Eric Riddler

YouTube video by Antipodean Music Redgum - I've Been To Bali Too (1984)

Only Australians of a certain age will get this but “you can’t impress me, I’ve been to Constantinople, too”

youtu.be/EVOIg_lHRzk

A bergamot orange sitting in a brown glazed ramekin on a nineteen-fifties stainless steel sink. Some of the utensils to be used for the preparation can be seen in the background

The finished custards on the same sink. The run-off from the water used to temper the two ramekins during the baking process can be seen along the stainless steel ridges between them

Making bergamot custard from a homegrown bergamot orange…

And for all the early generation Whovians this week: “I bring you Sutekh’s gift of feeling very, very old”

On a sunny morning, five pigeons; three dark grey, two russet red; are watching the photographer from the safety of a supermarket awning, behind a pink telephone booth roof. The two at left are peering out from the side, while the other three are directly facing the camera

Five pigeons, in search of a breakfast, and a telephone booth, Wallumedegal Country, Western Sydney, Australia

I don’t want to cast shade on British Rock and Roll… after all, The Quarrymen laid down that demo of “In spite of all the danger” and things really kicked off from there… but, on the other hand, I don’t think Iggy Pop ever covered a Tommy Steele song… youtu.be/def3ob2h-1s

A program for a production of the musical ‘Calamity Jane’ is sitting on a table, with a stage set of a Wild West saloon visible in the background

A grey-bearded man wearing glasses appears on a ‘Wanted’ poster promoting the musical ‘Calamity Jane’, while a prop cactus stands to one side

Just revisited Virginia Gay’s impressively rollicking take on Calamity Jane at the Sydney Opera House

“… I never could get the hang of Thursdays…”

On a bright, late winter’s day, the midday sunshine highlights the angular features of a mid-century modern motel on the Australian Gold Coast. In the centre of the photo, a woman, wearing a nineteen-fifties dress and a cardigan, is standing beside a grey nineteen-fifty-five Australian Vauxhall Velox parked in front of one of the motel rooms, between a cream nineteen-fifty-three Ford Customline parked in the motel driveway and a cream nineteen-fifty-three ‘FX’ chassis Holden Forty-Eight-Two-One-Five outside the neighbouring room. In the lower left background, a pile of rubbish, weathered paling fence and telegraph pole intrusively demonstrate why an entire chapter of architect Robin Boyd’s book ‘The Australian Ugliness’ was dedicated to Surfers Paradise. Beyond, Norfolk Island pines, backyard bananas and mango trees surround the suburban houses of neighbouring Broadbeach

Found slide: El Dorado Motel, Surfers Paradise, Kombumerri Country, at the end of a school holiday road trip from Western Sydney to the Gold Coast, 28 August 1956 [photographer unknown]

Looking up at an installation of threads descending from a ceiling in three circular groups, lit by spotlights above. The space is darkened as this former fountain, once featured on souvenir 35mm slides, is being dismantled

Happy 60th anniversary to Roselands shopping centre, Dharug Country, Western Sydney. Here’s a photo of the famous ‘Raindrop Fountain’ that I took in 1987 as part of a photoessay project. The raindrops had already been turned off and the fountain was removed shortly afterwards

… I still feel that the opening titles gave a misleading expectation of projectile sausages in the narrative which followed…

A close up film photograph of a steam locomotive, with steam rising from its boiler behind the smokestack. Modern high rise buildings, one orange, one blue, stand in the background, while two railway fans can be seen watching from the opposite platform at lower left

C30T class locomotive 3001 waits at Sydney Central Station before leading an excursion train through the suburbs as part of the Transport Heritage Expo, October 2025

A square format colour photograph of an amusement park ride. Two children are sitting in one of the round cars circling around a central disc. The curves of the ride are echoed by the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge behind them

Found slide: Celebrating the 90th anniversary of the opening of Sydney’s Luna Park, here’s a 127 format slide of children on a ride below the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Cammeraigal Country, circa 1968 [photographer unknown]

We should light fork handles in his memory…

On a clear, sunny day, a mother and daughter walk past the photographer as they follow several groups of people walking towards a large gothic revival building on the crest of a hill. A yellow and cream Holden 48-215 taxi is passing the pedestrians as it approaches the photographer

Happy 175th anniversary to the University of Sydney, founded on Gadigal Country in 1 October 1850. Found slide: Students and family members approach the Main Building of the University of Sydney quadrangle, circa 1954. Photo by a member of the Down family

A black and white photo of a maypole in front of a Georgian colonial building on a spring afternoon. The dancers, some wearing period costume, are holding their streamers as they prepare for a rehearsal dance around the maypole

Dancing around the maypole, “Regency Day”, Old Government House, Parramatta Park. Burramattagal Country, September 2025, on 35mm film

Sorry, autocorrect insisted on “it’s” over “its” and I posted before I noticed it

The best Leyland car that never was | Axon’s Automotive Anorak | GRR Force 7 is Leyland's Aussie muscle car, of which just nine still exist...

I can’t help thinking that they’re still fuming that Brexit (in particular it’s “let’s go back to the Empire and pretend nothing happened to the Commonwealth’s industry after 1973” selling point) didn’t kick start the Leyland Force 7 back into production…

www.goodwood.com/grr/road/new...

On a cold and overcast day, two children, one in a fawn overcoat, the other in a black overcoat, watch as a tugboat sails past along a river. The storage sheds visible on the other bank of the river indicates that the children are standing at the convergence of Victoria Harbour and the Birrarung Yarra River

Found slide: Two children watching the tugboat James Paterson making its way along the Birrarung Yarra River through the Docklands of Naarm Melbourne, circa 1958. Photo by Greta Martin

A young girl stands on the front of a large, polished steam locomotive in a railway yard as other visitors pass by. In the right background the old Henderson’s hat factory can be seen

A view across a railway yard during a public display of locomotives, equipment and carriages: the visible locomotives are, from left, 5805, 3813 and 1243

Found slides for: The centenary celebration of the opening of the Sydney to Parramatta Railway: the photographer’s daughter with locomotive 5805 and a general view of the crowd milling around the rolling stock on display, Sydney Terminal, September 1955. Photo by a member of the Down/Tyler families

Advertising - The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) - 31 Mar 1971 Paragraph operations are made directly in the full article text panel located to the left.Paragraph operations include:

Your description rang a bell, so I looked and found a White Wings ‘Instant Breakfast’ on Trove:

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/ar...

A still from The Simpsons showing the “World’s First Two Storey Outhouse”… the caption below the outhouse quotes the unseen occupant in the lower storey shouting “Oh, God, stop!”

IIRC there was an unwritten rule that the reason for Maggie’s vagueness was never specified: Geoffrey Atherden apparently based it on his and his friends’ experiences with ageing parents… apparently stopping a funeral cortège at a fruit vendor actually happened…

I’ve been on both sides: like you, absolutely no memory of ‘Gambler’… but, a decade or so ago, an acquaintance of mine wrote an article about this sort of thing and cited The Bureau’s ‘Only for Sheep’ as an unknown song and I was “like, that was one of my first singles!… still on my playlists!…”

Looking towards the Redex Round Australia Reliability Trial 1955 road race finish line, marked by banners over a street in Western Sydney. Among the crowd of spectators are a pair of police officers, reporters, photographers, newsreel camera operators on top of vans and several steel caravans

Spectators crowd around the garlanded and blue boiler-suited drivers of the first cars across the finish line. Almost everyone’s attention, however, is something happening to the right of the photo: from the their expressions, one could assume that they are listening to the announcement that the winners would not be declared until the condition of the cars was examined (eventually decided in the two drivers’ favour)

Another view of the crowds in the street, watching as the two drivers, mostly obscured by the crowd, walk beneath a newsreel camera operator panning across the scene

Found slides: Seventy years ago, the crowds gather around to cheer on the first drivers to cross the finish line of the Redex Round Australia Reliability Trial in Park Avenue, Westmead, Burramattagal Country, Western Sydney, 11 September 1955. Photo by a member of the Down or Tyler families

Looking towards a lunar eclipse, a few minutes before totality, in a slightly cloudy (and digitally enhanced) sky. To the left, a red hibiscus flower stands out against a passing cloud

Yanada and a hibiscus: obligatory low-res iPhone photo of the lunar eclipse, Wallumedegal Country, Western Sydney, Australia

A black and white film photograph of a cormorant, silhouetted against the morning sun, perched at the end of a decaying wooden boat ramp. Across the bay a modern suburb of high rise apartments lines the shore

Guwali cormorant dries itself on the ship breaking ramp at Shipwreck Point, Homebush Bay, Wangal Country, Western Sydney

A close up of an article in the Australian literary magazine Meanjin, published in early nineteen-fifty. The term ‘Australian cultural cringe’ makes its debut, followed by the observation that “A cringing culture cannot be a healthy culture”

“A cringing culture cannot be a healthy culture”: the term “cultural cringe” enters the Australian vernacular… A.A. Phillips, ‘The ham subsidy’, Meanjin, volume 9, number 1, Autumn 1950, page 29

On a slightly cloudy day, Loong, an antique Imperial dragon, is being marshalled through a parade along a shopping street in an Australian regional city in the late nineteen-sixties. Loong’s slightly faded fabric scales and visibly repaired face evoke the time that has passed since his creation in the early eighteen-nineties: in two years’ time there will be a ceremonial changeover to a new dragon and Loong will be preserved in a local museum. The crowd are smiling and waving as he passes by, behind a porter pushing a wooden trolley

[found slide] 龙 Loong, an 1890s Imperial dragon imported as part of Australian federation celebrations in 1901, makes one of his last appearances in Bendigo’s annual Easter parade before retiring to the Golden Dragon Museum, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, April 1968 [photographer unknown]

Looking down a pebbled concrete stairway, where a pair of colourful lorikeets and a grey pigeon are momentarily startled by a pedestrian passing by

A pair of Warin rainbow lorikeets and a pigeon on the steps of St James railway station, Warrane Sydney, Gadigal Country

Looking from a bridge into a tidal creek on a clear day. At right, the reflection of a tree in the water is slightly distorted by the ripples forming around a fallen branch in the water nearby

Ripples around a fallen branch, Haslams Creek, Wellington Point, Wangal Country, Western Sydney