{"id":352,"date":"2007-06-05T12:38:57","date_gmt":"2007-06-05T12:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/?p=352"},"modified":"2008-01-03T12:36:22","modified_gmt":"2008-01-03T02:36:22","slug":"from-big-things-little-things-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/2007\/06\/05\/from-big-things-little-things-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"From big things little things grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.auspost.com.au\/philatelic\/stamps\/stampshop_2.asp?pid=198686237&amp;product_type=8&amp;category_id=579&amp;product_id=3251\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/bigthingsx.jpg\" alt=\"Bigthingsx\" title=\"Bigthingsx\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 0.8em\">(photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.auspost.com.au\/philatelic\/stamps\/stampshop_2.asp?pid=198686237&amp;product_type=8&amp;category_id=579&amp;product_id=3251\">Australia Post<\/a>)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Today Australia Post is issuing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.auspost.com.au\/philatelic\/stamps\/stampshop_2.asp?pid=542985703&amp;product_type=8&amp;category_id=579\">stamp set<\/a> featuring five of the 150-or-so <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/groups\/bigoz\/pool\/\">Australian Big Things<\/a>, large roadside attractions that seem to occupy an odd little corner of our national identity. The legendary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.regmombassa.com\/\">Reg Mombassa<\/a> is the artist, an inspired choice, as his style reflects the quirkiness and humour with which the big things are regarded.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbpublicity.com.au\/merino\/merino.htm\">big merino<\/a> about an hour up the highway from us in Goulburn was moved a few weekends ago. It&#8217;s an almighty concrete ram nicknamed Rambo, but has a souvenir shop nestled between it&#8217;s hind legs instead of rambo-ishness. It used to be on the Hume Highway to Sydney, until Goulburn was by-passed, but now it will be again. Sadly it seems that after all the effort, it is <a href=\"http:\/\/the-riotact.com\/?p=5037#comments\">visible but not exactly predominant<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few pictures of the move:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ibnnews.org\/local\/big_merino_makes_its_big_move_26507_85215451420001_000000.html\">IBN News slide show<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newspix.com.au\/Search\/SearchResults.aspx?keyword=big%20merino\">Newspix gallery<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tiscali.co.uk\/news\/daily\/photos\/galleries\/view\/daily\/20070526\/browse\/5\">Tiscali News: On the rig<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/merino.jpg\" title=\"Merino\" alt=\"Merino\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Photo by Torsten Blackwood\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/images.google.com.au\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/nsw\/stories\/m795261.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/nsw\/stories\/s1008984.htm&amp;h=190&amp;w=300&amp;sz=32&amp;hl=en&amp;start=24&amp;um=1&amp;tbnid=18jWPq61tmEaIM:&amp;tbnh=73&amp;tbnw=116&amp;prev=\/images%3Fq%3D%2Bmerino%2Bgoulburn%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN\">ABC NSW<\/a> also has a photo of the ram being built, and details of its construction. It actually is a light glass-reinforced concrete skin. Like a number of other big things, it was made by an Adelaide based company, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenn.com.au\/\">Glenn Industries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/merino3.jpg\" title=\"Merino3\" alt=\"Merino3\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.abc.net.au\/browse\/product.asp?productid=509551\">Big Things: Australia&#8217;s Amazing Roadside Attractions<\/a> by David Clark is also a good source if you are interested in how the big things were made, although from my point of view they never give enough detail. I like the stories of those that were made just by one or two people, eccentrics with a bee in their bonnets.<\/p>\n<p>Back to Reg to finish off. This postcard has been on my fridge door since some campaign in 2002. I love the title as much as the drawing:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/44\/152912740_e25fdeb65b.jpg?v=0%3E%20Mr%20and%20Mrs%20Sydney%20Australia%20would%20prefer%20not%20to%20have%20a%20nuclear%20reactor%20situated%20halfway%20up%20their%20arse\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(photo credit: Australia Post) Today Australia Post is issuing a stamp set featuring five of the 150-or-so Australian Big Things, large roadside attractions that seem to occupy an odd little corner of our national identity. The legendary Reg Mombassa is the artist, an inspired choice, as his style reflects the quirkiness and humour with which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[102,20,3,10],"tags":[24,733,731,734,732,735],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-make","category-news","category-sculpture","tag-australia","tag-big-merino","tag-big-things","tag-goulburn","tag-postage-stamps","tag-reg-mombassa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paZhI-5G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}