Categories
Melbourne

Public space vs private property in central Melbourne

It’s interesting to see that around the CBD, a subtle line is often marked on the pavement, where (I’m assuming) the publicly-owned pavement ends and the privately-owned property begins. Quite a few buildings include this kind of open space, particularly at the front, and I would assume the boundary would have legal significance. In some  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne Photos

Melbourne, from Mornington

See it bigger I thought it was not bad for a handheld point-and-shoot camera.

Categories
Melbourne

Merry Christmas

I don’t care if it’s the same lot of decorations as last year — I like ’em. They look rather good at night. And you know what? Their location helps cement Flinders Street Station’s cultural importance to our city — perhaps never moreso than now, with public transport patronage increasing, and rail patronage in particular  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

The lion

I wonder how many people notice gems like this, high up above our streets. It’s on a building on William Street, between Collins and Bourke.

Categories
Melbourne

Does the MFB/CFA boundary need revising?

The Victorian Government is pushing ahead with reform in emergency and disaster management. I can’t say I know a lot about it, but one reform that I’ve long thought they should consider is a re-drawing of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade/Country Fire Authority boundaries. They simply don’t make sense. The CFA covers large areas of outer-suburban  ... [More]

Categories
Culture Melbourne

It must be Christmas time

In the city tonight…

Categories
Melbourne Photos

Pics from last week

You can tell I don’t have a good blog post ready to go when I post a bunch of pictures. Here’s a few from last week (that you may have seen if you follow me on Twitter). Mer Chri! — This was on Thursday night — by Friday they’d put up the other letters. Below  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

Little Bourke Street

Along Little Bourke Street, in the block between Queen and William Streets, are a couple of stunning buildings. The City West telephone exchange: The Supreme Court (sometimes you’ll see this on the news — I think it’s a nicer entrance than that facing onto William Street): Another section of the Supreme Court towers above the  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Melbourne

A little bit of history: cash railways (not the usual type of railway I post about)

I’d been told this segment was coming up on Coxy’s Big Break, and it finally aired on Sunday: a look at the cash railways at the shop I worked at part-time as a teenager, Hattams in Elsternwick. Apparently these are some of the few still working cash railways in Victoria. They were common in medium  ... [More]

Categories
Geek Melbourne

According to iOS6 maps, North Melbourne station is in South Melbourne, Collingwood Station is in the CBD

In the Apple Store at Southland the other day, I noticed they had all the iDevices maps set to satellite. It wasn’t hard to see why — it took all of a minute or two to find some glaring errors in the street maps. It’s not just that tram lines are completely missing; they’ve put  ... [More]

Categories
Bentleigh Consumerism

According to old ads, chemist used to sell stuff called “film” from a company called “Kodak”.

One of the chemists in Bentleigh is renovating, and this old signage has been revealed — soon to be covered up with something new. Apparently they used to sell stuff called “film” from a company called “Kodak”. The windows have also shown up some old ads. Anybody care to estimate how old they might be?  ... [More]

Categories
Bentleigh Culture News and events

Halloween approaches

Just after I moved to my current address, I noted that some of the local kids went Trick Or Treating for Halloween. It’s been the same in subsequent years, and I fully expect the same next week. I’ve decided that while I’m not into cultural imperialism and the adaption of American traditions to Australia, this  ... [More]