dormouse1953 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dormouse1953) wrote2010-10-04 06:06 pm
dormouse1953) wrote2010-10-04 06:06 pm
Shopping and drinking
Something about the municipal architecture in Australia makes it look more like England that England actually is. But even stranger were the names from the recent past that you could find around the shopping areas. In Sydney, I saw a Woolworths, in Southern Cross station in Melbourne there's a Virgin, and in a mall in Melbourne I found a Borders. All these names have disappeared from the British high street in the last few years. OK, the Woolworths seemed to be more of a supermarket than the general store it used to be in the UK, and the Virgin was more of a station book and DVD shop than the old Virgin megastores, but the Borders seemed very similar to those I've been in in the UK and the US.
It was Borders I ended up in. Back in 1985, I recall that it was the fiftieth anniversary of Penguin Books and in Australia was the first place I saw a box set they brought out to commemorate this event containing reprints of the first ten Penguins. Not wishing to lug this box around Australia, I refrained from purchasing it then, but it was available in the UK when I got home and I persuaded my parents to buy it for me for Christmas that year.
So this year is therefore the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books, and in Australian book shops they had a number of Penguin books all done in the old orange and white style cover, and I haven't seen these in the UK since I got back. They looked very nice and I ended up buying Hard Times by Charles Dickens and the Communist Manifesto.
When I was in Australia in 1999 I caught on TV an episode of a comedy show called The Micallef Programme fronted by someone called Sean Micallef. I see from his bio that he started out as a solicitor before moving to comedy. (The law seems to be a good profession for getting into comedy. Bob Mortimer, of Vic and Bob fame, was also a solicitor and of course Clive Anderson started as a barrister.) A couple of years later, some episodes of this turned up on the Comedy Channel on satellite TV in the UK. I found Micallef's slightly surreal style rather appealing, so I was please to find in Borders DVDs of the second and third series. I've now watched a couple of episodes of these, and they are as much fun as I remembered. Curiously, I discover one brief sketch involves a sky writer apparently making a mistake, as per my earlier report from Sydney, but in this sketch, a plane labelled Liquid Paper is seen taking off to correct the mistake.
It was on my way back to my hotel that I bumped into Charlie Stross and Feorag, which was useful. Feorag had taken it upon herself to organise the now traditional pre-Worldcon pub crawl as Steve Rogerson was unable to attend this year. She had posted details of this but I forgot to note them down. Turned out a group was starting out from the foyer of the Hilton, taking a tram to the first pub, so I turned up to tag along.
The first venue was a brew pub someone in the eastern suburbs of the city, not far from a building proclaiming itself to be the birthplace of Dame Nellie Melba. Inside, it looked like a warehouse, with the vats visible along one wall. But the beer was good, and there was pizza available for food. Portable gas heaters were positioned around the drinking area. It was mentioned by some that the beer was served too cold, especially given the temperature out, but apparently this is the Aussie way of serving beer.
We stayed the longest in this first venue to let all those who wanted to go on the pub crawl to find us and quite a crowd gathered. My memory tells me it was mostly Brits.
The next pub looked like a traditional British pub. I don't think there was sawdust on the floor, but it gave the impression there ought to have been. This was somewhere to the north of the city centre, but by then I'd lost track of where I was. When it came to time to move on, the technical abilities of fandom came to the fore, checking when the next suitable tram was due at the nearest stop. This venue turned out to be in the central area of the city, near China town. It looked more like a cafeteria than a pub, or maybe a student bar. I decided by then I'd reached my limit, and when the rest left for the next venue, I walked back to my hotel.
I claim to have a low tolerance to alcohol, and on this occasion I drank much more beer than I usually do on one evening, but, although I was feeling slightly merry on the walk home, I didn't feel rolling drunk - external observers may say otherwise - and I wasn't ill when I got back, nor did I have a hangover the next morning.
It was Borders I ended up in. Back in 1985, I recall that it was the fiftieth anniversary of Penguin Books and in Australia was the first place I saw a box set they brought out to commemorate this event containing reprints of the first ten Penguins. Not wishing to lug this box around Australia, I refrained from purchasing it then, but it was available in the UK when I got home and I persuaded my parents to buy it for me for Christmas that year.
So this year is therefore the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books, and in Australian book shops they had a number of Penguin books all done in the old orange and white style cover, and I haven't seen these in the UK since I got back. They looked very nice and I ended up buying Hard Times by Charles Dickens and the Communist Manifesto.
When I was in Australia in 1999 I caught on TV an episode of a comedy show called The Micallef Programme fronted by someone called Sean Micallef. I see from his bio that he started out as a solicitor before moving to comedy. (The law seems to be a good profession for getting into comedy. Bob Mortimer, of Vic and Bob fame, was also a solicitor and of course Clive Anderson started as a barrister.) A couple of years later, some episodes of this turned up on the Comedy Channel on satellite TV in the UK. I found Micallef's slightly surreal style rather appealing, so I was please to find in Borders DVDs of the second and third series. I've now watched a couple of episodes of these, and they are as much fun as I remembered. Curiously, I discover one brief sketch involves a sky writer apparently making a mistake, as per my earlier report from Sydney, but in this sketch, a plane labelled Liquid Paper is seen taking off to correct the mistake.
It was on my way back to my hotel that I bumped into Charlie Stross and Feorag, which was useful. Feorag had taken it upon herself to organise the now traditional pre-Worldcon pub crawl as Steve Rogerson was unable to attend this year. She had posted details of this but I forgot to note them down. Turned out a group was starting out from the foyer of the Hilton, taking a tram to the first pub, so I turned up to tag along.
The first venue was a brew pub someone in the eastern suburbs of the city, not far from a building proclaiming itself to be the birthplace of Dame Nellie Melba. Inside, it looked like a warehouse, with the vats visible along one wall. But the beer was good, and there was pizza available for food. Portable gas heaters were positioned around the drinking area. It was mentioned by some that the beer was served too cold, especially given the temperature out, but apparently this is the Aussie way of serving beer.
We stayed the longest in this first venue to let all those who wanted to go on the pub crawl to find us and quite a crowd gathered. My memory tells me it was mostly Brits.
The next pub looked like a traditional British pub. I don't think there was sawdust on the floor, but it gave the impression there ought to have been. This was somewhere to the north of the city centre, but by then I'd lost track of where I was. When it came to time to move on, the technical abilities of fandom came to the fore, checking when the next suitable tram was due at the nearest stop. This venue turned out to be in the central area of the city, near China town. It looked more like a cafeteria than a pub, or maybe a student bar. I decided by then I'd reached my limit, and when the rest left for the next venue, I walked back to my hotel.
I claim to have a low tolerance to alcohol, and on this occasion I drank much more beer than I usually do on one evening, but, although I was feeling slightly merry on the walk home, I didn't feel rolling drunk - external observers may say otherwise - and I wasn't ill when I got back, nor did I have a hangover the next morning.