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Five sexy Black Wizards have just awarded James Raftopoulos the $10,000 first prize in the Canberra Centenary Typeface Design Competition. ''It's a really awesome bit of recognition,'' Raftopoulos, 26, grateful to the wizards, said from Melbourne where he is a freelance designer. But don't believe everything you read in the papers and it isn't quite, literally true (as you've just read) that the competition's five judges are wizards. And at least one of them, Canberra Times editor-in-chief Rod Quinn, isn't black at all, but is conspicuously Caucasian. No, it's just that every entrant was asked to spell out the sentence ''Five sexy Black Wizards judge Canberra's Centenary Quest Champion'' so as to strut the stuff of the typeface he or she had designed. Noticing as our centenary year approached that our city had no exclusive and definitive Canberra typeface (lots of cities do have their own), the University of Canberra launched the competition that Raftopoulos has just won. The university will adopt the typeface to use in its marketing, and in time it will become available for all approved promotions of the city. Raftopoulos said he went for a typeface design containing echoes of ''all those circular and hexagonal shapes'' in Walter Burley Griffin's famous designs (as rendered by Marion Mahony Griffin) for the layout of the city. His entry is superimposed over a section of the Griffins' design, and look how words and shapes dance very nicely together. If you look closely at the typeface, he says, you'll see some of the letters are full or partial (interrupted) circles. So for example, the C of the word Canberra he is holding is trying hard to become a circle. Raftopoulos recently gave up his job in a bank to follow his dreams of designing. So it's no wonder he was in great spirits on Thursday at the ''recognition'' given him by the five sexy Black Wizards. Chair wizard Mike Chandler said on Thursday that the jury was pleased with the quality and scope of the 84 submissions, but the Raftopoulos typeface stood out because "it conveys a sense of the cultural and architectural history of Canberra translated in a contemporary form. The jury was impressed by the simple, clean and light expression evident in the typeface.'' Unless your giblets are in the grip of emotional permafrost your heart will be warmed by this true story of a battling Tawny Frogmouth family in a tree in Harrison. A Harrison reader tells us: ''My husband and I check the large gum tree outside our house every spring for the arrival of two Tawny Frogmouths. We have been doing this for over five years. Every year we watch the pair raise several chicks. The grandchildren visit to watch, usually, two little balls of fluff develop from chicks to fledglings. Often mishaps occur [the species makes a rudimentary nest in an often insecure place] and my husband has had to rescue several fledglings in danger from local cats and other birds as they floundered on the ground or on a nearby fence. ''Several days ago we found two dead chicks in the grass under the tree along with the nest. Later that day we noticed another chick, which appeared slightly older, on the ground. My husband picked up the nest and the now grey-coloured chick and placed them in a plastic container. Out came the long ladder and a few tools and the new nest and its participant were secured to a limb of the tree. All this activity was watched closely by two adult Tawny Frogmouths. After several hours one of the adult Tawnies was sitting in the nest with the chick. The other adult Tawny was on a branch close by keeping a very watchful eye on the new nest arrangement. ''We will watch and wait to see what eventuates. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy, along with the grandchildren, the flight lessons of this new fledgling and the final exit of the family as the circle of life plays out in our suburb.'' We have asked our informants for bulletins about the progress of this youngster and on Thursday they reported it doing well, peering out from under its mother in a nest now securely fixed (with tools!) in its tree. Voting closed on Thursday in the BirdLife Australia election of the nation's favourite bird and the result will be known by the end of next week. Progressive counts showed the Frogmouth always in the top 10 of the 52 fowls offered to the nation on the ballot paper. Surely this is quite an achievement for a species evolved to be so perfectly camouflaged that few Australians ever see it.

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