The Life and Times of Peter Green
updated 13 April 2026
 60 Years ago a UFO landed at Westall, Victoria. But it wasn’t this one… |
March 30thI am woken up with the sound of chainsaws at neighbours property. Maybe one of their trees came down , each time I hear chainsaws in the early morning darkness I think of the natural disaster that happened up here. A tiny bit of PTSD I guess, wind storms and trees crashing down will do that to a person. As I climb out of bed, Midnight runs in and jumps up like a teenage child. She wants an early morning pat and cuddle. Such a cutie.A free coffee at the bakery today so thats nice. Some locals sit and chat. It all happens up here on the mountain, we keep an eye on world events like some Gods high up on Olympus. Only a few seats to go in the South Australia election. Labor win the blue ribbon Liberal seat of Morphett, held by the Libs for 46 years. Just 2 seats remain. A massive victory for Labor in South Australia. They must be stoked. My CFA person has coffee with me and tells me we can burn today. So I head back to Kalorama and put a match to our one medium size burn pile. It's all done within 30 minutes. Nice to get rid of the extra tree drop that can't be used for our fires inside. A family of Kookaburras arrive to catch any stray bugs that might of set up house in the fire pile. One lands near me and lets me pat her on the head. Mum stares like she will attack me if I mess with her Kookaburra kid. March 31stThe additional security cameras are working brilliantly at the house and office. They lit me up on the way to the charity this morning. Recording my early morning "that is way too bright" look on my face.I call in and buy some fuel and the Black Beauty car just makes my wallet happy. $56 to fill her up. So even with Trumps War Fuel Nightmare it's not causing me that much grief, sadly the same can't be said for others. Mark scores some flight points from my petrol purchase so that keeps his Qantas points 'active'. A chunk of them sitting in the account so we don't want to lose them. I call into Montrose and post some Easter presents home. Hopefully I have allowed enough time for them to get to the 'Gong. I grab Mark as we are heading to Monbulk, which is on the other side of the mountain, to get Midnight her cat food and shop at Wollies across the road from the cat food place. I pull over at Olinda. "What are you doing" he asks. "Buying you dinner at Duddleys". I smile. So we spend a nice time having an early dinner. I think how fortunate we are, as I play with his foot under the table. Romance is not dead...and the food is yummy. April 1stVline & Metro, free public transport for a month in Melbourne during the fuel crisis. Great idea, anything to cut down on cars. 100,000 people use it during the first 48 hours.Marky's YouTube Wednesday is a bit special today. We don't have a lot from 1977 Split Enz , so it's extra cool to have this audio go up. It's from The Palais Theatre , October 7th 1977. NICE TO KNOW from the Dizrythmia album. I saw them play live in my home town a few days before on the 4th. The first time the Enz ever visited Wollongong. A bit of a fluke as I didn't have a ticket and was at the Wollongong library using their photocopier. I ended up hearing some weird noise in the Hall and ventured in, my musical nose twitching. My first live vision of Split Enz, they were in a cluster (A "Cluster of Enz"?) and dressed in their street clothes and looked even stranger than stage wear. Noel was the only one that said "Hello". Turns out some of their local crew hadn't showed up so I helped wheel some road cases etc (in my school uniform) and was rewarded with a free ticket. Just one, thats right. Bastards as I would have taken Mark. Anyway this AUDIO is a few days later from Melbourne. Mark worked on it and it sounds great. The Intro "music" is very funny, so ENZ. You can enjoy it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gerDjljINoY The Prime Minister addresses the Nation tonight, trying to add some calmness to some of the moaners. People need to remember that the fuel problem is now worldwide, not just in our little pond. Let's see if Trump is stupid enough to blow the fuck out of Kharg Island. Surely even he isn't that dumb. April 2ndI sleep in, a weird dream about Adam Ant , singing a new song that sounded a lot like Car Trouble. That cockney punk vocal. I stand at the kitchen window staring at the bright pink moon, it's rather captivating this time of morning.I take some of our guitar stands into the charity, just as a lend so I could put the electrics and the bass on them for display/sale. Hope no one pinches them. A good day, I get quite a bit done. The staff are more relaxed today. I do work back a bit, I just want to clear all the donations. We are enjoying "The Beautiful Lie" on streaming. Sarah Snook puts in a fine performance, in fact another great cast. Snook plays Anna, a young woman, who seems to have a happy married life. She meets a younger man and her life changes, I won't give away the ending...... of course the guy is in the music industry, all of us bad boys are. HA! April 3rdA wet Good Friday, so wonderfully quiet on the mountain. The rain and maybe petrol limitations are keeping tourists away. A few bike riders though. I look after two bikes for two local teenagers while they go off and eat and get dry.I get a call from Sis who is at Mums and everyone thanks us for the Easter parcel that somehow arrived on time. I attempt to put some bunny ears on Midnight for a photo but she fights me all the way. Gives me a "fuck off with those rabbit ears" stare. So I give up and wear them myself. I pick a few blackberries and add it to the berry pile , with fresh strawberries and raspberries, plus a bit of apple. I bake a berry pie (with fresh cream). In the evening I hear from Nick (Seymour) around a painted Crowded House jacket. Good that Nick stays in contact. April 4thThe wind has a bite to it this morning, almost nasty. I don't stay outside the bakery long. I do get a tiny bit of work done , Mark and myself are in the early stages of working on some future project. I give a couple of our videos a tiny nudge and some mates view them a few times and we get past our target number. Yes I still have 1000 views as the minimal amount that I target, Our most watched video has had 885,660 views. A live version of "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House. We've had 858 videos and a total of 6,880,000 views exactly!!! Only 27 of the 858 videos haven't made our 1000 views target , 7 recent so they will tick over soon enough. Impressive. So thank you dear reader for checking out the videos. Here is there link to your YouTube page for those interested. https://www.youtube.com/@petergreen2534/featuredApril 5thDaylight savings has ended, we all get to sleep in for another hour. But someone forgot to tell Midnight so she is up at the usual time , roaming about the house, jumping on us in the bed like some under age child trying to force Dad and Dad to get up.I have the Kalorama sniffles all day, I think it's hay fever. Annoying as I am about to mow the nature strip which means even more sneezing. I chat to Andy White, we are trying to catch up for coffee. A reminder that he has a one off show at Merri Creek Tavern on May 28th, his birthday. Tickets are on sale now. It;'s sure to be a fun night. Such a nice intimate room. Here is some live footage of Andy at Merri Creek awhile back. Thanks Mark for filming this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDWrGMX0wBA I hear from lovely Laura, and add her to the "catch up" list too. We are shuffling around the days in our schedule, will be fun to see her and Kevin. April 6thSo what did we do on this cold grey, drizzling with rain Easter Monday. We jumped in the car and headed to Westall 45 kms away, basically Clayton South. We arrive at 11.00 am.60 years ago today , at 11.00 am a group of school students, teachers and locals were gobsmacked by a UFO descending towards them. According to students the object descended behind a row of pine trees called The Grange. In total 142 people from the school and surrounding properties witnessed this. 197 saw the ground marks and circular flattened grass area that was resonating with heat and 77 witnesses saw both the UFO and the area at The Grange. We were almost convinced some higher force didn't want us to arrive at The Grange. For the first time ever our "Maps" software on my phone was flipping out, everything from satellite signals disappearing to maps of other areas appearing on the screen. Maybe 15 times. Eventually I pulled the car over and Mark retrieved an ancient Melways paper map from the boot. Navigator Goulding getting us to the location. A handful of people had gathered, several more mature woman "originals" from that day in 1966, we kind of gate crashed a gathering. It felt like they all had shared an experience, and less than a MUFON meeting. I only spoke to them for a short time. We wandered off into the misty rain and fog towards the pine tree grove. The local council had turned the spot where the object had landed into a playground for kids. A very cool UFO sits in the middle of it complete with slide and climb ropes, I'm sure the 1966 "saucer" was never as much fun. It's reported several school girls fainted as the 1966 saucer landed. The principal back in 1966 called an assembly "There is no such thing as flying saucers, and (shock gasp) it was just a weather balloon". I loved the "brave ones", the students who jumped the fence and chased the object to the Grove, the 2 students who talked to Channel 9 news , both got attention and made to swear not to talk about it ever again. The ones who stood by their stories for 60 years and probably copped so much flak and ridicule. For some it became a bond of friendship that has lasted through the decades. So was it a UFO.? The lack of evidence, but the massive number of people who saw "something" and many of the stories are so similar....some might well be embellished over time. Government officials who visit, hassling people, sounds X-files familiar...or was it something from the military and if so after all of this time why can't they say so. I guess it's up to you to judge. On tonights AUSTRALIAN STORY "The Westall UFO Mystery". ABC TV and ABC iview. 8.00. As I sit with Mark in the kids UFO I try to envision what it would be like for school kids in 1966 to see something so strange that it etches itself into ones mind for 60 years , no cell phones to record it, just some drawings and diary entry's. The drama of the teenage girl running down the corridor in the school shouting "there's a flying saucer outside" would make for a beautiful piece of film work. Maybe there is some delight in it never being fully explained. April 7thI fed some cans into the recycle machine and gave one of the charities a huge $3.10 for my efforts. I hear the refund amount looks like going up from 10c to 20c per can. It's great to see kids collecting littered cans at ovals etc. Plus extra pocket money for them.I arrive at the charity to find both guitar and bass that I had out in the Book Cave have sold. So thats good, extra money for the charity. A good day, I find a Stephen Cummings cd that I don't have so that's nice. Even now I keep finding music that has sneaked through my musical net. Today was a good day, and it went quickly. April 8thI am still waking up early, so head off for my coffee. I pull the car over on Ridge Road to usher the wild peacocks off the road. Such dumb birds.Marky's You Tube Wednesday is our last video from Crowded House at the Prahran Club. Tim Finn is in the band, the 3rd show with Tim. They perform "Show A Little Mercy". It's a pretty good version, Tim's in fine form too. May 29th 1991. 859 videos on our YouTube page now. Mark warns me that he is running out of footage, we might not even make it to 900. So there will be a time where Marky's Video Wednesdays are no more. (Well no new ones) so take the time to explore the YouTube page, we have so much up and the sound is amazing on most clips. Marks puts so much effort into these. You can enjoy SHOW A LITTLE MERCY here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNm3VXXXblY April 9thI'm up before sunrise and head to the Coles at Boronia. Sis and Mum gave me a $50 voucher for Coles, so I thought I would buy a few groceries with it. The Coles at Kilsyth closed down recently so I figure the one at Boronia is closest. I park in the underground car park, it's empty, I feel like it's my Deep Throat moment (means Watergate not Oral Sex!!!) as it feels like a secret rendezvous and I have a bag full of political secrets. In the end it was just a bag of peppercorn sauce sachets, schnitzels, dutch liquorice, tomato paste and other food items. It costs me huge $1.05. Thanks dear family. I love vouchers.I'm sitting at the Garden Cafe sipping on my coffee and I see Trumps "ceasefire" is certainly tested as Israel strikes Lebanon and Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is well and truly closed. I'm expecting fuel prices to remain high for 6 months, thank god my car runs on the smell of an oily G-string! The charity feels "off" today, kind of a frantic electricity , almost like a negative "static" in the air. I try to avoid it and determined to get all the cages of books, cds and dvds done. Some of my nicer regulars come in and buy up big in the Book Cave. We put out loads of free bread and baked items and the public take it all. In tough times such things help. By afternoon the rain falls and Melbourne goes DARK. It didn't help that the staff forgot to put some of the interior lights on. It buckets down and I hope it slows a bit before I make the drive up the mountain. I leave a few minutes early during break in the weather and get home just as another down pour happens. It has set in for the night. Midnight snuggles into the bed, she is a wise kitty. April 10thCold, grey and a bit wet this morning. Time to dig out one of my big chunky coats, which I sink into and it feels so nice. I take my light up yoyo to the bakery this morning and the girls show me their yoyo skills.It's nice day to be in the office archiving. Like Item SE 107. The multi coloured Split Enz Tour t-shirt for the North American Tour 1980. I'm not sure if these were for band and crew or merchandise as well. So uncertain how many were made. T-shirt Made in Canada. The 1980 USA/Canada Tour started on October 2nd. Fast Lane, Ashbury Park, NJ. It finished on November 7th at the Riviera Rock Room, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 25 dates total. I usually put up one of the newly archived items on the various Split Enz pages for fans to enjoy. We watch "Mystic River", a movie we've seen before , but a great cast, well worth watching again. April 11thI sleep a bit better last night, it's starting to get cold on the mountain, and multiple days of rain. It doesn't warm up till Wednesday and even than isn't all that warm. I looked at the fire wood in the garage ,so will have to become the Axeman again soon and get that happening. We love a roaring fire place in the house.I shuffle some money around this morning, just to get through the next couple of days. Semi retirement is such a juggling act. But have to say we are loving it. NASA's Artemis II splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, it seemed to be a pretty decent mission. Surely Mars must be in our sights soon, it seems to be on the wish list for way too long. I want David to get his answer...is there life on Mars? Archiving in the office, some signed vinyl. I started at the beginning with the Crowded House debut single MEAN TO ME . Signed by Neil, Nick and Paul. The aussie EMI copy. WE bought 120 copies to help as we loved the song. Mark was so right with his prediction that the bands debut album would be huge. It becomes Archive Item CH 906. On the back above the EMI logo in silver would be one of the 120 numbers for these few signed copies. Mean To Me peaked at #26 nationally but climbed to #12 in hometown Melbourne. Neil and Sharon lived around the corner and Nick and Paul would always drop into our place for a cuppa. Fun days. The days when Crowded House felt like a musical family. Lasagne for dinner....plus I boost up my system with extra Vitamin C, need to get rid of this cold thing that I have, hay fever more likely. Better to err on the side of caution. April 12thNot much sleep last night, Kalorama sniffles and some sneezing kept me awake. I climbed out of bed at 4.00 am and took the last hay fever tablet. A week of rain and cold on the way, don't like feeling crappy.The Kalorama Chestnut Festival is on May 3rd, I bet the Donalds fuel crisis causes them some grief with attendance numbers. Hopefully the weather is nice as the money helps the schools up here, so we want it to be a success. I have half a gerry can of petrol so I tip it into my car, I'm not doing much mowing over the next week or so, I might as well use it for the Black Beauty. So another F/16 diary comes to an end. I just noticed that on May 29th, Famous For 16 Minutes turns thirty years old. How incredible, big thank you must go to Debbie Levitt. All the best dear readers. XPG |
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