Men at Work - Saturday Song

I heard "Who could it be now" on the car radio in the early 80s and thought exactly that - who could it be, who was that band. I had no idea that they were a home grown band. I bought the LP that night on the way home and just played it all night. Later the track - Down under became a hit also.



 Colin Hay from Men at Work gets just a little help from Paul Carrack (Mike and the Mechanics) on keyboard and Ringo on Drums. This song was used as a theme for Australia II when it won the America's Cup - How proud were we. The Aussies were the first to take the Cup from Newport.

Is Edna Funky enough for Friday

Graffiti can be a bit of a blight on the community, but with thousands of years of this "art" its hard to ignore. I think we all consider tagging (someones name or initials) a bit senseless and even vandalism. Then there's the clever or even whimsical.
I once saw some graffiti that said, "What would you do if God came to Carlton" and the answer below from someone else said something like "let him play full forward". To be expected in a football town like Melbourne. My memory fails me a little, but you get the general picture.
I even saw tagging on the many buildings in our travels through France and Italy. This was back centuries ago and instead of a pressure can - a sharp steel instrument was possibly used.

Back to this graffiti I saw in Melbourne recently - It was of our self proclaimed Dame, Edna Everage. I like this form of graffitti which is a paper stencil and so easily removed too. But not this one of Dame Edna. It still exists, obviously others like it too.

HAVAGOODWEEKEND

Vers near Cahor on the Lot River

Since last Wednesday's blog, I've been following our drive from Saint Antonin to Vers with Google Earth and discovered the location of a photograph we took but could not remember where. Someone else took the same subject but on a different angle. It was the wash house or Lavoir on the outskirts of Limogne. We remember driving along the hills of the area and seeing for the first time a Lavoir, but not our last. There were so many villages that we drove through or bypassed undiscovered. I guess you need to live in an area for awhile to really appreciate these hidden treasures.

Vers is just a small village with a population of less than 400 and you really wouldn't see a reason to stop there however with two nights we discovered those hidden treasures I mentioned earlier. Vers sits on the confluence of the river Vers and the river Lot. It had its own Chateau but I can find almost nothing of its history on the internet and we might not had even known about it except for an afternoon walk on the banks of the river Vers. At some time the Chateau sat on its own island but today the island doesn't exist. The walls and some of the foundations are still visible and subsequent buildings rest on the ancient foundations.
We sat by the river watching ducks paddle by, children play on the river bank while imagining what the Chateau may have looked like.
From what I can gather the Chateau fortress was established in the mid 1300s at the time of the One Hundred Year War, possibly a little before the battle of Poitiers 1356. By enlarging the photograph of the sign below (all in French) I tried to gain further information without success - maybe a reader out there can help me.

The History of Chateau de Vers - can anyone translate please?



A view showing some of the original fortress walls
Peter Young Pic from Google Earth. He has some great pics of the region.



Another view of further structures built on the old foundations of the Chateau.

Possibly part of the internal walls of the Chateau with steps leading up.



We stayed in this hotel with our balcony overlooking the river Vers.



Sorry, but I couldn't resist a pic of my bike on an early morning ride around Vers.

Next Wednesday takes us to the most interesting hilltop village but our GPS, Tommy took us on the most scary route that was in itself a great memory.

Easter in Australia

The Easter Bilby needs to replace the Easter bunny, and not only in chocolate either. The Bilby is a traditional marsupial of Australia. The rabbit which breeds so prolifically in Australia has been a competitor for the Bilby's habitat. Portion of the profits of all chocolate Bilbys goes towards funding its survival.

Happy Easter to all our readers.

For further info on the Bilby, go to
http://www.easterbilby.com.au/default.asp

Broderick Smith - Saturday Song

As a young bloke I remember this big thing with Aussie bands doing their own thing. Writing songs about local themes and taking their own direction. The Dingoes and Broderick Smith was one of those bands and Brod was one of those guys.
I saw him when I was a teenager at a concert. He wandered up on to the stage a suit, I thought he might have been a bank teller with the way he looked. He had a pocket full of harmonicas and played the meanest blues harp I had ever heard locally. Brod still plays around Melbourne, still writes and still records.