Category Archive: AUSTRALIANIA
It’s Tiger Time
Glenelg v Adelaide, Glenelg Oval (ACH Group Stadium), 5 April 2019 There was a stiff but tricky breeze all night at the Bay but after half time, it scarcely mattered. The Tigers dominated the second half, kicking 11 goals to 4. Liam McBean announced himself as our new Colin Churchett / Fred Phillis / Robbie Walter / John Fidge by bagging 9 goals (the difference between the sides score-wise) but actually, all played well: a nice bounce-back from being robbed at Norwood the week before. Adelaide coach Heath Younie looked like a man walking to the guillotine at the end…
Continue Reading →Eurovision Australia 2019
[Eurovision Australian Heats, February 9, 2019.] Since Australia’s first Eurovision entry in 2015 Guy Sebastian’s “Tonight Again’, we have cheered Dami Im (second in 2016 (she was robbed)) and have cringed at Jessica Mauboy, notably referred to by ‘The Spectator’ magazine as a ‘vast caterwauling aboriginal‘. Finally we antipodeans have had the opportunity to vote (as if it hasn’t all been decided beforehand) on our entrant. The final, from the appropriately kitsch Gold Coast, Queensland, was shown on SBS and hosted by a chipper Joel Creasy (“trilingual” in English, Millenial and Drag-Queen) and an uncomfortable Myf Warhurst in unflattering hot pink. Each of the…
Continue Reading →So Long, Sisto
'Pellegrini's' with the Tribute to Sisto in the window
Melbourne, November 2018 It might be the first time a restaurateur got a State Funeral, but we won’t fuss because Sisto Malaspina, barista and bartender of Pellegrinis Bar, was a Bourke Street institution, who died needlessly after trying to render assistance to man who appeared to have been injured in a car wreck. The man, 30-year-old Somali-born Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, was an Islamo-nut who had deliberately wrecked the car and ignited gas bottles loaded in the back, after which he set about the street on foot with a knife. He stabbed Sisto to death, knifed two others, and then danced about…
Continue Reading →Carl Barron – “Drinking With a Fork”
Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 30 October 2018 A Queensland doppelganger for Paul Kelly, stand-up Carl Barron rapidly (almost obsessive-compulsively) circled the stage at a packed Ent. Cent last night, and his act went over a treat. We might have missed a reference to his titular joke, ‘Drinking with a fork,’ but then, The Varnished Culture was locked-out for 7 minutes with several other unfortunates, having queued at length for some overpriced Bundy-and-Coke (to fire-up for the Man from Longreach’s act) – thanks, Entertainment Centre! Nevertheless, Barron was true to form, and stayed mainly on script, with his usual array of observational and…
Continue Reading →Our Best (& Worst) Australian Films
"The Devil's Playground"
THE BEST DOZEN: OUR LIST Bliss (1985) (Directed by Ray Lawrence) [“After Harry Joy dropped dead… his life was never the same again.” Hell is real! Ray Lawrence creates a totally original rendering of the Peter Carey novel, as good as his next film (see below) is not, with evocative and surreal touches and a great turn by Barry Otto as fallen adman Harry Joy.] The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) (Directed by Peter Weir) [It gives “Mo-Town” a whole new meaning. No-one got this when it came out, a jet-black comedy of mythic, small-town, country-dark Australia.] The Castle (1997) (Directed by…
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