Some of me 'oliday snaps

Melbourne is one of the world's great cities. No question. When it comes to the Melbourne-Sydney debate, "I'd give you all of Sydney harbour (all that land, all that water)" for that city's promenades. Nineteenth-century architects used to use the metaphor, "God made the country, Man made the town." Cities add civitas to landscape, and some cities do it better than others. Melbourne is one. Sydney's not.

Sydney has one of the world's greatest harbours, and with rare exceptions (Bennelong Point, Eastern Suburbs) it's made a pig's ear of it. Outside those rare exceptions, it's like Henderson spread over several hundred square miles. Melbourne on the other hand started with nothing -- a dull landscape, a drab harbour, a river that flows upside down -- and in that unpromising landscape it has built a real, genuine city: it's a man-made town in every respect.

From the World's-Good-People file comes this wee snap of myself enjoying Melbournian hospitality with Prodos and friends over the weekend -- fine people all of them.

Let me tell you that if you don't read Prodos regularly, or listen to his great online interviews, you should. (He's the chap with the top hat and flag, by the way.)

And being Easter, it's only appropriate that two pilgrims should find themselves down at Kardinia Park between the hours of dawn and dark (note absence of banners flying high, by the way) . . .

. . . before heading to the Cathedral of Sport (known sometimes as the MCG) to watch Geelong smash the Pies. And this was an Easter without miracles for Collingwood, to the gratification of every right-thinking sports-lover. That's the two team run-throughs you can see being erected.

And here's another friend I like to visit regularly, Rodin's Balzac at the Melbourne Art Gallery, with a new friend behind: the Eureka Tower -- the world's tallest residential building -- seen to much better effect here at its website.