Melbourne insults its grey-haired visitors.

Melbourne - it is raining (or rather drizzling). However, I have spent the day on trains. I went from The Eagle's Nest (in "Upper Gully" - such a cute name for a village, not so nice for what turns out to be outer suburbia, however...) to Flinders Street Station, right in the heart of Melbourne.

I spent the day at "Federation Square", a refurbished area built over what used be the Jolimont Railway Yards when I was a puppy.

Melbournians are extremely proud of Fed Square, but they don't have a harbour to sit beside, (or sunshine, in which to enjoy the outdoors) do they?

The complex includes ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image). I did enjoy the trip down memory lane, watching old TV commercials. Isn't it funny how commercials which generally I cannot abide in their modern form, take on a sacred form as childhood memories. For the record, I first saw TV when it was introduced to Melbourne, just in time for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, when I was 8 years old. My family did not buy a TV (it was suspected to be an agent of Satan, of course, but there might have been some economic realities involved in my father's reluctance to sign up. I would not have been aware of such niceties, at the time.) Anyway, today I had the chance to relive some of those memories of more innocent times. I managed to by-pass the less innocent images of recent years, especially the entire section devoted to "Reality TV" (a less appropriate name I cannot imagine! There is nothing "real" about "Big Brother")

I also visited the Ian Potter Centre which houses the National Gallery of Victoria's Australian Art collection.

What is it with Victorians and their naming of things? How is the National Gallery of Victoria meant to be understood? Is Victoria a nation? Clearly NO, but they do not seem to have noticed yet. Nice gallery, though. The Charles Blackman "Alice in Wonderland" series is being featured there at the moment. These paintings are suitably weird, to match the seemingly "substance-inspired" original poetry of "Lewis Carroll", the pseudonym of the Rev'd Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. However, I did enjoy seeing them all together for this exhibition. For the record Wikipedia clears Dodgson of abusing drugs. His penchant for photographing little girls is a little more problematic!

*****

For the very first time in my life, I was given a Senior's discount at the door (I paid $7:00, and the listed price was $10:00). I did not even know that I was granted the "Seniors" rate until I saw the full price listed on published notices. I certainly did not ask for it. That is the first time such an insult has been handed out to me. Ageism in Melbourne, working to my advantage. Still, just because I look like a bushie, with my blue tennis hat masking my chemo-therapeutically abbreviated hair, they don't need to assume I am "Old"!

Maybe I need to get more sleep! I shall talk to Brigid about that. Seniors indeed! Little do they know what we "teenagers" have been up to!