Filthy dirty filking

(Random hung-over, Christmas-party fueled whingeing & filking*)



O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

In New South Wales at Christmas time
You come out in December heat

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

With petals red and orange too
Only after pollination

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum


There's also Cerapetalum gummiferum which is the same until you get up close and see the leaves are arranged differently. And the gummiferum is pretty tall and "during World War II it provided the butts for all rifles made in Australia". Huh.


Off to my fourth Christmas party this week this arvo. May not survive. Normally I avoid office parties like the fucking plague but I called in a lot of favours this year and the payback is showing up as stand-in date. The next person to offer me a mince pie is dead.


Local linkage

Bike bunnies do Umina

Dickhead factor rockets during school holidays


Woy Woy as was

Love the photos and stories of old Woy Woy in the local rag. Woy Woy Steve is back writing them again and Fred Landman and Keith Whitfield are regulars and I've got one from June 2009 by Bruce Richards.

Sometimes the old buildings they talk about, old cinemas and milk bars and so forth, are gone now and sometimes they're just re-invented but I can usually see where they were or their remnants are. Adds a whole new depth to my walkies to have personal histories tied to the streets and buildings of my town.

Keep writing, guys.


Christmas story re-visited

How the angel got on top of the tree (click 'n' scroll)


Want my thingy in yer whatsit?

I'm off for Xmas. Off away from the madding crowd to a place where the bush turkeys roam free.

I'll be back ab-o-u-t ... Let's call it mid January. The 16th. Yeah.

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Have yerselves a merry little Xmas.


* Filking ain't really dirty. I mentioned it to a Dear Old Thing one day and she reacted like it was a very naughty swear-word and now when I say it I get a naughty little thrill. It's that thing where you replace some or all of the words of an existing tune with your own words, like I did with Oh Christmas Tree. Go filk yerself (with links).

Mann Street

(Gosford walkies #28)

It's yonks since I walked in Gosford, September 2006 in fact. Must get more organised.




Booth's Motors opened on the 1st of September 1939. 2 days later Australia joined the war and Booth's couldn't get any new cars to sell for 6 years. They survived though, flogging all the spare parts they could lay their hands on, servicing cars already in town and selling petrol.




Booth's is still in the family, which is always good to hear. Over the years they've sold Humbers, Hillmans, Sunbeams and Singers. Singer I know is the sewing machine crowd and there's a crowd called Sunbeam who sell electric kettles. After those they sold Chryslers then Mitsubishis.

Lots of Singer pictures
Association of Singer Owners, more pictures
Rootes Group Car Club, Humbers, Hillmans, Singers, Sunbeams, Commers, Karriers




Gosford Hall was on the cutting edge in the early 20th century. Good dance floor, sliding stage, dressing rooms, supper room and acetylene gas lighting. And later it was one of the first places in Gosford to have the electricity. It was a hotspot for entertainment for decades, dances, stageshows, flower shows and a market.

It housed the Gosford Municipal Council (City Hall) for a bit then C.H. Brown's Furniture Store and a few other business until it was knocked down in 1994 for extensions on the Gateway arcade. The Gateway arcade is that one with the footbridge across to the railway station and it's now half empty. So much for progress.

The Hall was opened in 1911 by a mill owner called Parsons. That's believed to be him on the left and the builder on the right.


Western Sydney cops it again, Woy Woy unscathed

That's what, half a dozen massive storm fronts that've ripped up western Sydney this summer? Poor bastards have barely got the tiles back on their roofs when the next lot comes through. Roofs back off, streets flooded, trees uprooted again, trains cut off in peak hour.

We got a lovely light show about 10PM and a nice southerly breeze. The light's flickered a bit a couple of times but that was it and it was lovely and cool this morning.

Sydney storms

"Mystery surrounds the shooting of an off-duty [male] police officer in Centennial Park early this morning." He was attacked next to the loo apparently.

Centennial Park is a large park wedged between Anzac Parade and Oxford Street, just down the road from the old army barracks. Of a morning it's popular with joggers, dog walkers and those seeking a little pre-breakfast companionship. The mystery is was it the same bloke who shot him that had a go at him last November outside his place? Poor bastard.

First stabbed now shot