Beach scene. Original art deco painting in Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle.

These 'pages' take a look at Newcastle and other parts of the state and jump from one to another and contain mutterings about all sorts of abstract topics.  From 2006 onwards.

Nobbys Beach Newcastle

The final cut

Sailing, pets at the beach, Street fair in New Lambton and hugh League match NZ beaten by Aus, there was little time left for serious issues this weekend.

Behind the scene.

Change is constant. In King Street, a row of terraces, home of everyday Novocastrians, became shops. Retailing declines and maybe, homeowners will return again to the old terraces.
Commercial activity in the city has freedom to abide where it thinks fit. No particular entity is in control, I imagine.  To movers and shakers: go on! radicalise yourselves and find clever  arrangments that facilitate the use of our empty city buildings.
At the same time as a brand new shopping centre is squeezed onto a city site, empty disused premises, just one block distant, are left to rot. Can planning exert pressure on commerce who display immunity to the surroundings and ignore what we have here.
Wastefully, commerce just doesn't get it when it comes to recycling building stock and the overall amenity misses out on a golden opportunity. The high costs of adaption become part and parcel of developments.  The move to Honeysuckle left a few big casualities in the CBD and is bad exmaple.
Certain radical penalities might be applied to discourge the duplication of shops and offices.  Radical yet prudent limitation of suburban developments before consolidation of what we already have is the wildest dream and a red rag to a bull.  Image the outcry.
Good as it is, it takes more than opening up crafty shops in response to an impending influx during a festival.
We are not alone, cities everywhere grapple with urban renewal. Try more inventiveness along with pressure.

 Ahh nature!  Another spin-off from our notorious live cattle export to Asia? from scarce timber resources? from child labour? from paltry wages?  In the city: Genuine (!) cow hide rugs from $499 limited time only. ...From a shop that gathers 'wow' factor pieces from travel to a list of places in Asia and beyond.  

Laman Street, Newcastle. A birds eye view upon climbing one of the notorious trees - just joking! The trees in Laman Street have a short reprieve...again... 

Lower photo: tree protestors last Sunday.  

Tree loving protestors gathered in Civic Park in response to the plan to remove the Laman Street grove of trees.   The trees have been the subject of a hugh amount of debate for a long time. 

It must be time for an urban Fig Tree ballad to germinate. Rock a bye baby on the tree top....

The overall plan for a creative space to take the place of the trees, if and when they go, is of enormous interest.  Will it be done with flair and imagination?  

Demolition. Not long before this, kids made ad hoc use of the derelict building for skateboarding etc.  Angry boys?!  (Angry Boys on ABC TV from Chris Lilley with HBO as co-producer and pre sale to BBC.  Whatever will they make of the series?)  

On another tack, is it quaint to see the Latin term, ad hoc used in a question on today's census form?  Ques 49... Ad hoc help or assistance, such as shopping....

From Macquarie Dictionary: ad hoc: 2. impromptu. An ad hoc decison is one made with regard to the exigencies of the moment.

Stormy Newcastle Beach had plenty of white water on Saturday and a touch of sunlight for a brief time. 

Wild weather in the tradition of a 'Pasha Bulker Storm' eased up today.  Rain squalls didn't deter onlookers and serious, well-equiped photographers.     

 

In King Edward Park. Fun sliding down a hill is still an ok thing to do on a warm Sunday in May. 

King Edward Park Newcastle.

 The Grand Hotel, accross from the court house, a post-legal retreat?

Advertising just washes over me. The big names behind the internet, Google, the Social media, etc don't use conventional advertising at all and get unlimited consumers without it. It is a new paradigm with a captive audience and as a virtual entity is worth billions.
 Pop-ups make an insistant form of advertising and give power - disappearance is just a click away - usually!

Flights and advertising. We live, in this country, with long haul flights. Maxium distance to most destinations. Perhaps this influences advertisements of first class flights that offer space to sleep in comfort. Quirky ads show two sitting on a vast bed chatting to an attendant. Or a cosy duo of stranges. How the other half live!  Those ads I can do without.

Part of the Court Houses in Newcastle.

Demolished.  The small family business, Stotts Mowers in Waratah has moved away and, probably, homes will take its place. 
The business was once well known and some thirty years ago could be seen taking part in city processions with a stunt in which a little lawn mower towed big heavy things along. Gender equality was there and the daughter was a competent mechanic.
The business had grown like Topsy with a workshop on the rear of the house.  Later, the house burnt down and the shed was reorganized.
Most of the homes in the vicinity have changed hands a number of times in thirty years. More and more, homes have only become an investment, a negotiable item, two incomes became mandatory, salesmen love the situation which inflates home prices and keeps many on a treadmill.

Bleak yet renewed. Harbourside land, saved and detoxed, will get a life,  now that the iron and steel works have been painstakingly removed.

Health departments have a newish home in Hunter Street.  Advocates for better mental health care are trying their best to get a share of the action.  High tech services must use up the budget instead of funding for mental health staff and broad support services.
Newcastle has several new mental health facilities.

Parking Meter patrol takes a break in Hunter Street mall. On the right, a shipping buoy look alike tells us important facs. 
Shoppers go to suburban mega stores and leave the centre of the old town fairly quiet.

Morning tea break in Hunter street Mall. Trio of postmen park their trollies and take a seat in the sun on a perfect autumn morning.  And a bizzare tree sits on a trailer - where else?  Part of organizing a gardening display.
Hunter Street Mall.  Pall Mall, London, is probably the first mall we heard about. We pronounce the word as maul, (as in mauled by a tiger)  Pal Mal was ocker speak!



 With quality similar to images from an unhinged Scandinavian art house movie it was fitting that City Hall clockface assumed a new distinctly greenish tinge to match an eerie lunar presence, observed when the luna body was as close as possible to our planet on last Sabbath.

Earth Hour is making its mark in this community and has gone viral.
 Lights out on March 26!