Lessons in life and coffee at Pellegrini's

After my first sweaty day in Melbourne, dinner in the form of rice paper rolls from a street side stall in the Block Arcade, I thought a few drinks would be in order. I tried two different rooftop bars, since the weather was more than favourable for al fresco drinking, I would recommend both for anyone who wants to soak up the atmosphere of cosmopolitan Melbourne in stylish surroundings. The first place was upstairs of an Tuscan restaurant on Bourke Street, the other the famous Supper Club on Spring Street.

The former was more relaxed, the latter perhaps bordering on pretentious but with fabulous views overlooking the Parliament building and a very exclusive atmosphere (and wine list, you could order a bottle of plonk for a reassuring $600. Needless to say I didn’t). I did, however, try some very nice Aussie wines – the nicest one actually served in the first place I went to, the less salubrious of the two rooftop joints.

Earlier in the day I had walked past an Italian espresso bar called Pellegrini’s (pictured below). It caught my eye for many reasons so I earmarked the place for a visit later in the day. The way to describe it is that this place was the perfect antidote to the Starbucks generation of coffee bar chains which have mushroomed all over Melbourne. Pellegrini's oozed individuality and old fashioned charm.

I didn’t expect Pellegrini’s to be open when I was walking home from the Supper Club, jetlagged and exhausted with the heat, around 10 pm. Cafes generally seem to close around 5 or 6 pm in Melbourne, but not Pellegrini’s.

I stepped in, and it felt like I travelled back in time and found myself on the scene of a Federico Fellini film. Not the least because the owner of the place, a gregarious Italian gentleman called Sisto, greeted me with a beaming smile and called me “la bella”. Take a seat here, bella, now what would you like? Espresso, here, is that good for you? Do you like it shorter or taller? A little bit of gelato, there you are, lemon and vanilla. Home made. Try it!

I popped in for a quick espresso on the way home, and ended up being served espresso, gelato, lemonade and two pasta dishes before Sisto offered to drop me off at the hostel at closing time (midnight). I refused the lift, and insisted on walking home to get some fresh air.

In the kitchen of his espresso bar, when I was tucking into some ravioli and pasta marinare, Sisto declared that “If I was 30 years younger, I would ask you to marry me tomorrow”. Awh.

Sisto introduced me to Pellegrini’s “resident artist”, a Kiwi lady called Louise. Louise had spent the past two months in Melbourne finishing her book. She also sings, plays the guitar and writes poetry, mainly in Pellegrini’s when she in Melbourne.

The trouble with being treated like this is payment. I asked Louise for advice, as Sisto would clearly refuse any offer of money. I slipped $20 onto the tip tray which was spotted by one of the staff. Rosie, the vigilant Italian lady, at the end of the night, took out my $20 note and handed it back to me, saying it was too much. “If you give me $5”, she said, “I’ll accept it”. I gave her $10. She handed me a fiver back. Did you ever have to do reverse haggling? Bizarre.

In the course of the week, I went back to Pellegrini’s almost every day. In the kitchen, Sisto taught me everything I need to know about the art of coffee, and cooking pasta “the proper way”.

Coffee is not just a drink, it’s nourishment for the soul. The way they serve it in Pellegrini’s, I have to agree.

You'll be allright for as long as you're not in rubber thongs

It was a promising start for the journey, despite my initial fears that 60 minutes between arrival at the infamous Terminal 5 and departure towards Melbourne (via Hong Kong) from Terminal 4 at Heathrow was cutting it a tad fine. The transfer guide in the seat pocket onboard the BA flight Manchester-Heathrow advised passengers to allow 120 minutes to transfer between T5 and T4. An hour would have just about done it, but as it happened, the Qantas flight to Hong Kong was delayed by almost an hour. A fact I discovered only after having legged it to the gate thinking I have minutes to spare.

This second leg of the journey was gruesome. Mercifully, I had a window seat and the two seats next to me were occupied by a very nice Dutch couple in their 50’s, no screaming children anywhere near.

The problems started some time after the main meal: “greek beef” with very suspicious mini bottle of red wine with a long list of additives. I want to know why wine always tastes shocking during flights, is it just the quality of the wine (sub-standard) or is there something about serving wine at that altitude/atmosphere that is best avoided? After the food was served, coffees drunk and everyone snug in their seats somewhere over Russia the crew switched the lights off and it was time to go to sleep. The moon shone beautifully on the landscape way down below, we were following the silver ribbon of a river which reflected the moon remarkably brightly. There was fat chance of me catching any sleep. My body clock knew it was only 17:00 GMT.

Up until that point I hadn’t familiarised with the in-flight entertainment kit, I had been too busy reading “Le Dossier” (or how to survive the English) and the Rough Guide to Melbourne, making mental notes as I went along. Now I was stuck. I could read no longer, the plane was dark and the only thing to do (apart from sleeping) was to watch “on demand” films or documentaries. My headphones wrapped in plastic, the remote control stuck on the side of the armrest, I fiddled with each for a while but soon understood I was not going to find the socket for the headphones in the dark and gave up.Thankfully I had my Mp3 player to keep me company.

My legs were aching, I hadn’t had a chance to go for a walk along the corridor, and now I really wanted to but the nice Dutch couple next to me were in slumber land - I couldn’t bring myself to disturb them.

By the time the lights were switched on again, breakfast about to be served, I was stiff, tired, achy and just about to fall asleep.

Breakfast, my friends, was an extraordinary affair, not in any positive sense. “Baked egg” with some unidentifiable objects which were supposedly imitating sausages, a rubbery piece of bacon all sitting in a pool of what can only be described as brine. My analysis is that the whole affair came from a tin. The Dutch couple next to me were grunting their approval and discussed the green matter that formed part of the “baked egg” experience. Yep, spinach, yum-yum, tuck in.

A refuel and a welcome stretch of legs in Hong Kong, and it was back to the business of flying. Disappointingly didn’t see much of Hong Kong, it was very foggy (or smoggy) so visibility was nil. Could just about make out high rise buildings and steep mountain sides in the distance.

On arrival in Melbourne I somehow knew I wasn’t going to be reunited with my luggage. Reluctantly I made my way to the carousel only to confirm that my fears were indeed correct. “Was it a tight connection in London” the operative asked me. Well, it could have been, I said, but the flight was delayed by an hour so there should have been plenty of time to get all the bags onboard. To apologise for the inconvenience, Qantas gave me a little pouch containing the following items:

Qantas pyjamas consisting of a t-shirt and boxer shorts; toothbrush; toothpaste; comb; shower gel; deodorant; body lotion; and disposable razor.

It is now Sunday morning and I am yet to be reunited with my luggage.All the free pyjamas in the world are not going to make up for this inconvenience. After four uses, the bristles are coming off the complimentary toothbrush.

It is not funny.

Although, sourcing a pair of shoes to allow myself to dine respectably Saturday evening, I enquired at a shoe stall at the famous Queen Victoria Market what sort of footwear one gets away with in these parts.

“For as long as you’re not wearing rubber thongs, you’ll be all right” she said.

OK, that was funny. I told the friendly assistant not to worry, that I had no intention of wearing rubber thongs for dinner.

For information, “rubber thongs” refer to flip flops of the Havaianas kind. For further information, Ozzie people do widely go about their business wearing rubber thongs in the city. I also spotted several pairs of naked feet in Melbourne yesterday (it was +29 degrees and very humid, but still).

Great stuff

What I love about the internet generally is that so much great stuff is out there. Yeah, sure, there is the dark side too, but for those who wish to impose major restrictions on t'internet, I say one can't have one's cake and eat it, too.

You can make as much or as little as you like of the internet, but there is a burgeoning debate amongst the internet literati about its impact on society, for better or for worse.

See for yourself, I'm going to rip Paul Canning's handiwork here, but I'm sure he won't mind as in keeping with good academic practice, credit belongs to those who deserve it... Canning quotes the Technology Liberation Front as the original source, which appears to be accurate if you care to follow the link.

The typology below summarises the main advocates within the "optimist" and "pessimist" camps as regards the world wide web:

Adherents & Their Books / Writings

Internet Optimist	Internet Pessimists
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks	Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail and “Free!”	Lee Siegel, Against the Machine
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody	Nick Carr, The Big Switch
Cass Sunstein, Infotopia	Cass Sunstein, Republic.com
Don Tapscott, Wikinomics	Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited
Kevin Kelly & Wired mag in general	Alex Iskold, “The Danger of Free”
Mike Masnick & TechDirt blog	Mark Cuban

And here’s a rough sketch of the major beliefs or key themes that separate these two schools of thinking about the impact of the Internet on our culture and economy:

Beliefs / Themes

Internet Optimists	Internet Pessimists
Culture / Social
Net is Participatory	Net is Polarizing
Net yields Personalization	Net yields Fragmentation
a “Global village”	Balkanization
Heterogeneity / Diversity of Thought	Homogeneity / Close-mindedness
Net breeds pro-democratic tendencies	Net breeds anti-democratic tendencies
Tool of liberation & empowerment	Tool of frequent misuse & abuse
Economics / Business
Benefits of “free” (“Free” = future of media / business)	Costs of “free” (“Free” = end of media / business)
Increasing importance of “Gift economy”	Continuing importance of property rights, profits, firms
“Wiki” model = wisdom of crowds; power of collective intelligence	“Wiki” model = stupidity of crowds; errors of collective intelligence
Mass collaboration	Individual effort

You can make your own mind up about who you choose to believe. All I can say is that I never really believed in the polarisation of such debates, even though I love the above typology for it points out the fickleness of what is widely considered as "knowledge".

Remember, the pond you fish in determines the fish you catch.

I nearly got killed twice this morning

This was an atypical morning: it wasn't raining, there wasn't much traffic around and the cycle was actually more enjoyable than my average 2.5 mile commute to the campus. I was humming along to Liz Green on my MP3 player.

Until I reached Upper Brook Street, that is. Now, Upper Brook Street behind St Mary's hospital is hardly enjoyable at the best of times to cycle along, but this was shocking altogether.

There I faced horrid traffic, a continous line of cars inching forward as far as the eye can see, leaving a very narrow strip of road to pedal along and a very thick cloud of exhaust fumes to breath in. The traffic had ground to a halt, but as I and a handful of other fellow cyclists kept on going in between the kerb and the cars, a passenger decides to vacate a vehicle right in front of me and opens the door wide just as I'm passing. Thanks to my reflexes which were quicker than a greased lighting a collision was avoided. I don't quite know how I did it.

Phew.

I continue, peeved, reach a set of traffic lights (red, bummer). As the lights change, the car next to me (with Russian plates, I might add) decides he wants to go left really quickly before the other cars start moving (because he's in the wrong lane for turning and no, he's not even indicating). However, I am in a quick mood today and move forwards quite fast, too. Screeching of breaks, bike and car, and again by some miracle I didn't get mowed down.

At this juncture, I want to shout abuse at all the effin' stupid motorists spoiling my perfectly pleasant morning.

I hope they bring in the congestion charge soon.

Hit 'em hard I say, make them pay for their sins!