Bad and mean, MEB style

Traditional Canberra food

Nothing says Canberra like the bloody Raiders. You have to say it like that. Bloody Raiders.

“Hey Steve, did you catch the footy?”
“Yeah mate. Bloody Raiders.”

“Who’d you tip for Friday night’s game?”
“Bloody Raiders.”

“Have you seen my sock?”
“Bloody Raiders.”

Bloody Raiders. For years, Canberra has placed all of their sporting hopes in these bumbling fucking idiots. But there have been a few distractions along the way, a false hope, like when you go out on the piss one night with $120 in your wallet. The next thing you remember, you’re in your bed, you’re still fully clothed and you smell like four-day-old ass. All you want is some shit greasy food and a game of cricket to watch. You struggle down to the takeaway shop, positive that there is no way on God’s lime green earth that you spent $120 last night, but when you reach into your pocket for some cash and your hand comes out empty, all you can do is cry. That’s kind of what happened briefly when the Super 12 Ruby Union competition began. For a while, the Brumbies were the best thing since Laurie Daley’s groin, but then people began to realise that the game is decided by the referee, who gives penalties for breathing too loud. I guess that’s why people with asthma don’t play rugby much. Poor little asthma sufferers. But they do get those cool little blue puffers. I always wanted one of those. The rules of union are way too confusing and watching a giant “stacks on” game isn’t as much fun as it sounds. And for some reason, the crowd dress up like they’ve just come from having a Queer Eye makeover, drink champagne and discuss the big merger that’s coming up. The real people (the punters) would probably rather spend $120 on the turps and feel like shit the next day than have to sit through another Brumbies match, and the Brumbies ‘faithful’ began to dwindle.

Among it all were the little battlers called the bloody Raiders.

The high points for the bloody Raiders came in 89 and 90, and again in 94, as they hoisted the Winfied Cup aloft (and dropped it off the back of a ute), and they would have won it again in 95 except Ricky Stuart snapped his leg and the bloody Raiders did what they always do in a time of crisis: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They tried some young bloke from St Mary’s under 12 side, and s/he was found to be in need of a good punch in the face, which I’m sure was given by at least 16 other blokes. So they tried an Eskimo from a formerly undiscovered tribe in the important number 7 jersey. Surprisingly, Tarka’s ball handling skills were less than remarkable (good kicking game though) and he didn’t last long either. The whole team fell apart in a syndrome that has been recently diagnosed as “Joey Johns Disease”. It was sad to watch these once-mighty titans fall into a large pile of shit. It was probably hilarious for the rest of Australia, who hated the talent, the speed, the rugged good looks and of course, the beautiful lime-green jerseys of the bloody Raiders.

We were treated to some “rebuilding years” as the majority of the bloody Raiders left Canberra due to retirement, injuries and rehab commitments. These rebuilding years tested the loyalty of the fickle Canberra fans, who briefly toyed with the idea of once again going to the Brumbies, but then thought that they could sit at home, eat cold pies and be bored for a lot less effort and a lot less money. The Canberra Cosmos soccer team enjoyed a crowd (once), the Cannons fell apart in exact proportion to the amount of scalp that was showing through Phil Smythe’s hair, the Bushrangers played baseball, the Capitals are a women’s basketball team (no slam dunks, hence BORING), the Comets were under prepared for first class cricket (Merv Hughes? Under prepared? Never), and the Knights play the world’s fastest team sport in slow motion. With no sporting heroes to worship, Canberrans did the only thing they know how to do - bitch and moan about the bloody Raiders. They were a team that had been there and done that, they could take the brunt of media abuse, bottles from the crowd, death threats from me and, in the case of at least two players, no bar service in Canberra.

And they’re still going today. They might not be winning like the team of yesteryear, but they have the same spirit and pride in the lime green jersey as those troopers of 1982. Except that most of them are leaving to earn more money somewhere else. I’m looking at YOU, Shifcofske. And by the way, you have something on your cheek.

To the mighty bloody Raiders: Good luck for the rest of the season. You’ve cracked the top eight, and have the ability to upset a few of the… well, better teams.

For those Canberrans unfamiliar with exactly who plays for the bloody Raiders, next time you’re out and about in the city, look for the big bloke lying in the gutter, unable to speak coherently. Chances are, it’s the next captain of the team – he’s not drunk, he’s just a fucking spastic. I love those guys.

MEBCAM has the touch. MEBCAM has the power.

Canberra's most popular easy listening station now in mug form.

A man's gotta eat. A man might live in Canberra. And so without further ado, here's Mister Evil Breakfast’s Top Five Eating Establishments In The Nation’s Capital (MEBTFEEITNC)

5. RJs. Located in Woden in the car park opposite Hoggies and behind another carpark, it’s where they have Trash n Treasure occasionally – if you’re ever there and this caravan of wonder has a price tag, for the love of Natalie Portman, buy the puppy. The greatest chips and gravy in the southern hemisphere, and the hot dogs are divine. The menu also boasts a “Taco Dog” which sounds appealing, but I dare someone to actually order it.
COST: For $5, you’ll be the happiest ball of cholesterol in the world.
SPECIALTIES: Chips n Gravy. Served in a paper cup, these thinly cut slices of Potato Heaven are smothered in gravy with the consistency of Vegemite and the taste of thick, black gold. (Chef recommends Coke as an accompanying beverage).

4. Ainslie Take Away. Nestled in the heart of Ainslie, this take away appears to be the same as every other fish n chippery anywhere in the world. Don’t let the plastic curtain strips fool you, this place is perfect for those looking for a meal with a bit of bite. And by bite, I mean a ferocious ‘Casey-Donovan-on-a-Big-Mac’ kind of attack. For those with a less spicy palate (i.e. pussies), you can chow down on dim sims and Chiko Rolls to your hearts content, but trust me, the ulcers are totally worth it.
COST: Bring along a $10 for an extra beverage. You’ll need it.
SPECIALTIES: Portuguese Chicken Burger. Take one piece of chicken breast, take out the chicken and stuff with spices. Deep fry. Add more spices, slap it on some bread, add a bit of spicy sauce and salad and go nuts. Don’t expect to be able to feel your tongue for the rest of the day.

3. Kingsley’s. It doesn’t matter which store of this delightful chain you go to, it is impossible to be disappointed. Their “Kid’s Meal” toys leave a lot to be desired (a balloon? Come on!) and their television ads are fucking terrible, but I think this is to leave room in the budget for the best damn chook this side of Saturn. Believe you me, you’ll be sucking on chicken bones for a week to make sure you’ve got all the meat off.
COST: You could quite easily spend a quarter mill, but $10 should do you nicely for a meal with chips and a drink.
SPECIALTIES: Obviously a personal choice, but the Breast Fillet Burger (with gravy AND coleslaw) is my favourite. The coleslaw juice runs down your arm, which would normally be a turn off, but in this case, it just adds to the experience. Use a spare chip and mop up that mess. Delightful.

2. Yowana Golf Club. Sounds ritzy, and maybe it is, but at the end of the day, it’s just a club with a bar, bistro and pokies. And the best damn schnitzel ever. Seriously. After my first meal there, I was inspired to try and hook up my intestines back to my mouth so I could continue to eat this divine piece of cuisine forever. When Mark Holden says, “Whizzo Fizzo Shnitzel,” you know he’s just come from Yowana, and his brain is struggling to cope with the flavour sensation that is the schnitty (or he might just be slightly retarded). There are wars going on in the Middle East that could be solved with the eating of a schnitzel and the supping of beer. The Queen once tried to burn down the Palace because her chef thought he could “do a better schnitzel than Yowana.” Go there for a work lunch and get your boss to buy the beers.
COST: It doesn’t matter. Just do it. I think the schnitzels are $14 though. Best $14 I’ve ever spent.
SPECIALTIES: They do a good Caesar Salad. Just kidding. Salad’s for girls, rabbits and old Roman emperors.

1. Chicken Gourmet. For those 4am munchies. Conveniently located next door to King O’Malleys, you can quite literally stumble from pint to plate without breaking stride. It’s also on the way to the taxi rank, so you can stand in line with your little bag of goodies and lord it over the hungry and cold who are standing with you.

Chips? You got it. Chicken? Of course. Burgers? Yep. Other things? Probably. With ‘help yourself’ chicken salt and the most patient staff in the world, Chicken Gourmet is a godsend to drunken idiots at a thousand o’clock in the morning. If some young tart doesn’t flirt her way into your alfoil bag (that is NOT a metaphor) while waiting for a cab, it makes for a terrific breakky snack the next day.
COST: If you’re at Chicken Gourmet, it really doesn’t matter how much it is, cause you’ll pay it regardless. Consider it an investment. WARNING: No matter how hungry you feel, you probably won’t eat as much as you think you can. Don’t throw it away, use it as barter in the cab line.
SPECIALTIES: I can't resist a bag of chicken salt and a few chips, personally. Throw in a chunk of one of those little birds that clucks and I'm the happiest bloke alive.

Sweet, sweet MEBCAM

Nothing says ‘Canberra’ like a bad driver. In the metaphorical sense, of course. In reality, a lot of things say Canberra. Well, maybe not a lot. A few. Like people. And parrots.

If I had a parrot, I’d definitely teach it to say “Canberra.” But then, if I had a parrot, it would sit on my shoulder and say “Pieces of eight” a lot as well. Aar.

Bad drivers and Canberra go together like a pirate and his plundering. But not in the same way. Like, if a guy cuts you off on the parkway, you don’t usually drop anchor, grab your musket and cutlass and swing into his car via a chandelier or any conveniently placed rigging, sail or curtain. I’m just saying that pirates plunder and Canberra drivers are absolutely shit. Not Sydney shit, with its manic drivers who will drive the wrong way up a one-way street just to get two car spaces in front of you. And it’s not Melbourne shit where they turn right from the left lane. And it’s not Queensland shit with its stupid Queenslanders. Canberra drivers are shit in their own ways.

For one, Canberrans are split in the whole indicator “leave it on, never use it” debate. I’ve been behind a person who had his left indicator on from Banks to Amaroo before actually turning, and that was just to change lanes. (For those unfamiliar with the Canberra layout, Banks is as far south as anyone needs to go [sorry Cooma] and Amaroo is somewhere out in the northern sticks). Obviously we took a strange route that involved no curved roads. On the other hand, most drivers in the Berra are so important that their daily driving plans have been given to everyone else in the world, and so have no need for indicators at all. The trouble with this though, is that everyone is so damn important that no one reads anyone else’s plans. The end result is obviously a big fat mess of unblinking proportions. Driving around the city is a lot like a Mr Magoo episode, but funnier. No wait. Mr Magoo is a comic genius. It’s more like an episode of Full House. Cut – It – Out. That shit never gets old. Never.

Did you see that movie “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”? No, neither did I, and if you answered ‘yes’ to that question, I’m coming over to your house to punch you in the goiter. But what I can gather from the previews, it’s about a bunch of dudes who drive really fast around Tokyo. Sideways.
Brilliant.
Anyway, “Fast and the Furious: Canberra Amoeba” is similar to that (and Tokyo Drift was pretty similar to 2Fast, 2Furious, which in turn was along the same lines as Fast and the Furious, which in my opinion, had the same plot as Smokey and the Bandit, but that’s my beef, not yours), except that ‘Canberra Amoeba’ is more about changing lanes very, very slowly. The plot goes like this:
Trevor (Jonathon Taylor Thomas) is a hotshot advertising executive who has just broken up with his girlfriend (Jenna van Oj). So he moves to Canberra to start a new life. He has no friends, no family, just heaps of cash and a ‘fully sick’ Excel. He’s lowered it, donked it, doofed it, boofed it and woofed it. And it has tinted windows and cup holders in the back. After a day at the National Dinosaur Museum, he returns to his car to find that someone has keyed it. Distraught, he does what he does best – he drives. Whilst passing by Scrivener Dam, he comes across a gang of hard nut rebels called the “ADFA Boyz”, distinctive in their white pants and boat shoes. Led by “Squad Leader” (Jerry O’Connell’s brother), the ADFA Boyz show Trevor the “Canberra Amoeba”; the art of driving alongside another vehicle and very, very, very slowly drifting into the other person’s lane without them realising. Do it right, and – SHLUPP! – they’ve been absorbed like an amoeba into your car. Trevor learns that Squad Leader and the Boyz are planning a dangerously slow attack on their arch rivals, the Weston Creek Coolies. In a unique twist to the plot, Squad Leader’s sister Sharyn (Paris Hilton) is part of the Coolies, and has fallen in love with Trevor after four Bacardi’s and two West Coast Coolers. In an exciting final confrontation, Trevor and Squad Leader face off against each other down Northbourne Avenue. Can a thousand sets of traffic lights, endless roadworks and nineteen squeegee windscreen men escape THE CANBERRA AMOEBA?
Sounds pretty good, huh? Hollywood, call me.

Canberra also has, admittedly, a lot of roundabouts. This is not such a bad thing. You can make a wrong turn anywhere and be able to get back on the right path in a maximum of two right hand turns. It’s fantastic. Compare this to Sydney, where you’ll make a wrong turn, have to pay $12,000 in tolls and be driving around aimlessly for the next six years of your life. By the time you get back to where you were before, you’ve forgotten what you’re doing, and may make the same stupid wrong turn you did before. By the time you remember where you wanted to go (just down to the fish n chip shop), your family has given up on you, your wife has moved on and remarried and your children have turned into satanic cult leaders. How quickly they grow up. In Canberra, you can actually get places quicker by making wrong turns. It’s tops.

Well, it would be if Canberrans knew how to use roundabouts. People are always confused by the “give way to your left… or is it right” phenomenon, and basically resort to just flooring the accelerator, closing their eyes and swerving randomly to get around. While it adds a bit of spice to a road trip and gets the adrenaline pumping, it can also be quite stressful on the old ladies that you knock down. And their seventy maltese-terrier puppies.

But the greatest part of Canberra driving is the appreciation that road users have for their cycling counterparts. Some champion decided several years ago that everyone in Canberra either has a bike, or has evolved wheels where their legs should be, so he put a cycle lane on every friggin piece of bitumen in the holy capital. I don’t have anything against bikes and bike riders (hey, if there’s an accident, I’m pretty sure my car is going to win that little stoush) but the fact that half of every major road in Canberra is taken up by a largely vacant stretch of space that could be quite easily filled with, well, another lane of traffic, really gets on some people’s goat. As well as occupying the majority of road, the footpaths and pedestrian walking path things that follow EACH AND EVERY ROAD are also split in two for the sake of bikers.

The majority of Canberrans are either fat, middle-aged public servants, deadbeat arts students or are just plain lazy. Yes, I’m putting all of you people into categories. Said public servants are not going to be riding bikes anywhere – no matter how sturdy that basket on the front is, you will not be trusting it with your fifty boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. And the students aren’t going to ride anywhere, because they’re too busy complaining about everything and are quite possibly drunk. And the lazy people… well, I think you understand what I’m saying. Riding a bike is always fun, but it does mean you have to get up a bit earlier, ride around in sub-zero temperatures and wind up wherever you’re going a sweaty, pink-faced mess of a person. And no matter how easy you think that chick in marketing is, you will not be getting anywhere with her in those bike pants.
In the immortal words of Shannon Noll (well, Bryan Adams said it, but didn’t have the balls to try and ruin his career with the song, so he gave it to our very own Aussie Idol): Come on, let’s drive. But don’t be a fuckwit about it. Yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Pajero YTK 410. Prick.

MEBCAM is the new black

Canberra can be quite dark at night


Ah... Canberra in August. Is there a better place in the world to be? Probably.

The world is full of great places that are great because people tell us that they're great. New York, London (which actually is pretty good, probably because it's full of Aussies) and Glenrowan come to mind. Why are these places so damn good? Is it because there's a lot to do, interesting people, or is it the "je ne sais pas" of a place?

Je ne sais pas is actually just a fancy way of saying, "Let's go out and sink some piss."

So without any further ado, here is the Mister Evil Breakfast Random Places to Drink Beer and Fall Down Stairs List (MEBRPtDBaFDSL for short, and when pronounced correctly is a good pick up line).

King O'Malleys: The old faithful Irish pub, set up by a Scotsman who may or may not have had some political power back in 120BC or some such time in Australia. Made some good predictions for Canberra (the size of London, the beauty of Rome and the art of Paris), which may sound a bit far off now, but he never gave himself a time frame in which to achieve these goals. Nice one, Kingo.
Best bits: No schooners, just pints. Tidy bartenders. Located next to Canberra's best restaurant, Chicken Gourmet. Sports pages located on the toilet wall.
Worst bits: Toilets have never been cleaned (but sports pages constantly updated). Stairs can be tricky when either carrying 4 pints or when completely smashed. Full of knobs you went to school with who are all earning a million in the Public Service.

Mooseheads: The Moose is great until 2am when drink prices go up expedentially. But by that time, you're shitfaced and don't care that you're now paying $70 for a round of beers that previously cost you $12. You also don't care that you're dancing to a remix of Smells Like Teen Spirit with backing vocals from that chick that did Murder on the Dance Floor.
Best Bits: Cheap drinks till 2am. Low cover charge. Located next to a pizza stall. Has many good places to watch people get into a fight and not get involved.
Worst Bits: The girls in there are young enough to be your little sister's younger friend, who skipped a year at school. Ordering drinks after 2am and realising that your kidneys are no longer tangible bartering tools. Is full of knobs that you went to school with who are earning millions in the Public Service.

North Bar: A nice place to go if you're tuning a bird, don't mind drinking girl's drinks (or paying $6 for an Extra Dry) and fighting rich yuppies for an uncomfortable square cushion to sit on.
Best Bits: Interesting drink choices. Music quiet enough so you don't have to yell.
Worst Bits: Limited seating. Long lines at the bar. Drinks way too pricey, but you have to do it if you're trying to pick up, and let's face it, if you're at North, you're not there because you want to be. Full of tossers who don't remember you from school because they're fuckwits. You'll see them later on at the Moose though, so hit them up for drinks when they're really pissed.

Academy: I've only been to Academy twice and don't remember much of either of those visits. The few hazy moments that I can still recall are: the guy on the door who told me that I was only allowed to drink Milo if he let me in; the price that drinks cost (and it wasn't Milo, but don't tell the bouncer), and not being able to find the toilets for about 3 hours.
Best Bits: Absolutely nothing comes to mind.
Worst Bits: The most expensive night you'll ever have. $15 cover charge. For a nightclub. In Canberra. Fuck off. That said, it was once a cinema complex, so $15 to get into a dark room with a sticky floor is pretty standard. Is possibly filled with the knobs you went to school with, but who the fuck cares?

Shooters: $2 drinks. Nuff said.
Best Bits: $2 drinks.
Worst Bits: A sore head the next day. The fact that you might have to tell someone you actually went to Shooters. The stamp they put on you has superhuman strength, and scientific research has proven that the harder you try to wash it off, the longer it will stay. Could be filled with fucktards from your school, but you don't really know, as your head is down at all times.

PJ O'Reilleys: PJ's is great - there are shamrocks and Guinness signs all over the place, so you just know it's Irish. The only times I've been there are when I've been hell smashed, so I can't really remember much, except that the bouncer guy on the door was nice enough to let me in even though it was clear I'd had too many already and was talking like a pirate. And there's an Ali Baba on the way into the city, so that's a good thing.
Best Bits: Pints are reasonably priced. Bouncer was nice to me on at least one occasion.
Worst Bits: Avoid the Tuggeranong PJ's at any cost, you may go blind. You will see a few knobs you went to school with, but the place is that big that you can lose them again in an instant.

Wig and Pen: A nice, quiet place to have a pint or twelve. The Wig has some outstanding lagers, ales and stouts from far and beyond, but get there early-ish and don't ever leave your seat, or some bastard will steal it. If you do need to go to the toilet, take your chair with you.
Best Bits: You can drink beer and feel like you're in an Olde English Pub. Quiet and sophisticated, and you won't look out of place if you're a bloke wearing a cardigan and a scarf.
Worst Bits: For some reason, I can never find it when I need to, which is strange, cause it's right there. Some of the brews can make you a bit bloaty, when all you really want is a VB. You may run into some of the art/drama knobs that you went to school with, but you can impress them with the fact that you actually have a job.

The Church Bar: Honestly, this place changes its name more often than Rove says, "What the?" You may know it as the Aree Bar, I know it as the Church Bar, but rumour has it that it's changed its name again. In any case, it's the bar located underneath the backpacker's joint, which is, almost ironically, located across from one of Canberra's finest hotels, The Waldorf.
Best Bits: Cheap drinks after work on Fridays - $2 for a schooner. Show me cheaper and I'll love you always. They also have live music, which is getting quite rare for Canberra these days. And karaoke. And there's an NBA Jam arcade game in the corner.
Worst Bits: Is home to a lot of dodgy blokes and their missuses. You may see a few dickheads you went to school with, but since you probably invited them there, it's ok.

ICBM: Possibly the worst nightclub in existence. But it has some kind of magnetism to it that at 4am, it sounds like the best place in the world to go. Probably because they'll still let you in, and more importantly, still serve you drinks. I got hit in the head by a rubber chicken there one night, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Best Bits: You may score yourself a rubber chicken. They have a mechanical bull in there these days. Never a line up at the bar, toilet, to get in or anyone to talk to.
Worst Bits: Is just a general crap hole. I can't put my grubby little finger on it, as this place is like every other nightclub in Canberra; just a whole lot worse. It has a lot of stairs in it too, and they hurt my knees. You're unlikely to see anyone you went to school with in ICBM, but if you do, count yourself lucky that you're not there alone.

The Lighthouse: Formerly Sails (the waterfront pub), The Lighty is still on the waterfront. I don't think that will be changing anytime soon. So sit back, grab a jug and relax on the shores of Lake Ginninderra. A lot of joggers go past The Lighthouse, so you can watch them and at least pretend that you're doing exercise. They're watching you and pretending they're having fun, so it all works out in the end. Pool tables, beer, uni students and a soundtrack with at least 6 songs on it all add up to a good time. Even though I am rubbish at pool. If you ever see me at The Lighty, challenge me to a game (your shout). You'll know it's me cause I'll be the one already doing laps of the table with my pants down.
Best Bits: Is really close to my house. Sure, that may not be good for you, but that's not my issue. You should move house. Tidy bar tenders. Surrounded by fast food outlets and video stores. Always someone drunker than you there, and willing to dance to prove it.
Worst Bits: You need to wear gumboots to get in and out of the toilets. The outdoor DJ successfully ruined Sunday Sippers for everyone. Occasionally the surfacing of a body in the lake puts people off their wedges. I am yet to see anyone I went to school with at The Lighty. This probably speaks volumes about both of us.

The Irish Club: Hidden far away in the vicinity of Cooleman Court lies the Irish Club. The Iro. The Ire. The I-Club. Fiddle de dee potatoes. Finally, a club where you actually get some sort of reward for joining - cheap drinks. Cheap drinks make happiness so much more affordable. This place is unlike most of the other Irish pubs in Canberra though, it actually has a tradition of Ireland. Yes, they have shamrocks and Guinness, but they also have the 'diddly diddly diddly' Irish music played by a live band. You'd almost swear that you were in that scene from Titanic where Kate Winslet slams a pint and stands on her tip toes. Except on Fridays, which is karaoke night. Maybe that scene is in the director's cut. I don't know anyone who wants to see Leonardo di Caprio singing 'Mustang Sally' while leaning on the microphone stand for support as he gets that Italian bloke to buy him another rum and Coke cause the bar staff have cut him off. Actually, I think I know a lot of people who would like to see that.
Best Bits: Cheap membership that pays for itself over the bar. Karaoke Fridays. Diddly diddly diddly music every other night. You can pretend you're Irish and talk like Jimeoin.
Worst Bits: A weird membership scheme that saw me sign up for the grand total of a week before it ran out. Karaoke Fridays. Diddly diddly diddly music every other night. People attempting bad Irish accents and telling poor Jimeoin jokes. If you see someone you went to school with there, it won't matter because neither of you will remember it in the morning.

Kingston Pub: The Kingo is the best place in the world to go to on a nice Summer's day. Just sitting out in the beer garden, knocking back a few coldies and watching the world (aka Canberra) go by is without peer. Its location also means that you get to see all the hicks, sluts, yobbos and rollers go about their business, and you can cast aspersions on them.
Best Bits: Cheap steak (that you cook yourself, so you can feel more manly). Beer garden. Beer. Bottle shop next door. Free parking. Cheap Cruiser nights (if Cruisers are your thing, but for $3, they can be my thing until midnight too).
Worst Bits: It's a fair cab charge to get home (if you live in my house; if you live in Kingston, it's probably not that much. But if you live in Kingston, you should walk home, you fucking lazy bastard). Is home to another shitty nightclub, but if you can avoid this, a good night will be had by all. You'll probably see some guys you went to school with and wonder why you never kept in touch.

There's a thousand more bars, pubs and clubs in this wonderous patch of land called Canberra, but all this talk of beer and shenanigans is making me thirsty. Bottoms up, and it's your shout.

Stickers tell us where to pee

Mister Evil Breakfast's Canberra Appreciation Month (MEBCAM) continues, with a brief insight into some previously undiscovered treats of the 'Berra.

There is a club in Mawson (I'm not going to mention its name until it pays me royalties, but let's just say that it's expensive to drink at, but cheap to join) that holds what is without doubt the greatest monument in Canberra's rich artistic history. This CLUB that happens to be in MAWSON and whose name rhymes with MAWSON FLUB, has, amongst its awkwardly heighted bar stools and four-track repeat muzak disk, a puzzling piece of other-worldly goodness. I'm talking about this:



(I only just realised that I can put pictures on here, can you tell?)

This is a sticker. It's on a smoke detector. It's located directly above the urinals at this particular Mawson club. It is approximately 3cm x 1cm in size. It reads "URINAL", and has an arrow pointing to the nearest wall, which happens to be about 10cm in front of it. It is quite, quite useless. Yet entirely endearing. I love it and may marry it one day.
It's one of those things that you can't really appreciate properly until you have seen it for yourself, like a solar eclipse or an amusingly shaped zucchini. I can't help but wonder of its origins. The ceiling is quite high, so the person who put this sticker there would have to be around 7 foot tall. And the font is miniscule, so that giant would have to have good eyesight. And since it's pointing to the urinal already, the far-sighted giant is probably quite forgetful, so this sticker is to remind him where he is supposed to pee. My CSI-style re-enactment goes a little like this: Far-sighted Giant Man (Canberra's own superhero) has had a few too many over-priced drinks and stumbles into the toilets. He is about to just pee on the floor (something usually reserved for The Lighthouse or King O'Malleys) when he notices his reminder on the roof. "Ah yes," says Far-sighted Giant Man. "That is where I am supposed to pee." So he moves the few inches closer to the urinal and 'reveals his secret identity'.
Then he goes back to his seat and has a few more drinks, throws $20 in the pokies, nicks an ashtray and wanders home in time to watch a few rounds of "Quizmania".

Bienvenue a Canberra!

Canberra is a rockin place. I love it. It's tops. In fact, if Canberra were to be represented in an acrostic poem, it would look like this:

C hrist it's cold (cause it is).
A n extra jumper is what you'll need (cause it's cold).
N early a city (but more like a village).
B rrrr. It's cold.
E ast is just one direction you can go when in the centre of Canberra.
R eally quite cold.
R oger Moore has the same surname as my friend Scott (who lives here).
A nother jumper is a good idea (in case the other ones get dirty).

August shall hereby be known as "Mister Evil Breakfast's Canberra Appreciation Month". It will go for as long as August does, or until I get bored and stop doing it. Centrebet is paying 4/1 on me getting bored.