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Observer GREEN HEARTS
STATE EDITION Vol 43 No 1458 SERVING VICTORIA SINCE 1969
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011
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Not-for-profit foundation launched
Page 14
● Santa Wayne Kiven, Kayla Wood and Roy Elf
SANTA VISITS THE KIDS
DI’S NIGHT WITH KEVIN
■ Donning a Santa suit for children with limb difference and limb loss is the highlight of Wayne Kiven’s year. After losing his leg above the knee in a motor bike accident, Wayne has found great joy in bringing smiles to the faces of children through Limbs 4 Life, becoming a Peer Support Volunteer with the organisation. Photo: Andrea Belmore
Page 10
DRAMA LEAGUE WINNERS Page 91
Melbourne
Observer ISSN 1447 4611
■ Dianne and Philip Sidebottom celebrated the launch of their Green Hearts Recyclers Ltd foundation on Monday, at a function hosted by Deputy Lord Mayor Cr Susan Riley and Lyndall Tennant at Club 3004, held at Ormond Hall. Green Hearts Recyclers, a not-for-profit foundation, aims to turn discarded goods into useful products, selling them, with funds going to five nominated charities: The Light House Foundation, Think Pink, SIDS and KIDS Victoria, Ronald McDonald House and Pet Haven. Turn to Mark Richardson’s new ‘Straight From The Heart’ column on Page 4 for the full story. ■ Inset: Mark Richardson accepts the keys to a truck donated by Greg Fitzgerald of Ambius. More photos also on Pages 98-99.
● Lucas DiGuglielmo, Kayla Woods, Brock Brown, Santa Wayne Kiven, Kaley Ward, Roy Elf, Jack Howell, Alex Killender. Front row: Luke Spierings, Emma Spierings.
SEND A CHRISTMAS CARE PACKAGE TO OUR TROOPS - PAGE 9
Page 2 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Ageing Well .............................. P27 Alarm Australia ....................... P48 Aus Caravan Repairs ................. P77 Avidiva .................................... P61 Bennetts Boots ........................ P65 Beutyliner ................................. P40 Birthday Room ......................... P62 Bloodwood Ridge ...................... P55 Boat Names Australia ............. P105 Candlepines ............................ P31 Church of Scientology ............... P26 Coral Pools ............................. P42 Creative By Design ................... P44 Curwen-Walker, H C .................... P31 Dahan Trading .......................... P50 Dandenong Christmas Tree Farm ............................ P57 Darwin’s Barra Base ............... P108 Dolmear Pty Ltd ...................... P58 Ecobright ................................ P47 Emerald Astrology ................... P74 Everhard (Aqua Nova) ............... P46 Fix Engineering ........................ P49 Fresh Express ......................... P66 Global Fitnes .......................... P103 Go Green .................................... P5 Goldcare Eco Villages .............. P33 Group Travel Marketing ............ P80 High Country Horses ................. P73 Huon Valley (Travel) .................. P79 ICS Learning Group .................. P53 Image De France ..................... P35 JMR Australia .......................... P60 Just For You ............................ P28 Laundry Hub, The ..................... P72 Lifetime Distributors ................. P69 Masterlifts .............................. P32 Mattresses Galore .................. P37 Metro Hospitality Group ........... P86 Michael’s Trailers .................... P75 Mokutu, Norfolk Island ............. P84 Never Forget Tusk .................... P30 Pavilions, The (Port Douglas) .... P81 PCMG Shade Umbrellas ............. P41 Petway .................................... P51 Phil’s Affordable Barra Tours ....... P6 Play Music .............................. P63 Resene Paints ......................... P45 Reynolds Racquets ................. P104 Rollators ................................. P34 Route 66 ................................. P82 Royal Melb. Philharmonic ........... P3 Sanity Education ..................... P52 Scootersmart .......................... P30 Sea Change Safety Cove ........... P83 SGI ......................................... P54 Style Plantation ....................... P36 Superior Healthcare ................. P71 Tasmanian Gourmet Gifts ......... P67 Templestowe Orchards ............. P29 Terry Dean Guitars .................. P68 Thompsons Menswear .............. P64 Topez ...................................... P43 Torb and Reiner ....................... P70 Toy Cupboard .......................... P59 Tuscany Designs ...................... P39 Train World ............................. P23 Velvet Collectables ................. P106 Vision Drive ............................. P76 Wholesale Appliances Direct ..... P56 Wildlife Coast Cruises ............... P78 World of Furniture .................... P38
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Antiques and Collectables .. P106-107 Big Wheels ............................... P76 Buying Guide .................... starts P56 Christmas Buying Guide .... starts P56 Education and Trading .......... P52-53 Fashion, Craft ........................... P70 Finance and Investment ....... P54-55 Fishing and Boating .................. P105 Green Hearts ................. P4, P98-99 Healthy Living ........................... P71 Melbourne Homemaker ........ P35-48 Melbourne Seniors News ...... P27-34
Melbourne Trader ............. starts P21 Motoring ............................. P75-76 Pets .......................................... P51 Places To Go ........................ P72-73 Sports, Fitness ................. P103-104 Things To Do .............................. P74 Travel Extra ......................... P78-87 Victorian Rural News ............. P49-50 The Melbourne Observer is printed by Streamline Press, 155 Johnston St, Fitzroy, for the publisher, Ash Long, for Local Media Pty Ltd, ABN 67 096 680 063, of the registered office, 30 Glen Gully Road, Eltham, 3095.
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THE MELBOURNE OBSERVER DELIVERED TO YOUR HOME FOR A YEAR - FOR JUST $99 LIMITED OFFER! You can have 45 editions of the Melbourne Observer newspaper delivered to your home for just $99 pre-paid. The regular subscription price is $228, so you save $129. You can prepay by cheque, Money Order or Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express). Phone our office on 1-800 231 311, or mail this coupon to Melbourne Observer Subs, PO Box 1278, Research, Vic 3095. Send to: Melbourne Observer Subs, PO Box 1278, Research, Vic 3095. Office: 30 Glen Gully Rd, Eltham,. Yes! Please organise a 45-edition Name: ................................................................................ subscription to the Melbourne Observer, posted to anywhere in Australia. Discount Price: $99 Address: ............................................................................. I enclose Cheque/MO/Card details. Subject to Subscription Terms and .................................... Phone: ........................................... Conditions. See our website
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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 3
Page 4 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
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Mark Richardson ♥
www.greenhearts.net.au
Straight from the heart
www.facebook.com/ marks.heart
“To truly shine, one must discover what makes the heart glow and when brought to light, happiness for others will begin to grow …” - MR
ON THE MARK SET TO GO: Melbourne journalist Mark Richardson has entertained Melbourne for almost a decade through his diverse penmanship: on-the-spot reporting, feature articles, five-minute fiction, poetry, published songs and is on the tail of Melbourne’s zany character Kevin Water Rat. The Melbourne Observer officially welcomes Mark to the team with his regular weekly column—Straight From The Heart
Wonderful You Green Hearts Can Shine Lyrics Mark Richardson Music Matt Tennant
Melbourne’s newest not-for-profit organisation Green Hearts Recyclers was officially launched at St Kilda Road’s premier networking group Club 3004 at Ormond Hall on Monday night (Dec. 5). More than 200 guests were presented with an insightful presentation by founder Philip Sidebottom on Green Hearts innovative process of intercepting unwanted office furniture and recycled back into the community to reduce landfill waste, whilst raising much-needed funds for their five nominated charities: Ronald McDonald House Parkville, The Light House Foundation, SIDS & KIDS Victoria, The Think Pink Foundation and Pet’s Haven. At the launch, Green Hearts was generously handed the keys to a truck donated by Pink Hygiene and game design company Raptus Games officially donated and launched
their newest game on the international market aptly named ‘Recycle Rush’ - designed to help raise awareness of Green Hearts Recyclers. On a personal note, I was thrilled when Green Heart Recyclers approached me to put pen to paper to write lyrics for their official theme song Wonderful You—Green Hearts Can Shine - that was performed live by my recording partner in rhyme - musician Matt Tennant with special guest appearance by the amazing vocalist of Renae Mockler. Wonderful You is available to download on iTunes to help raise funds for Green Hearts. Editor Ash Long also made a very special announcement to Green Hearts to promote future fund-raising projects in the Melbourne Observer. - Mark Richardson
We are as one With green hearts we shine One universe Is my heart’s divine We are as one The magical place Heart and mind When we unite Together we rhyme
● Kirstie Scicluna and Sandra Warner
● Moira and Murray Howard Brooks
● Kim Westcombe with Mark Stamford
● Katrina Rubins and Grace Libinski
● Jodie Smith and Sally Winter
● Mark Richardson with Lyndall Tennant
● Fiona and Mark Greaves
● Amanda Smith and Dannii Leask
● Sarah Johnston with Karen Cosson
● Susan O’Connell with Kate Tirchett
● Frances and Alan Cooper
● Ash Long with Victoria St John
Wonderful, wonderful you Now the moment has come true Harmony in tune In every mile Is a green hearts smile In every heart Is the love to shine Together we rhyme Wonderful, wonderful you The rainbows I’ve walked And all I saw was wonderful you Green Hearts can shine Green Hearts can shine Because of wonderful you.
Kevin Water Rat will feature in ‘Recycle Rush’ by Raptus Games
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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 5
Page 6 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 7
Breaking News
It’s All About You!
Melbourne
CALL BUGGED AS MAN DEMANDS Observer SEX TWICE EACH MONTH EVIDENCE ALLOWED
In This 108-Page Edition
Hallelujah!
● Andrew Wailes conducts the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra ■ If you happen to walk past Melbourne Melbourne audiences at least once very year Town Hall in the early evening this Sunday, since its inaugural concert in 1853, which is a (Dec. 11) you may be swept away by a wall world record for unbroken annual Messiah of sound. performances. That will be the combined forces of the "Messiah holds an extraordinary place in Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir, the history of Western music - most of us will Melbourne University Choral Society, The have heard excerpts or whole performances Australian Children's Choir and the RMP at some time in our lives, so it's like an old brass, singing the famous Hallelujah Chorus friend we look forward to revisiting every year. to a packed town hall audience all standing to “Messiah is very much part of Christmas attention! for many Melburnians," Wailes said. It's the RMP's world-record breaking 232nd In recent decades, attending an annual performance of Handel's Messiah, at Messiah performance has become a quasiMelbourne Town Hall at 5pm religious experience for some of the audience. It stars soprano Greta Bradman and "A lot of people see it as an important part Australia's mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne of their personal celebrations of Christmas Russell, along with tenor James Eggleston and they may not go to church necessarily, but Tasmanian bass-baritone Christopher they will go to a Messiah performance," Wailes Richardson (winner of the 2010 RMPAria\), comments. plus the RMP Choir and Orchestra, all conTickets are available from ducted by RMP Music Director Andrew www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100 or from Wailes. www.rmp.org.au Ticket enquiries: 9419 1582 The RMP has performed The Messiah for - Julie Houghton
Mike McColl Jones
Top 5 THE TOP 5 COMMENTS HEARD AS A RESULT OF THE POLITICIANS PAY INCREASE. 5. "Well, I hope she uses some of it at the hairdressers". 4. "K. Rudd can now buy his own 747. He's flown over the coast more often than the RAAF". 3. "It looks like Tony Abbott's already stuffed some cash in his budgie smugglers". 2. "Bob Katter, buy yourself a new hat!". 1. "Now they can go to J.B Hi Fi and get a decent speaker!".
■ An alleged sex offender has lost a Court of Appeal application to have the recording of a phone call ruled inadmissable as evidence. Supreme Court Judges Maxwell, Nettle and Harper heard that ‘WK’ attempted to procure “an act of penetration by threats”. The Court was told that the female receiving the threats asked Police to record the phone conversation. An interloctory appeal was made asking for leave to appeal against a ruling of the trial judge admitting into evidence a tape recording of the telephone conversation. It was alleged the man had threatened to publish naked photos of the woman, with whom he had a relationship, unless she agreed to haxe sexual intercourse with him twice a month. Legal debate took place whether the woman herself had made the recording, as opposed to a third party (a Police officer) using the device, without a warrant. “[The woman] was not acting under direction or coercion ... the decision to record the conversation was hers and hers alone,” Judge Maxwell said.
Melbourne People: Sigrid shines ............ Page 8 News: $1.6 mil. fraudster jailed ............ Page 9 Di Rolle: Kevin Spacey is Richard III ...... Page 10 Melb. Confidential: Prison for director ... Page 11 Long Shots: The Editor’s column .......... Page 12 Max: Wrong numbers for Telstra man .... Page 13 Yvonne: Visiting the Occult world ........ Page 14 Observer Reader Club: Your page ......... Page 15 Kevin Trask: Fats Domino profile ......... Page 16 Melb. Trader: Free buy-and-sell ads ...... Page 21 Sulky Snippets: Len Baker reports ...... Page 100 Grubby, Dee Dee axed - Page 92 Non-Pro Theatre - Page 95
Observer Showbiz
Latest News Flashes Around Victoria
Elderly people hit ■ Up to 1000 elderly Geelong residents stand to be affected by the collapse of the vital Living Longer Living Stronger health and fitness program.
Job losses at Wang. ■ Forty per cent of Australian Country Spinners' Wangaratta workforce will be sacked, to keep the business open.
Cattleman’s hut open ■ Fivew years on from the blaze that wiped out the iconic Weston's Hut, the new building has been opened.
684 HIGH ST, EAST KEW. 9859 8999 Di Palma's fine Italian cuisine and wood fired pizza Special pre-Christmas offer to Melbourne Observer readers only
Receive one complimentary meal with the purchase of any meal of equal or greater value * Must present this advertisement Offer expires December 9, 2011
Page 8 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Emin-ZZZZ
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People Melbourne
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● Shane Healy ■ There is no fear of rap artist Eminem joing the 3AW music playlist after station General Manager Shane Healy was pictured at last week’s Etihad Stadium - asleep! Healy was a guest of Stadium manager Ian Collins, and took his two sons. However, the F-wordladen concert was too much for the genial radio man ... who simply snoozed off, despite the noise.
The Messiah
Fax: 1-800 231 312
Sigrid stars off-screen
New venue ■ The Publican Group’s new venue, Mr Mason, will be officially opened tonight (Wed.), advises Kylie Moncur. The French influenced restaurant and wine bar is located at 530 Collins St,City, near King St.
● Sally Anne Russell ■ Joining this Sunday’s performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Melbourne Town Hall will be mezzo-soprano SallyAnne Russell. Full details are in the advertisement on Page 3, and Julie Houghton’s report on Page 7.
Kate celebrates
Tina to join YTT? ■ Moonee Pondsraised Tina Arena may re-join Young Talent Time as a judge when the TV program returns in 2012. TV Tonight website speculates that Tina, who was a child star on the program created by Johnny Young, would be one of two judges, to be joined a third guest judge each week.
● Tina Arena
● Sigrid Thornton with casting director Loretta Rymer ■ The darling of the Australian film industry, Sigrid Thornton, delivered the 10th Longford Lyell Lecture at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image before several hundred movie industry guests. Sigrid is the first performer to address the industry lecture, named after two pioneering Aussie film makers Raymond Langford and Lottie Lyell, which was established by The National Film and Sound Archive in 2001. Sigrid's stellar career spans more than four decades and she delivered a presentation that included production clips from Australian cinema classics including The Man From Snowy River, The Lighthorsemen and Face To Face. Sigrid appeared in hundreds of small screen shows and topped the bill in All The Rivers Run, Underbelly, Paradise, The Far Country , The Boy In The Bush and the landmark series SeaChange. Amongst the guests were actors Terry Donovan, Elspeth Ballantyne, Carla Bonner, directors David Parker, Dan Burstall and Michael Rymer, cinematographer Dennys Ilic and producers Irene Dobson, Leanne Hanley and Gabrielle Christopher. The multi-award winning actress also works extensively with various boards including The Australian Film Institute and Malthouse Theatre and also continues her work with charities World Vision, Reach and Vision Australia's Braille reading program for children. More pictures on Page 17. - Anthony Healey
Anne and Joy meet Simon
Best wishes
Gong for McGowan ■ Retired radio presenter Keith McGowan was last week presented with a Certificate of Honour by the Victorian Harness Racing Media Association at a dinner held at Tabcorp Park, Melton.
● Slim Dusty’s daughter Anne Kirpartrick, and his widow Joy McKean, met with Melbourne politician Simon Crean. More from Rob Foenander on Page 92
● Nova 100 breakfast co-host Dave Hughes congratulates program partner Kate Langbroek as she jumps from a cake to celebrate their 10 years on air together. Ed Kavalee (right) joined the fun.
● Keith McGowan
■ Every best wish to Observer subscriber David Palmer, of Seymour, and formerly of Yea, who will marry his sweetheart Naurelle Sherwood this Saturday (Dec. 10). It will be a short honeymoon David has to film a TV commercial next week!
● Naurelle Sherwood and David Palmer
Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 9
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Observer
Breaking News
$1.6 MIL. FRAUDSTER JAILED Briefs
Dolly meets Agnes
Fake IDs ■ The number of Albury-Wodonga teenagers trying to illegally enter nightspots is doubling, but Police say they should so at their peril. School leavers are suspected of being the chief offenders.
Big loss ■ TV reporter Samantha Armytage has found a quick way to lose four kilograms in five days ... she didn’t eat, after having tonsils removed.
Melbourne
Observer
News From Around Victoria
No bail for Walker ■ Charlton man Darrell Walker has been remanded in custody after allegedly stealing goods valued at more than $120,000 from Bendigo homes.
Eureka flag returns ■ Ballarat’s iconic Eureka flag has returned to public display after 14 months of conservation. It is on display in a climate-controlled gallery case.
Send a care package ■ Steven Avgouladakis has been sentenced to five years and eight months imprisonment on 18 charges brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. He will serve a non-parole period of three years and eight months. Avgouladakis, 42, appeared in the County Court after pleading guiltyto charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception totalling $1,603,500. The offences relate to representations made by Avgouladakis to investors in 2008 and 2009 that he would invest their money on the stockmarket but actually used the funds largely for purposes other than trading, including to pay purported interest payments to earlier investors and for personal expenses. The sentence took into account Avgouladakis’s early guilty plea.
PHOTO: 3AW.COM.AU
● Dolly Parton with Agnes Miller, 91 ■ 3AW morning host Neil Mitchell helped Agnes Miller, 91, cross off a project on her ‘Bucket List’ when she met US performer Dolly Parton in Melbourne last week. Agnes told the radio host that she loved Dolly Parton’s music, and was trying to find a way to meet the country-and-western star. Agnes formerly worked at Festival Records, and her boss was Observer subscriber Bill Duff.
Christmas publishing arrangements ● Samantha Armytage
Statewide
■ There are two more issues of the Melbourne Observer to be published prior toChristmas. The editions will be published on December 14 and 21.The Observer then takes a break over the summer holidays, returning on February 8, 2012. Our office will close at 5pm on Friday, December 16, re-opening at 9am on Monday, January 30.
Your Stars
with Christina La Cross
Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 20) There is little you cannot achieve if you put your mind to it at this time. Think positive and life will be positive my friend. Sagittarians hold the key to secrets you need to uncover. Taurus (Apr 21 - May 21) You should be feeling on top form this weekend Taurus, both mentally and physically, and feel able to take on that personal issue you've done such a splendid job of ignoring. Gemini (May 22 - June 21) What has, up until now, only been a casual relationship could turn into something more serious from today. Work contacts met through social links cannot give what they promise, beware. Listen to your instincts. Cancer (June 22 - July 23) An arrangement with a friend or family member should turn out to be most beneficial for you both. Home matters are well starred thanks to Saturn and forced changes turn out to be a blessing. Leo (July 24 - Aug 23) Your mind appears to be on educational matters, even though it is a weekend. Don't let others talk you out of doing what you know is right. Paperwork is of particular importance to success. Virgo (Aug 24 - Sept 23) Some sort of personal project is at last starting to show signs of success, as Pluto favors transformation and intense dramas evolve. Success is yours if you're willing to trade in personal time this weekend. Libra (Sept 24 - Oct 23) Information you receive over the coming days can help you to achieve a long held dream or ambition. You may have to tread on someone's toes to do it though. Is it worth it? Only you can decide this. Scorpio (Oct 24 - Nov 22) There's likely to be some sort of complication over a money matter or a recent purchase. Keep your cool please Scorpio as your quick temper is the only thing that is going to let you down. Sagittarius (Nov 23 - Dec 21) If you are starting a new project over the coming days then you are going to have to give it all of your attention. Explaining this to close ones will have to be done today I'm afraid. Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 20) Don't waste your time and money on something which can only ever be temporary. Best to be patient and wait for something more permanent. You know this is true if you're honest, don't you? Aquarius (Jan 21 - Feb 19) Flattery can get you a long way today my friend, so use your charms. An unexpected expense could stop you from doing all you desire. Budget for one, to give you the upper hand. Pisces (Feb 20 - March 20) Something appears to be turning into an obsession for you and you would do well to get it out your system. Making sure you have prepped properly for next weeks confrontation can work wonders.
■ Members of the public now have the opportunity to send goodwill care packages to troops on operations overseas. Special mailing addresses have been established for packages to be sent to the Middle East, East Timor and Solomon Islands. The Middle East address is : An Australian Defence Member, Goodwill Mail, AFPO 60, Middle East Operations, Australian Defence Force NSW 2890 Items weighing up to 2kg and posted in a "BM" size Australia Post carton can be posted without cost to the sender.The postal addresses are active until Friday (Dec. 9).
Observer Special Reader Offer
CD: Matthew Field ‘Love Story’ $20 including postage and handling Melbourne pianist Matthew Field has released his latest CD, Love Story. The CD includes 13 great tracks: Lady Di Columbine Dance Medley - Souvenirs D’Enfance and Marriage D’Amour Easy Winners Rondo Alla Turca Medley - Jardins Secret and Coleur Tendresse Moonllight Sonata Tenderly The Man I Love Les Roses De Sable Ballad Pour Adeline Somewhere In Time Medley - Murmures & Love Story You can obtain this CD for $20, including postage and handling
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Page 10 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Changes, surprises
● Ali Moore ■ Last week I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had the most brilliant week, but first, before I tell you all about that, I do love this time of the year, always changes and surprises. Hot on the heels of the surprise news about Jo Hall leaving Channel Nine Weekend News to spend more time with her family, I received news about changes in TV news rooms Jo, who I wish all the best to, as she has become so much a part of a fixture in our lounge rooms as we enjoy our leisurely weekends, will be able to spend Christmas and join in the festivities with her family for first time in 20 years! Jo will be replaced by former Nine Network Today Show news reader (and avid Saints supporter )Alicia Gorey. ABC Director of News, Kate Torney, announced some changes to key hosting roles for 2012. Ali Moore presented her last Lateline program last week, as she is moving overseas next year with her family. Ali has more than 20 years’ experience in journalism and began her career with the ABC in 1987. Since 2006, when Ali returned to the ABC to launch and host Lateline Business, she has also presented on Business Today on Australia Network, hosted the Morning Show on 774ABC Local Radio in Melbourne for six months, anchored the Afternoon Live program when ABC News 24 launched, and for the past year has been sharing the hosting duties on Lateline on Monday, Tuesday and Friday nights. Earlier in her career, Ali was the ABC’s China correspondent from 1992 to 1995. Kate Torney said: “Ali is an excellent journalist and presenter, and has been a key part of the ABC News team. She has demonstrated her ability to adapt to different formats, programs and platforms over the last few years and she’ll be greatly missed by colleagues at ABC News. “We thank her for her contribution and wish Ali and her family the very best as they head off to Singapore”. The Lateline program will resume on January 30 with EmmaAlberici joining Tony Jones as a program host. Currently Europe correspondent for the ABC, Emma will be returning to Australia after more than three years based in London. Emma Alberici joined the ABC in 2002 as presenter of its new morning business television news program, Business Breakfast. Also during her time at the ABC Emma has presented the Midday News and The 7.30 Report, and reported and presented for ABC Radio current affairs programs and Lateline Business. Karina Carvalho will be joining Michael Rowland on ABC News Breakfast in 2012 while Virginia Trioli is on maternity leave. Karina is currently Western Australia’s 7pm News presenter and will be taking up the breakfast chair in Melbourne from February. Karina has been presenting the 7pm News in Perth since May 2008. A replacement for Karina in Perth is yet to be announced. Karina joins the breakfast team at an exciting time, with Weekend Breakfast hosted by Andrew Geoghegan and Miriam Corowa also launching in February. Kate Torney also confirmed that Chris Uhlmann will solo host 7.30 next year, while Leigh Sales is on maternity leave and Heather Ewart will step back into the role of Political Editor. I love Leigh Sales and was so pleased to hear she is having another little one. There must be something special in the water at the ABCTV studios!
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To
Di
I love my job!
Di Rolle is heard most Mondays with Andrew McLaren on 3AW, just after the 1am quiz.
For KEVIN SPACEY IS RICHARD III
■ I am writing my column from Sydney having been invited to attend the opening night of Kevin Spacey’s Richard III. It was stunning. Kevin Spacey knows his craft so well and just blew me away with his performance. I want to immediately get all his movies and watch them in one sitting. I am so looking forward to seeing him in Horrible Bosses, his latest film, also starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. This will be followed by the movie Margin Call which I have yet to see where he plays opposite Jeremy Irons and Paul Bettany about the collapse of the industry. A powerhouse of an actor he will star in a US version of British television series House Of Cards. So he isn’t going anywhere after his 12 performances at The Lyric Theatre in Sydney of Richard III. I can’t speak highly enough about the whole production. First performed at Kevin Spacey’s beloved Old Vic Theatre in London in June this year this production will finish its world season in March next year. Spacey has been the Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre Company since 2003. He now lives in London. In Sydney he was staying on board the luxurious six-star chartered 37m super yacht Tango, choosing the yacht to a hotel. Anchoring off Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and the Opera House he is surrounded by amazing views. It was rumoured
with leading Melbourne publicist DI ROLLE
the second half, Spacey announced that he was indeed crowned Richard III - a mobile phone rang and in true Richard III, Kevin Spacey delivery he shouted. “Tell them we’re busy!’ – it was in such a true Shakespearean tone it quite stunned the audience. Like the performance I will never forget it. A few seconds to collect himself and the company of actors behind him he picked up the rhythm of the play and on he went, whilst the owner of the mobile phone slid under his chair not to be seen for the rest of the evening. Skip to the after party where 400 invitation-only guests supped on superb wines and finger food and eagerly awaited the arrival of the cast headed by Spacey (you can tell I am a huge Spacey fan) to arrive. Spacey and cast walked in the doors together with Spacey in an immaculate black suit, dark glasses and whitest of white shirts. It took my breath away, he took my breath away. Producer Liza McLean proudly introduced him to the guests with a simple, “Ladies and gentle-
men, Kevin Spacey.” Spacey alighted the podium and insisted the 70 strong cast joined him, he began his speech and alas a mobile phone rang and without skipping a Spacey beat he
Symphony seats on sale ■ Seats to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s 2012 season will this week be released to the general public for the first time. Over the course of 2012, the MSO will give 168 performances in Melbourne and around regional Victoria, all of which promise to provide an exciting year in music, from the greats of the symphonic repertoire to music from Broadway and the silver screen and collaborations with leading popular artists. Since the season was announced in August more than 8500 Victorians have gained access to concerts across the year by purchasing an MSO subscription. From this week single tickets will be open to all music lovers for such major events as the MSO’s
● Kevin Spacey Elton John was on guests ! It’s a swell board as one of town and it was a Kevin’s many guests mighty coup for proat the many parties he ducers Andrew Kay has thrown on the and Liza McLean. three-deck floating palace! Seems very appropriate for Richard III ■ A wonderful aside I think. Richard III was a The yacht sleeps at priceless moment 10 and holds 49 for a during the play when party. after it had been made He deserves noth- very clear to us in the ing less. audience that if a moRichard III is three phone rang or hours of brilliant the- bile even hinted at ringing atre and this writer, I the production would have to say, was stop. stoked to see him in So just after interperformance. val when the audience It certainly renre-seated, redered any winter of was freshed and ready for my discontent to a glow and then to attend the after party when Spacey made a flawless speech with that wonderful voice and great brittle humour we all know and love. My night was complete. Paul Keating was at the performance as was Malcolm Turnbull and former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. It was good to ● Kevin Spacey’s yacht, Tango catch up with Sydney
Priceless
gnarled at the audience: “Tell them we’re busy” which received an uproarious laugh and an even louder laugh when Spacey quipped, “That’s not the same phone is it?” .
spectacular return to Hamer Hall, to be celebrated across three amazing nights under the direction of Markus Stenz. Also available for purchase as single events will be tickets to concerts featuring symphonic masterpieces – such as Belshazzar’s Feast, the Emperor Concerto, Mozart’s Jupiter and The Planets, Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Christmas favourite Messiah. Alongside these timeless works will be a multimedia concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of West Side Story, a collaboration of Romeo and Juliet in words and music with one of Australia’s great theatre companies Bell Shakespeare and a concert with trumpet sensation Chris Botti. A stellar line up of guest conductors includes Sir Andrew Davis, Donald Runnicles and David Robertson, while soloists including Kolja Blacher, Richard Tognetti, Garrick Ohlsson, Emma Matthews, Stephen Hough and Ian Bostridge will also join the MSO through the year. The MSO Chorus, will nbe under the artistic leadership of Jonathan GrievesSmith.
Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 11
www.MelbourneObserver.com.au
Confidential Melbourne
Talk is cheap, gossip is priceless
TOORAK WOMAN JAILED FOR INSOLVENT TRADING
&
Short Sharp
Bitch
■ Cr Peter Hemphill, of Hobsons Bay Council, will face a Councillor Code of Conduct Panel next year. Cr Tony Briffa has already faced a Panel, and ordered to apologise to Mobil PR adviser Maureen Short, undergo counselling, and be mentored for 12 months.
Melbourne’s Secrets
Tracy tipped for Gold
PHOTO: ASH LONG
● Tracy Bartram with son Max ■ Following last Friday’s axing of Grubby (Peter Stubbs) and Dee Dee (Diane Dunleavy) from the Gold 104.3 breakfast program, Tracy Bartram is tipped as the front runner to take over the show. Tracy has recently moved on from her Warburton bed-and-breakfast, after spending some years working in motivation. Bartram quit radio in 2003, telling The Age that “if you get up in the morning and you say, ‘I just don’t want to do this any more’, you need to stop.” Bartram had worked on Fox-FM with Matt Tilley, with a pay packet “rumoured to be between $500,000 and $700,000 a year”. Bartram partnered comedian Tim Smith on Mix 101.1 in 2006-07. She has been a fill-in presenter for Red Symons on ANC 774, and a guest on 3AW’s Nightline. “I don’t think I was put on this earth just to be a broadcaster ... I just wasn’t happy in that role any more,” she told The Age. “I’ve known that in radio, it can end as suddenly as it can begin.” At her website, Tracy notes: “I came to understand that I was powerless over alcohol and admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic. I have been sober since Christmas 2002.”
No negligence ■ Self-employed electrical contractor Linton Shirreff has lost a Court appeal in which he had previously been awarded an $897,620 judgement after he was crushed by a lift descending on him in a lift well in a Flinders Lane building owned by Gary Morgan. Elazac Pty Ltd successfully argued to the Court of Appeal that Shirreff was a contractor, not an employee. At the time of the accident, Shirreff carried on business as Instant Electrics and Rapid Refrigeration.
■ Ms Anula Kumari Kauye, also known as Anula Fidds, has been sentenced to a total of three years and two months imprisonment on charges brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Kauye was a former director of International Consulting Group Pty Ltd . The County Court imposed a 12 month sentence for trading while insolvent as part of the overall sentence. A non-parole period of two years was set by the Court. Ms Kauye, 59, of Toorak, had previously entered pleas of guilty to insolvent trading, theft, and providing false information in an affidavit to the Victorian Supreme Court. ASIC alleged that Ms Kauye allowed ICG to trade while insolvent between 2003 and 1 October 2004 and to incur debts of $112,142 owed to contractors and retail providers. It was also alleged Ms Kauye stole $873,997 from US-based companies. ASIC Commissioner, Michael Dwyer, said the regulator’s action against Ms Kauye highlighted the onus on company directors to prevent insolvent trading. “Directors must be aware that they breach the law if they incur debts when a company is insolvent or likely to become insolvent. “The law is designed to deter directors from incurring debts to unsuspecting creditors of a company. Directors should take action early and seek appropriate advice.” ICG successfully tendered for projects in developing regions of the world which were funded by organisations with goals including reduction of poverty. ASIC alleged that funds made available to ICG to further these projects were misappropriated. ASIC also alleged that when one of the fund providers issued a statutory demand for the return of its money, Ms Kauye filed a false affidavit regarding the use of this money for the purpose of setting aside the statutory demand. ICG was placed into liquidation by order of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Simon Wallace-Smith of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was appointed as liquidator and received funding from ASIC’s Assetless Administration Fund. The findings of Mr Wallace-Smith assisted ASIC in achieving this outcome. Aside from this prosecution, Ms Kauye and her husband, George Kauye, were also banned from acting as directors for two years and 18 months respectively by ASIC.
Council backs down ■ Kingston City Council, in Melbourne’s southern suburbs, has dropped a $61 fine against the Cardamone family of Ashwood, after hearing they were at a Mordialloc fun run to raise money for a sick local boy. The ticket was issued just 15 minutes after time had expired near the Peter Scullin Reserve . The fine being dropped came after the local Leader newspaper put pressure on the Council with questions.
Whispers
Capital ■ More children are hit in south-eastern Casey municipality by family members than any other Melbourne area, Police figures show.
Fraud
■ Skilled Group Ltd has been fined $50,000 after a worker had his arm crushed in a machine at the Pampas factory in Footscray. ■ An official investigation has been launched into the disappearance of an antique heavy door from the old Council offices at Cranbourne. The 100year-old door is said to be worth $100,000. ■ Three foreigners have been arrested at Mitcham over a credit card scam that involved more than 10,000 fake cards.
● Annette Harrison PHOTO COURTESY: KNOX LEADER
Rumour Mill
■ Single mum Annette Elizabeth Catherine Harrison, 53, has avoided jail after defrauding Centrelink of more than $16,000. She has been placed on a bond without conviction.
Hear It Here First
Evictions
It’s a grubby business
● Peter Stubbs and Diane Dunleavy ■ ‘Grubby and Dee Dee’ may not be out of work for long, after being sacked from Gold 104.3 on Friday. Already, another Melbourne radio station is rumoured to be considering dumping its own. It seems some of the magic is going out of Melbourne radio.
■ Sandringham and Beaumaris residents ebing evicted from Bayside Council’s independent living units are considering a legal challenge against the municipality.
Back!
Anger over $600 fee ■ Civil celebrants are angered over a new $600 fee likely to be introduced under the Gillard Government.
Trial for Councillor ■ The trial date for Cr Belinda Clarkson of Nillumbik has been set for May 28, 2012.
E-Mail: Editor@MelbourneObserver.com.au
● Renee Geyer ■ Troubled singer Renee Geyer performed at Toorak on Friday.
www.MelbourneObserver.com.au
Page 12 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Melbourne
Observer GREEN HEARTS Melbourne
Observer
The Best Columnists
Incorporating the Melbourne Advertiser Victoria’s Independent Newspaper First Published September 14, 1969 Every Wednesday
Long Shots
Contact Us Phone: Fax: Web: E-Mail:
1-800 231 311 1-800 231 312 www.MelbourneObserver.com.au Editor@MelbourneObserver.com.au 30 Glen Gully Rd, Eltham, Vic 3095 PO Box 1278, Research, Vic. 3095 +61 3 9439 9927 +61 3 9431 6247
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Ash Long Fleur Long Kristi Bryant Peter Mac Yvonne Lawrence John Pasquarelli Jim Sherlock Cheryl Threadgold David Ellis Len Baker Kevin Trask Aaron Rourke Matt Bissett-Johnson Greg Newman Sam Fiorini, Ph: 9482 1145
Mail Subscriptions You can have your own copy of the Melbourne Observer delivered to your door by Australia Post. We dispatch hundreds of copies of the Melbourne Observer to mail subscribers every Tuesday afternoon. Subscription price for 48 copies is $228.00, pre-paid, to anywhere in Australia. Overseas rates available on application. Organise your mail subscription: BY PHONE: 1-800 231 311 BY FAX: 1-800 231 312 BY E-MAIL: editor@MelbourneObserver.com.au BY POST: PO Box 1278, Research, Vic. 3095
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● Philip Sidebottom ■ The Observer’s political commentator, John Pasquarelli, might possibly be purple-faced when he hears your Editor attended a meeting this week with the word ‘Green’ prominent. But this is different - and special! Long Shots was pleased to be at the launch of Green Hearts Recyclers on Monday night, at a function held at Ormond Hall. Businessman Philip Sidebottom, his wife Dianne, and newsman Mark Richardson have joined to drive a not-forprofit foundation that will assist charities including Think Pink, Ronald McDonald House, SIDS and KIDS Victoria, PetHaven and The Light House Foundation.
On ya Mark
Available Across The World MELBOURNE OBSERVER ONLINE 2.1 MILLION HITS ANNUALLY ON THE WEB: www.MelbourneObserver.com.au You can read our paper free on the Internet. Contact details for all our advertisers are also available at our website. BACK COPIES - ARCHIVES Some back Copies for 2002-11 editions of the Melbourne Observer are available at our website. Back copies for 1969-89 may be inspected by appointment at the State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston St, Melbourne. WEBSITES:www.melbourneobserver.com.au, www.melbournetrader.com.au, www.travel monthly.com.au, www.brisbanesun.com.au, www.sydneynews.com.au, www.overnighters. com.au, www.localmedia.com.au
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People Carol Anne Heyes ■ We regret to advise the passing of Carol Anne Heyes, of Alexandra, on Thursday (Dec. 1). She was wife of Geoff, who had, until last year, been the long-time publisher of the Alexandra & Eildon Standard and Yea Chronicle newspapers. Carol Heyes (nee Whitford), 60, was mother of Michael, Jeremy and Declan and partners Michelle, Cassie and Jade. A service is to be held tomorrow (Thurs.) at the Alexandra Race Club. Private cremation.
Head Office Office: Postal: Phone: Fax:
Melbourne
Wayne Motton
editor@ melbourneobserver.com.au
with Ash Long, Editor “For the cause that lacks assistance, ‘Gainst the wrongs that need resistance For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do”
Really old ■ Entertainment guru Ralph Carr puts on exciting Christmas parties for his clients, and the artists he represents including Kate Ceberano, Vanessa Amorosi, Jon Stevens and Richard Wilkins. But Ralph & Co made Long Shots feel REALLY old, when they sent an invitation to last night’s party at Eureka 89. The function started at 10pm. We had to confess to Lauren Poulter that we are in bed, asleep, by 10.
On radio
● Bob and Judy Phillips ■ Your Editor will appear with Bob and Judy Phillips on their Sugar and Spice radio program at 9.15am tomorrow (Thurs.,) on 3RPP-FM.
Short Shots
● Mark Richardson ■ The Green Hearts aim is for businesses - and individuals - to donate unwanted goods, which can then be sold, to be recycled. The organisation has set up a warehouse in Williamstown, and goods will be available online too, through e-Bay and the like. Mark Richardson has joined the Observer team, and will bring an update of his doings, and that of Green Hearts, every edition in 2012. Readers can assist by donating certain goods, reading the weekly page, and giving encouragement to Mark at www.facebook. com/marks.heart
● Ralph Carr
Scam alert ■ We try our best to be on the alert for bogus ads. ‘Nancy Martins’ wanted us to publish an ad for her Yorkie pups. We said we needed a verifiable street address. ‘Nancy’ replied with an address of a property on the auction lists. She said she was unable to give a phone no. “due to the fact I am deaf and dumb. I can’t walk nor talk.”
■ Pacific Star Network has paid $750,000 for Inside Football newspaper. ■ Only two more Observers for 2011. ■ ‘Art Fusion’, by the Glen Eira Cheltenham Art Group will be opened by Deputy Mayor Cr Jamie Hyams at the Glen Eiora City Council Gallery tomorrow (Thurs.), 6pm-8pm.
■ Congratulations to Wayne Motton whose friends donated more than $1000 for the Movember cause. The moustache-growing charity event aims for prostate cancer awareness Wayne was part of a team that raised $3500. Wayne says his motivation was the loss of his sister Roslyn, at age 52, to cancer.
● Wayne Motton
Gordon Lockman and Keith McClure ■ Harness racing media men Gordon Lockman, and the late Keith McClure, have been incducted into the Harness Racing Media Associations’ Hall of Fame. Gordon has been Co-Editor of the Australasian Standardbred Stallion Guide. Long Shots first came into contact with Gordon in the early 1980s at Leader Newspapers, Northcote. The late Keith McClure was well known for columns in the Melbourne Herald and Sunday Observer newspapers.
Joan Letitia Arnold ■ Described as a “dynamo of knowledge and energy”, Miss Joan Arnold passed away on Sunday at Ringwood Private Hospital after a long battle with cancer. She was 86. Twice runner-up in the Sun Aria, and winner of the P And A Parade, Joan Arnold had been first female head of The Melba Conservatorium, and was a strict and talented coach and adjudicator. Then of Donvale, Joan had been awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1982 in recognition of service to music. Joan had been Patron of the CHIME Choral Institute Melbourne. As a talented student, Joan, then of Drouin, had won a half-tuition scholarship in 1939 to St Anne’s Church of England Girls’ Grammar School.
Observer Treasury Thought For The Week
■ “Nature makes blunders - she often gives the biggest mouths to those who have least to say.”
● Cr Jamie Hyams
OBSERVER NEWS TICKER As we go to press ... Brian Smith advises on the passing of Ray Gamble, who was prominent in the early days of country TV, including MTN-9 at Griffith ... Ron Tudor tells us of the death on Saturday of John Searle, at the age of 85. John was Building Services Manager at 180 Bank St, South Melbourne, in the heady days of the Victorian recording industry ... the world premiere of Moonshadow, based on the songs of Cat Stevens (Yusuf) at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne will take place in May ... Heidi Virtue has stepped down as Nine Network publicity boss.
Observer Curmudgeon
■ “A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.” - Edgar A. Shoaff
Text For The Week
■ "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. And are you not worth much more than they?" - Matt 6:26
Free reader ads are available in the Melbourne Trader section of the ‘Melbourne Observer’
Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 13
www.MelbourneObserver.com.au
Something Special A RARE Recommendation by JIM SHERLOCK
Finding rare movies, DVDs ■ Be it radio, television, newspaper, magazine or internet, it is important to remember that part of my job is to recommend where best to look for a hardto-find movie. Not a day goes past when I'm asked about a specific classic movie and where to find it, and if there's a one-stop-shop where you can find every movie available on DVD, which is regretfully no. Recommending and reviewing classic and contemporary films for many years now I have put literally hundreds of people in touch with movies they thought they would never see again, and right now I'm going to recommend a place that is an unequalled source of classic films, and they're right on our own door step. It is Play: Music and DVD at Shop 4, 50 Bourke Street, Melbourne, and this shop that is without doubt one of the most diversely impressive stores to specialise in classic movies and TV, not only in Australia, but the world, and believe me, I have seen many of them in many different countries. The latest release blockbuster can be easily obtained almost anywhere, but it's too many of those long ago, long lost films that have left a firm imprint in our hearts and minds that we want, those wonderful black and white classics we first experienced on late night TV, even long before then, or at the cinema with our first date, and have rarely been seen since, if at all. You would be very surprised how many of these films have actually turned up on DVD, not through a major studio distributor, but via an independent source from an obscure company and, a savior of classic film, the collector, so if you stumble across some reels of film in your garage or attic, which is often the case now, please let me know. Classic movies disappear for many reasons, from copyright, neglect and deterioration, or to arrogance brought on by disrespect by the studio system, but there are many of us enough who do care about the all too many forgotten gems and realise the increasingly demanding market for them, from different countries all over the globe. As a lifelong advocate of film preservation and restoration, over the years I have built up a data base regarding the whereabouts of thousands of classic films from all over the world, and films still in serious need of locating and attention, but that another story. In an even more rare occurrence in retail shopping today, the staff at Play: Music and DVD are not only polite and respectful, they know their classic films, actors and filmmakers, therefore making the search for a favourite movie an enjoyable experience, so as a customer, Play: Music and DVD at 50 Bourke Street, Melbourne, comes with the highest recommendation. In an era when a publicist for a major studio didn't know who Steve McQueen, Peter Sellers or Paul Newman were, let alone the great character actors from over the decades, you can imagine how I was rarely ever more pleasantly surprised than when I first walked in through the doors at Play: Music and DVD for the very first time. It is wall-to-wall classics, and for an old movie buff like me it is celluloid heaven. All genres are well covered, westerns, dramas, musicals, war, action, film noir, comedy, thriller, children's classics and box sets, from the silent to foreign classics to the great Ealing and other British classics, to almost forgotten TV series, definitely far too many to mention, over 100 years brimming with the greats of cinema, both in front and behind the camera. And if they haven't got what you are looking for, and it is available, they will get it for you. Sadly, too many films will never see the light of day on DVD in Australia, so this was indeed a place that I knew I had to add to my all-too-short recommendations list without delay. I recommend that you give the delightful, resourceful, extremely helpful and informative Rex, Brendan or Faton a call on 9650-0652, because you never know what they might have in-store for you. They make my job all the more easy. And as the never ending search for that one more hidden classic movie gem continues, at least you know that right here, you are one step closer to finding it. - James Sherlock
Melbourne
Observer
Latest Gossip
ToThe Max
WRONG NUMBERS FOR TELSTRA MAN
MAX E-Mails: Editor@MelbourneObserver.com.au
Every Wednesday in the Observer “There are only two types of journalism - dull journalism and exciting journalism. The true journalism is exciting and decidely unobjective. True journalism, in my view, is devoted entirely to the revelation of facts which someone does not want revealed. That is the high point of journalism; it is the real meaning of being a journalist; it is also exciting and is interesting to read.” - Maxwell Newton
■ Former Telstra employee Shane Allan Burke has taken the telecommunications giant to Court over payments after a workplace injury. He suffered serious injuries to his right foot after as motor vehicle accident in 1995. His Telstra employed was terminated in 2001, and he has not worked since. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Austral;ia heard that Burke undertook a rehabilitation program to assist him finding suitable employment, but the aim had not been achieved. The Konekt organisation said Burke had been “unco-operative” and “appeared unmotivated to return to work”. AAT Senior Member Katherine Bean heard that Burke was now on Centrelink allowance payments, and had been unsuccessfullylooking for a job for the past two years. Evidence was given that Burke said he would only consider employment if the pay was significantly greater than his current pay rate. Consultant Ceara Warren said Burke stated: “I don’t need to work ... I won’t work ... they [Telstra] have to put up with it.” Burke allegedly said he did not wish to work unless he was paid at the $10 million annual rate earned by the Telstra CEO. Ms Bean said she considered Burke could physically undertake work including call centre operator, forkliftdriver, driver, retail sales, dispatch clerk, service station operator, light gardening or clerical work. She said Burke could have earned $700 a week over the past two years, and calculations of his incapacity entitlements be adjusted accordingly..
Melbourne
Observer The Max Factor
LIVING NEXT DOOR TO MILAN ■ Caravan resident Milan Tomasevic has taken on his landlord - and won. Tomasevic took Simms Corp Hotels and Leisure Pty Ltd and Beloti Pty Ltd to a Tribunal over his site at Camphill Rd, Somers. Tomasevic withdrew his action against Simms, which nonetheless appeared as agent for Beloti Pty Ltd at a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal case overseen by Member Julie Grainger. Tomasevic owns a caravan on a site at the ‘Somers Boutique Resort’, which is Victorian Government land leased to Beloti. Simms Corp had served a notice on Tomasevic in June to vacate the site, saying that he owed rent, and the site had been ‘sold’. The purchaser wanted vacant possession, but the letter gave Tomasevic little more than one month to vacate. An application in July to adjourn the case because Mr Tomasevic’s mental health hung in a “delicate dangerous bal-
ance “ Tomasevic later amended his claim to say that he had a yearly tenacy, which now extended until June 30, 2012, which had not been validly terminated. Ms Grainger said there was no written agreement between the parties that could be examined by the Tribunal. Importantly, English case law suggested that if shrubs and trees were present on a clearly defined site, and that an annexe and/or verandah had been built, this met definitions of “exclusive possesssion” at law. Simms Corp had said that Tomasevic had breached park rules by having “his site in a bad state of repair”. Ms Grainger said this notice also contributed to her view that Tomasevic had “exclusive possession” of the site. Likewise, the com-
request that he held a public liability insurance
policy also led to the same conclusion that he held a lease. “In order for Beloti to end the lease with Mr Tomasevic, it must give him at least six months’ notice and the vacation date must be the day of the lease, that is, June 30 of the relevant year,” Ms Grainger said.
Driver off the road
Payout
■ Dean Gamley, 36, of Montrose, has won six-figure compensation after falling to the ground when scaffolding on which he was working gave way. He had told his employers on the previous day about the faulty trestle, and was advised that it had been repaired.
Ned bid
● Ned Kelly ■ The rural town of Avenel, near Seymour, wants to be the final resting place for the remains of bushranger Ned Kelly. His father ‘Red’ is buried in the Avenel Cemetery.
Closed
■ Trafalgar abattoir L E Giles and Sons has been shut down while it is investigated for allegations of cruelty to pigs being processed, reports the Warragul Gazette.
To Court ■ A Melbourne taxi driver, ‘SS’, is fighting a decision to cancel his driver’s accreditation. The Department of Transport disqualified ‘SS’ from driving cabs after an “incident” with a young female passenger. Versions of the incident differ. The driver also faced allegations from another incident, from 2010, with charges of unlawful assault, intentionally causing injury, assault by kicking, assault in company, affray and recklessly causing injury. The matter is to return toVCAT in February, when ‘SS’ returns from overseas.
■ Fruit and vegetable wholesalers haved sued the Victorian Government over the Melbourne Markets deal at Epping, reports The Weekly Times. The case began on Friday.
Page 14 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
www.MelbourneObserver.com.au
Melbourne
Observer Life & Style
MY BRIEF DABBLE WITH THE OCCULT News Briefs It’s magic
● Gerry Gee and Ron Blaskett ■ TVlegends Gerry Gee and Ron Blaskett will be at the relaunch of Bernard’s Magic Shop at 187 Elizabeth St, City, between 12 Noon and 2pm this Friday (Dec. 9). Ron appears with ‘Bernard The Magician’ (Alf Gertler) in the early days of GTV-9.
● Bernard The Magician
To AFL ■ Paul Bassat, co-founder of the Seek online employment serv ice, is joining the AFL Commission, taking over from Graeme John, who has retired.
Dissolved ■ The partnership between Jane Maddison and Jennifer Freeman, trading as Maddison Freeman Partnership, has been dissolved. The partnership between D. H.& J.G.Freeman Pty Ltd as trustee of the D. H. & J. G. Freeman Family Trust and Siliqua Pty Ltd as trustee of the CJES Trust, trading as M F Imports Partnership has been dissolved.
■ Do poltergeists really exist, or do they only exist in the myths and ghost stories of a haunting in Victorian England? Years ago we experienced the invasion of spirits whilst using a oija (pronounced weegie) board at home with some friends. I don’t know if spirits lurk in a house or not, and to be honest my husband was absolutely against me using the board, but my friends were insistent so what could happen? We sat around the dimly lit dining room table with our hands linked being guided by our guest who had had success with a board, so we were trying to take it all seriously. All of a sudden, Mechant my cat who was sitting quietly on an armchair sprang across the room and landed on the table spitting and hissing with claws extended and his tail fluffed out like a bottlebrush letting out a blood-curdling howl. “That’s good”, said my friend, “it means the spirits are here and we’ll learn a lot tonight.” The cat scared the heck out of me, and all I could think of was evil spirits invading my otherwise happy home. I made an executive decision and cancelled the gathering, grabbed the board off the table, and threw it onto the top shelf of the linen press where it still remains to this day.
Warning from the spirits? ■ I didn’t sleep much that night hoping that the sprits had only given me a warning and had vacated the house. I justified having that gathering at home by saying that we were young and shouldn’t have been dabbling with the occult. So whether it was bad spirits that were present in the house, I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think that naughty Poltergeist are playing tricks with me. You see, things keep disappearing. Not big things like the family silver or the television, but pieces of jewellery, my reading glasses, their disappearance I blamed on Moosh my cat, and recently a favourite pair of gold earrings. My very best pair of sharp pruning shears are missing leaving me a drawer full of blunt cheapies, and a book that I desperately needed for some research I’m was doing is an other example. The book is still missing, but I expect it to reappear on the shelf in a few days when it’s too late for me to use.
Haunted homes, rectories ■ There are some wonderful stories of poltergeists in old Rectories and churches in England, such as the famous Borley Rectory that is reputed to be the most haunted house in the UK. There are many films which I add are very spooky symbolising much about English life of the times. These mischievous imps usually inhabit a Rector’s dwelling, and tend to drive the poor minister crazy because they move or steal things and generally cause mayhem with the poor old Rector. I don’t know if they lurk in the ceiling of a house, or indeed what causes them to appear, or as in my case, they delight in taking things. When I told Peter that I thought Poltergeists were taking things from the house only to have them reappear again in a few days, he laughed and said that it was nothing but age that was making me mislay things. Besides, if Moosh thought for one minute that we were being invaded he would have sprung into action, Cats are dead enemies of spirits – good or bad. Actually I quite liked the idea that there may be a friendly spirit or two keeping me safe, I just wished they would stop taking my things.
Message from a friend ■ Perhaps it was as simple as age creeping up. They say that once you pass middle age things start happening, but I thought it was with wrinkles and hair that turns grey overnight. I was thinking about this as I opened my e-mail, and there it was, sent by a friend, an explanation for my missing items. … ‘Senior citizens are constantly being criticized for every conceivable deficiency in the modern world, real or imaginary.
Yvonne’s Column
■ I’m beginning to realise that ageing is not for wimps. Yes, I’m a senior citizen and I think I’m having the time of my life!
Yes, I am a Senior Citizen
with Yvonne Lawrence yvonne.lawrence@bigpond.com
We know we take responsibility for all we have done and do not blame others. However, upon reflection, we would like to point out it was not the senior citizens who took: ■ The melody out of music, ■ The pride out of appearance, ■ The courtesy out of driving, ■ The romance out of love, ■ The commitment out of marriage, ■ The responsibility out of the family. ■ The learning out of education, ■ The service out of patriotism, ■ The Golden Rule from rulers, ■ The nativity scene out of cities, ■ The civility out of behavior, ■ The refinement out of language. ■ The dedication out of employment, ■ The prudence out of spending, ■ The ambition out of achievement. ■ And we certainly are not the ones who eliminated patience and tolerance from personal relationships and interaction with others! ■ And, we do understand the meaning of patriotism, and remember those who have fought and died for our country, ■ Just look at the Seniors with tears in their eyes and pride in their hearts as they stand to attention for the playing of the National Anthem Yes, I’m a senior citizen! I’m very good at opening childproof caps …with a hammer. I’m awake many hours before my body allows me to get up. I ’m smiling all the time because I can’t hear a thing you are saying. I’m sure everything I can’t find is in a safe secure place, somewhere. I’m wrinkled, saggy, lumpy, and that’s just my left leg.
Melbourne Observations with Matt Bissett-Johnson
■ I did have a laugh when I read Brenda’s e-mail, and I know she’ll have a laugh when I write back and tell her I thought there were poltergeists in the house. My husband is still laughing at me and thinks he is married to a section 8 or at best a genuine meschuga wife. I agree with Oscar Wilde that a woman who tells her age will tell anything, so I prefer not to even think about ageing, but the few wrinkles that Jane Fonda’s special cream will not make disappear, or the stray hair that sprouts overnight on my chin, not to mention the grey hair, tells me that I’m in denial. Have a good week. It’s only a few weeks until that happy old chap will come down the chimney, and hopefully the annual tribal feast will pass without causing too much angst. If you do have a family member in a nursing home, do circle your diary to make a visit. You may be surprised that they will recognise you, not by what they say, but the look of love in their eyes. - Yvonne Contact: Melbourne Observer PO Box 1278 Research. 3095 And at: 3WBC 94.1 FM PO Box 159, Box Hill 3128
News Briefs Suddenly, Last Summer ■ Mania and melodrama abound the Academy Award-nominated drama, Suddenly, Last Summer, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift, screening at the Australian Centre for Moving Image in Melbourne in January 2012. A grieving matron (Hepburn) manipulates a handsome psychiatrist (Clift) to lobotomise her beautiful niece (Taylor), who threatens to unearth the scandalous details of her son’s life. Written for the screen by Gore Vidal and based on Tennessee Williams’s controversial play, the taboo themes of homosexuality and cannibalism were hamstrung by the Hollywood Production Code but thankfully the high theatrics were spared for this deliciously lurid Hollywood gem. Pitting Taylor and Hepburn against one another earned each a Best Actress Oscar nomination and provides the film with its most electric moments. Imported 35mm print. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959, 114 mins, USA. For more information and tickets, please visit: www.acmi.net.au Sessions: Fri 13 Jan, 7pm. Sat 14 Jan, 7pm. Sun 15 Jan, 7pm Mon 16 Jan, 5.30pm.
Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 15
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Observer Readers’ Club THe Way We Were
Melbourne Photo Flashback
100 Years Ago - Evelyn Observer Friday, December 8, 1911 ■ The Secretary of the local Progress Association, in answer to a request for an earlier train, to the city, has been informed by the Railway Commissioners that they cannot accede to the request. The reason given is that the change proposed would involve the cancellation of the 7.33a.m, which is favoured by the majority of the travellers on the line. How this con clusion is arrived, at the writer cannot say, but one thing is certain, viz., that there is.a strong demand for a train. to. reach the city before 8a.m.. and that demand cannot much longer be ignored unless our village is to sleep like the immortal Rip Van Winkle for half-a-century longer,.
Things To Do
● Ian of Brighton sends this picture of Melrose St, Sandringham Who can put a date on this photo? The cars give some indication of the era.
Life’s Lessons
Reader Recipes
■ “One should examine oneself for a very long time before condemning others.” - Moliere
■ If you're after an old-fashioned Christmas Cake, look no further. This fruity cake will be the star attraction at any festive feast! Preparation Time: 30 minutes Cooking Time: 180 minutes Ingredients (serves 20) 510g (3 cups) sultanas 265g (1 1/2 cups) Sunbeam flame raisins 155g (1 cup) currants 150g (1 cup) pitted dates, finely chopped 1 x 100g pkt red glace cherries, quartered 75g (1/2 cup) Ocean Spray craisins 75g (1/2 cup) dried pineapple, finely chopped 50g (1/4 cup) mixed peel 185ml (3/4 cup) brandy 2 tsp finely grated orange rind Melted butter, to grease 250g butter, at room temperature 200g (1 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar 4 eggs 300g (2 cups) plain flour 2 tsp mixed spice Blanched almonds, to decorate Red glace cherries, extra, halved, to decorate 2 tbs brandy, extra Method Combine sultanas, raisins, currants, dates, cherries, craisins, pineapple, mixed peel, brandy and orange rind in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside, stirring occasionally, for 2 days to macerate. Preheat oven to 150°C. Brush a round 22cm (base measurement) cake pan with melted butter to lightly grease. Line the base and side with 3 layers of non-stick baking paper. Use an electric beater to beat butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well between each addition until just combined. Add butter mixture to fruit mixture and stir to combine. Add flour and mixed spice and stir until well combined. Spoon into prepared pan and smooth the surface. Lightly tap pan on benchtop to release any air bubbles. Arrange almonds and cherries on top of the cake. Bake in oven, covered with foil, for 2 hours 40 minutes to 3 hours or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Drizzle hot cake with extra brandy. Set aside to cool before turning out.
Word Of The Week ■ Discerp - to tear something into shreds.
Trivia Challenge ■ Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory is nearly half the size of Switzerland. True or false?
Answer: True
■ MusicPlay is an exciting summer holiday music festival for children and families, over several days in January 2012 from Jan. 18 – 22 at Melbourne Recital Centre. Over several days MusicPlay aims to encourage young music lovers and their families to immerse themselves in music through an array of interactive concerts and musical activities. Melbourne Recital Centre’s concerts on the big stage pack a big punch while their Pop Kids concerts feature popular music genres all providing a fun and interactive experience to inspire the child within everyone. Melbourne Recital Centre’s foyers come alive with a range of free, fun and interactive experiences. Activities include amazing sound installations and face painting available all day!For a complete program and further details about attending MusicPlay visit: Melbournerecital. com.au/musicplay - Di Rolle
This Week’s Competition
DVD COMP.: WIN THE FIRST SERIES OF ‘BONANZA’ The Melbourne Observer has SIX copies of the newly released 6 pack-DVD set of the first series of Bonanza. This series includes 17 episodes. Bonanza was a favourite amongst the early years of television, featuring Lorne Green, and his sons. Rated PG. To enter this competition, complete the details on the form below, and post it so it will reach us by first mail, Monday, December 19, 2011. Winners’ details will be published in the Melbourne Observer on Wednesday, December 21, 2011. Prizes will be mailed to winners. To enter, post to Bonanza Comp. Melbourne Observer PO Box 1278, Research Vic 3095 to reach us by first mail, Mon., Dec. 19, 2011
TELL US YOUR BIRTHDAY DAY MONTH (notYEAR compulsory)
Name: ..................................................................................,. Address: .............................................................................. Postcode: ........................... Phone: ..................................... Subject to Observer competition terms and conditions which include publication of your name, address and birthday details
Last Week’s Competition ■ Winners of the Engineman Of The Victorian Railways book by Nick Anchen, which will be mailed, are: ■ June Warren, Malcolm Ct, North Croydon ■ Barry Willis, Laurence Ave, Airport West ★★★ ■ Winners of tickets to Philharmonic Phireworks, being staged by the Australian Pops Orchestra, will receive notification in the mail. The winners are: ■ Bill Kirtley. Asher Rd, Lovely Banks ■ OlwenHoughton.RiversdaleRd,HawthornEast ■ Hazel Anderson. Mayune Ct, Cranbourne
Join in our chat IN PRINT: Read the Melbourne Observer every week. Buy at your newsagent, or by mail subscription. FACEBOOK: Follow our updates, and post your own coments at www.facebook.com/ MelbourneObserver TWITTER: Follow our updates, and post your own Tweets at www.twitter.com/ MelbourneObs BY POST: Mail contributions to Observer Readers’ Club PO Box 1278, Research, Vic 3095 FAX: 1-800 231 312 E-MAIL: editor@ melbourneobserver.com.au
Bumper Sticker ■ A dream will always be just that, unless you act.
Reader’s Letter ■ Betty Jeffrey of Glenburn writes: “Thank you for another interesting Melbourne Observer. I noticed your advertisement about pork sausages and noticed that the butcher at Benalla (Rettke’s Carrier St Meats) buys his pork from the local abattoir, C A Sinclair. That’s where my son Lester sells his pigs, so perhaps it is true to say Lester’s pigs go into Victoria’s best pork sausages. What fun! Of course, that’s why the sausages are so good. Lester has only a small piggery so he’s able to give them TLC. I enjoyed seeing my recipe and letter in the Readers’ Club page. Hope the page grows. You have to give it two pages. Happy Christmas to everyone on your staff. Only three weeks to Christmas. How time flies.
Birthdays/Celebrations ■ Wednesday, December 7. Observer reader Neil J K Smith of Greensborough enjoys his 70th birthday today. Many happy returns Neil. ■ Thursday, December 8. Megan Castran of Toorak celebrates her birthday today. So too does Megan Brooks who is 23. ■ Friday, December 9. Entertainer Dorothy Baker has a birthday today. She lists her age on Facebook as 63, which means she was aged about 8 when she sang on Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight. Businessman Doug Golden celebrates his 52nd birthday today. ■ Saturday, December 10. Actor-performerradio presenter James Liotta is blowing out the candles today. You can often see him at Witches n Britches Theatre Restaurant. ■ Sunday, December 11. Melbourne radio man Hamish Blake is 30 today. ■ Monday, December 12. Dance man David Atkins celebrates his 56th birthday (1955). ■ Tuesday, December 13. Former Richmond coach, Terry Wallace, who lives near the Observer office, has his 53rd birthday today.
Cheerios ■ Thanks to Observer readers for a swag of Christmas cards that have already arrived. Thanks to Ray Holmes of Essendon, June Warren of North Croydon, and Betty Jeffrey of Glenburn. Suzanne of Docklands sends a ‘cheerio’ to Natasha of Southbank.
Page 16 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
■ I think my first memory of hearing a Fats Domino song was Ain't That A Shame back in 1956. I loved the deep resonance of his voice and the strong beat behind the song. Rock and Roll was new to us pimply faced teenagers and we couldn't get enough of the American rock songs which became part of the soundtrack of our lives. Antoine Dominique ‘Fats’ Domino Jnr was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1928. Antoine studied piano at the age of nine. He left school to work in a factory so that he could play piano in the bars at night. Antoine mastered the Boogie Woogie techniques and the classic Rhythm and Blues piano style. In 1938 he married his childhood sweetheart, Rosemary. He became a father and almost lost his hand in a factory accident. Antoine was given the nick-name of ‘Fats’ and it stuck. He joined trumpeter Dave Bartholomew's band. Dave recognised the special talent of Fats and arranged a contract for him with Imperial Records. In 1949 Fats Domino had his first million selling hit song The Fat Man and Dave became his manager. Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino cowrote many of the hit songs which included, Ain't That a Shame, I'm In Love Again, Blue-
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Whatever Happened To ... Fats Domino By Kevin Trask of 3AW and 96.5 Inner FM berry Hill, I'm Walkin', Blue Monday, I'm Walkin' To New Orleans and The Big Beat. He appeared in two films Shake Rattle And Rock and The Girl Can't Help It. In 1963 Fats left Imperial Records and recorded with several other record labels. In 1975 Fats Domino performed one show at Festival Hall in Melbourne as part of a national tour. He was accompanied by his 10-piece band. The show ran for about two hours. Fats brought a lot of expensive jewellery with him and it had to be guarded - his star shaped watch alone had 352 diamonds on it. The tour also included New Zealand. My friend Vince Spiteri is a huge fan of Fats Domino and has visited his home in New Or-
● Fats Domino with Melbourne Observer reader Vince Spiteri leans several times. I thank Vince for sharing his returned for an encore. He made one more stage great photo with us. appearance in 2009 to raise funds to help vicDomino was awarded the Grammy Lifetime tims of Hurricane Katrina. Achievement Award in 1987. In 1998, PresiApparently Fats is a very shy person and has dent Clinton awarded him the National Medal no desire to tour anymore. of Arts. He loves the people and the food in his homeWhen Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in town. He lives a quiet life with his wife Rose2005 Fats and his family were rescued from mary and everybody in the working class area their home by boat, but they lost many posses- loves Fats. sions in the storm. - Kevin Trask In 2007 Fats Domino returned to the stage at The Time Tunnel - with Bruce and Phil the New Orleans Venue Tipitina's to sing 11 Sundays at 8.30pm on 3AW songs in thirty minutes. It was a sold out house That's Entertainment of 500 enthusiastic fans. 96.5FM Sundays at 12 Noon As Fats was leaving the stage the compere 96.5FM is streaming on the internet. To listen, suggested How About Blue Monday? and Fats go to www.innerfm.org.au and follow prompts
SOUR KRAUTS IN THE TERRITORY
■ I often talk about Territory drinkers, but this time there's a different twist -they're lizards! There are myriads of discarded ‘Green Cans’, as VB receptacles are colloquially known, lying around Alice Springs, and usually they have a few drops of beer left in them. Insects crawl into the cans in search of a little moisture, and geckoes crawl in after them. And finally along stumbles a thirsty goanna who not only smells the beer for a drink, but also the gecko for a feed. So he pokes his head into the source of the aroma, but unfortunately gets stuck, and can't move in or out. The latest creature encapsulated thus was a 2-ft long black headed goanna which was discovered by two dog-walking ladies, and delivered to my mate Rex Niendorf at the Alice Reptile Park, to be freed from its ensnarement. Rex happily complied, and the goanna scuttled off to live another day! "When the sun comes up, it's like a mini oven, and their brains get cooked," explained Rex. Indeed, ultimately flat out like a lizard drinking! ■ Aboriginal town camps around Alice Springs have almost always been in a perpetual state of squalor. I have often visited them, looking for mates, and basically it's like driving into a tip. As an aftermath of the Intervention they are to be cleaned up, with proper roads and amenities and rubbish collection - they will become just like Alice Springs suburbs. Apart from the normal detritus of rubbish, there always myriads of ‘camp dogs’ running around. They're usually in a very poor state of health - some are known as ‘leatherbacks’ because mange has claimed most of their hair. I've never understood why the local RSPCA doesn't try and alleviate their suffering - I've seen them with open wounds, and one with its eye hanging out - but they don't seem to worry about them. But there's one camp dog that just thinks he's a dog - he's actually a pig! He lives in the remote community of Gunbalanya, and his name is ‘Harry Trotter’! He runs around with all the dogs, but does have a problem which is annoying all the camp inhabitants - he
The Outback Legend
with Nick Le Souef Lightning Ridge Opals 175 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Phone 9654 4444 www.opals.net.au has developed a liking --more a lust for wheelie bins! Only steel ones though, and only at night! So he trots around the camp, noisily knocking them over, and then actually mounts them! And then his canine companions snuffle through the contents and strew it all over the camp! I can understand his unpopularity! ■ TheTerritory is always crawling with overseas tourists, particularly Germans. Deep within the breast of every German, I'm sure, there beats the heart of an explorer, a pioneer! As soon as they hit the Territory they're into a Britz 4WD and galloping off into the wild blue yonder! In the Centre it's out into the desert; in the Top End it's off to the jungle! Last week one particular group were scurrying along a muddy track near Corroboree Billabong, when they bogged their Britz troupie. They had been without food and water for a couple of days, and were lost, and spotted by some local fishermen filling their water bottles from the
stagnant billabong. Not very wise! Even less wise was wandering around any invariably crocodile-infested water in the Top End - remember Linda nearly being gulped down in Crocodile Dundee? These fishermen had just seen a buffalo being grabbed by a huge reptile just a few yards from where the tourists were paddling about with their bottles. Almost some sour Krauts!
■ Since the Rock became quite a mecca for tourists, both local and international, it's changed quite a bit. Initially just a dirt track out to a campground, then a motel and a pub in its shadow. Then , as now, an international style resort, 20 kms away from the edifice itself, with all the nearby buildings bulldozed. So now it's just a pristine vista - red sand, desert foliage, and Rock. A few years ago there was an extension - Longitude 131 - super luxury ‘tents’ with an unimpeded view of sunsets and sunrises. However there's now further development in the wind. The resort was recently sold for $300m to the Indigenous Land Corporation , and there are plans to develop it into an "indigenous centre of excellence with world class facilities," according to Koos Klein, the Managing Director. Also a "meaningful engagement of the indigenous community". There will be training and employment for 200 indigenous job seekers, and an ongoing commitment of 100 trainees annually. I have often visited the nearby Mutujulu community, and whilst I wholeheartedly endorse these noble and worthy and encouraging sentiments, I do recognise that their implementation will be "rewarding but challenging"! ■ My mate of decades, Barry Gross, and his delightful missus, Marg, have just returned from a couple of glorious weeks in the Territory. Grossie is a proud Vietnam Vet, and his life speeds up a little every so often, and occasionally he needs to slow down a tad. "Some quiet time!" he told me. So what better than a relaxing trip to Darwin and back on the Ghan! "Absolutely brilliant - just what I needed!"
● Enjoy a trip on the Ghan to Darwin I've done the trip a couple of times lighting the glowing white salt of Lake to Alice, before the line to Darwin was Hart; then the piccaninny daylight finished, and it was just so peaceful over the desert of the Centre, with an occasional 'roo bounding alongside and relaxing. There's something about about just through the saltbush and the spinifex. Truly spectacular! sitting in a train, enjoying the motion, Even though I love to guide my authe gentle swaying, and the clickety tomobile along the Stuart Highway to clacks. witness all that Mother Nature has to And this is before you even fold offer, just sitting back dozing, and down your bed in your little cabin and watching it unfold isn't too bad either! sway off to a wonderful slumber! - Nick Le Souef The sunset of the night before high ‘The Outback Legend’
From The Outer
Melbourne
Observer
kojak@ mmnet.com.au
With John Pasquarelli
■ We have to endure all that will happen until an election in 2013 allows Australians to reclaim what is left of their country and then to see how hard it will be to get rid of the Greens in the Senate - an exhausting and draining battle involving double dissolutions when an Abbott Government should be working hard to repair the damage. The Coalition has a lot of soul-searching to do over the stinking Slipper debacle as well as the latest news of snouts in the trough by ex-MPs over their travel entitlements that only serves to fuel the simmering hatred of all politicians by most ordinary Australians. It'll take years to rebuild a Coalition that has suffered so many own goals at the hands of those who run the organisation - from the undergrad politics of the apparatchiks, the recycling of has-beens at election time and the mindless hypocrisy of the childish 'broad church' mantra. Hardheaded, knockabout 'new blood' candidates are nowhere to be seen, maybe frightened off about what they hear. Alan Jones has commented on the 'disconnect' between Coalition MPs and those out there in 'struggle street' and he's spot on. It's scary when an MP looks all at sea when I mention Bob Santamaria - John Pasquarelli: kojak@mmnet.com.au
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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 17
Melbourne People
● Sigrid with daughter Jazz and partner Tom Burstall
Longford Lyell Lecture Australian Centre for Moving Image
● Sigrid Thornton gave the Longford Lyell Lecture
Sigrid shines
● Alan Finney with cinematographer Dennys Ilic
■ Sigrid Thornton delivered the 10th Longford Lyell Lecture at ACMI. Sigrid is the first performer to address the industry lecture, named after two pioneering Aussie film makers Raymond Langford and Lottie Lyell, which was established by The National Film and Sound Archive body. Amongst the guests were actors Terry Donovan, Elspeth Ballantyne and Carla Bonner, directors David Parker, Dan Burstall and Michael Rymer, cinematographer Dennys Ilic and producers Irene Dobson, Leanne Hanley and Gabrielle Christopher. The multi-award winning actress also works extensively with various boards including The Australian Film Institute and Malthouse Theatre and also continues her work with charities World Vision, Reach and Vision Australia's Braille reading program for children.
● Alan Zavod with Chris Ryan
● Michael Rymer withT imoli Mustica and John McLennan
● Lewis Romano and Emma Jager
● Sigrid Thornton with casting director Loretta Rymer
● John and Marisa Russo
Page 18 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
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Melbourne People
● Eleni Martakis, Mietta Ovard, Elise Greene
Ansell Neon brand launch (Glow in the dark condom range) Strike QV Bowling Night
● Emma Merkis, Dan Smith and Sarah Kempson
Glowing!
● Ansell's Nicole Adey, Dave Nicholls and Hayley Allen
■ It was a case of lights off and fun on as Ansell Australia’s number one brand for condoms, launched Neon, their glow in the dark condom range at Strike QV, last week. Guests were treated to free bowling, free pizza and when the lights went off, the lure of bright lights had the venue glowing. Special guests included X-Factor Finalist Sally Chatfield, The Circle’s relationship expert Emma Merkas, 2010 Miss Universe entrant Paris Ogden, Tom Vizard (son of Steve), plus former Neighbours mates Jonathon Dutton and Rebecca Ritters.
● Miss Universe Entrant 2011 Paris Ogden and Billy Holland
● Jordan Tunbridge and Tom Vizard
● Rhys Hobbin and Courtney Bisson
● Nine publicity team members Ruedilyn Schwegler, Jo Thorne, Laura Price, Emma Wells-Jones and Isabella Jackson
● Rebecca Ritters and Jonathon Dutton
Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 19
Observer Classic Books
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rv se US N Ob N IO BO CT SE
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Something Of Myself CHAPTER 7 THE VERY-OWN HOUSE - continued By which I understood him to mean the exhumation of scarcely cold notorieties, defenceless females for choice, and tricking them out with sprightly inferences and ‘sex’-deductions to suit the mood of the market. It was an awful charge, and anyway I felt that others had qualified as Chief Morticians to that trade. For rest and refreshment and dearly-loved experiments and anxieties, during the six months or so of each year that we stayed in England, there was always the House and the land, and on occasion the Brook at the foot of our garden, which would flood devastatingly. As she supplied the water for our turbine, and as the little weir which turned her current into the little millrace was of a frail antiquity, one had to attend to her often and at once, and always at the most inconvenient moment. Undiscerning folks would ask; ‘What do you find to do in the country?’ ‘Our answer was ‘Everything except time to do it.’ We began with tenants — two or three small farmers on our very few acres — from whom we learned that farming was a mixture of farce, fraud, and philanthropy that stole the heart out of the land. After many, and some comic experiences, we fell back on our own county’s cattle — the big, red Sussex breed who make beef and not milk. One got something at least for one’s money from the mere sight of them, and they did not tell lies. Rider Haggard would visit us from time to time and give of his ample landwisdom. I remember I planted some new appletrees in an old orchard then rented by an Irishman, who at once put in an agile and hungry goat. Haggard met the combination suddenly one morning. He had gifts of speech, and said very clearly indeed that one might as well put Satan in an orchard as a goat. I forget what — though I acted on it — he said about tenants. His comings were always a joy to us and the children, who followed him like hounds in the hope of ‘more South African stories.’ Never was a better tale-teller or, to my mind, a man with a more convincing imagination. We found by accident that each could work at ease in the other’s company. So he would visit me, and I him, with work in hand; and between us we could even hatch out tales together — a most exacting test of sympathy. I was honoured till he died by the friendship of a Colonel Wemyss Feilden, who moved into the village to inherit a beautiful little William and Mary house on the same day as we came to take over ‘Bateman’s.’ He was in soul and spirit Colonel Newcome; in manner as diffident and retiring as an old maid out of Cranford; and up to his eighty-second year could fairly walk me off my feet, and pull down pheasants from high heaven. He had begun life in the Black Watch, with whom, outside Delhi during the Mutiny, he heard one morning as they were all shaving that a ‘little fellow called Roberts’ had captured single-handed a rebel Standard and was coming through the Camp. ‘We all turned out. The boy was on horseback looking rather pleased with himself, and his mounted Orderly carried the Colour behind him. We cheered him with the lather on our faces.’ After the Mutiny he sold out, and having interests in Natal went awhile to South Africa. Next, he ran the blockade of the U.S. Civil War, and wedded his Southern wife in Richmond with a ring hammered out of an English sovereign ‘because there wasn’t any gold in Richmond just then.’ Mrs. Feilden at seventy-five was in herself fair explanation of all the steps he had taken — and forfeited. He came to be one of Lee’s aides-decamp, and told me how once on a stormy night, when he rode in with despatches, Lee had ordered him to take off his dripping cloak and lie by the fire; and how when he waked from badly needed sleep, he saw the General on his knees before the flame drying the cloak. ‘That was just before the surrender,’ said he. ‘We had finished robbing the grave, and we’d begun on the cradle. For those last three months I was with fifteen thousand boys under seventeen, and I don’t remember any one of them even smiling.’
● Rudyard Kipling Bit by bit I came to understand that he was a traveller and an Arctic explorer, in possession of the snow-white Polar ribbon; a botanist and naturalist of reputation; and himself above all. When Rider Haggard heard these things, he rested not till he had made the Colonel’s acquaintance. They cottoned to each other on sight and sound; South Africa in the early days being their bond. One evening, Haggard told us how his son had been born on the edge of Zulu, I think, territory, the first white child in those parts. ‘Yes,’ said the Colonel, quietly out of his corner. ‘I and’— he named two men —‘rode twentyseven miles to look at him. We hadn’t seen a white baby for some time.’ Then Haggard remembered that visit of strangers. And once there came to us with her married daughter the widow of a Confederate Cavalry leader; both of them were what you might call ‘unreconstructed’ rebels. Somehow, the widow mentioned a road and a church beside a river in Georgia. ‘It’s still there, then?’ said the Colonel, giving it its name. ‘Why do you ask? ‘was the quick reply.’ Because, if you look in such-andsuch a pew, you might find my initials. I cut them there the night ——‘s Cavalry stabled their horses there.’ There was a pause. ‘‘Fore God, then, who are you?’ she gasped. He told her. ‘You knew my husband?’ ‘I served under him. He was the only man in our corps who wore a white collar.’ She pelted him with questions, and the names of the old dead. ‘Come away,’ whispered her daughter to me. ‘They don’t want us.’ Nor did they for a long hour. Sooner or later, all sorts of men cast up at our house. From India naturally; from the Cape increasingly after the Boer War and our half-yearly visits there; from Rhodesia when that province was in the making; from Australia, with schemes for emigration which one knew Organised Labour would never allow to pass its legislatures; from Canada, when ‘Imperial Preference’ came to the fore, and Jameson, after one bitter experience, cursed ‘that dam’ dancingmaster (Laurier) who had bitched the whole show’; and
from off main-line Islands and Colonies — men of all makes, each with his lifetale, grievance, idea, ideal, or warning. There was an ex-Governor of the Philippines, who had slaved his soul out for years to pull his charge into some sort of shape and — on a turn of the political wheel at Washington — had been dismissed at literally less notice than he would have dared to give a native orderly. I remembered not a few men whose work and hope had been snatched from under their noses, and my sympathy was very real. His account of Filipino political ‘leaders,’ writing and shouting all day for ‘independence’ and running round to him after dark to be assured that there was no chance of the dread boon being granted —‘because then we shall most probably all be killed’— was cheeringly familiar. The difficulty was to keep these interests separate in the head; but the grind of adjusting the mental eye to new perspectives was good for the faculties. Besides this viva voce, there was always heavy written work, three-fourths of which was valueless, but for the sake of the possibly worth-while residue all had to be gone through. This was specially the case during the three years before the War, when warnings came thick and fast, and the wise people to whom I conveyed them said; ‘Oh, but you’re so-o — extreme.’ Blasts of extravagant publicity alternated with my office-work. In the late summer of ‘06, for example, we took ship to Canada, which I had not seen in any particularity for many years, and of which I had been told that it was coming out of its spiritual and material subjection to the United States. Our steamer was an Allan Liner with the earliest turbines and wireless. In the wirelessroom, as we were feeling our way blind through the straits of Belle Isle, a sister ship, sixty miles ahead, morsed that the fog with her was even thicker. Said a young engineer in the doorway ‘Who’s yon talking, Jock? Ask him if he’s done drying his socks.’And the old professional jest crackled out through the smother. It
was my first experience of practical wireless. At Quebec we met Sir William Van Horne, head of the whole C.P.R. system, but, on our wedding trip fifteen years before, a mere Divisional Superintendent who had lost a trunk of my wife’s and had stood his Division on its head to find it. His deferred, but ample revenge was to give us one whole Pullman car with coloured porter complete, to take and use and hitch on to and declutch from any train we chose, to anywhere we fancied, for as long as we liked. We took it, and did all those things to Vancouver and back again. When we wished to sleep in peace, it slid off into still, secret freight-yards till morning. When we would eat, chefs of the great mail trains, which it had honoured by its attachment, asked us what we would like. (It was the season of blueberries and wild duck.) If we even looked as though we wanted anything, that thing would be waiting for us a few score miles up the line. In this manner and in such state we progressed, and the procession and the progress was meat and drink to the soul of William the coloured porter, our Nurse, Valet, Seneschal, and Master of Ceremonies. (More by token, the wife understood coloured folk, and that put William all at ease.) Many people would come aboard to visit us at halting-places, and there were speeches of sorts to be prepared and delivered at the towns. In the first case; ‘‘Nother depytation, Boss,’ from William behind enormous flower-pieces; ‘and more bo-kays for de Lady.’ In the second; ‘Dere’s a speech doo at ——. You go right ahaid with what you’re composin’, Boss. Jest put your feets out an’ I’ll shine ’em meanwhile.’ So, brushed up and properly shod, I was ushered into the public eye by the immortal William. In some ways it was punishing ‘all out’ work, but in all ways worth it. I had been given an honorary Degree, my first, by the McGill University at Montreal. That University received me with interest, and after I had delivered a highly moral discourse, the students dumped me into a fragile horse-vehicle, which they hurtled through the streets. Said one nice child sitting in the hood of it; ‘You gave us a dam’ dull speech. Can’t you say anything amusin’ now?’ I could but express my fears for the safety of the conveyance, which was disintegrating by instalments. In ‘15 I met some of those boys digging trenches in France. No words of mine can give any notion of the kindness and good-will lavished on us through every step of our road. I tried, and failed to do so in a written account of it. (Letters to the Family.) And always the marvel — to which the Canadians seemed insensible — was that on one side of an imaginary line should be Safety, Law, Honour, and Obedience, and on the other frank, brutal decivilisation; and that, despite this, Canada should be impressed by any aspect whatever of the United States. Some hint of this too I strove to give in my Letters. Before we parted, William told us a tale of a friend of his who was consumed with desire to be a Pullman porter ‘bekase he had watched me doin’ it, an’ thought he could do it — jest by watchin’ me.’ (This was the burden of his parable, like a deep-toned locomotive bell.) Overborne at last, William wangled for his friend the coveted post —‘next car ahaid to mine . . . I got my folks to baid early ‘kase I guessed he’d be needin’ me soon. . . . But he thought he could do it. And den all his folk in his car, dey all wanted to go to baid at de same time — like dey allus do. An’ he tried — Gawd knows he tried — to ‘commodate ’em all de same time an’ he couldn’t. He jes’ couldn’t. . . . He didn’t know haow. He thought he did bekase he had,’ etc. etc. ‘An’ den he quit . . . he jes’ quit.’ Along pause. ‘Jumped out of window?’ we demanded. ‘No. Oh no. Dey wasn’t no jump to him dat night. He went into de broom-closet —‘kase I found him dar — an’ he cried, an’ all his folks slammin’ on de broom-house door an’ cussin’ him ‘kase dey wanted to go to baid. An’ he couldn’t put ’em dar. He couldn’t put ’em. He thought,’ etc. etc. ‘An’ den? Why, o’ course I jes’ whirled in an’ put ’em to baid for him an’ when I told ’em how t’wuz with dat sorerful
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Observer Classic Books From Page 11 cryin’ nigger, dey laughed. Dey laughed heaps an’ heaps. . . . But he thought he could do it by havin’ watched me do it.’ A few weeks after we returned from the wonderful trip, I was notified that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize of that year for Literature. It was a very great honour, in all ways unexpected. It was necessary to go to Stockholm. Even while we were on the sea, the old King of Sweden died. We reached the city, snow-white under sun, to find all the world in evening dress, the official mourning, which is curiously impressive. Next afternoon, the prize-winners were taken to be presented to the new King. Winter darkness in those latitudes falls at three o’clock, and it was snowing. One half of the vast acreage of the Palace sat in darkness, for there lay the dead King’s body. We were conveyed along interminable corridors looking out into black quadrangles, where snow whitened the cloaks of the sentries, the breeches of old-time cannon, and the shotpiles alongside of them. Presently, we reached a living world of more corridors and suites all lighted up, but wrapped in that Court hush which is like no other silence on earth. Then, in a great lit room, the weary-eyed, overworked, new King, saying to each the words appropriate to the occasion. Next, the Queen, in marvellous Mary Queen of Scots mourning, a few words, and the return piloted by soft-footed Court officials through a stillness so deep that one heard the click of the decorations on their uniforms. They said that the last words of the old King had been ‘Don’t let them shut the theatres for me.’ So Stockholm that night went soberly about her pleasures, all dumbed down under the snow. Morning did not come till ten o’clock; and one lay abed in thick dark, listening to the blunted grind of the trams speeding the people to their work-day’s work. But the ordering of their lives was reasonable, thought out, and most comfortable for all classes in the matters of food, housing, the lesser but more desirable decencies, and the consideration given to the Arts. I had only known the Swede as a first-class immigrant in various parts of the earth. Looking at his native land I could guess whence he drew his strength and directness. Snow and frost are no bad nurses. At that epoch staid women attached to the public wash-houses washed in a glorious lather of soap, worked up with big bunches of finest pineshavings (when you think of it, a sponge is almost as dirty a tool as the permanent tooth-brush of the European), men desirous of the most luxurious bath known to civilisation. But foreigners did not always catch the idea. Hence this tale told to me at a winter resort in the deep, creamy contralto of the North by a Swedish lady who took, and pronounced, her English rather biblically. The introit you can imagine for yourself. Here is the finale; ‘And then she — the old woman comed — came — in to wash that man. But he was angered — angry. He wented — he went dee-ep into the water and he say-ed — said —“Go a-way!” And she sayed, “But I comm to wash you, sare.” And she made to do that. But he tur-ned over up-on his fa-ace, and waved his legs in the airs and he sayed, “Go adam-way away!” So she went to the Direktor and she say-ed “Comm he-ere. There are a mads in my bath, which will not let me wash of him.” But the Direktor say-ed to her; “Oh, that are not a mads. That are an Englishman. He will himself — he will wash himself.”’
CHAPTER 8 WORKING - TOOLS Every man must be his own law in his own work, but it is a poor-spirited artist in any craft who does not know how the other man’s work should be done or could be improved. I have heard as much criticism among hedgers and ditchers and woodmen of a companion’s handling of spade, bill-hook, or axe, as would fill a Sunday paper. Carters and cattle-men are even more meticulous, since they must deal with temperaments and seasonal instabilities. We had once on the farms a pair of brothers between ten and twelve. The younger could deal so cunningly with an intractable cart-mare who rushed her gates, and for choice diagonally, that he was called in to take charge of her as a matter of course. The elder, at eleven, could do all that his strength allowed, and the much more that ancestral craft had added, with any edged tool or wood. Modern progress has turned them into meritorious
menials. One of my cattle-men had a son who at eight could appraise the merits and character of any beast in his father’s care, and was on terms of terrifying familiarity with the herd-bull, whom he would slap on the nose to make him walk disposedly before us when visitors came. At eighteen, he would have been worth two hundred a year to begin with on any ranch in the Dominions. But he was ‘good at his books,’ and is now in a small grocery, but wears a black coat on the Sabbath. Which things are a portent. I have told what my early surroundings were, and how richly they furnished me with material. Also, how rigorously newspaper spaces limited my canvases and, for the reader’s sake, prescribed that within these limits must be some sort of beginning, middle, and end. My ordinary reporting, leader — and note-writing carried the same lesson, which took me an impatient while to learn. Added to this, I was almost nightly responsible for my output to visible and often brutally voluble critics at the Club. They were not concerned with my dreams. They wanted accuracy and interest, but first of all accuracy. My young head was in a ferment of new things seen and realised at every turn and — that I might in any way keep abreast of the flood — it was necessary that every word should tell, carry, weigh, taste and, if need were, smell. Here the Father helped me incomparably by his ‘judicious leaving alone.’ ‘Make your own experiments,’ said he. ‘It’s the only road. If I helped, I’d hinder.’ So I made my own experiments and, of course, the viler they were the more I admired them. Mercifully, the mere act of writing was, and always has been, a physical pleasure to me. This made it easier to throw away anything that did not turn out well: and to practise, as it were, scales. Verse, naturally, came first, and here the Mother was at hand, with now and then some shrivelling comment that infuriated me. But, as she said; ‘There’s no Mother in Poetry, my dear.’ It was she, indeed, who had collected and privately printed verses written at school up to my sixteenth year, which I faithfully sent out from the little House of the Dear Ladies. Later, when the notoriety came, ‘in they broke, those people of importance,’ and the innocent thing ‘came on to the market,’ and Philadelphia lawyers, a breed by itself, wanted to know, because they had paid much money for an old copy, what I remembered about its genesis. They had been first written in a stiff, marble-backed MS. book, the front page of which the Father had inset with a scandalous sepia-sketch of Tennyson and Browning in procession, and a spectacled schoolboy bringing up the rear. I gave it, when I left school, to a woman who returned it to me many years later — for which she will take an even higher place in Heaven than her natural goodness ensures — and I burnt it, lest it should fall into the hands of ‘lesser breeds without the (Copyright) law.’ I forget who started the notion of my writing a series of Anglo–Indian tales, but I remember our council over the naming of the series. They were originally much longer than when they appeared, but the shortening of them, first to my own fancy after rapturous re-readings, and next to the space available, taught me that a tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know that the operation has been performed, but every one feels the effect. Note, though, that the excised stuff must have been honestly written for inclusion. I found that when, to save trouble, I ‘wrote short’ ab initio much salt went out of the work. This supports the theory of the chimaera which, having bombinated and been removed, is capable of producing secondary causes in vacuo. This leads me to the Higher Editing. Take of well-ground Indian Ink as much as suffices and a camel-hair brush proportionate to the interspaces of your lines. In an auspicious hour, read your final draft and consider faithfully every paragraph, sentence and word, blacking out where requisite. Let it lie by to drain as long as possible. At the end of that time, re-read and you should find that it will bear a second shortening. Finally, read it aloud alone and at leisure. Maybe a shade more brushwork will then indicate or impose itself. If not, praise Allah and let it go, and ‘when thou hast done, repent not.’ The shorter the tale, the longer the brushwork and, normally, the shorter the lie-by, and vice versa. The longer the tale, the less brush but the longer lie-by. I have had tales by me for three or five years which shortened themselves almost yearly.
The magic lies in the Brush and the Ink. For the Pen, when it is writing, can only scratch; and bottled ink is not to compare with the ground Chinese stick. Experto crede. Let us now consider the Personal Daemon of Aristotle and others, of whom it has been truthfully written, though not published:— This is the doom of the Makers — their Daemon lives in their pen. If he be absent or sleeping, they are even as other men. But if he be utterly present, and they swerve not from his behest, The word that he gives shall continue, whether in earnest or jest. Most men, and some most unlikely, keep him under an alias which varies with their literary or scientific attainments. Mine came to me early when I sat bewildered among other notions, and said; ‘Take this and no other.’ I obeyed, and was rewarded. It was a tale in the little Christmas magazine Quartette which we four wrote together, and it was called ‘The Phantom ‘Rickshaw.’ Some of it was weak, much was bad and out of key; but it was my first serious attempt to think in another man’s skin. After that I learned to lean upon him and recognise the sign of his approach. If ever I held back, Ananias fashion, anything of myself (even though I had to throw it out afterwards) I paid for it by missing what I then knew the tale lacked. As an instance, many years later I wrote about a mediaeval artist, a monastery, and the premature discovery of the microscope. (‘The Eye of Allah.’) Again and again it went dead under my hand, and for the life of me I could not see why. I put it away and waited. Then said my Daemon — and I was meditating something else at the time —‘Treat it as an illuminated manuscript.’ I had ridden off on hard black-and-white decoration, instead of pumicing the whole thing ivorysmooth, and loading it with thick colour and gilt. Again, in a South African, post-Boer War tale called ‘The Captive,’ which was built up round the phrase ‘a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,’ I could not get my lighting into key with the tone of the monologue. The background insisted too much. My Daemon said at last ‘Paint the background first once for all, as hard as a public-house sign, and leave it alone.’ This done, the rest fell into place with the American accent and outlook of the teller. My Daemon was with me in the Jungle Books, Kim, and both Puck books, and good care I took to walk delicately, lest he should withdraw. I know that he did not, because when those books were finished they said so themselves with, almost, the water-hammer click of a tap turned off. One of the clauses in our contract was that I should never follow up ‘a success,’ for by this sin fell Napoleon and a few others. Note here. When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey. I am afraid that I was not much impressed by reviews. But my early days in London were unfortunate. As I got to know literary circles and their critical output, I was struck by the slenderness of some of the writers’ equipment. I could not see how they got along with so casual a knowledge of French work and, apparently, of much English grounding that I had supposed indispensable. Their stuff seemed to be a daytoday traffic in generalities, hedged by trade considerations. Here I expect I was wrong, but, making my own tests (the man who had asked me out to dinner to discover what I had read gave me the notion), I would ask simple questions, misquote or misattribute my quotations; or (once or twice) invent an author. The result did not increase my reverence. Had they been newspaper men in a hurry, I should have understood; but the gentlemen were presented to me as Priests and Pontiffs. And the generality of them seemed to have followed other trades — in banks or offices — before coming to the Ink; whereas I was free born. It was pure snobism on my part, but it served to keep me inside myself, which is what snobbery is for. I would not today recommend any writer to concern himself overly with reviews. London is a parish, and the Provincial Press has been syndicated, standardised, and smarmed down out of individuality. But there remains still a little fun in that fair. In Manchester was a paper called The Manchester Guardian. Outside the mule-lines I had never met anything that could kick or squeal so continuously, or so completely round the entire compass of things. It suspected me from the first, and when my ‘Imperialistic’ iniquities were established after the Boer War, it used each new book of mine for a shrill recount of my previous sins (exactly as C—— used to do) and, I think,
enjoyed itself. In return I collected and filed its more acid but uncommonly well-written leaders for my own purposes. After many years, I wrote a tale (‘The Wish House’) about a woman of what was called ‘temperament’ who loved a man and who also suffered from a cancer on her leg — the exact situation carefully specified. The review came to me with a gibe on the margin from a faithful friend; ‘You threw up a catch that time!’ The review said that I had revived Chaucer’s Wife of Bath even to the ‘mormal on her shinne.’And it looked just like that too! There was no possible answer, so, breaking my rule not to have commerce with any paper, I wrote to the Manchester Guardian and gave myself ‘out —— caught to leg.’ The reply came from an evident human being (I had thought red-hot linotypes composed their staff) who was pleased with the tribute to his knowledge of Chaucer. Per contra, I have had miraculous escapes in technical matters, which make me blush still. Luckily the men of the seas and the engineroom do not write to the Press, and my worst slip is still underided. The nearest shave that ever missed me was averted by my Daemon. I was at the moment in Canada, where a young Englishman gave me, as a personal experience, a story of a bodysnatching episode in deep snow, perpetrated in some lonely prairie-town and culminating in purest horror. To get it out of the system I wrote it detailedly, and it came away just a shade too good; too well-balanced; too slick. I put it aside, not that I was actively uneasy about it, but I wanted to make sure. Months passed, and I started a tooth which I took to the dentist in the little American town near ‘Naulakha.’ I had to wait a while in his parlour, where I found a file of bound Harper’s Magazines — say six hundred pages to the volume — dating from the ‘fifties. I picked up one, and read as undistractedly as the tooth permitted. There I found my tale, identical in every mark — frozen ground, frozen corpse stiff in its fur robes in the buggy — the inn-keeper offering it a drink — and so on to the ghastly end. Had I published that tale, what could have saved me from the charge of deliberate plagiarism? Note here. Always, in our trade, look a gift horse at both ends and in the middle. He may throw you. But here is a curious case. In the late summer, I think, of ‘13, I was invited to Manoeuvres round Frensham Ponds at Aldershot. The troops were from the Eighth Division of the coming year — Guardsmen, Black Watch, and the rest, down to the horsed maxims — two per battalion. Many of the officers had been juniors in the Boer War, known to Gwynne, one of the guests, and some to me. When the sham fight was developing, the day turned blue-hazy, the sky lowered, and the heat struck like the Karroo, as one scuttled among the heaths, listening to the uncontrolled clang of the musketry fire. It came over me that anything might be afoot in such weather, pompoms for instance, half heard on a flank, or the glint of a helio through a cloud-drift. In short I conceived the whole pressure of our dead of the Boer War flickering and re-forming as the horizon flickered in the heat; the galloping feet of a single horse, and a voice once well-known that passed chanting ribaldry along the flank of a crack battalion. (‘But Winnie is one of the lost — poor dear!’ was that song, if any remember it or its Singer in 1900–1901.) In an interval, while we lay on the grass, I told Gwynne what was in my head; and some officers also listened. The finale was to be manoeuvres abandoned and a hurried calling-off of all arms by badly frightened Commandants — the men themselves sweating with terror though they knew not why. Gwynne played with the notion, and added details of Boer fighting that I did not know; and I remember a young Duke of Northumberland, since dead, who was interested. The notion so obsessed me that I wrote out the beginning at once. But in cold blood it seemed more and more fantastic and absurd, unnecessary and hysterical. Yet, three or four times I took it up and, as many, laid it down. After the War I threw the draft away. It would have done no good, and might have opened the door, and my mail, to unprofitable discussion. For there is a type of mind that dives after what it calls ‘psychical experiences.’ And I am in no way ‘psychic.’ Dealing as I have done with large, superficial areas of incident and occasion, one is bound to make a few lucky hits or happy deductions. But there is no need to drag in the ‘clairvoyance,’ or - Continued on Page 55
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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Page 89
Observer Classic Books From Page 20 the rest of the modern jargon. I have seen too much evil and sorrow and wreck of good minds on the road to Endor to take one step along that perilous track. Once only was I sure that I had ‘passed beyond the bounds of ordinance.’ I dreamt that I stood, in my best clothes, which I do not wear as a rule, one in a line of similarly habited men, in some vast hall, floored with rough jointed stone slabs. Opposite me, the width of the hall, was another line of persons and the impression of a crowd behind them. On my left some ceremony was taking place that I wanted to see, but could not unless I stepped out of my line because the fat stomach of my neighbour on my left barred my vision. At the ceremony’s close, both lines of spectators broke up and moved forward and met, and the great space filled with people. Then a man came up behind me, slipped his hand beneath my arm, and said; ‘I want a word with you.’ I forget the rest; but it had been a perfectly clear dream, and it stuck in my memory. Six weeks or more later, I attended in my capacity of a Member of the War Graves Commission a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, where the Prince of Wales dedicated a plaque to ‘The Million Dead’ of the Great War. We Commissioners lined up facing, across the width of the Abbey Nave, more members of the Ministry and a big body of the public behind them, all in black clothes. I could see nothing of the ceremony because the stomach of the man on my left barred my vision. Then, my eye was caught by the cracks of the stone flooring, and I said to myself ‘But here is where I have been!’ We broke up, both lines flowed forward and met, and the Nave filled with a crowd, through which a man came up and slipped his hand upon my arm saying; ‘I want a word with you, please.’ It was about some utterly trivial matter that I have forgotten. But how, and why, had I been shown an unreleased roll of my life-film? For the sake of the ‘weaker brethren’— and sisters — I made no use of the experience. In respect to verifying one’s references, which is a matter in which one can help one’s Daemon, it is curious how loath a man is to take his own medicine. Once, on a Boxing Day, with hard frost coming greasily out of the ground, my friend, Sir John Bland–Sutton, the head of the College of Surgeons, came down to ‘Bateman’s’ very full of a lecture which he was to deliver on ‘gizzards.’ We were settled before the fire after lunch, when he volunteered that So-and-so had said that if you hold a hen to your ear, you can hear the click in its gizzard of the little pebbles that help its digestion. ‘Interesting,’ said I. ‘He’s an authority.’ ‘Oh yes, but’— a long pause — ‘have you any hens about here, Kipling? ‘I owned that I had, two hundred yards down a lane, but why not accept So-and-so?’ ‘I can’t,’ said John simply, ‘till I’ve tried it.’ Remorselessly, he worried me into taking him to the hens, who lived in an open shed in front of the gardener’s cottage. As we skated over the glairy ground, I saw an eye at the corner of the drawndown Boxing–Day blind, and knew that my character for sobriety would be blasted all over the farms before night-fall. We caught an outraged pullet. John soothed her for a while (he said her pulse was a hundred and twenty-six), and held her to his ear. ‘She clicks all right,’ he announced. ‘Listen.’ I did, and there was click enough for a lecture. ‘Now we can go back to the house,’ I pleaded. ‘Wait a bit. Let’s catch that cock. He’ll click better.’ We caught him after a loud and long chase, and he clicked like a solitaire-board. I went home, my ears alive with parasites, so wrapped up in my own indignation that the fun of it escaped me. It had not been my verification, you see. But John was right. Take nothing for granted if you can check it. Even though that seem wastework, and has nothing to do with the essentials of things, it encourages the Daemon. There are always men who by trade or calling know the fact or the inference that you put forth. If you are wrong by a hair in this, they argue ‘False in one thing, false in all.’ Having sinned, I know. Likewise, never play down to your public — not because some of them do not deserve it, but because it is bad for your hand. All your material is drawn from the lives of men. Remember, then, what David did with the water brought to him in the heat of battle. And, if it be in your power, bear serenely with imitators. My Jungle Books begat Zoos of them. But the genius of all the genii was one who wrote a series called Tarzan of the Apes. I read it, but
regret I never saw it on the films, where it rages most successfully. He had ‘jazzed’ the motif of the Jungle Books and, I imagine, had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was reported to have said that he wanted to find out how bad a book he could write and ‘get away with,’ which is a legitimate ambition. Another case was verses of the sort that are recited. An Edinburgh taxi-driver in the War told me that they were much in vogue among the shelters and was honoured to meet me, their author. Afterwards, I found that they were running neck-and-neck with ‘Gunga Din’ in the military go-as-you-pleases and on the Lower Deck, and were always ascribed to my graceful hand. They were called ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.’ They described an English Colonel and his daughter at Khatmandhu in Nepal where there was a military Mess; and her lover of the name of ‘mad Carew’ which rhymed comfortably. The refrain was more or less ‘And the green-eyed yellow Idol looking down.’ It was luscious and rampant, with a touch, I thought, of the suburban Toilet–Club school favoured by the late Mr. Oscar Wilde. Yet, and this to me was the Devil of it, it carried for one reader an awesome suggestion of ‘but for the Grace of God there goes Richard Baxter.’ (Refer again to the hairdresser’s model which so moved Mr. Dent Pitman.) Whether the author had done it out of his own head, or as an inspired parody of the possibilities latent in a fellow-craftsman, I do not know. But I admired him. Occasionally one could test a plagiarist. I had to invent a tree, with name to match, for a man who at that time was rather riding in my pocket. In about eighteen months — the time it takes for a ‘test’ diamond, thrown over the wires into a field of ‘blue’ rock, to turn up on the Kimberley sorting-tables — my tree appeared in his ‘nature-studies’ name as spelt by me and virtues attributed. Since in our trade we be all felons, more or less, I repented when I had caught him, but not too much. And I would charge you for the sake of your daily correspondence, never to launch a glittering generality, which an older generation used to call ‘Tupperism.’ Long ago I stated that ‘East was East and West was West and never the twain should meet.’ It seemed right, for I had checked it by the card, but I was careful to point out circumstances under which cardinal points ceased to exist. Forty years rolled on, and for a fair half of them the excellent and uplifted of all lands would write me, apropos of each new piece of broad-minded folly in India, Egypt, or Ceylon, that East and West had met — as, in their muddled minds, I suppose they had. Being a political Calvinist, I could not argue with these condemned ones. But their letters had to be opened and filed. Again. I wrote a song called ‘Mandalay’ which, tacked to a tune with a swing, made one of the waltzes of that distant age. A private soldier reviews his loves and, in the chorus, his experiences in the Burma campaign. One of his ladies lives at Moulmein, which is not on the road to anywhere, and he describes the amour with some minuteness, but always in his chorus deals with ‘the road to Mandalay,’ his golden path to romance. The inhabitants of the United States, to whom I owed most of the bother, ‘Panamaed’ that song (this was before copyright), set it to their own tunes, and sang it in their own national voices. Not content with this, they took to pleasure cruising, and discovered that Moulmein did not command any view of any sun rising across the Bay of Bengal. They must have interfered too with the navigation of the Irrawaddy Flotilla steamers, for one of the Captains S.O.S.-ed me to give him ‘something to tell these somethinged tourists about it.’ I forget what word I sent, but I hoped it might help. Had I opened the chorus of the song with ‘Oh’ instead of ‘On the road,’ etc., it might have shown that the song was a sort of general mix-up of the singer’s Far–Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal as seen at dawn from a troop-ship taking him there. But ‘On’ in this case was more singable than ‘Oh.’ That simple explanation may stand as a warning. Lastly — and this got under my skin because it touched something that mattered — when, after the Boer War, there seemed an off chance of introducing conscription into England, I wrote verses called ‘The Islanders’ which, after a few days’ newspaper correspondence, were dismissed as violent, untimely, and untrue. In them I had suggested that it was unwise to ‘grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth.’ In
the immediate next lines I described the life to which the year of service was grudged as:— Ancient, effortless, ordered — cycle on cycle set — Life so long untroubled that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains; it is not one with the deep. Men, not Gods, devised it. Men, not Gods, must keep. In a very little while it was put about that I had said that ‘a year of compulsory service’ would be ‘effortless, ordered,’ etc. etc.— with the rider that I didn’t know much about it. This perversion was perversified by a man who ought to have known better; and I suppose I should have known that it was part of the ‘effortless, ordered’ drift towards Armageddon. You ask; ‘Why inflict on us legends of your Middle Ages?’ Because in life as in literature, its sole enduring record, is no age. Men and Things come round again, eternal as the seasons. But, attacking or attacked, so long as you have breath, on no provocation explain. What you have said may be justified by things or some man, but never take a hand in a ‘dog-fight’ that opens ‘My attention has been drawn to,’ etc. I came near to breaking this Law with Punch, an institution I always respected for its continuity and its utter Englishdom, and from whose files I drew my modern working history. I had written during the Boer War a set of verses based on unofficial criticisms of many serious junior officers. (Incidentally they contained one jewel of a line that opened ‘And which it may subsequently transpire’— a galaxy of words I had long panted to place in the literary firmament.) Nobody loved them, and indeed they were not conciliatory; but Punch took them rather hard. This was a pity because Punch would have been useful at that juncture. I knew none of its staff, but I asked questions and learned that Punch on this particular issue was — non-Aryan ‘and German at that.’ It is true that the Children of Israel are ‘people of the Book,’ and in the second Surah of the Koran Allah is made to say; ‘High above mankind have I raised you.’ Yet, later, in the fifth Surah, it is written; ‘Oft as they kindle a beacon-fire for war, shall God quench it. And their aim will be to abet disorder on the earth but God loveth not the abettors of disorder.’ More important still, my bearer in Lahore never announced our good little Jew tyler but he spat loudly and openly in the verandah. I swallowed my spittle at once. Israel is a race to leave alone. It abets disorder. Many years later, during the War, The Times, with which I had had no dealings for a dozen years or so, was ‘landed’ with what purported to be some verses by me, headed ‘The Old Volunteer.’ They had been sent in by a Sunday mail with some sort of faked postmark and without any covering letter. They were stamped with a rubber-stamp from the village office, they were written on an absolutely straight margin, which is beyond my powers, and in an unEuropean fist. (I had never since typewriters began sent out press-work unless it was typed.) From my point of view the contribution should not have deceived a messenger-boy. Ninthly and lastly, they were wholly unintelligible. Human nature being what it is, The Times was much more annoyed with me than anyone else, though goodness knows — this, remember, was in ‘17 — I did not worry them about it, beyond hinting that the usual week-end English slackness, when no one is in charge, had made the mess. They took the matter up with the pomp of the Public Institution which they were, and submitted the MS. to experts, who proved that it must be the work of a man who had all but ‘spoofed’ The Times about some fragments of Keats. He happened to be an old friend of mine, and when I told him of his magnified ‘characteristic’ letters, and the betraying slopes at which they lay — his, as I pointed out, ‘very C’s and U’s and T’s,’ he was wrath and, being a poet, swore a good deal that if he could not have done a better parody of my ‘stuff’ with his left hand he would retire from business. This I believed, for, on the heels of my modest disclaimer which appeared, none too conspicuously, in The Times, I had had a letter in a chaffing vein about ‘The Old Volunteer’from a non-Aryan who never much appreciated me; and the handwriting of it, coupled with the subtlety of choosing a weekend (as the Hun had chosen August Bank Holiday of ‘14) for the work, plus the Oriental detachedness and insensitiveness of playing that sort of game in the heart of a life-and-death struggle, made me suspect him more than a little. He is now in Abraham’s bosom, so I shall never know. But The Times seemed very happy with
its enlarged letters, and measurements of the alphabet, and — there really was a war on which filled my days and nights. Then The Times sent down a detective to my home. I didn’t see the drift of this, but naturally was interested. And It was a Detective out of a book, down to the very creaks of Its boots. (On the human side at lunch It knew a lot about second-hand furniture.) Officially, It behaved like all the detectives in the literature of that period. Finally, It settled Itself, back to the light, facing me at my work-table, and told me a long yarn about a man who worried the Police with complaints of anonymous letters addressed to him from unknown sources, all of which, through the perspicacity of the Police, turned out to have been written by himself to himself for the purpose of attracting notoriety. As in the case of the young man on the Canadian train, that tale felt as though it had come out of a magazine of the ‘sixties; and I was so interested in its laborious evolution that I missed its implication till quite the end. Then I got to thinking of the psychology of the detective, and what a gay life of plots It must tramp through; and of the psychology of The Times-ina-hole, which is where no one shows to advantage; and of how Moberly Bell, whose bows I had crossed in the old days, would have tackled the matter; what Buckle, whom I loved for his sincerity and gentlehood, would have thought of it all. Thus I forgot to defend my ‘injured honour.’ The thing had passed out of reason into the Higher Hysterics. What could I do but offer It some more sherry and thank It for a pleasant interview? I have told this at length because Institutions of idealistic tendencies sometimes wait till a man is dead, and then furnish their own evidence. Should this happen, try to believe that in the deepest trough of the War I did not step aside to play with The Times, Printing House Square, London, E.C. In the come-and-go of family talk there was often discussion as to whether I could write a ‘real novel.’ The Father thought that the setting of my work and life would be against it, and Time justified him. Now here is a curious thing. At the Paris Exhibition of 1878 I saw, and never forgot, a picture of the death of Marion Lescaut, and asked my Father many questions. I read that amazing ‘one book’ of the Abbé Prévost, in alternate slabs with Scarron’s Roman Comique, when I was about eighteen, and it brought up the picture. My theory is that a germ lay dormant till my change of life to London (though that is not Paris) woke it up, and that The Light that Failed was a sort of inverted, metagrobolised phantasmagoria based on Manon. I was confirmed in my belief when the French took to that conte with relish, and I always fancied that it walked better in translation than in the original. But it was only a conte — not a built book. Kim, of course, was nakedly picaresque and plotless — a thing imposed from without. Yet I dreamed for many years of building a veritable three-decker out of chosen and longstored timber-teak, green-heart, and ten-year-old oak knees — each curve melting deliciously into the next that the sea might nowhere meet resistance or weakness; the whole suggesting motion even when, her great sails for the moment furled, she lay in some needed haven — a vessel ballasted on ingots of pure research and knowledge, roomy, fitted with delicate cabinet-work belowdecks, painted, carved, gilt and wreathed the length of her, from her blazing stern-galleries outlined by bronzy palm-trunks, to her rampant figure-head — an East Indiaman worthy to lie alongside The Cloister and the Hearth. Not being able to do this, I dismissed the ambition as ‘beneath the thinking mind.’ So does a half-blind man dismiss shooting and golf. Nor did I live to see the day when the new threedeckers should hoist themselves over the horizon, quivering to their own power, over-loaded with bars, ball-rooms, and insistent chromium plumbing; hellishly noisy from the sports’ deck to the barber’s shop; but serving their generation as the old craft served theirs. The young men were already laying down the lines of them, fondly believing that the old laws of design and construction were for them abrogated. And with what tools did I work in my own mouldloft? I had always been choice, not to say coquettish in this respect. In Lahore for my Plain Tales I used a slim, octagonal-sided, agate penholder with a Waverley nib. It was a gift, and when in an evil hour it snapped I was much disturbed. Then followed a procession of im
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Page 90 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, December 7, 2011
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From Page 89 personal hirelings each with a Waverley, and next a silver penholder with a quill-like curve, which promised well but did not perform. In Villiers Street I got me an outsize office pewter ink-pot, on which I would gouge the names of the tales and books I wrote out of it. But the housemaids of married life polished those titles away till they grew as faded as a palimpsest. I then abandoned hand-dipped Waverleys — a nib I never changed — and for years wallowed in the pin-pointed ‘stylo’ and its successor the ‘fountain’ which for me meant geyser-pens. In later years I clung to a slim, smooth, black treasure (Jael was her office name) which I picked up in Jerusalem. I tried pump-pens with glass insides, but they were of ‘intolerable entrails.’ For my ink I demanded the blackest, and had I been in my Father’s house, as once I was, would have kept an ink-boy to grind me Indian-ink. All ‘blue-blacks’ were an abomination to my Daemon, and I never found a bottled vermilion fit to rubricate initials when one hung in the wind waiting. My writing-blocks were built for me to an unchanged pattern of large, off-white, blue sheets, of which I was most wasteful. All this oldmaiderie did not prevent me when abroad from buying and using blocks, and tackle, in any country. With a lead pencil I ceased to express — probably because I had to use a pencil in reporting. I took very few notes except of names, dates, and addresses. If a thing didn’t stay in my memory, I argued it was hardly worth writing out. But each man has his own method. I rudely drew what I wanted to remember. Like most men who ply one trade in one place for any while, I always kept certain gadgets on my work-table, which was ten feet long from North to South and badly congested. One was a long, lacquer, canoe-shaped pen-tray full of brushes and dead ‘fountains’; a wooden box held clips and bands; another, a tin one, pins; yet another, a bottle-slider, kept all manner of unneeded essentials from emery-paper to small screwdrivers; a paper-weight, said to have been Warren Hastings’ a tiny, weighted fur-seal and a leather crocodile sat on some of the papers; an inky foot-rule and a Father of Penwipers which a much-loved housemaid of ours pre
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sented yearly, made up the main-guard of these little fetishes. My treatment of books, which I looked upon as tools of my trade, was popularly regarded as barbarian. Yet I economised on my multitudinous penknives, and it did no harm to my forefinger. There were books which I respected, because they were put in locked cases. The others, all the house over, took their chances. Left and right of the table were two big globes, on one of which a great airman had once outlined in white paint those air-routes to the East and Australia which were well in use before my death. ■ Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936) was an English author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai), he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book [1894] (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim [1901] (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King [1888]; and his poems, including Mandalay [1890], Gunga Din [1890], and If— [1910]. He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author Henry James said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient. Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined. Later in life Kipling came to be recognized (by George Orwell, at least) as a "prophet of British imperialism."
Observer Crossword Solution No 30 C C A B B K I N E O W E L E R D G E E A R T S H M K O V S E W R A L L L O M W A T D E R U N A L I L L Y L J U U D A G E N D A M I K N G
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