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Colour of the day
Alas, many Baby Boomers have long discovered the disdain our Millennials have for the Victorian/Edwardian furniture collected by their parents, our parents and grandparents. (“Furniture finds, how now brown couch”, 29/10).
I have given away cedar balloon back chairs, a mahogany dining table – and more.
Desperate to keep a couple of special pieces in the family, I offered to paint them a fashionable glossy black. Millennial daughter was impressed and enjoys having them in her home because every piece has a story she cherishes.
Sally Davis, Malvern East
Crumbling values
The description of old-fashioned, brown furniture that is now almost worthless and cannot be given away could go deeper and further. It may be a symptom of the changing class structure where middle-class symbols and lifestyle are disparaged, including the brick homesteads that are being demolished along with their gardens to be replaced by bland, modern edifices.
The silverware that used to be laid on the tables is going for little more than its scrap value, and
op shops now have what would have been expensive wedding gifts priced like cheap imports. While the items themselves cost little, the inflationary pressure of constantly replacing clothing and furniture for the sake of fashion partly causes the rise in the cost of living.
Norm Pollack, Armadale
Cows were family
The article, ″Picture this, cows mooving with the times″, (29/10) piqued my interest. I was surprised that the dairy farmer referred to when asked how he was able to tell one cow from another replied that he relied on ear tags.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Larpent just outside Colac in the Western District. Admittedly, our herd of 70 head was small by today’s standards but not only did we know every cow, we gave each cow a name and they had their individual personalities. There was hierarchy within the herd as the cows lined up in the same order every morning and night waiting to be milked.
My family loved those cows and didn’t need to rely on ear tags to identify them. When my parents retired and our cows were sold, it filled us all with great sadness.
Phil Alexander, Eltham
A possible reason
Thank you, DA (“Grammar knows best, as always”, 29/10), for the funny feast of nuance and subtleties. Adapted as we Melburnians are to great varieties of weather throughout each day, week, month and season, the title “Melbourne Writers Festival” seems appropriately accommodating of our capacity and need to cope with the unpredictable, compared with Sydneysiders’ more grammar-normative description of their event: “Sydney Writers’ Festival.”
Jennifer Gerrand, Carlton North
Incisive on Spears
Jacqueline Maley’s chronicle (“We pushed Britney Spears to the brink, then punished her for it”, 29/10) of the factors in Britney Spears’ mental health deterioration – “control of a dominant father to the control of an exploitative pop industry and a woman-hating media and back to the control of her father, enabled by the Californian legal system” – is incisive and, importantly, calls out the underlying forces of sexism and misogyny that were at play.
The result being that Spears was “owned” by her father, her music industry and media exploiters, while the legal system facilitated her father’s ownership via conservatorship.
However, that all of the above was done to Spears – precipitating her public meltdown – should beg the question: How can we justify vilifying women in this manner akin to “sport”?
By noting, positively, that Spears, like Monica Lewinsky and Taylor Swift, are all phoenixes who have risen from the detritus of flagrant sexism and misogyny to reclaim their life’s narrative that was misappropriated and misshapen into a reductive characterisation of their intelligent, survivor selves.
Great job, Maley, in throwing a spotlight where it needs to shine for the betterment of all of our daughters and sons looking on.
Jelena Rosic, Mornington
Tacit whip admission
Isn’t any restriction of the use of the whip in horse racing an admission that it causes horses pain, and the rest is rationalisation and industry spin?
Bernd Rieve, Brighton
Purl of a question
Invariably, every community in the news is described as “close-knit″. Is there such a thing as a “loose-knit″ community?
Gwenda West, Research
Going back in time
The existentialist problem conservatives face, as with the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in the UK, is that they want to conserve the past and reject everything from that time on, that is, by stopping the arrow of time and even reversing it.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East
The calmer regions
Bad behaviour increasing on roads? Definitely. One just has to watch an episode of the YouTube series, Dashcams Australia, to highlight random and aggressive behaviour, particularly in cities.
Last time I got the middle finger was in Melbourne years ago. Out in the regions, things are calmer, and drivers tend to be more courteous.
Zalan Filip, Rutherglen
AI, there’s a problem
I am starting to understand why John and Paul fell out all those years ago. The only way John would have approved what has happened to his final song would be if all royalties are donated to a worthy cause. The Beatles are dead. And no amount of AI can ever bring them back.
Susan Scalise, Ascot Vale
O, Canadia
Maybe Tony Abbott should ask scientists from ″Canadia″ what they think about climate change.
Barry Kranz, Mount Clear
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