Countryman Clothing building Brunswick Road

When I arrived home late one afternoon, Vince said: “Do you know that the back of the Countryman’s building has disappeared?”  I had to rush down and see. I knew that the building had recently been up for sale but I did not know whether it had sold. My dream of a museum of manufacture on this site had obviously not occurred to anyone else. What a pity.

So I went down and snapped a few photos. Then my day just got better:

Two Marches in March

Today I found myself at the March in March. It was amazing to see so many people out on the streets of Melbourne, all with different complaints and concerns. The effectiveness of social media networking to bring people together and advertise events is quite mindblowing.


On Twitter later today I found out that there was another march, on the wonderful Sydney Road. In fact earlier today I had been near the Sydney Road Baptist Church, from where the march started. Tri Nguyen, who had arrived in Australia after a horrendous boat trip from Vietnam and shocking experiences in a refugee camp in a third country, is setting out on a 35 day walk from Brunswick to Canberra, hauling a wooden replica of the boat which carried them through the monsoon. The boat had "thank you" written on the side, thanking the Australian community for the kindness and welcome he and his family had received.

What a wonderful odyssey, back up the trapdoor to Melbourne, to the seat of power in Canberra, via those small towns which are perhaps not as multicultural as Brunswick but with a great diversity of opinions and personalities. I will be following his journey, and gaining inspiration from it.

My installation at the Sydney Road Street Party

Inspired by the Yoko Ono wall of wishes and comments (visited by me and Rosario in Sydney in December), I thought the Greens stall at this year’s Sydney Road Street Party should have one also. Despite scepticism from a number of quarters, that the set up was “jerry built” (well, it was mounted on a paint spattered vintage ladder which had originally come from ETSA) and “hippy”, it became a talking point. Tim even tweeted a photo of him and Greg attaching their contributions to “What do you want for Victoria’s future?”