Addster's Eve

Spanish restaurant Movida, recommended to me by LA, wasn't operating, so I had my midday meal at Beer DeLuxe. Sounds like a Belgian cafe, but it's more general than that - a temple to brews from the four corners. My choices were decidely Anglo: Scotch fillet with fries, fennel herb salad, horseradish cream and red wine sauce; bread-and-butter pudding with vanilla ice-cream; and 500ml bottles of Fuller's London Pride, F. ESB and F. Organic Honey Dew.

At the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria), I was introduced to an Oz snapper of uncommon skill. In the posthumous exhibition "No Standing, Only Dancing", the photography of Rennie Ellis captured my country (right or wrong), in decades gone by, with the eye of a social historian and the soul of...not a poet, more like a pornographer.

Outside Flinders St Station, a piper piping and a drummer drumming were making traditional South American (Andean?) music a la the band Illapu or, if you prefer, the theme from the cartoon "Seven Cities Of Gold". I stood swaying for a few songs, then threw a fiver into the instrument case.

Browsed Minotaur - a massive range of pop-cultural treasure and tat, with massive prices to match - and Hobby Japan. Came upon an arcade with a videogame I had no idea existed: "After Burner Climax" (2006). Hydraulic cabinet, level "map" and tune select similar to "Out Run", great graphics and a seatbelt you have to wear or the thing won't begin! The "climax" part of the name refers to a flashy turbo mode activated by jamming the throttle full forward. The learning curve wasn't too steep. After five goes, I had the measure of the first six or seven stages of machine-gunning, missile-launching and twitch-dodging action. Didn't make the high score table, though.


Printed mutters: "Tangent #12", "Mixtape #7" (not my bag, but I predict AK will dig it) and "Vice (vol. 6, no. 12)", on account of the Martin Amis and Ursula K. Le Guin interviews.