Message to Tate: we were right!

The histories of a number of popular consumer items have been rumored to have at least tenuous connections with certain unsavory elements. Contemporary lore is rife with product rumors that assert ties to the Ku Klux Klan (e.g., Marlboro cigarettes, Snapple fruit drinks, KFC, Troop clothing, Tropical Fantasy fruit drink) and the Nazis (e.g., Coors beer), groups mainstream American society views as evil. Such rumors are wholly without substance.

Of all the product rumors of this class, only those associating the soft drink Fanta with Nazi Germany have anything to them, and even then, the truth of the matter is far more innocuous than the whispers.

We've seen the Fanta/Nazi rumor rendered a number of ways, including:

• Fanta was invented by the Third Reich, because other soft drinks (including Coca-Cola) were no longer available in Germany — the Nazis longed for something fizzy to drink and so had to come up with something on their own.



• Fanta was formulated by Coca-Cola for the Nazis, because the political climate of those days made it akin to corporate suicide to attempt to supply the Allies' enemy with the same drink the Allies were gulping down.



• Back in those war-torn days, Fanta and Coca-Cola were actually the same beverage, but were labeled and distributed under different names so as to keep the Allies from knowing the Nazis were guzzling the same product.



• Fanta was invented in Germany when the war made it difficult to get Coca-Cola syrup from the USA to Germany.

It is the last that is closest to the truth; the other three are naught but canard.

Prior to the outbreak of the second world war, Coca-Cola's only unqualified success on the international scene was its bottling operations in Nazi Germany. Sales records were being set year after year in that venue, and by 1939 Coca-Cola had 43 bottling plants and more than 600 local distributors in that country.

However, the war was about to change that. As the inevitable clash loomed ever closer, obtaining the key ingredients necessary for the production of Coca-Cola syrup became increasingly difficult in Germany, grinding production towards a standstill.

In 1938, the man in charge of Coca-Cola's operations in Germany, American-born Ray Powers, died of injuries received in an automobile accident. His right-hand man, German-born Max Keith, took over:

[Allen, 1994]

Meanwhile, the German government placed Max Keith in charge of Coca-Cola's properties in the occupied countries, and he sent word through Coca-Cola's bottler in neutral Switzerland that he would try to keep the enterprises alive. But with no means of getting ingredients, Keith stopped making Coca-Cola and began marketing an entirely new soft drink he called Fanta, a light-colored beverage that resembled ginger ale.

Fanta came by its name thanks to Keith's instructions to employees during the contest to christen the beverage — he told them to let their Fantasie [Geman for fantasy] run wild. Upon hearing that, veteran salesman Joe Knipp immediately blurted out Fanta.

This new soda was often made from the leavings of other food industries. (Remember, Germany did have a bit of an import problem at that time.) Whey (a cheese by-product) and apple fiber from cider presses found their way into the drink. As for which fruits were used in the formulation, it all depended on what was available at the time. In its earliest incarnations, the drink was sweetened with saccharin, but by 1941 its concocters were permitted to use 3.5 percent beet sugar.

Fanta sold well enough to keep the plants operating and Coca-Cola people employed. In 1943, 3 million cases of Fanta were vended, but not all were imbibed — some were used to flavor soups and stews. (Sugar rationing inspired many a housewife to look to unusual sources for that which could no longer be bought outright in large enough quantities to satisfy.)

Until the end of the war, Coca-Cola executives in Atlanta did not know if Keith was working for the company or for the Nazis, because communication with him was impossible. Their misgivings aside, Keith was safeguarding Coca-Cola interests and people during that period of no contact. It was thanks largely to his efforts that Coca-Cola was able to re-establish production in Germany virtually immediately after World War II.

According to a report prepared by an investigator commissioned by Coca-Cola to examine Max Keith's actions during that unsupervised period, Keith had never been a Nazi, even though he'd been repeatedly pressured to become one and indeed had endured hardships because of his refusal. He also could have made a fortune for himself by bottling and selling Fanta under his own name. Instead, in the face of having to work for the German government, he kept the Coca-Cola plants in Germany running and various Coca-Cola men alive throughout the war. At the end of the conflict, he welcomed the Coca-Cola company back to its German operations and handed over both the profits from the war years and the new soft drink.

So where does all this leave the question of who or what invented Fanta and why? The truth is simple, even if it doesn't run trippingly off the tongue: Fanta was the creation of a German-born Coca-Cola man who was acting without direction from Atlanta. This man wasn't a Nazi, nor did he invent the drink at the direction of the Third Reich. Rather, in an effort to preserve Coca-Cola company assets and protect its people by way of keeping local plants operating, he formulated a new soft drink when it became impossible to produce the company's flagship product.

Fanta is still a Coca-Cola product, and today it comes in seventy different flavors (though only some are available within each of the 188 countries it is sold in).

[source: Snopes.com Urban Legends Reference Page]

So to all of you who still, to this day, believe those ridiculous rumours that Fanta is "the Nazi drink", welcome to the Twenty-First Century.

The Blame Game--it's like Twister but everyone loses

This blog seems to have suddenly become ultra-serious. Maybe I should begin a current affairs blog...interesting thought. I'll keep this one short, though...

Anyhoo, I was watching television tonight, and was absolutely gobsmacked when I heard this gem: "The mother of the man accused of killing six teenagers in a hit-and-run at Mildura on the weekend says that the youths shouldn't have been beside the road..."
Now, I'm sure we've all heard about the terrible incident in Mildura on Saturday night: six teenagers, walking along the side of a road, were run down by an erratic, intoxicated driver, who stopped for a moment, and then drove off again, without even checking to see what had happened to his victims, nor to offer assistance.

I can understand this guy's mother trying to defend him; he is, after all, her son, and blood, as the cliche goes, is thicker than water (or in this case, family blood is thicker than pools of strangers' blood, it seems). But this is just plain ridiculous. To even suggest that pedestrians walking on the pavement are in the wrong when a drunken coward comes speeding down the road and ploughs through them is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard.
"Blame the Victim" is nothing new. Remember that old chestnut about how an attractive girl wearing fashionable clothing was "just asking to be raped"? That doesn't gel. Neither should this. I mean, what's next? "Mr Jones is not to blame for stealing from David Jones. Rather, it is David Jones' fault, because they have things that are tempting to steal."

My thoughts, for the first time in my life, are in Mildura--with the families of the innocent victims. My thoughts towards the bastard driver are somewhat different: I hope, sir, that you have severe trouble sleeping for the rest of your life.

Damn, that makes me feel much better

I was never any good at maths.
It's a fact. Indeed, I owe my passing IB SL Mathematical Methods to Pat, who did IB HL Maths and IB SL Further Maths, because in the morning before my Year 12 trial exam, the following exchange took place:
Bodie: "Pat, help! I don't understand Maths!"
Pat: "Okay, which part?"
Bodie: "The part involving Maths!"
So he proceeded to teach me my entire maths course in the space of two hours. Granted, my normal arithmetic was very good, and my algebra, while not likely to challenge any of the HL guys, was decent if not great. Calculus was beyond me, as were a lot of the geometric principles, but thanks to Pat, I passed both my trial exam and my final exam with a 5.
For what I'm wanting to do in life, algebra's basically useless. But it's handy for occasional problem-solving, and I've even used it to remember how much I spent on a certain day in Melbourne. So it is sometimes good, and if you're wanting to be anything from a nurse to an engineer, algebra is very important indeed.

So imagine my surprise and (poorly-veiled) glee when I read the news story "Algebra is not necessary part of human equation", by Washington Post journalist Richard Cohen. The gist of this journalistic opinion was that Cohen, who was crap at maths at school, thinks that algebra is too difficult for American students to do, and should be scrapped from the American school curricula. "All it seems to do, though", Cohen says haughtily, "is ruin the lives of countless kids. In L.A., more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them."
He goes on to talk about how useless mathematicians are at anything else:

"Sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence. I can cite Shelly, whose last name will not be mentioned, who aced algebra but when called to the board in geography class, located the Sahara Desert right where the Gobi usually is. She was off by a whole continent."

I found this diatribe to be fascinating, utterly and morbidly intriguing. And I came to a solid conclusion.
Richard Cohen is a fool.
I can't say I use trigonometry or differentiation on a regular basis/at all, but in general, algebra is useful for more than maths. Unlike what Mr Cohen says, algebra does indeed teach reasoning.
Indeed, in ToK, our teacher, Mr Fisher, though being completely maths-illiterate, used algebra (of sorts) to teach us logic. In Philosophy, we were taught the fundamental basics of syntactic reasoning: if a, therefore b, which is, of course, a reworking of conditional mathematics. If Mr Cohen ever learnt Philosophy at university (extremely doubtful), he would know that algebra is one of the key models as to how the human mind functions, as it is a perfect example of why syntax is paramount, as opposed to semantics (that is, that the statement a+b=c would make sense even if you changed the values of the semantic components--a, b and c--but not the structure of the statement. Thus a+b=c would work just as well if it was 8+6=14, or 600+12,000=12,600, but would NOT work if it was +abc=). Thus, if this model of our mental functions is accurate, we actually use some form of algebra every waking moment.

His statement that "writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not" is ridiculous not because it is wrong, but because he's unable to reason his way to a supporting argument. The fact that someone who was good at maths couldn't locate the Sahara on a map does not mean that all mathematicians are useless at everything other than maths, or else that would be a universal constant. But Patrick, for instance, ended up getting 44/45 for IB, and that includes English, Latin, ITGS and ToK...not just Maths and Physics. In fact, the reason "Shelly" plonked the Sahara Desert smack bang in the middle of Mongolia is probably an edict on the American education system in general (and a great way to fix a system is OBVIOUSLY to remove algebra from it...fantastic logic, that), and despite the fact that I can laugh at someone getting the position of the Sahara so fundamentally wrong, that mistake has nothing to do with reasoning, a word Mr Cohen flings around without understanding. If I asked you to place island of Ascencion on the map, chances are you'd get it wrong, not because you're stupid, or because you can't reason, but because there are lots and lots of islands in the seas. Forgetting for a second that we KNOW the Sahara to be in Africa, the name Sahara Desert tells us that it is indeed a desert, but not where it is located. How "reasoning" tells us that the Sahara is in Africa is beyond me...and Mr Cohen, I'm a humanities-orientated student, remember? I write, so surely this means I should be able to "reason" better than a mathematician...idiot.

Mr Cohen is obviously of the journalistic ilk where baseless statements are turned into articles that they hope makes them sound intelligent. But, as Mr Cohen has found out, this time, he just sounds like a moron.

You can read his article here.

How now, Brown Bureaucrats?

A few things of note:
I got up EARLY. I know, can you believe it? I met Courtney in town at 8.20am, which necessitated my buying coffee. Yum, thank you for waking me up, Hudsons!

Went to Trims and got a Bonds t-shirt, and then came home to make my own transfer. And yes, it's Link!

Link: Cool dood. Seriously, look at him. He could kill you with that sword. And he can go and fight the evil Gannon and save Princess Zelda before breakfast.
(Speaking of breakfast, Courtney and I got a croissant each from Daily Bread in town...they were yum)

Courtney and I had a VeryLongDay, which only ended at 9:20pm for me, when I got home and had fish and chips for tea. But Courtney also made a very cool t-shirt, again with Link! How cool is this guy??? Almost as cool a dude as Billy Zane. In fact, maybe even more so.

Pat and I have been playing lots of AOE3, and as usual, my musketeers are cool. Although not as lazy as this one...

And finally, here's Waldi:

Noodlebrain

Happy St. Valentine's Day to everyone, and I hope you all had a wonderful day; I certainly did! =D

What would Valentine's Day be without the comic relief of The Advertiser's Valentine's Day messages? Yes, some twelve pages of "personal" (ie. published in the statewide newspaper so that everyone can read them) messages to loved ones this year, liberally sprinkled with the weird, the soppy, the stupid and the downright incomprehensible. Kinda like the news sections of the 'Tiser...

Anyhoo, let's look at some choice messages! Some are the whole message, some are just the names. Either way, funny AS.

AAH GOTCHA BUCKET
Love Bucco

ANNIE
You're still really cute,
You're still really beaut'
So I am hoping we win
The trip to Paris
Caus' we won't get there
In the Old Ute!
All my love Al

BABY GIRL
Happy Valentine's
Jellyfish x

BABYDEEP

BAKED BEAN BOY

BEEYOOTEEFOOL
I love you...today, even more tomorrow and even more the day after that. Thank you for being mine and I will forever be yours. Love Moo Moo.
P.S. I love you more than a fat kid loves cake.

BOOBY
You are so delicious, you smell so good. I just want to eat you.
Happy Valentine's Day
Love from your Boober.

BRAD
Te quiero stinky monkey.
1st official Valentines together.
KNICKERS xx

BUBBA GUMP

BUNCHI

Captain Planet

Captain.Crab

CHAGOOGALOOG

DAMO
Dear Daddy, I love you to the moon and back. You're the best Daddy in the world.
Will you be my Valentine?
Love Imogen (Squidring)

HAGAR
LOVES HIS
LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE KEEPER

I love Schpanko!
The luckiest man to be married.
Love, Schpankadooni. xxx

MEE
Happy Valentine's Day
NOT MEE

NOODLEBRAIN
You are my life and love, hopes and dreams of our future grow stronger every day. All my love forever and always from your
Bananahead xxoox

PEANUT
I love you
From the top of the stars
To the bottom of the ocean.
Mega Mega Mushy Mushy Nub Nub II

SMELLY SOCKS
Always thinking of you
FAT FART xxx

TICHY BOY
He's old and chubby but I still love my hubby...All my love Lis xxx (also old and chubby)

TO MY MUNCHO

To the one I still search for:
Please don't give up, I never will
If you see me first say "Magic Turnip" so I know.

WENDY
EUROPE!!!
STAN

And that should do it...

To everyone, have a good one!

And to my Valentine...no, wait, I said that earlier today. And I'll say it later. And I don't write personal public messages. Much. =P

Momo!

"It is perhaps the aunt or uncle of all battles!"

Well, it's finally happened.

The great Age of Empires III warlords, Admiral Sir Bodie Ashton of Her Britannic Majesty's Imperial Forces, and General Patrick Ignacio Colemanendez, of the Her Catholic Majesty's Spanish Guards, battled it out for supremacy on the fields of the Yucatan, along with the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent and Maurice of Nassau. There could only be one master of the Yucatan. Who would it be?

The British and Spanish armies both took the initiative early, with Pat's devastating guerrilla raid on the Dutch town, while my army, better equipped, marched into the Turkish city and, after bitter street-fighting, forced the Ottoman surrender. A sudden scare forced the victorious redcoats to withdraw back to my town, for fear of a Spanish attack while the vast bulk of my fighting force was otherwise engaged. This failed to eventuate, until a Spanish expedition force blundered into my field of view, and under the guns of my fortress and cannons. The Spanish were annihilated, with heavy losses for the defending British Army.
The constant appearance of Dutch fishing boats just off my coast compelled me to send a small naval force south, for fear of warships arriving in my town's harbour. The caravel HMS discovered their dock, but was engaged in battle and destroyed by a Dutch caravel, so the Royal Navy launched a swift reprisal involving the frigate ElizabethSearchthrift, resulting in the destruction of their docks, caravel and sizeable fishing fleet. At the opposite end of the map, the Spanish Navy patrolled with impunity...no surprise, as there was no enemy power there to oppose it...
In the meantime, my explorer launched several hot air balloon sorties over Pat's town, discovering to my discomfort that it was huge and well-defended.

After Pat obliterated the Dutch forces, I decided to march. So too, it seems, did Pat, for our armies met halfway between our towns. His was again destroyed, but I took heavy losses, which soon became total as I entered the town walls and came under cannon fire.

I launched many more attacks on Pat's town, and each engagement showed our different battle philosophies: I would send many field guns and infantry, he would send many cavalry and infantry; this meant that we would both annihilate the foot soldiers and have very little of the other units left.
I threw everything I had into the last engagement, which involved some 21 field guns and (because I had learnt my lesson), another 25 cavalry. Pat's defending army was slightly larger, and though I managed to destroy most of it, again, my offensive failed once it came within sight of his formidable fort. Also, my reinforcements were too slow to arrive, and by the time they had been trained, the Spaniards had again been reinforced. My defenses would not have survived an attack, and it was clear that, without allowing time for myself--and Pat--to regroup, I wouldn't stand a chance, but since we had similar economies, we would accumulate the same resources. Pat's defensive cordon, however, would prove my downfall, whereas mine could be easily breached. I faced no alternative, but to offer my surrender.

So, in the ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY, I lost. But it was a close-run thing. And one we will try again soon...

In your room, your burning eyes cause flames to arise...

In recent times, things have moved much more slowly than usual. But this is what's been happening:

• So I now have an official title working for Pat's game design team! I'm now *ahem*: Bodie A. Ashton, Scriptwriter & Character Co-ordinator, Oneway Entertainment. Ahh, how grandly cool. We're working on the new Oneway concept, a game called Lemonade, at the moment. Check out Pat's Lemonade site.
• I saw Courtney on Friday, which was very fun; we had Chinese and coffee and lamented the fact that Caffe Map doesn't exist here. We need Friendly MapMan food!
  
• I don't understand my DVD burner.
• I built my model Saab Draken, which makes me happy, as it's a Draken! Cool AS.
• Uni's fast approaching. Eek.
• Especially for Jacobob, but also for others, check out: CHEWBACCA'S BLOG!
  

But uni's not the only thing fast approaching. Valentine's Day is on Tuesday, I hope you're all ready for it!

Tschüß.

Madness

This isn't really the place for a rant, but it's just a mini-rant this time around.

Recent events in the world are most distressing. I'm particularly thinking of the worldwide riots as a backlash to the reprinting of Danish cartoons, originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which satirically depict Muslim extremism and, most controversially, depict the prophet Muhammad, with a timebomb for a turban. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, I suggest you check here.

Common sense indicates that many Muslims were bound to be offended by these cartoons. It was bound to happen, not only because they identify Islam with extremism, but also because they show Muhammad, who, according to Muslim lore, cannot be drawn or otherwise represented, which applies to all other Islamic prophets and important historical religious figures. With this in mind, offence, anger and even outrage are predictable and understandable.
However, we must keep in mind exactly what is being accomplished here. Jyllands-Posten has set out to test to what extent Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press extends in the modern day, with the current international political climate. Their cartoons were designed to be provocative, not mortally insulting.
The Assad regime in Syria and the Islamist government in Iran have both been particularly vocal in their fury, and they demand that the cartoons be withdrawn, and Jyllands-Posten punished with fines, arrests or even total bans. Yet these are the same countries where caricatures of Jews as evil, scheming, weasley Zionists are commonplace; and of course we know they depict Jews because they wear a big spangly chain with the Star of David, and they wear the Jewish yarmulka (skull cap)--these are, in their own ways, sacred symbols of Judaism. How come this is entirely permissable, but anything with Muslim connotations is deemed crossing the line?
Furthermore, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has begun a competition for cartoonists to depict the Holocaust; it claims that it is merely testing the bounds of Freedom of Speech in the same way as Jyllands-Posten:

"Does the West's freedom of expression extend to... an event such as the Holocaust or is this freedom of expression only for the desecration of the sanctities of divine religions?"

(Source: BBC News)

Sadly, this is quite obviously not the reason for such an exercise at all; if it were, it would be an interesting, if in bad taste, experiment of journalistic bounds. But Hamshahri's objective is obviously to provoke an outrage of its own, in order to then point at the West's "hypocrisy."
And in the current climate, this is not only bad practice, but also extremely dangerous.

You see, this hasn't just caused occasional protests. This uproar has caused mass riots in Islamic countries and others the world over. Danish embassies have been attacked and damaged/destroyed in Tehran, Beirut and Damascus, with the Norwegian Embassy also razed in the latter city. Scandinavians in Muslim countries have had it urgently suggested to them that they immediately return home. In Afghanistan, rioters tried to storm a base of Norwegian peacekeepers. Rioting in Afghanistan has resulted in a partial UN withdrawal and urgent Nato redeployments in an attempt to keep the peace. People have even been killed.
What kind of madness is this? I said before that outrage was understandable in these circumstances, and the even the Jordanian press has said that "logical and reasonable" protests are legitimate, but how can anger at a few drawings by a southern Danish cartoonist justify in any way property damage, injury, death? And the worst thing is, there seems no stopping it. Because Denmark cannot retreat from its position of protecting Freedom of Speech; to do so would impinge on the very idea of Danish democracy. But even if Denmark did withdraw the cartoons and impose some form of punishment upon the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, will this stop the violence? Given the ruthless spontneity of this mayhem, and the mob mentality to go with it, this is most doubtful.
We can only hope that it will somehow fizzle out.

Congratulations to the Danish government for sticking to its guns.
To the cartoonist and Jyllands-Posten, it was a bold and possibly ill-informed idea of yours to run with this, but your dedication to your craft is admirable. After all, it is Islamic law that bars the drawing of Muhammad. Good for them. It should well apply to Muslims. But why must it apply to everyone else as well?
To the rioters and those inciting the riots: if your solution to the "outrageous" cartoons of Muhammad as a terrorist suicide bomber is to torch embassies and put many lives at risk, is it such a wonder people have prejudiced preconceptions against you? When did a comic become an excuse for anarchy?

One final thought: if the depiction of any of the holy Islamic prophets is worthy of such rioting, then why does the Muslim world, in general, tolerate the Christian world. Jesus was apparently an Islamic prophet too, and yet almost every Christian church, shop, community, publication and many many households have statues/pictures/stained-glass renditions/etc of Jesus. Hopefully I haven't just started another round of violence...

One more final thought: wondered about why the violence has begun now, when the cartoons were first published in September last year? Then check here.

Worlds above and worlds below

Well, Courtney and I jetted back into Adelaide at 2.30pm today (note to "Clin-ton": ...erm, I said I was away and wouldn't be updating while I was in Melbourne...so there's no use demanding an update when it's clear that there isn't going to be one...)
But without further ado, this one's a hOOge one. It's called...

THE BLOWN-UP PLANET GUIDE TO MELBOURNE

1. Getting there.
You can get to Melbourne in many ways from Adelaide, but Courtney and I flew Virgin Blue, who we found to be very efficient and cheerful. The seats could be more comfy, maybe, but if you want to go flying to Melbourne on little money, Virgin is the way to go. JetStar also service Melbourne, but they fly to Avalon, instead of Tullamarine. This means you pay about double the airfare just to get from the airport to the city. What a damnfool idea.

We flew on the Red-Eye Special 6.10am service from the tin sheds of Adelaide Airport, and arrived bleary-eyed and tired in Melbourne after a short flight. Tullamarine, aka Melbourne Airport, is bewildering compared to Adelaide. It's big, it has many shops and food places and whatever, but in terms of internationally, it's probably quite a simple airport. But the biggest drawback is working out how to get from Melbourne Airport to the city.
The airport is nowhere near the city. This is the first problem, for all you would-be walkers (I am not one). This also makes taxis expensive. The only other option is the Skybus. This we used.
Skybus is a good service that runs every 10 minutes, connecting Melbourne Airport with Spencer Street Coach Terminal. The problem is, it isn't run by Metlink, so it's bloody expensive ($15 one way). But it's at least a nice bus, with an informative but crap video. "Eeny meeny miney mo!" Grrr...

2. Getting around
Melbourne's transport system is confusing. I loved it after a while. The trains are frequent, efficient and on time, and they go most places. The trams in town are also great, but take some time to get used to. The buses are rubbish. Don't use them if you can help it.

We soon discovered that most travel into and out of Melbourne revolves around Flinders Street Station and Spencer Street Station, which is now called Southern Cross. I think it's a rule that at least seven things in every town must be called "Southern Cross", or else it's un-Australian. Courtney's cousin Nick (who is quite cool) said that there was a competition for the naming of it, and the top 2 entries were Southern Cross Station and Banjo Patterson Station. I personally like Spencer Street Station, but that's just me...
We soon discovered that the transit police are militant bastards. They patrol in plain clothes, but they have the power to either eject you from the bus/train/tram, or arrest you, if you do not have a ticket. It's a wonder they don't carry guns...
But at least Metlink has a sense of humour...


There are HORSES! With feather things on their heads! Oh the joys!


3. Accommodation
Stumbling around all day on Friday, owing to exhaustion and a desire just to fall asleep, we finally found our way to South Yarra train station, where we discovered that:
a. our serviced apartment was about 100m away
b. Chapel Street was a similar distance in the other direction.
This proved very handy.

Our accommodation was called "Darling Towers Executive Serviced Apartments". The name is due to them being on Darling Street, South Yarra, and according to them they've won some big award. Given its proximity to Chapel Street and a train station, it was a decent place to stay.
But...
Very soon after we arrived we discovered a BUG INFESTATION! I kid you not, mutant cockroach-type things kept popping up almost everywhere, and consequently were murdered by a train timetable/shoe/telephone book. We at first believed it to be a minor heat-and-humidity-related thing. The last straw was when we found one in the fridge and another in the crockery cupboard on the plates. If you ever stay at Darling Towers, DO NOT eat off their plates.
When you arrive there's a big bold-lettered brochure emblazoned with:

IMPORTANT!
Fire Safety Procedure
PLEASE READ

...and yet the smoke alarm did not have batteries. Great.

Finally, the bedroom had the stupidest lighting system ever. There was one light in the centre of the ceiling. This didn't actually work, so light was supplied by two lights covered in heavy wooden alcoves. Which wouldn't be a problem, but not only do they not give enough light, but they're right where you'll hit your head if you're taller than 5'5" and go anywhere near the windowsill. Hence, my head is bruised.

There were good things about the place, though. It was comfortable, it had an air conditioner that, though it looked as old as Rome, actually worked very well, it had a tv to watch the tennis final on (YAY FOR THE ARTFUL ROGER) and it had a shower the size of a small house. But if you want my recommendation, here it is: don't stay there.

4. Dining
Most nights we'd get Subway, which was a cheap way to eat. But we're not boring, so other places deserve mention. Two in particular.

The first is Caffe Map, on Elizabeth Street, in the middle of Melbourne CBD, right between the Bourke Street and Little Collins Street intersections with Elizabeth Street. The owner, who we called Friendly MapMan, is a little Chinese guy who'll bend over backwards to make your meal an enjoyable and memorable one. I recommend:
-Set breakfast: big portion of eggs (fried, scrambled or poached, but the scrambled eggs are divine) atop two pieces of toast, with two rashers of crispy, mouth-watering bacons, plus a grilled tomato. Yum.
-Chicken schnitzel and bacons focaccia: just as it says, with tomato, tasty cheese and baby spinach. Very very yummy, especially with the side order of chips.
-Pollo pizza: Like a Chicken Hawaiian, but better. You won't want to eat anything else because it will fill you up easily, and because anything else will seem a disappointment.
And all for reasonable prices.
Once, when we went in and Courtney ordered a turkey focaccia, MapMan was most apologetic that they'd run out of turkey, but, he explained, "chicken is much nicer".


The second place is Soda Rock, a '50s style American diner which was right on the corner of Chapel St and Toorak Rd. They have the BEST hot chocolate fudge ice cream sundaes. Ever. They brag that their hot dogs are 10 inches long. Be afraid. And they have SODA POP. Not soft drinks. Soda pop.

So where DON'T you go? On Bourke St we quickly had to go down to a McDonalds, because there was an ATM there. It smelt awful, and was next to an equally bad-smelling bistro. This we named Yucky McDonalds, for obvious reasons. My belief is that this McDonalds is staffed by the Maccas rejects, and the whole store is used as a gigantic restroom. Strangely some trams smell the same...worry.

As for Subway on Toorak Rd, which was our Subway, it was okay, but there's an old English gent working there who has the WORST taste in music ever. "Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen..." It was funny that one of the songs was about being so happy about being on holiday, and then the next was about being desperate to go home. Must be '70s Russian pop...

Apparently, though, you can eat very cheaply in Melbourne, if some crazy guy on the train was anything to go by:
"Could you spare 5c please? I need to buy some cat food...and also some people food..."
Had I known it stretched so far, I'd have collected every 5c piece I could find...

5. Shopping and activities
Shopping...what would Melbourne be without it? The Rainy City is renowned for its shops and markets. That doesn't mean they're user-friendly...
Our first day in Melbourne, we found ourselves in dire need of a toilet. So we went to Myer. Trying to FIND said toilet was like being Doctor Livingstone all over again. I found the male toilets only after crossing a bridge (!) into the second Myer store (!!). But THEN! We found THE BASEMENT! YEAH!
According to the bags that your purchased goodies come in, the Basement is:
The substructure or foundation of a building. The lowest habitable story of a building, usually below ground level. They go on to tell us about geology: A complex of undifferentiated igneous and metamorphic rocks underlying sedimentary strata.
The Basement is the lower ground level of Myer, which is dedicated wholly to youth clothing and has more in it than our entire Myer combined. Even custom-made t-shirts. How awesome.

I found a Haunted Bookshop just off Elizabeth Street, which was very cool, because it sold books about ghosts and the Bermuda Triangle and stuff. How WIQUID, as JAmes would no doubt say.

On Collins Street there's a mall known as "Australia on Collins", which for some reason, unknown to everyone, slants. Which means that, if you enter on the ground floor at Little Collins Street and walk in a straight line, avoiding all escalators, lifts and stairs, you end up on the first floor overlooking Collins Street. Somehow.

I bought Roger Federer's shirt! JOYOUS!

On Sunday we went searching for the Greville Sunday Market, having determined that the normal Prahran market is simply fruit and veg. I've now determined that the Sunday market somehow slipped through the fabric of the space-time continuum, as it was nowhere to be seen. Disappointed, we boarded a train and went to the Arts Market on Southbank, just on the other side of the Yarra from Flinders Street Station. While there, we took these cool photos.




Yeah, me. Don't have a fit. It's only that one.

The Arts Market was cool, if overpriced. Somewhat disappointing but HUGE was the Queen Victoria Markets. But apparently they're better on Sundays, and we went on Tuesday. Oh well...

On the retro side of things, we found Retrostar on Swanston Street, a fab retro clothing and accessories store where we got a bazillion badges. Such as can be seen on my new bag.

Speaking of my new bag, I bought that on Chapel Street, at General Pants. What a great name for a shop.

I was very glad that we got to go to the Railway Museum at Williamstown, to see these beauties up close. Sigh...steam trains...what a magnificent bygone era...



Also, we went to Docklands on two FREEZING days to see the Volvo 70 yachts in the Volvo Ocean Race. The Sydney-Hobart yacht Boss was there, and why is it no surprise I ended up near a boat called Enterprize? =P




6. Family
Of course we weren't going to go to Melbourne without looking up some people. Sadly, I wasn't able to catch up with Greg or the Woodies, owing to prior commitments, but happily I got to meet Courtney's extended family.
Her Uncle Chris, Aunt Janet and cousins Simon and Nick are cool AS. Chris knows something about everything, and he has a coffee business as a hobby. His cappuccino was the best I've ever tasted. The two boys are awesome pool players and everyone was very inviting.


I also met her Uncle Clive, Aunt Kay and cousin Alice, who live down at Brighton.
I don't think there are enough people called Clive these days. He was very funny. Kay was most hospitable and got me a genuine Hong Kong fake Polo Ralph Lauren top. Alice is also very friendly, and they have a lovely house.


There's so much to say about Melbourne, but not enough ways to say it.

But, we're back.