And the answer is…

One of Sydney life’s greatest mysteries was finally answered today.  Not quite in the way that I expected, but answered nonetheless.  It all started at Sushi-E, an upmarket Japanese restaurant located in the uber-self-important Establishment.  Sushi-E is as remarkable for its excellent cuisine as it is for its hiring policy.  Models that moonlight as waitresses impress but it is their ninja-like ability to upsell by stealth that would make any commission earning salaryman envious.

One waitress in particular stood out.  Blonde, blue eyed, striking and very personable.  But it was her non-descript European accent that was the subject of much debate between families over dinner and between businessmen over lunch.  Was she from Prague?  Belgium?  Holland?

Today her origins were plastered on the front page of newspapers across the country.  Just above the paragraph where it described her as the “principal” in a plot to murder two key witnesses in a pending committal hearing against her 44 year old boyfriend, it described her as a ‘22 year old Swedish model’. 

Wow, Swedish.  I didn’t see that coming. 

The first casualty of cycling is the truth…

Welcome to confession season in the colourful world of professional cycling.  The list of big names that have finally remembered what they did in the mid-90s continues to grow. “Oh I see the confusion.  You were asking me about E.P.O. and I was talking about the band E.L.O.  No, I definitely took to E.P.O.” 

The bratwurst-loving crew down Oktoberfest-Mobile including sprinter extraordinaire Eric Zabel are the latest in a string of outings.  Apart from the now ubiquitous apology, what really concerned me about Eric’s commentary was his suggestion that in the mid-90s drug testing was sporadic at best…and that nothing had really changed since…

The pharmaceutical industry needs professional cycling like Halliburton needs the US to continue to stay at war, wherever.  What cycling lacks in credibility it more than makes up for in creativity.  Consider just these two:

• Three time Tour De france winner Greg LeMond’s efforts to convince Floyd Landis (potentially the 2006 Tour winner) to come clean by confessing that he himself was abused as a child.  Greg LeMond will obviously always be better known for winning the 87 Tour de France by the smallest winning margin ever rather than his grasp of psychology.
• Tyler Hamilton using the excuse that the unusual level of testosterone in his system was a result of his biological twin being absorbed into his body while still in utero.  According to one reputable site, Tyler’s defence trump card rested on arguing that a cursed tiki charm caused the false positive tests to surface.  Indeed, they tried to show that it was the exact same tiki charm shown in The Brady Bunch, episodes 73 – 75 that caused Greg to wipe out on his surfboard and nearly drown, Peter to be attacked by a very scary spider, and many other dangerous – yet entertaining – incidents.

The Real Thing?

I don’t know much about science but I do know if I Google something and the results involve toxicology reports, a list of Pentagon biowafare chemicals and a history of fraud and deception then it probably isn’t something that I ought to be ingesting any time soon.  Welcome to the artificially sweet world of aspartame….the artificial sugar substitute behind Coke Zero. 

The fact that aspartame has been linked to eroding intelligence and affecting short-term memory amongst numerous other side-effects has been largely ignored.   It is after all hard to stand infront of a marketing train at full speed, especially one that promises all the treat of a soft drink with none of the weight gain.  That feature alone has turned this former treatment for ulcers into one of the most succesful marketing launches the beverage sector has ever seen.

So here I am at a cross road.  Can I handle a bit of erosion of intellect?  Sure, why not?  I can always blame the socially isolating iPod generation.  Short-term memory loss?  No problem.  After all, what a great way to meet new people.

Lucky for me then when I happened to meet one of the sons of Terry Davis, the CEO of Coca-Cola Amatil.  I couldn’t resist.  It was like when you meet a doctor socially and you want to ask if your mole looks OK or trying to get gratuitous stock tips from a stockbroker….”So, what does your dad allow you to drink at home?”.  The response was mostly water, a bit of Coke (classic), sometimes Diet Coke but never Coke Zero… 

…Therein endeth the lesson.

 Cheers

Tip of the day…

This tip comes from the CEO of one of Sydney’s 9 toll roads…

Tradies are some of the most recidivist toll avoiders amongst all commuters.  They devise ingenious ways of obstruction a clear view of their licence plates so as not to be identified by the cameras.

Imagine their surprise then when they receive infringement notices in the mail a few weeks later… 

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise really.  The clue was a telltale sign on the side of the car….”For all your plumbing needs call Joe’s Plumbing on 8555 7723“.

Everybody wins??

One of our preferred stock plays is listed gaming machine manufacturer Aristocrat.  Not only does it have a global reach with its leading edge technologies and pipeline of games, but you only need to go to a casino at 5am to see that gambling isn’t going anywhere.

Governments in general have one key issue with problem gambling….there’s not nearly enough of it!  It is by far the easiest source of revenue for any cash strapped state government.

With that in mind, we here at 20/20 marvelled at the NSW Government’s welcoming with open arms the arrival of Ticket In-Ticket Out technology (TITO).  TITO refers to cashless pokies.  You put money in but when you want to cash in you are issued a ticket that can either be taken to another machine or to a cashier to be paid out.

The NSW Government argues that TITO will go some way in reducing tackling problem gambling.  They contend that problem gamblers don’t want people to know that they have a problem.  Forcing people to face cashiers after a gaming session should in theory provide some disincentive.  Interesting.  Perhaps they are exoecting cashiers to automatically do that disapproving tut, tut, tut sound whenever a patron approaches to get paid out….

The one flaw in their rhetoric is that problem gambling by definition suggests there are rarely winnings left to collect.  If there were winnings, then the gambling wouldn’t be a problem….it would be investing.

Continuing on their train of thought, I shouldn’t be surprised if my new, barely street legal, turbo-charged, 5ltr V8 helps my chances of not losing my driver’s licence.

For now however, the best bet seems to be to buy Aristocrat…it is after all now Government endorsed…

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Sydney’s most valuable tourist destination is surprisingly not the Opera House.  It’s not even the Harbour Bridge or Bondi Beach.  It’s actually a 6″2 bloke with a goatee, glasses and a ponytail.  He is neither armed with rhetoric or campaign slogans…..just a velvet jacket and a placard that simply reads “Free Hugs”.

His name is Juan Mann and every Thursday he can be found on Pitt St Mall offering, as the placards suggest, Free Hugs.  It’s as simple as that – hugging perfect strangers with the intention of making their day a little bit brighter.

Once you get past your personal sense of cynicism, distrust and fear of the unknown, his message of hugging a perfect stranger is the most powerful expression of restoring faith in people I have come across.

A band called the Sick Puppies took footage of Juan and turned it into a music film clip that they then launched on youtube.  It was subsequently voted the most inspirational clip on youtube.  Even Oprah was so moved that she flew Juan to the US to appear on the show…

Eddie the Boner has landed…

Just like Prince Harry, Eddie McGuire’s tour of duty has been cut short, deemed too dangerous.  So, Eddie’s going home.  But what went wrong?

The ubiquitous Eddie was always going to struggle in Sydney.    Sydneysiders had failed to warm to Eddie.  They didn’t appreciate how far he’d come.  Melburnians had watched this kid from the wrong side of the tracks transform himself into the country’s most valuable media property.  Furthermore, somewhere along the line he had found the time to turn the Collingwood Football Club into the most financially viable sporting club in the country.

The Sydney glitteratteri (a fictitious word created by a bloke called Fish) however never took to the Victorian Royalty.  They preference for adulation rests with those of inherited wealth with an insatiable appetite for the social pages like Justin Hemmes and Kate Waterhouse rather than acknowledge just how far self-made Eddie had come.

Channel 9 was already a basket case before Eddie became the Big Cheese.  Ratings were in terminal decline, cost cutting was the order of the day and morale was low… 

The hope that Eddie was expected to bring was short-lived.  Before he even had a chance to work out if he had to dial ‘0′ to call out on his new phone, he was directed to ’bone’ 100 staff.  Later he had to address the issue of what to do with the Nurofen-inducing Jessica Rowe predicament amongst other unpopular decisions he had to make (such as keep Bert Newton on the payroll to help him fund his love of the punt…I guess also being a casino operator meant that you have to look after your best customers). 

How could Eddie have had any chance to resurrect Ch 9 when his bosses we actually pulling back their investment in the station and were in fact looking for an exit strategy?

So our carryover champ finally pulls up stumps and just like on Who Wants To be A Millionaire, nobody leaves empty handed.  He did after all manage sneak off with Nine’s Melbourne boss, Gary Pert, to run Collingwood…

Donut doesn’t cut it…

Macquarie Bank’s Allan Moss is easy media fodder.  Not because Australia’s most powerful banker looks more like the frail, old bloke flogging poppies at the train station on ANZAC Day, but rather because of his $30m plus pay packet.

The papers have had a field day.  They’ve thrived in calculating statistics such as the equivalent number of prime ministers, teachers, doctors and construction workers $33m could provide.  They also suggested that Allan earns the average Australian salary (ie, $45k) in just 3 hours….

That’s pretty much where their hype stopped….and mine started…

Firstly it’s important to note that the press assumed that Allan only worked 8.5hrs a day…A bit rough suggesting that this investment banker only worked what his peers would regard as a half day for that industry.

Anyway, here are some real stats:

• Allan earns $124 in the time it takes to cook 2-Minute Noodles
• By the time Allan gets back from lunch he is $22k better off
• He has earned another $10.45 in the time it has taken you just to read this sentence

While I love hype as much as the next Today Tonight watching amoeba remember that while Allan earns $15k an hour on their metrics, his company has earned a $660k profit in the same time under his guidance.  In that context his salary doesn’t seem so silly anymore…and it goes some way to explain why Macquarie’s corporate logo is money (the holey dollar).

What’s wrong with men carrying dogs?

It’s surprising where you can learn those crucial lessons in life.  Lessons like: You can’t respect a man who carries a dog, or; Never expect to understand every word in the description of every dish in a restaurant with white tablecoth.

For me, my life changed when I watched the 1985 classic The Breakfast Club.  Apart from reinforcing a lifelong aversion to redheads, and learning that “Claire is a fat girl’s name”, the movie also taught me to never underestimate anyone.  It all came down to one line delivered by one janitor to a group of snotty teens and one seemingly mature-aged student in Judd Nelson.  In response to intimations to play down his role in the school, let alone life in general, the janitor reminded the students not to underestimate him since he is, ”the eyes and ears of this institution“…

It’s with that in mind that one of my favourite sites is about the experiences of a local cabbie.  What better barometer of society’s well being than a bloke who goes tete a tete with it everyday….Or maybe its just the cathartic effect of finally hearing an articulate, odourless and colourful cabbie in a non-LPG laden environment who is neither trying to sign me up for the Marijuana For Personal Use lobby group or busily trying to work out how he can surreptitiously milk me for directions…

The Party-san is over…

Partysan is a little known Sydney street mag. It’s readership consists of people trying to look busy while waiting for their coffee, wannabe clubbers and 2 year old boys.  The last because the mags are usually the only thing within the reach of a 2 year old in the cafes and clothes shops in and around Darlinghurst. 

While my little bloke’s interest faded beyond the front cover mine didn’t really kick in until the last page.  Everything in the middle was just purposeless fluff desperately trying to justify its existence.

On the last page however, an editorial (for want of a better name), that really didn’t have anything to do with what the rest of the mag was trying to say, started with the catchy line, “I knocked a cyclist off his bike this morning.  It was actually quite enjoyable – I’d recommend it to anyone as a means of relaxation….”.

Unfortunately for the magazine I had just taken up being being a born-again social crusader a bit shy on causes.  Being an avid peddler myself however, this was just the ticket.  After loading myself up to the eyeballs with argument it was time to ping the editor.

To the editor’s credit, the change of mind was remarkable.  Not entirely surprising when you highlight a preparedness to approach every advertiser, its distribution network, its printers, the police (the author did after all admit to a hit and run), Sydney City Council, lobbey groups such as Bicycle NSW and Bike Sydney as well as mentioning sedition laws in passing and Alan Jones’ recent guilty finding in court for inciting violence in relation to the Cronulla riots.

This will be my first retraction and apology in the print media…What crusade my little bloke comes up with next is anyone guess.  Maybe Amway…or Mel Gibson.