Monday, December 12, 2011

Completely self-indulgent photos from my trip to Melbourne (because I can, that's why)

So I went to Melbourne on the weekend, and while I love my family dearly and couldn't live without them I would also be ok staying in Melbourne for ever and ever and never leaving. Ahem.

Anyway, I had such a lovely time. It was so good that I took a whole bunch of wanky hipstamatic photos and I would dearly love to share them with you. Will you indulge me a moment or two?

If you do not have a moment for such indulgences I thank you for joining me to this point and I wish you well for the rest of your day.

If you do have a moment, hurray. Let us revel in the awesomeness that is Melbourne together.

So, photo the first:


I think there's something in this for all of us. Yeah that's right, Melbourne's Environmental Management Team totally sucks. I took this photo around 8:30am Saturday morning; what kind of city leaves this sort of poetic detritus from the previous night's revelry lying around until that time of the morning? Sheesh.



This might be too small to see? The sign says, 'Captains of Industry: Gentleman's Outfitters and Cafe,' which I liked very much.




This shit is about coffee and ukuleles. Oooohhhh yeahhhhhh.



Gills Diner and The Commercial Bakery do the best of everything ever. You should go there.



Check out those cheeky tomatoes on the middle shelf. Poking their tongues out. I say.



Next suit I buy (following the next offer of employment I receive) I'm buying these cuff links for sure (unless I get a job at The Commercial Bakery, in which case I'm gonna get me some cheeky tomato cuff links).



So I went to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Mad Square exhibition. Firstly, I still can't figure out how it can be the 'national' gallery of Victoria, and secondly, which is sexier: the hairy arm-pitted woman in the banner or the man-in-the-checkered-shirt's arse?


This is the other side of the gallery entrance. As you can see I accidentally bumped the filter on hipstamatic so we somehow landed in Copenhagen in 1957. Who knew time travel was possible with a $1.99 app?



These teeny weeny chairs were on display in the gallery shop. I have a thing for tiny chairs; I only wish there was time to go into it now but fortunately not. This is a shit photo and I couldn't get it to work but the tiny chairs were magnificent.



This was lunch at the gallery. I'm embarrassed to say I wolfed it down (and I may have sculled the wine too). It was the tiny chairs what did it to me.



This is the nicest piece of street art I've seen anywhere ever.



The framing on this kills me but what's not to love about a sign for an ocular prosthetist? Nothing, that's what. (And wouldn't you love to meet Mr Russell?)



And so we come to one of the trip's golden highlights: beer, lemons and chips with Ramon, Melba and Mr E from The Site Formally Known As. You three characters bloody rock. I was very pleased to meet you.


Then surprise jazz gig! With crepes and sangria! Who knew crepes and sangria went together? Well they don't, so no-one I guess, but the jazz was good.


Post-jazz it was Salman Rushdie and tempranillo at the Punch Lane Wine Bar. Fark. By the end of the night we three were totally best friends.



At closing time Salman and I stumbled along Bourke Street past our favourite bookshop in Melbourne, The Paperback Bookshop, where we bought the seventh edition of the Sleepers Almanac because we both love and support new Australian writing. Go Sleepers. Go Salman.



Sunday morning brought this, before anything else.




After a decent amount of time, Sunday morning also brought this: a chappy playing a 'hang' (Dave this is for you).



Then I met some darling friends for lunch and we planned a book we hope Littlefox Press at Alice & Co. will publish for us. I love Littlefox Press almost as much as I love tempranillo and Salman Rushdie.

There was more of the trip after that but I have clearly reached my wanky hipstamatic photo quota so will stop here. The end.

16 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Do I detect that you like Melbourne a little? And that you had an amazing time? Which is/are both wonderful.
PS: I love little chairs as well. Not certain why as minitures more generally don't float my boat. Chairs and chaises longues are different though.

Kettle said...

Dear TEC it's only little chairs with me too! My idea of hell is an hour (even 10 minutes) at Cockington Green but give me a tiny chair and I'm all aquiver.

My tiny chair fetish started when my parents bought me a little deck chair (with blue and white striped canvas, imagine!) when we were in London when I was seven. I still think of it today, *sigh*.

How about your love for the mini chair?

Elephant's Child said...

A friend of my parents collected glass miniatures (see I can spell). She had dozens of them, but the only ones I liked were the chairs. There was even a miniature throne (royal) in ruby glass. From there I progressed to loving ALL miniature chairs.

Kettle said...

A ruby glass mini-throne? That's a perfect reason for starting a gentle mini chair obsession. I'm going to go do some image searching now--thanks for the idea.

Mad Cat Lady said...

for some reason this makes me think of the first time people took me out for drinking in Sydney and I vaguely remember staggering into a book store unable to speak clearly and trying to order a book, which they didn't take me seriously about, which was just as well cause it took me ages to find it again cause I couldn't remember what part of town we had gawn tippling in. Though I did eventually find it again and bought something to make up for my afflicting myself on them for, but what were they expecting being open at that time of the night anyway? It was a book by the guy that wrote the book about Cod: the biography of the fish that changed the world. Can't remember his name. I am going to have to go look it up now. (and I tried to order Salt which isn't quite as good as Cod but still good)

Mad Cat Lady said...

um ... i very much liked the little chairs too

Kettle said...

but what were they expecting being open at that time of the night anyway?

Exactly, dear MCL, my thoughts precisely on Bourke Street on Saturday night.

I think we may all have a little-chair thing going on here. I'm going to look into this!

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

It was rockin' to meet you as well, Kettle.

The Boy thought you were "a nice lady".

Kettle said...

Ah Ramon, The Boy is a clever young man indeed. My money's on Australua's youngest Prime Minister (he certainly was adept at extracting money from the Head of Finance).

A fine afternoon!

squib said...

fabulous pictures, love the dumped angel wings the most, hey what if they were real ones?

Kettle said...

I think they were, Squibby.

Unknown said...

They are all great photos, and not in the least bit wanky. I really heart the street art one (see what I did there with the "heart" and the rhyming and whatnot?!)

Kettle said...

Darling EMS, I love the "I heart you" street art too (and as you know it made it to FB before it made it to the blog). Next trip will be to Tassie! Hopefully for one of your craft fairs x

Anonymous said...

I can't say I've ever given too much thought to miniature chairs but now that you mention it ...

I fail to see how ukuleles have anything to do with coffee. Obviously, the fact that I neither drink coffee nor play the ukulele has made me ignorant.

When I first looked at the "Mad Square" banner, I thought it said iMad Square and concluded that Apple must be some sort of sponsor.

The street art is my favourite one, too.

Also, Kettle, this is rather urgent: Do you remember when you mentioned donating money to a particular fund for research into autism on TSFKA? Is there any chance you could give me the details of that particular fund that you think is doing the best work in that area? I want to have all my Christmas donations sent out by the end of the week.

Kettle said...

Alex hi, I hope this finds you well. Thanks for your offer to donate to the autism centre before Christmas, that's very kind. I couldn't impose on you but thanks very much for the offer. Cheers and all the best.

Anonymous said...

It's no imposition Kettle. Every year I put aside some money here and there and come Christmas I send it off to whatever charities take my fancy. I left a bit out this year, specifically for this.