Premiers' Reading Challenges

Last Monday I was a guest at the end of year reception for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. The NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell, spoke about the program and the importance of getting kids reading.

Every state in Australia now has a premier's reading challenge. They are non-competitive programs aimed at encouraging kids to read. The programs are as follows: Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.

They have been a huge success and, needless to say, children's book authors love them.

First prize for the most passionate and funny speech went to the author Deborah Abela, Patron of the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge. (I just made up that prize but, as always, she gave a great speech.)

And there were lots of kids from around the state. Some of them had been up since four o'clock in order to get to the reception. Kids who didn't have to get up early were some from nearby Ultimo Primary School, pictured here with Deborah Abela and myself.

Some good news relating to my previous blog: my fellow travellor, Richard Tulloch, informs me that the City of Paris has now removed the lipstick---along with Selby's signature and paw print---from Oscar Wilde's tomb. They have also placed a protective glass barrier around the monument to keep it from being kissed again any time soon.

Walking around the city

I'm a walker. Whenever I have a chance to do so, I walk. Occasionally I do some bushwalking but if I don't have a chance to get out of the city I just walk around where I live which is in Sydney. And Sydney is a great city for walking. I will never run out of new places to go but sometimes just a walk around the inner city is the most rewarding. On the weekend I walked to the Art Gallery of New South Wales which is about one hour's walk from where my wife and I live. While the collection of paintings isn't anything like the great art galleries of Europe and the USA it has a wonderful collection of Australian paintings. It also has special exhibitions such as the two that are currently on show: one of photographs by the American photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, and another of English Victorian paintings and sculpture. One of the wonderful things about the Art Gallery of NSW is that it's free. Sometimes there's a charge to see the special exhibitions but you can skip those and see everything else for free. The Art Gallery also has lots of special events such as the concert that was happening when I was there on Sunday.

And when I go to the Art Gallery I often go to the Botanic Gardens as well. This time was no exception. In addition to the huge collection of plants and flowers there are always other things to see. This time I spent a while watching a colony of stingless Australian bees going in and out of their nest in a log. Australia has a huge variety of insects that don't exist anywhere else in the world.

The Botanic Gardens has a big problem with grey-headed fruit bats, or "flying foxes" as we usually call them. There is a big colony in the trees in the gardens and it's not good for the trees or the plants below the bats. They're beautiful animals and they are native so no one would want to get rid of them but, at the same time, the people who run the Gardens wish the bats would find somewhere else to live.