Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
Position, position, position
My wife and I were walking down a residential street in the Sydney suburb of Newtown recently, accompanied by one of our sons and his partner. A large sign caught my attention, attached to a wire fence surrounding a small block of land. The block was in fact very small, no bigger than your average terrace house. It was occupied by one large and exceptional gum tree together with ferns and other bush vegetation. A "pretty little sort of wilderness" as Lady Catherine de Burgh says in Pride and Prejudice. The sign on the fence proclaimed that it was "Newtown's oldest bush garden". The sign, however, had not been erected by the local Council or some community group. Oh, no. It was a real estate agent's sign (L J Hooker to be precise). The wording in full said: "Vacant Land — Position, position, position * Newtown's oldest bush garden * One of the last residential building sites in Sydney's Inner West * Approx 91m2 * Build your dream home For Sale L.J. Hooker Leichhardt" At 91 square metres, your dream home would have to be fairly small. But, In order to build ANYTHING on this little block, the garden would have to be destroyed to make room. The large tree, which is right in the middle of the plot of land, would have to be chopped down and uprooted. As my son observed, "It's one or the other: garden or house — there simply isn't room for both." Isn't it typical of capitalism, of a system that views things in terms of profit and private ownership, that an inner city suburb's "oldest bush garden" would be seen solely as an opportunity for an "entrepreneur" to make a buck by bulldozing the garden and building on its remains? And that the entrepreneur in question would see nothing peculiar about using its status as the area's oldest bush garden to advertise it as a building site? Ah, capitalism. Doesn't it just make you feel good all over? On September 14 we received a fax from a firm of auctioneers announcing a "unique animal trophy auction". The problem is, I don't think it's unique enough. The base story is that Bob Penfold, Managing Director of an outfit called Hunt Australia, is retiring and is "selling his collection" which comprises more than 50 "unique items including a complete collection of North American sheep mounts plus additional European trophies". A look at Hunt Australia's website shows it to be what you would expect: a "safari" outfit catering to gun nuts seeking an adrenalin rush from sneaking up on an unsuspecting wild animal while carrying a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights and shooting it dead from a long way away with a very big bullet. Judging by the photos on the website, the protocol is then to go and sit or kneel right beside the animal's corpse, holding your rifle erect, while a photographic record of your triumph is made for you to proudly show other easily impressed folk. If you like, the beast's horns, head or presumably other parts of its anatomy can be cut off and mounted for display on your wall or in your "den". Bob Penfold certainly regards his collection of "trophies" the way normal people these days regard photographs. Apart from the heads of North American sheep he has shot dead, his trophies include "bobcats, deer, bears, buffalo and, of course [says the auctioneer], a moose". The fax does not say whether they are all heads or whether some are complete animals. But one thing is for sure: they have all been killed. For the pleasure of Bob Penfold and his clients. Says Bob: "It will be strange not having these around to remind me of different trips I've taken over the years." Just what sort of memories would they be, I wonder? Presumably not of the beauty of nature. I can just imagine him reminiscing with friends while showing them his trophies: "It was a glorious, misty morning in the Canadian Rockies. "A magnificent black bear was fishing in a stream. It was just perfect. I got him in the back of the head with a .405 — blew the whole back of his head off, of course, but the taxidermist was able to cover that up." No, I think his memories would be more to do with the excitement of killing things and the large amounts of money to be made showing macho gun nuts in military fatigues the "right" way to drop a large herbivore with a single shot. The auctioneer has the last word on the fax, with unconscious irony: "The collection is in excellent condition and, of course, each piece has a story". A story brutally cut short by Bob Penfold's high powered gun — for sport.