It is 50 years since the Beatles made their tour of Australia and Holbrook shire's Murray Arts (based in Albury) has had the almost psychedelically imaginative idea of commemorating that fabled event by turning Holbrook's famous metallic-black submarine into, yes, a yellow submarine.

Anyone who has ever driven between Canberra and Melbourne will know that the very centre of far-inland Holbrook is decorated by an actual submarine, HMAS Otway. It has always been a thing to go ''Golly!'' at because a submarine in a landlocked country town is a visual oxymoron.

Jo Bartels, Murray Arts' project manager for the Yellow Submarine brainwave, tells us that Canberrans, known to be extreme knitters, are earnestly invited to join with knitters (and weavers and crocheters) of the region and create yellow panels that on June 12 (50 years almost to the day of the Beatles' arrival in Australia) will be draped over the Otway, blanketing it in yellowness.

''The pieces can be any shade of yellow,'' she invites. ''They can be that reddish-orange yellow, mustard yellow, even fluoro yellow.''

''Can they be primrose yellow?'' we wondered, and she says that, yes, they can be.

Afterwards, every contribution is to be donated to dog and cat rescue institutions, so perhaps as you knit imagine your creation as pet blanket-sized, perhaps 1m x 1m for cavoodles, far bigger for Hounds of the Baskervilles.

Poignantly, there is even some knitting for the project being done at Clydesdale in Scotland because the Otway was built at a shipyard on the river Clyde in the mid-1960s.

Today some knitters knit works of great complexity and splendour (this columnist is married to just such a knittingtrix) and Bartels says the plan is to decorate the bulbous prow of the Otway with the more splendid contributions received.

And the project has the serious purpose, Bartels explains, of ''bringing some attention back to the submarine''.

Once upon a time everyone driving between Sydney and Melbourne drove through the middle of Holbrook and ogled the submarine and stopped to admire it, but in recent months a Holbrook bypass has been opened, leaving Holbrook ''a little quiet''.

And as well as commemorating the Fab Four's visit, the yellowing of the submarine will also mark and rejoice over the centenary of Australian submarines (our first submarines arrived in 1914), International Yarn Bombing Day and the Holbrook Sheep and Wool Fair.

Murray Arts would love to have your contributions by May 31 if possible.

■ Send your creations to Murray Arts, PO Box 7142, Albury NSW 2640.

Here is a familiar and beloved Canberra view (right), looking from Queen Elizabeth Terrace across platypus-rich Lake Burley Griffin and up towards the Australian War Memorial. It's a flattering image of Canberra that's soon to be on display in Venice in an Australian exhibition at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition la Bienalle di Venezia.

But wait! Something's odd. Are there really those two big squat blocks of something right at the foot of Anzac Parade? We can't quite remember them.

No, the truth (with which this column has an occasional flirtation) is that this picture will be part of an Australian Institute of Architects' exhibition Augmented Australia 1914-2014, images of Australia's most intriguing unrealised projects from the past 100 years.

This particular one, submitted by Mulloway Studio for the 2008 international design competition, was called ''(un) Common Earth'' and it proposed ''two rammed-earth monuments [one for World War I, another for World War II] constructed of soil collected throughout Australia''. Canberrans will remember the controversy over proposed monuments like these, especially over the first ones proposed that were each to be a hulking 20 metres tall. ''Each mass,'' Mulloway explained, ''is extensively and delicately punctured with a series of light-transmitting fibre-optic cables, with each light point representing 100 war deaths. Externally the lighting strategy provides contrasting urban characters; a long-distance visual solidity during the day and lantern-like image at night.''

What do you think, Canberrans? Would they have been adornments for our city, or would they have cluttered up what should be a pristine vista?

In time for la Biennale, lots of Australia's unrealised projects are being made part of an exciting and sophisticated Augmented Australia iPhone app (still being developed). ''The projects are brought to life,'' the Australian Institute of Architects enthuses, ''using the app which includes 3D augmented models, images, voiceovers and animations.''