MOST Voiceland suburbs will benefit from National Broadband Network upgrades that will bypass the old copper wires and finally give homeowners access to the full fibre experience.
Eight years after the Voice reported former federal Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan holding a public meeting to try and drum up support for fibre-to-the-home in the region (it had just been dumped by the Abbott government in favour of a supposedly cheaper fibre-to-the-node option), it’s finally on the cards.
NBN Co is putting up $2.4 billion over the next four years to provide an additional 1.5 million fibre connections.
Perth Labor MP Patrick Gorman said Perht was more connected and data-hungry than ever.
“Thousands of eligible local families and businesses can enjoy faster speeds while working or studying from home, streaming their favourite shows and gaming,” Mr Gorman said.
“My community values being connected to one another and to the world.
“By keeping the NBN in public hands for good, our government is making sure Perth continues to receive the benefits of fast, reliable and affordable internet now and into the future.”
Upgrades to fibre will need new equipment inside and outside people’s home, and according to NBN Co’s website will mostly take a couple of hours.
FLORAL foam will be under the microscope this month as part of an effort to reduce its toxic impact on the environment.
Floral foam is popular amongst florists for providing a structure for flowers to stand in and a source of hydration so the arrangements won’t wilt.
It contains phenol formaldehyde, a plastic considered hazardous in humans, although by the time the foam is produced its toxicity has declined.
But after the arrangement is binned, the foam’s structure breaks down and the harmful chemicals can get released into the environment.
The Freo Florist founder Donna Hamilton says floral foam is so widely used in the industry because apart from its toxicity, it’s essentially a perfect product.
• Freo florist Donna Hamilton wants her peers to drop floral foam.
“It’s one of the great conveniences of our modern time,” Ms Hamilton said.
“If you’ve got a block that you can just cut into any shape you want, and if you put a flower in it and it stands up perfectly and stays fresh, you’re never going to want to explore other ways of doing things because it’s just so convenient.“It’s like the fast food of the floristry mechanic’s diet.”
It’s also commonly used in floristry training, another reason why it’s so popular, according to Ms Hamilton.
“Just because we trained on it doesn’t mean that’s what we have to do forever,” she said.
Ms Hamilton will be presenting at the Floral Futures seminar as part of Fremantle Design Week later this month, in an effort to discourage the use of floral foam by demonstrating more eco-friendly alternatives.
These include the use of water vials, agri-wool, and ocean pouches, as well as the use of chicken wire to provide structure for arrangements.
“We really encourage people to actually display their flowers in a vase, so that they’re actually in water and they don’t need foam,” Ms Hamilton said.
“For mechanics like arbours or things where flowers appear to be defying gravity we’ll often use a chicken wire cage with something inside of it to create moisture for the flowers.”
Ms Hamilton says she would like to see the use of floral foam banned in Australia, and that the “power” to move florists towards safer alternatives lies with venues who facilitate events that feature flowers, like weddings and birthdays.
“At the heart of it we would love to see floral foam banned in Fremantle venues,” she said.
“I would like Fremantle to become the first city in the world to be foam free.
“It really scares me to say that, because it’s going to upset a lot of people in the industry if it actually happens, if we’re successful.
“Venue owners should have the power to say that florists can’t use foam, and that flowers have to be in sustainable base, and it’s up to florists to figure out what that is.”
Floral Futures will be hosted at Moore and Moore Cafe in Fremantle on Wednesday, October 23, at 6.30 pm.
IF you have ever burned with rage about the behaviour of the fossil fuel corporations doing as little as they are forced to do and as much as they can get away with in the face of mounting atmospheric carbon pollution and global warming, then Juice is for you.
Tim Winton’s latest novel, a dystopian science fiction tale set in a Mad Max-style, burned-out future revolves around the use of extreme violence, but the carnage is directed against the environmental injustice that is being perpetrated today.
The narrative device is a reminiscence told in the first person in a dialogue between a prisoner and his guard.
While beginning in a settlement north of the Tropic of Capricorn on the WA coastline, the action takes place world-wide so the reader gets a taste of what our planet might degenerate into if meaningful action against climate change is not taken now.
• Tim Winton’s new novel Juice delves into a climate catastrophe.
In the future that Winton glimpses, the summers are so unbearably hot that people must retreat annually into caverns to survive.
In a nice Wintonean touch they puff on marijuana continuously to dull the boredom.
Each winter they emerge from their enforced hibernation to hurriedly grow their provisions for the next cycle of life underground.
This is a world without petroleum, that infrastructure has collapsed.
All energy comes from cobbled-together solar panels and wind generators with the electricity stored in batteries.
Survival is always threatened by massive storms that sweep through.
In this precarious setting the narrator comes across information that the world was once not always like this; that it was once lush and hospitable.
Not only was it once bountiful, but it had been deliberately destroyed by corrupt and greedy people.
With that jarring knowledge comes choices that throw him into a cycle of violence that is the moral landscape of the book.
There are occasional digressions into theological matters such as the Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden.
Sweeping
All this is held together with Winton’s characteristic sweeping prose, which as always is a delight.
Winton can occasionally just stop a reader in their tracks with a simile or a description of a landscape.
His love for outback WA radiates and is inspirational.
Juice is a satisfying thriller.
The action keeps coming and no doubt many people will spend their summer addictively turning its 500 pages, which will come to them as a Christmas present, while they suffer through what is predicted to be record-breaking heat.
That, of course, is Winton’s intention: to use our consumerist conventions to make us think about climate change.
Winton has published around 30 books, so story telling comes easily to him and his Western Australian fan base is rock solid.
However, there are aspects of this writing that bear criticism.
Winton specialises in emotionally wounded, troubled male characters, and Juice is narrated by one.
So, the female characters that appear are on the periphery of the narrator’s vision and therefore the reader’s, escaping being fully realised.
In Juice, women don’t express themselves as rounded individuals with developed personalities.
Their actions are described but their function is limited to cyphers for the male-centred plot to unfold.
Also, the beautiful language of the protagonist in this story is not that of a hard-bitten, dirt-poor survivalist who has grown up without formal schooling.
It is Winton speaking through this character’s mouth.
With those caveats registered, Juice is a noteworthy book and deserves a wide readership.
It is an urgent cultural intervention into what passes for the climate change debate in Australia, and about bloody time.
OVER the years the colour, spectacle and history of the Blessing of the Fleet has been captured by a myriad of photographers.
So much so that the organising committee found themselves with dozens of stunning images propped up and stacked around their office; but they weren’t sure what to do with them.
Some show the first festival in 1950, another the visit of the original Madonna from Capo D’Orlando (said to be hundreds of years old); two young boys dressed as Carabinieri are now amongst the Italian community’s revered elders.
• Fremantle mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge with John Alberti and John Minutillo.
Profile
It was Freo’s mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge who hit on a great idea for the photos during a meeting — hold an exhibition at the City’s new Walyalup Civic Centre to promote the Blessing.
“It’s lovely to be able to use the Walyalup Civic Centre and the people who pass through it every day to profile some of the things that happen in the community,” Ms Fitzhardinge said.
“It seems every year, people don’t remember that it’s on until it’s on.
“So we’re trying to get it in people’s psyche earlier, to say ‘put the date in your diary’, but also to show the rich history.
“Even just standing here looking at some of the buildings [in the photos], there’s a whole history of our city that sits alongside the history of the procession and the stories of individuals, families, community and industry in the city,” Ms Fitzhardinge said.
Blessing committee president John Minutillo says the exhibition is a “great advertisement for the festival.
“A lot of the old photos go back to 1948 to 1950 and it’s a way of us getting it out to the community when the festival is on.”
Mr Minutillo says the photos bring back great memories.
“All these photos there, they’re all of the old boats, the old Jennys; it’s great to see the old photos – beautiful.”
The exhibition is in the entrance to the Walyalup Civic Centre.
THIS year marks the 70th time the Madonna di Capo D’Orlando will be part of the Blessing of the Fleet.
And like the appearance of the original Madonna many centuries earlier, there’s an element of mystery and legend about how the silverstatue came to be in Fremantle.
No one’s quite sure who brought the Madonna back from Capo D’Orlando after it was gifted to the Fremantle community by the priest and townsfolk of the picturesque Sicilian fishing village.
Some say it might have been smuggled into the country in someone’s pocket.
“We’re still trying to work out who was the exact person that brought the statue out from Capo D’Orlando,” says Blessing of the Fleet committee president John Minutillo.
Initially there was talk of having two Blessing festivals, one celebrated by the folk who hailed from Molfetta, the other those from Capo D’Orlando.
But Mr Minutillo says by the time the statue arrived, it had been decided to bring everyone together for one big day.
• The Madonna di Capo D’Orlando
Former Fremantle councillor and Blessing stalwart John Alberti has a suspicion he knows who may have been the Madonna’s secret courier.
“We think that a guy that brought it over, the surname is Vinci,” Mr Alberti said.
“I think of the guy that I used to see, that used to come from Fremantle to Sicily every couple of years, because his cousin was a bootmaker right next to where I lived.
“He used to be there every day and used to stir me up, being six or seven years old, and we’ve got a feeling that he might have brought it.
“He was a Vinci.”
The Fremantle Madonna is an exact replica of the one venerated by the folk of Capo D’Orlando, and while their original was stolen some time in 1925, they have their own legends about its arrival.
The story goes that two sentinels at the castle of Count Girolamo Ioppolo saw a pilgrim in the square who played a bugle used to warn the townsfolk about pirate raids.
They went to tell him off, but he ran away, leaving a bag containing an image of the Madonna and child. The guards believed the pilgrim was an apparition of the Saint Cono Navacita.
The Madonna was taken to Naso, but after a series of earthquakes hit the town, she was returned and a church built on the site.
There she rested for hundreds of years until her theft: “They’re still looking for her,” Mr Alberti says.
This year a delegation from Capo D’Orlando, including the first archbishop from the town, will be joining the Fremantle Blessing of the Fleet.
There’ll also be a film crew from the town’s local news station coming to capture the festival.
“He’s going to talk to a lot of the old people from Sicily, on why they came out here and how they survived here,” Mr Minutillo said.
“It wouldn’t have been easy in the early days of them coming out from Sicily, and just coming to a strange country, but they all did it.”
FOR this year’s Blessing of the Fleet Queen, the honour also came with an opportunity to share some of the tradition with her young friends.
Viviana De Bari’s family has had a long association with the Blessing; her great grandmother Susanna arrived in Australia from Capo D’Orlando in the early 1900s and was on some of the earliest ladies’ committees.
“I have been in it since literally before I can remember,” Viviana says.
“It’s something I have always wanted to be, and I remember always looking at the Queen in the parade when I was little and thinking that I wanted to be her, so to be chosen, it really is a great honour.”
She says becoming this year’s Queen has sparked an interest in the Blessing and its traditions amongst her friends.
“None of them are super-Italian, or where my family was from, and they were very intrigued and interested to get to know about it.”
The Queen follows the statues of the Madonnas along the procession through Fremantle, holding the hands of young girls dressed in blue, before stepping onto one of the boats where a priest officially blesses the fleet ahead of the season.
• Blessing of the Fleet Queen 2024 Viviana De Bari
Crowning
Viviana says there was also a crowning service a couple of weeks ago where she was blessed, and is planning to attend the three masses held before the event where the rosary is said.
“I have never done three masses in a row before, so that will be interesting,” she said.
At the moment Viviana says she’s working casually and “sleeping in” at home before starting a hairdressing apprenticeship at Reno’s in the Claremont Quarter next February.
Her own hair for the Blessing is been done early in the morning by a family friend.
“She is Italian, and I have been going to her to do my hair since I was little,” she said, saying it added another special traditional touch to the day.
Viviana’s mum Gloria says the family has always been involved in the Blessing of the Fleet.
Her own father came from Capo D’Orlando and crewed on the boats for nearly 50 years before retiring.
“It was something we did every year because of dad, and hoping they would get a good fishing season in.
“And because the Madonna was from his home town, it meant a lot to him.”
OVER the years the colour, spectacle and history of the Blessing of the Fleet has been captured by a myriad of photographers.
So much so that the organising committee found themselves with dozens of stunning images propped up and stacked around their office; but they weren’t sure what to do with them.
Some show the first festival in 1950, another the visit of the original Madonna from Capo D’Orlando (said to be hundreds of years old); two young boys dressed as Carabinieri are now amongst the Italian community’s revered elders.
• Fremantle mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge with John Alberti and John Minutillo.
Profile
It was Freo’s mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge who hit on a great idea for the photos during a meeting — hold an exhibition at the City’s new Walyalup Civic Centre to promote the Blessing.
“It’s lovely to be able to use the Walyalup Civic Centre and the people who pass through it every day to profile some of the things that happen in the community,” Ms Fitzhardinge said.
“It seems every year, people don’t remember that it’s on until it’s on.
“So we’re trying to get it in people’s psyche earlier, to say ‘put the date in your diary’, but also to show the rich history.
“Even just standing here looking at some of the buildings [in the photos], there’s a whole history of our city that sits alongside the history of the procession and the stories of individuals, families, community and industry in the city,” Ms Fitzhardinge said.
Blessing committee president John Minutillo says the exhibition is a “great advertisement for the festival.
“A lot of the old photos go back to 1948 to 1950 and it’s a way of us getting it out to the community when the festival is on.”
Mr Minutillo says the photos bring back great memories.
“All these photos there, they’re all of the old boats, the old Jennys; it’s great to see the old photos – beautiful.”
The exhibition is in the entrance to the Walyalup Civic Centre.
THE Voice might have found a new contender for the best continental roll in Greater Perth.
This food reviewer has had some crackers over the years (just ask my waistline) with Lo Presti & Son in East Fremantle and The Re Store in Leederville high up the list.
But The Black Truffle could now be vying for top spot.
Situated on a busy stretch of the Stirling Highway in North Fremantle, it’s one of those places you’d probably whizz by in the car and never notice, unless you’re a local.
Performing a Dukes of Hazzardmanoeuvre, I did a screeching right hand turn across the busy Highway and managed to nab a parking space in the Liquorland next door.
The entrance to The Black Truffle is open and inviting with a cute sheltered alfresco and a weatherboard-style facade.
Inside was even better – clean, stylish and uncluttered with a Scandi-vibe – there was a display counter on the left, small goods on the opposite wall, and a long wooden table for communal dining.
Completing the minimalist picture was a jet black ceiling and swish downlights.
There was a steady stream of people coming and going on Tuesday lunchtime with everyone from construction folk working on the Fremantle Traffic Bridge to North Freo’s beau monde picking up choice morsels for lunch with Wendy and Nigel.
The display counter had a nice range of lunchtime goodies including ciabatta, wraps, bagels, upmarket burgers and a few salads. My wife “Special K” was soon tucking into her toasted veggie wrap ($11) – a giant soft tortilla crammed with fresh goodies.
“Wow, it’s got a lovely mix of sun-dried tomatoes, egg plant, avocado and tomato, and the red pesto is divine,” she said.
“It tastes super fresh and I love the mint cucumber, which gives it a nice zing.
“One of the best wraps I’ve had, with an Italian bent.”
Across the table, my young son was devouring his chicken schnitzel burger ($11.25) which had a lovely potato bun.
It was a precarious food skyscraper, teetering on the brink of demolition, but miraculously it held together until the last bite.
There was cheese, tomato and lettuce, with the coleslaw adding a nice texture.
The slightly spicy sriracha mayo caught my son off guard, and he rushed to the fridge to guzzle down some milk.
The main event – the schnitzel – was a tasty slab of tender chook with a light breadcrumb coating. File under superior, up-market chicken burger.
I finished off the lunch with the continental roll ($14).
A whopper that would make John Holmes’ eyes water, this conti had a large girth and length to match.
I was soon tucking into a delightful mix of mortadella, salami, antipasto verde and sliced cheese.
An explosion of fresh Italian flavours with the perfect ratio of meat to mild cheese and antipasto.
Sometimes I get bored halfway through a conti roll, and my jaw begins to ache as I chow down on bread tougher than an old leather shoe.
But the all important ciabatta was light and airy when toasted, and overall it was filling but not dense.
The Black Truffle turns into a pizzeria after 3pm, and they also do catering and sell a nice range of jarred and refrigerated small goods.
I’ll be back to try the pizzas as the deli lunch offerings were very nice, especially that continental roll.
A VIBRANT modern performance that tramples the corn around gender will kick off a three day celebration of dance at the State Theatre Centre later this month.
In the Closet was created by local choreographer and WAAPA alumna Natalie Allen, who wanted to explore what constitutes being masculine and feminine in the 21st century through the medium of dance.
“I understand them as energies and these constant ideas that change and are curated depending on our age, environment, social context and understanding of ourselves within our own unique life story,” Allen says.
“I am passionate about how rich the body is as a story teller so thought that it would be great research with the students to play, explore and further understand what these two ideas are as an individual and collective.
“I am curious about how we embody, see, hear and understand what is masculine and feminine.”
• Some of the WAAPA students performing at this year’s Verge gala at the State Theatre Centre.
WAAPA dancers will be accompanied by live music from jazz, modern and classical students, as well as the Defying Gravity Percussion Ensemble, who use a mind-boggling array of instruments from around the globe.
“The resonance of any live instrument on stage with moving bodies is dynamic and I have tried to really harness this opportunity of having live musicians and dancers on stage experiencing the work together to share with the audience,” Allen says.
A seasoned dancer and choreographer, Allen graduated from WAAPA in 2008 and went on to work with a wide range of Australian dance companies including Sydney Dance Company and SDC Guest Artists.
In 2013 she received a Green Room Award for ‘Best Female Dancer’ in Sydney Dance Company’s 2 One Another, and in 2017 created the show Sublime… for the Perth Fringe World.
She says she is inspired by the German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, who made a big contribution to the neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as Tanztheater.
“The way she beautifully curated and choreographed dance(tanz) theatre work together in extravagant set designs, was unique in its sophistication to present the complexity and simplicity of the human condition,” she says. “The experience of her works deeply connect to you as an audience member through the purity and totality of the performers’ delivering the content of the work, their performance is extraordinary and inspiring.”
In the Closet is the opening performance of Verge, a celebratory gala of modern and classical dance with live music, performed by more than 90 WAAPA students.
The show includes a selection of iconic dance scenes from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, restaged by Kim McCarthy and accompanied by the WAAPA Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Jessica Gethin.
Four performances of Verge will be held at the Heath Ledger Theatre in Northbridge from October 31 to November 2. For more info and tix see artsculturetrust.wa.gov.au or phone 6212 9292.
IF this home was human, it would be a quaint old charming man who just had a facelift.
That all translates to a renovated two bedroom one bathroom cottage with its own free-standing studio in Mt Lawley.
A mix of sparkly new and vintage, it will appeal to a creative couple, an artist or people who like a cottage with lots of character.
The Voice loves the beautiful cornicing and high ceilings in the lounge.
There’s a nice brick fireplace and mantel, with an old electric heater taking centre stage.
It’s a quirky touch and I’m not sure if it generates much heat, but it certainly looks cool and is a talking point.
The renovation is on full show in the kitchen, which has sleek white cabinets and drawers and a cute two-seater breakfast bar-cum-serving hatch.
The bathroom has been nicely renovated too, featuring a contemporary shower and stylish vanity, with the long mirror enhancing the sense of space.
There’s lovely period touches sprinkled throughout this home, including the decorative metal frames on the windows.
The backyard is a blank canvas. There’s some nice privacy and shade from the mature leafy trees, but you could easily add a patio, splash pool, BBQ and pizza oven.
It could be a lovely area, especially with summer about to hit.
The surprise package is the studio at the front of the property – a cool 3m x 6m space to indulge your hobbies or use as a separate home office/consulting room. There’s also an alfresco area out the front.
The home includes a large laundry,two WCs in total and a car bay.
Situated on Monmouth Street, between the Mount Lawley and North Perth precincts, it’s close to all the bars, cafes and restaurants on Beaufort Street, and not far from Hyde Park and Mt Lawley Bowling Club.
Buyers over $899,000 17 Monmouth Street, Mount Lawley Beaucott Property 9272 2488 Paul Owen 0411 601 420 Carlos Lehn 0478 927 017
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