The Earl of Leicester Hotel
Nick Xenophon's Entrance is permanently locked
85 Leicester Street, Parkside, South Australia Confession. We at TVC frequent The Leicester. We know the Liar’s bar, the Liar’s Restaurant (complete with witness box), very, very well. There is also a cozy bistro and the pokies lounge . Monica and Ian (the hard-working publicans) & Co. greet us with their friendly, witty, knowing, slightly sardonic manner. You know they’ve seen it all, including a shotgun hold-up and patrons who have completed the Beer Challenge 10 times. But it is invariably a welcoming and refreshing haven. The famous, enormous ‘schnitties’ (Will you have yours with avocado and cheese? Or with bulls’ balls [sorry]?) – are,…
Continue Reading →Good Night, and Good Luck.
'How do we gas this up?" "We could get Dianne Reeves to sing a few tunes..."
(Dir. George Clooney) (2005) Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908 – 1957) knew he was on a winner, in the early 1950s. There was a cold war on. There were active attempts to infiltrate American government and security services by Soviet agents and fifth columnists. The only thing is, the junior Senator from Wisconsin couldn’t prove any of it, but he carried on as if he could, and would. A real problem was therefore lost in the fog of McCarthy’s bombast, bluster, dreamed-up lists of traitors, Senatorial kangaroo courts, and perversion of natural justice and the Constitution. Eventually, he was ‘censured’ (or…
Continue Reading →Winter is Coming
'Winter is Coming and I don't care...' (photo c/- Russian Presidential Press and Information Office)
(Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped) (by Garry Kasparov) When the Soviet Union finally bit the dust, and the new Russia elected itself a vodka-swilling party animal (Boris Yeltsin) as President, who could have foreseen that a mere few years later, an obscure KGB Lieutenant, a colourless unknown, would assume power, and rise to the status of absolute dictator after the style of that chap Hitler? Well this fellow, Garry Kasparov, did. He has suffered for it, certainly, but in the face of ignorance, cowardice and corruption, he is a valuable Cassandra to remind us what President…
Continue Reading →10 (or more) Songs We Hate
1 Always Take the Weather With You (Crowded House) – [dreary and nasty, almost hostile.] 2. Why Does it Always Rain on Me? (Travis) – [Why don’t you stop whining and buy a brolley?] 3 Born to be Alive (Patrick Hernandez – there is dispute in the TVC house about this one) [Ecch!] 4. Wonderful Christmastime (Paul McCartney) [Worst Xmas song ever.] 5. Happy (Pharrell Williams – there is a dispute here too) [L – unhappy] 6. All That She Wants (Ace of Base) [“she’s gone tomorrow” – why not today?] 7. I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston version) [a…
Continue Reading →Guillaume
Paddington, Sydney, January 2016 On a blustery evening when the Sydney streets had been washed as clean as the new year, TVC joined the well-heeled (and well-jacketed, well-hand-bagged, well-skirted and well-suited) at Guillaume in Darcy’s Building, This smart three-storey-terrace is set, rather incongruously, in an otherwise ordinary (if up-market) suburban street. Slightly odd too, is sitting in the elegant revamp of what feels as if it had once been someone’s living room. Slightly too minimalist for TVC but – hold the presses! this means that the tables are acres apart and it is all lovely and quiet. This is not a place for shrieking…
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