A little comic about Underwater Hockey I knocked up:
Tips for finding a rental property
Hunting for a house is a shit fight of post-apocalyptic proportions. The ultimate test of stamina and rat cunning, it pits you against hordes of affluent working professionals, career renters, young families and well-financed international students. The stakes are high but so are the rewards. The chance to call a place home for the next 12 months beckons. Only the strong, ruthless and well prepared will survive. Following a few simple rules will give you the edge you need.
1. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success
The process should start in front of a computer. Take your time trawling the online rental listings. Many hapless souls have underestimated the importance of this task but the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff will save untold hours spent traipsing from one inspection to another.
“143 Park Street, Carlton North. Just a hiccup away from great coffee.”
“19 Station Street, Fairfield. High on lifestyle, low on affordability.”
“3/75 Brighton Road, Richmond. Just a shallow fart from public toilets.”
Are examples of the listings that you’re likely to encounter. Making sense of a well-crafted byline is crucial. Knowing that ‘comfortable’ actually means ‘claustrophobic’ could save you a trip to West Coburg. Seeing a grainy bedroom photograph for the broom closet it really is will help you avoid a two-hour ride on a peak-hour tram.
2. Enjoy the little things
Once you have your shortlist finalised it’s time to hit the inspection trail. You’ll be zigzagging your way across the city so it’s best to block out your evenings and weekends from now until eternity. To break the monotony, try to savor the little things. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the hope and optimism rising in your tummy on the way to an inspection that has a good location, reasonable rent and photos of a nice looking courtyard. The place may well be your home for the next twelve months. You might have amazing times there. But remember to guard your heart. You must be ready to face a mass of prospective renters skulking about on the street fingering their iPhones. Keep your head up. Don’t let the steaming shit dropping from the sky crush your fragile spirit.
A disingenuous but impeccably dressed real estate agent will be along shortly. Grabbing the ‘Open for Inspection’ sign from the boot of their shiny new Beamer they will shepherd the hapless would be tenants’ through the over priced, under maintained property. People will walk through the house, often in pairs, discussing the pros and cons. Good sized BIR (Build In Robes) but not much light. It has a dishwasher but the stove and oven are electric. The courtyard would be great for barbeques except when a ten-carriage train rattles past. Joining the throng, you will see the people from last week’s inspections in Northcote and Abbotsford. A nod of acknowledgement costs you nothing.
3. Prostitute your suitability
Make sure to take your turn accosting the agent. Prostitute your suitability as a tenant. Kiss arse shamelessly. Improve your prospects. Things like,
“We currently rent with your agency. Ruth Andrews is our Property Manager. Do you know Ruth? Is it easy to transfer from one lease to another via the same agent?”
or
“My brother in-law is in real estate. Says it’s a great job, he really enjoys the diversity. How do you find it? When is the place available?”
can work nicely. Or, if you are felling audacious, you can try bluffing the agent:
“This place definitely isn’t our favourite. The carpets are a bit tacky and worn, aren’t they? The dishwasher is old and there is only space for one bike in the front courtyard. You must be struggling to lease it. I trust the landlord is open to reduced offers?”
4. People are all the same
Don’t be disheartened when you realise that each and every inspection is full of people exactly the same as you. Young, working professionals and students need to keep their finger on the pulse. Gotta be in the action, live where things are happening. North and South are discussed as if the Yarra is a post-war stockade separating people of opposing ideologies but you won’t see any difference between punters looking at cottages in Prahan and those sniffing around the terraces of Brunswick. They are all the same. They’re just competition, a bunch of scaly charlatans looking to snake you out of your rightful claim to a decent and affordable rental property.
5. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story
The only thing that will differentiate you from the bung-eyed hordes is your application. Pre-fill your forms. Fudge your rental history. Lie about your wage. Arrange bogus references. Fuck them all. It’s a jungle out there.
Is airport coffee hipsters’ kryptonite?
Taking an early morning flight means rising at 4am, minimum. At that unholy hour, sleep deprivation combined with airport lighting awakens a caffeine craving that rivals the walking dead’s appetite for human flesh. While airport coffee isn’t the most finely crafted drop it still satisfies a fundamental human requirement. We need it.
Every time I arrive back in Melbourne after a morning flight I inevitably find myself in one of the many shrines to caffeine snobbery that occupy the city’s graffiti lanes and old warehouses. Waiting for my order, I always look around and wonder what the fixed-wheel bicycle riding hipsters that surround me would make of the takeaway coffee I ordered from the Dreamy Donuts near Gate 23 just hours before.
I’m sure that the discussion about whether to order or not would raise any number of interesting questions. Where does International Roast actually fit in the single-origin versus boutique blend argument? Is coffee with milk superior to an extra strong decaf soy latte with a shot of vanilla? Does ordering black coffee rather than a Long Black undermine the cred established by skinny jeans an asymmetrical haircut? Is coffee that tastes like twice-burnt monkey excrement filtered through used dishwater actually any different to Kopi luwak? Would a single sip of airport coffee render someone completely incapable of riding a gearless bicycle? (I think we all know the answer to that question is a definite yes.)
Don’t get me wrong, I like good coffee but I am also more than willing to drink shit coffee. Perhaps that is where I’m going wrong. Maybe I if swapped my taste for cheap burnt coffee for tribal ink, highly sculpted facial hair and body piercings, I’d finally discover that ‘track suit pants are not welcome here’ attitude that everybody seems so keen on. I could do that but where would it leave me the next time me and my clapped out tracksuit pants stand in the harsh fluorescent glow of the domestic terminal at 5am? Tired and caffeine deficient. That’s where. Nobody wants that, least of all me.
Making sense of the purple haze
The heat makes everything so confusing. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology extended its palette range to include purple to deal with Australia’s current heat wave. Apparently, purple now represents the 50-52 degrees temperature range.
It’s hard to understand how adding a colour to some weather chart has caused such hysteria. After all, purple is a pre-existing colour by all accepted measures. It is a colour which, up until this point, has been considered a king among colours. If this is no longer true then how do you explain the team at McDonald’s letting Grimace hang around in its ‘restaurants’? It’s all too much.
I can’t just ditch purple at the drop of hat. I need time and space to process this new information. I need to get comfortable to process something of this enormity. I’ll think about it tonight, when I get home.
I’ll pick up some imported juice from the open refrigeration display case of the most convenient Coles or Safeway on the drive home. When I get there, I’ll print the Bureau of Meteorology picture that everyone is talking about. I have some nice premium bleached A4 card that will do nicely. Then I’ll get comfortable under the split system and turn on the TV (hopefully something informative like Today Tonight or A Current Affair is on). At that point, having eliminated all environmental and seasonal variables, I should be able to figure out this ‘climate change’ mumbo jumbo.
Note: I don’t need to worry about any of this as it turns out. Since I wrote the post the Bureau of Meteorology has backtracked and wiped purple off the map.
Adelaide, it’s a good place for cricket
I have always wanted to go to the Adelaide Test. A good mate from university used to make an annual pilgrimage with the boys from the Panton Hill Cricket Club. He would rave about long hot days spent drinking in the sun on the ground’s famous hill.
One of the few upsides of my recent move to Adelaide is that I have found myself living not far from the ground. Now that I only have to survive a short walk through the well-tended rose gardens and reversing Mercedes of North Adelaide’s leafy back streets I have no excuses.
There is no doubt that the Adelaide Oval is a good spot for cricket. The ground is the jewel in the Festival state’s crown. Nestled on the banks of the Torrens, just a long throw from the CBD, it cuts a pretty picture.
Adelaide occupies a prominent position in the Australian cricket landscape. The oval has played host to matches since the 1870s and has seen some of the most dramatic moments in Australian cricket. It was here, during the third Test of the 1932–33 Ashes series, that outrage over England’s use of the Bodyline strategy finally boiled over. The tactic created so much anger amongst the Australian public that Mike Brearley has speculated that the then English captain Jardine may have “won the Ashes, but nearly lost an Empire.” The game attracted 174,452 spectators, a record at the time.
Up until recently, the ground held around 34,000 spectators but with the current construction works, capacity must be around half that. It’s a shame I won’t get to see the ground in all of its splendor but the scene is still set for a cracking week of cricket.
Having rarely bowled a ball in anger I am nothing more than an armchair cricket punter. The extent of my cricketing knowledge is limited to listening to Kerry O’Keeffe, playing beach cricket and reading Confessions of a Thirteenth Man. Still, recent history has shown that the Adelaide Oval Curator, Damian Hough, tends to produce a bit of road. That, coupled with the batting performances of both sides in the first Test, means that there is a fair chance of a batting exhibition. It should give me plenty of time to brush up on my cricket parlance.
If nothing else, the cricket coming to town has meant that The Advertiser has dramatically reduced the space it can dedicate to its Kurt Tippett vilification campaign and for that I am glad. The weeklong battle of bat and ball is going to be great.
#qanda: Australia’s social media mecca
I write this from the smug afterglow of having seen my first tweet displayed on Q&A. My increasing infatuation with Twitter has led me to see the ABC’s current affairs panel discussion as Australia’s social media mecca. I am not alone, opinionated eccentrics engaging in a lively and live panel discussion moderated by the luminary presence of Tony Jones has captured the imagination of the Australian tweeting public. I, like many others, spend my Monday nights bombarding the Q&A hashtag (#qanda) with self-important and grossly uninformed witticisms. I was pretty chuffed to finally get one up.
Five years from now I will probably look back on this Twitter fancy with an embarrassment similar to that now experienced by the chatroom addicts of the late 1990s but for now I will continue my infatuation (and procrastination) with the little blue bird.
Twitter is lauded for providing unmediated access to breaking news in real time. One need look no further than the digital avalanche that has followed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to see this morbid phenomenon but the real time aspect of Twitter not what attracts me. I’m not somebody who needs their news right now. I don’t actually think there are many people who do. I can see the benefit for politicians, disaster response experts and M from MI6 but reading about something as it happens or a day or two later makes little difference to the everyday punter.
Twitter interests me because it allows serendipitous discovery of both the inconsequential and informative. I can follow a topic or comment down the rabbit hole into a virtual world of thematically interconnected articles and projects. It encourages reading on a broader range of topics from a wider range of sources. It also allows me to engage with likeminded people and participate in informed discussion. Like all social media platforms there is the narcissistic rubbish but if you can see your way through that then you can find gold on the other side. In some respects it is similar to skimming through a pile of newspapers and journals.
I still like to feel the ink on my fingertips but it is obvious that the news and journalism paradigm has fundamentally changed in the digital age. Much is being made of the rise of citizen journalism and the advent of social media has certainly changed print journalism as well as television news and current affairs programs. One-way communication is giving way to two-way engagement albeit on unequal terms. Here in Australia, the ABC and SBS have been some of the most innovative users of social media and multimedia to facilitate greater engagement with their audience. Like many other programs, Q&A displays tweets from the bleachers in the news ticker at the bottom of the screen but they also incorporate some of those tweets into the actual discussion. The Q&A format and its aspiration to demonstrate democracy in action, “where the audience asks the questions,” is particularly suited to this approach. They do it well enough for the #QandA hashtag to trend nationally and internationally throughout the broadcast. One broadcast during the 2011 federal election prompted more the 37,000 tweets. Many other news, current affairs and breakfast programs have incorporated similar approaches into their broadcast. It adds value in some cases but many programs do it poorly. Irrespective of the quality of its delivery, the trend to integrate social media into the television broadcasts means that interested citizens now have an unprecedented opportunity to engage and influence the news cycle.
The tweet that was featured on Q&A hardly fits into the category of citizen journalism; it merely reflected how impressed I was by Archie Roach and his contribution to the discussion. I was happy to have it profiled nevertheless. My delight is nerdy, frivolous and probably has something to do with Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps in the digital age this concept could and should be revised to encompass something about 140 characters of fame. That aside, the Q&A format and my use of Twitter provides me with a weekly opportunity to engage in informed discussion with some of Australia’s most pressing issues. I am glad that the ABC staff saw fit to take my tweet as a comment.
The power of the social media whinge
A decent whinge has always been an effective method to get your own way but some recent issues I had with a pair of Dunlop Volley’s shows that social media takes the reach and results of a whinge to a whole other level.
I recently posted a light-hearted, largely frivolousness piece outlining my disillusionment with the drastic drop in the quality of the Dunlop Volley. I also shared the link to the post on both Facebook and Twitter. The post itself wasn’t that widely read and didn’t generate that much comment so when my tweet resulted in a response from Pacific Brands I was quite surprised.
Dunlop Volleys work as well on the dance floor as they do in the bedroom. Or so I thought.
I’ve always thought that the Dunlop Volley worked as well on the dance floor as they did in the bedroom. It didn’t matter if you were seeing out a couple of sets of grass court tennis, busting a funk at an Italian disco party or laying roofing iron over open beams 30 foot in the air the Volley was the true all round shoe.
It’s not just me who has held this view. The experts have tended to agree. Roof contractors across the country wear the Volley. These are people who understand the importance of safety and comfort in a shoe. Evonne Goolagong wore a pair of Volleys to her famous victory at Wimbledon in 1971. ‘Edo’ Edmondson did the same at the 1976 Australian Open.
The A and B of Adelaide take-away
Responses to my recent move to Adelaide have varied greatly depending who I am speaking to. Variations of: “Adelaide?”, “Why would you do that to yourself?” and “How’s that working out for you?” seem to bob up on a regular basis. But if the enquirer is South Australian, aside from the disparaging remarks about Victoria it is surprising how often “Have you tried and an AB yet?” comes up. Continue reading “The A and B of Adelaide take-away”
Running Into A World Of Your Own
Drenched in sweat, I am blowing hard but steady. All I can hear is the sound of my own breathing mixed with the wind in my ears. I stare off into the middle distance with what is probably a stricken look on my face. I no longer look at people but past them. I was looking at people earlier. Looking to see what they were doing, what they were wearing, how they were traveling. But none of that matters now. All that matters now is how I am travelling. All that matters now is putting one foot in front of the other. Continue reading “Running Into A World Of Your Own”