Mad Men Yourself!

Stumbled across this while surfing the askandyaboutclothes forums, a fun little utility from the 'Mad Men' official website where you can create a cartoon version of yourself as a 'suit' or 'skirt' from 1960. My best effort is posted below.


NB. tweaked to get both goatee & moustache in one pic.

The high life

I can't complain about my start to the year (and decade!), being sent to Melbourne for a conference at my Employer's expense, staying at the Crown Promenade Hotel. As luck would have it my room was on the 22nd floor with a wonderful view of the CBD and river, the mobile phone pics below don't do it justice.


The Casino itself didn't hold much appeal, so when Ms C62 dropped me off we took the short walk across the river to see one of my fav parts of the city, the old arcades and laneways between Flinders & Bourke Streets. On Wednesday evening we caught up again for dinner at Tutto Bene, Ms C62's fav South Bank restaurant.

The view from Tutto Bene (panorama from 2 pics spliced together)

If only every year could start so swish! But that's not all, back in Ballarat on the weekend we saw "Avatar" in 3D at the Regent Cinema (visually brilliant!) followed by pizza at the Main Bar ...all in all a very pleasant week :)

Happy New Year!

It's been a restful week-off being a tourist in my own town, doing the rounds of the local secondhand & antique shops (Salvos, Vinnies, Junkatique & Main Rd Shops, A&C Centre, Antique Effects, etc.) as well as checking out the new Mill Market. Also met Dear Prudence & sussed out her Sturt St shop for the first time.

With all of that I still only managed to come home with a few early 1960's mens "skinny" neckties, increasing my collection of these from one to four. I especially like the the olive one on the end, with it's "space age" atom symbol.

Early 1960s (late 50s?) 2 inch mens ties, $3-4 ea. from the Salvos & Junkatique

Seasons greetings

To lovers of the baby cheeses everywhere!

Seriously ...wishing all a safe & happy holiday season :)

Woodland Goddess

The prints of J.H. Lynch were a ubiquitous part of the 60s/70s. Strangely though, for an artist who's work was reproduced by the thousands, his identity remained a mystery. That was until Mario Klingemann set up www.jhlynch.org, and managed to track him down. His site remains one of the best sources of information on Lynch prints to-date.

As luck would have it, I manged to pick up my "Woodland Goddess" in Ballarat for $30 back when Lynch prints were selling for $80 in Melb. Last I saw (Lost & Found Market) they're up around $200 now!

"Woodland Goddess" by Joseph Henry Lynch, pre-1965

More Ballarat blogs!

Thanks to a lead provided by Ro over at DBE, I've stumbled onto another swag of Ballarat blogs that I'd not seen before. Up til now I've searched Blogger on location "Ballarat, Victoria, Australia", but there are also another 80 blogs listed under "Ballarat, VIC, Australia", cool!

iPod of the 60s

Here's an unexpected bonus I found in the draw of some secondhand furniture I bought a few years ago, a nice AM pocket transistor radio from the early 1960s. This Toshiba model 6P-10 still works, and even has it's original leather cover and earphone.

As a kid I had something similar (c1970), we used to call them "Trannys", but that term seems to have shifted in meaning since.....


Historical note: Transistor radios have been commercially available since the mid 1950s, but did not achieve mass popularity until they became more affordable in the early 60s. For more on classic transistor radios (1954-65) see jamesbutters.com