200 years of railways

From Theodor Herzl, Old New Land (Altneuland) 1902, trans. Lotta Levensohn 1960, Markus Wehner/Herzl Press 1960 (1987 edition). Herzl was dead by 1904, only two years after he published this utopia which provided a blueprint, of sorts, for 20th century Israel. My real point, if I have one, is nothing about Herzl or Altneuland but about the fact that today marks 200 years of railway services. In fact what it appears happened was they picked a nicer time of year (the account below is from page 11 of the 4 July 1925 issue of the San Bernadino County Sun) and did a facile re-enactment using the actual engine.

Here's another news item from the 12 July 1925 edition of the Kansas City Star with a picture. 

There was also a celebration on the 27th but according to the Guardian 28 September 1925 p. 11 most of the festivities took place in Manchester because that was where Stephenson et al really made their mark and it was more important. There was also a big exhibition in London. 

I'm writing this in 2020 so I have no idea how the bicentenary of railways will be commemorated, for all I know by World-President-for-Life Trump declaring all railways be concreted for highways and aeroplane runways. 

 

things at that geelong vintage market you know the one, yesterday

 

In case you didn't know, Saxil Tuxen (part of 'Tuxen and Miller') was a significant part of my PhD thesis and is a subject of future work, too. I was not aware of this estate which presumably dates from 1935 which was the centenary of the establishment of Melbourne, and certainly that's the first mention of it I can find in the newspapers. Anyway this is overpriced for something both ugly and water damaged. 

The next two things are revolting but I really think I have to toughen up because there are bad times ahead, badder than current times. 

hanging rock

On Saturday Laura and I went to Hanging Rock and spent some time. There's many things about HR I really like but I am so intrigued by these little horns on some of the protuberances. Also, great view. 

Still not 100% sure what these creatures were on the racecourse. But assume kangaroos. 

a new wings compilation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'WINGS is the ultimate anthology of the band that defined the sound of the 1970s. Personally overseen by Paul, WINGS is available in an impressive array of beautifully designed formats -- all including the timeless international hits 'Band on the Run', 'Live and Let Die', 'Jet' and 'Let 'Em In' -- songs that still feature in Paul’s live shows to this day.' So said an email I received a couple of days ago from the Wings Fun Club. 

I just don't know why - since there are obviously great things in the vaults - the Wings repackaging is so constantly just (almost completely) stuff that's been released before, and the canon generally concentrates heavily on the very commercially successful mid-period of Band on the Run - Venus and Mars - Speed of Sound. I mean of course I do know why but I don't like it. So, this new collection does cover a few, well, I suppose deep cuts though that's a weird phrase to use for records which have been heard by millions if not billions. Still, some brave moves. 

I mean, I wouldn't buy any iteration of this new collection* because I've got it all anyway, but here's the tracklisting of the 3LP-2CD collection, I guess PMcC's idea of what constitutes the 'best' of Wings. I've bolded the songs I also think fit this category:

Band on the Run (2010 Remaster) ⁠Hi, Hi, Hi (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Silly Love Songs (2014 Remaster) ⁠Letting Go (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (2010 Remaster)     Live and Let Die (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Mamunia (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Junior’s Farm (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Helen Wheels (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Some People Never Know (2018 Remaster)   Let ’Em In (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Get on the Right Thing (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Jet (2010 Remaster)  ⁠My Love (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Call Me Back Again (2014 Remaster)   Getting Closer (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Listen to What the Man Said (2014 Remaster) ⁠I’ve Had Enough (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Love Is Strange (2018 Remaster)  ⁠London Town (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Arrow Through Me (2016 Remaster)  Venus and Mars/Rock Show (2022 Remaster)  ⁠She’s My Baby (2014 Remaster)  ⁠Bluebird (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Deliver Your Children (2022 Remaster)  ⁠Let Me Roll It (2010 Remaster)  ⁠Mull of Kintyre (2016 Remaster)   Wild Life (2018 Remaster)  ⁠C Moon (2018 Remaster)  ⁠With a Little Luck (2018 Remaster)  ⁠Soily (One Hand Clapping Sessions) ⁠Goodnight Tonight (2016 Remaster) 

So, we do agree on quite a few (12) tracks, but where we disagree, we really disagree. 'Soily'?! 'She's My Baby'?!!! 'MAMUNIA'!!!??? Puh-leese. What it looks like to me is that he has tried hard to bring in something from every era, to help us understand the spread, mass and consistency of the ten years of Wings ('71-'81). But I don't think he knows what was good. 

This is my alternative best of wings which I shared only with Laura but I suppose in a manner of speaking I'm sharing it with you too now, and you could easily recreate it if you wanted to, and you could put Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Under the Bridge' slap bang in the middle of it too if you felt like it. 

So it starts with a lie: 'Message to Joe' is not anywhere near a best thing of Wings or even a good anything, though it's entirely fine I suppose mainly because it's over in a split second. I just thought it was a good way to start. 

'Oriental Nightfish' is Linda-Paul-Denny Wings, doing a Linda composition, and I can totally imagine Paul and Linda being like 'people are already saying Linda shouldn't be in a band with men, what would they say if an actual Linda McCartney composition got on a Wings record', but it's so much better than so much stuff that did come out under Wings' name, and I don't just mean 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' etc. 'Some People Never Know' is masterful and, yes, deserves to be on the real best of collection (the 3-LP version at least, I haven't looked at the one-LP version but I assume that's just things you'll hear on classic rock radio every day of the year). 

I have already whinged everywhere I could about how much I love 'Must Do Something About It'. This is the official Joe English version, not the Paul singing version which appears on the CD/extended Speed of Sound, but to be honest they're pretty similar, but I think any variety in voices is good. 'Getting Closer' and 'Silly Love Songs' are no-brainers. 'When the Wind is Blowing' is, like 'Rode All Night' from the Ram outtakes, one of those songs where you're like... (some of) PMcC's throwaways are things other people could have based whole careers on! I'm not saying anything new or exciting here, but I'm saying it anyway. 

At this point in my life I can do without anything from Red Rose Speedway, an album which apart from anything else irritates me because I always have to stop myself calling it Red Rose Speedwagon. But 'I Would Only Smile' and 'Tragedy' are two songs which would really have lifted the whole of that LP a hell of a lot. They were both on the originally conceived double album version, which PMcC was forced to distill to a single LP and still no-one liked it (this isn't true). 'I Would Only Smile' is a Denny Laine song and he deserved to be there, and it's great. 'Tragedy' is just remarkable, a cover of someone or other. Not the Bee Gees. 'Tomorrow' and 'Junior's Farm' from One Hand Clapping just sound fresh. 'Dear Friend' is definitely exceptional. 'Coming Up' live I'm not sure about tbh and if I was going to lose anything it might be that, but it's a tremendous song even if it's not the best version but the best version isn't by Wings. 

Maybe it's cheesy to end with 'Goodnight Tonight' so perhaps something should be done about that. Swap it with 'Helen Wheels'? Still, two really impressive pop hits of very different varieties, right at the end is bound to make you want to start all over again. Isn't it? 

Mainly I'm just really pleased with what I left off. I hope Paul sees this. I bet he sits up at night to see if anyone's writing about him on the internet... 

*Technically the third I think if you don't count the 'McCartney solo' compilations, but really it's the first to be 100% pure Wings, whereas Wings Greatest and Wingspan erroneously included bits off McCartney and Ram and maybe more I can't remember. 

hanging around the city

Today I went to the dentist, the final instalment on a long root canal/save at least a little bit of a dead tooth foray, it was fine. On the way out I walked through to Ridgway Place and noticed the above, which I suppose slightly intrigued me, I don't know why, I mean obviously people with names once ran businesses in streets like Ridgway Place and indeed still do. 

I bet that in the Melbourne of the mid-20th century a person working in footwear with the name Barfoot probably raised a lot of laughs. 

I looked him up in the newspapers and was interested to see that in 1947 he was at 29 Little Collins and then in 1967 he had moved around the corner but on the same block, to 22 Ridgway. The below ad is from 10 May 1967 (p. 36). I don't know I guess he lived there too? 

This actual house, the only one I think in Ridgway, is 20 and the place to its left is 22, obviously not the same building that was there in 1967, but it might have been similar. I wonder. 

In other news the building where my dentist is, the Coates Building, is in a bit of a state butand I also noticed this, which I like:

The PMG was rebranded Telecom in mid-1975, so this door has sat there with this designation on it for just over half a century now, apparently unchallenged. Kudos. 
 

best frenemies forever

 

 

sometimes you just gotta sniff it

 

flook!

This was a surprise discovery...

So it would seem that from late 1951 until 1959 the Perth Daily News ran a version of Flook, usually called 'Rufus and Flook'. You will recall that in November 2020 I showed you the way Flook started in the USA - using the 6th and 8th panels above - though I don't recall ever seeing Rufus look the way he looks here, ever. Whether this is the actual first three strips ever, compounded, I just don't know though I doubt it. 

Anyway there is a lot more Flook to come, is my main point. I will start grabbing it soon (can you wait till December? If not, just look it up yourself in Trove).

angry of east malvern

Starting a new project, or trying to, I am beginning by looking for new angles on the broader story of the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission by prodding around the edges. In this case the machinations and protestations of the East Malvern Ratepayers' Association in the early 1930s. Long story short, the state government passed a bill in the mid-1920s to extend the railway line from Darling to Glen Waverley, but the funding was to come in part from the local landholders, who would pay a tax/levy/whatever on their land under the assumption that their property would increase greatly in value with the new railway line. 

In the abstract it kind of makes sense, but of course by the time shit got real in the early 1930s, many people who were arguably land-rich had often become really cash-poor.* So there was major unhappiness about the situation and the people of East Malvern got really radicalised over it all. 

I was originally interested because of the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission's plan for the area (and at the moment, I still can't entirely see where the connection is between the plan and the funding strategy, but I am pretty sure there is one) but I'm also always really interested when ordinary 'decent' people get up in arms about something attacking their solid view of the world, so the EMRA's papers really grabbed me. Though for now, my main interest is the way people were a hundred years ago when their photo was being taken. It wasn't 'I'm part of the delegation to see Stanley Argyle, got to look serious and determined' it was 'gosh, I'm having my picture taken! What larks!' 

 

The good old days! Even if you were being screwed by the government for a railway you never wanted (but by the way which would ultimately make your property worth a lot more and indeed make your region a middle-class wonderland) still everyone you knew was white and protestant (presumably) and you all wore hats. 

*Probably there were also a lot of people who would have resisted the whole idea even if it hadn't been the Great Depression, but who knows.