Back soon

Away for a week or so.

New York style comes to Canberra

During a recycling purge, I grabbed an old copy CityNews that was open at a Colliers International ad for “New York Style Offices” in Civic, Canberra's de facto CBD.

Included with the usual bumf was the promise of eco-friendly features, to wit, “ability to open windows” (and in case you didn’t get it, this was further clarified) “for fresh air”.

The advert also mentioned water-saving technology but I expect this was just a brick dropped in the lavvy cistern by the real estate agent before inspection. Opening windows, imagine that. New York innovation comes to Canberry.

Tags:
Canberra, Citynews,Colliers International, Canberra architecture.

Canberra wineries A2Z

We’ve lived in Canberra for a couple of years now but our knowledge of the local grape is shamefully lacking. Having visited one or two wineries in a very haphazard way, and with little to guide us other than the King James Wine Bible, we've decided to embark on our own leisurely winery discovery tour.

I should make it clear right upfront, we are not wine obsessives experts. We have no formal training in the art of sniffing, swilling and spitting but we know our preferences (and significant blindspots) reasonably well and also what wines compliment the modest fare that finds it way from our kitchen to the dining room table.

Over the next few months we’ll try to visit all the wineries that are open to the public around the Canberra region and share any worthwhile information in a very rough guide to Canberra wineries A2Z.

Tags:
Canberra, Canberra wines,Canberra wineries.

A message from John Hartigan on behalf of Aussie journalism

Then there are the bloggers.

In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for - something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.

News Limited Chairman and CEO John Hartigan in a speech to the National Press Club on 1 July, text via Crikey.


Consider yourself warned. Now go out and buy a print copy of The Australian, you digital backsliders. And no smartarse questions about what The Punch most resembles either.

Tags:
Canberra, John Hartigan,bloggers, journalism.

Apparently, there was a footy game last night

And what better way to mark the occasion than a bank commercial from the 1980s?

Tags:
Canberra, State of Origin,jingoism, four-peat.

The funniest thing Tracy Ullman ever did?

Would it be wrong to suggest that the two week ‘resting’ of The Chaser’s War on Everything and its replacement with Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, confirms that the funniest thing Tracy Ullman ever did for television was commissioning The Simpsons shorts back in 1987?

Tags:
Canberra, The Chaser’s War on Everything,Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, The Simpsons shorts.

A new strapline for Canberra

One of the alternative straplines* for Canberra I’ve been trying to encourage is, “Canberra - where the middle-class lost their manners”. It’s a touch more peppy than the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation’s “See for yourself” tag, usually rendered in the sort of scribbly typeface that suggests the office manager has just bought new fonts for their iMac.

For a city that claims more university educated inhabitants as a percentage of the population than anywhere else in the country, Canberra, on the evidence of the roads and footpaths, is also home to many folk who don’t readily know left from right. Combine this with a steady state mantra of “I shall not be inconvenienced” and the ACT can resemble a movable bird hide, showcasing boorish behaviour by people who, as my peach-fuzz cheeked old grandmother used to say, ‘ought to bloody well know better’.

Case in point, Kingston last Friday afternoon. I’m stopped at the seat near the Vietnamese bakery to stow a bottle of Hanwood Chardonnay La Chablisienne Chablis into my bag and spot a middle-aged woman helping a frail, elderly woman, to cross Giles street. I spend some time duck diving into the bag, trying to make sure nothing gets squashed, when voices are raised.

A box-headed bloke in his early forties yells across the road at the women, who by this point are heading to the chemist, “And what does that have to do with you being an idiot!” At a guess I’d say Mr Box-head didn’t get the park he wanted.

The middle-aged woman continued to shepherd the old lady into the chemist and without a word, or a backward glance, deftly flips him the bird.
“Fucking moron!” bawls Boxy by way of reply, and then stomps into Artespresso... followed by a kid who looked about eight or nine years old and probably had the bad luck to be closely related to him.

I'd suggest the next time somebody complains to you about kids today or Gen Ys having no manners, you might point out some parents aren’t really setting the bar all that high. And if you do spot a dinky, bright red BMW, rego number YEW 27P, give the driver a big wave. He shouldn’t be too hard to spot - a cubist-style head, anger management issues and a complexion the same colour as his car.


*Along with the slogans Bill Bryson came up with in Down Under when he got pissed at the Rex: “Canberra - There’s Nothing to It!” and “Canberra - Why Wait for Death?”

Tags:
Canberra, Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation,anger, Canberra slogan.