The Culture Vulture
04/06/2016 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIt's been a most magical day until the last 20 minutes attempting to establish a working Portkey to Cyberia. Feeling most cranky and frustrated and wishing I had just stayed slinking outside in the garden sniffing the orange blossoms and sipping shiraz.
The big news of the day is the death of Muhammed Ali the boxer. There goes another childhood hero along with David Bowie, Prince and Alan Rickman (technically he counts as a hero of my second childhood ;))
Even as a flobberworm I had a soft spot for folks who gave two fingers to the boss and MA did that in spades. No one could ever accuse him of being a gutless wimp for refusing to sign up for the Vietnam war. That was likely precisely the reason it pissed them off so much. And there was just no comeback from his justification "No Viet Cong ever called me "Nigger""
It was so sad to see him in his twilight years shuffling around like some sad zombie after so many years of boxing brilliance. It is amazing he survived as long as he did given that his brain must have been long ago shaken to a pulp.
There's all sorts of folks out there calling themselves "The Greatest" but very few can ever back it up these days.
Been pigging out on events at an annual heritage festival in the port town of Fremantle which is about 40 minutes from the Lair by bus.
It's a gorgeous town and rather old by Oz standards. It's got far more character than downtown Dursleyville but unfortunately the place is dying and dependent almost completely on tourism since we no longer make very much in this bit of Australia.
It's the same everywhere. The wierd and twisted bohemian sorts make a place vibrant and interesting and suddenly the goblins and yuppies take notice and start swarming in. The artistic sort then get priced out and these days even mainstream businesses are struggling with the ridiculous rents. So of course the artists move on and the whole cycle begins again. Meanwhile what they leave behind usually becomes dull, colourless and rather boring.
In the old days I used to take two weeks holiday to coincide with the festival and just pig out on a feast of fascinating events most of which are free.
Since most of them are on the weekends, it was necessary then but not so much now. Was even lucky enough to get Friday off due to the day job having scheduled downtime for programming. That was perfect timing and just the excuse needed to sign up for the University of Notre Dame historical buildings tour.
From collections of old tools, telephones and prams to grand tours of historical hotels and prisons, it's been a wonderful and most magical week.
Tomorrow they will be tweeking the Time Turner and bringing part of the old town back to the 1960s. There will be only 1960s cars parked along the street and the handful of shops left are draping themselves in the decor of the appropriate vintage. They are also asking visitors to drag out their old 1960s rags for the occasion.
Was a good green fingered creature today and did lots of planting and pottering in the garden before slinking off for the afternoon to the old lunatic asylum to catch the tram for a special heritage festival tour of the town with the history of old buildings and stories of the ones that did not survive the grasping claws of rampaging developers and greedy councillors.
That's what I so miss about Europe. I was happy to spend hours pottering around the canals of Amsterdam just drooling over the gorgeous buildings and Germany is filled with lovely old towns with rickety bockety cobbled streets and wonderful wooden houses like you only see here on chocolate boxes.
It's time to slink off to the serpent sack. There's Time Turner's to be tweeked and weeds to be nibbled.
The big news of the day is the death of Muhammed Ali the boxer. There goes another childhood hero along with David Bowie, Prince and Alan Rickman (technically he counts as a hero of my second childhood ;))
Even as a flobberworm I had a soft spot for folks who gave two fingers to the boss and MA did that in spades. No one could ever accuse him of being a gutless wimp for refusing to sign up for the Vietnam war. That was likely precisely the reason it pissed them off so much. And there was just no comeback from his justification "No Viet Cong ever called me "Nigger""
It was so sad to see him in his twilight years shuffling around like some sad zombie after so many years of boxing brilliance. It is amazing he survived as long as he did given that his brain must have been long ago shaken to a pulp.
There's all sorts of folks out there calling themselves "The Greatest" but very few can ever back it up these days.
Been pigging out on events at an annual heritage festival in the port town of Fremantle which is about 40 minutes from the Lair by bus.
It's a gorgeous town and rather old by Oz standards. It's got far more character than downtown Dursleyville but unfortunately the place is dying and dependent almost completely on tourism since we no longer make very much in this bit of Australia.
It's the same everywhere. The wierd and twisted bohemian sorts make a place vibrant and interesting and suddenly the goblins and yuppies take notice and start swarming in. The artistic sort then get priced out and these days even mainstream businesses are struggling with the ridiculous rents. So of course the artists move on and the whole cycle begins again. Meanwhile what they leave behind usually becomes dull, colourless and rather boring.
In the old days I used to take two weeks holiday to coincide with the festival and just pig out on a feast of fascinating events most of which are free.
Since most of them are on the weekends, it was necessary then but not so much now. Was even lucky enough to get Friday off due to the day job having scheduled downtime for programming. That was perfect timing and just the excuse needed to sign up for the University of Notre Dame historical buildings tour.
From collections of old tools, telephones and prams to grand tours of historical hotels and prisons, it's been a wonderful and most magical week.
Tomorrow they will be tweeking the Time Turner and bringing part of the old town back to the 1960s. There will be only 1960s cars parked along the street and the handful of shops left are draping themselves in the decor of the appropriate vintage. They are also asking visitors to drag out their old 1960s rags for the occasion.
Was a good green fingered creature today and did lots of planting and pottering in the garden before slinking off for the afternoon to the old lunatic asylum to catch the tram for a special heritage festival tour of the town with the history of old buildings and stories of the ones that did not survive the grasping claws of rampaging developers and greedy councillors.
That's what I so miss about Europe. I was happy to spend hours pottering around the canals of Amsterdam just drooling over the gorgeous buildings and Germany is filled with lovely old towns with rickety bockety cobbled streets and wonderful wooden houses like you only see here on chocolate boxes.
It's time to slink off to the serpent sack. There's Time Turner's to be tweeked and weeds to be nibbled.
