Sunday, 25 June 2017

RESTAURANT REVIEW/AUSTRALIA/MELBOURNE/KEW/THE GRILL ON THE HILL

Restaurant Review: Kew, Melbourne, The Grill on the Hill
The Difficulty with Reviewing The Grill on the Hill at Kew is that it is both very good and also very horrible.
The food is brilliant and yet the cost is ridiculous.
The 20 or so page extensive wine list made for interesting reading of just how many bottles of wine there are between hundred dollars a bottle and eight hundred dollars a bottle, and that was fun...passing it back to the waiter saying "we don't usually drink at all, so just a glass of your house red."
The response: "Two glasses sir?"
"No, just the one."
"Oh, well, I will see what i can find..."
[Image of him going out to the alley and beating up some old bloke and stealing his flagon of plonk...]
...but the house red was okay.
Altogether, the cost/benefit equation just didn't work at the Grill on the Hill. There was an all pervasive sense of the narcissistic anally retentive menace that people oddly call professionalism these days, but, in fact, it wasn't professional, just rather overall menacing with an obvious and hard $ profit/person equation being the only standard the place has. 
Two simple entrees, 2 simple meals, and very good food it was, to be sure...some free bread, one glass of house red, two glasses of tap water, and the cost was AU$175. Great food, indeed, and yet, at an dreadful overall cost.
The waitress was kind enough to point out to me that I could add a tip to my credit card bill. I thanked her for so clearly pointing this out to me but said that it wouldn't be necessary.
On the way out the bullish manager was there at the door intent on shaking my hand, but I refused fearing I might lose my watch.
Would I go again? Absolutely not.
On the Fitzpatrick World Food=Value Fine Dining Equation Graph, where A McDonalds Cheese Burger scores zero out of a possible 5 stars, as the base standard....The Grill on The Hill, whilst having great food indeed, scores a minus 4.
I was particularly fascinated by the rampant generosity in the amount of the complimentary bread in the 4th picture.
SCORE: THE GRILL ON THE HILL: MINUS 4 🍽️🍽️🍽️







Thursday, 15 June 2017

Australian News Round Up


    Oh, dear me, the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull...and the Opposition Leader, little-boy Bill Shorten...talking about the importance of Patriotism...oh,for fuck's sake, it is fucking 2017...where do we dig up these absurd knuckle-dragging low-life brainless wankers? We are Australian...we are NOT fucking retarded like the Americans. We are not THEM. We are far more troublesome and far more radicalised. Fuck off Malcolm, fuck off Bill.
    Comments
    For ten years I was a poetry literary editor with a very avant garde small publisher in Neutral Bay in Sydney...very left winger commie set up...I loved it...working hard and then talking socialism whilst drinking Grange Hermitage on the balcony over looking Sydney Harbour...sigh. That was a decade in time indeed. I recall one night being in a punch up with Gerry Bostock, the remarkable indigenous film maker from 'outback' Redfern, just after his brilliant film 'BBQ Area' a savage indictment of Australian white culture, was in the cinemas/ I helped him a lot...and then...He called me a White Cunt and so I hit him and we wrestled around the floor there for some time before we both realised we really had no need or desire to hurt each other at all, and so, as really good men, him, being a classic black cunt, and me being a classic white cunt, we were simply too tired from the effort of hitting each other to even vaguely dislike each other anymore. I think I taught him a lot about real men in all cultures. I sincerely hope the cunt learnt his lesson. I still think BBQ Area is the best film ever made in Australia by anyone. It is just brilliant. ..and even though Gerry was a real cunt, he made a great film indeed. He made that film many many years ago and to indicate how important it was, and is, it is still hidden away from white cunts. Great film. you won't find BBQ Area on Netflix, that's for sure...why? It was just too fucking good.
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    We BBQ'd the TBones for about 5 minutes one side, and 3 the other, whilst roasting the peppers/capsicum, and some purple onions on the grate.
    Had them with some sour dough bread stick oven cooked a bit too long, burnt, and butter, and some salad, and some good wine.
    And me and Mrs Fitz talked over dinner for about an hour and a half about our journey to here, and about the future.
    It is hard to beat that kind of day.
    AND We still have some chocolate coated ice cream hearts in the freezer for later.
    All up, nothin' much to complain about.
    If the day has something to do with the love you share, then there's nothing much else to be wanting in the now.

Sunday, 11 June 2017


on islamists and christianists etc

There's nothing wrong with having one's own ideas and building up a world view based upon them and upon both curiosity and experience.
There's nothing wrong with rejecting the swill we are fed in Australia, whether we be citizens or immigrants or hard battled refugees...it is the same swill.
There's nothing wrong with believing in our own notions, with thinking our own remarkable thoughts, with sharing them, and with speaking our own ideas (if you can think it, you can speak it), and acting upon these ideas, as we see fit.
The structural and cultural limitations on thought are pretty fucking obvious in Australia, and have been backward, white, xenophobic, bizarre and sick, and self-defeating for 200 years, but that doesn't mean shit in the long term if you are prepared to think for yourself, as you are, right now. Keep That Faith. There ain't no church for that, except yourself.
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On The Subject of Islamist (I doubt that 'Islamist' is actually a real word yet, because it doesn't actually define anything, but we do tend to drive it into currency, even though it can't actually mean anything...it is the same as saying a Christianist, or a Buddhistist, or a Jewistist) De-Radicalisation, as a psychological fantasy-phenomenon...I tink I missed my callin', you know. I think I woulda made a damn fine Irish Jesuit rogue priest, all in black, with samurai sword on the back, and AK47 under the underarm in South America...and with five children...sigh, ah well, only the one life, so it goes, so I should find some peace in that, to be sure, to be sure...but I am not without regret. 'Be Mindful. Change your Mind, Change the World' that's what they say, these days, but you know in your heart that whether they be psychologists or jihadists, they are teaching the same shit, and they're just as fucking crazy as each other, after all.

Wednesday, 7 June 2017

My Democracy Poem

My Democracy Poem

If life was just a line of perfect scripted
instead of a circle strange ellipted
we'd have eaten a pie and just gone to bed
instead of worrying with our head
but there's lots of lies
that form our truth
Most times all there is is... Strewth!
So, pick up the ball and take a punt
Why the fuck did we elect that cunt?

At 63, I have, about, maybe, at a stretch, 8 or 9 poems I wrote that I really like, and this is my favourite one. I hope you like it too. She can be changed to He...a few syllables can be adjusted, to suit a lot of things. The 'little poem' has got a great amount of versatility built in but remains very personal at the same time. /////////////////////////////// The Escape Cage She wanted what she wanted until she got it then didn't want it so she could want it again when it was gone. Oh my dears, the tears, the fears, the years. Each escape became a cage to escape and then one day when she realised that she was unrealised she bent the cage into a bicycle and rode it all the way to China ringing the bell she made of me. John Fitzpatrick 2012

At 63, I have, about, maybe, at a stretch, 8 or 9 poems I wrote that I really like, and this is my favourite one. I hope you like it too. She can be changed to He...a few syllables can be adjusted, to suit a lot of things. The 'little poem' has got a great amount of versatility built in but remains very personal at the same time.
///////////////////////////////
The Escape Cage
She wanted what she wanted
until she got it
then didn't want it
so she could want it again
when it was gone.
Oh my dears, the tears, the fears, the years.
Each escape became a cage to escape
and then one day
when she realised that she was unrealised
she bent the cage
into a bicycle
and rode it all the way to China
ringing the bell she made of me.

John Fitzpatrick 2012