They Call Me Mr Carbohydrate, It's The Only Thing I Can Digest.

Yesterday whilst exploring the Williamstown area, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and also continue my search for the perfect chip. Without delving too deeply into my life's loves, it's fair to say that chips hold a special place within my heart. There are some hungers that can only be satiated with a pile of chips. Forget the pyramids, forgot the man on the moon, chips are humanity's greatest achievement. When I was in India several years ago, a friend of my father's said to me over dinner "Aloo is the king of the vegetables", and, to me, chips are its godly form. The chip is the educated, spiritually nourished potato. It is what all good potatoes aspire to be. Pomme de terre: apple of earth, the apple is Garden of Eden, the earth is Mother Nature, the accomplished potato is the chip, there is truly no other food with this much soul.

The perfect chip is one with a bit of crunch, but not one that is over-cooked to the point where the soft potato goodness on the inside has dispersed. Also, a good chip will maintain its crunch even when smothered in lemon juice (first preference) or WHITE vinegar (don't touch me you balsamic freaks). Salt is required as well. A good quality sea salt is a major enhancement to any chip.

Williamstown Mussels has a board out the front claiming that "many would say" it has the finest fish and chips in Melbourne. However, I had no interest in their seafood, there was only one thing on my mind as I entered the shop. I looked up at the menu to see that a minimum chips was $3. The portions in an average fish and chippery are much larger than a fast food chain and so I was positive that this would be enough. I ordered, paid the proprietor and threw the change back in my pocket without any thought. Several minutes later two packages came to the counter. "Two regular chips?" the lady said looking in my direction. I assumed that two regular was the minimum and thought nothing else of it. Before leaving the store I took a quick peak inside the packages to see whether they had provided me with any lemon wedges. Alas, they hadn't (despite having a large bowl of them sitting in the middle of the kitchen). Luckily at each table inside the shop was a bottle of white vinegar, so I quickly opened up the packaging and splashed the vinegar liberally over the chips. I headed outside and across the road to the park.

Once finding an appropriate bench to rest myself I was stuck by just how odd it was that they had provided me with two parcels. I thought that the portions in each one of them were reasonable and that for a minimum chips they had been mightily generous. I also pondered how I was going to get through them all. Having the stomach capacity of a malnourished 8 year old Somali girl at the best of times, it would be a significant effort just to get through the first one.


The chips were reasonable and nothing more. Many were lacking in crunch, some had become flaccid with the vinegar and the overall texture was far from spectacular. The salt used to enhance the flavour was cheap and lifeless. However, I gave them kudos for the amount of chips they were willing to provide for $3. I finished the majority of the first package and picked through the second looking for the best ones. The chips had failed to excite me and by this stage my attention had been captured by the old fashion confectioner across the road. I found an appropriate depository for the remainder and headed over towards the confectioner to see what other delectable treats I could find. On sale were some small jars of boiled sweets that I thought would make excellent gifts for the Ellis sisters. I reached into my pocket to pull out the change from the fish and chip shop only to notice that there was only $14 remaining from the $20 note I have given them. It seems they must have thought I'd asked for two minimum chips and that their portions weren't so generous after all.

Echoes In A Shallow Bay

Weekends are for exploring. Whenever I have some spare time on a weekend I like to choose a part of Melbourne I'm unfamiliar with and see what I can find. Obviously, public transport is the best way of making the trip. Public transport routes are the veins of a city. Its elemental components will always be found along (and on) them. Aside from this, an intimate knowledge of a city's public transport network is an essential aspect to one's survival. You never know when you will need to get a train, bus or tram outside the usual routes you use, and as my mother always says "it is better to be safe than sorry". So today I decided to get the train over to Williamstown.

Williamstown was one of the earliest European settlements around Melbourne and Nelson Place strip maintains a quaint Victorian era charm and several of the business are self-described as shoppes.


Unfortunately, it seems that attitudes in the area are of a similar vintage to the architecture.


Whilst strolling along Nelson Place, attempting to make my Welsh roots as inconspicuous as possible, I noticed a shipping tanker making its way out through the bay and decided to take a stroll down the pier to get a closer look. Back in my mid-teens my father organised for himself and I to jump a shipping tanker to Tasmania. One reason for this could have been that he was too cheap to pay for the airfares, but the more likely reason was that he thought the first hand experience of some real men at work might be a decent shot in the arm for my waning masculinity. It wasn't particularly successful, however it did begin a bit of a fascination with shipping tankers for me. For a long period in the late-nineties I was convinced that jumping a tanker was a serious option for escape from my then isolated existence. The months alone at sea wasn't too far removed from how I was living at the time, and the thought of all the exotic ports to dock had a certain romanticism to it. Of course, the soul destroying menial tasks and undoubtedly inedible food was never factored into the fantasy, but reality should never get in the way of youthful dreams.

Wrapped Up In Books (Reprise)

Reader's Feast is my favourite Melbourne bookstore. It may not have the cred of Brunswick Street Bookstore, or that little nook up the top of Bourke Street that I've forgotten the name of, or any other independent bookstore for that matter. But what it does have is a members' card that totals up your purchases every six months and gives you a gift voucher to the value of 10% of what you spent over that period. As well as that what it also has is the best linguistics section of any store in town, and it is this section that I find myself scurrying over towards almost every occasion I visit.


As I've spent a good deal of time in the section, what has become apparent to me of late is that David Crystal of the University of Bangor (North Wales) has become ridiculously prolific. It seems every 3 or 4 months he's got a new book on the shelves regarding some linguistic theory or language oddity. For those who don't know, David Crystal is sort of the John Peel of the English language - a bit of a doddering, slightly eccentric all-seeing-eye. Listeners to Radio National's Lingua Franca programme would be quite aware of him. Today, whilst perusing the shelves, I noticed his latest book By Hook Or By Crook: A Journey In Search Of English. The book is a bit of a travelogue of Crystal's as he fuffs around English speaking parts of the globe picking up on linguistic characteristics he finds striking. It's a book that has possibly been written many times before, however I doubt with such expertise, insight and quirk.

I tucked the book underneath my arm and headed across the store to the Fiction section. There was something I needed to investigate. A couple of months ago I received an email from Kat McLeod upon her having returned from a holiday in the United States of America. In this email she informed me that she had read a book on the flight from LA and that the main character had reminded her of me. The book was The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and so I googled its title in order to find out some more information about why she would think such a thing. What I found was this:

The story is written in the first-person narrative of Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old boy living in Swindon, Wiltshire in 1998, who is described as having Asperger syndrome, although the behaviour he displays throughout the novel suggests a more severe condition on the autistic spectrum.

Kat insisted that her comments were not intended to be offensive and that I should read the book myself. Just as I located the book and reached out to take it off the shelf I heard a stern voice behind me say "Excuse me, have you been taking photos of our shelves?", turning around I replied in a meek voice "Umm...yes", the lady then asked me why I would be doing such a thing? "Umm...well.. I have this blog, and I write stories about things I do, and sometimes I like to illustrate with photographs". "Oh, that's alright then", she said, "That's great!". Although apparently not great enough for her to ask for the address.
I turned back around, plucked The Curious Incident... from the shelf and began to read a few pages. As I did so I started to realise what Kat had meant and felt quite flattered, so flattered, in fact, that I decided I would purchase the book and read it in its entirety.

La Pastie De Les Dieux

Because of chips, potato is pretty hard to beat when it comes to judging which is the best vegetable. However, pumpkin comes pretty close. Roast it, fry it, throw it in a curry, do what you will with it, it is amazing. Near Justine's shop, Monk House Design, on Lygon St. up in East Brunswick there is a pâtisserie that makes pumpkin and cumin pasties.


It was several weeks ago that Justine informed me of this place and their astonishingly brilliant idea. So yesterday I went to go visit Justine and eat my second pumpkin and cumin pastie.

Stumble Then Rise On Some Awkward Morning

I do a lot of public transport. My trusty iPod is my sole companion, and while I tend to partake in a fair amount of shuffling of feet and mouthing of words, I long to express myself in a more uninhibited way. When I was in New York I purchased a dual headphone adapter. Kate Shum and I were attempting to organise to be on the same flight back to Melbourne from LA. I thought with this double adapter we'd be able to watch dvds or listen to music without disturbing the rest of the passengers. Unfortunately, Kate and I weren't able to get on the same flights and so the adapter was discarded to the bottom of my haversack and forgotten like a shithouse birthday present.
Last night I went to see the film Breach with Katy Stevens. This morning I awoke, had a shower and jumped the 109 into the city. Yesterday I created a playlist for my iPod of all my favourite upbeat numbers. The list is a real toe-tapper and I struggled to contain myself from singing along enthusiastically and shaking my sweet thang in front of my fellow commuters. As the tram moved up Victoria Parade I thought to myself that the thing that would loosen my inhibition would be if I had company. Now it is awfully rude to listen to music whilst in the presence of a friend, however if somehow both of you were able to listen to the same music that would not be rude at all. In fact, to my thinking, that could be quite fun. And so I thought about this double adapter, and I also thought about Katy Stevens. She has a (self-proclaimed) reputation as a dancing queen, and so the prospect that she might be sympathetic to some PT groovitude is not outside the realm of possibility.

The reason I was heading downtown was to have a few words with the good folk at the Centre of Adult Education (CAE). They had just released their second semester course guide and my interest in learning Swedish had been rekindled. Back in 2004 I studied Swedish at the CAE and it was in this class that I met and became inseparable from a young Alice Farmer (that was, however, until she kissed some 40-year old dad-rocker and I refused to speak to her for a month). What was also notable about this class was its teacher, Dr Mindy Mcleod. Dr Mindy's PhD is in Runology (the ancient alphabet of Germanic languages), and as well as teaching Swedish, she teachers German and French (Romance languages aren't beneath her). Aside from this she is a bubbly, pigtailed cutesy machine. Basically she is the greatest person to have ever lived, and Alice and I became obsessed with not only winning her praise, but also her affection. The reason I headed down to the CAE was to ask if they were offering concession rates for the class as it was not listed in the guide. This could have easily been done over the phone, however the Degraves Street, Flinders Lane, Centre Place axis is considered the hip place to be nowadays and I was keen to see how my new hoodie underneath round-neck jumper look would fly with those-in-the-know (well, I think). Much to my astonishment the receptionist there informed me that the CAE are not offering concession rates on the Swedish class. I was so bitterly disappointed by this that I forgot to ask whether Dr Mindy would be taking the class. I'm still keen to take the class, but I may have to shake down my mother for the cash.

Regaining my composure I headed up Swanston St towards Borders. I thought a spot of magazine perusal would sooth me. There was once a time when I would devour every word of every music magazine I could get my hands on. These days, Plan B (not stocked at Borders) aside, there are no music magazines even worth spiting on. I can hear someone screaming "WIRE!", but, come on, people who buy Wire are only buying Wire so they can be seen buying Wire. 84% of the music it covers is unlistenable. Not that I want to harsh on anyone's experimental buzz, but seriously, give us something to whistle in the shower, motherfuckers. There is one point of contention here and that is Venus Zine. Venus Zine is predominately a music magazine, however, for some odd reason the staff at Borders believe it to be a "female interest" magazine. Obviously the staff at Borders think that anyone who is into "chick music" must be a lesbian. Now I have no problem with reading female interest magazines. In fact I'm an avid reader of Bust, Bitch and even the Jewish Feminist quarterly Lilith magazine, however just because Venus Zine focuses mainly on female musicians doesn't mean that it should be deemed solely "female interest". The staff at Borders need to quit with their hate crimes.
Whilst scanning through the lastest issue of Venus I spotted out of the corner of my eye, tucked behind a pile of ID magazines, the latest issue of The Believer. This month's issue is the music issue and not only does the issue contain the indie-boy wet-dream of Miranda July interviewing Khaela Maricich from The Blow, but there is also an interview with my current man-crush and hero/obsession Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal! I was in hysterics. The magazine must be purchased. Unfortunately, it was the ridiculously expensive price of $24.50. I decided that the only option was to search the city for a cheaper copy. I had 20 coins in my pocket and the hope was that I would be able to find the magazine for under $20 and have a enough change over to buy a deuce of Freddos for Amy and take them to her work. I started at Missing Link, I'd seen copies of The Believer in there before and thought that there was a good chance that they would have the music issue in. Alas, it was not to be. I mean, motherfuckers don't even stock Plan B anymore, my hopes were a little high. Let me just say I have an underlying suspicion of Hardcore kids, there's something not quite kosher about them. Although I share some sympathies, I definitely come from a different school. My next move was Metropolis. Once again I was thwarted, however, to my utter delight I did manage to discover Butt magazine, which uses the same font for its title as Bust magazine, but is, like, totally gay. It was only a few minutes into flicking through the magazine that my day was made by learning that Owen Pallett "is a total cuddle slut". At this moment I received a text from Kerrie-Dee informing me that she was in Mag Nation and if I was downtown I should come hang out. I hadn't even thought of Mag Nation! I took this as a sign that a copy of The Believer would be there and would be of an acceptable price. I was so confident that I even purchased some Freddos on the way. So while Kerrie-Dee flicked through magazines full of fuckwit fashionistas she oddly described as "cute", I searched each centimetre of both levels of the store determined to locate the magazine. For a store dedicated solely to magazines, Mag Nation has a pretty narrow selection. I won't go into details, but let's just say that if they don't cater for my needs then they just don't cater. The inability to locate this essential issue really got on my goat. So much so that I decided to "fuck it" and just go pay the $24.50 for the magazine. If this wasn't a big enough injustice, I stopped by Amy's work to give her the Freddos only to be told that she was not working today.

Although I've Picked The Thorny Path Myself.....

Dear Kevin,

How are you? I must say I really enjoy your music. If you check out my last.fm page you'll see that I listened to you quite a lot this week. It's been one of those weeks where an album like Hissing Fauna... has felt appropriate. You know, you get burdened with these thoughts, your shoulders ache from the weight of your life, and sometimes the only response is to just explode like a champagne cork, jump around and expel it all in a high-camp singing voice. Actually, it has been No Conclusion from the Icons, Abstract Thee EP that has really affected me this week - although we try to break the loop it's always stuck repeating. I always thought things would change somehow as well, but life is what you make it, as they say, and maybe guys like us just find implementing that change a little too difficult? I think you and I are quite alike, we just want to emote 'til we're dead. I think the lyrics on Satanic Panic... especially I feel very comfortable with. Songs like Will You Come And Fetch Me, Climb The Ladder and Your Magic Is Working I'd have no problem pinning to my sleeve. They're very sympathetic words.

Your time in Norway is well documented in song and I too have an interest in the Nordic region. Last year I attempted to move to Sweden. You could say it was to be a sentence of sorts in Stockholm. There were certain things I was running away from, but that sort of attitude never really works, does it? The move failed miserably, I ended up moving around London, Montreal and New York for a while. I'd be reasonably happy to just keep moving. I tend not to cope well with being stationary. This is probably why I like trains so much. I'd love if you could write a song about trains. You have a purpose when on public transport. You're heading somewhere, but the journey is not in your hands. There's probably a metaphor in that. An inability to desire control. The thing is I'm actually an excellent car driver. Most people don't know what an excellent driver I am. When I have a passenger I tend to drive very cautiously. However, when it's just me in the car I am able to drive with a bit more commitment and I have ample skill and control. Because of this skill and control no-one would ever be in danger whilst driving with me. Yet for some reason I feel inhibited to act in a manner of which I know I am capable. My relationship with control is a complicated one. I guess you don't get to be in a situation like mine at my age without some unresolved issues.

I love the way you look at the moment with your rosie cheeks and blue sparkled eye shadow. I think you look fierce. I'm starting at a new university next semester and am thinking that for the first day I will utilise your look. I'd like to be a bit more bold with my appearance. I don't think shrinking away from life is doing me any favours. Impressions don't make themselves. Inspired by you I've started painting my nails again. They're blue with sparkles. Some people tend to frown on that sort of thing, but I know you understand. It's nice to make an effort sometimes, you know? It would be a shame to be like Morrissey and just wear black on the outside because black is how you feel on the inside.

Anyway, I have some things to do, and I'm sure you are busy as well. Hopefully you'll make it to Melbourne some time soon as it would be great to see you perform. Say hi to Alabee and Nina Twin for me. I hope you are all well.

Yours Sincerely,
Grant