Round the New England blogging traps - 7 Hunter Valley focus

Another update on New England blogs, this time with a focus on the Hunter Valley. I seem to have had a very Armidale focus recently, so I want to balance.

My historical thinking at the moment is very Hunter focused. Not Newcastle focused, this city's Valley dominance came later, but the role the Hunter played in the first fifty years of colonisation. You cannot write the history of New England without starting with the Hunter.

After a number of years Gaye has decided to move, so in future Snippets and sentiments will come from a new location. This photo shows a final sunrise in that part of the rural Hunter that Gaye and Grahame have called home.

I can understand how she feels about her garden.

When we moved recently after a long rental period, the first thing the owners did was to remove all the mulch and composted soil to reduce soil levels back to level with the lawn. The second was to remove all the herbs. They wanted flat beds in which they then planted with plants from a nursery to give a tidy, pretty, feel. Half the new plants died in a week because the very sandy soil exposed to the atmosphere and with the top layer removed just compacted and dried out.

Dion Archibald on Art News Blog continues his musings on the world of art with some travel mixed in.  In Art and Spirituality Dion looks at the question of the impact of art on the viewer. I am not a painter. However, as someone who has looked at thousands of paintings over the years I have a far more more positive view than that which seems to come through the post.

I found the discussion in  Nicole Danes is a Scammer quite eye opening. Have a look and tell me what you think.

Peter Firminger's Wollombi Valley had a quite startling post. History be damned - Rothbury Riot will have to go - Shame Fosters Shame suggests that the trade mark decision on the use of the word Rothbury, something that I found a little startling anyway, will affect the use of the word outside just wine.

Surely this can't be right? I must check this one with one of my legal colleagues. My impression was that trade mark law would limit the use to wine.

NewcastleonHunter continues with some interesting material. Hi, new in town?, a post published back in June 2007, captures the Novocastrian's love of their own city.

Uni students lose ‘the gap’ deals with more current events, a combined protest by final year school students from Port Macquarie and Newcastle University over the changes to the Newstart allowance that make it harder for students to get the allowance.

This change was introduced in the last Commonwealth budget but largely went un-noticed because it was buried in the detail. It affects us personally as well, because my youngest is no longer eligible for Newstart. I haven't analysed the detail of the change, but on the surface it just makes it harder for kids to study.

Newcastle AU continues with its mix of photos and stories, including a number celebrating the recent Dungog Film Festival. This Festival with its focus on Australian film has become quite a success story, although this year there was some controversy of mining industry sponsorship.

Over the last few years mining has become quite a divisive issue in the Valley and further north on the Liverpool Plains. This is one of, if not the, world's largest coal provinces. The expansion of mining pits the Valley's traditional coal interests including workers against rural and green interests.

Over on Jamie Andrei's Digital Synergies, there have been a number of recent posts with titles like Twitter or blogs or social networking in plain English. They are short videos. I haven't checked them yet, but they look interesting.

I have time for just one more blog. As always, Media Hunter has been carrying some interesting stuff dealing with the new digital environment.

I have been meaning for a while to look back at some of Craig's posts on regional TV ratings. I haven't said much about the history of TV in New England, but there are some quite interesting stories here, including the way ratings variations continue, I think, to reflect various long running themes and differences within New England's history.

All for now.