The Slap
I finished reading The Slap. Great book, provided you don’t mind a little fruity language and adult themes in your novels. Looking forward now to the TV adaption.
Possums
I was just thinking the other day that despite seeing a lot of possums around the neighbourhood, I never heard them in the roof.
Then when I was taking a look in the roof over the Easter break, I noticed a small hole, near the front of the house.
And the other night, I heard a possum scampering around up there. D’oh.
I told you so
I meant to post this a while back, but better late than never.
I reckon these guys have a good point.
We told you so
FORMULA one boss Bernie Ecclestone has said that he and Ron Walker now agree that the grand prix “should not have been run at the Albert Park street circuit”, and that “Melbourne should have constructed a purpose-built track for the race years ago” (Sport, 17/3).
Save Albert Park has maintained exactly that since 1994. A key slogan was ”Relocate (to a permanent track), don’t desecrate (Albert Park Reserve)”. If our group had been listened to rather than being maligned or ignored by successive Victorian governments, the state would now have a profitable permanent track and associated facilities given year-round use for motor sport activities, driver training, and testing of automotive products.
The state would have saved the hundreds of million of dollars now wasted on set-up and take-down of the temporary Albert Park circuit, and we would have a circuit capable of being modified to meet the changing requirements of F1 racing, such as increased overtaking opportunities.
Peter Goad, Save Albert Park, Middle Park
10 replies on “A coupla things”
Did you actually like any of the characters in the Slap? I found them all to be quite unlikeable. That said I couldn’t put it down! Great read!
I’d say Ecclestone and Walker would have been recommending from the start that Albert Park be turned into a permanent racing circuit. It’s a perfect spot for the event, from a location, scenic, racing and crowd capacity point of view. A smart government would have taken some time over the last 15 years to work out how to install a lot of permanent infrastructure that still allows the park to be used as a park for the other 51 weeks each year, but enables a quick and cheap conversion to and from a race configuration each March.
@Rachael, I don’t know if I’d say I found them all unlikeable, but certainly every character had their flaws.
I still reckon they should have left it in Adelaide. The noise is horrendous, I really have great pity for the residents and workers during those times. We can hear it all the way out here and my kids have told me how loud it is for them when they were in Prahran.
I thought Melbourne (well, Victoria, ok) already had a couple of purpose built car-racing tracks – what’s that at Sandown, and even at Phillip Island?
On the other hand, I heard the other day that a new suburb of Perth has been named Brabham after racing-great Jack Brabham!
@Suzie – no, please, we do not want it back! We have replaced it with the equally annoying V8 supercars. Every few years the timing of the V8’s clashes with the Fringe and East Tce becomes an interesting mix of arty types and car bogans sharing the same space- not pretty! (yes – I know these are stereotypes but really – you should see it)
If you’re going to do those ‘temporary’ fixes every year rather than a permanent track, there ought to be an upper limit on how long – 10 years total sounds reasonable, and then let some other city ‘host’ it.
The Slap is certainly a page turner and Tsiolkas shows himself to be a pretty good storyteller. Each chapter is from a different charactersโ perspective, which keeps it even more exciting. Having said that, each perspective turns the book into a different direction.
SAP show up their NIMBYism and blow some of their credibility with the ‘relocate’ slogan and banging on about building a permanant motor sport track. People shouldn’t be driving around in circles using up fossil fuels – full stop.
The Slap was a two thumbs down book for me. In fact, this was one of only a handful of books I could bring myself to get rid of when culling the bookshelves recently.
John Collee enunciated why I disliked this book much better than I can on First Tuesday Book Club:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s2493453.htm