Happy Saturday!

Five for Friday no.36

Great article: Do more, apologise less -how bitches get ahead in business. 

In a similar vein: best and worst places to be a woman. I've been meaning to post this one for months because I think it's a really interesting overlook or insight into what it's like to be a woman in different corners of the globe. 

Best job ad I've ever seen.
 

World's oldest supermodel at age 85 walks at NYFW. Just look at those cheek bones...

The latest Melbourne-based accessories label: boxcarorange. Making interesting, edgy pieces that are actually...affordable!

Happy Roald Dahl Day!

I was a big reader as a child – I still am, in fact – and Roald Dahl was and remains one of my favourite childhood authors.

His books have a delicious darkness to them that was lacking from the work of so many other great children’s writers. I couldn’t read witches before going to bed because I wouldn’t sleep from the fright.

His was a children’s author and a dark writer. Along with the utter delight of likable wallpaper and the marvel of George’s medicine, the magic in Matilda’s eyes and the BFG’s bottled dreams, he wrote about dark evil deeds done by mean and horrible people.

Mrs Trunchbull (Matilda), the Twits, Boggis Bunce and Bean (Fantastic Mr Fox) must rank as some of the most vile characters in literature. That’s without considering the head witch in The Witches. *shudder

I also adored his two biographies – Boy and Going Solo. If you overlooked these books when you were younger, they are must reads, so get them out of the library sometime.

All of this Roald Dahl cannon stills sits on my bookshelf today; spines cracked, pages yellows, thumbed and smudged and much-loved. A few years ago I was gifted a collection of his short stories – five books worth, hundreds of stories and not one of them suitable for children. Even now some of them give me the creeps.

So today is a day to celebrate this wonderful writer who delighted and continues to delight children young and old with his imagination and potent story-telling.

Happy Roald Dahl Day.

September project day 7: Posto

Posto espresso is tucked away on the part of Boundary Street only locals tend to visit. Sandwiched between a Pizza Capers and a florist, it’s in a little run of shops just past the Boundary Street / Vulture Street intersection.

Inside it’s a perfectly nice if tiny cafe - art, comfy seats, there were quite a few tables occupied so it's clearly a favourite amongst locals. I got to read Animalia by Graeme Base while I was waiting which was a huge bonus as far as I was concerned. I’d forgotten how good that book was!

My take away soy latte was really hot (good thing) but a little too bitter (bad thing). It needed a sugar to make it more drinkable (meh thing – that’s normal unless the coffee is amazing) and tasted strong (good thing, I slept really badly last night). 

There is a small menu that looked pretty standard café fare but having seen so many similar menus in the last 2 weeks, I felt it was a dollar or two more expensive than it needed to be. But it could be scrumptious and well worth the cost.

Reading material: excellent

Attitude of the baristas: great

Regular soy latte: $4.00 - $3.50 for coffee, extra 50c for soy

Coffee: pretty good, really.

Lego men by the door: kind of wanted to nick them

Book review: My Hundred Lovers by Susan Johnson

I’m not sure what I was expecting of My Hundred Lovers. Some salacious, juicy tales and a few life lessons in love perhaps. However, My Hundred Lovers is so much more than that and as a result, is a delight of a book.

My Hundred Lovers is an erotic journey. I don’t mean just the sensuality of flesh on flesh, but the eroticism of sensation. The taste of wine on the tongue, the feel of soft mud between your toes, the kiss of the ocean on the skin. All of them stimulating and sensual, sensations that you delight in and yearn for when they’ve been and gone. Feelings such as this are of the sort everyone can relate to, even if we don’t recognise them in the way that Johnson describes. Some of her ‘loves’ reminded me a little of the start of the film Amelie and the character descriptions that include loves and hates, like the feeling of dipping your hand into a sack of dried legumes. I do enjoy that sensation myself, as I enjoy exquisitely fine dark chocolates and the feeling of freshly clean skin. If I were to write of my hundred lovers, those are the sorts of sensations I might include.

Susan Johnson’s poetic language took me a little by surprise and to be honest, rather put me off to start with. I’m not a natural born romantic and the one time in my life I was asked to write a love letter – in an airport as we were about to part after a romantic getaway together – I floundered completely.  That may have been the bad timing. Nevertheless, sentences such as 'Everything is coming together: the past, the future, memory, forgetting. A circumstantial joining, a burst, a throb.' threw me a little. However, as Johnson drifts into less metaphysical experiences, her language becomes more prosaic. 

My Hundred Lovers is a beautiful, sensual tour through the photo album of one woman’s memories. It was a delightful, easy read that tingles your mind to think about the erotic moments of your own life. I found I kept putting the book down at the end of chapters to contemplate what Johnson had written and think about similar experiences I might have had. In this way, it is not only a visit to one women’s sensual life journey, but an invitation to look back on your own life and smile at all the pleasurable moments you have enjoyed.

I hate to bring this up as a comparison, but to all my girlfriends who have read 50 Shades of Grey – pick this book up instead. Here is genuine erotica at its subtle suggestive best.

September project day 6: Champ in South Bank

Today I was lucky enough to get a tour of the new ABC/QSO Building in South Bank. It’s a pretty wonderful building and the views from the offices and the radio room are just glorious, particularly on a sunny Brisbane day.

Afterwards, my companion and I decided to treat ourselves to lunch at Champ, the recently opened café on the building’s ground floor. Now, I’d been to Champ, or Champ Kitchen + Bar, on one previous occasion – before seeing the QSO perform Lord of the Rings. On that occasion I’d enjoyed both the wine and food but the food was ‘delicate’ read: insufficient. Fortunately the wine was nicely chilled and the pleasure of sitting on the terrace watching the street traffic sort of made up for it.

A delightful place to sit on a sunny Brisbane day.

I was expecting a similar experience today, until I saw some impressive looking fresh pies all laid out on the counter. Both I and my companion ordered the pie of the day – chicken and leak – with a mix of tomato, fennel and olive salad and pumpkin and rocket salad, washed down with a glass of Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc. When it arrived it looked delicious.

But it wasn't.

On cutting open the pie, imagine my disappointment when it promptly deflated to reveal that the ramekin was 1/3 full. I dislike these pastry-topped pies at the best of times, a pie should be encased in flaky pastry as far as I’m concerned, but to open one up and discover that not only have you been short-changed on the pastry, you’ve been short-changed on the filling as well is just plain insulting.

On the salads, the olives had a lot of pips, the pumpkin varied between delicious and stringy, a lot of my rocket was yellow and the fennel was cut much too thick and chunky for enjoyment. The best part of the meal were the fresh, ripe tomatoes. Even the pie filling needed a bit of salt or something to perk it up.

It pains me to say these things because I have never been disappointed by the owner’s other venture, Anouk in Paddington. You may have to wait for a table sometimes but every meal I’ve had there has been enjoyable and the coffee really hits the spot. I expected Champ to be a practical fine dining alternative but no. It wasn’t just the food. The coffee to round out the meal wasn’t all that bad but it did leave rather a nasty taste in the mouth.  Also, the service was patchy.

Champ will get most of its traffic from QPAC theatre goers and passing tourist trade, I suspect. Local business people will not, I imagine, be going back day-to-day unless the game’s picked up a bit. The only reason I’d go back is to enjoy a chilled glass of vino and watch life pass me by. Champ will be good for that.

Pie and salad: $11, the cheapest, heartiest lunch item on the menu.

Wine: $12 a glass and lovely.

Service: meh

Will I go back: There are too many other places around Grey Street for me to buy a delicious meal for me to return to Champ.

Coffee: no 

September project day 5: I get lazy

I was heavily involved in a hen’s night over the weekend and despite having had a pretty low-key Sunday to recover I still wasn’t feeling my normal perky morning self come Monday morning. So I got lazy and went to one of my usual coffee stops: Veneziano’s.

Veneziano endeavours to do all coffee-related activities. They have sandwiches and sweets, they roast their own beans, you can buy various coffee-making accessories, even get barista training. It’s a small chain with three cafes in different cities and coffee distributors throughout the country.

Coffee making accessories on sale.

It’s a pretty popular café but it never takes too long to get your order. I’ve never had a bad coffee there but it isn’t quite of the same quality of Blackstar or West End Café. That being said, it’s easier to park at Venezianos for your mid-morning caffeine run.

If you do make it to Venezianos, particularly in the summer months, I recommend the coffee frappes. They are extremely tasty, just the right balance of flavours and so refreshing. I get a shot of caramel in mine for sweetness, so it’s off the charts delicious.

 4 person coffee run

Cost of a regular soy latte: $4.00

Parking: challenging at times but I’ve never had to pay

Coffee frappes: excellent

Chances you’re going to have to wait behind 3 local business men: high