Uh oh.
This could reinflame the old Sydney/Melbourne rivilary. As if it’s ever been… un-inflamed
This morning’s paper, the, haha, Sydney Morning Herald, features an article rejecting a “call” for more Melbourne style “hole in the wall” bars in Sydney…
According to John Thorpe, the NSW president of the Australian Hotels Association:
Melbourne - a land of skivvy-wearing, chardonnay-drinking book readers - is fundamentally different from Sydney in its drinking culture.
Hehe!
I’m not entirely against the “proposal” though… as I mentioned a few days ago, you can’t simply go to a (licensed) cafe in Sydney and only have a glass of wine, or a beer, without needing to order food as well. Things could be improved.
But back to Mr Thorpe:
“We aren’t barbarians, but we don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book.”
Hell no! I want to sink VB and perve at girls when I go to bars!
Actually I have nothing against Melbourne. Aside from having family there, I think it’s a great city, and certainly designed with far more vision than Sydney was. If you don’t believe me, take a tram ride along St. Kilda Road, into Melbourne’s CBD, and you’ll see what I mean.
I’m a Sydneysider though. Sydney can be what you make it, and that’s what I like about the place.
I love strutting around town, going in and out of bars, in either my black suit ala Max Mayer, or t-shirt and jeans, and never feeling out of place in either outfit.
I’m still enjoying John Thorpe though:
“People can sit down, talk about history, chew the fat and gaze into each others eyes and all this sort of baloney but it’s pie in the sky stuff,” he said. “That’s not what Sydney wants.”
Mind you, I don’t mind some of the eye gazing stuff. From time to time.
Sydney has a certain advantage over Melbourne though, according to Mr Thorpe:
“There’s a lot more entertainment than sitting there chatting. I think our culture is a little different than Melbourne because they haven’t got this magnificent harbour and the Opera House. No wonder they want to sit in a hole in the wall,” he said.
Well I have a view of Randwick racecourse, and have just put a bottle of chardonnay in the fridge to chill for later. D’oh!
At a bar you perve at girls? In the States perving a girl is kinda yucky……..does it mean the same thing in Australia, a kind of picturing the girl nekked and engaged in sex with you?
I am no longer a girl but when I was I avoided dudes like you. (wink)
“To perve” in Australia is probably more like to “look at”. Everyone perves here. I was more trying to conform to John Thorpe’s “ideal” of a Sydney bar fly though :)
Great post. I won’t enter the debate being from Brisbane and currently living in Canberra.
Hey Janice, in Oz the girls also perve on the guys. It’s just checking them out in a nice way. Kinda like window shopping.
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We have a similar cultural divide/brawl in the north between Townsville and Cairns. I don’t wish to appear biased but gee, you can’t beat sipping a coldie on the beach (in the shade of the palms of course).
Here via the Carnival of Australia.