Sandstone restoration, Hyde Park

Sydney City Council is restoring and repairing the sandstone perimeter wall and features of Hyde Park, including stairs, pavements, plinths, and the wall. 

I came across these workers installing caps along the wall. 

Meanwhile, the NSW state government is planning to privatise public works heritage services. These skilled craftspeople have been responsible for much of the restoration of Sydney's unique sandstone buildings and features over recent years, including the Queen Victoria Building, Hyde Park Barracks, Central Station. 

Where will the skilled tradespeople come from in future? They won't be home grown, if the state government has the final say. 

Art and About Sydney Life 05

Fiona Morris - Circus Children Dakota and Cody outside the Big Top, Tempe

Art and About: Sydney Life 04

Deborah Clare Veronica West - Sydney Harbour Sunday.

Art and About: Sydney Life 03

John McRae - The Young Photographer. Shot in Lidcombe at the reception of a Muslim wedding. Ahmed is photographed as he photographs his aunt's family portrait.

Art and About: Sydney Life 02

Tom Williams - The Osman Family, Southerly Storm approaching Brighton Beach.
I voted for this as my favourite. It's so dynamic, so Sydney. Beach culture meets multiculturalism.

Art and About : Sydney Life 01

Every year, as part of the Art and About exhibition (free street art in Sydney), there is a photographic exhibition in Hyde Park North. Large canvases are hung between the trees. For the next few days I will show some of my favourites.

This is by Ernest Fratczak, and titled "Based On A True Story" (a languid summer afternoon in one of Sydney's more affluent suburbs)

Frazer Fountain, Hyde Park. Sydney Sandstone part 16 (repost)

Originally posted 24 and 25 May 2006

I'm away on holidays enjoying myself at the beach. I'm therefore re-posting some sandstone photos I've used previously, some more than two years ago....

This is one of two drinking fountains gifted in the 1880s to the people of Sydney by John Frazer. It was a time when many houses lacked water connections. Carved in Pyrmont sandstone by Lawrence Beveridge.

Check here for holiday photos, and click here to see the complete sandstone collection.

Felix the Cat 3

There must be a Felix fan spreading the joy around Sydney! Is it a concerted campaign? Yet more tomorrow....when we ask the question "Is Felix Australian?"

Here the Felix song by clicking here.

Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat
Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks

You'll laugh so much your sides will ache
Your heart will go pitter pat
Watching Felix, the wonderful cat.

Gathering support

Some Falun Gong practiotioners were out and about garnering support from the Catholic World Youth Day participants recently. With some success as you can see above!

And thanks to the city workers

The success of people-intensive events depends on the hard work of so many behind the scenes workers. This city of Sydney worker was picking up rubish in Hyde Park to keep the area clean for the Catholic World Youth Day revellers.

Today is, apparently Ratcatchers' Day. I hope this young woman doesn't have to deal with any rats!

It's also Pi approximation day in countries that use DD/MM/YY format for dates: 22/7

Waiting for God....oh...*

I had intended to go up Sydney Tower today and get some aerial shots of crowds following the pope's progress as he "officially" arrived in Sydney (He's been here since Sunday). Unfortunately, there was a wait of at least an hour and a half to get to the top. Lots of young Catholics had the same idea! So, I wandered through Hyde Park, looking for some photo ops, and ended up right at the fence opposite St Mary's Cathedral. The crowd was one deep, so I then decided I would call this post "I did but see him passing by..." and wait with the faithful, as a faithful Sydney blogger, to witness his arrival. After all, there really was only one event in Sydney today.

Here's a pic I took of myself. Waiting.

Here's a pic of the excited (?) crowd.
And here's a pic of the cathedral, with Apollo seeming to be pointing towards it. The side door we were facing is under that middle tower:
It wasn't too long before the masses started to realise that in a triumph of unfortunate planning, il papa was going to arrive in the dark. Maybe it should have happened an hour earlier? Had someone forgotten that it's dark at about 5pm in Sydney in winter? Mutterings began about whether mobile phone cameras would be up to the job of snapping the pontiff as he drove slowly past in the Popemobile. I busied myself trying out various settings on the camera, taking and deleting pics furiously as I tried to decide which setting might cope with both darkness and a slow-moving vehicle. I phoned home to ask someone to turn on the TV and check where he was.

A ripple of laughter went around the crowd (which was getting a bit antsy) as one wag commented that this probably wasn't the popemobile.
Then the helicopters overhead increased in number (about 5) and proximity, one even coming quite low. And a group of cars whizzed past at high speed at the end of the road. I THINK the blurry streak of light you can possibly see behind the telegraph pole was perhaps the popemobile. Or part of his entourage. Someone said it was anyway, so I clicked off a snap.
We waited for the motorcade to round the corner, do a loop around the cathedral and come past us. A group of "official" pilgrims stood on the cathedral steps facing us and waited - at least people around me said they were the official pilgrims' greeting party.

Then a big burly cop with lots of stars on his shoulders came past and said "That's it folks, he's not coming round this way!" Some people thought he was joking and started to laugh. But big burly cops with lots of stars on their shoulders don't joke about these things.

The crowd was left to disperse.

As I was standing right near the merchandising tent, I had to go past the entrance to leave the park. There was a huge queue of people waiting to get inside. It was crammed full so they were only letting a few in at a time. I spoke to a couple at the head of the queue. I asked if they were seeking solace in retail therapy, and it appeared they were...

Moral: Next time, look more closely at the official route map.

* with apologies to Samuel Beckett

Fountains and young boys

Fountains are always hold a strong attraction for young boys. Hassan and Mahommed and their dad, originally from Senegal, were having a really fun time playing at the Archibald Fountain. Their joy was infectious. (Dad was happy for me to photograph his boys).

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney claimed the day the pope arrived in Sydney that western nations need to populate or perish. He claims that "No western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country..."

Australia's population is growing. Thanks to lovely young people like Hassan, who was born here, and his family who have made Australia their home. So what does Cardinal Pell really mean? Does he mean white Catholics aren't having enough babies?

Australia is a far, far better place for its multiculturalism than it ever was before. Sure there's occasional conflict, but tell me a society, even heterogenous where there hasn't been conflict - Us'es and Thems?

George is also a "climate sceptic" (an interestingly divergent view to that of his pope), which makes his views even more interesting. Does he discount population pressures as a problem, or maybe he's just concerned about population growth in non-western countries?

A le quartorze juillet

OK, yep, I know it was yesterday, but I'm catching up, ok!

There are some not so obvious links to France in Sydney, one of them being what is probably our most well-known fountain, The Archibald in Hyde Park.

It was built in 1932, a gift to the city of Sydney under the terms of the will of a Francophile J F Archibald (in whose name also an annual portrait prize is awarded). As a plaque says, Archibald's intention was to "commemorate the association between Australia and France in The Great War 1914-18" and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard.

It depicts a bronze Apollo surrounded by other mythical figures. Horses’ heads, dolphins and tortoises exuberantly spray jets of water.

In the 1880s AF Archibald founded the Bulletin newspaper, famous for encouraging an Australian idiom in Australian writing. But in his own life Archibald was fascinated by all things Parisian. He changed his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois and wore a little French style beard when no one else was wearing them. In donating the Archibald Fountain to the City he imagined its civic design and ornamentation developing to rival the city of his dreaming.

A postcard to the first person who can correctly name the three mythological characters from each of the sculptural groupings shown below!

God and Mammon - Catholic World Youth Day souvenirs

Once upon a time, the churches opposed retail trading on Sundays. Once upon a time, Mammon was regarded as a false god.

Times change and every large event needs its official merchandising arm.

The merchandising tent in Hyde Park associated with Catholic World Youth Day was doing roaring business on Sunday- everything from national flags, to Benedict XVI baseball caps, t-shirts, hoodies, and not to forget Aussie flag boxer shorts and thongs, and ugg boots.

Screens were set up inside the shop showing Guy Sebastian, a former Australian Idol winner performing his WYD anthem. Sony his music distributor is flogging his latest CD (Nashville songs) as well as the anthem. Sebastian is a member of Protestant Pentecostalist sect, Hillsong.

One Catholic group is protesting against the merchandise. Click here for full story.

"Alan Hockey and Michael Gravener - who help run the Share the Meal charitable group at St Vincent's Catholic Church in Redfern - said yesterday that they wanted to voice their protest against the commercialisation of World Youth Day.
Mr Gravener inspected official "I Love Jesus" T-shirts while wearing an orange T-shirt he had bought online, saying: "Where is Jesus in WYD08?"
"This is actually one of the first times I've actually seen Jesus mentioned in the whole promotion of the event," he said.
Mr Hockey said he would not buy any of the official merchandise."They're selling Guy Sebastian CDs but no one has stopped to ask what he actually practises. He's not Catholic - he's from the Hillsong Church and there's a big difference. We're Catholic and we will protest against anything that doesn't put Jesus at the centre of the faith." "

Tree graffiti

Graffiti on a poplar tree in Hyde Park.

Chess in Hyde Park

I can't quite work out what the wheelbarrow was for, unless it was one of the park gardeners stopping for a look. The man with the arm crutch was very adept at using it to move his pieces.

Exercise in the park

One of the fashionable things to do nowadays is to have a personal trainer take you through your paces in a public park or on a beach. So, if a strolling photographer wanders past, be prepared! Here's some late afternoon torture in Hyde Park.

May Day

Marchers leave Hyde Park. Lots more photos at Sydney Daily Photo Extra

Today Sydney has its traditional May Day rally and march, held on the Sunday closest to May 1. Is May Day as a trade union / workers' festival celebrated where you are?
In NSW, we have a public holiday for "Labour Day" in October, which celebrates the introduction of the 8 hour working day (ha!) , won first by striking masons at Holy Trinity Church, in Millers Point, in October 1855. The major success came in 1856 in Melbourne, where the 8 hour day was won across the building trades.
The first Monday in October holiday was gazetted across all NSW in 1963, not without controversy in areas like Newcastle, which had a strong May Day tradition.
Read more about Newcastle here.
(The ACT and South Australia share the NSW Labour Day date; in Victoria, it's the 2nd Monday in March, as well as in Tasmania, where it's called eight Hour Day; in Western Australia, it's the 1st Mon in March. Only Queensland and the Northern territory have their Labour Day holiday on the 1st Monday of May.)
PS - for pedants, "Labour" is sometimes spelled the 'American' way - Labor - in Australia, because that was the spelling adopted by the Australian Labor Party in 1912. According to the ALP's own history, it was because of the influence of the American labor movement.
Maybe we're as schizophrenic about the spelling of Labour/Labor as about celebrating Labour Day/May Day?

Phar Lap - an Aussie icon

I'm in Melbourne again, at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Congress, so here's another one from the vault.

This is from a photographic exhibition held in Hyde Park early in the year. The photos are all shown on canvases hung between the trees.

This is a photo of a legendary Australian racehorse of the 1920s-30s, called Phar Lap. Phar Lap captured the imagination of the nation during the Great depression. He won a whole lot of races - 37 out of 51 starts in 4 years - and then went to America to race, where he was poisoned and died. His body was brought back to Australia (bound in this shroud) and then the taxidermists got to work. His body has been on display in the Museum of Melbourne ever since. His heart is in an anatomy Canberra, and skeleton in the National Museum in Wellington, New Zealand (he was born in NZ).

This week toxicology tests undertaken on Phar Lap's skin showed conclusively for the first time that he was poisoned with arsenic. American gangsters trying to avoid losses from Phar Lap winning races have long been suspected.

Double trouble

I was sitting on a seat in Hyde Park, when I noticed this young skater whizz past. Then I became aware that he was back again, and then a few seconds later, back he came from the other direction, and then again.

Then I looked up and paid more attention!