JERVIS BAY INVADED

Greenpatch

This week the world’s naval ships will be invading the place we used to camp with our kids.

UNEARTHING A LITTLE-KNOWN AUSTRALIAN TREASURE

Robert Klippel: Number 751

Tucked away behind the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is a little gem too few people seem to find.

The tourist buses pull up and visitors pile into the gallery itself, but few stroll around the back to the Sculpture Garden, where between the lawns, the lakes, the eucalypts and casuarinas are some of the big boys (notably Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin) and a sprinkling of Australia’s finest 3D artists.

SKIPPY IN THE TULIPS – Floriade, Canberra

The Netherlands meets Australia in Canberra.

Our nation’s capital has a reputation for being cold. The cold makes it one of the few places in the Southern Hemisphere where tulips flourish, which means that for a few weeks each year, Canberra is in full bloom.

The Floriade Festival, on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin brings Canberra to life each spring. It’s a sort of unofficial Dutch event, so naturally Mevrouw T and I had to check it out.

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE: – The world’s worst job – for me.

Suffering as I do from vertigo, this would not be my career choice.

Another Weekly Photo Challenge and the subject, Lines and Patterns, is not a difficult one.

I’ve become well used to looking for patterns, and modern architecture offers plenty of options. The trick is to add human interest and make the viewer feel something.

In the case of these window washers dangling above Chicago, I feel ‘I’m glad it’s them, not me.’

PARDON MY FRENCH

The gentleman behind the car hire desk at Geneva airport had heard enough of my halting Melbourne high school French, so he asked me gently, ‘May I speak English with you?’

Not the usual ‘Do you speak English?’ but ‘May I speak English with you?’ He gave me a line I’ve used hundreds, if not thousands, of times since. At a hotel reception desk in Ystad, before getting into a taxi in Istanbul, when lost in a maze of Estonian alleyways, I now begin my chats with strangers with ‘May I speak English with you?’

Here’s why.

LOVED RUGS AND LOVE DRUGS – Istanbul

Irrepressible value!

Turkish Viagra comes in a little jar. A silhouette on the lid depicts a toddler with an oversized member pointing skywards. ‘APRODISIAQUE,’ declares the label, ‘For Man and Women (sic)’. At 2 euros a jar you won’t find a better offer in your junk email and you won’t find a more interesting place to buy it than in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.