Re Harold Bishop's alleged sighting of a Helmeted Honeyeater
(which my wife, who was watching Channel 10 - it had been a very
hard day at the office - says he claimed as a pair).
I've been to Ramsay St. several times, the first being in 1988
when over here on holidays from the UK: my 8 year old daughter
insisted we go, and the only birds I've seen there are foreign
tourists or lingering exotics. Last time there was (in addition
to a pommie punter dragged there by his family during an
interlude in the horse racing carnival) a Dutch/Scots couple who
had arrived by bus from Adelaide early in the morning and were
heading off to Sydney in the evening.
The habitats were deplorable and have almost certainly declined
since my first observations (unfortunately I did not keep clear
records of the Jason and Kylie days). The most notable plant I
remember was a rose in memory of a certain Mrs Mangle.
In any case the whole area is grossly disturbed by middle-class,
mainly white, teenagers incessantly involved in romance, car
crashes, family rows etc. etc.. No wonder Germaine Greer slated
it as a bizarre place to promote as typically Australian.
I have considerable doubts about Mr Bishop's record: he suffered
an unfortunate episode of amnesia a few years ago and displays a
fussiness which suggests, at least from a Freudian point of
view, an obsession with detail as an escape from anything of
wider importance. Perhaps a passing male Golden Whistler
suggested to his unconscious that he might yet again find a way
out of suburban complacency and he - without any fault for which
we could not have compassion - leapt to an unwarranted
conclusion.
I'm delighted to say that I suffer none of his defects.
Michael Norris
Hampton, Vic.
PS. There is a street in Vermont, Melbourne, called Pin-oak
Court which bears a spooky resemblance to Ramsay St.
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