I'm old enough to know that I don't have any answers, but that won't stop me talking
The news report that Wendy’s is to open in Australia is welcome.
There is just one thing niggling away at me – obviously the reporter is not aware that Wendy’s already launched in Australia in the mid 1980s, but did not last long.
Hopefully they do better this time.
I’m quite sad today at the passing of our Queen. She has been a unifying figure for so long and it is hard to imagine the world without her.
I have been pondering for a while the sad disappearance, through either redevelopment or renovation, of most of the old school typical Australian pubs I remember from years gone by.
What I crave, I guess, is a pub with its last renovation and furnishings from the 1970s, such as red vinyl covered chairs, and laminated tables, and hopefully a bar area which was installed in the 1930s.
I did lunch today at one such pub, and it was a delight.
First, to explain the name of the Railway Hotel, which is in Nicholson Street in North Fitzroy. There used to be an inner circle rail line, disused since the late 1940s, which ran from Royal Park til Clifton Hill. You can still see traces, such as the bridge in Royal Parade spanning a disused rail line, the red brick former railway station at North Carlton, and bits of railway intentionally left where they crossed the roads in the area. Otherwise, the only remnant is a bike path along a thin strip of parkland.
And, located close to where the North Fitzroy railway station used to stand, there is the Railway Hotel.
I think this is only the second time I have ever been there, and it has a unique charm to it, particularly due to various of the historic quirks about it, beyond the long redundant name. The bottle shop window is still painted with gold letters advertising Mildara Brandy, and gold letters on the door from the public bar (closed usually) to the bistro area where I sat proclaim it as the Ladies Lounge.
As the publican said, it is a country pub in the city – which is a rare gem indeed these days. It’s last renovation must have been in the 1970s (the end of six o’clock closing in 1974 prompted many pubs to do a renovation in that era), but it is immaculately maintained, as are the chairs and tables of that era. No sticky carpet, just a well laid lino floor covering which is easy to mop.
There is a concrete beer garden out the back, past the toilets, but this beer garden has more charm to it than many, as it features a large lemon tree and a banana tree, amongst others.
All of this appeals to me far more than the bulk of contemporary refurbishings of pubs, with their purple carpets and poker machines, or the current slightly better tables and bar areas fitted out with dark red varnished timber or polished metal sheets.
Kiss are retiring after this tour and I am sad.
I was 11 in 1980 when I witnessed KissMania in full swing. Kiss had released their Unmasked album (FYI they did not start their makeup free era for several more years) and announced their Australian tour, with a concert to occur at VFL Park in Mulgrave in November 1980.
I am not too sure about what adults thought of this circus which was going to hit town, but the kids at my primary school were pretty excited. There were Kiss posters on the classroom walls, and heaps of kids wearing Kiss t-shirts. I recall one rather strict substitute teacher expressing his dismay at one classmate’s Ace Frehley t-shirt.
And there were Kiss cards. 66 in each set, and there were three series. The first one was with the original band and orange borders, whilst the second was of the original band with blue borders, and which continued the numbering from number 67 to 132.
And then, because there was the exciting news of a new drummer, Eric Carr, in different makeup (little did we in our childhood innocence understand why Peter Criss had decided to leave such a great band for a ‘solo career’), there was a reissue of the original 66 cards, but with new ones replacing each one which had featured the original dummer.
No Kiss toilet paper though. That must have been an oversight by their marketing department.
And then, the concert happened, and school ended for the year a few weeks later and KissMania was over. Kiss mostly then (as far as those of us of the Countdown Generation felt) seemed forgotten for a long time.
In 1996 or 97, when they did their Reunion Tour, I finally got to see them in concert – and the Reunion Tour was, for many of us fans, a bit like children of a divorced couple overjoyed to see their parents back together again, given that Peter and Ace both rejoined the band.
It was not to last alas, and when they did their misleadingly (as History has since taught us) Farewell Tour a few years later, Peter Criss had a hissy fit about money and pulled out at the last minute, never to return.
Now it is The End Of The Road. After two covid related postponements, the concert finally happened last night. I have gotten my chance to see Kiss a third and final time.
Despite Peter and Ace not being there, it could not be called a tribute act. Eric Singer is a far better drummer than Criss ever was, and Tommy Thalyer is not only a great guitarist, but his choreography with Gene Simmons onstage is reminiscent of Gene and Ace in the old days.
But then, they have had a very long time with the band, both in makeup and not, and when in makeup, they do look much as what Peter Criss and Ace Frehley did.
Mind you, getting Eric Singer to sit in front of a grand piano and sing Beth to the crowd towards the end of the night probably would cause Peter Criss to wince – he sort of wrote that song after all, and he was very proud of it (I had read all four autobiographies so I should know). But I enjoyed hearing it. And then Shandi, as the penultimate song for evening, was quite poignant, given the band is winding down after so many decades.
Even Rock n’ Roll Gods are not immortal, much as they might seem in their masks as they breath fire. They too grow old.
And so as St Paul wrote (I Corinthians 13:11-12):
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And so it is for us now, a time to say farewell to Kiss, and to pack away those fond childhood memories of KissMania.
As a patriotic and civically minded Australian citizen, tonight I am incandescent with rage. I expect that my anger is shared by many of my fellow citizens. Therefore please excuse me if I launch into uncharacteristically ad hominem attacks in this post.
The news that in his recently ended term, our then Prime Minister Scott ‘Scummo’ Morrison secretly arranged to have himself commissioned as a portfolio minister for roles held by five of his senior cabinet ministers (four without their knowledge) fills me with great disgust.
This secretive conduct betrays not only the conventions of the Westminster system of government, but undermines our democracy.
Let’s start with a long standing joke to illustrate my point. During the Abbott Prime Ministership, his autocratic and highly unpopular Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin, was allowed to sit in on Cabinet meetings, a violation of the convention that only cabinet ministers (elected representatives of the people rather than their hirelings) should make the decisions on how the nation is governed.
This was a very unpopular move, and contributed greatly to the fall of Abbott in a leadership spill after just under 2 years.
I have read jokes which state quite confidently that Peta Credlin was Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015.
But let’s now look at what is in the Australian Constitution and what Morrison’s violation of Westminster conventions, when put together, could mean in relation to this joke.
Section 64 of the Australian Constitution requires that no Minister of State can hold office for no more than 3 months without sitting in either of the Houses of Parliament. In early 1968, when John Gorton was first commissioned as Prime Minister, he briefly, after resigning from the Senate in order to contest the lower house seat of Higgins in a by-election, did not hold a seat in Parliament.
Now imagine, if, as is legally possible under Section 64, that Tony Abbott had secretly arranged for Peta Credlin to be commissioned to hold the office of Prime Minister in tandem with himself.
Of course there would be outrage.
What Scott Morrison did, behind the backs of his cabinet colleagues and the public, in secretly enabling himself to serve as Treasurer, and in four other senior ministries which were not vacant, was a serious affront to our democracy.
People who know me well will know that I have long disliked Morrison. His penchant for retrospective legislation from his early days as a minister, combined with his tendency for highly ruthless behind the scenes machinations, and his technocratic contempt for the Rule of Law, normal democratic conventions, and his own rank and file party members alike, showed him unfit to be a leader in an Anglophonic democracy.
Long ago, I observed that he was better suited to a ministerial post in a third world dictatorship (and not the actual position of dictator).
Now we see how awful he really was. He not only was totally consumed by the pursuit of power and desire to win at all costs, but he was a sneak who did not even confide in his colleagues, but sought to undermine them utterly.
‘Scummo’ is too kind a nickname for him. ‘Gollum’ is far more apt (apologies to the Tolkien Estate for any copyright infringements).
On my way to the bus stop this morning saw this huge swarm of cockatoos around this power pole. I stopped to look more closely as cockatoos clustering like so without a food source nearby is unusual for them.
And then I saw it – a dead possum hanging by its tail.
I didn’t think cockatoos were carnivorous.
Be afraid friends, be very afraid.
Matthew Guy, the state opposition leader, showed us this past week just how unappealing he is as an alternative premier, and that he is unable to learn from his past mistakes.
I am talking of course, about the scandal which enveloped his Chief of Staff, PR Guru Mitch Catlin, who was discovered to have tried to strong arm a billionaire Liberal Party donor into making secret payments to Catlin’s PR company to supplement his Chief of Staff salary.
A witch hunt is now underway to find who it was who leaked this disgraceful attempted arrangement to The Age. Apparently Catlin had no shortage of enemies who would have been able to gain access to this information and who had the motive to use it against him.
Whilst the Liberal Party insider dirt blog, Real Freedom News, appears to have been offline now for about two months, I did read it avidly when it was still running. Mitch Catlin featured prominently in recent months, where accusations were raised of his unhealthy degree of influence within the Victorian Liberal Party, to the point where he seemed to be one of the most powerful figures, despite only being a hired servant of the opposition leader.
Now all that might and power is gone. Mitch Catlin is, to all intents and purposes, a pariah within Liberal circles and he well deserves to be.
He can go back to swilling champagne with his PR clients at Spring Racing Carnival.
But what we are left with is Matthew Guy, the thrice discredited opposition leader.
It is very clear that he was well aware of Mitch Catlin’s attempt to boost his income by strong arming a billionaire donor (I wonder who actually thinks that some moron can actually strong arm any billionaire? They are giga-rich for a reason, and being weak and spineless is not part of the job description.) and did nothing to prevent it.
This is damaging to Matthew Guy for three reasons.
The first is that it casts a very dark cloud over his own integrity. He knew about Catlin’s stunt, and did nothing to stop it.
The second is that trying to get ‘donations’ inappropriately from a wealthy donor not only damages the chances of getting further donations legitimately from that donor, but causes other donors and party supporters to question the motives of Guy and his staff. How else and when else are they trying to line their own pockets?
The third is that it shows Matthew Guy, yet again, to be weak and spineless. As planning minister, he allowed himself to be led into making some very ill considered planning decisions on Fisherman’s Bend and Phillip Island which cast doubts on his integrity. Five years ago, in his first stint as opposition leader, he allowed some chancer recently active in the Liberal Party to take him to a lobster lunch with some new potential donors who turned out to be alleged mobsters. I am not saying that Guy is necessarily bad, just that he is so weak and insecure that he is easily led astray by alpha males who bully him into doing their own bidding rather than what is right.
The state election is three and a half months away. Victorians deserve a better choice as alternative premier than someone whom I have previously described as a hypocrite, a cad, and a blackguard.
I definitely stand by my opinion of Matthew Guy.
Lost For Words!