Ten Thirteen things I hate mildly dislike about you, Melbourne

Oh that’s right. I promised a post to slag off Melbourne following our southern sojourn a few weeks back.

I’m so lazy (slaps forehead and says d'oh).

Coupla things:

1. WTF all the shops were closed on Easter Sunday!?!?!

No Melbournians, this is definitely not normal.

As a young retail slave I strongly recall the opportunity to skive off from family functions on Easter Sunday in favour of earning triple time and a third at work selling sneakers to brats high on their body weight in chocolate.

So the one time I have the retail trifecta (being that I a) have money, b) have time, and c) have an urge to spend them both in clothing shops), everything is shut. Bastards.

2. A word to the ‘spruikers’ on Lygon Street who attempted to ‘tempt’ us into their restaurants with aggressive body language and inappropriate personal contact: “shut the f*ck up and stop upsetting my wife before I punch you in your large, pasta filled belly”.

Or something.

Seriously, does that spruiking crap actually work?

The effect it had on us was that we deliberately chose a restaurant which didn’t feature a fat, balding, smoking, smelly, aggressive, hairy and mafia-esque thug out the front trying to shoe-horn us into his den of dietary despair. I know I know, we have strange tastes.

3. It was day three of tram travel before we realised that you don’t have to validate your tram ticket every time you get on a tram. Boy, did we not feel any embarrassment about that. Despite the haughty stares and sniggers from locals. Meh.

4. We found the highest concentration of wankers on the planet. It was called Prahan.

For StinkTown Canberra locals, it was like the Academy nightclub was on steroids and had taken over a whole suburb. Not that I've ever been there. Honest!!!

5. Y'all need to take spelling classes:




6. There are lots of helpful signs around the CBD, including this one, warning you to be on the look out for a man with a giant hand dealing out wedgies.



7. The Swans beat Carlton. Ha. Take that, predominantly Carlton crowd.



8. Look out, here comes the obligatory complaint about the weather.

It rained just about the whole freaking time we were there.

That horrible cold rain that comes in sideways and all torrential like so you can’t even open your eyes to see where you are going (no great loss, in some cases). As Keisha-Marie would say, "your weather was shit, Melbourne".

The sun came out briefly on our last afternoon there, which allowed me an opportunity to test out the ‘atmospheric’ setting on my camera.





9. Five star hotels continue to grow on me as a desirable way to waste my fat-cat public servant salary.

10. Fitzroy seemed to be a bit over rated. But then again, I couldn’t see anything while we were there because it was raining so frikkin’ hard I couldn’t open my eyes (see 8 above). Plus it shows the first signs of suburb ruination (being the presence of a ‘Dangerfield’).

11. The vendors at the Queen Victoria markets can be more than a little scary in their appearance and general demeanour.

12. The best thing about our trip was a brilliant café in St Kilda called Superbo. The waiter appeared to be the long-lost twin brother of an old family friend of the LovelyWife’s and he was playing original ‘50s jazz diva recordings on an antique record player. Ripper stuff.



13. No, actually, the bestest thing about our trip was this mug, which I also picked up in St Kilda:



That’s about it really.

Oh no, wait. How could I forget!



Melbournians, sux to be you with that whole Federation Square thingo. Boy, someone has had one helluva a good joke at your expense with that thing. Ooooo-wee. I would laugh, but I’m still perplexed.