We’d like to be as sure of winning the lottery as we are that there’ll be some robust debate about the new sculpture outside the Bendigo Art Gallery in View Street.
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Alex Seton’s five-tonne marble skull, titled The Dead More Alive Than the Living will surely challenge a few folk’s definition of art – and that’s a good thing – but here at Down The Mall, it challenged something else.
Carved into the plinth is a caption: “KEEP ON KEEPING ON”.
That rang a few bells and sure enough we came up with the words ‘Berger Paints.’
For decades the paint company’s advertising slogan urged us to keep on keeping on.
So, we looked it up and a registered trademark of Berger Paints is “Keeps on keeping on.”
We hope the trademarked extra S will make all the difference.
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There was a lot of clinking glasses at the Bendigo Tramways depot this week as a refurbished veteran Melbourne W-class tram was handed over to the very chic Chandon wine company.
The tram is to be used as a pop-up bar at functions all round Australia.
Chandon’s chap at the event was the suave young Frenchman, Baptise Lava, who, while just 28, showed a pretty good knowledge of Bendigo’s venerable wine industry.
This knowledge extended to the curious bit of history which saw Bendigo red wine produced by Baptiste’s countryman, Jean Theodore Deravin and Frederick Grosse, at Mandurang, winning international awards in the 1880s.
They were also accused by the French judges of scandalous fraud.
The French judges did not believe such wine could be made anywhere else but France and accused the Bendigonians of refilling their bottles with good French red.
Baptiste, whose career has already included stints and studies in France, China, the US and Spain, warmed the cockles of a few Bendigo hearts by declaring he felt he was in paradise and had no plans to go back anywhere anytime soon.
To that we say “Cheers” or “À votre santé. ‘’