The Windsor Hotel

At 111 Spring Street, opposite Parliament House, a tall man in purple has been welcoming guests to The Windsor for a very long time. The Windsor is TVC‘s hotel of choice when in Melbourne and indeed we are such regulars that both we and our close relative D were once upgraded to  suites  and we always receive a handwritten letter of welcome from the CEO when we check in. This is a grand eminence of red carpet, federation tiles, chintz curtains and afternoon tea. There is no day spa but there is the Cricketers’ Bar, with deep window embrasures and…

Continue Reading →

The Book Show

 Summer 2014, Ultimo TVC loves this show, although the initial set was a shameless rip off of “Hidden”.  A great argument for the national broadcaster, although surely the Fry-B-C could muck along for a few millions less?  We attended a taping some time back (incognito) and thus got stalker-close to Ms Byrne, Ms Hardy and Mr Steger plus guest. Jennifer Byrne is the perfect host – charming, open-minded, enthusiastic (but no pushover – she does generally not abide shite).  Marieke Hardy is P’s favourite, hardiest critic – she and P may share few opinions overall, but when she hates something,…

Continue Reading →

Shadowlands

 (dir. Richard Attenborough) (1993) “We read to know we are not alone”…so we appreciate the intellectual tug of love between lonely but accomplished Clive Staples (Jack) Lewis of Magdalen College, Oxford and lonely precocious poet Joy Gresham (“the Jewish Christian Communist American”) in this simple, sad and beautiful film, easily Attenborough’s best (and a lot shorter than his Oscar acceptance speech for Gandhi, or so it seems). William Nicholson adapted his earlier TV and film scripts with additions based in part on the lovely book by Joy’s son, Douglas (“Lenten Lands”) and the script is wondrous – tasteful, literate and…

Continue Reading →

The Wannsee Conference & the Final Solution

The Wannsee Conference & the Final Solution

(by Mark Roseman) 20 January 1942 – 15 government men, “fifteen serious, intelligent men” met at a villa on Lake Wannsee “to give their assent to genocide.” Roseman’s concise account is a superb reconstruction, amply supported by evidence.  Yet as he says, the Conference per se “was not the moment of decision.” We do not know just when Hitler set his hideous policy but Wannsee was clearly a watershed in the clearing of bureaucratic hurdles and articulation of logistics. Of course, Hitler had had the so-called ‘Jewish question’ in mind for a long time.  Mein Kampf drips with extermination babble –…

Continue Reading →

National Gallery of Victoria

December 12, 2014 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, Ulalume |

December 2014 TVC wandered mainly in the European wing this trip but the floating wooden Japanese village by Takahiro Iwasaki was a highlight, as were hardy perennials ‘The Garden of Love’ by Vivarini (1465-70), with its formal marble fountain bordered by trellised fruits (tomatoes? pomegranates? Triffids?); Jan Brueghel’s ‘Calvary’ (c. 1610) with its blue oils on copper and a harsh landscape with dogs and prurient audience watching the faith-man suffer; a little ‘St Jerome’ (c. 1540) peering into the blue distance in which birds wheel like bomber-planes; Poussin’s ‘The Crossing of the Red Sea’ (1632-4) and its choppy sea and…

Continue Reading →

© Copyright 2014 The Varnished Culture All Rights Reserved. TVC Disclaimer. Site by KWD&D.