town and country real and unreal

(tt)  Here is country unreal. This is the mock up setting for Act 2 of "Earnest"

 Oh and I had my wig fitting and Yurga is making me a new one especially.  I tried a variety of old stock on and looked like everything from Robyn Nevin in "The Doll"  to an old blond creepo from "Midwich Cuckoos" Simon praised the look of me bald-pated and silver and said..""Now that's Chasuble" He saw my whole spirit sink and agreed to let me try one re-jigged. Then it seemed there was time for a complete make and so in ten days we will know if Chas is luxuriantly lush as an English meadow  or as smooth as the duck pond in December.

I had lunch in the shade of  strange Melbourne Square buildings

These look out over the Yarra to Southbank and the rowing clubs.

 An annual get together called "Moomba" happens each year. It is an excuse for a parade at the head of which a local celebrity is crowned and everyone pretends The Queen has come to town. Sometimes that is true.
The head float is succeeded by a variety of others in varying degrees of taste, interspersed with marching bands, leggy cheerleaders and ballet girls with lots of blue eye shadow from the local dancing schools. There was a rumour that the indigenous people of the region were asked to provide a suitable  name for a celebration and a witty elder provide them with moomba, which secretly he knew means "bum". Once Sheldon and I were trapped walking upstream of the frenzied suburban revellers and we wrote a song entitled, "The Lemmings Of Moomba".  Anyway they have a water skiing competion on this stretch of the river which is so fun.

I'm still not sure what I think about this meeting place. It is certainly a success but then agian there is huge variety of places within it in which to get drunk.
 I don't know if I am being "Emperor's New Clothes" ......

...but if I were being a bit snide I'd say it is a cross between Ayers Rock and a  collapsed shearing shed.
What is clear is that a lot of ugly rip-offs of the style are appearing round Melbourne and they really are ugly as sin.
Another of those Festival devil babies

positioned exactly to make obeyance

 to this

 The moorish twenties movie palace once called "The State". It is now a venue. I use the word with contempt.

The promised Flinders St station

 "Meechunda the clocks" is still a catchphrase

The heritage listed Young and Jackson's hotel. This is immortalised in "The Doll" as the watering hole for the traitrous Barney and Johnny O'Dowd.

 The painting "Chloe", once for male eyes only, is ensconced here

And now on the train and heading for Bairnsdale in south east Victoria. These were from the window of the train and I had the rotten luck of being in the only seat with a wall! So I had to zoom in between a curtain and the seat in front!

 This is grazing country and conservation and land management is at last returning the soil from tragic over use and fertilization
 And this is the first view I had this morning from the front veranda of my sister's home on Lake King

They designed and built and OWN it at last!!!