Eric Shackle, who lives in Ettalong on the NSW Central Coast, is the author of The World’s First Multi-National e-Book, which links more than 250 of his articles on websites in 13 countries.
Click on the title to see some of Eric’s stories:
Ian, third of our four sons, has wisely quit the advertising rat race in Melbourne, and bought a small farm at Frog Rock, near Mudgee, 180 miles (290 km.) northwest of Sydney. He sent us an email the other day, describing a minor incident down on the farm. It was such a delightful vignette of rural life that we'd like to share it with our internet friends. We asked Ian if we could publish it, and he agreed.
Bessie is a six-month-old blue heeler, an Australian cattle dog, and Ian's constant companion. Until last week, she had never seen any cattle. Here's Ian's story:
The Australian Cattle Dog has been described as "a tough, hard-working dog with an undying loyalty to its owner… developed from a mix of the Dalmatian, Dingo, Kelpie and Collie. What resulted was an outstanding herding dog that was willing and capable of driving cattle in the hot, harsh conditions of Australia."Bessie has decided that she loves riding on the back of the truck, just like a real farm dog. I had 12 bales of hay to feed out to the cattle. It was -3C and raining. I was muddy, cold and covered in stinking cow manure.
Bessie was sitting on top of all the bales. When I came to the paddock gate there were 52 hungry cows, 24 calves and one large bull. It's always been my fear that one of them would do a runner when I get out of the truck to open the gate, drive through, then get out and close the gate.
The bull made a run for it straight past me (I didn't try to stop him!). I cursed loudly, with visions of spending a couple of miserable hours chasing the b***** and trying to get him back to the herd.
BUT...like a flash, Bess jumped down off the truck, got in front of him in three seconds and turned him. Barking and snapping at his heels, she ran him straight back through the gate, which I quickly closed. Bess just jumped onto the back of the truck as if nothing had happened.
I was so proud of her that she got an extra Schmacko and a scratch behind the ears.
We farmers aren't allowed to show too much emotion towards our working dogs.
Ian's story jogged our memory to recall a classic humorous tale about another canine in the Australian outback - Henry Lawson's Loaded Dog, "a big black young retriever dog, or rather an overgrown pup, a big, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always slobbering round them and lashing their legs with his heavy tail that swung round like a stock-whip. Most of his head was usually a red, idiotic, slobbering grin of appreciation of his own silliness. He seemed to take life, the world, his two-legged mates, and his own instinct as a huge joke."
You can read Lawson's hilarious yarn by clicking on THE LOADED DOG.
Links
Cattle dog photos
Australian Cattle Dogs
The Kelpie Story
Photo of Frog Rock
Mudgee
Who really invented the lamington, widely regarded as one of Australia’s culinary gifts to the world? For those unfortunates who have yet to taste one, it’s a small cube of sponge cake coated all over with soft chocolate and desiccated coconut. It was named after the second Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland from 1895 to 1901. Australia, New Zealand, England and Scotland have all been suggested to have originated the recipe. "The world-famous Australian Lamington turned 100 years on 19 December 2001," says a story on (of all unlikely places) the Ipswich (Queensland) City Council’s website. "The national icon, consisting of sponge cake dipped in chocolate and liberally sprinkled with fine desiccated coconut, was created through an accident at work by a maid servant to Lord Lamington.
"The nervous maid servant was working at Government House in Brisbane when she accidentally dropped the Governor’s favourite sponge cake into some chocolate. Lord Lamington was not a person of wasteful habits and suggested that it be dipped in coconut so as to cover the chocolate to avoid messy fingers.
"The maid servant’s error was proclaimed a magnificent success by all! And so the humble lamington was born!"
That’s a good story, but sadly that’s probably all it is - a story. Here’s another version:
John Hepworth (1921-1995) journalist, playwright and poet was for many years editor of the Nation Review, which he helped establish. In its July 1977 issue, he records this incident as having occurred at a glittering banquet in the outback town of Cloncurry (Queensland):
An irascible diner seized a piece of spongecake which had dropped into a dish of brown gravy and hurled it over his shoulder in a fairly grumpy manner. The soggy piece of cake landed in a dish of shredded coconut which was standing on the sideboard waiting for the service of an Indian curry
A certain Agnes Lovelightly, in a flash of genius, saw the possibility of substituting chocolate sauce for the brown gravy, and so the lamington was born.
It would have been nice ... had this great good gateau been named for the humble genius whose invention, or divine perception, it was. But in the snobby bumsucking manner of the day it was named in honor of Baron Lamington, who was Governor of Queensland at the time.
For many years lamingtons were served on state ceremonial occasions in Queensland and won universal approbation. But Baron Lamington himself could by no means abide them. He invariably (and somewhat oddly) referred to them as "those bloody poofy woolly biscuits."
Quoting that extract from Hepworth’s article, Frederick Ludowyk, editor of the Australian National University’s Ozwords, (who modestly signs his article with his initials, F.L.) added: "The village of Lamington in Scotland may be a false eponym, but [in England] there is Leamington (Spa) in Warwickshire, and Lemmington in Northumberland. It is just possible that the lamington has its origin in a British place name. Do any readers have an ancient English recipe book which includes a recipe for a lemmington (or leamington) cake?"
Some Scots claim that a sheep shearer’s wife in the village of Lamington made the cake for a group of itinerant shearers. We decided to Ask Jeeves about Lamington, Scotland, and found that it’s a village in Lanarkshire on the left bank of the Clyde, 37 miles south of Edinburgh. Alexander Dundas Ross Cochrane Baillie was Conservative member for Bridport, Lanarkshire, Honiton, and the Isle of Wight at various periods from 1846 to 1880, when he became the first Baron Lamington. He held 10,833 acres in the shire. "His mansion, Lamington House, finely-seated on the hill-slope a little E of the village, is a modern Elizabethan edifice, with pleasant grounds."
As for New Zealand, many Kiwis firmly believe they invented not only lamingtons, but also that other famous Oz delicacy, the pavlova.
Links
Lamington Turns 100 (Ipswich City Council)
Lamington or Lemmington? (Ozwords)
Lamington, Scotland
The Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney are one of Australia’s greatest tourist attractions. But they are not alone. In the US, three volcanoes in Oregon are known as the Three Sisters, as are huge monoliths in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah. For good measure, Canada and South Africa also have Three Sisters.The Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney are one of Australia’s greatest tourist attractions. Meehni is 922 metres high, Wimlah 918 metres, and Gunnedoo 906 metres.
According to aboriginal legend, they were once three beautiful young women from the Katoomba tribe living in the Jamison Valley. They fell in love with three brothers from the neighbouring Nepean tribe, but tribal law forbade them to marry. The frustrated brothers refused to obey that law, and decided to capture the girls by force. That resulted in a fierce battle being waged between the tribes.
Fearing for the girls’ safety, a witch-doctor from the Katoomba tribe turned the sisters into stone to protect them from harm. He intended to change them back when peace was restored, but ironically he himself was killed.
As no-one else knew how to reverse the spell, the sisters remain to this day as a magnificent rock formation which attracts tourists, photographers and abseilers from all over the world. People cooee to the Three Sisters from nearby Echo Point lookout, and the sisters reply a few seconds later with a ghostly echo.
Australia’s Three Sisters are only one of many eminences of that name. In the US, three volcanoes in Oregon are known as the Three Sisters - South Sister (3158 metres), Middle Sister (3063 metres), and North Sister (3075 metres). A US Geological Survey report says "Three Sisters is one of three potentially active volcanic centers that lie close to rapidly growing communities and resort areas in Central Oregon. [They] have erupted repeatedly over tens of thousands of years and may erupt explosively in the future."
According to the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, the Three Sisters were probably named by members of the Methodist mission in Salem in the early 1840s. The individual peaks were then called Mount Faith, Mount Hope, and Mount Charity. Forty years later, residents of a small village in the area were invited to submit names for a new post office. Jacob Quiberg suggested Three Sisters. Postal authorities omitted the "Three" and the handful of wood frame buildings were named simply as Sisters. Today’s "City of Sisters" (elevation 975 metres) has a population of 960.
Another family of Three Sisters is a spectacular landmark in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah.. Here’s what DesertUSA says about the place:
| Monument Valley became world famous when it was featured in many western film classics, including John Ford’s Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Cheyenne Autumn. The Navajo Nation established the tribal park that includes some of the most dramatic buttes, mesas and monoliths, making the area accessible to thousands of tourists who visit the region each year and providing a major source of income to the Navajo people. |
In Canada, Three Sisters Mountain Village Ltd is planning to build a major resort centre in Canmore, Alberta, just east of Banff National Park, but environmentalists and others oppose the scheme, and want wildlife corridors to be established there.
The proposed mountain village could become the largest single resort development of its kind in Canada, C B Mackintosh wrote in The Globe and Mail (Toronto) on January 20, 2004, adding:
| Originally set to open in summer, 2001, the resort centre has been scaled back in size and given a new vision. Once billed as a mini-Whistler or mini-Vail, with three golf courses and dense residential and commercial development, the centre’s new "health and wellness" focus espouses a community-oriented, "less is more" philosophy... Much of the controversy surrounding the Three Sisters development has centred on the regional wildlife corridor that runs through the property. Large carnivores such as cougars, wolves and grizzlies rely on the corridor to reach habitat patches and to maintain gene pool diversity. In the Bow Valley, animals must navigate through or around the towns of Banff and Canmore, dodging railway tracks, roads and the Trans-Canada Highway |
South Africa’s Three Sisters are three flat-topped hillocks just south of the town of Victoria West, on the main Diamond Route from Cape Town to Kimberley. When diamonds were discovered at Hopetown and Kimberley in 1866, prospectors from many parts of the world charted a course through Victoria West, which became a staging post for miners seeking fame and fortune on the diamond fields.
That story reminded us of the three glamorous Gabor sisters (Zsa Zsa, Eva and Magda) who, to quote OperaGloves.com, "swept into Hollywood from Hungary, dripped diamonds and collected men the way other people collect record albums or stamps."
Links
Australia’s Three Sisters
Three Sisters, Oregon (photos)
City of Sisters, Oregon
Monument Valley, Utah
Navajo Tribal Park, Monument Valley
Three Sisters, Monument Valley, in the snow
Canada’s Three Sisters
South Africa’s Three Sisters
Gabor Sisters
Copyright © 2004 Eric Shackle Story first posted March 2004
Most of the world’s great cities have nicknames, some complimentary, others derisive. We lucky people living in Sydney, Australia (The Harbour City, The Emerald City, and (until Black Saturday) Home of the Rugby World Cup) unkindly refer to our rival city of Melbourne as Bleak City.
Here are details of the colourful nicknames of some of the great cities in the United States, with citations showing they’re still in vogue today:
NEW YORK is known variously as the Big Apple, Gotham, the Melting Pot, the Empire City or The Capital of the World.
The first recorded usage [of the term Big Apple] was by Edward S. Martin in his 1909 book The Wayfarer in New York, who wrote (regarding New York) that the rest of the United States "inclines to think the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap."
Used in the title of a column in the New York Morning Telegraph, "Around the Big Apple with John J. Fitz Gerald," which first appeared in 1924.
The term lost popularity in the 1950s, but was brought back into wide use after a 1970s promotional campaign by the New York Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Local runners taking aim at the Big Apple. Bert Fitzgerald can make it there, because he’s made it everywhere. When Madison distance runner Bert Fitzgerald laces up his shoes tomorrow morning (with some 30,000 other runners) he’ll be embarking on his first New York City Marathon, but it will be more than just 26 grueling miles through all five New York City boroughs.
- Mark Campbell, Madison (Indiana) Courier, Nov. 2, 2003.
GOTHAM. At one time the term was applied to a parish of Nottingham, England [Robin Hood territory]. The people here were famed for their stupidity and simplicity, which obtained for them the satirical appellation of the "wise men of Gotham." Many nations have designated some particular locality as the paradise of fools; for example, Phrygia was the fools’ home in Asia, Abdera of the Thracians, Boetia of the Greeks, Swabia of the Germans, etc. To Americans it is chiefly significant as a colloquial term for the city of New York.
- From Sacklunch
Gotham City, Knee-Deep in Paper. New York is a city of space-starved apartment dwellers who complain constantly about cramped conditions. A woman I know inherited some space when her daughter left for college, but was forced to use the room as a storage bin for old magazines and newspapers. Such recyclable paper has been piling up in tiny apartments all over town since New York changed the recycling schedule this summer.
- Brent Staples, New York Times, Oct. 11, 2003.
There are some who say it is size that matters. Others go for position. In New York, it seems, it’s both. We speak of buildings, obviously. Or, more specifically, of residential towers, and of the battle under way over who has Manhattan’s best.
- Gotham agog as plutocrats stage battle of the towers; Caroline Overington; Sydney Morning Herald, November 29, 2003
BOSTON, Massachusetts has many nicknames, including Beantown, Puritan City, Cradle of Liberty, Athens of America, and City of Kind Hearts. Take your pick.
Boston: City in Massachusetts. By some authorities the name is said to have been given in honor of John Cotton, vicar of St. Bodolph’s church in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, and one of the first clergymen in the American Boston. Others say it was named before the arrival of John Cotton, for three prominent colonists from Boston, England. The tracing for the word Boston elicits that in the Seventh Century a pious monk known as St. Botolph or bot-hopl (boat-help) founded a church in what is now Lincolnshire, in England.
- From Sacklunch
BOSTON—The battle in Beantown on Tuesday night featured nine of the Democratic candidates squaring off in another debate—the CNN-sponsored "Rock The Vote". Over 300 young voters attended what was called an unscripted, uncensored town hall meeting.
- ‘Rock The Vote’ Debate Rattles Beantown; WPTZ-5, The Champlain Channel, Nov. 4, 2003.
C’mon, Boston. You’re the home of Harvard and MIT, of Longfellow, Thoreau and Sargent, you’re the intellectual center of the country, the Athens of America. Enough with the cowboy hats and bandanas. You look like a bunch of little kids waiting for their ice cream and cake at a birthday party.
- Welcome to the Terrordome; Jim Caple; ESPN Sports, Oct. 14, 2003.
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania is the City of Brotherly Love or Rebel Capital.
From two Greek words meaning "loved or friendly" and "brother," applied as "brotherly love." The Indian name of the locality was Coaquannok, "grove of tall pine trees."
- From Sacklunch
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - It was as if two Philadelphias went to the polls Tuesday, one black and one white. Just as he did four years ago, Mayor John Street, a black Democrat, romped in black neighborhoods, while white Republican businessman Sam Katz put up commanding leads in white sections of the city. The numbers followed a pattern that has existed for decades in the City of Brotherly Love.
- Race Divided Philly in Mayoral Election; David B. Caruso; The Guardian (London), Nov. 5, 2003
CHICAGO, Illinois, is sometimes called Hog Butcher for the World. It has also been called Big Town, Phoenix City, Second City and Windy City.
Chicago: City and river in Illinois, The origin of the word is from the Indian, being a derivation by elision and French annotation from the word Chickaugong.
- From Sacklunch
"We’ve got to capitalize on Chicago’s assets and exceptional characteristics," he [Mayor Daley] emphasizes. "We’re very lucky to have really great diversity… In a century, we’ve matured from a city known as hog butcher and steelmaker to the world to one that Moody’s ranks No. 1 in economic balance, scoring 95.1 out of 100 points. It’s a real strength."
- Way to Boost Chicago Business; Ted Pincus, Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 7, 2003.
"Chicago is a city located on the northeastern edge of Illinois. For long time it was the second city in the USA, but in 80’s Los Angeles took over. Important dates to this city include the Great Fire of 1871, which killed 300 and left 90 000 homeless… Chicago is called ‘Windy City.’"
- From Chicago Gallery
DENVER, Colorado, is sometimes called Mile High City.
Denver was named in honor of James W. Denver, ex-Governor of Kansas,. in 1860, when the towns of St. Charles and Aurora were consolidated.
- From Sacklunch
"Gov. Bill Owens today placed a brass marker on the 13th step of the Capitol and declared it the precise spot that is 5,280 feet above sea level, and not the 15th or 18th steps, which were designated as mile-high marks in previous years… For the last 94 years generations of smiling tourists have stood in the wrong spot at the Capitol - from half a meter to 1 meter too high - thinking they were exactly a mile above sea level."
- 13 Steps to Mile High; Dave Curtin, staff writer, Denver Post (Colorado), Sep 29, 2003.
"Steelers coach Bill Cowher wasn’t driving through Mount Washington last week, looking for a vacant field on which to practice in preparation for the game today against the Broncos in Denver, the Mile High City. The Steelers’ problems may be stacked a mile high, but Cowher doesn’t believe the altitude in Denver… will have any effect on his team when the game begins at 4:15 p.m. ‘Breathe deeper,’ he said."
- Denver Presents Hostile Environment; Jerry DiPaola, Tribune Review, Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Oct 12, 2003.
CLEVELAND, Ohio, is sometimes unkindly called Mistake on the Lake (as are several other American towns).
Cleveland was named in honor of General Moses Cleaveland of Connecticut, who, as general agent for the Connecticut Land Company, was responsible for surveying the region. The Ohio Historical Society website says that Cleaveland served under General George Washington for several years during the American Revolution and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Connecticut militia. In 1781, Cleaveland, a lawyer in Canterbury, Connecticut, was a member of the Connecticut state convention that ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. He headed a survey party of 50 men and two women, who mapped out a town along the eastern bank of the Cuyahoga River and named it Cleaveland. Because of a spelling error on the original map, the town of Cleaveland was spelled as Cleveland, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.
"When a welder’s spark ignited an oil slick on the Cuyahoga River in 1969, it was Cleveland’s reputation that went up in flames. This once-mighty industrial powerhouse, former home to major iron and steel foundries, John D. Rockefeller and a half-dozen automobile companies, had become a national joke The Burning River City… In 1978, Cleveland, ‘the Mistake on the Lake,’ became the first city to default on its municipal debt since the Great Depression. Well, a whole lot has changed since then. Not just a new municipal nickname (’A New American City’), but tangible stuff too. The economy is booming, downtown is alive at night and our baseball team made it to the World Series".
- About Our City; DigitalCity.com
America’s most underrated city and long reviled as "The Mistake on the Lake," Cleveland is today the nation’s premier turnaround town--"quot;The New American City"".. Though its name is still the punch line of too many bad jokes, the Cleveland of the ‘90s boasts a glossy, polished downtown and a restored Lake Erie/Cuyahoga River waterfront, all set in a ring of historic homes and buildings and surrounded by a 60-mile-long string of parks and treed greenbelts known as "The Emerald Necklace."
- Cleveland OH; Doug Rennie, Runner’s World (Emmaus, Pennsylvania).
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, is often (and rightly) called Sin City.
Las Vegas is Spanish for "the plains," or "meadows." Although most people these days think of Vegas as being a modern city surrounded by desert country, historians say the town once stood in the midst of a fertile meadow.
That transformation reflects a basic shift here in Glitter Gulch as Las Vegas steps away from the family-oriented entertainment it sought to promote in the 1990s. The nation’s favorite Sin City is going back to basics, with a renewed focus on sequins, sex and seven-card stud to revive a tourist industry that has slumped along with the national economy.
- It’s Back to the Future in ‘Sin City’ : Las Vegas Returns To Adult Fare After Bid for Family Trade; T. R. Reid, Staff Writer, Washington Post, Oct 5, 2003.
Las Vegas has become the nation’s premier party town—no question about it. Tourists are flocking to Sin City to live out their vices because they know, as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is fond of telling them in national television ads, "what happens here stays here."
- Las Vegas Paying for Sin City Reputation; Jeff German, The Las Vegas Sun (Nevada), Sep 23, 2003.
HOLLYWOOD, California, is known worldwide as Tinseltown. Last August, an Irish researcher discovered that a party of cider-makers who had worked on the Hollywood House estate in Ireland had migrated to California and were indirectly responsible for their new settlement being named Hollywood.
The publishers of Tinseltown bibles Variety and Hollywood Reporter are embroiled in a legal battle over their Los Angeles-based research businesses, it emerged yesterday.
- Biblical Battle in Tinseltown; Dan Milmo, The Guardian (London, UK), Oct 15, 2003.
If you think Ralph Peduto looks familiar, then you’ve probably seen him in one of his many film or TV roles. Central Coast resident Peduto has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robin Williams and Ted Danson. You might also remember him as the Midas Muffler Man. Now you have an opportunity to see him in the flesh (no pun intended) in ‘Butt-Naked in Tinseltown’ ... Peduto uses diverse vivid images to describe how he feels about acting. Hollywood is the flame to which the actor moth is attracted.
- Peduto’s ‘Butt-Naked in Tinseltown’ is engaging look at life of the actor; Joyce D. Mann, Register-Pajaronian (Watsonville, California), Oct 10 2003
Links
Sacklunch
Trivia Asylum - City Nicknames
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Copyright © 2003 Eric Shackle Story first posted December 2003
