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The Sri Venkateswara Temple is a Hindu temple in Helensburgh, about an hour’s drive south of Sydney on the way to Wollongong.
There are many names and forms in which the Divine is worshipped, and Venkateswara is one of the names known in South India for the Lord on the summit of the Seven Hills at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, India.
I came across this gem a few weeks ago and just had to drop in for a few minutes when I saw the intricate exterior. Inside the temple, shrines and offerings of food and burning incense were arranged around the vast concrete floor and single rows of figures of deities in various poses were set in alcoves that lined parts of the walls.
According to the temple’s website, its construction began in 1978. It certainly has taken a while to complete seeing as sections of the ceiling were still being installed, but a work of beauty like this one is well worth the wait.
Getting there
The Sri Venkateswara Temple is on Temple Road, Helensburgh, about 40 km south of Sydney.
Free parking is available.
Public transport: From Central Station, take the train to Wollongong and get off at Helensburgh Station. From the station, it is about a 2km bus trip to the temple.
Opening Hours
8am – 7pm, 7 days a week, but closed 12noon – 4pm on weekdays.
For further information, please visit www.svtsydney.org.
Robert Donglan, Professor of Annagrammotology, is rudely awaken at his London apartment and escorted by police to the National Art Gallery of Fine Paintings. On the gallery floor, the curator Jacques Sauna-Lurker lies dead; a three-foot-long codfish stuffed down his throat, and on the wall are the bloody words:
THE CHATHOLIC CURCH HAD ME MURDERED!
This is a far cry from the anagram, “O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!”, but this is a parody of The Da Vinci Code after all. Though to be accurate, Angels and Demons doesn’t escape the fun either – the Hassassin is channelled through The Exterminator character:
The Exterminator stepped out into the clear night air. He had enjoyed himself at the brothel as only a man who had successfully completed an extermination can do.
Surprisingly, amid all the silliness, there is a plot and the same themes of sexism and conspiracy that are found in Dan Brown’s novel. Donglan, for some reason, is framed for the curator’s murder and his quest to prove his innocence (with a lot of help from the “extremely attractive” French cryptologist, Sophie Nudivue) leads him to Eda Vinci, Leonardo Da Vinci’s more talented, yet virtually unknown sister and whose work he plagiarised. Eda Vinci is thought to have been a member of a secret organisation, the Conspiratus Opi Dei, and had placed clues in her paintings about the great secrets of the C.O.D. Sauna-Lurker may have acquired some of her artwork, and is murdered for it.
Like Dan Brown, Adam Roberts incorporates interesting facts into the narrative, the difference being that Roberts’ facts are exaggeratedly irrelevant – he includes the equation for electrical charge at one point – and unlike Brown, he hilariously sidetracks onto self-indulgent ramblings.
If [Robert Donglan] were to be played by an actor in a motion picture, and I’m not nagging here, just saying, it’s only a suggestion, then maybe a young Harrison Ford, possibly Russel Crowe if he could lose some of the weight. Or that chap in Ocean’s Eleven and Solaris. Not the original Solaris, of course […] You know who I mean, very handsome […] Just as long as it’s not that hideously ubiquitous Tom Hanks...
Red herrings and convoluted clues are thrown into the mix. One of the clues is a series of coughs left by Sauna-Lurker on his friend, Sir Herbert Teabag’s answering machine. Sir Teabag is said to suffer from a condition that causes him to involuntarily lash out at others and is restrained for everyone’s safety while the clue is being deciphered.
‘How many times did he cough?’ asked Robert. ‘Perhaps it is some kind of code. Perhaps a coughing version of morse code. What do you think, Sir Herbert?’
‘Four cough!’ yelled Sir Teabag, excitedly. ‘Let me go! Use odds! Four cough!’
The comedy isn’t confined to the story. It starts early on the title and copyright pages, and the cover itself. Modelled after that of The Da Vinci Code, the cover shows a grave looking cod rather than the shadowy figure among the arches and in place of The Vitruvian Man is a splayed octopus with apprehensive eyes…
Something this fishy begs for a closer look.
The Va Dinci Cod
by A.R.R.R. Roberts (Adam Roberts) writing as Don Brine
Gollancz 2005
I enjoyed this one – hope you will too. 
*** *** ***
LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS):
1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
2. A will is a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
14. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
15. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
16. A calendar's days are numbered.
17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.
18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.
19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.
29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.
30. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
31. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
32. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.
33. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
34. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
35. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
36. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
37. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
38. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
39. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
40. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'
41. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
42. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
43. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'
44. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
45. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
46. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.
*author of text unknown
Yep, I go around taking pictures of street lights and outdoor lamps too . This is the final part of the Looking Up series.
This can’t have been good for my camera…
[ Click here to read more ]
Keeping an eye on me…
Trying to find out what bird I’d taken a picture of, I found a handy site by the Australian Museum for identifying birds (see link below). I discovered that the above photo was one of a female Magpie-lark, which by the way has no link to magpies or larks. Ah, the wonders of the internet. Back when I was a young lass, I would have had to go to the library to go through all the books on birds and it would probably still have led to the photo being named “black and white bird”.
[ Click here to read more ]
Water is something else (besides trees) I often find myself taking too many photos of. When there is any sort of cascading involved, it could get a little out of hand. These are a few photos that were taken at the Blue Mountains
[ Click here to read more ]
In the city of Fatehpur Sikri, a young European calling himself Mogor dell’Amore charms his way into the palace of Akbar the Great claiming to be the son of a powerful enchantress, the irresistibly beautiful Lady Black Eyes, the hidden princess Qara Koz, youngest daughter of Akbar’s grandfather.
The stranger reveals why all traces of his supposed mother was struck from the royal records and tells how her adventures led her to enchant the city of Florence, even as her unfolding tale captivates the citizens of Sikri
[ Click here to read more ]
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. I wondered why I'd received 2 notifications for this post. Wish you'd keep writing on all your blogs, but good to know you'll at least be posting on Enviro Warrior for a while - see you there.
Comment by The Rusty Can
on BRUNO: SACHA BARON COHEN RIDES AGAIN
Everything
Cohen's brand of humour makes me cringe. It's difficult to watch him provoke people the way he does, giving their prejudices a good old poke. And gosh he's shameless. I applaud his guts, but I'm too much of a sook to watch this one.
Rusty.