Blogger offers visual editing

Hallelujah, Blogger provides a point-and-click editing environment. All this time I've been tweaking the code manually under the Edit HTML tab, never noticing the Compose tab in the main editing window. Click Compose to enter point-and-click mode. Sometimes I feel like I'm beyond blond ;-)

New diet plan

Every day I don't use the $2 snack box at work, $2 goes into an envelope.

If there's $10 in the envelope at the end of the week, I can buy a $10 CD at Rock Bottom Music, Dirt Cheap CDs or Red Eye Records' second-hand outlet, all of which are near my work in Pitt St.

If there's less than $10 in the envelope at the end of the week, I return to square one.

The rest of the plan is:

• Continue to walk almost everywhere


• Have at least two booze-free nights per week


• If a meal is large enough to provide left-overs, put the left-overs in the fridge before sitting to eat, rather than eating as much as I can and then saving the rest

Three cheers for RPA

When I gave birth to my beautiful son, Asher, a fortnight ago I became a card-carrying member of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital fanclub and here's why.

During my pregnancy I'd made few visits to RPA, having most checkups with my GP, the fabulous Glennis Godfrey of Abercrombie Medical Centre fame (a Chippo institution in herself after many, many years servicing our community). Even so, I'd formed the opinion that RPA was overly bureaucratic after wasting hours waiting for an "appointment" (a misnomer it seems). After an hour, a registrar would take my blood pressure and listen to the baby's heartbeat, pronounce all's well and see me out. My impression of the hospital took a further nosedive when, at 38 weeks, I discovered that my plan to deliver in their birth centre would not be realised, thanks to some further bureaucratic stuff-up.

So, on the evening of August 13th I entered the labour ward with some trepidation. I'd stayed at home all day during the slow build-up to labour and somewhat reluctantly made the trip at 7.30 that night. From the beginning, the midwifes treated me with respect and kindness. When it turned out Asher had the cord around his neck, the midwifes called for obstetric back-up but no one pushed the panic button. Their gentle reassurance and their calm under pressure got me to the finishing line without any intervention or real sense of the danger our baby might have been in. I'm certain if they'd overreacted I'd have found it impossible to focus on the job ahead and would have ended up with a more complicated delivery. For that I am eternally grateful. Ten minutes after the delivery, baby pronounced fine and reunited with me, this time more comfortably nestled outside my body, I was discussing literature with the obstetrician. Four days later, after being well-cared for by the "upstairs" midwifery staff, I was home again.

Imagine the life of a midwife, if you will. Wake up, shower, breakfast, drop the kids at school, stop for petrol, get to work, help a few women create new life, handle potentially life-threatening situations and see people at their most vulnerable and least socially acceptable, drive home. We mothers owe you such a huge debt. And to RPA, your midwives and doctors are a credit to you. Keep them happy and you'll continue to exist in a league of your own.

So, that's why I'm now part of the huge RPA fanclub.

Kent Brewery site

Interesting City of Sydney meeting this morning about the Kent Brewery site.

The City of Sydney is able to adjust height restrictions for part of the site in exchange for the developer providing community facilities both within the site (such as parkland) and beyond (such as a pedestrian crossing at the corner of City Road and Myrtle Street).

The first step is to establish the framework for any future development. Then the owner will put the site on the market.

The sheer complexity of the process is overwhelming, because there are so many factors to consider and so many parties to the decision. Undoubtedly the pros will outweigh the cons. However, the pros and cons may not be distributed evenly, and residents who are overshadowed by high-rise towers for example will experience cons that outweigh the pros.

Bourke Street Bakery

The magnificent Bourke Street Bakery has opened an outlet on Broadway. But the hours of business are Monday to Thursday! This will radically reduce the amount of bread I can buy from them. Surely there's a business case for opening on Saturday.

(This strange decision reminds of the nearby Broadway Hotel, which closes on Friday and Saturday nights, normally the booziest nights of the week.)

Plans for The Block

The Redfern-Waterloo Authority is not the only organisation with grand plans for the block. The Aboriginal Housing Corporation also has a striking vision of renewal, but with a commitment to retaining Aboriginal housing on the site.

Blue Murder

Of course, Blue Murder is about police corruption and extra-judicial killings in Sydney in the 1970s and 80s — not the changing face of Chippendale.

But for anyone who lives in the area, it's impossible to watch this classic Australian TV miniseries without paying particular attention to the hell-raising brawl in The Broadway Hotel or the execution of Warren Lanfranchi behind the former kindergarten where the Pine Street Creative Arts Centre now stands.

The DVD is available from Blockbuster in Broadway Shopping Centre.

Man with two blogs

Life in Chippendale is where my better half and I bang on about the neighbourhood in which we live.

Breakfast Bytes is where my colleagues and I talk marketing, communication and public relations. It's named after Hill & Knowlton's seminar series with the same title.

Taste Newtown

Hold the parmesan. And no, that's enough beer for now thanks. It's time, finally, to get back in shape. Taste Newtown to the rescue.

The Glebe

How strange that The Glebe is not distributed on our side of Broadway, especially as it covers current events in Chippendale such as the displacement of artist run exhibition spaces.

Working Harbour Coalition

The Working Harbour Coalition presents an interesting two-tier argument.

On the one hand they say we need a working harbour for environmental and economic reasons. On the other, they say if the wharves in Darling Harbour East are to go, it is essential that they be replaced with sufficient open space as well as continuous foreshore access.

This is presented as a "best case scenario" (keep the wharves) followed by the "next best thing" (public space), but I can't help wondering whether we'll see a split between those who favour industrial uses of our water and those with a lifestyle agenda.

This is pure speculation on my part, of course.

Are mothers women too?

I am in the market for a new gym. About to shed the baby (literally any day now), I'll be more than ready to shed those baby kilos soon. As we live in Chippendale, Fernwood Gym at Broadway seemed a natural choice. Designed to meet the specific fitness needs of women, with the articulated purpose: "to empower women to shine".

Bring it on baby! Yeah! Just don't expect to bring your baby along.

You see, I wrongly assumed that Fernwood's mission would encapsulate the needs of all women. All shapes, all ages, all lifestyles. All stages of life. Right?

Wrong. It seems that Fernwood, Broadway, has decided not to tailor its services to that sizeable proportion of women who procreate. They don't provide child minding.

Can this really be the same gym that claims to have "developed around the specific needs of women". While I appreciate that not all women have children, it doesn't seem too large a leap to expect a women's-only gym to presume that at least some of its members will have pre-school aged children.

So I visited the Fernwood website and found that they "take the best of care of your children so that you can enjoy your time with us". Fine print advises that not all services are available at all sites.

Why not? C'mon Fernwood, surely your members can expect to receive the same goods/services regardless of which franchise they visit.

Any feedback on gyms which do cater for mums most welcome.

Sydney's garage rock scene

No, Sydney's garage rock scene didn't die with The Oxford Funhouse. It's alive and well at The I-94 Bar.

Congestion and Connection in Sydney

A couple of weeks back I was fortunate enough to attend a conference called Congestion and Connection which was all about planning smarter, more sustainable cities. Not being part of the urban planning/sustainability sub-culture, I found it a fascinating insight into the world inhabited by such folk. The intersections extend from health promotion to economics, public policy, environmentalism and urban planning, making this one dynamic, complex and contested place to be for a day.

We heard from academics and social analystis from here and OS, sharing the good, the bad and the ugly in urban design and planning. Like the city in South Korea which built a freeway over its main river and then, realising this was lunacy, unbuilt it. Or Vancouver, a showcase sustainable city it seems, whose residents have been able to drastically reduce their dependence on cars by being able to work close to where they live (in various decentralised business centres connected by road corridors) and serviced by the full gamut of social services within walking distance of residential areas. From here to the travesty that is North West Sydney, where people drive from one McMansion cul-de-sac to another in their 4-wheel drives and have no community services (or community, for that matter) within sight.

The Herald's recent Campaign for Sydney received praised from many speakers, as did the state government's enormous financial commitment to the "super rail" that will link the south west and north west sectors, and hopefully provide some relief to the isolation and subsequent social issues that poor urban planning have caused.

The highlight for me was hearing Julian Disney, former head of ACOSS, talk about the housing 'bubble" in Sydney and the social and demographic implications of our love affair with real estate. It was a duly sobering picture of rising rents, especially at the lower end of the market, rising household debt due to the high percentage of income gobbled up by mortgages (we lead most of the world in this) and the threat all this poses to individuals and the broader economy. House prices doubled relative to household income over the last ten years in Australia, with Sydney leading the charge. People will keep putting off having kids, kids won't leave home until their 30s and won't be able to afford to buy property and grandparents will move in with their kids to help out with the mortgage. Not to mention higher homelessness, stress and proportion of time spent travelling to work. Major social changes ahead.

All in all, this event was thought-provoking and inspiring. I left feeling that much could be done, and was being done, in pockets across Sydney. That, with sustained commitment from government, we really could turn things around and make this a more sustainable, healthy city.

Sadly, in the days following this terrific event, Carr announced the desalination plant destined for Kurnell. The kind of short-term, politically expedient answer that masquerades as a solution. We can only hope that, with the change of leadership, this little idea is put to bed once and for all.

Testing Ecto

This blog entry is nothing more than a test to see if Ecto is as easy to use as they say.

Who knows, we may end up recommending it to a client.

Chippendale in Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that's written by its readers, has this to say about Chippendale. Yes, dear reader, that's an invitation to start writing. (Or, if you get there and discover that all of a sudden a lot has been written, that's proof that this invitation to start writing actually worked.)

Model of Sydney

Next time you're at Circular Quay, check out Customs House — you can view a model of Sydney through the glass floor in its foyer.

Oh, and the new library is in Customs House too — but I'm still waiting for the CUB redevelopment, which was meant to include a much-needed library for Chippendale.