Be a tourist for an afternoon

There's a advantage to having a tourism district nearby — even though you are traveling from just down the road, you can visit it to feel like you're on holiday.

For that rustic "tea and scones" feel, you could catch the ferry to Tasmania. Or, you could hop on just about any bus that runs down Broadway and get off at Circular Quay, next to The Rocks.

Sitting in the courtyard behind Irish Design, we could have been in Salamanca Markets for all the gorgeous folksy atmosphere. Sure, it was only an afternoon out, but it felt like a holiday.

The Rocks Market was a pleasant surprise, too. Certainly not the tacky affair I was expecting.

Doggy daycare

For Dog's Sake is a new playgroup for pooches on Cleveland Street.

Chippendale from the air

Man oh man, check out this satellite photograph of Chippendale from Google Maps! Simply awesome.

It's been years since a new use for the web has taken my breath away. Thank you Google.

Striking photo

I've stopped and pondered this house myself while wandering through the neighbourhood.

Restaurant reviews

Eatability.com.au reviews restaurants in the area.

Architecture in Alexandria

"Biotecture" — the incorporation of living spaces into building design, with both human and environmental benefits — will soon become a reality in the south Sydney area, thanks to the Isar development in Alexandria.

Last week I met the husband of the architect, who explained that every apartment in the Isar development will have its own private garden, inspired by the roof-top spaces they had seen in Munich.

The walking city

Two side-effects of walking everywhere I can, including to work each day in the city:

• You quickly lose weight (though it's easy to put it back on with extra beer and cheese)


• Your feet can start to ache, especially if you must wear business shoes

On the latter issue, it's Florsheim to the rescue!

At the time of this posting, their website was just a holding page, so I can't look up the magic item and give you more details. However, the guy at Gowings where I bought them said their uppers were made of kangaroo leather, while the sole is labelled "Comfortech".

One thing's for sure: they're softer than a pair of old slippers.

New Urbanism

It turns out that good planning has a name: New Urbanism.

End of an Era

Badde Manors is a Glebe institution. I remember if from the heady 80s as a place where one could while away the afternoon under the comforting influence of soy chai and lentil burgers, deep in discussion about the relevance of queer theory to Hegel's dialectic. The magnetic pull of the familiar, where the menu remained the same and the decor wasn't subjected to fashionable facelifts, Badde Manors was a symbol of the bohemian goodness of Glebe. It was also run as a co-operative so the staff really did care if you came back.

That was all a long time ago. Badde Manors has certainly gone through it's share of stages. There were times when it earned its name too readily: manners bad by name and nature. The staff too preoccupied with being starving artistes to spare a smile. Or the time a booth collapsed under my friend's two year old, Ike, and the staff were far more disturbed by the noise he created than the bump on his head.

But the food was always reliably delicious and that soy chai; unbeatable.

I am sorry to inform you, reader, that those days have passed. Badde Manors has just undergone its most phenomenal transformation yet with a recent change in ownership. Gone are the familiar staff, ready with a joke (these days) and that predictably high quality fare.

The new staff, who don't know the menu and don't appear too eager to learn it, are more overseas student and Euro traveller than out-of-work acrobat. Tables are left dirty and cluttered long after patrons have departed. Ambient music replaced by MOR. But the biggest, the most devastating effect of the New Era has happened in the kitchen. The food is just plain terrible. My lentil pattie more closely resembled stew, my friend's pesto pasta was swimming in cream and the only roast vegetable living in another friend's bagel was (soggy) capsicum.

The piece de resistance? Weak, tepid soy chai.

Badde Manors of yore, come back! All is forgiven.

Sartor strikes again

Frank Sartor says the following in today's Sydney Morning Herald in support of his claim that "Recycling is a good strategy, but it will not solve Sydney's water problems":

Those who advocate mass recycling of more than 300 billion litres each year are either hopelessly misinformed or intend to put treated sewage into Sydney's drinking water. There is no market for this water. It is not a practical answer.

Frank, you know full well that prosperous cities around the world recycle drinking water. There is no reason to believe Australia's attitude to water recycling today is more rigid than was our attitude to, say, drink driving a decade ago. Attitudes are created through marketing, experience and debate, and right now you're doing everything you can to ingrain the attitude that recycling water is akin to drinking someone else's effluent.

This is one peeved Labor voter.

The Vanguard

The north end of Newtown has a new live music venue — The Vanguard — and it's like nothing else I've seen in Sydney.

For those who know Melbourne's live scene, the experience is like seeing music at Yarraville's Commercial Hotel, only a lot more elegant. Or think of Prahran's much-missed Continental, only much smaller and cosier.

For $72, we received a table for two with two main courses thrown in. Music was courtesy of a jazz outfit called Java Quartet. If we hadn't just been, we'd be definitely trying to find baby-sitting for July 5, when Ed Kuepper performs.

Hallelujah! Thanks to The Vanguard, classy food, smoke-free dining and first-grade roots music are just a few steps from Chippo.