Sydney

I’ve just returned from a trip to Sydney. While in our country’s most famous city I visited the Powerhouse Museum. Like everything in Sydney it is very easy to find… if you already know where it is! They don’t seem to believe in signs in Sydney. The road signs are just as bad.

Rather than clearly posted directions with reasonable advance warning they seem to prefer ambiguous road signs positioned 30 metres before the spot where you have to turn and good luck if you are in the wrong lane. If you miss it, there won’t be another exit for ten kilometres and if you think that you can just get the next turn and work your way back FORGET IT!

Sydney roads never go where you think they should even if you have a map. Just as God works in mysterious ways an elaborate array of one way streets, freeway exits and dead ends ensures that if you aren’t on ‘the one true path’ you will never get to your destination. Added to this you have toll roads which have toll booths in some lanes, usually the lane two over from the lane you are driving in and you’ll have about 5 seconds to get across the relentless traffic.

If you are planning to drive through Sydney I recommend a co-driver to help you decipher the signs while you try to juggle your attention between the directions, the road, the speedo and the myriad of mental drivers who have clearly decided that it is easier to just ignore the road rules altogether and just do whatever they like in their ludicrously expensive sports cars.

Of course once you have worked out where to go, getting around Sydney is fairly straight forward. It’s just that by the time you have worked it out you have probably lost your mind or at least become a selfish, arrogant road tyrant. (So that’s why there are so many of them.)

And now it seems the Sydney roads have taken me off course again. I was meant to be writing about the Powerhouse Museum. Where’s my map?

I was quite excited about going to the Powerhouse Museum to see the On The Box exhibition which celebrates 50 years of television in Australia. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I’d heard they had Agro, Mr Squiggle and Ossie Ostrich on display and I wasn’t disappointed. The three puppets were indeed the highlight. However, aside from some costumes from Norman Gunston, Mother & Son and Kath and Kim the rest of the exhibit was frankly, quite sad.

I’m not sure why exactly they thought that a couple of hand drawn posters from audience members on Australian Idol were worth encasing in glass. Even one would have been pointless, but two? I sure hope they were authentic and not just scribbled by the curator.

Generally the exhibition was a wonderful walk down memory lane and a great reminder that, on the whole, Australian TV has always been a bit crap.

More depressing however was the rest of the museum. Despite some excellent exhibits most were tainted by the evil hand of corporate sponsorship. The worst examples were ironically in the environmental future display. Kettle chips were displayed twice highlighting their ‘eco-friendly’ packaging. Kambrook were showing off their environmentally designed kettle. Brick companies, appliance makers and even Westfield Shopping Town were quite prominent in this exhibit which made me feel a little unsettled.

I know that funding a museum is not cheap and corporate sponsorship is necessary but these displays were blatant advertising. A sponsor board at the entrance used to be enough credit for generous benefactors but now their logos are emblazoned across the displays. The lines between advertising and education are getting very blurred. Children are now getting their nutritional information and pool safety tips from McDonalds. A real estate company educates kids on fire safety with the suspiciously named ‘Hooker’ Bear.

Where is it going to end? One day our teachers will be dressed as clowns and hocking Happy Meals and Pepsi to children as they explain the importance of multiplication tables. It will be too late to turn back. We’ll have missed the turn. The sign was there but we couldn’t change lanes in time.