Clover Moore Fundraiser

What’s the biggest parking fine you have ever seen?  How does it compare to $397?  Granted I mistakenly parked in a disabled spot but please consider the following: 1) It was on my 50cc scooter which is only 60cm wide; 2) I actually parked between 2 spots so didn’t physically obstruct anyone from from using the spots; 3) The spots are usually inhabited by courier vans or utilities [perhaps Sydney does have the highest concentration physically disabled tradesmen/couriers in the world].

So Clover Moore, you wonder why Sydney is going backwards at rates of knots…

There are 496 motorbike parking spots in Sydney CBD.  I don’t know much about know much about town planning but in a city of 300,000 workers, 28,000 residents and thousands of daily visitors, 496 doesn’t sound great.  Especially when you consider that Sydney is drowning under the weight of too many cars relying on outdated infrastructure.  It’s akin to boasting about having 3 steaks for your 25 mates that are coming around for a BBQ.

My question to Sydney’s mayor Clover Moore is to justify the $397 figure.  I would have gotten the same fine if I had been driving a Hummer and taken up 2 spots.  It would have been cheaper to just get it towed.  Actually, at only 90kg you could have saved the towing costs and just picked it up to  move it.  Perhaps one of these disabled tradies could have given a hand.

At $397 that equates to almost 3 years of petrol money, 10 zimmer frames, 6 weeks of physiotherapy or a pair of extreme prescription glasses for the practically blind.

Perhaps I wouldn’t take such issue if I actually felt as though Sydney City Council was actually good at spending money in a constructive way….(see previous blog on Clover Moore’s floral aspirations)… 

Should I be worried when…?

when furniture stores that offer 4 year interest free deals start to get customers wanting to return furniture once the interest has kicked in as they can’t meet the repayments?

when my bank is actually offering me reward points for paying off my credit card debt?

when my newspaper instructs me “What to do if you’re about to lose your home”?

when I’m offered credit cards as impulse buys at train stations or airports by a bloke in a suit and white socks?

when my bank’s call centre congratulates me on being able to increase my credit card limit when I just called to get my on-line log-in details?

when house auctions try and draw out starting bids by offering free bottles of red wine? 

Hot Wheels…

I have entered into the fast lane…and all it took was a journey through 15 postcodes, 2 bridges, a Game Boy and a washer.  By the end, all restrictions were off.  Finally my Italian steed would roam free.  My 50cc Aprilia has come of age and accordingly became unrestricted…So, it’s goodbye to the 50km/h cap and hello windburn.  To celebrate life in the faster lane I even purchased a genuine riding jacket with actual padding rather than sown on elbow patches.  Now, where do you get racing stripes?

Religion in a nutshell

Religion…it really isn’t that hard.  At best it should simply be a reminder to be a good person to other people.  Ie, help those less fortunate and believe in reciprocity – “do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you”.

What religion should not be, is a business.  Be wary of religions with an ABN (ie, an Australian Business Number).  Be wary of religions that were conceived in the last thousand years.  Be wary of religions that are just record labels in disguise.  Be wary of religions that encourage its followers to lead their lives to the letter of the law established thousands of years ago.

Religion is about reminding you about what it is all about.  If you want spirituality, help someone out – offer assistance when you see an accident, help someone with a pram up the stairs, buy a Big Issue (and then recycle it), do some volunteer work, stop and chat to a homeless person, offer to share your cab with someone else in the queue who is going in the same direction, buy toys for a children’s hospital – that’s spirituality.  And best of all, you don’t need to buy a CD, wear isolating apparel or give up a percent of your salary.

Only in Noosa…

…would a legal firm specialising in separations be located next to a group of chartered accountants called ‘Love & Partners’.

View from the other side…

Just when you think think you are already living the dream (ie, corporate boxes at the footy, interstate travel to take clients to the theatre or dinner, lunches at over-hyped restaurants whose bills could save an African village, free concert tickets, etc),  you get an insight into yet another level privy only for the elite.

I had the pleasure of travelling interstate with a senior colleague who is still reaping the rewards of a stellar corporate career.  Welcome to the world of the Chairman’s Lounge. 

I arrived early at the airport.  Checked in.  Got my boarding  pass.  Seat 57F.  I thought I had a win with an aisle seat.

After meeting my colleague, she urged I come with her.  We went upstairs towards the lounge reserved for frequent flyers but rather than head in the main doors we marched through a second unmarked, non-descript door.  This was the secret realm of the priviledged set aside for the heads of corporate Australia.  Membership is by invitation only.

The receptionist greeted us with a welcome smile.  While she confirmed our details we confirmed our way to the food.  Breakfast, anti pasto, desserts, fine wines, beers it was all there.  If there was one set back it was the size of the plates.  The idea of trying to feed someone 6″2 weighing in at over 90kg with nothing more than a sideplate is unconstitutional and somewhat inconvenient as I concluded on my 14th visit to the buffet.

After some time, the receptionist approached us referring to us by our surnames alerting us that our flight was just about ready to depart.  She handed over our boarding passes.  As I jokingly bid farewell to my colleague on the assumption that she would be sitting at the pointy end of the plane and I was heading towards 57F, I looked at my boarding pass…1E.  Life just got that little bit better.  Needless to say I have asked my colleague if she would consider coming to Fiji with my family.

Fashion Mecca

The only thing wrong with Marrickville Metro is the people that go to Marrickville Metro…or so I thought until I realised that this non-descript, low-rise building in the heart of the suburbs housing donut shops, fast food outlets, chemists and medical services [in that order] has also become the centre of global fashion.

While commonly confused for Sydney Airport’s fourth runway, Marrickville Metro is better known as being the home of the key fashion trend for Spring/Summer 08….sports luxe – glammed up sportswear where the wearer has no obvious intention of doing any sport.

Ever since the demise of blood stopping denim, bogans across Australia have sought refuge in new clobber.  The result has been a trackie-dack led recovery that has seen meeting places like Marrickville Metro look more like the Australian Institute of Sport with none of the athletic ability…except for evading the long arm of the law.

Gabriel Gaté, you’re breaking my heart

Remember the good old days?  Those days before dogs needed to wear jumpers and could walk for themselves, when debt was bad and when you could watch the Tour de France without having to first endure a swarmy French cook explore the culinary mediocrity of that part of regional France where the Tour just happens to be passing through.

There are 20 stages at Le Tour but I am stumped to get past the four pillars of French delicacies: chocolate eclairs; pommes frites; bernaise sauce, and; the steak that goes with the bearnaise sauce.

I have nothing against Gabriel Gaté personally, I even went to his French cooking school in Melbourne to learn how to make California rolls…a Japanese treat that is neither Japanese nor a French delicacy. 

I don’t know much about gastronomie but I do know that a chef without a restaurant is just a cook and that someone trying to pretend to be in the South of France should try to avoid filming segments within earshot of busy tram routes in Melbourne.

Merci et au revoir

Back in 1993 Guns n’ Roses played at Calder Park Raceway on the outskirts of Melbourne to a crowd of 100,000 both genuine and imitation bogans.  To this day it remains a defining moment of my life.  Not only was it the first time that I saw 100,000 people in one place, or the closest that I will ever get to a Woodstock musical festival but it was also where I first paid $4 bottle of bottled water…over a decade before it became fashionable.

In 2007 Axl Rose and Guns n’ Roses made their first trip back to Australia..albeit with a little bit less luggage, namely Slash, Izzy Straddlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler.  In fact, it was just Axl from the original lineup and a bunch of new mates.  That said however, it turned out to be the second best concert I have ever been to just behind the aforementioned Calder Park gig.  Any trepidations were soon dispelled as those first unmistakable, delayed effected notes of Welcome To The Jungle blasted out. 

The bogans were all back too but his time they brought their own kids.  For the parents, the tattoos had faded some, the leather pants were no longer so skin tight but their mullets had stood the test of time.  The next generation of boys proudly bearing their rats tails while the girls donned the traditional dress of the outer burbs, the ugg boot.  Not the beige of course but rather the after 5 Winnie Blue.  

The Country Life…

Opting for a quiet moment of respite before the birth of # 2, my wife and I parked # 1 at the grand-parents and headed for the hills…the Blue Mountains that is. 

The Blue Mountains are only 90 minutes due West out of Sydney…an hour to get through an 8km stretch of Parramatta Road and then about 30 minutes for the other 100km.

The trip itself is not without highlights.  Consider a visit to the Museum of the Uses of Fire located between Mt Druitt and Penrith.  Given its location, tips for arson and the erasing of evidence at the scene of a crime feature strongly.

There are numerous quality, upmarket and romantic lodgings to choose from in the Blue mountains, but we stayed at the Peppers Fairmont Resort.  We stayed there once before many years ago but were lured back by the appeal of a refurbishment and the belief that time heals all wounds.

 

The lack of lighting in the room kept us guessing as to the nature of the refurbishments.  It wasn’t the low pressure Vichy trickle shower, we remembered that from last time.  We were somewhat fortunate however, that we were there when for the first time in six years there was actually more snow outside than on our room’s Nokia television (Nokia is not a name usually associated with the manufacture of quality televisions and rightly so.  It’s rivalled only by household names Palsonic and Sonyo).

 

The Fairmont is to the Blue Mountains what the French Quarter is to Noosa…an opportunity to allow to young kids to enjoy running around sans nappies guilt free to their little hearts content.

 

Facilities at the Fairmont include:

• The predictably repetitive concierge, guaranteed to make you smile as he again points out that it is probably warmer inside the resort than outside.  Had it not been for the fact that everything outside was covered by 10cm of snow I had been prepared to call his bluff.

• The enigmatic reading lounge…plenty of lounges but nothing to read.

• The Games Room of Mystery…you’ll enjoy hours of working out where the billiard balls are kept.

• Breakfast of Wonder – Is it a pancake or just a pikelet in a bain-marie?

Should you feel the need to venture beyond the resort, why not try the local cinema.  Apart from seeing the movie of the day, you’ll be able to marvel at the speed and dexterity of the sole employee that works not just the ticket booth but also the candy bar, the video arcade and the gift shop.  Something that probably would not be that entertaining if were not for the fact that each is located in a different part of the building…