Christmas is again approaching, and as is the tradition here at The Grapevine it’s time to celebrate with an article!

I always enjoy this time leading up to Christmas as the city comes alive with festivities and there is a general air of happiness and charity across Melbourne.

One of the best Christmas practices is in fact a tradition that goes back many centuries. The lighting of advent wreaths in our churches is a simple but elegant way in which the weeks are counted during Advent. The wreath contains four candles – three purple and one pink – and as the weeks pass a new candle is lit until the week of Christmas. Seeing the Advent wreath always gives me a sense of happiness, as it marks the coming of Christmas.

A Christmas wreath suspended from the ceiling of St Francis Church.

As always, the traditonal Myer Windows are popular in Melbourne. The theme for 2007 is Uno’s Garden, a children’s book by Graeme Base (ISBN 0670041912). All of the window’s in Myer’s Bourke Street store have been dedicated to recreating Base’s story about striking the correct balance between development and conservation. The display is excellent and I decided this year to view the windows in the evening when the queues are much shorter. I suggest you do the same!

A mother shows her child the Myer Windows at night.

One of the nicest Christmas displays this year was one that I found by chance. When visiting Federation Square, I walked past the BMW Edge Theatre Hall. Therein I found a giant spiral Christmas Tree made of LED lights that lit the whole room. It’s simple elegance was so captivating! In fact the whole Christmas display at Federation Square was really interesting with different types of decorations spread throughout the main atrium. They’re well worth a look as well as the giant Advent Calendar on the eastern ‘shard’.

The Christmas Tree at BMW Edge,Federation Square.

Perhaps the most elegant of Christmas displays can be witnessed in the former Commercial Bank of Australia Banking Chambers at 333 Collins Street.

The original portion of this amazing building was constructed in 1891 and features a barrel-vaulted ceiling, granite columns, giant arches, elaborate wrought iron gates and a shiny marble floor. In the centre is a huge Christmas tree.

With the ornate plasterwork as a backdrop, this really makes for an elegant scene indeed.

The festive interior of 333 Collins Street.

Of course there are many other Christmas displays across the city. As was the case last year, the John Mockridge Fountain Wall is the backdrop to a “nativity panel” which consists of metal cut-out lettering quoting the parts of the bible describing Christ’s birth. This looks really amazing at night, and with the nearby giant Christmas tree adds much Christmas cheer to the City Square site.

The “Nativity Wall” illuminated at night.

One of the disappointments is that the City of Melbourne Council has again decided to recycle the same cheap-looking stars suspended from the overhead tram wires. These are used every year and I really do feel that these fail to express the joy of a city’s celebration of Christmas. I am hoping they’ll be replaced with something better next year.

Dull and boring: Melbourne’s streets feature these uninspiring stars.

Despite the dull stars, Council can be forgiven on account of the delightful Christmas lights display in Hardware Lane. This is an annual tradition that goes back many years, but the festive lights really look great along the narrow laneway that serves as a popular café spot in the city centre.

I’ll end this post with a photo I took earlier in December of a bunch of Santa’s running down the Bourke Street Mall. The Santa’s were raising awareness for UnitingCare’s Giving Tree, it turned out. Anyway, I found this spectacle rather amusing!

Santa’s running down the Bourke Street Mall.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The funniest of radio events occurred yesterday when commercial broadcasters Hamish Blake and Andy Lee performed a live simulcast with Robbie Buck and Scott Dooley from ABC youth station Triple J.

The simulcast was a challenge resulting from the discovery that Andy Lee’s brother had submitted a song to Triple J’s Unearthed contest, under the band name Zoophyte. The song featured Andy on trumpet.

Knowing that a rival station’s announcer was on one of their Unearthed entries, Buck and Dooley sought to have their own song played on commercial radio in exchange for Triple J airplay of Zoophyte. Hamish and Andy agreed to the challenge, and as a result they played Scott Dooley’s ultra-dodgy track by Angry Panda.

The live simulcast was between commerical station 2DAY and the ABC’s youth station 2JJJ in Sydney. Because 2DAY is linked to the Austereo network and 2JJJ to the Triple J network, the simulcast was heard accross the nation by both audiences at once.

It is probably the first time such a simulcast has happened. And it was very entertaining.

I have uploaded the segment, which you can listen to by clicking on the link below. Enjoy!

Listen to Hamish & Andy simulcast on Triple J

Christmas is fast approaching and once again Melbourne is dressed-up for the occasion. I always enjoy this time of year because I feel so uplifted by all the festivities.

One of Melbourne’s oldest yuletide traditions is the annual Christmas display in the front windows of Myer. This year’s display is based on the children’s book Wombat Divine, by Mem Fox (ISBN: 1862913021). It is the story of a wombat that desperately wants to be in the bush nativity play, despite there being no suitable role for him to play! As usual, Myer have created an amazing display which beautifully tells the story in a way that children and adults will enjoy.

The 2006 Myer windows are as popular as ever
The Melbourne City Council has made a considerably greater effort to decorate the aesthetically-challenged Bourke Street Mall this year. Whilst the slightly peculiar rows of suspended stars are back, they appear less communist-inspired than before. This is because they are not bright yellow but instead a range of sparkly holographic colours that glisten in the sun. That said, the weirdness has not completely left the mall – the ‘angels’ depicted on the flags (and the rest of the city’s Christmas livery for that matter) remind me of giant wasp-like insects for some reason.
Christmas livery on the John Mockridge Fountain Wall.
Regardless of the daytime display, it is at night when the Bourke Street Mall looks its best. In the evening, the millions of suspended stars are illuminated with fairy lights to create a starry carpet that extends the entire length of the mall. The effect is quite spectacular and well worth taking a look at. Also impressive are the Christmas lights in Hardware Lane. Whilst they’re the same as previous years, they add a magical touch to that part of the city.
Bourke Street Mall is illuminated at night by millions of stars.
The official Christmas Tree has been moved this year from Federation Square to the old City Square site. The tree still looks fantastic, even if its previous site gave it a greater prominence. The City of Melbourne has also planted ‘real’ Christmas trees into the Bourke Street Mall, complete with fairy lights that look quite magical, especially within the context of the starry carpet of stars. That said, I personally think that the best Christmas trees are in the nearby Royal Arcade.Regular News Desk readers will recall last year I reported on the woefully pathetic star-on-a-stick “Christmas decorations” (note the use of inverted commas) in Lygon Street, Carlton. I am pleased to reveal that the star-on-a-stick decorations have been retired. However, the replacement is only marginally better.
Left: The official Christmas Tree illuminated at night in the old City Square.
Right: A Lygon Street Christmas pole.
As can be seen above, the decoration consists of a cylinder of plastic, with the official wasp/angel depicted on the side, all of which is illuminated at night. I don’t wish to sound negative, but if this is the best that Council can come up with for decorations, they really need to hire a new consultant! Even the ubiquitous fairy lights would look better than these.That said, the prize for “Most Bizarrre Chrismas Decorative Scheme” is not won by Melbourne City Council, but rather Melbourne’s GPO. The festive display at the former post office consists of grey inflatable “Christmas Trees” wrapped in ‘Fragile’ tape and suspended at quantity from the ceiling!
The Christmas Display at Melbourne’s GPO.
Of course the original purpose of Christmas has not been forgotten, and Council have installed a nativity panel behind the John Mockridge Fountain Wall in the City Square. It is very simple – passages from the Bible are cut out of sheet metal and adhered to the back of the John Mockridge Fountain Wall in such a manner as to make them almost unnoticeable. I cannot fathom why the Christmas message is hidden like this, but at least it is still present for the highly discerning Melburnian. I always enjoyed a traditional (and more obvious) nativity scene myself.
Part of the nativity wall on the back of the John Mockridge Fountain.Whatever you do over the coming season, I wish all readers of the News Desk a very Merry Christmas, and best wishes for 2007!

As archaic as they may appear, there is something truly captivating about a blimp (or airship) slowly moving across the skyline. The brand new Holden blimp, which has recently been seen flying across Melbourne’s skies, is no exception. Not since the yellow and green Whitman’s blimp flew across the suburbs in the late 1990’s has the city enjoyed such a spectacle.

The new Holden blimp flies over Melbourne
I was quite impressed (and excited!) when I first spotted the Holden blimp. The airship was reportedly assembled at Tullamarine Airport, and launched in late August to promote the new Holden Commodore. The craft is an American Blimp Corporation A-170 and measures 54.3 metres in length and 16.8 metres in height. The envelope (balloon) holds approximately 4.8 gigalitres of helium and the gondola can carry five passengers plus the pilot. Unfortunately, rides in the blimp are restricted to the blimp crew and winners of upcoming Holden contests.

What a pity!

Most impressive is the giant television screen embedded on the blimp’s left side. It is reported to be the world’s largest. The screen contains 369,600 light-emitting diodes that can be used to show television-style footage to people on the ground. The envelope is fitted with two 1000-watt light bulbs that illuminate the craft at night. With its animated screen and red luminescence, the Holden Blimp is certainly very eye-catching in the evening!

The Holden blimp is illuminated in the evenings. Here, it features a
tribute to Peter Brock, who was recently killed in a racing accident.
Controversy has already surrounded the launch of the blimp. Holden have announced plans to fly the blimp over the Melbourne Cricket Ground during the Australian Football League Grand Final. The problem is that the Grand Final is officially sponsored by Toyota! Since there are no aircraft restrictions over the MCG, nothing can be done to stop Holden’s cheeky ambush.

The Holden blimp is refuelled at Essendon airport.
Holden plans to make the blimp a feature at major events across Australia during the coming twelve months. I hope I am somehow lucky enough to score a ride before its decommissioning, as unlikely as that is!

I seldom watch commercial television, which means I miss most of the advertising campaigns. But sometimes an advertisement comes along that makes one glad to watch commercial TV and sit through the ads.

I speak of “Thai Harder”, the latest promotion for the Telstra Yellow Pages telephone directory. The advertisement features two women who operate rival Thai Restaurants and constantly have to compete with each other for business.

I laughed so hard when I first saw this on the television and thought to myself, “I really must see that again”. It is quite clever, actually.

So I have posted the commercial below.

This ad is definitely worthy of comparison to the classic “Not Happy, Jan” advertisement of 2004. Gold!

Footage Copyright © Telstra Corporation, 2006.