Read Online The Grand Hotel by Gregory Day - Free Book Online

wistful Ned on the train journey south to the Melbourne Gaol, in the full beard of his captivity.

    SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE SPOON – electroplated nickel and silver spoon. Badge commemorates the opening of the bridge in 1932 with a picture taken on that momentous day. Purchased at Manly Beach in 1960 after a weekend with Mary visiting her brother Vin in the Catholic seminary there.

    DES FOTHERGILL & HERBIE MATTHEWS 1940 BROWNLOW MEDAL SPOON – gold-plated spoon with elaborate scrolling and ornamentation around the badge. Depicts the only tied Victorian Football League Brownlow Medallists unable to be separated on a countback. Purchased by Kooka’s father, Gil, at the Cathedral College fete in 1942. According to Kooka this spoon was one of the few mementos of his dead father in his mother’s possession when Kooka was growing up, and was the spoon that first sparked his interest.

    OLD PIECE OF CLOTH SPOON – silver spoon depicting a ‘very old piece of cloth’, a historical exhibit from Kryal Castle, Ballarat, where it was purchased on a school excursion by Horny Conebush’s grandson Joe in 1976.

    GUNSYND THE GOONDIWINDI GREY SPOON – gold-plated spoon struck in Goondiwindi, Queensland, to celebrate the champion racehorse. Picture on the spoon depicts the local marble monument to Gunsynd. Purchased in Kuarka Dorla op shop, 1988.

    PYRAMID HILL SPOON – blue-tinted silver-plated spoon depicting the Pyramid Hill west of Echuca. Delicate embossing of rock wallabies in the bowl. Purchased at Grassy, on King Island, 4 January 1968.

    CEDAR OF LEBANON SPOON – brass-plated spoon featuring the trident shape of a lone cedar at the end of a half length filigreed handle. Purchased at the Queen Victoria Market, 1955. One of the first international spoons in Kooka’s collection.

    SEAGULL MONUMENT SPOON – silver/white opal spoon depicting the Seagull Monument on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, erected as a memorial to the seagulls that saved the Mormon crops from locusts during the swarms of 1848. Purchased by Mary at the Apollo Bay op shop in 1972.

    YEHUDI AND HEPHZIBAH SPOON – electroplated nickel and silver spoon commemorating the Australian concert tour of Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin in 1940, Kooka’s tenth year and his third with the Conebushes in Mangowak. Purchased in a second-hand shop in Rainbow, Southern Mallee, 1997.

    TALLEST TREE IN GIPPSLAND SPOON – a metal spoon depicting a memorial pole erected after the tallest mountain ash in Gippsland was felled. Bartered for a cocker spaniel pup in Lang Lang, 1979.

    â€˜TRUCK ON’ SPOON – silver spoon featuring an exhibition road rig on the badge. Kooka has no recollection of how he came by this very colourful spoon.
    Our patron explained in his usual fastidious fashion that he’d given exactly fourteen spoons because the original Grand Hotel had burnt down after thirteen years’ trading and he hoped that this time we would at least go one better. I had my doubts about the longevity of the kind of hotel I had planned but said nothing, of course, so touched was I by Kooka’s gift from one of his most cherished collections.

Duchamp the Talking Urinal
    Once the bar was fitted out and a coolroom added in the loamy old space between the side wall of the house and the Dray Road hedge, it was time for Veronica and me to instigate our first creative flourish: Duchamp the Talking Urinal.
    All those years ago when we were studying in Melbourne, Marcel Duchamp and the rest of the Dada gang had represented a creative spark that could defy the fads and fashions and never fade. Their attitude to making art had been so free and radical, so anti-everything and yet at the same time so inspired and full of life, that it remained fresh nearly a hundred years later. Despite their signature air of abundance and colour their great trick was actually one of renunciation and as such had something in common with the