Winter is a great time in Melbourne's city, because it makes all of those cozy laneways the city is famous for even cosier and because the cold weather opens up a range of great food options. Plus, a coffee is much more enjoyable when it's grey and chilly.
Today was my first day off work since the uni semester started this week - the final semester of my masters degree. I had very good intentions and a list of things to do: get up early, clean my flat including the neglected bathroom and kitchen, then make a detailed grocery list, catch the train into Queen Vic Markets to buy lots of fresh food, then come home and get fully up to date with all my study for the week. Well, it did not work out that way.
Last night, I got home quite late from work, then ended up going out and staying out much later than I had intended to (winter is also a good time to go out at nighttime in Melbourne). This meant this morning I not only overslept, but really did not feel like house cleaning or grocery shopping when I did get myself together. Instead, I had a very lazy morning reading a book (Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which I am enjoying very much - I did not get around to reading anything study related despite my good intentions), and when I did leave the flat at about middayI caught the tram from Bridge Road into the city where I collected my Melbourne International Film Festival pass (the festival starts this week; I'm going to see 10 films and quite looking forward to it, although I'm not sure how I'll juggle it all around work and study). I the ambled up Swanston Street to Reader's Feast bookstore, where I had a "loyalty" gift voucher that I redeemed for a book on good coffee places in Melbourne and a book about Veuve Clicquot, the founder of the champagne house.
I enjoyed the lively atmosphere of Swanston Street - the street is alive with international students and the hundreds of cheap "hole in the wall" eateries catering to them, along with buskers, tourists, all those pesky charity people smiling at you and asking "do you have a moment for the environment?" and that sort of thing. As I was enjoying this ambiance I remembered something I'd read recently which concerned me very much indeed: Melbourne City Council, with its new Mayor keen to make his mark, is "reviewing" arrangements for street performers and vendors in Melbourne, with the proposition being that some sort of bureaucratic panel might "audition" potential buskers before they are permitted to busk; the review also looks at chestnut roasters and newsstands (I'm not sure if it applies to the Big Issue sellers, of which there seem to be quite a high concentration in the City, some of whom are a bit Bolshy). Ominously, the purpose of this review is to ensure street buskers and traders "meet the future needs of the city" - I hate that coded bureaucratic language; presumably what they are saying is do the buskers fit with the sophisticated marketing image we are peddling?
I am totally against any plan to "audition" buskers and I am wary of this veiled attempt to sterilise the vibrancy and colour of the city. For many years Melbourne had a reputation for being staid and prim, and these sorts of proposals hark back to those days. It seems to me that if a busker is no good, he'll soon find out because no one will give him any money and he'll either improve or move along. It's a pretty direct form of feedback. So I don't want some panel of experts deciding which busker fits the Melbourne "brand" or some rubbish; busking is the most immediate form of performance art, and it is self-regulating if you ask me, in the way I just mentioned. So I think the council ought to dump that idea toot sweet.
Back to my afternoon. I walked from Reader's Feast over to the GPO, which is not a post office but an upmarket shopping arcade, and had a very nice coffee at Octane espresso. I then ambled down Elizabeth Street to Mag Nation, which is a two storey store full of magazines. It is also full of mostly young people lulling about drinking coffee, using the free Wi Fi and flipping through all of the magazines. I'm not sure how they make a living but I presume some people must buy the magazines now and then. I had been to this store before but I had never been there when the mysterious third floor was open; today it was and I ventured up there to find a book shop focussed on design books. I browsed through a good many of these interesting but expensive books.
By now it was about 3.30, and I felt a little hungry, so I wandered over to my favourite city laneway, Centre Place, which is a tiny little alleyway crammed full of tiny little cafes and with a constant bustling passing parade. It also has some really great, colourful graffiti artworks. It's quite a special place really. I bagged a tiny table at Aix creperie and enjoyed another fine coffee and a ham, cheese and tomato crepe - just what I needed after all that book browsing.
