Bigger

Any speculators out there may be tempted to acquire the big lobster pictured on the last entry. This classic piece of anti culture has just gone up for sale and is expected to attract massive interest from eccentrics with more money than sense.

For $750,000 you can be the proud owner of the world’s most imposing crustacean and a tacky restaurant to boot.

There is a story that the original drawings for the lobster specified the dimensions in feet. However, the people who built it worked in metric, so the town has a lobster 18m high which appears in a million photo albums.

Unfortunately there is no record of the conversation between the builder and the owner.

In the spirit of all things large, I spent a few days in Melbourne recently. Unfortunately I had to leave Mandy behind and take on sights and lights all alone. She took it reasonably well and we were talking again within a couple of hours.

Melbourne is busy. It is a big city and it feels like one. After 9 months in Adelaide, the trip to Melbourne made me feel like a country bumpkin. The speed and bustle of the place was quite a surprise and shattered any illusions I still harboured about Adelaide being a real city.

But it is a great place, like Manchester but with loads more trams. The city is a crowded mix of Victorian grandeur, towering skyscrapers and extravagant design which would probably look ghastly anywhere else in the world. But in Melbourne, it just seems to fit in and makes for a relaxed but exciting blend.

In fact, I get the feeling that you could try anything in Melbourne and it would just work, the city is cool enough to accommodate most things.

It is also the sporting heartbeat of Australia, home to one of the one of the great horse races, one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments, the Australian Grand Prix, the Boxing day test match (I’ve still got a couple of spare tickets) and, most importantly here, the spiritual home of Aussie football.

The centrepiece is the100,000 seat Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), an awesome stadium which is full for the really big footy matches and will be bursting at the seams on Boxing Day.

I also reckon that the houses here don’t have kitchens.

How else could you explain the sheer number and variety of restaurants, all of which were full at both Monday lunchtime and evening. This is probably because they are very good and offer something for everyone. One evening, when I found myself wondering what I felt like for dinner, the solution appeared, as if by magic, on a blackboard in front of my very eyes.

Not only was the cheese smelly and the wine excellent (I think), but as a measure of the establishment, there were hooks under the bar for coats.

Now this might seem a little thing, but it is a mark of commitment to the pleasure of the customer and in a pub which offers hooks under the bar, there is no need to worry about the quality of the beer.

The other significant event this week was the first barbecue of the season; although it is still mid winter. The weather has been great recently and as one of the mountain bike gang is moving interstate, we thought a few beers and some kangaroo would be a good send off.

His company might be missed, but his cooking skills will not be. Kangaroo is generally best served rare, but not that rare. He was quickly relieved of the tongs and told to sit on the deckchair with his beer and enjoy his leaving do. It might be most fun he has for a while. He is going to Canberra!

For the vegetarians out there, you might be pleased to know that the tomatoes are growing well although the peppers and basil show no signs of playing ball just yet.

Finally Mandy has landed some more work on the burns ward which is more fun for her, and as Australian Pop Idol has just started, she is a very happy bunny at the moment.

Hope all is well
M&W