I’ve become even more cynical about street art. Everything I see makes me suspicious. Is it art? Or just rubbish? I thought my visual palette was refreshed by seeing some different street art in London, but I have not seen anything new of exciting since returning to Melbourne.
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A door on a Greenwich street.
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Here’s further evidence that the standards of enforcement, disclosure and transparency regarding food hygiene standards in Victoria are hopelessly inadequate and out of date. In London, local government authorities close down suspect businesses and refuse to allow owners to reopen under different names. They post information on the windows of premises for the public to see. This business was the Saffron cafe (11A Sicilian Avenue, Holborn) and I saw this by coincidence. Why can’t we have this in Melbourne?…
One day I wandered around Covent Garden for some time before deciding to eat at Canela Portugese cafe. By that time the lunch rush was over but so too was the lunch special, which at £4.95 sells out quickly. Nonetheless everything looked so delicious I wanted to eat there, and so I chose the chorizo and vegetable slice with salad and a wonderful lemon and coconut cake. They make fine coffee too.
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I think this was on Napier St, but I’m not sure. I’ve seen several. Does anyone know the artist?
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Of the modern British restaurants I ate at in London, 32 Great Queen St seems to have received the most consistently positive reviews, although there is much difference of opinion about their practice of serving the wines listed by the glass in tumblers rather than in ‘proper’ wine glasses (if you order a bottle from the wine list you get wine glasses). I’m not convinced that the glass makes any difference, and await a genuine scientific examination of the issue.…
The former premises of Thomas Gannan at 239 Brunswick St were demolished while I was away, so it was a surprise to see work already beginning on the new building, which is for public housing.
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After a brief and horrid adventure into the Natural History Museum on a Sunday (full of chav breeders and their unsupervised shrieking replicants – hint: it’s not a wrestling creche, it’s a place to go where you learn things), I fled and found Daquise, a Polish restaurant in South Kensington. I quickly ordered some familiar sounding food (from visits to Court Jester and Borsch, Vodka and Tears) and a glass of what turned out to be an excellent house red – a French grenache syrah.…
The City of Yarra is developing its arts plans for the next five years. You can read more here. You have until 5 March 2010 to complete and return surveys aimed at community members, arts organisations and arts practitioners. If you have something to say about the arts in the City of Yarra, the time is now.
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