The new ''Brand Canberra'' campaign fits into the long, long Canberra tradition of trying to interest Australia and the world in our much-misunderstood city.
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And, just as Brand Canberra begins to strut its 21st-century stuff, on to our desk there alights a quaint late 1970s artefact from the same let's-tell-everyone-about-Canberra tradition and mindset.
It is Canberra Visitor, a ''Capital Board Game'' (with slight resemblances to Snakes and Ladders and to Monopoly), ''a game intended to provide an enjoyable and stimulating way of learning about Australia's national capital''. It was made, probably in 1979, by Patwal Education Productions with a P.O. box address of Waramanga, ACT.
This surviving set has been knocking about a Canberra home. Its owner felt that this was a good time, what with the centenary and the Brand Canberra campaign under way, to rescue it from the silverfish and dust it off.
The picture it paints of late 1970s Canberra, the way we were, is rather sweet, but gives us a glimpse of how far we've come as a city since the game was made.
Today our capital bristles with attractions, whereas lots of the 40 designated ''places of interest'' will strike us today as not a bit interesting.
According to the accompanying booklet: ''The game is based on a scale map showing the major roads of the city and will help the public to become familiar with the layout of Canberra. It will introduce them to some of its places and help them to identify its locations. Players move tokens along the road system, determining their rate of progress by the throwing of the dice and the safety of their progress by trying to avoid strategically placed penalty spots and chance spots … players are exposed to daily life situations in the capital through the use of Chance cards.''
After the dice are thrown, ''play commences from any one of the seven main points of entry into Canberra''.
Alas, although the game is fascinating as a piece of ACTalia, and although it is a good idea for a board game based on a more diverse and thrilling city than the Canberra of 1979 (a game ''Manhattan Visitor'' or ''Shanghai Visitor'' might work well), the Canberra that emerges from the game seems a trifle dreary.
For example the chance cards are not especially pulse-quickening.
The best of them titillates the visitor with the thought that ''A friendly student invites you to a jazz concert at the A.N.U. Union. Go straight there.''
Of all the chance cards this is the only one that offers even a hint of any risks and excitements that may lurk in a strange city. Who is this so-called ''student''? What is his motive? Is there really a ''jazz concert'' at the A.N.U. or is that just a lie (like the legendary seducer's ''come up and see my etchings'') to lure the visitor on to the campus and into the student's web of sin?
Other chances hold less intrigue. One is that ''Most unusually it starts to rain. Shelter for a while. Miss one turn.''
Today, with our far bigger and sexier city bristling with things to see, the game's 40 illustrated attractions of a city that has no Questacon, no new Parliament House, no Raiders, no Cavalry - and with the Arboretum not dreamt of - seem thin and feeble.
The places of interest include the unremarkable Coppins Crossing, Woden Plaza, Belconnen Mall and the Canberra College of Advanced Education.
The city of these picture cards looks very forlorn and, establishing a tradition maintained by this year's deeply disappointing Canberra Centenary Community Tapestry, as deserted as Chernobyl. Even the Plaza and the Mall are empty, suggesting either an evacuated city or an economic depression so severe that no one can afford to shop.
65 years ago, Holden first stole capital hearts
Last week's news of Holden's closure gives poignancy to the fact that 65 years ago this week, in 1948, thrilled Canberrans flocked to see the first Holden being displayed in the federal capital.
The first of Australia's own car (the Chevrolet-looking FX Holden) had just begun to roll off the assembly line at Fishermans Bend in Melbourne.
Across Australia, models of this economically and patriotically important contraption were put on display to get potential buyers salivating, although everyone who fell in love with it had to wait up to a year to own one.
''HOLDEN CARS'', The Canberra Times trumpeted at the time. ''More than 350 orders for the Australian-made Holden car have been received in Canberra.
''The car was viewed by hundreds of residents at the Capitol Theatre in the past two days. Deliveries are expected to commence in January.
''Points attracting the most interest were the low petrol consumption, dust-proof interior, coil springing suitable for all types of roads and its sleek appearance.''