As I made my way down to the beach, I suddenly realised (through the unfamiliarity of the landscape) I’d never visited Clovelly Beach before. Sure, I’ve been for quite a few (mostly birthday) lunches at the Clovelly Hotel before, but never the beach.
I was at the pub again today for a terrific birthday lunch for a friend. After food, wine, some great stories and a cracking thunderstorm, I was beginning to feel a little tired. The busy week I’ve previously written about was beginning to catch up with me, and so I bid everyone a fond farewell.
With twenty minutes before the next scheduled bus, I figured a brief walk to the beach was in order. An opportunity to sober up a little too :)
Wow. “What a beautiful little inlet”, I thought to myself. What a great personal discovery. And next time I go for a birthday lunch at the Clovelly Hotel, I’ll definitely schedule a visit to the beach as well the pub.
Though I don’t recall exactly when it was, I vividly remember the scene I witnessed the last time I visited the Northern Territory Parliament. As I looked down from the public gallery, I saw one of the Members of Parliament playing Solitaire on his laptop.
With that image firmly in my mind, I asked the tour guide how many days parliament was sitting for this year, and the answer was 31.
Sitting in parliament, and going through the sometimes rehearsed “motions” of government is not necessarily a sign of a healthy democracy. In the Northern Territory, where the average electorate size is around 5,000 people, I’d anticipate most members of parliament are spending time in their electorates working on behalf of their electors.
In turn, this led me to ask another question about how many members of the Legislative Assembly are from Darwin. The answer is 9 from Darwin, 3 from Alice Springs, and the remaining 13 are from somewhere in between.
These were a couple of the questions I asked during a terrific free hour-long tour you can do of Parliament House in Darwin.
Located on the floor of Parliament House is a plaque, commemorating the site as the location of the former post office in Darwin, which was heavily bombed during World War 2.
Nearby, there are photographs of some of the people who were killed in the Post Office during the initial raid.
The tour group learns a little about the history of the NT flag, which is unique among Australian state and territory flags by not having the red-white-and-blue of the Union Jack. Instead, the flag is dominated by the Southern Cross and the Desert Rose.
The tour guide was excellent, speaking with passion about the political history of the Northern Territory. Once part of South Australia, the Northern Territory exists under Australian Government legislation. The guide explained the Northern Territory is the only Australian Territory that can, constitutionally speaking, become a State.
In particular, the tour guide gave some context to things such as “The Intervention” and the “Euthanasia Laws”, and how they were allowed to occur. As the Northern Territory remains a “Territory” and not a “State”, there are a number of areas where Federal Legislation over-rides Territory Legislation.
It’s 25 years since the Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to pass laws that allowed voluntary assisted dying. Since then, every other state and territory in Australia has passed such laws, and so it’s now odd the Northern Territory no longer has such laws, due to the laws being overridden by the Federal Parliament.
As you look around some of the photographs on the wall, you see the early days of self-government were dominated by a lot of white men. Now, the tour notes, the make-up of the parliament is much more diverse, with even numbers of men and women, and significant numbers of Aboriginal people.
Hen Fook “Harry” Chan OBE (14 June 1918 – 5 August 1969) was the first elected President of the Legislative Council of the Northern Territory. Serving from 1966 to his death in 1969.
In fact, the tour guide noted, the Northern Territory parliament now allows people to speak in languages other than English. This is a pretty important thing in a state, errr ah, territory, where you can walk down the street and hear a lot of people speaking in some of the many Aboriginal languages spoken here.
The tour was excellent and I’d highly recommend it.
Bodhi Vegetarian Restaurant
2-4 College St
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9360 2523
I first went to Bodhi with my friend Sue, who is a vegan. Although the restaurant describes itself as vegetarian, I’m pretty sure the menu is vegan.
It’s always really popular on the weekend and on this particular occasion, we had to be quite determined to get a seat for the seven of us.
The location, near St Mary’s Cathedral and the Cook and Phillip Park is terrific, especially for lunch with a gorgeous micro fig tree located next to our table.
The crowd, as always, was very relaxed: an intriguing combination of inner city trendoids (the intelligentsia of course, since it’s vegan) and youngish couples with babies. Babies, babies, where did all the babies come from? We ate an awful lot.
At $25 per head, we managed to consume a lot of food, but didn’t necessarilly bloat ourselves. Highlights included some of the dumplings and spring rolls. I also really enjoyed the mango and sago deserts.
Although it’s usually quite good, on this occasion the service left a little to be desired, since we had to make repeated requests for more tea and some of the staff didn’t seem to look befor offering us food eg: we were all eating yummy deserts and yet the savoury meals were still being offered.
Some of the reviews I’ve read have focussed on poor service and dirty tables. Yes, I think Bodhi has all of that to a certain degree, but if that’s how you judge a restaurant and not by the food, you probably won’t enjoy Bodhi. I get the impression such reviews were written by people dragged along by their vegetarian, and semi-vegetarian friends, who still though vegetarian meant chicken and seafood would be served!
I woke this morning with not too many plans for the day, aside from a bit of sight-seeing. Unlike yesterday, the weather’s been fantastic. And although it would have been great fun to have done lots of the regular tourist things I got a better offer.
While checking my email, I got a Facebook message from a girl I went to school with. I don’t actually recall the last time I saw here, though it could well have been fifteen or twenty years. She noticed my Facebook status comment that I was currently in London, and dropped me a line saying “If you’re still in London, give me a call”… and so I did.
I was reminded of a comment from a colleague before I left who advised me “never say no”. She wasn’t saying being reckless, just be open to great opportunities. And I’m so pleased I gave my old school mate a call, and went up to visit her in Highgate.
She’s been living there for nine years and, although she has toyed with the idea of returning back to Australia, seems content with her life at the moment, and has no real plan to return just yet.
After meeting me at the train station, she gave me a brief tour of the area, took me up the near the old ice rink which affords a brilliant view of the city, and then over to Hampstead Heath.
I’d only ever heard of Hampstead Heath as places where George Michael and Kevin Spacey had run into grief, and which Julian Clary often used to tell jokes about. Obviously there was a bit of that stuff going on, as we discovered much to our horror as we walked across the countryside. Now, that’s a story that won’t be appearing on this blog! I hadn’t known, however, that it’s a really beautiful piece of parkland (some of it quite wild) which is a really popular tourist spot on the weekends.
My friend and I sat and chatted for a few hours about this that and the other, enjoyed a couple of beers, and generally had a great time. I’m really pleased I said yes, and I’m really pleased to catch up with my old school mate. It’s really helped round off the London experience.
It’s late Friday night and I’m taking it easy after a busy few days. On Wednesday morning, I flew to Melbourne for the day. Things didn’t really get off to a good start, though, as I arrived at the airport only to discover my return flight had been changed to Wednesday morning and not my departure flight. It’s just as well I arrived early, as it took about half-an-hour to fix up the mess created by that error in the Qantas Flight Centre. The woman on the counter confided to me, “We have a new computer system and no one knows how to use it!”. I said, “I really don’t think you should be telling that to a journalist!”.
I stayed overnight with Sue which was great. She joined me at the pub after work and came out for dinner with some of my work colleagues. We had a great old gossip, a few drinks, and I slept soundly… and for a long time. The following morning I arrived at the airport just as the flight was closing.
Work that day went well. Later in the afternoon, a few workmates and I went for a wander into town and had a look at Federation Square. The project, which began construction in 1996, has cost about $15 million to build. It’s visually quite arresting. With all that metal and glass, it was also very hot wandering around. There are some good visual arts galleries and SBS, as the first tenant, has scored a great location in view of the public.
Last night I went out for dinner with Damien to celebrate my birthday. I will be 37 years old in a matter of hours. Damo suggested the restaurant at the Westin Hotel. The Westin is located in the former GPO Building in Martin Place and has been beautifully fitted out. The food was excellent and we had a really great time together. Curiously enough, each table had a fresh Granny Smith apple placed on it. We’re not sure why. It didn’t look that great, it didn’t even fit in with a particular theme. It was just a Granny Smith apple on a plate. Go figure.
Tomorrow, I’m planning on spending a few hours at the cricket (NSW v TAS), and then Colin has invited me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. On Sunday, I’ve been invited to a BBQ. I also have an assignment to do. A busy weekend… I must get around to tidying the house!
“What a beautiful t-shirt you have”, said the woman behind the bottle-shop counter. I reminded her we’d met once before in similar circumstances, and she’d said something similar.
Four years ago, when visiting Sweden I bought a t-shirt with “Sverige” (the Swedish name for Sweden) emblazoned on it, and I wear it from time to time. I swear the last time I wore it, though, was a couple of months ago as I entered my local bottle shop. At first the woman serving me was a little taken aback. “Why are you wearing a Swedish shirt”?, she asked me. As chance would have it, I entered the bottle shop earlier tonight and the same thing happened again.
This time our conversation progressed a little further, as I told her I’d obtained tickets for this year’s Melodifestivalen (the Swedish finals leading to the Eurovision Song Contest”. “So you have tickets to the final?”, she asked, adding “Oh my god, I am so jealous”.
“I can’t believe we have such a beautiful city in Stockholm, and such a wonderful new arena, and they’re holding Eurovision in Malmo”, she went on to say. I’m prone to agree. I mean, I think Malmo is a lovely city, and it’s closer to Europe than Stockholm, but Stockholm is an amazingly beautiful, world class city. And that’s what’s drawn me back to buy tickets for next year’s Melodifestivalen.
Truth also be told, I think Melodifestivalen is a far more interesting song contest than Eurovision itself. Long before all of the modern television talent shows, the team behind Melodifestivalen “created” the genre with weekly heats in a number of Swedish cities, a “second chance” final, and then finally, a national final, where the nation gets to vote about who will represent them at the Eurovision Song Contest. It appears as if the Swedes takes Eurovision far more seriously than many other countries. And yet, at the same time, they have a sense of humour about it all.
Three years ago I obtained a ticket for the dress rehearsal for the final. Tickets for the final sold out within minutes of going on sale, and the dress rehearsal was the best I could hope for. Last night, however, I was a little more strategic, with browsers open on two computers, and logged on early to join the queue on ticnet.se, the Swedish ticketing system. Earlier in the day, I’d read about billjetnu.se, a company which apparently, had pre-purchased tickets from ticnet.se, and had their own separate allocation to sell. As I waited and waited in the queue on ticnet.se, I got a little impatient and so thought I’d try billjetnu.se, and was lucky enough to secure some tickets in the category, “bästa sittplats” (best seats). I’m very excited, as I enjoyed myself a few years ago when I attended the dress rehearsal, and now I have tickets for the actual final. Yay. A friend from Paris will be in Stockholm, and so we’re going together which will be terrific.
It’s not the only reason I’m planning to travel to Europe in March/April. I’m also going to a radio conference in Berlin called, “Radio Days”, and hope to have some kind of role in the program there. And I’m also interested in going to the International ABBA Day Event in The Netherlands which is now confirmed for April 8. All I’m waiting for now is a confirmation about the date for the opening of the ABBA Museum in Stockholm, and I’ll be booking airline tickets.
I woke up late this morning, but never mind, since the weather has been pretty awful all day. We’re expecting more of this over the next few days, according to the weather forecast.
But it wasn’t just the weather that kept me in bed until about eleven o’clock. It was the fact that I’d stayed up until about four o’clock in the morning watching “Smash“.
A couple of weeks ago I heard the series described as both “Glee for grown-ups” and “Glee for the theatre crowd”. Honestly, how I could I resist such a description, especially when the program also features actors from two of my favourite television programs – Debra Messing (Grace from “Will & Grace”) and Jack Davenport (Miles from “This Life”).
The series centres around a small group of theatre types who are planning a Broadway Musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. As with all good dramas, all of the characters have their flaws and the series is very much about how they deal with their “demons”. I’m up to episode seven, with eight more to go, and I’ve just read NBC have commissioned a second series which is good.
But yeah, television watching kept me mostly busy for most of the day before heading out for some fruit and vegetable shopping, and to catch up with my niece visiting from Lismore. “Sorry about the weather I told her”, when we met.
Michelle and James
She’s in town for 24 hours onlyattending an engagement party. It’s not often that my family comes to Sydney. Growing up in Lismore, Brisbane was always the “big city” we visited, not only because of proximity, but also as we have quite a few relatives based there. It would be nice if they came more.
Beautiful!