Feeling swamped by savvy?

WINE ... with David Bray

If you think we are being overwhelmed by sauvignon blanc you are surely on the right track. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. The books will tell you that it is a green-skinned grape variety which originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The name probably comes from sauvage (“wild”") and blanc (“white”) and it is possibly a descendant of savagnin.

Sauvignon blanc is planted in many of the world’s wine regions (e.g. France, Chile, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Moldova and California) and yields a crisp, dry, and refreshing white varietal wine. It is also a component of the well-known dessert wines from Sauternes and Barsac.
In its homeland, particularly in the great Loire regions of Sancerre and Pouilly Fume, the winemakers place great emphasis on complexity, setting their wines apart from the highly fruited new- world styles.
The best sauvignon blanc wines as we know them from our country and across the Tasman are fresh and vibrant wines with none of the heaviness of chardonnay nor the floral tones of riesling. Their flavours go well with semillon and these varieties are often blended together. Sauvignon blanc tops the Australian best-selling white wine list. It knocked chardonnay off its shelf several years ago, and the majority of it comes from New Zealand, notably Marlborough.
Here are some of the examples seen in recent weeks:
Mud House 2011 Marlborough sauvignon blanc has the passionfruit and tropical flavours expected of grapes in this region, full-flavoured and nicely balanced, crisp but not overpowering. $22.
Oyster Bay, leader of the NZ invaders, has had its moments in the market and here it is, another Marlborough, in the 2011 edition going along nicely…. zesty, aromatic … look for passionfruit and tropical flavours. $19.99.
Swinging Bridge 2011 sauvignon blanc shows the fine natural acidity of Orange region grapes. Some of the wine was matured in big, older oak to build texture while not sacrificing the aromatics. $18.95. Angullong 2011 sauvignon blanc (pictured) comes out of the southern fringe of the Orange region, with a little bit from higher up the mountain, which is said to “add some further depth and structure to the finished wine”. $17.
The two Orange producers also sent along pinot gris, which I happen to like very much, even more so as growers and makers are working out the best places and techniques – and Orange is looking great.
Angullong Fossil Hill 2011 pinot gris, like its sibling mentioned just back there, came out of what its makers describe as “a challenging vintage”. Let Angullong owner Ben Crossing has a say, as follows: “ ...the Orange region is beginning to see the results of judicious vineyard management with the release of the 2011 whites. “The winemaking and viticultural experience and knowledge is continuing to grow and with it the quality of the wines increases. If we’d had a vintage like the 2011 five years ago it would have been a different results.” Whatever, this pinot gris is a delicious example of one of the most flavoursome whites. $22.
Swinging Bridge 2011 pinot gris comes up nicely, too. Owner Tom Ward: “We spent a great deal of time ensuring that the vines were in the best possible condition. Lower yields were called for, as was judicious canopy management, allowing good sunlight an air flow through the vines. “We managed to escape disease and achieve good aromatics in both wines, with a lovely natural acidity that the high elevation of the Orange region produces so well.” Good stuff at $18.95.
Now that summer seems to have decided to settle in, it could well be time to have a good look at out mid-priced whites, such as the above. Go for it.

A wee piece of nonsense

OUR SAY

By Don Gordon-Brown

We mere mortals would see them only as CityCycle advertising signs and nothing else. But insightful people – the true visionaries among us – see them doubling as urinals. A classic case of lavateral thinking, if you will.

Besides, not too many people are using the CityCycle stations around town much for hiring bikes anyway, so it’s really a stroke of genius to turn a fair part of said infrastructure – those ubiquitous advertising signs – into toilets. That at least was the suggestion in a riveting article in The Courier-Mail on 16 September, about the problem of public urinating in Australia’s first designated entertainment precinct, Fortitude Valley.
It seems that when the tens of thousands of young people flood into the Valley on any night, but especially the big nights of the week – Friday through to Sunday – there’s a flood of a different kind in the wee hours as revellers relieve themselves in public either because they can’t find a toilet in time or they are reluctant for whatever reason to use the ones they do know about – the unisex toilets next to the Valley police beat are said to be avoided in mass by women and others with outstanding arrest warrants and the like who have an understandable aversion to the thin blue line right next door.
The Page 3 article said “stakeholders” in the Valley were looking at ways of resolving the problem, the most startling of which was to use the bases of City Cycle advertising signs as public urinals. They’d be disinfected each night, we’re happy to report.
But we thought just urinals was a little bit sexist because ladies go to the loo, too, so above is our interpretation of how the scheme might pan out, so to speak. We’re not sure exactly where the growing waste material of such heavy patronage would eventually flow to, mind, but we feel rather silly even thinking of that rather messy problem when it obviously was of no concern whatsoever to the brilliant “stakeholders” who came up with the idea.
We assume they were serious; that the idea was not just some flash in the pan or worse still, that someone was playing a cruel joke on some gullible Courier reporters. Taking the piss, in other words. Another brilliant idea cooked up by these nameless stakeholders and faithfully reported in the article was to build “deterrent” urinals in the sorts of shady lanes and other places where desperate people relieve themselves – but with a catch! The V-shaped shelves would funnel the urine back down and splash the naughty offenders’ shoes! Gotcha!
This supposes that people who are pretty drunk and feel the need to relieve themselves in an alleyway are going to notice that they really are going to be the drips afterwards as a result of their unsavoury and antisocial behaviour.
So, what does firm JCDecaux who holds the advertising rights under their CityCycle agreement with Council think? We’re awaiting answers to a couple of questions we pointed in their direction, but presumably it will be all for it: their clients’ messages are simply bound to be seen more if people are constantly gawking at those going potties at the base of said signs, like the one pictured on our front cover at the bottom of the Valley Mall.
And think of the opportunity for specifically targeted marketing to suit the situation: ads for toilet paper and air fresheners come immediately to mind. There must surely be others. Given the fast- food rubbish these kids quaff nowadays, haemorrhoidal creams?
No, it’s a deadset winner. And we thank The Courier-Mail for giving the idea space to breathe, even if it might stink just a teensy, weesy bit.



Above: The Courier-Mail article that made such a splash.

Plight of homeless continues to grow

NEWS

By Susannah Thomsett

The plight of the homeless keeps growing in Brisbane, according to 139 Club general manager Rod Kelly. He says more than 200 people visit his Fortitude Valley premises daily seeking help, and it’s why the 139 Club is seeking government funding to expand its “Safe Sleeping Strategy” pilot program.

Each Wednesday the 139 Club provides eleven beds to women referred by Homeless Persons Information Queensland. Participants must be aged eighteen or over and homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless.
Mr Kelly says the club lacks the resources, financial or human, to run the Safe Sleeping Strategy or more than one night a week.
“At this point, we’re hoping the program will run indefinitely … [we’re] currently looking for federal funding, but will also look at the availability of local and state funding,” Mr Kelly said.
“We did a bit of a survey and found the most vulnerable group among the homeless or at-risk of homelessness people were women.” After staying the night at the 139 Club, participants are assessed and referred to Under One Roof, a consortium of charities specialising in homelessness and its associated problems.
“Whatever the problem, there’s someone in the consortium who can help,” Mr Kelly said. One Wednesday night a woman arrived at the 139 Club in her pyjamas after being kicked out of her home by her husband.
“She was in tears because he wouldn’t let her take her cat with her … she’d had that cat for nine years, and she had to leave it with her violent husband,” Mr Kelly said. “In the morning she could have a shower, we gave her some clothing, she had breakfast, and we gave her a referral to another member of the consortium.”
The 139 Club’s main activities are supplying at-risk or homeless people with free or low cost meals, clothing parcels, hot showers, laundry facilities, toiletries, day beds, lockers, mail and message collection services. Members of the public can help the 139 Club by making a donation of money, clothing, non-perishable food, or hygiene products.
“100 per cent of all donations go to the people who access the 139 Club,” Mr Kelly said. The 139 Club also welcomes volunteers for their kitchen or donation room, or you can hire the 139 Club’s catering enterprise for a private party, function or event.
All profits are used to employ homeless people in a twelve month paid kitchen traineeship.
To contact the 139 Club, visit http://www.139club.com.au, or call 3254 1144, or drop in to the day centre at 505 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley. To contact Homeless Persons Information Queensland, call 1800 47 47 53 (toll free number) or 1800 010 222 (toll free, TTY).

Owner defends flats ‘demolition’ bid

NEWS

A property owner seeking a demolition order on his heritage-listed New Farm block of flats in Maxwell Street has told a public meeting he will not demolish the flats even if his bid succeeds.

Mr Chris Elliot, who lives in one of the nine units that make up Maxwell Place, told a meeting last Saturday week outside his property: “I have no intention of demolishing it.”
Mr Elliot is seeking approval to “carry out building works” by altering the building’s status from “Local Heritage Place” to “Demolition of a Local Heritage Place”. Some 55 local residents and interested parties attended the meeting organised by ALP candidate for the city council’s Central Ward Paul Crowther.
The meeting was held just several days before public submissions closed on the demolition application. Among the participants was former Lord Mayor Jim Soorley.
Mr Elliot told the meeting he had sought the order partly to make the point that he had not been given the opportunity to make a case against the original heritage order on the building.
Current Central ward councillor David Hinchliffe who is retiring at the next municipal poll said he respected Mr Elliot’s pledge and believed he was sincere in making it. “But if it has a demolition permit on it, know one knows what might happen in the future under a different owner.” Cr Hinchliffe said he also appreciated why Mr Elliot would be upset about not being notified formally of the original heritage listing.
In his time as planning committee chair between 2002 and 2008, he had changed the rules that all property owners were notified of any heritage move. But Cr Hinchliffe added that even if Mr Elliot had made a submission, his two-decades of experience as a local councillor told him the property heritage listing would have gone ahead anyway.
Several local residents said the preservation of the flats was crucial as New Farm was losing its character dwellings far too quickly. One said the suburb faced the risk of turning into just another European-style city made up of highrise apartments and little else.
Mr Crowther told The Independent later: “We are quickly losing the character of our suburb. It is important that with any development in the area, the voice of residents is heard and taken into account before any decision is made.
“In response to Chris’s comments, the reason we have heritage protection is so we do not have to take somebody on their word.”



Central Ward Councillor David Hinchliffe addresses the recent Maxwell Street meeting, organised by Paul Crowther, right.

‘Stop buckpassing’

NEWS

Local council candidate Paul Crowther has called on the City Council to stop “the buck passing” and get on with cleaning up the Valley. He says his call follows advice received from the State Director-General of Local Government.

In a letter from Jack Noye, Queensland Government Director General of Local Government and Planning to Colin Jensen CEO of Brisbane City Council, Mr Noye says the BCC has the power to clean up the Valley under the Building Act 1975, where the council reasonably believes structures are dilapidated or filthy.
Mr Crowther, the ALP candidate for Central Ward soon to be vacated by retiring long-term councillor David Hinchliffe, says that despite local business owners and residents begging council to act and clean up the Valley, the LNP Council has claimed they have no power to act.
“We now know they do, and I call on Lord Mayor Quirk to get on with the job and stop the buck passing,” he said. Mr Crowther points to the abandoned, filthy and dilapidated Waltons building (pictured above) as a prime candidate for the Lord Mayor to immediately issue enforcement notices and direct the building owner to undertake cleaning and maintenance work.
“I am prepared to assist the Lord Mayor in this process of identifying these buildings and structures in the Valley to make his job easier.”
Ray Smith, Labor’s Lord Mayoral Candidate and Mr Crowther recently released their vision for the Valley, Re-Valuing the Valley which included adopting a “no broken windows policy” made famous by New York Mayor Rudi Guiliani.

Emma goes solo with blaze of color

EXHIBITION

New Farm artist Emma Weis will hold her first solo exhibition at The Artists Gallery in Newstead from 8 to 29 October 8. Ms Weis said the exhibition would feature a range of her recent oil-on-canvas paintings including landscapes, urban scenes and still life.

The common thread in all the works is the play of colours on a variety of subjects. “I love, love, love colour. The way the warm light hits a cracked Tuscan wall, the soft pinks that form a rose, the colour of the ocean on a bright sunny day,” she said. Some of the works to be exhibited are on the website www.emmaweis.com.au.
Ms Weis studied for an advanced diploma of fine arts from New England Institute of TAFE at Tamworth before completing a degree in fine arts from Newcastle University in 2003. She has since turned her attention to graphic design and teaching art while pursuing a career as a professional artist.
Ms Weis has won numerous awards including the portrait award in the 2005 Courier-Mail Art Show. She has also exhibited extensively throughout Australia and in 2003 her work was chosen to be part of a student exchange exhibition in the USA at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery.

Meet Popeye, the Scooter Man

NEWS

Popeye – or Sarge – has lived in the Warry Street social housing complex since the place opened five years ago. He was born in Christchurch, New Zealand 70 years ago, and if you’re wondering why he’s called Popeye, it’s because in a mugging in Newstead 10 years ago he lost his right eye.

And after a bad fall six months ago he has back and leg trouble – hence the scooter he bought and now rides about on, terrifying the natives in the Valley. But there’s a lot going on in that battered old head.
Popeye joined the New Zealand army as an RNZA cadet out of high school, and finished his education in the army. He is qualified in munitions and destruction of explosives and bomb disposal. He served through three wars – the Malayan Emergency, Borneo and Vietnam, from Wigram Base outside Christchurch.
Popeye was involved in the controlled disposal of thousands of tons of New Zealand military 2.5 calibre shell cartridges and field 3.7 anti-aircraft munitions, through their deep-sea dumping or detonation. He then joined the New Zealand police for a stint but over the following years he’s been roaming – from Christchurch to Lightning Ridge, Cairns to Fortitude Valley.
He’s been married four times along the way, been a boarding house manager, dairy farmer, mechanic, electrician, travelling tobacco sales rep, scaffolding foreman, and president of the Grawin Miners’ Association on the opal fields 60 kilometres from Lightning Ridge.



An occasional series by Philip Robertson

Offer to hold cleaner Valley talks

LETTER

Dear Editor I refer to the articles in The Independent on 20 July “Give Valley a Giulliani makeover: Hinchliffe” and 14 September “Pressure now mounting on Valley eyesores”.

It is refreshing to see the urgent call to action to refurbish dilapidated buildings. As some of you are already aware, Winning Appliances and Bathrooms has recently purchased the 2200 sq/metre building at 201-211 Brunswick St at Alfred (the old Hong Kong furniture store) and did a full $2.5 million inside and out refurbishment.
With consent, we also painted the abandoned building next door, so the whole block between Alfred and St. Paul’s Terrace would be cleaned up and lit up nicely. As you can see from attached photo, we have transformed this part of the valley. If you are urging government representatives and building owners to meet and discuss “clean-up of The Valley”, may I offer to hold the meeting at our premises as an example of a worthwhile investment?
In the meantime, if you have not yet visited our showcase showroom, I invite you to come by “the big blue building” and have a coffee or tea and take the tour. You will be extremely impressed with the results.
Grace Grace was kind enough to attend our opening and perform our ribbon cutting ceremony, as per the article in this week’s The Independent I am personally happy to assist in the effort to get the message across to owners and businesses alike if you are forming a committee regarding this issue.
Thank you for your time, I hope to see you soon.

Robin Maini
Winning Appliances Queensland

It’s that time of the year to go batty

Wildlife Queensland is now taking bookings for the summer season of its popular Brisbane’s Batty Boat Cruises, where you can find out all about flying-foxes. The cruises run up the Brisbane River on a classic timber cruiser where a history talk about the river is followed by a bat commentary as thousands of flying-foxes spectacularly take to the skies above Indooroopilly Island.

Our community is increasingly losing touch with nature and the Batty Boat Cruises are designed to educate people why flying-foxes are so essential to our environment. It’s a great opportunity for your family to meet our urban wildlife neighbours and learn why we need to live together in harmony. Watch the sun set on the Brisbane River and enjoy a drink and snack from the bar. Why not bring a group of friends and have a great night out? If you’re lucky you might even meet some orphaned baby bats on board and really see why some people fall in love with bats.
It’s one of Brisbane’s most inspiring natural events, and all proceeds go to protecting wildlife.
This summer’s Batty Boat Cruise dates are all on Sundays – 16 and 30 October, 20 November and 4 December. Ticket prices: $32 adult; $24 concession; $16 child (3-15 years); $85 family (2 adults, 2 children). Book and pay online at www.wildlife.org.au or phone 3221 0194.

Picture: Joanne Towsey

Rudd’s return a rather scary idea all round

POLITICS ... with Mungo MacCallum

Let’s be absolutely clear about why the opposition is currently obsessed with the prospect of a Kevin Rudd comeback: they – and especially Tony Abbott — are seriously scared that it might happen. Therefore logic dictates that they bring it to a climax, one way or another, before either the ALP or the general public is ready for it.

The ideal result would be to cut it off at the pass; by talking up Rudd’s chances before his supporters can get their act together, people like Barnaby Joyce and Nigel Scullion are hoping to ensure that Rudd’s opponents, led by the warlords who deposed him in the first place, will act pre-emptively to prevent the idea from gaining any serious momentum.
But if it does – if the members stuck in the ever-increasing number of seats which the polls are declaring marginal or worse become desperate enough to defy their factional bosses – then let it happen as soon as possible.
The worst thing that could possibly happen would be for Rudd to return to a second honeymoon with the voters just before an election. For various reasons, both technical and political, an election does not become a practical proposition until 2013.
Getting Rudd back now would at least give Abbott and his bully boys a solid year to work him over, or even, perhaps, for his own side once more to turn against him. But it would also give Rudd time to expose the manifest inadequacy of Abbott as an alternative Prime Minister and the Libs themselves have a potential saviour waiting in the wings in the form of Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott would much rather not take the risk. Admittedly he nailed Rudd in 2010, with more than a little help from Rudd’s own side; but times have changed. As many of his own colleagues have unkindly pointed out, Julia Gillard is his best asset; a switch to anyone, but especially Rudd, would be a change for the worse.
Abbott is old enough to remember the way Gough Whitlam destroyed Billy Snedden, only to find himself facing Malcolm Fraser. And he will also recall Malcolm McGregor’s crack about the 1996 election: John Howard only won because his opponent was Paul Keating. If he had been standing unopposed, he would have lost. It is not that Abbott is ascendant in the polls – rather that Gillard is close to rock bottom. With enemies like that, who needs friends?
But simple arithmetic suggests that Gillard is fairly safe, at least for some time yet. Scullion says Rudd is within nine votes of making it, and Joyce says seven, but what would they know?
Graham Richardson estimates Rudd’s supporters at between 10 and 20, which sound a lot more realistic; given that he needs 52 in a caucus of 103, he’s still only looking at his hard core. There is no doubt that some rusted-on Ruddites are starting to make soundings, but in spite of the lazier commentators (who are always happy to fall back on a leadership challenge story – it’s so much easier than real journalism) there is no serious campaign – yet.
And if Abbott has his way, there never will be. For once, he and Gillard are in perfect harmony. And if Rudd were to make a comeback, he would still have to deal with the government’s ongoing problems – selling the carbon tax, dealing with the miners and devising a policy on the boat people.
But in the last case at least he would be an improvement, if only because he would not be as sickeningly sanctimonious and hypocritical as the present chorus. It’s not just the blame shifting, the abuse, the mindless sloganeering – they have become par for the course in the current parliament.
It’s the obscene pretence that both party leaders are really acting with the best interests of the asylum seekers in mind. It’s only by destroying their last chance of salvation, by condemning them to hell, we are told, that our caring parliament can save them from death at the hands of the people smugglers. We have to be cruel to be kind.
Leave aside for a moment the nonsense about the UN convention and protocols; Abbott didn’t worry about such niceties during the Pacific Solution and doesn’t now. Not only would he return the asylum seekers to a non-signatory (Indonesia) but he would reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas, which breach the protocol provisions on travel and family reunion, among others.
And ignore Gillard’s protestations that the Malaysians are really sweet and caring people who will always do the right thing by refugee applicants; they don’t and they wouldn’t. And even if they did, so what? She is still in breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of the UN convention herself, not to mention her own party’s platform.
Abbott and Gillard are lying: their immediate concern is not the welfare of the wretches who are so desperate that they deliberately and willingly risk the potentially fatal trip to Australia in the belief that nothing – not even the remote and overcrowded concentration camps run by mercenary goons who treat them like criminals – could be worse or more hopeless than their present conditions.
For Gillard and Abbott, this is not a human tragedy, to be met with decency and compassion. It’s a political problem, to be exploited in the most viciously partisan manner and to be solved with spin and gimmickry.
If ever there was a reason to change both leaders, and as quickly as possible, the last couple of weeks have provided it. Rudd and Turnbull both have their faults, but they could hardly fail to be an improvement.