Sydney has its opera house, Melbourne its casino and Adelaide is the city of churches.
And now there’s Geelong, home of the ovoid sewer aqueduct.
Yes, the State Government might have a hard sell on its hands with its plans for the city’s newest attraction – a vast, undeveloped parkland at Breakwater with a disused sewage pipe as its centrepiece.
According to the Government, the proposed 66-hectare parkland will be equipped with “viewing platforms, signage and seating”, presumably for users to admire the decommissioned fudge funnel that is, of course, heritage listed.
Water Minister and Bellarine MP Lisa Neville called the park “an exciting proposal for the Geelong community”.
And possibly even more exciting for local tourism boss Roger Grant (pictured) as he considers how to weave a sewer park into regional marketing material.
Finally Geelong knows the terrible toll that required the sacking of its council and the very public trashing of City Hall management – and it can be quantified on a single hand!
After hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense following 12 months of investigation, the horrifying scope of the former council’s alleged “culture of bullying” has been revealed – four confirmed incidents and “several” people consequently fired or resigned – as in maybe three or four.
From a staff numbering more than 2500.
So the Andrews Government sacked Geelong’s council, appointed highly-paid administrators, spent gazillions on investigations and is delaying fresh elections because between .1 and .2 per cent of staff and/or councillors were bullies at some point in the past few years.
Based on these figures, the previous council makes the local CWA look like Hawthorn’s defensive line-up from the ’80s!
Meanwhile, the Geelong region seems to be providing inspiration for creative types, namely young musicians.
Hard rock band Ocean Grove has been shaking alternative charts for the past year, even though the band hails from Melbourne.
And now solo act Lost Animal, also from Melbourne, is on tour to support his latest album, You Yang.
But our localities still have much more to offer in the naming stakes.
Breakwater: it just sounds like a folk band.
Indented Head: heavy metal, for sure, or perhaps a punk group.
Lovely Banks: a middled-aged a cappella outfit.
Drumcondra: perfect for those roaming hippies with tribal drums at community markets.
And finally, Queenscliff: a tribute to the music of Queen and Cliff Richard.
Readers are invited to make further suggestions – anyone for Moolap?
Gremlins must have infested last week’s Indy, or was it next November’s Indy?
After all, the dateline on the front page was ‘Friday 20 November 2017’.
Readers must have been intrigued by the local news of the future – and dismayed at the absence of November’s Tatts numbers or results from Flemington.
Then a story in Finally Friday revealed that local crooner Denis Walter would perform “power ballet” in a show at Geelong RSL.
Hopefully he’ll wear reinforced tights on the night – wouldn’t want to risk a power failure during the splits in front of an RSL crowd!
Perhaps Denis should stick to his usual power ballads instead.
And the gaffes didn’t stop there, with a headline on the letters page inventing the word ‘surrending’. It should have been ‘surrendering’.
Sheesh. What a week.
Publish and be damned? More like damned publishing!
