Pigeons were a big problem here years ago, making a huge mess, and the way they’re breeding now it’s going to happen again and we don’t want them becoming some sort of tourist attraction like they are in Trafalgar Square in London.

But apparently pigeons are some sort of delicacy so our restaurateurs should cash in by attacking them with nets and making them a feature on their menus.

There’s no guarantee they’d become as popular as international chef Joel Robuchon’s famous Le pigeon en supreme, but what the heck.

Maybe Le pigeon a l’Orange? It could put us on the culinary map. And get rid of the bloody things.

IT’S interesting the new private hospital will be named Bloomfield although it’s in the proposed new suburb the council has named Shiralee.

And Orange Health Service (read: hospital) is named Bloomfield Campus.

Bloomfield has been a well-established name for that part of Orange for more than 160 years and originally came from Bloomfield House, built by pioneer James Moulder.

The name was later used for Bloomfield psychiatric hospital, Bloomfield rail siding on the western line to service the area and Bloomfield School built in 1899. It’s still there and used by a car club.

There was also a Bloomfield Post Office while present reminders include Bloomfield Road and Bloomfied Park so the place is full of history and it’s welcome the new private hospital is using the Bloomfield name.

The obsolete word Shiralee is believed to be some sort of swag, burden or load, and came from a novel of the same name by D’Arcy Niland, but it was also the name of a property in south Orange.

ORANGE has a distant link with the bustling little central Queensland town of Winton through Banjo Paterson, who was born here but in 1895 wrote the words for Waltzing Matilda near there at Dagworth Station.

So it was a huge shock when fire two years ago this Sunday destroyed Winton’s Waltzing Matilda Centre and all its irreplaceable Banjo Paterson stuff.

The centre was the only high-tech display in the world dedicated to a song. A light and sound show brought to life the story of the swaggie and the mystery and romance of the Waltzing Matilda legend.

But Winton fought to secure extra funding for a rebuild from the Queensland and Australian governments and work on the $22 million job is about to begin. It’s expected to be finished by April next year.

Banjo on a visit to Dagworth scribbled down a poem about a swagman who jumped into a billabong to escape the coppers to go with an old Scottish tune called Craigielee after he heard the owner’s daughter Christina McPherson play it on her autoharp.

The pair then first performed what he called Waltzing Matilda in a rowdy piano session in Winton’s North Gregory Hotel which later was also destroyed by fire.

The hotel was last rebuilt by the council from a levy on rates so it was pretty certain the Waltzing Matilda Centre would also get a new life.