Australia

[Akhenaten]

This is the Opera House with the awesome knob turned all the way up to 11:

Vivid Sydney 2013 - Sydney Opera House

​

 

[Sideroxylon]

Wow.

 

[gumboot]

So it's looking promising for a visit to Sydney for a week and a half at the end of November. Assuming I can sort some accommodation. I look forward to a proper look around on my days off (last time I only spent an afternoon in the city).

 

[Shiner]

So it's looking promising for a visit to Sydney for a week and a half at the end of November. Assuming I can sort some accommodation. I look forward to a proper look around on my days off (last time I only spent an afternoon in the city).

We'll see if we can put these fires out before then.

 

[Shiner]

Vegemite is 90 years old today!

Hip, hip, hooray!

​

1922

* A young chemist named Dr. Cyril P Callister, hired by the Fred Walker Company, develops a remarkable and distinguished new spread from brewer’s yeast.

* It’s appealing taste is backed up by its credentials as being one of the world’s richest known sources of natural Vitamin B.

* It is sold in a two ounce (57g) amber glass jar, capped with what was known as a Phoenix seal, to keep the contents fresh.

* It is labelled ‘Pure Vegetable Extract’.

1923

* Fred Walker runs a competition inviting the Australian public to create a name for the new spread. A prize of 50 pounds – a sizeable sum for that era – is placed into a prize pool for finalists.

*Hundreds of people enter. Fred Walker’s daughter selects the winning name: VEGEMITE.
The name of the winning entrant is not placed on record.

* VEGEMITE spread begins being sold from grocers’ shelves.
It is described as delicious on sandwiches and toast, and as improving the flavour of soups, stews and gravies.

* Its flavour and nutritional qualities do not catch on with the Australian public.
Initial sales are slow.

Vegemite's interactive heritage timeline.

 

[Akhenaten]

Serving Suggestion​

 

[Damien Evans]

This thread should now be closed for crimes against humanity.

 

[Shiner]

This thread should now be closed for crimes against humanity.

Reported. Un-Australian.

 

[Shiner]

I love how Vegemite used to come in a boot polish tin. Multi purpose spread.

 

[Prometheus]

It's actually not bad as a boot polish, though I much prefer the smell of stinky feet to that of Vegemite.

 

[Huttosaurus]

Vegemite, one of Australia's finest contributions to the world. I have some on my toast most mornings, although my wife and daughter have an irrational preference for Marmite. When the NZ factory for the latter was shut down after the Christchurch earthquake it was quite hard for some to deal with

 

[Huttosaurus]

and it's as beautiful as ever . . .​

This pic doesn't look right to me, as in there are things not being reflected that possibly ought to be.

 

[KDLarsen]

Spoilered as it's a bit large, but I can't unsee it now that I've seen it..

 

[Akhenaten]

Kewl!

 

[KDLarsen]

My only night in Wagga was many years ago, when we stayed with one of my wife's bridesmaid. It was thought to be a good idea if I went out with her husband and his mates to the pub. At the end of an otherwise unmemorable time, I asked what was on now. "Looking for a fight" was the response. Standard fare on a Saturday night I found.

As a foreign student in Wagga, living in The Rock meant I only went out twice during my 5 month stay. The first time, I felt the trouble brewing, so I left early and went to my teacher's home (I had arranged I could sleep there), but a classmate of mine got a black eye and a broken nose.

At the "end of stay"-party, we stayed at the place the party was held until time to catch the XPT at 3 am. Thankfully the party was right next to the train station, so we avoided the trouble, but apparently another classmate got a black eye..

The one party we went to in The Rock was after The Rock-Yerong Creek won the local footie league Grand Final. Cheap beers all around - even the trophy got filled at one point I still have the game ball (and the final ball from the touch rugby league we played in) somewhere, the local teams were kind enough to give them to me as going away presents

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Director and screenwriter Scott Hicks has been presented with the Don Dunstan Award for his contribution to cinema.

Hicks says is touched by the recognition.​

I worked with Scott Hicks. Scott Hicks doesn't list them, but he also directed a handful of military documentary series for Beyond Ltd, the Aussie production company who currently produce Mythbusters. I guess the shows were too artistic for History Channel and not artistic enough for other channels.

Great Wall of Iron : The PLA (1989)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109541/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Submarines: Sharks of Steel (1993)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0220785/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

What was interesting in shooting in China in 1989 was fax machines. The military had working fax machines. To get access to their fax machines you would take the senior PLA officers "banqueting" at each location. The documentary crew "ate their way" across China. I thought this was a more interesting story than the actual PLA. The crew would be taken to look at a senior officer's personal garden display then sit down for a meal while the cameraman films every missile on the base without being bothered. ​

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Then you get films like "Wake in Fright" that combine elements of both.

That was an eye-opener when I saw it a couple of years ago, not so much for the dramatic elements, but the close to documentary pub scenes, filled with people who aren't acting. It was only on seeing those that I got a clear impression of what the "Six o'clock swill" here in NZ must have looked and sounded like.

I absolutely agree. "Wake in Fright" is one of the best Australian Films ever. Modern Aussies should watch it to get an understanding of 30 years ago. The "six o'clock swill" was an important part of Australian social evolution that just vanished.

 

[Akhenaten]

Another piece of the Eureka puzzle found

Today marks the 159th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, and this Eureka Day, Queenslander Adrian Millane has come forward to lend a part of his family’s history to one of Australia’s most iconic events.​

Adrian Millane with his family heirloom - a piece of the Eureka Flag
(Image supplied by The Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka)​

My great grandfather, Francis William Joseph Breen Hanlon—a good Irish Catholic name if you’d ever heard one—and [Stockade leader Peter] Lalor were very close friends.

Hanlon had great respect for Lalor who was about seven years his elder. [He] was given a little snippet of blue cloth about the size of a couple of dominos.

He kept this cloth as a treasured relic and his daughter Gertrude, when Francis died, kept it also as a relic. My family doesn’t throw much away.

That little snippet of blue cloth was part of the Eureka Flag—one of Australia’s most enduring emblems.

Here's a five-minute video about the flag from Screen Australia's National Treasures series.

http://www.nfsa.gov.au/digitallearning/heritage/eureka.html​

The fragment has been in Mr Millane's family for some 140 years, having been entrusted to him by his Aunt Dorothy.

It was pinned to an old postcard. My old aunty wrote on the back of it, "piece of Eureka flag", and she kept it in a beautiful little oak cigar box.

The piece of cloth was sent to a laboratory in South Australia to be rigorously analysed by its fibres, DNA fragments, thread count, colour and dye type of the material, and it came back a match.​

Read More​

 

[gumboot]

I have been enjoying my three week stay in Sydney, and even managed to get a bit of touristy things done. Unfortunately at the moment you're trying to shoot out Tom Hardy so I'm not seeing much of anything except the inside of Fox Studios sound stages.

Even then, however, I get a taste of some Australian culture. Nestled alongside the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sydney Football Stadium, Fox Studios was once the Sydney Show Ground, and while new sound stages have been built, many of the buildings and facilities are the original exhibition halls from that past, including the cavernous Stage One, which was once the main exhibition hall.

From 1882 until 1997, the Show Grounds hosted the Sydney Royal Easter Show, but the site's history is not limited to agricultural pursuits. The world's first ever game of Rugby League was played at the Show Grounds, as was the first Ashes test on Australian soil.

 

[Brainache]

I have been enjoying my three week stay in Sydney, and even managed to get a bit of touristy things done. Unfortunately at the moment you're trying to shoot out Tom Hardy so I'm not seeing much of anything except the inside of Fox Studios sound stages.

Even then, however, I get a taste of some Australian culture. Nestled alongside the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sydney Football Stadium, Fox Studios was once the Sydney Show Ground, and while new sound stages have been built, many of the buildings and facilities are the original exhibition halls from that past, including the cavernous Stage One, which was once the main exhibition hall.

From 1882 until 1997, the Show Grounds hosted the Sydney Royal Easter Show, but the site's history is not limited to agricultural pursuits. The world's first ever game of Rugby League was played at the Show Grounds, as was the first Ashes test on Australian soil.

Yep. The Easter Show was never the same after they moved it to Homebush.

They had to do something though, crowds and traffic were ridiculous.