October 20, 2005

marvellous melbournian


dawn cityscape avec balloons
Originally uploaded by billyjoebob.
Your mother, punkin, has expressed on more than one occasion her surprise at realising that, when you start to speak, it will be with an Australian accent.

More than that, punkin, when you grow up, you're going to be able to tell people that you're from Melbourne.

Far be it for me to lapse into jingoistic parochialism, but here's the deal. Melbourne is, pound for pound, the greatest city in the world.

I don't have a whole lot of empirical evidence on which to support this claim, so for the most part you're going to have to take my word for it, but I'm your father, so you should trust me implicitly anyway.

But wait. It appears that I have some supporters. The Economic Intelligence Unit (Unit of what I'm not exactly sure), suggest that, when examining cities around the world for 40 criteria, grouped under the headings of stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure, Melbourne comes second in the world for "Liveability".

On further examination of these findings, however, we are presented with an anomoly. It appears that the winner of this survey (Vancouver), and the two cities with whom Melbourne shares second place (Geneva and Vienna) are all, punkin, places in which it snows.

This is not to suggest, punkling, that I am some kind of snow hater. I have been known, on more than one occasion, to involve myself in various winter sports, including but not limited to, skiing (badly), snowboarding (with slightly more success) and tobogganninnng (ask your Uncle Steve about how to build a tobogggan track, he's the world champion).

What I'm instead suggesting, Bramble, is that, in preference to living somewhere that has an annual snowfall, one should instead travel to a place that has an annual snowfall, so that one can enjoy the snow at one's own convenience. One should not have to "enjoy" the snow by shovelling it out of one's way in order to get to one's car and go to work. One should not have to further "enjoy" the snow by then shovelling it off one's car at 6am.

By using this carefully crafted and incredibly compelling argument to add several thousand points to the score of Melbourne, we find that it is in fact the world's most liveable city, and therefore a fabulous place to be born and live.

Love you.

NEWSFLASH

The lovely and wonderful Kathy has extended an invitation to all and sundry Melbourne baby bloggers to a get-together. Details as follows:

The Inaugural Melbourne Baby Blogger Picnic

When: 1pm to 5pm
Sunday 4 December OR Saturday 10 December OR Sunday 11 December
Where: A central city location, TBC by email to respondents

Please visit her to RSVP, and/or to vote for a date.

1 comment:

L-A-LoST said...

liam and i often chat about our children to be and what accent they will have (he being a geordie, me yorkshire).
sometimes when we are mischievous we think that having brummy babies would be extra funny so that we can get them to say ''mommaay, daddoiy, i've done a jobboiy...'
then i think that truly yorkshire is the best accent and has it's own hilarious merits -- all of which your mother has lost... but still we enjoy to hear her lovely voice with her ozzy twang.

love you
auntie amy xxx