheric sensation,

The neighbour bit came as a bit of a surprise, and it might be fiction, but still wouldn’t want to purchase those houses in Ararat. And glad I’ve already been to and enjoyed Lake Mungo with an open mind, going there with this particular baggage would spoil the experience.

The Sister Rocks also get a mention.

The plotline has Alice drowning in a local dam. With a verdict of accidental death, her grieving family bury her and try to return to a normal life, but a series of strange and inexplicable events lead the Palmers seek the help of a psychic who reveals that Alice led a secret life.

Lost America

"Route 66 lost and found : ruins and relics revisited" by Russell A. Olsen I had this book recommended to me (in fact the note came to me with a very librarian-ish list of its bibliographic details, and the "heaps of abandoned and derelict buildings" comment). Naturally I placed a Hold on it & waited patiently for the borrower to return it. America's Route 66 boasted bustling commercial hubs, some remain, but many have crumbled or vanished. The book is a series of 'then and now' photographs of streets, petrol stations, motels and cafes. For such an iconic road the decline of some of these stopping places in 50-70 years is incredible.

The front cover features the Painted Desert Trading Post in Navajo, Arizona. It opened in the early 1940s selling Indian curios, but in the late 50s the highway was relocated and the building has sat empty and abandoned in the desert ever since. The Gascozark Cafe in Missouri was established in 1931 with the stone facade added in 1939. It operated as a popular tourist fishing resort for the Gasconade River. It is now vacant and abandoned.

Two Guns, between Flagstaff and Winslow Arizona (off topic -"standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona" is from Jackson Browne's 'Take it easy' sung by the Eagles). Apparently Two Guns was the site of a massacre of Apaches by the Navajo in 1881. The store, service station & motel are now a crumbling ghost town carrying the curse of bad luck for people entering or disturbing the Indian site.

Dim by nite

Great evening last night out at Dim with Shirl. The local histerical society ran a cemetery tour.

Only visited 13 grave sites to listen to the stories, sometimes told by their descendants (nice touch) and it lasted till it was too dark - 2 hours near enough.

Also V-line put an end to the evening, after a 2km long train on the rail-line at the cemetery boundary clanked past setting off the crossing signals (didn't stop the locals driving over it though, we tourists went round the long way - model citizens).

Checking to see if our Lear ancestors are the same family as related to the Mudge ones as discussed on the tour.

3 for 1

What are the chances of combining 1. an Amazing race episode, 2. a previous holiday destination, 3. a Weburbanist post together?




Well it has happened - yesterday's Amazing race was set in Broken Hill, the teams had to undertake the Detour out at the Living Desert - site of the stone sculptures symposium and arid botanic garden/flora sanctuary.


Also, see my photo of the mine which was the Pit-stop at the end of the episode.


The Road-block required them to use the Periodic Tables to calculate which streets the next Clue-box was on, and Weburbanist's latest post is Geiger countertops 13 Peripatetic Periodic Tables

Back in 1869 Russian chemist and inventor Dmitri Mendeleev presented his first Periodic Table of Elements. His table has been expanded over the past 142 years to accommodate new elements, and has been adapted to uses Dimitri could never imagined. The weird and wacky, like these Periodic Cupcakes -

Picture book art

I know Australia has the best illustrators of childrens books, and this exhibition showcases that fact.

The State Library of Victoria has Look! the art of Australian picture books today

Children - and adults alike - will be delighted and inspired with the Look exhibition. It celebrates the illustrations and stories revealed in the picture books of today. The exhibition has original artworks, sketches and drawings from more than 40 Australian illustrators on display, including some of my favourites - Graeme Base, Jeannie Baker, Stephen Michael King, Robert Ingpen, John Nicholsdon, and Anne Spudvilas.

There are also activities to do at the exhibition: a drawing competition, storytimes, little tables of felt figures to play with & create, videos, workshops, and tours.

Collage in Jeannie Baker's "Window", superbly crafted into this bay window

Another Jeannie Baker work, from "Hidden forest", this lightbox has real kelp, sand etc., giving you the full 3-D experience.

The exhibition is in the Keith Murdoch Gallery at the State Library, and runs till 29th May.

It smells of books

I try to watch the episodes of New Tricks, the British police tv series based on UCOS the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad staffed primarily by ex-police officers.

And particularly enjoyed the latest episode 'It smells like books': Brian finds the Library card of a cold case victim - a Dr Richard Symes, leading him and the team to re-investigate the death of the professor who died after falling from the roof of the college library building 3 years previously. Symes' younger widow, an antiquarian book dealer, believes the Principal (who has closed the college library to convert it into more profitable student accommodation, as students can buy books from the college bookshop) drove her husband to suicide following a conflict over teaching methods.

But as usual there are other undercurrents to the story which climaxes in the often dreamed scenario of trapping someone in a motorised compactus unit and turning the screws!

Hints of humour, and lots of scenes amid classic and modern library shelves & catalogues.