Tuesday 30 March 2010

Goulburn Revisited

I’ve been back in Goulburn – taking my mother to a pre-admission session for an operation at the hospital there. The hospital sends out all its documents with its acronym in bold black letters – GBH. It stands for Goulburn Base Hospital, but it’s still not what I’d call a great look. I almost wish Alan Johnson had been in charge when they printed up their documents. I heard him on the radio the other day explaining about the department he’d been going to be minister for. It was called the Department of Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, and it was only just before the letterhead was printed that he noticed what the acronym would be.

4 comments:

  1. Lifelong Learning is indeed like being in some antechamber of hell. Listening to other people's bad poetry in the creative writing class I took last year was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life.

    Never went to Goulburn. It always seemed to be the 'prison place'. Is it nice? (apart from the prison)

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  2. But was listening to the bad poetry worse than listening to Woman's Hour? I suppose it would have to have been more excruciating on one level, as you were face to face with the authors.
    I have to go to Goulburn several times in the next three weeks so I'll probably write down every single thing about it before I'm done - it's got lovely architecture but is a bit melancholy now its glory days (when wool was king) are gone.

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  3. ooooh MUCH worse than Woman's Hour!

    I like rural towns in Australia. Places like Bendigo or Parkes, It's the frontier feel of all the old buildings, the quieter way of life, the broad main streets and lovely iron lacework on the verandas

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  4. Yes, I completely agree. Bendigo is one of my favourite places - but I love all those gold towns in Victoria, including Castlemaine, Beechworth, Ballarat and little places like Maldon, Yackandandah and many, many more. I feel like leaping in the car right now - they're specially nice in autumn.

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