When you are in the media, you often get to find out things at least a couple of days before the rest of the community.
Whether its building plans, program launches or visits from the odd luminary or politician, journos are often well aware of most things before they happen.
An example of this is the new Bendigo Bank building.
When the plans were released mid 2005, the reaction from inside the office was mixed.
While we all new it would be great for the city, there were some, including me, who had doubts about its design.
First a disclaimer. I live in a 19th century miners cottage. My two favourite places in Australia are The Rocks in Sydney and the site of the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, purely because of their history.
I used to stand on top of Mt Bunninyong near Ballarat and picture the train-load of troops coming into the city with Mt Warrenheip in the background.
I could see where the stockade would have been and imagine myself watching on Sunday, December 3, 1854 as the first shots were fired.
Yes, as you can gleen from that last sentence I am boring, but it seems to be working for me.
Anyway, I have a great love of history and being in places where major events actually happened, so living in Bendigo adds another dimension to each day for me.
That aside, I was somewhat taken aback by the design of the new Bendigo Bank building. I was ready for the size of the development and the fact it would tower above everything else in the city.
What I wasn't ready for was the colour scheme. I thought it would look like the proverbial sore thumb.
Others were prepared to 'give it a go' but I took a stance. I said it would be ugly and the community wouldn't realise how ugly until it was too late.
When Weekly photographer Andrew Perryman and I toured the site, we came across the coloured squares of metal in a store room that would adorn the High Street side of the building.
When I started to watch the coloured squares adorn the building like baubles on a Christmas tree I started telling anyone who would listen the city was getting behind its very own 'yellow peril'.
However, after taking a quick drive around the CBD last Friday I can publicly announce I was wrong.
While I am looking forward to the obtuse glass frontage of stage two of the development, I can safely say stage one has passed my taste test.
Admittedly the design is something different, but so is the Bendigo Bank.
This first question any newcomer will ask when driving into the city is what is that building.
It will stand out, but it is a big sore thumbs up from me.
What do you think?
