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The mystery of the 12 Apostles

The mystery of the 12 Apostles

What’s in a name? In the case of the 12 Apostles – eight 50-metre columns of limestone off the southern coast of Victoria, Australia and the state’s single biggest tourist attraction – quite a bit of a mystery.

How did these majestic and much-visited blocks of limestone near Campbelltown, the last stop on the Great Ocean Road southwest of Melbourne, get their name?

After all there were never twelve of them and they are pillars of limestone, carved out of the cliff face by the action of the ocean without any obvious biblical connection and lacking any religious significance. Read PDF

Memphis: City of two Kings

Memphis: City of two Kings

Memphis, the biggest city in Tennessee, epitomises the old and new South of the United States.

Once a major slave trading centre, in the 1960s it was the focus of civil rights action. Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated there, and the National Civil Rights Museum in the city is his memorial.

It has always been, and still is, a major musical centre for blues, country, jazz and rock and roll. Elvis Presley began his career here and he wasn’t the only one.

Memphis’s Sun Studios recorded Elvis but can also count Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins among its stars. Later, Stax Records, a label devoted entirely to recording black musicians, had Otis Redding, the Bar-Kays, and Booker T and the MGs creating a special soul sound. View PDF