Real Estate Language: Lesson 1

Charming equals dirty and yellow, green or brown.








Next week: Retro equals prints of Native Indians.

I've cured the common cold

If you, like me, have been a tad under the weather recently with a snuffly nose, runny eyes and a sore head, you need sympathy and some help.

I can verily testify that the Vietnamese Chicken Soup at The Green Grocer (217 St Georges Road Fitzroy North) has cured my cold. It is described in the menu as a "a hot and sour soup of free range chicken Asian greens rice noodles shitake mushroom coriander lime and ginger." All this for $12 and they throw in some chilli as well.

A good dose of this and your nose will dry up, your head will miraculously clear and you'll be ready to up and do battle on one of Melbourne's various forms of overcrowded public transport with all the other miserable sneezing commuters, smug in the knowledge that you are now cured.

This place gets raves for its breakfast menu, but really it is all good - stock up your larder when you are there.

A few days ago I was sick and miserable. Now I'm skipping through the streets full of the joys of winter. It is a miracle.

Life is pretty good right now except I loathe my newsagent

Work is crazy busy, but I am healthy, The Man is good, my family is well and, letss face it, compared to those in Burma or Sudan I don't have a thing to complain about. However that is not to say that aren't things that trouble my mind from time to time. I don't get to blog and read others as often as I want to, my computer keeps crashing, I haven't read a book in weeks, I've lost my driver's licence renewal form, I have baskets of washed clothes sitting around my spare room which I really must try to put away and my larder is mostly empty. What is really perturbing me at the moment though is that I may have to give up my long held addiction to newsprint.

It may not be obvious but ask yourself this, which of these three things does not belong with the others:

*I read newspapers in the old fashioned paper-turning way.
*I have a small, mostly dehydrated, front garden which is only barely alive during our water restrictions.
*I also have a great man with whom I spend part of my weekends ahem...kissing and sleeping in with.

Apparently it is impossible to have all three in my life at the same time.

I have stuck with print newspapers for many a year now, long after others moved entirely into the digital realm. I suffered through the Age's excessive newsprint stage which led to small smudgy black fingerprints all around my home. I survived the gradual diminution of the lifestyle, entertainment and food sections. All this time I have loyally subscribed to the Age, and I have the Australian and the Fin delivered on weekends. I love nothing more than to sit back on the couch on a Saturday with pages and pages of newspaper reading ahead of me.

In days gone past I had a lovely newsagent who would carefully place the papers just inside my front gate. After a while he was replaced by an aggressive young lad who each morning at 6:00 would launch the papers from his bike to my front door causing a loud bang. As annoying as this might sound it usually served as my alarm clock and ensured I could read the papers before heading off to work.

Now I have a newsagent who drives past in his Volvo (!) every morning at about 8, well after I have left for work. He seems to take particular perverse delight in throwing the weekday papers from his car window and he aims not at my front door or pathway, but at the any bit of greenery left in my small plot. So far he has decapitated geraniums, crushed my lavender bush, sliced a succulent or ten and "pruned" my roses for me. Is it too much to ask that I can read the Age and keep my garden intact? Apparently it is. I have visiting him and asked him nicely to help me out and try to avoid this. He looked down at me over his bulbous nose, with a smug look on his swarthy red face and smirked "sure." Since then the garden destruction has really taken off and it now looks like a small cyclone has visited upon my long suffering plants.

On weekends the problem is different. As I am often staying with The Man I arrive home later in the day to find all the papers nicely lined up on my pathway in clear sight advertising to all and sundry that (a)I have spent the night elsewhere and am not home or (b) I am a can't get out of bed. Don't get me wrong – I don't much care if my neighbours think I am a slovenly slut but I don't really want to let all the local burglars know I'm out.

Apparently I can't change to another newsagent as Mr Volvo is the only person who covers my area. I fear my days of newsprint are behind me. I apologise to those newspaper journalists who fear that the move to online newspapers will cost them jobs. You can't say I didn't try.

Back in Batville (but planning my next trip)

How time flies – a whole month since I last posted. So I'm back in Melbourne, reasonably refreshed and considerably more penurious after my overseas extravagance. During my holiday I mostly stayed away from email and reminders from home, hence no travel blogging. (Besides which reading about Dr Haneef made me so angry I thought it best not to check out what was going on). I'm only just back but it all seems to be fading into the background now so I don't think I will depress myself and recount my fabulous times in detail.

Needless to say I had a lovely trip – The Man and I generally got on extremely well and we survived the whole driving/navigating together thing. I saw great art, magnificent scenery, breathtaking views and the odd historical building. I walked and walked until I had blisters, I read none of the books I took over, I swam in warm water and I only did a smidgen of shopping. I met interesting people, stupid people and travelled with delightful old friends and less delightful moody newer acquaintances. I spent money on great accommodation, expensive dinners and alcohol.

The nice thing about getting away is that it gives you time to think and get your priorities in order. Whilst I like to think of myself as a traveller I am often guilty of working too hard, obsessing over little things and not taking enough holidays. During my trip I have reflected on the following important and less important issues:

• I get bored with my job from time to time. That is OK and doesn't represent a career crisis. I will get less bored if I take some time out every so often. I will also get less bored if I have the confidence to challenge myself. I'll get that confidence if I take time to stick my little meerkat head up from my work and get some perspective more often.

• I have finally learnt to pack semi-lightly. I took a moderate suitcase, packed more clothes than I wore but still had room to fit in some shopping purchases. It has taken 30+ years but I no longer have to exceed the baggage allowance on Qantas.

• I need to take more holidays – that is, I need to take them more frequently and go to lots of different places. I should mentally wipe my headspace free of work and Australia (picture a mental Etch-a-Sketch here) by travelling overseas at least once every eighteen months.

• Melbourne food is wonderful. You can eat at plenty of mid-range restaurants and have meals that range from good to very good. You rarely get a dud meal. We also have some fabulous restaurants. The food here is fresh and the meals are not too processed, salty, sweet or huge. Not that I don't appreciate eating local cuisine in foreign countries, but some of it is just over-priced crap. I should appreciate Melbourne food more.

• Australia is not a very important country but we could be a great country and we have some fabulous people. John Howard is not one of them. We desperately need to get out of our "baby-bonus plasma-TV buying, racist fear-mongering, complacent mortgage holders battler lowest common denominator" culture and elect a politician who can actually lead the country and equip it to face the future.

• More than a few Qantas staff are up themselves and should take a bit more time to reflect on how they treat their customers.

• The Man is a very very good sort and whilst he is not the most expressive, romantic bloke in the world, he is genuine and reliable. He has shown me great care and ever so often he makes some gesture to make me happy that takes my breath away. I enjoy his sense of humour, his intelligence, his musings and I am never for a moment bored in his company. We are going well. I don’t know where it will end up, and I don't think he does either. That is just fine for the moment.

• Watching Kath & Kim on the Qantas flight home is destined to make one very depressed. It shouldn't be played on flights into Australia.

I am gradually sinking back into the routine of everyday living, although I fear I am still a tad jetlagged. This weekend I will get out and about in Melbourne this weekend to ensure that I am not beset by post-holiday ennui. Hope life is treating you well and I look forward to catching up on events in the blogosphere.

Yours restfully

Ms B

Uniqueness part one

I was thinking today about those things are unique to your city. By that I don't mean something that is merely unusual, or that can be imitated in other places. I'm talking about those experiences that are truly different.

For example, in Sydney it might be standing on Sydney Harbour at The Rocks and taking in the majesty of the Opera House, or catching that first view of the bridge lit up at night when the Manly ferry swings around. Alternatively it might be something more humble, like that somewhat sad lighted cube in Civic in Canberra that changes colour when you talk to it. I would bet you can't recreate that experience anywhere else in the world.

Here is my tentative pick for Melbourne:

1. Running your hand along the water wall at the NGV like a little kid.
2. The experience of having your AM radio reception (yes I'm a Newsradio junkie) cut off with weird hissing sounds when a tram goes past you.
3. The experience of being madly "dinged" by a tram driver who objects to you being on the tram tracks trying to do a right hand turn. (More disconcerting is the relatively new phenom en of the tram driver using their microphone to broadcast their disapproval to the whole street, causing everyone to turn around and look when they say "You in the blue Camry, in a hurry are we? Is that why you need to block this entire tram full of 60 people, just so you can turn right? Well get a move on love or get out of my way.")
4. The roar from the crowd at the MCG just after the singing of the national anthem at AFL finals.
5. Shaking your head at how the Sandridge Rail Bridge is a blight on the Yarra. I know we keep it because it was one of the first railway bridges to use steel girders but it is still a bloody eyesore.
6. Buying fruit from the sellers at the Victoria Market, and apologising for giving large notes to be met with that uniquely Australian-Greek accented response "Doesn't matter".
7. Seeing Paul Kelly sing Leaps and Bounds at the Prince of Wales.

More to come as they come to me.

Stickler alert - Why "devine"?

I have been hoping that I will not turn into one of those grumpy types who wanders around with a texta in order to correct spelling and grammar in public signage, and who hassles shop assistants about matters outside their control. To my shame, I think I might be.

Yesterday I happened to be in the Bourke Street mall and I wandered past the lovely windows at David Jones with all the nice new autumn/winter clothes. Normally I love DJ's. The staff are usually helpful, the refit of their ground floor beauty area is lovely and you can hide away their in an air conditioned and artificially lit cocoon and mentally spend away your entire year's pay on products that you would probably never apply.

Featured in the shop in large posters was the beautiful "god I would love to hate her but really I just want to look like her" Megan Gale as part of DJ's makeup/beauty booklet . Leaving aside that the booklet appears to be inspired by and directly rip off the Mecca Cosmetica catalogue, it is full of tempting ideas and Megan looks stunning. I would upload a photo of the front cover but Blogger is conspiring against me. You can check it out here.

Spot anything? Part of it reads "Devine Goddess Flawless Face Luminous Glow". "Devine Goddess" is the name used as a brand of cosmetics by Napoleon Perdis, this man:

Now, Napoleon here might be a OK sort of guy if you want your makeup applied by George Michael. Personally, I think he is likely to be a complete tosser. According to his website "The Napoleon Perdis philosophy is not dictated by fashion - it's about celebrating and empowering your natural beauty with products that have built-in educators and pro-tips." I'm not sure what the built-in educators are, but I'm pretty sure his eye shadows do not come equipped with a set of Encyclopedia Britannica.And they sure as hell don't come equipped with a dictionary. What is "devine" anyway? I googled this and apart from one entry that suggested "devine" meant "a beautiful woman" (methinks Napoleon wrote that), it ain't a word. It sure as hell isn't a word according to the OED.

What is wrong with the traditional spelling? What did the first "i" in "devine" do to offend Napoleon? Maybe Napoleon's clientele (those who attend the Perdis Academy and those who spend their life on the Vogue Australia forums) can't spell "divine"?

It might be alright for Napoleon and his built-in educated women to misspell words, but I expect more from DJ's. This made me quite irrationally grumpy. Luckily for DJ's I didn't deface their posters.

In my grumpy mood I wandered over to Jurlique when I was met by a snobby bitch attendant who peered down her nose at me as I was something that crawled out from underneath an Australis counter. "Ha!" I thought, "I can have some fun".Pulling myself to my full height I glanced over to her with my best "I want to spend money" face. She half smiled and asked me if she could answer any questions about Jurlique. "Ha!" I thought as I prepared to ask her about Jurlique's $3.4 million dollar fine for resale price maintenance. Then it occurred to me that it would be a bit like hitting a pigeon, she would blink wildly but no expression would register and she might flap away.

So I felt cruel and, as such, slunk back out into the daylight where my aversion to pretentious makeup retailers, wankers called Napoleon and spelling errors could be washed away by the daylight.

The makings of a great concert

Saw U2 last night and it was fantastic. They were great and seemed to enjoy themselves, the crowd were into it, the sound was good and even poor old maligned Telstra Dome more than lived up to the task.

So, what makes a U2 concert so great. How about this:

1. Appropriate local references. Unlike Kayne West with his hackneyed "Melbourne (pronounced "bourrrrnnne") is the best crowd ever", Bono got it just right. A verse about Melbourne and its suburbs in Beautiful Day and his imploring for the crowd from the "fashionable city" to dance got the right response. We even got a didgeridoo.



2. Respect for the audience. We were thanked for waiting for them after their March shows were postponed. The lucky audience members who made it on stage were treated with respect and good humour. Bono's political segments assume a level of intelligence and understanding from the audience and don't seem to be to be sermonising or posturing.



3. Respect for music. Their habit of inserting snippets of other songs Rock the Casbah, Highway to Hell and Sgt Peppers and the thank you to Joe Strummer marks U2 out as fellow music fans, just like their audience.



4. Great songs played well in a great set list. The pace was good. It never slowed down too much, but at the same time the pace varied allowing us to relax at times.



5. Some content. Bono's pleas for Africa, the prayer for our troops to return home safely and a prayer for the Bali bombing victims are political without being too divisive. Personally I wouldn't mind if he went further, but he knows not to alienate his audience and I guess the size of the audience is the thing that gives him the clout to meet with politicians. He comes across as eloquent and heartfelt and I think it adds enormously to the concert rather than being distracting.



6. Amazing audio-visuals. The first encore featured two songs from Achtung Baby and we had Zooroopa style visuals. I was so entranced with the messages during The Fly ("Reclaim your space it belongs to you", "The answer is love") that I had tears in my eyes.



7. Great fans. U2 fans in the General Admission area I was in were cheery and fun. When a pregnant woman near us got too hot, everyone cleared the way to make sure she got out and got some air. Complete strangers chatted together before the show and then sang together and smiled at each other across heads.



8. Thank yous to their team. Bono thanked Edge and his wife Morleigh (whose young daughter's leukemia was apparently the reason for the postponement) and the tour promoters Michael Coppell.



9. Grins. Even Larry Mullen Jnr was grinning. They were happy and enjoying themselves and it showed.

All in all a great night and one of the best concerts I've seen. An extra 500 tickets for tonight go on sale this morning ...hmmm, am tempted.

And yes, The Edge looked particularly fine. He was very bouncy and active, and his playing was great. I may have been the only person amongst 65,000 odd who finds him so sexy (ignoring the presence of his wife). Luckily I have another fine man to keep me distracted at the moment so I can get over my rock star crush.

Photos by matthias muehlbradt - see u2-vertigo-tour.com.

Hello Hello

Phew! Have been (and still am) frantically busy. I've been travelling in and out of Batville and generally doing too much so have neglected this poor little blog. Am now back in the blogosphere and looking forward to catching up on all those lovely posts out there. Will generally get back in the swing of things soon.

Hope life is treating you well, and that those in my vicinty have recovered from the hail and snow that afflicted our little city yesterday. Can you believe we are two weeks out from summer?

Only two sleeps till I see U2!

Picking up in a literary sense

I can verily report that Mr Tulk cafe at the State Library of Victoria does a very good breakfast. It also has nice big tables so you can spread out and read the paper or a novel at ease. The staff are lovely and the ambiance is great. It also has a very high proportion of seemingly intelligent and lovely men who sound like Gregory Peck.

In winter they all seemed to be wearing jeans and black turtlenecks and Ms Batville has always been partial to a black turtleneck. I feared that if I went back in summer they would have white legs sticking out of shorts festooned with big ugly Jesus sandals (and obviously footwear is a big thing for me at the moment). I am glad to report that my fears were unfounded and there was nary a sad sandal in site.

So girls (or boys) , if you want to check out the talent, head down to Mr Tulk, order the nice toast thing and see what I mean.

If you don't meet a nice man to have your coffee with, you can always go and sit in the La Trobe reading room, look up at the dome, open up a book and all will seem well with the world.

Ms Batville could single-handledly end the drought

What a day of accomplishment for Ms Batville. This time last week I was getting out of bed (for the second time - having retired back to bed after my initial effort of eating breakfast and reading the papers).

This morning I have already devoured the papers, walked around the Tan and done the supermarket shopping. Ms Batville is not a natural exerciser so this constituted my fifth ever walk around the Tan, and the second in three weeks. I was a slow time of 40 minutes all the way around, but I made it up the Anderson Street Hill in better form than last time. Sure small children passed me, but hey, it is a start.

The strange thing is that everytime I have walked the Tan it starts raining just as I near the end. And not just a drizzle, rather a full on genuine "we need rain like this" rain. The sort of rain you get when you decide to wash the curtains or rugs and leave them on the line to dry out.

From now on I will attempt to walk the Tan twice a week, to the point where I can actually run the damn thing. This will hopefully help me lose those pesky extra few kilos, and will be my one woman effort to help Victoria's farmers by ending the drought.

PS - If you were on the Tan this morn and saw someone walking along grinning inanely to themselves, that was me. Most unexpectedly Murray Head's "One night in Bangkok" popped up on my iPod, and I was amused to think how the hell it snuck on there.

Its hot isn't it

Bad things about very hot and windy days in Batville and the rest of Victoria in October:

• Body Odour on the tram;
• Body Odour in lifts;
• Girls wearing thongs with their suits in the city;
• Toenails in thongs with dodgy half-applied half-worn toenail polish;
• People saying "Its hot isn't it"
• Bushfires (already!);
• Further drought for farmers;
• Wind blowing sand from tram tracks into your eyes
• Increased likelihood of Stage 2 water restrictions;
• Coming home to a hot house;
• Finding out you haven't quite lost those pesky few kilos that you can cover up in your winter and autumn clothes.

Good things about very hot and windy days in Batville and the rest of Victoria in October:

• Having a cold beer when you get home from work.

Differences between Melbourne and Sydney

Now don't get me wrong - I like Sydney a lot and don't buy into the whole city-bashing rivalry thing. I don't choose to live there being more of a Batville girl myself, but I appreciate the city.

Interesting though the top news stories currently at The Age v The Sydney Morning Herald . The Age's most viewed story is Snaps show Mars rover on brink of discovery with nice photo of a crater photographed by NASA. The SMH's most popular story is entitled Bras keep abreast and tells a story about how Berlei have conducted a survey and discovering that Australian women's breasts are getting larger.

No Roulettes, but plenty of fun (but not if you are a Swans supporter)

Well the AFL Grand Final has come and gone. I am devasted to report that there was no Ms Batville viewing of the RAAF Roulettes which is so sad I have taken a whole week to recover. Almost as bad was that John Paul Young did not sing "Love is in the Air" instead choosing "Yesterday's Heroes" which was a very strange choice given he was sharing a stage with Brian Mannix.

Highlight of the pre-game entertainment was not Irene Cara although she tried hard, but rather Sean Kelly (Models) snarling his way through "I hear motion". I had a HUGE crush on that man in 1986 and it haunts me still. Why Wendy Matthews left him is beyond me. He still has that rock star charisma, unlike his fellow band-mate poor old James Freud who is looking a tad corpulent these days.

Commiserations for all those Sydney fans. A one point is a hard thing to stomach. Always sad to see the post-game heartbreak, it is usually the closest thing some Australian men come to letting out their emotions. Thanks anyway for pouring your tourist dollars into Melbourne when nursing your thoughts over a few beers.

It is that one day in September...

So it is Grand Final day in Melbourne and there is that fever in the air (which is as yet imperceptible to me as I haven't left the house). My day will start soon with a post-hangover breakfast somewhere where I don't have to be nice to anyone, followeed by a short period of "walking in the fresh air" recovery and then catching up with a friend who is borrowing stuff from me for a big GF BBQ. I'll drop into said BBQ for a short time and then onto the 'G. According to the AFL, the day will go something like this:

1. 10am TAC Cup Grand Final (Ms Batvillle care factor of -1)
2. 12.50am Red Berets parachute into MCG, delivering match-day footballs (Whatever)
3. 1pm Teams warm-up (Will be entering the ground about now)
4. 1.25pm Irene Cara performs What a Feeling (How embarrassing for her - bet she never thought her career would take her to this place)
5. 1.29pm Australian Idol finalists perform Waltzing Matilda (Love the song esp when performed at big public gatherings but not sure about Idol - personally would prefer Hugh Jackman, in tight pans, shirtless etc etc - you get the idea)
6. (Surely the RAAF Roulettes have to appear about now - I didn't pay $80 for a ticket to actually watch two non-Victorian clubs play if the Roulettes don't appear)
7. 1.36pm Motorcade of AFL greats, retirees and 2006 award winners as the Young Divas perform You’re the Inspiration (Song sounds awful but love this bit - clap on the old gents of yesterday and laugh as some recently retired bogans get a huge clap while they silently thank their club for paying out their sexual haharassment claims so they can start their landscaping business unencumbered)
8. 1.42pm Club songs performed by Melbourne Gospel Choir (Thank god we don't have to listen to that Port Power song this year - would slit my wrists)
9. 1.46pm Australian rock legends perform medley of hits (OMG - John Paul Young - YAH, YAH, YAH. Ms Batville will sing heartily along to Up there Cazaly to prove she is a real Victorian!)
10. 2.16pm Umpires enter the arena (Goldspink is umpiring - WTF?)
11. 2.27pm Australian rock legends perform Advance Australia Fair (Love this bit)
12. 2.28pm Coin toss
13. 2.30pm 2006 Toyota AFL Grand Final (Hope it is a good one - if not will nick off early and go back to the BBQ)

Hope your team wins and that you have a good one.

Ms Batville - slowly resuming normal transmission

Yah - my mojo seems to be returning. Not to the point where I actually accomplished much today but at least I seem to be able to contemplate achieving something tomorrow. The little black rain cloud has moved on. We're not quite in full sun yet, more like overcast with moments of sunniness.

So, in that vein a list of things that made Ms Batville happy today:

1. A postcard from a friend in Boston of a very elegant photo of Jackie circa 1962 - apparently he saw it and thought it resembled me - Wow.
2. Larry Mullen Jnr's treatment of autograph scalpers courtesy of Scatter - God I love U2.
3. Pulling up next to a wanker in a sportscar at lights a mere 200 metres after he tried to run me off the road doing some ridiculous speed. Even better - when the light changed, my little rust box took off and he ... stalled. Hah!
4. Buying some Green Tea perfume at Elizabeth Arden and getting quite a good GWP (Gift with Purchase)
5. Margaret Whitlam's comments about Janette Howard. Good old Margaret - bless her. My respect for Gough grows ever time I think about his choice of wife.
6. Knowing that tomorrow is end of the month at work, and despite my lethargy, my group will still have met our targets.
7. Having AFL Grand Final tickets. OK so I don't follow either team (but I am an AFL member so am justified in having a ticket) but I do love a good GF and I simply love love love the bit where the RAAF Roulettes swoop down over the 'G and scare the bejusus out of everyone. I also adore the way that the singing of our national anthem degenerates in the last four seconds amongst a very bloky chorus of "Go Swans/Go Weagles/Go Wirra/ Go Goodey etc".
8. Seeing that a few new people checked out my poor little neglected blog and stayed for more than 10 seconds - WOOHOO. So to them I say - come back - and - have a great weekend. May your team win the footy.

An insult to all Batvillians

I live in an inner Melbourne suburb. I am female. I work in the CBD. I am originally of pale Anglo-Celtic stock. Ergo I wear a lot of black.

There are three supermarkets in and around my suburb. Two of them stock "Dynamo Dark Clothes Wash" which is perfect for keeping the dark side suitably muted. The one nearest to me does not. Why? They are all the same chain. Arguably the one nearest to me is also the most edgy or is at least closest to both the student housing and the clothes shops . However, if I want to preserve my blackness I must traipse to one of the other supermarkets.

Why this local anti-black bias? It is an outrage

Question - If Melbourne was nearly called Batville (and Batmania) is it correct to call Melbournians "batvillians" or "batvilliagers"?