Evil Evil VCAT

VCAT strikes again. Among single, two storey and low three story buildings that surround the old Yorkshire Brewery site in Collingwood, VCAT has struck again, overriding City of Yarra and approving three 17 storey apartment towers. What does that do for the local character of one of Melbourne's oldest suburbs? VCAT is a disgrace and clearly there to support developers to maximise their profits, against local representative councils and local people.

I've just ploughed through the judgement. There are many conditions attached to the approval, but as I have discovered, the developer will quietly return to VCAT without any resident knowing and have the ones it finds onerous overturned, as the developer did across the road over public access between two streets.

Where VCAT treads, be afraid, very afraid. http://highriser.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-indefatigable-vcat-at-st-kilda.html

The VCAT decision was made by Laurie Hewet and Michael Read. Shame on them and I hope they feel guilty as they drive home to their historic houses in Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs.

"How was work darling?"

"Really good, approved three seventeen storey towers in Collingwood.".

"Seventeen storeys in Collingwood darling? Oh! By the way my tennis club subs are due. Can you pay them please darling, and the boy's maths tutor said she hasn't been paid.  Sorry to be such a bother. I don't know how we manage on your modest income."


I am not at all suggesting that they are, but Members of VCAT do rather leave themselves open to accusations of being bribed by developers when they continually side with developers. It is all about perception.

Pollies who I admire

Yes dear reader, this will be a very brief post. I could make it longer by mentioning politicians I despise, if you want?

Stick with the original plan. It will be no surprise that Greens seem far more honourable politicians than the two big parties, with special mentions for retired Greens leader Bob Brown and the current leader Senator Christine Milne.

Nick Xenophon was elected to the Senate principally on an anti gambling platform yet he has stepped into many controversial areas with policies that seem to be rather full of common sense to me. I was initially very cautious about him, but I hold him in fairly high regard now. Here is a snip from his website.

" I have continued to fight for changes in the key areas of gambling reform, the water crisis facing Australia, consumer protection, food security and the destructive impact of cults (especially Scientology)." What is not to love about this bloke?

That he has been banned from entering Malaysia to press the cause for fair democracy surely adds to his credit. I consider him too passionate about causes to ever be a leader, but what a fine person to have in politics. Long may South Australia continue to elect him and he has been effective in parliament.

I know less about Tony Windsor. He seems like an old style Country (National)  Party politician, in some ways, yet has become one of the independents who hold the balance of power in our Federal Government. He is not fazed by anything and judges each of his decisions with careful consideration and seems to focus on what is good for the country, rather than what is good for his chances of re-election.Voters may well choose the loose cannon Barnaby Joyce (bottom photo) over Windsor, but they would be making a serious mistake. Careful consideration is surely preferred over loud mouthed populist chatter.

 

Another South Yarra Stroll

There is a part of South Yarra I am very unfamiliar with, although I know the bordering streets very well. It's an expensive area, no doubt about that, and the standard of housing is very high, both old mixed and newer. The area is bounded Domain Road to the south, Punt Road to the east, the Yarra River to the north and Anderson Street and the Royal Botanic Gardens to the west. I took a a walk up Domain Road to Anderson Street, left and then right into Acland Street. I know one blogger on my list lives in the area.

This large block of only eight apartments stands dominantly on the corner.

It looks like it might not be such a cheap place buy into.

I turned right into Walsh Street. This looks like a main entrance but chimneys never sit at the front of a house of this vintage, surely? My guess is some land was sold off on what is now the side of this house that used to front Acland Street.

I turned left into Airlie Bank Lane. These are flats with carparking underneath. Why am I thinking mews? I don't even know what mews are really.

Airlie Bank Lane turns left and Dear oh dear, this is a very un-South Yarra like car. Google Street Views of the area are quite out of date, but this car was there when they were taken.

This one was somewhere along the way. Modern and somewhat brutalist and was not there when the Street View camera went past.

Now I am in The Righi with some fine Victorian here. The views from these two houses at the top of Airlie Street would be most impressive.

Because they look down Airlie Street, across the river to Richmond.

Rather late for geraniums. They face west and obviously get some night warmth from concrete. Yes, I checked that they were real. I was heading down Airlie Avenue towards the river.

 Melbourne, boring and flat, it is said by Sydneysiders and ok, it is not as hilly as Sydney, it does have some.

 The camera focus sadly was not on this glorious red. I can't even tell what it is.

At the bottom of Punt Road where it meets Clowes Street is this most splendiforous golden elm. It is a tree that pruners leave alone and don't cut off the lower branches.

I don't which is worse, the erupting telephone cable or a tee tree fence in South Yarra.

I am now trudging back up the hill along Walsh Street. Not every building has been restored and renovated to within an inch of its life. Oops, I am at the back of Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School. I put the camera away and tried to look purposeful. I didn't want anyone calling the police about a suspicious older man with a camera loitering around the back of the school.

An earlier South Yarra walk here with part two here.

Go Rafa

Has the French Open finished? It must be time for Wimbledon. Tennis. A workmate who was also an antique dealer, no, not the Brighton Antique Dealer, many years ago obtained tickets to Wimbledon and she was so excited. I am working class and so I must aspire to being middle class and pretend interest in Wimbledon, but I am not a sports watcher, although I rather like watching the pretty green countryside and villages of France during the Tour de France, never mind when it went almost past Walt's and Ken's abode.

Did you know that if all the strawberries eaten at Wimbledon were laid end to end, they would stretch to 60 kilometres? Did you know that accompanying such miles of strawberries, 7000 litres of cream would be consumed? Perhaps I could get to like tennis if it always came with strawberries and cream and if they could somehow be associated with Rafa........

A visit to the gallery

I only visited the National Gallery of Victoria to see the bowls in the water.

Looking in through the water wall, once under threat when the building was undergoing a makeover.

There was a terrible fuss and people power had the wall re-instated in the plans. Kiddies just love it, and I do too.

 I did not mind the glassy deer, but R said it appeared to be covered in warts.

The floating bowls, which are moved around by one side water jet.

The sound of the bowls clinking together is quite hypnotic and relaxing. Many people were seated where I took this from.

The carpet end

Finally, I can say things are back to normal in The Highrise and we are loving the new carpet. The second digital recorder has now been connected, the final computer tidy up was completed, with only the sound not working because a transformer had fallen out.

Jack has been returned to his mummy, who was on her way from the airport. We put the heating on for him and our Dyke Friend when she gets home. We pumped it up form a miserly 21 to 24. All air cons are different and given we spent a few hours at her place on carpet laying day, we knew what to set it to, to make the place warm.

R stormed out from our Brother Friends' birthday dinner before eating at an overpriced Church Street, Brighton, Chinese restaurant.  The dynamics weren't good and the extra person they invited along, did not a good situation make. We may have known our Brother Friends for over thirty years, but one can really get under R's skin. I insisted R took the car home and I intended to get the train and two trams to get home, but I just missed the train and so caught a cab. Wombat, the chap R had issues with is the bloke who owns the restaurant near where you lived on tram route 86.

Life is such fun, hey.

No cheek, children

We should have set a good example to Little Jo and crossed at the lights when we got off the tram with her after being in town, but we didn't. We did as we always do, walked behind the tram and crossed the road. St Kilda Road is not an easy road to cross. The tram lines in the middle act as kind of refuge, as long as you check that trams are not coming.

As always, I held one of Little Jo's hands and R held the other as we crossed the road. "Andrew, you don't shake as much as Nanny, but your hand shakes a lot." That was my right hand, my left is even worse.

"E's (Tradie Brother) hands shake too."

"Little Jo, it is hereditary. Nanny's father's hands shook too."

"Mummy and Bone Doctor were discussing how your hands shake, AND, they said you don't have a football team."

"Well Little Jo, when I was young I used to barrack for Collingwood. But now, maybe St Kilda." I did not tell Little Jo that I now barrack for whichever team has the hottest player who has caught my attention for the week. Little Jo's auto trained response kicked in at the mention of Collingwood. "Wash your mouth out."

What I did not say was, child you need to be circumspect about the way your talk to Auntie Andrew, should you want to inherent something that we cannot spend. Should a couple of words scare them, the nieces and nephew, the brothers and sister? The words are reverse mortgage. I'd like to go out with a nil dollar balance. Even if there is something left, R has three sisters. Highriser assets divided by six is a very modest amount.

R is eight years older than I am. There is the possibility that he will go first. But as Mother with her umpteen medical problems discovered, your hale and hearty partner who you thought would survive you and care for you in your old age, may not.

I still have a lot to do in life and things I want to see and things I want to see happen, but at times I also think, well, if I die tomorrow, no regrets. I've had a wonderful life. Life's a bitch, and then you die, or your beloved partner might, which is assuredly worse than dying yourself. It is somewhat macabre, but I do at times wonder if I or R will be left holding the can. Should it be me first and R with his relatives so far away, I am confident my family will embrace R, as they have always done and R has done more for our family than could possibly be expected.

Carpet laying - the aftermath

A good part of today was spent on my hands and knees. Oh for the good old days when it was a pleasurable experience.

Nine lamps in the lounge dining area need electricity, with numerous cords, extension leads, power boards and double adaptors.

A lamp and a clock in each bedroom need electric wires to be plugged in.

In the lounge is the digital tv, two digital recorders and a dvd player all had to be connected and once done, so did the combined radio/cassette/cd player. That is a lot of wiring, but reduced from what it was as there were a couple of superfluous connections, I think. Time will tell.

R's bedroom digital tv, digital recorder, cordless headphones and combined dvd recorder/player and /vhs recorder/player means another heap of wires, and again a superfluous cable removed.

But nothing is quite like the computer wiring. R asked me if I will be able to get it all back together before it was pulled apart and I have except I want to cover some of the wires from the desk that go down the wall to the computer tower with flexible corrugated tubing.

The computer system consists of the tower, a lcd monitor, two speakers, a cordless mouse and keyboard with a transmitter to send the signal, a cable modem, a wireless router, an external hard drive, a printer and lastly a desk lamp that only gets used when I have to ferret about behind the tower when changing something. That means a rat's maze of wires worse the Sybil's hair.

We thought we could improve the very visible through a glass top desk rat's nest of wires if we moved the tower to the right of the desk instead of under it. This was precipitated by the carpet layers putting the filing cabinet in a slightly different position and it is too heavy for us to move. But the cable from the monitor to the tower, the VAG VGA cable, was too short.

We bused to Prahran and bought a longer one, along with a delicious pastie and coffee. Of course I had to check four $2 type shops to see if they had one because I knew it would be expensive at Dick Smiths, and it was. I did find a cheap tv cable splitter though, at $3.50 and then in another shop saw it for $2.50. We also found a skirting board co-axial socket, necessary to takes the tv signal to R's bedroom to replace the one broken yesterday. Plugged it in once home the VGA cable seemed most unsatisfactory, with a greenish yellow hue to the picture on the monitor. I fiddled with settings on the monitor itself and on the computer desktop. Tried the old one which took things back to normal, tried the new one again. R decided to help and got in the way and he was getting cranky as he had done his fair share at getting the shelving unit back to normal and many other things. Go and have your arvo nap, I urged him, and he did.

Google is my friend. Right, three rows of pins on the plug, each row transmitting different colours to the monitor. If one colour is not being transmitted, then the two colours that remain will be mixed. Sounds like our greenish yellow hue. I put my strongest spectacles on and stepped out onto the balcony. Yes, I can see there is a bent pin. I don't know if I did it, or it came from the shop like that. I straightened it with a steak knife. It would not longer plug in at all. I compared the old plug to the new and I could see its alignment wasn't quite correct. More steak knife work. Finally it worked and the rats nest is now a little more hidden.

As well today I reloaded the spare room bookcase and mine, the spare room one took over an hour and mine less than an hour. A few books were left over and so went to our building's library. Boxes from the cardboard recycling bin were returned to the cardboard recycling room, along with pictures in frames that had been sitting under beds and no longer wanted.

Tomorrow, breakfast out in Prahran, household shopping, connecting up the second lounge room digital recorder to the tv, tidying up the computer wires, return Jack to his returning home mummy and dinner out at Humble House in Brighton to celebrate our Brother Friends' 64th birthday. Sunday will be a me day. I think we will visit the Leaving Ireland exhibition at the Immigration Museum and look for shoes for Little Jo for her sixth birthday. We want ones that light up as she steps. I am about to google them but does anyone have any knowledge of them?

It da trains again

It is sad end to a fine timber trestle railway bridge, but I didn't expect it to collapse like it did.



The crew from Adventure Before Dementia recently returned from a holiday and part of their trip was spent travelling on Queensland's Savannahlander tourist train. The journey looked wonderful, although in a 1963 railmotor on an old single track, no speed records were broken. One of them mentioned the train was quite  rickety, but I can't imagine it was anything like this from China, now with high speed rail faster than Japan and Europe. It makes the strangest of sounds of any steam engine I have ever heard. You don't have to watch much of the video to get the idea, but you might want to skip forward to 3.28 to see chickens playing chicken. No chickens were harmed in the making of this video.



Before you next get behind the wheel of your motor vehicle, perhaps you might want to do the environmentally responsible thing and consider travelling by train as a option.

What a day

We were up by six doing last minute things before the carpet layers arrived. I had spent most of yesterday clearing things. I would not like to think how many books I have gotten rid of over the years, and now refined to ones I want to keep, most of which I will never read again but there are still many. I had parked my car outside overnight in case a space was required for the layers, so at 7.30 we went out and put money in the meter and took Jack for a walk. The layers rang to say they were leaving and would arrive within half an hour.

The called again when parked in the lane behind The Highrise. R told them that they must park in the lane and bring the carpet in via the ground floor and the lift would be protected and isolated by nine. They said point blank they were not carrying the carpet in from the lane. They came up to the apartment to survey the job as we tried to get in touch with the building morning cleaner. No answer. Hunted around the building. Stress levels rising. The layers said they would go and have some breakfast. Eventually the cleaner answered his phone. Yes, they can park inside and he will soon have the lift isolated. Relief. R went downstairs again and apparently the cleaner was unsure where they could park in the building. The cleaner called the building manager of the building next door who knows our building well and he told the layers of an empty double car space they could use. Our proper building manager arrives at ten.

We had hoped to keep the kitchen area clear, but no, they dumped all their tools there. Jack was running around and excitable. I locked him my ensuite with his sheepskin. He soon worked out how to open the sliding door. The boss layer made it quite clear we ought to go out for the day and let them do what they do best. Outside it rained nearly all day, so an inside area was required. R had a brainwave. We have the keys to Jack's owner's place. We will go there. Firstly we were hungry and decided to go Southland which I have not been to for nearly twenty years. R goes there at times on work related matters, so at least had a vague idea of where to park. A place called Schnitz has opened and we had some rather fine schnitzel nosh. Later at the other end where had parked, yes we must have crossed over Nepean Highway, we found a non chain place that looked like it might have good coffee, and it did. I went into the nearby Reject shop and bought an HDMI cable for $10 to connect up the old digital tv recorder so we can record even more rubbish to mostly not watch. I said to R, do we need some Scotch tonight? He most emphatically said yes.

Jack had been quite happy sitting in the car and he is a good traveller. We then weaved to Jack's mum's place in Ormond. We normally drive there from Grange Road, but we were coming from Koornang Road and we stopped outside what looked like her place. I had some misgivings that it was her place. Something did not seem right, but my mind was not working well. R opened the aluminium door and tried to open the front the door but the key would not turn. He kept trying. Then some poor Asian lass opened the door and I thought who is this staying at our dyke friend's place while she is away? It was the wrong flat block, although very similar.

R walked Jack along the street, in the rain, while I slowly drove along. There it is. There is her car. It is red brick, not brown brick. The entrance is higher. Duh.

Jack was happy to be in his home. We turned the heating on and our friend has Foxtel cable television, so we started watching UKTV, from the BBC. We watched Heartbeat, Coronation Street, East Enders (Dot Cotton is still alive!) and Hollyoaks. I am not sure why British people watch our crap tv shows Neighbours and Home and Away, when they make perfectly good crap tv of their own, Heartbeat excepted, which was rather good.

I had just dozed off and the building manager called. There is not lift activity, do they still need the lift isolated? I don't know. We are out of the building. Go up and ask them. He must have and given them  dire warnings that lift was back to operational at 4.

We walked Jack again, in the rain, and set off for home.  We left Jack in the car, although while so relaxed when arriving at a destination, he worked out it was our place and was anxious. We were about forty minutes too early. They were finishing off the last bedroom. I went out to retrieve my car from the street. and still it was raining. They moved the furniture almost back to place, no heavy lifting for us, and such relief. They had gone. Now we could put the place back together and there is no rush. Priority one, lounge tv, priority two, my and R's beds, priority three, R's tv set up, priority four, computer. The days of a power plug and an antenna have long past. The wires in The Highrise must surely stretch a kilometre or two if laid out.

We worked really hard for a few hours but by seven we had noticed the sun had well and truly passed the yard arm and time for a glass of wine. R fed Jack and then cooked some vegetables for us for us to eat with thawed out and heated Shepard's Pie. And then we hit the wall. Can't do much more, and we haven't. I did google 'connect cable modem to router' though, as I could not remember how it was all connected. Success. Just a tidy up of wires needed now.

Apart from stress (imagine what it would be like to disconnect everything in your home and find places to put them out of the way, strip three beds and put the linen in the bath, have piles of wires from this thing and that and bloody books), it was a hard day, so if you want to say, you did really well Andrew, I don't mind. We are both praising each other. We did well.

Buying a bottle of Scotch was such a good idea and tomorrow we will get stuck in to get the place even more back to normal.

Damage? R broke his bedside lamp and we called in to Beacon for a replacement and it was on special. Broken tv plug for R's bedroom tv, but because we are high up, his tv barely needs an ariel connection. Sort it tomorrow. Always mahayana.