Marriage and poll results

Would you still change your name?
Yes 25% No 33%

I never did change my name?
29%

For ease and benefit to children?
4%

Depends on husband's thoughts?
0% (Haha, you might take his name, but he does not control you)

Marriage bah humbug?
8% (I like you girlfriend)

Weddings cost a motza. Nephew's wedding last year cost around $30,000 and that was using their own venue. I can't imagine what it costs to have a wedding and reception at a posh place, such as the historic building The Willows, very near to us in St Kilda Road, or the just as historic, Butleigh Wootten in Kew. My ABI Brother has been to a wedding there, and I reckon Hels might have.

Our neighbour, The Senator, married his last wife at The Willows. The business has gone broke. Butleigh Wootton is up for mortgagee auction, so I assume the wedding company business within went bust. Wow, I did not know of the underworld connection to Mick Gatto.

So, in spite of huge wedding costs, companies aren't making enough money to survive or are badly managed.

The Willows, taken by me in 2005.

Butleigh Wootton, from the Australian Financial Review.

Funny Friday

To set the weekend off to a good start, how about a little humour I found around the traps.

I may have used this before. Photoshop work, I expect.

Good to see gays are right up there with communists, hippies, rock musicians and especially good to be up there with Obama. Oh, Aztecs? Something to do with the end of the world, was it?

We haven't from Leader Mr Kim Jong-un since the meeting with Trumpet. I wonder if he is relaxing with a glow of self satisfaction and smugness.

To watch his weight my grandfather used to eat the rather dry and tasteless Ryvita, with jam and cream.

We'll dig here Time Team

The building of Melbourne's newest rail tunnel seems to proceeding at the planned furious snail's pace. Building were knocked down in our main street in the city, Swanston Street, both at the northern and southern ends. The southern end, and I should think the northern end too, has been turned into an archaeology dig. I am very doubtful any Roman coins or sandals will be found but who knows how far the Roman Empire stretched.

Actually, I was amazed to learn from Twitter today that an Australian cockatoo was given to an Arab Prince or someone like that in the 13th century, meaning that trade with Australian Aborigines, or contact at least, has been happening for a very long time. So much for Terra Nullius.

Back to the dig. A nice little window allows people to peer into where people are earnestly and carefully.....digging, coz that's what arkayolgists do. (I am ill educated and tired of checking spellings)

At the site is an information sign, informing readers that is was one of the earliest areas of European occupation. John Batman bought the the land that went on to become Melbourne. Batman built a seven room timber home on the site. By 1838 it had become Miss Cook's Seminary for Ladies, a boarding school, attended by Batman's own three daughters. In the 1850s more substantial brick and timber buildings were constructed and were occupied by various businesses over many years. As far as I know, there was nothing about the buildings demolished that was historic or even nice.

Mohamed supplies. Just reported the day after I wrote the post, several dice have been found. Some are made of ivory and some of animal bone. Gambling has always been a problem in Australia, and it seems it began very early. No Roman coins, as yet.

Bridge victim update

I wrote about the Montague Street Bridge a couple of years ago, here. It's a low rail bridge with vehicles travelling underneath. Cars fit under easily but many other vehicles do not.

In spite of this alert protection being fitted, the bridge is still occasionally hit. Photo from the Herald Sun.

A new bridge has taken over the role of decapitating vans and other vehicles, the Napier Street Bridge in Footscray. In the latest Napier Street Bridge's case, a container was dislodged from a truck.

But the dear old Monty still scores occasionally, as it did twelve days ago, according to the website How Many Days Since the Montague Street Bridge Was Hit. In this case the glazier's van turned from a minor side street and did not approach using Montague Street where the warning system is, and bang, gotcha. As far as I know, the bridge has a perfect score, never having been substantially damaged but damaging many vehicles. I remember the poor old couple who drove off the Spirit of Tasmania ferry in their brand new campervan and nearly took the top off it.

Of course the US 11'8'' Bridge in Durham, NC is still scoring, with its latest victim being a military truck with some secret equipment damaged in March, the bridge's fourth victim for this year. It's a good site because it has video of the crashes.

Even advertising companies have picked up on our Montague Street Bridge.

Happy Pride Toronto

It must be Pride March in Toronto today. This photo popped up in my Old Reader feed. The world loves the stylish and get along with people Jussy, but hates Donnie who gets along with no one of the world except a manic dictator in North Korea and a scarily powerful dictator in Russia . Oi vey, Jussy is handsome, but I think he is dying his hair. If I only think that, then it is a good dye job.

As a newish Canadian PM, Jussy marched in Toronto's Pride March a couple of  years ago. Didn't he look just so lovely (Justin dressed by Margaret T, Justin styled by Margaret T, Justin public behaviour in a Pride March, advised by Margaret T. Make sure you are seen to be having fun, son).

Very many years ago, like a two decades ago,  I chatted on IRC to a young gay bloke in Montreal. Well, I was a bit young then too. He said, rephrased, that in their brief summer, sex comes to the fore and people there root like dogs on heat after their long and cold winter. I shouldn't mention rooting and Jussy in the same post as doing so makes me feel quite faint. Where are my smelling salts?

NB. Dear American readers, perhaps you understand that if you mention that you have been rooting for your team, that older Australians might have a little snigger.

Optus v SBS

A rough post prepared earlier. Sunday was very busy.

I don't love SBS, our partly funded by government tv station. Well not like I love our fully funded by government ABC. Once again the Liberal Party (conservative) has attacked our ABC by voting to privatise the ABC. Spokespeople for the Liberal Party are backtracking, but also saying that the ABC needs to be more fair.........to the Liberal Party's was of thinking. No surprise there.

I don't know about soccer but I do know about failure. Optus, a Singaporean owned telecommunication company, bought the rights to broadcast most of the World Cup Soccer/Football to Australia via the internet and I guess a pay tv cable station. SBS could not afford the rights but did have the rights to some matches. Optus failed with its broadcast because of technical issues and has pretty well handed over the rights to broadcast all of the soccer to SBS.

One thing stuck me about this. What is Optus phone coverage compared to SBS broadcast coverage? I am thinking people in the country are not able to watch unless in the unlikely event they have Optus coverage and of course have to pay for it. I suspect SBS covers a much larger area. Why is the World Cup not a government protected sporting event that should be available to all on free to air tv, like so many other sporting events?

Meanwhile I am very happy with my Aldi phone plan, that gives me access to Telstra's network for $25 per month with pretty well unlimited calls, texts and data. Ok, data is limited to 4 GB per month. I use about 400 MB, not much, and unused rolls over to the next month. It is so nice to not have to worry about what you are doing with your phone.

I believe that SBS has much wider coverage over Australia than does Optus. Politicians make lip service about looking after 'the bush', but do they actually do so? This one is a pretty simple and obvious way they don't.

Sunday Selections

River will have a Sunday Selections up, as will Elephant's Child. I haven't done one for a while but now I have accumulated enough random photos not used elsewhere.

All will become clear in time but we were in a bathroom showroom looking at facilities. Can you imagine sitting on this each morning? No, me either.

Substantial residential accommodation at Malvern Station. Perhaps for the Station Master. I wonder what it is used for now. Later edit: I have just realised that behind what you can see are the walkways from the street to the platform ramps.

Some interesting information at the Beechworth Honey Shop. (hope I haven't used this before)

I expect a truck with a trailer turned too tightly. There is no rush to fix this, so the telecommunication connections within must still be working alright.

A subject of my photography yelled at me. Man, I don't like having my photo takien. I replied, Well, there goes your couple of dollars in your collection hat. He then started ranting at me. Let me tell you, I well and truly took him on as I beat a hasty retreat. I mean really, you dress like that and perform, not terribly well, in public, and you have a problem with public photography? I should have turned on the flash in my camera and gone in close, but he seemed to be a very cross man. The pop up park at the bottom of Elizabeth Street has gone, though the area is still closed to traffic. Did the the pop up park become a hang out for undesirables? Certainly plenty of undesirables hang around there, outside Coles supermarket.

Maybe I have mentioned that we live in a very busy area. Cars, trucks, trams, buses, vans, and even more cars.

Missed when I posted photos of Docklands.  I quite like the photo.

The trouble with keeping photos for too long is that you forget where you took them. A house with a little tower has always appealed to me.

Towards the top right is a darker brown fleck in the benchtop. There are just a few of these in the benchtop. Is it two years or three since we had the kitchen renovated? That is at least two years of me futilely trying to sweep these 'crumbs' into the sink.

Sea fog on Port Phillip.

I haven't seen many balloons of late, but these two sailed past recently, quite close.

Maples was a furniture store with various showrooms spread around the inner suburbs and one in the city. It is just a memory now, but the name lives on in various places. This one is in Clarendon Street, South Melbourne.

Day one, anticipation. Day two, they are opening. Day three, perfection. Day four, sadness. The heating kills off the iris quickly.

As I do on a day off, I wake and prop myself up in bed with my tablet. I was struggling to see the screen. My glasses must be dirty. I got up and cleaned one lens with a tissue and discovered the other lens had fallen out. I put on my slightly stronger 'bathroom' glasses. I subsequently searched high and low for the lens, checking pockets, besides the lounge chair cushions, behind my bed, in my bed, everywhere. I could not find the lens.

It was time to get out the shoe box and find a pair of serviceable glasses at the right strength. Some were missing nose pads, some were too weak, a couple of pair were broken. I narrowed it down to four pair that I could use. From the rest I took off what nose pads remained and used them on the four pair I was keeping and I have some spare nose pads now. I threw the rest away, including my old pair missing the lens.

Lo and behold, even though I checked my shirt pocket, there I did come across my missing lens. Oh well, I have thrown the glasses out now, so not point keeping it, so I will now throw the lens away.

Except I didn't throw away the old glasses. The new glasses I chose were too small and kept falling off. I looked for a better pair, and found the old ones, missing the lens. So I hadn't thrown out the glasses, but I had now certainly thrown out the missing lens. R kindly suggested I should buy a new pair. I nearly smacked him in the gob. I've got nothing on our friend, the late Dame M, who had 57 pair of glasses. Her boarder, the late Jasmine, counted them one day. Mother has rather a lot too. The difference is I have only ever paid about $5 for each pair of mine.