A prefect day in Sydney
I’m going to Sydney in about a month for what will probably be the last time in a long while. This has got me thinking about what I want to do while I’m there, and because a few people I know seem to be heading over shortly I thought I’d post. (Warning it contains lots of eating and zero trips to Bondi.)
- The day has to start at fouratefive for breakfast/ brunch. The cafe is run by a lovely girl called Jess, and they have an out of date website which I need to fix. It can get pretty busy on the weekend but it’s worth waiting for a table. I’m not the only one who rates them – TimeOut gave them a five star review!
- After breakie I would do a spot of shopping and check out the smaller galleries. Seeing as you’re already in Surry Hills that’s a great place to begin. There’s a cute paper shop right next to fouratefive and further down Crown St is Outre Gallery and a bunch of vintage shops. If you wander into Chinatown there is also White Rabbit Gallery and Market City/ Paddy’s Markets which has tons of really cheap clothing. Then if you’re not from Australia you must make the obligatory trip to Myer, David Jones and of course Zara.
- From here I would catch a ferry across the harbour to Kirribilli. This is a great place to get pictures of the Opera House and Sydney skyline, also the ferry lands right near Luna Park which is kind of fun. Head up the road and grab a late lunch at Thai Fusion, seriously the number 40 (brandy chicken) deserves a post of it’s own.
- If your feet aren’t too sore you can walk back to the city across the Harbour Bridge. There are a few nice places in The Rocks to get an afternoon drink and if you’re not scared of bats (which I am) the Botanical Gardens are actually really beautiful. I also love St James Park, although not as much as it’s name sake. St Mary’s (the Cathedral across the road from there) has a statue of a nun standing over a little boy playing with an iPad 2!
- Ok ready to eat again? Around 8pm you must go to Elvis Pizza. I ordered takeaways from there for two years without ever going to the restaurant. Once I left Sydney I found out they have AN ELVIS IMPERSONATOR on the weekend!! I’m thinking I might have to leave Sophie’s wedding early (sorry love) just so I can experience this! The pizza is pretty great too.
- If you’re into going out there are a bunch of nice places in Surry Hills. My favourites were The Porthouse (for ale), The Winery (for vino) and Pocket Bar (for mojitos). I also suggest you check out The Ivy, it’s pretentious for a reason. That reason being there’s a fucking pool on the roof! My preferred visiting time is winter when there aren’t as many skanks up there.
I have to say I didn’t really like Sydney when I lived there, but I do miss it. I have this marvelous and geographically incorrect print by Matte Stephens on my wall to remind me of the place.
My favourites from the 17th Biennale of Sydney
After weeks and weeks of mismatched schedules, my friend Andrea and I finally made it to Cockatoo Island to see the the Bienalle just before it ended. I’m annoyed I didn’t go to the other exhibitions to see more painting, but there were a few pieces which made the trip well worth it.
Top Sculpture: ‘Summit’ by Chinese artist Shen Shaomin.
This piece captured everything that fascinated me in Europe; display of glass coffins, Madame Tussauds and of course dead politicians. The first glass coffin I walked up to was Kim Il Sung and then I saw Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Lenin. Without reading a blurb I instantly recoginised each leader from the fantastic wax modelling and could assume it was a meeting of the great Communist minds. I saw Andrea standing next to Fidel Castro and thought what is he doing here, wont he live forever? When I walked over I realised the model of Castro was not in a glass coffin, but on a makeshift hospital bed with air being pumped out his mouth as though he was breathing.
Amazing.
Top Photography: ‘Goat Sluice’ by Kiwi artist Yvonne Todd
This exhibition had the perfect setting, an old lodge house which had 1960s wallpaper falling onto the floor. The slightly creepy portraits of teenage girls reminded me of Twin Peaks, especially the figure in “Goat Sluice” (left). Laura Palmer much?
Top Video: ‘The Feast of Trimalchio’ by Russian artists AES+F
We spend a long time sitting in a circular room with 9 screens playing this video. It was mesmorising and some how very relaxing. You can watch it on YouTube, but it has nowhere near the same effect:
Funny dunny ad campaign
We were driving home from the Easter show when out of the window I saw this gem (although less pixelated and darker in real life):
Because the others in the car missed it the driver turned around and we drove back for a closer look. At one point the car was 50/50 split on whether or not it was legit, with one person pointing out it would be a lot of money to spend on a glorified post-it-note. I gave my “professional” opinion that it must be part of a bigger ad campaign because every art director dreams of putting comic sans in a billboard just to give the shits to every graphic designer that drives past.
Looks like we were right.
Mumbrella confirms it’s an ad for the Red Cross’ new facebook app urging people to challenge their friends “for the love of humanity”.
Mardi gras
I found out that we won’t have access to our building during the parade this weekend, which will be interesting. I will have to get over my disgust at the exposed urinals and enjoy the night out.
This week I have seen a lot of closed mindedness. One example of this is people in the gay community who exclude heterosexual couples from Mardi Gras events (seriously, Mardi Gras is stemmed from a Catholic tradition). Another example is this website > which provides a list of gay music that you will go to hell for listening to. It includes two of my favourite bands Cold War Kids > and Death Cab for Cutie.
Anthony & the Johnsons some how skipped the list:
Enjoy. I will try to take some pictures at the parade to put up, hope there’s another Hillsong float. Lols
Terrorist attack on sydney (almost)
A rip off of the controversial WWF ad (below)?
Also only 12 people a year die from bowel cancer? Why would you even make an ad about that when 1,700 die of skin cancer in Australia every year. Cut the ad budget and send out some SPF30 sunscreen and a bag of apples to everyone in the country.
Saturday in surry hills
1. Sleeping in
2. Breakfast/Brunch out at about 12.30pm at our new favourite cafe fouratefive (cool website as well right?)
3. Wondering around the Surry Hills markets, picking up some fresh food for lunch/ dinner at Thomas Dux
4. Dancing around the house with the birds chirping along to a Broken Social Scene record
5. Over to Belvoir St Theatre to see B Sharp’s Midsummer Nights Dream. I read a review which implied it was a funny adaptation bring the original play into today’s world (think 10 Things I Hate About You). Turns out it was just a student like production of the original with a couple of swear words, a line or two of audience iprov and a karaoke style rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
For someone special
Sign for a restaurant just down the road from my house… we should start a social club so we can get a private room!
31 things
On Wednesday night I dragged myself along to 31 things, an event for young creatives, in the hope I would meet some like minded people and perhaps learn something.
There were three speakers with the idea that each one would share 10 tips about advertising. First speaker, Mel from Lowe, was pretty awesome. A lot of her work was original and used digital well.
Similarly Cameron from the Campaign Palace said a lot of things which were actually useful. Including his story about spending the 8 months after uni not actually being a creative – which gave me some hope that I can get back on track.
And then there was the lady in the middle, Andrea from Play – who seriously didn’t give any useful tips, but rabbited on about her campaigns. One of them was for Tourism Victoria (no not one of the amazing TVCs – it was a PR stunt), and she played a little video of the media response with the CSS song “Music is My Hot Hot Sex” – YES that’s right, the song which became famous from Apple using it in an iPod ad where the song is actually relevant to the campaign!
Anyway the only people I meet where rude graphic design students, so the night was a bit of a loss.
Funny wifi names
This reminds me of when we first moved into our 48th floor apartment in the middle of Sydney and the net wasn’t connected yet. There were plenty of wifi networks, but the only one which wasn’t secure was called “FUCK YOU PEOPLE STEALING MY INTERNET”. Lol.
New home in surry hills
Our new apartment is awesome and filled with bookshelves. The only part which wasn’t looking pretty was the electronics shelf. However on the weekend I found the perfect solution! Four beautiful old (hat?) boxes – does anyone know what they actually are? – and now all the electronics and cables are in their own pretty boxes.
Tupperwear party where you all get naked
I just got invited to a lingerie party by someone I used to talk to on the ferry to work. Can I get past the awkwardness of going to someone’s house to look at bras, and actually attend this?
Storm of terrible ads
Of course the dust storm was going to send creatives into a frenzy of ads for their cleaning product clients. But seriously, these ads are terrible. Insert any one of their logos or pack shots into the above ad and the terrible pun works. The only one which I think has any merit is the following from Telsta:
More from (not so) theinspirationroom >
Anyway my new house is covered in dust, I made the mistake last night of walking onto the balcony with no shoes.
Apocalypse in Sydney
Woke up early this morning, sirens going and the sky was bright orange. It’s calmed down a lot now (colour wise) but there is dust settled like heavy fog. This is a photo of the harbour bridge from my office – usually I can the opera house and the city behind it but today I can barely see the harbour bridge only a few kms over the valley.
It’s funny seeing SUVs which have never been out of the city now covered in dust like they were meant to be.
For sale : Established Brothel in Sydney
When I saw this in the window of lj HOOKER (of all the real estate businesses out there) I thought, they must be joking right?
Nope, buy it here if you have always wanted to be a Madame or take your Pimping business to the next professional level.
Mao and more
We were waliking down Cleveland rd and spotted this furntiture shop. I thought foolishly it was some cheap Chinese imports place named by a patriot.
Turns out it’s an up market furniture place with beautiful Asain lamps and bird cages and a bunch of Mao statues and posters.
One bird cage took my fancy, a wooden taj palace. When I can afford the $2k price tag I will buy it for Starkey and Larry.
Crabb on sex in advertising
Now sex climbs the greasy pole – Annabel Crabb (2 June, 2009)
A good article on SMH about, well, sex in advertising. Including a couple of paragraphs about the Fat Yak billboard (above).
Crabb seems to have a similar response to them as I did – wtf – or in her words “If a yak is funny, then a yak with a stiffy must be funnier still; is that the gist?”.
However it was pointed out to me, and clearly not her, that the joke behind it comes from one of the American Pie movies, about pale beer being made out of yak semen.
Tacky Wedding
Yanna Elfes’s wedding photos which initiated viral emails about how trashy her wedding was (hummers, november rain dress, playboy logos on the champagne flutes etc).
It all is pretty trashy, and doesn’t fit with the interior of the Greek Orthodox church, but she looks happy and look at those amazing breasts!
Story at SMH.