The Joy bar & cafe in Richmond. They have a little balcony out the back for smokers. It seems more a mediteranean menu than anything (though everything in melbourne seems that way to me) but a couple of the smokers were celts. One Irish, one Scot, so of course they got a little competitive. ;-) Started out with ballads. Just before we left though, the woman from Dundee and a pommy sheila got into Shirley Bassey numbers. Way out of my league, but I loved it.
> I live across the road from a pub now and got to say
>I'm not seeing a downside to it, but I lived around the corner from the Admiral
>Hindmarsh in Adelaide and wow that was grim Thu-Sat nights. The pissing
>competitions on the ivy outside my bedroom window, the teen girls throwing up
>vodka-and-fruit on my fence, being a convenient distance from fellow drinkers
>for domestics (but not too far to get back to the bar of course), and the truly
>grim covers bands -- all a lot less fun than you'd expect. But, really, the
>noise was never the point.
Don't tell me your troubles. I live across the road from the Bracknell football ground and club.
> > The thing is, where the hell are these pollsters finding the people who
>> supposedly support this war? I've yet to meet anyone who admits to such a
>> position. More and more Australians are openly contemptuous. Way over his
>> head.
>
>Yeah. Do you think the march on parliament thing will work? I'm unconvinced.
>The distance is too much to get enough people for an effective demonstration,
>surely?
Yes, it seems excessively ambitious, waste of resources busing people to Canberra. I think perhaps we might be getting past the point where marches are going to be effective in terms of influencing the government. The point of public demonstrations is, as I keep saying, to appeal to the public.
In this case, the public is already largely on-side. Public demos are preaching to the converted. There is some good to come out of deepening and re-inforcing that public support, creating social bonds between the people who go to the demos, but it isn't going to have any direct effect on preventing the war.
I think the time for direct action is approaching. It needs to start out small and conservative and escalate. Bob Brown is our man to lead that of course, he has the experience in organising the Franklin dam direct actions and he usually has a pretty good antennae for public sentiment. I wonder if he's thought of it?
> > So what was the "openly anti-French rhetoric" anyhow. He's really clutching
>> at straws if he thinks that might get a guernsey.
>
>He said he was dissapointed in the French "obstruction", that it made
>a "peaceful disarmament" of Iraq less likely (implying impossible) and
>explicitly said France had always been jealous of America -- its rise to power
>and its current power relative to Europe in particular.
Where the hell did he get that? France is America's oldest ally. That sounds like American right wing paranoia. And why the hell should Australians care anyhow, what on earth made Howard suggest that as a reason Australians should get involved in the war? It is more likely to re-inforce the strong sense that this whole affair is someone else's fight that we should stay out of.
He's losing it. If he took his head out of George Bush's arse for a few minutes he might smell trouble.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas