"Yummy food, done dirt cheap..."

This article from The Age, plugging their annual Cheap Eats Guide, has reminded me what I miss most about living in Melbourne (okay, apart from friends, family and the memories).

In the UK you would struggle to find half these food cultures anywhere, let alone at prices that mean ordinary Melburnians can afford to eat out several nights a week.

My UK friends almost faint when I tell them that I can get two courses in many Vietnamese, Chinese and Italian restaurants for about £6 (that's £15), or my pick of Thai, Ethiopian, Spanish and even French for not much more than £8 ($20).

And don't even start me on quality.

Sigh...

Birthday bliss in Winchester

So the new job is hectic, but not so hectic that I couldn't take a couple of days off to get away for my birthday on Friday. Bright and early, Ants and I hopped on a train down to Winchester, which has won the honour of 'Georgi's new favourite town in England'.

Its sooooo pretty!

Winchester was once upon a time a Roman town, called Venta Bulgarum, and after the Romans left the Saxons took over, and King Alfred the Great made it the capital of England (well, of Wessex. The rest of England was run by the Vikings, and known as the Danelaw). King Canute and Queen Emma ruled from here and are buried in the Cathedral: a 15thC house still stands on land given to the city by Emma in 1016.

Above: Roman wall. Below: Statue honouring King Alfred the Great. Very below: the God Begot house, built on land bequeathed by Cnut's queen, Emma.

It was an important city for the Normans too, with the Domesday book commissioned and compiled from here. Various medieval kings enlarged and expanded the military castle at the top of the hill, but the cathedral and bishop's palace, Wolvesey Castle was where it was really all at. There'd been a church on the site since about the 600s, but by the time Mary Tudor (later aka Queen Mary I, or 'Bloody' Mary the rampant Catholic) was married in the cathedral, it was a pretty spectacular place. Still is. If you want to know more, check out Wikipedia.

Happily, the royal hobnobs settled on London for their capital and Winchester never became more than a local market town. So it's still laden with old buildings, bits of Roman Wall, three of the 5 original town gates and Alfred's 8th century street layout. It's the sort of place where you sneer at the 15thC reproduction of 'king arthur's round table', probably last painted for Henry VIII and found hanging (see below) in what's left of the castle fort. Ha!

Oh, and all the museums, gatehouses and other olde worlde stuff is free entry. Bargain.

But Winchester is more than just picture postcard pretty. It's also the first place I've been to in England that can claim a proper foodie culture (except that one restaurant in Warwick, and one place does not a foodie destination make!) So we gorged ourselves on gastropub grub at the Wykeham Arms, where the food was better, and still cheaper, than many other pubs in southern England. Then there was the Asian cafe we found for dinner when Loch Fyne couldn't get us in, and the truly groovy little cafe just over from the city museum (which also rocked) and cathedral close.

A lovely getaway? Oh yes!

Sadly, Wolvesey is closed in February, and the Winchester Bible wasn't on display at the Cathedral, as they're renovating the library. Damn. Guess I'll just have to go back there sometime...

Sorry. But very, very proud to be Australian

Somebody wrote on Facebook today "A brave man walked into Parliament this morning. A great man walked out this afternoon".

Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations of indigenous Australians is one of the great speeches of our time. His predecessor John Howard, imho, didn't make great speeches - he was more a 'soundbite and spin' kinda bloke. And a miserly sod sadly lacking in human decency.

The Stolen Generations are not just a product of actions by people a long time ago. I know a woman just two years older than me who was removed from her aboriginal family in about the same year I was born (early 1970s). Aboriginal people didn't have the vote until 1966. And the communities that were fractured by those past policies are still often full of broken families today.

We see the proof of that in indigenous communities, where the life expectancy is 20 years less than for all other Australians, where access to health and education is poor, where substance abuse and domestic violence have replaced traditional beliefs and rituals. We can't strip away the fabric of someone's culture and then complain when they 'dont behave like us'.

A Women's Circus performance in Melbourne about 15 years ago was called "The Soles of our Feet". It closed with the words of Wurundjeri elder Joy Murphy:

"Your job is to remember, our job is to forgive".

My people (white Anglo people) have lived in Australia for up to 8 generations, the first arrivals farmed in country Victoria, and almost certainly had aboriginal staff. I won't ever know how they treated those staff, but I know that many people in those days held attitudes that we know today were wrong.

And I am sorry

Spring has sprung early, yahaa!

The lovely Heather came up to Oxford this weekend, and in between watching loads of rugby in various pubs (it's 6 Nations season again!), we had our first day of sitting outside in the sunshine for lunch alfresco!! The scene of this little miracle (because winter has, allegedly, still a month to run) was the glorious Victoria Arms pub in Old Marston. Old Marson is just up the road from us in 'newer and decidedly more dodgy Marston, and the 'Vicky Arms' is at the end of a country lane, overlooking the Cherwell river, and was also host to our May Day frolics last year.

If this weather keeps up the trees'll be sprouting leaves before ya know it, there'll be blossoms out, and we'll be able to start planning this year's May Day in earnest...

Bring it on.