Reasons to like Melbn, Part 3

\<!\[CDATA *No, there’s no parts 1 and 2, I’m just doing a musical tip of the hat to Ian Dury.*  It’s no secret I’m not overly fond of my adopted city. I think Cori put it best this evening when she said it has no charisma. When I first arrived, I called it “unfocussed”. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a shithole – but you must remember, I come from [Vancouver](http://www.tourismvancouver.com/)  – it’s hard for anywhere else to measure up. 

In an effort to bolster my affection for this place, I’ve been learning about its brief history. There was an excellent article in a crap magazine last week, and I’ll run through the facts here, adding some editorial content… So here are reasons to like Melbn! Flinders Street is named after an unlucky bastard

So Matthew Flinders was the first whitey to map Australia’s coast. On his way back to England to tell everyone what he’d found, the French captured him in Mauritius and kept him in the hot sun for several years. Thus, by the time he got back home, he suggested the name “Australia” for this place. No one’s quite sure where he got that from. I’m blaming the French.

Neither of the two whiteys who claimed to found Melbn were actually here when it happened.

Some guy named Batman (cool) made a treaty with the locals to make a city, but while he was trying to figure out how to communicate with them, another guy named Fawkner went and did it anyway. Fawkner’s plan didn’t really work either, because he had to stay in Tasmania to pay off his creditors. He should have done what I did and just left. Fawkner eventually came back and organised the first horse race, where some lady died in the river. Batman died of syphillis. It was almost called Batmania

Damn.

Lord Melbourne was a wanker

He was a divorced illegitimate bastard child of the poet (and major wanker) Lord Byron, who served as British Prime Minister for 6 years. He detested the poor and didn’t want to educate the children. Some guy from NSW picked the name

That alone must really piss off the Melbnians.

A moron started the local university

Redmond Barry killed Ned Kelly, which prompted Yahoo Serious to make a fantastic movie about Kelly. Redmond also unsuccessfully defended two aboriginals against the death penalty. They were then hung poorly and suffered a long and painful death. Then Redmond turned into a suburb of Seattle and is mostly responsible for Windows. The inventor of Aussie Rules football committed suicide

TW Wills suggested that the cricket club pay football during the winter to keep fit. Problem was that normal football rules were too simple. Since they were used to the rules of cricket, they had to complicate the game somewhat. Then, out of embarrassment, he became an alcoholic and killed himself.

The first mayor

If you thought Lord Melbourne was good, wait til you hear about Henry Condell. He was a rapist who was thrown out of Hobart. He came to what was to become Melbourne and opened a “very successful” brewery. That’s the ticket to becoming mayor. Officially, Vancouver’s first mayor was a realtor named McLean, but everyone in Vancouver knows that the real first mayor was the popular town drunk, Gassy Jack. I’m not making this up. Women are not allowed to wear hat-pins

Whew.

Prahran is not surrounded by water

The native name for my suburb is “purraran”, meaning “almost surrounded by water”. But it’s not. It’s almost surrounded by other suburbs, if anything. Prahran is entirely landlocked. Moombah

Melbourne’s big summer festival comes from a native word meaning “up your ass”. Why then does mardi gras happen in Sydney…?]]>

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