The Melbourne Identity

I was recently lucky enough to visit the wonderful city of Melbourne, Victoria.

[Street View past Town Hall to St. Paul's Cathedral]

Melbourne is a major metropolis and any visitor to the central district can be in no doubt as to it's modern commercial credentials. Major office towers dominate the central skyline. Yet it also offers so much more.

[Central Melbourne on the Yarra River]

Glass and steel are interspersed within a city that has retained much of its historical and largely Victorian heritage. The combining of old and new architecture can be dramatic, but for the most part it provides for a fascinating and unique environment. No greater example can be seen than in the great Coops Shot tower - built 1890 - around which a vast and hyper-modern arcade has been built, right in the centre of town.

[The Coops 'Shot' Tower - Encased in Steel and Glass]

Indeed, Victorian and Edwardian buildings punctuate the city in great numbers, lending a sense of depth and history; a dimension that is not always present in some of Australia's other urban centres.

[Flinders Street Train Station - Central Melbourne]

Straddling both banks of the lazy Yarra river, an abundance of mature trees, formal parks and lakes also surround Melbourne's central district and provide for a further sense of heritage, class and calm.

[Street Sculpture]

A fantastic tram network - utilising modern and antique trams - provides easy and stylish transport around city. The sound of steel on steel and the ringing of cheery stop-bells, adds intrinsically to the wider noises of the city.

[One of Many Working Antique Trams - c.1930's]

Just out form the commercial centre, lies a diverse array of quirky districts such as the very laid-back Carlton with its famous Lygon Street; boasting more Italian trattorias and cafes than I have seen anywhere - even in Italy itself!

Nearby is Fitzroy, with its cool and very grungy mix of eclectic and alternative fashion shops. The names and styles of these crumbling Edwardian fronted businesses has to be seen to be believed. A walk down the districts famous Smith Street is an exciting experience for the senses.

[A Great Name for a Shop - Fitzroy]

But perhaps my favourite suburb, was the distinctive seaside district of St Kilda; very much reminding me of a close alternative to my own Portobello in Edinburgh.

[Typical St Kilda Architecture]

With extended promenade and beach, St Kilda's grand yet shabby buildings and distinctive local 'characters', really reminded me of my own home.

[St Kilda - Pier House]

All in all, Melbourne was a great city to visit and one that I hope to visit again in the future. The Emperor was pleased with his visit.

Passing of a Much Loved Hound

142. "Many of our domesticated animals are worth learning about, and the most faithful to man, bar none, is the dog ... ."

146. "Only dogs know their master and recognise a stranger if he arrives unexpectedly. They alone recognise their own names and the voice of members of the family. Dogs remember the way to places, however far away, and no animal has a better memory, except man."

147. "... Every day of our lives we find very many other qualities in dogs ... but the acuteness of their senses is particularly remarkable. A dog explores and follows tracks, dragging the handler who accompanies it by the lead. ... [H]ow silent and secret, but how significant, an indication its tail gives, then its muzzle. So, even when they are worn out by old age and blind and weak, men carry their dogs in their arms, waiting for winds and scents and pointing their muzzles towards [them]."

[Pliny The Elder, Natural History, Book VIII]

In memory of TARA [1997 - 2009]

Much loved family hound. Of mongrel birth, but infinitely noble spirit. An unconditional friend and a true companion. To be sadly missed, but fondly remembered for the great love and fun that she brought.

[A dog that loved to run]

Travels in the Blue Mountians

Pliny and I recently took a little jaunt into the most spectacular Blue Mountains, East of Sydney.

Its always nice to get out of the city for a while and take the country air. High mountains, lush semi-tropical forests, waterfalls and rivers all form the landscape here.

I think the trip did us both the world of good. The landscape up here is so dramatic and local towns like Katoomba are very chilled.

Its no surprise that rich Sydneysiders keep weekend properties up here. I think Pliny himself would be tempted, were it not for the other villas and estates that he already keeps in Latium.

The Big Shoe

My Granny Campbell used to say that big feet were to be celebrated as they "... gave you a good firm grip of Scotland!"

But I was recently amazed to see this massive boot at a shoe shop in the centre of Melbourne!

In light of this, it is not so hard to see why the Ausies have such a strong physical reputation in sport. Perhaps Ausies really are an immense race of physical super-men and women.

Or perhaps it is exactly this kind of miss-interpretation that explains how ancient writers developed such fantastical ethnographic observations of extremely distant and untraveled lands:

23 "Megasthenes records that on Mount Nulus [India] there are men with their feet reversed and with eight toes on each foot. On many mountains there are men with dogs' heads who are covered in wild beast's skins; they bark instead of speaking and live by hunting and fowling, for which they use their nails. Ctesias writes ... of a tribe of men called the Monocoli who have only one leg and hop with amazing speed. These people are also called the umbrella footed, because when the weather is hot they lie on their backs stretched out on the ground and protect themselves by the shade of their feet. The Monocoli are not far from the cave dwellers, and further to the east of these are some people without necks and with eyes in their shoulders.

[Pliny The Elder, Natural History, Book XXIII]

In light of this, the big shoe might not be so weird after all.

Pliny on the Shape of the Earth

I recently had cause to consult with that most learned Roman writer, thinker and natural scientist, Pliny the Elder.

The uncle of my current travel mate, Pliny the Younger; Pliny Senior offers a wealth of scientific, botanical, zoological and ethnographic information from the ancient world. His comments concerning the shape of the earth have recently interested me:

160."The shape of the earth is the first fact about which there is general agreement. At any rate we call the earth a sphere and admit that it is included within poles. The form, however, is not that of a perfect sphere, for there are high mountains and widely spreading plains ... But the continuous revolution of the universe around the earth forces her huge globe into the shape of a sphere."

161. "There is a great conflict between the learned and the man in the street at this juncture. Scholars assert that men are spread out all round the earth and stand with their feet pointing towards each other and that the top of the sky is alike for all of them and that their feet point down towards the centre of the earth from wherever they are. An ordinary person, however, enquires why men on the opposite side do not fall off - as if there is not an equally good reason for them wondering why we do not fall off."

[Pliny The Elder, Natural History, Book II]

All I can say on this - writing as I am from Down Under - I don't know how it works, it just does!