Mike's Pith & Wind - Hard Rubbish
The council was so keen to see that I got the message they gave me two cards advising me of the imminent hard rubbish collection, and even left a third lying atttractively on the footpath, where it eventually succumbed to the elements. I was pretty aware of it anyway – the neighbouring suburbs have been decking the nature strips with all manner of hardware for weeks now and it was only a matter of time before the spotlight focused on the part of Camberwell that once was Burwood.
The hard rubbish collection is a highlight of the council’s calendar; the only other dumping festival to rival it was the ‘dump your feral chemical weekend’, which was so popular that it only happened the once to my knowledge. There were cars with trailers laden with all manner of lethal stuff, from radioactive paint to past-its-use-by-date toothpaste, stretching back for blocks from the dump’s entrance, and I’m sure quite a few didn’t get to bequeath their load to the proper authorities and returned home muttering curses and grumpily stowing it back in the shed to the jeers of their matrimonial partners and the embarrassment of their offspring.
‘One man’s rubbish is another’s dining suite’ is not quite what I was trying to say, but it would seem logical that gangs of opportunists might well be roaming the streets fossicking through the mountains of ‘waste’material balanced on suburban nature strips, and if not simply decorating their own castles with their trophies, they might be making a fair living out of selling them on to other speculators one step up the food chain at various trash and treasure markets – including Camberwell’s very own such market in the Safeway carpark on Sunday mornings. I’m guessing it would be read more

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Dick's Toolbox - War of the Roses
Roses are tough. They sneer at public relations consultants, sectarian enmity, and women with short hair in overalls, because they have a briar ancestry. Essentially they are well bred blackberries that have been originated about 35 million years ago before being trained, groomed, cultivated, and interbred by people with secateurs in their hands, compost in their blood and a lust for odd names.
In spite of this inherent ruggedness I have managed to kill several roses over the past year. A small sad farewell to Souvenir d'un Ami (1846), Rosa Duchess de Brabant (1857), Souvenir de la Malmaison (1843), Devoniensis (1858), and Great Maiden Blush (before 1500). The last saddened me, as it is an ancient Alba rose with an alternate name of Cuisse de Nymphe or Nymph’s Thigh. What male would not buy a rose so named sight unseen? Had it been Nymphet’s Thigh I would have bought two. read more