Australia

Well so I saw Australia The Movie yesterday. My impressions were: sets great, costumes gorgeous, acting good, dialogue corny at times, music horrible, scenery and cinematography fabulous, plot engaging but at times confusing. Before I saw the movie I had assumed that it distorted historical time so as to fit the bombing of Darwin into the story. I mean I knew that Nicole Kidman's character arrived at the outbreak of war, so surely it didn't take her three years to drove the cattle to Darwin so she arrived just in time for the Japanese attack? I didn't realise that there were 2 story arcs , one about "the drove", and the other about the war.

The strange thing about the film is that it is called "Australia" but the only really sympathetic Australian characters are the Aboriginal characters such as Nullah and his mother, the alcoholic accountant, and Hugh Jackman. The rest are mostly snobbish or racist or criminal, although some redeem themselves towards the end.

The first scenes in the movie were for me some of the most powerful and show what a great director could do with some of the stories of Australia that haven't been told.

Elizabethan Gardens

I've just finished reading Elizabeth in the Garden, by English historian Trea Martyn. This is a study of the gardens created in an attempt to entertain and win the favour of Elizabeth the First, by her two closest advisers and rivals at her court Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Robert Cecil, Lord Chancellor. Dudley created a romantic garden for her at his castle Kenilworth, which featured knot gardens and an aviary. It was the site of music, fireworks and masques to try to persuade the Queen to marry him.













Cecil's garden at his palace Theobalds, sounds even more spectacular. It's design was inspired by gardens in Italy such as the Villa d'Este. Martyn also looks at the symbolism of gardens, plants and flowers in Elizabethan times, and how important the garden was in the iconography of Elizabeth herself in paintings and poetry.



Martyn has a website where you can read more about the book. The fascinating news is that while both gardens were demolished long ago, there are plans to recreate them and in fact the gardens at Kenilworth have been recreated by English Heritage and are due to open in May 2009 (see picture above). After reading about all that went on there, I can't wait for an opportunity to visit.

Plan? What Plan?

So now we know what happens in the New South Wales Planning Department goes something like this. The bureaucrats decide they need a plan to guide development in a region. They hire experts, hold workshops, consult the community and interest groups, and spend a whole lot of money. Finally a plan is created that identifies what areas are suitable for development and what aren't. Behold the Plan! The Plan is given to the local bureaucrats who naturally enough assume they are supposed to follow it. But no! A wealthy developer comes along who decides he would like to build hundreds of houses in an area that the Plan determined was unsuitable. Never mind that it contains rare vegetation, is subject to subsidence, is in the middle of an unspoilt historic village and is miles from transport. He does a lot of lobbying. He "bumps into" the head local planner on his way to work and harangues him. He pays lots of money to the Labor Party. What's more he accuses the local planner, who is trying to follow the Plan, of being "biased" for merely doing what he thought he was supposed to do in the public interest.

The Minister gets involved. The developer gets to meet the Minister. The developer persuades the Minister that his project should be marked "State significant" and get the fast track / personal Ministerial process, even though under the Plan the site was considered the least suitable for development. The local planner is sidelined. The residents wake up one morning and find that their village is going to be developed.

This is how the untouched hamlet of Catherine Hill Bay now lies under the threat of development. The papers are on the Minister's desk. Let's hope he pays attention to the thousands of objections that should be somewhere on his desk too.

Guerilla gardening

Lately we have been surreptitiously planting native shrubs in the bit of neglected land at the back of our house. It lies between two lanes and is a kind of reserve/ shortcut with a few eucalypt trees on it. We had a few native plants we coudn't accommodate in our own garden so thought we would plant them there. It is strange how guilty I feel when I do this, as if someone is going to challenge me. But when the house next door was sold and the new owner chopped down every tree and bush on the property to our horror, I felt that I needed to plant more to make up for the impact on the greenhouse effect in our street.

Apparently such illicit horticulture is called "guerilla gardening" and there are websites devoted to it. It's a big thing in the UK. GG's plant deserted patches of land at night and residents and officeworkers discover that their street has been greened overnight. A lovely idea. The sites can vary from blocks of land to traffic islands.

We are planting natives such as tea tree, mint bush, gymea lily and dwarf eucalypts on our patch. At least it is nearby so we can keep an eye on the plants and give them TLC from time to time.

Callan Park - where do I start?

With the fact that the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority is exhibiting a master plan for the park which proposes development which, under the existing legislation, is not permissible?

Or with the fact that in 2002 the Act was passed to reassure the community that Callan Park would remain open public space, and yet in 2005 and again in 2007 the Government is planning to lease it to Sydney University for what appears to be four storey student accommodation and facilities?

What about the uncertainty for the community organisations and the psychiatric hospital that still occupy the site?

Or the mountains of spin ?

Eg - the University of Sydney presentation at the community forum stated that in 1873 when the land was purchased by the Government for a hospital, some local residents objected "as the land... had been originally advertised for subdivision as a residential area." So, are they saying we should all be bound by what our predecessors said in 1873? Guess I'll give back that pesky right to vote then. And hand back that University degree.

Check out the proposed master plan.

And the response from the Friends of Callan Park.

Submissions due by 22 February 2008.

Reading, not gardening

I have put a Listmania list of fiction featuring gardens on Amazon.com. This may be the first of its kind. Or it may not.

History, time travel and old buildings

I just finished reading a novel called Ghostwalk, by Rebecca Stott. Stott is an academic whose speciality seems to be the history and philosophy of science, and the novel is based around mysterious events which occurred while Isaac Newton was studying at Cambridge in the 17th century. The narrator is asked to complete a biography of Newton begun by her mentor, who has recently died in strange circumstances. In doing so she finds herself seeing and hearing people and scenes from Newton's time.

What caught my attention after reading this book (which is basically a ghost story) was the comments on the cover. Several of them said things like "this will make readers think differently about what history is" and "you will begin to wonder if what happened then can affect what might happen now."

This theory of history, or time, touched on in the novel, appears to be based on quantum physics theory - that moments in time, like sub-atomic particles, can connect and become entangled, allowing passages between past and present. Is this really a potential theory of history? if so, it's not fully developed in the book. Much more convincing is the author's portrayal of a researcher so deeply engrossed in her research that she can recreate historic events in her mind's eye, which become "real". She can do this because in Cambridge she is surrounded everywhere by history in the form of old buildings - as she says at one point "Nothing is ever quite lost while there are still a few old buildings standing sentinel. " That's the best and the only feasible basis for time travel in my opinion.