Hey man, now you're really living

THESE were my favourite bits…

Russell Drysdale 'Sunday Evening'

Sidney Nolan 'Hare in Trap'

Lin Onus 'Fruit Bats'

I can’t find a picture of ‘Devine Inspiration’ by Richard Bell, so here’s another of his.

NOW look, I wasn’t sure how interesting this would be for you, but I told a couple of locals at a barbecue last night and they were just fascinated, so here goes.

You’ll be familiar with Bendigo, hoon capital of Australia? Well, an English toffee-noser actually named it Sandhurst, after the elite military academy he’d never attended on account of his debilitatingly limp wrists, but then the townsfolk rose up and voted to rename the place in 1891.

‘Bendigo’ was the nickname of a local boxer, pinched off Brit bare-knuckle fighter William Abednego Thompson – a man who never even set foot in the pub-challenged province, or Australia, for that matter.

So there you have it: Bendigo was way ahead of the rest of the country when it came to inventing silly names.

Keeper? Yes, I’ll keep that nugget for dinner parties. NB: If the question “Why is Bendigo called Bendigo?” comes up in an exam, do not quote me verbatim.

I'd grow a beard like that if I could.

SO far my driving lesson excursions have taken in the Porcupine Township, a fleet of London buses, Castlemaine Gaol, the Harcourt wineries and some spectacular views.

I’m clearly just a chauffeur for my instructor, as I have to tightly enquire: “Am I going left or right?” whenever we hit a junction (rare, when you’re tootling around picturesque backwaters) and, “Can I try some parallel parking now?”

The remains of this 1887 wheel, in a backroad known as Forest Creek, wasn’t even signposted. How about that? They’ve just forgotten about it. In England we’d erect a statue and cordon it off.

Keeper? I’d probably show off and take someone out here, yeah.

I KNOW I loved fortune cookies yesterday, but I want to start today by saying I love tour guides. A tour guide’s eyes won’t light up at every part of their spiel – in fact, sometimes it’s the least expected bit – but then: dink! They’re lit.

Of all the wobbly weirdness Federation Square has to offer, my guide’s eyes light up largest over this hidden bit of architecture around by a little used set of toilets, that you won’t even notice unless you look up…

…which is a great example of how London architects Don Bates and Peter Davidson, and Melbourne firm Bates Smart, who jointly built the precinct between 1997 and 2002, thought everything through to the tiniest detail. From the entries and exits designed to mimic the local hidden laneways, to the words engraved into the sandstone tiles of the plaza, to the use itself of ancient sandstone from the Kimberley (often with fossils embedded), they folded meaning and significance into every last inch of the structure.

Over-egging their own pudding (ooh-yay!) are the earnest schoolboys we unearth in the BMW Edge, who are attempting a particularly complicated Muse cover. They’re not representative of the level of entertainment Federation Square has to offer… but they are entertaining.

My favourite part of any tour is hearing about old rogues, though – there’s always one. The Australian Centre for the Moving Image is in the Alfred Deakin Centre beneath Fed Square, and our guide has a chortle about how Alf was an anonymous commentator on Australian politics for a British newspaper (apologies if you knew this – I am an English). He’s like the first undercover media blogger – before the days of Twitter disclaimers.

Keeper? Yes! Already been for a feed.

John Christie, a master of many disguises. Chair dancer among them?

HOW fitting, to mark day 90 – three months into my buck-your-ideas-up (TM Dad) scheme – by really breaking out the bunting and sounding those bells and whistles.

Unfortunately, it’s a Monday – got things to do, people to see – and so I wind up going to the Victoria Police Museum on Flinders: To miss it would be a crime!

The museum’s small, but a nice addendum to a Melbourne Gaol visit. There are plenty of pictures of handsome bushrangers and ne’er-do-wells; some Kelly armour (it’s 45kg, you know) and an exhibition dedicated to the collapse of the Westgate Bridge.

My favourite part was about dapper detective John Christie, who served in the late 1800s, “described as the idol of the Victorian public because of his astounding feats of athletics, his many hair-breadth escapes, extraordinary ruses and tricks, and his ingenuity and resourcefulness.” Pretty easy on the eye, too.

Keeper? I’ll keep John in mind when I get around to that novel. (As opposed to the ‘novel’.)

THIS is a popular local it’s-too-hot spot, judging by the utes, blue singlets and mocking gazes directed at our picnic. I am still only blowing 0.0005 as a bona fide country chick, though. A ways to go. I turned down a wild rabbit dinner tonight, and it’s not even like I was asked to slaughter it myself.

Keeper? Yes! Next time will try to thrash around less at the possibility of eels.

THE name made me give a little gag, but the Rock Chicks exhibition itself (at Melbourne’s Art Centre) was very good.

Chrissie Amphlett's frock. I almost touched myself.

A TV Week 'Queen of Pop' award. Is it entirely a coincidence that it looks like an upside down vagina?

Keeper? I’ve been twice now! That’s enough.

Tch. They've built it on a slope!

HAVING learned about the history of Station Pier on Day 63 at the Museum of Immigration, I decided to go and have a look at the thing itself. You know it – it’s the pier in Port Phillip Bay that the Spirit of Tasmania leaves from. The original Railway Pier was built in the 1850s, but was restructured as Station Pier in the 1920s.

By the way, Port Melbourne in the morning is awesome, no matter what you think of the locals…

How good's my camera, though?

Keeper? Yes.