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The Grey elephant and the Moon
28/08/2004 10:45 pmIckle Iz has returned from her pissy little four hour shift this evening. It's a pain on pay day but is very handy for being able to do much more stuff with your day (but having less money to do it with, of course)
So today Iz decided to visit the latest monstrous carbuncle in downtown Dursleyville - the new exhibition and convention centre which opened on Thursday. Since it's Izzie's taxes that are paying for it, may as well go to see exactly how they are being wasted.
Iz was also there yesterday but because of the Goblins and stuff, did not get there until 4pm so only had time to visit the wine and food tastings in the grand ballroom and not the main exhibition. Of course we had to do the wine tasting yesterday as it would not do to be turning up to work an ickle bit tipsie and doozie!
Obviously it would be a logistical nightmare for the stuff to be free. It would be way too crowded and folks would get themselves pissed. But charging $5 for a glass and $1 each per tasting voucher was really rather excessive. If you bought ten vouchers you got the glass included so that wasn't too bad. If Iz hadn't been working today, would have not bothered yesterday and brought a glass from the broom cupboard today instead.
Izzie did discover one wine that you did not have to pay for and there was not a grape to be found in it. Izzie never even knew there was such a thing as chili wine but both today and yesterday got to sample it. Most peculiar indeed but damned delicious. Must consult the Oracle for a recipe.
Izzie has acquired a preference for red wines and sniffed out all the shiraz or cabernets with lots of gongs or very big price tags. Some mob called Sinclair had lots of really good stuff. Who could resist a wine with the name "Jezebel"? That did not live up to its decadent promise - sort of strangely savory - the sort of thing you would have with pizza but their straight cabernet sauvignon and shiraz were tasty little inkpots.
There was a mob there making organic wines and their stuff was good. Must check out the name.
But the big discovery of the day was a cute little Italian stall with lots of olives, pesto, marinated peppers, mushrooms and cheeeese. Izzie loves cheese. Their parmesan was particularly good.
The general impression was that all the stuff on the stalls was supposed to be locally produced but they had some of this parmesan for sale and Iz peeked at the label. It was made in New Zealand. Nasty cheats and sneaks indeed. But it was only $$13 per kilo so Iz bought a few hundred grams today and yesterday.
Izzie asked these folks if it was the same price in their shop and where their shop was. Turns out that Izzie passes it on the bus every time she visits St Brutus. Often did see that Italian deli and says, must make an effort to get there one day. So now Iz has got just the excuse she needs especially as parmesan cheese is usually about $$17 plus a kilo and more if you insist on Italian stuff like Grana Padana. Reggiano is so damned expensive that Iz only tried it once and while liking it, did not consider it twice as good as its nearest rival.
But the newest thing today was one of the Chinese stalls with lots of Malaysian satays and stuff had added something to their collection that was not there yesterday. Mooncakes. Izzie has always wanted to try these buggers but they are rather expensive. And they are only available once a year. Last two time Iz seen them was in September but it seems that the particular moon festival concerned must be for the full moon on Monday. Iz has requested the day off work and sunny weather is forecast so it looks like we will be having our first decent moonshine picnic since April this year.
But Iz has been so busy drooling over munchies, forgot to mention how utterly drab and dreary this new building is. Some folks have described it as a hayshed and others as a slater (those curly garden bugs) To Iz it looks like some sort of oversize warehouse. But inside things just got worse. The carpets are either a muddy grey shade of purple, brown or just plain grey. The toilets all have dark grey doors and even the floors are grey. It is just so damned depressing. Looks like the work of some boring Bauhaus architect from East Berlin.
Even the painting specially commissioned for the main entrance which looked really cool when they showed it in the papers last year amidst a storm of controversy because lots of people said it was outrageous for the government to pay an artist $$180,000 for a picture of a SNAKE! - it too looked less brown, black and beige like it had in the photos and more like the Dementors had drifted by and sprayed yet more grey all over it.
We had the white elephant which was the bus station which was built about 20 years ago and it looks like a very large and bright botanical gardens greenhouse. It is very pretty but hardly anyone uses it except to transfer to other buses. It is too far from the town centre to walk to and from there. Now the grey elephant has been built right next door. Iz was thinking - all we need now is a black one but it just occured to the Iz that maybe the snakie would be perfectly suited for that job.*Slinks off to Google in search of serpentses*
So today Iz decided to visit the latest monstrous carbuncle in downtown Dursleyville - the new exhibition and convention centre which opened on Thursday. Since it's Izzie's taxes that are paying for it, may as well go to see exactly how they are being wasted.
Iz was also there yesterday but because of the Goblins and stuff, did not get there until 4pm so only had time to visit the wine and food tastings in the grand ballroom and not the main exhibition. Of course we had to do the wine tasting yesterday as it would not do to be turning up to work an ickle bit tipsie and doozie!
Obviously it would be a logistical nightmare for the stuff to be free. It would be way too crowded and folks would get themselves pissed. But charging $5 for a glass and $1 each per tasting voucher was really rather excessive. If you bought ten vouchers you got the glass included so that wasn't too bad. If Iz hadn't been working today, would have not bothered yesterday and brought a glass from the broom cupboard today instead.
Izzie did discover one wine that you did not have to pay for and there was not a grape to be found in it. Izzie never even knew there was such a thing as chili wine but both today and yesterday got to sample it. Most peculiar indeed but damned delicious. Must consult the Oracle for a recipe.
Izzie has acquired a preference for red wines and sniffed out all the shiraz or cabernets with lots of gongs or very big price tags. Some mob called Sinclair had lots of really good stuff. Who could resist a wine with the name "Jezebel"? That did not live up to its decadent promise - sort of strangely savory - the sort of thing you would have with pizza but their straight cabernet sauvignon and shiraz were tasty little inkpots.
There was a mob there making organic wines and their stuff was good. Must check out the name.
But the big discovery of the day was a cute little Italian stall with lots of olives, pesto, marinated peppers, mushrooms and cheeeese. Izzie loves cheese. Their parmesan was particularly good.
The general impression was that all the stuff on the stalls was supposed to be locally produced but they had some of this parmesan for sale and Iz peeked at the label. It was made in New Zealand. Nasty cheats and sneaks indeed. But it was only $$13 per kilo so Iz bought a few hundred grams today and yesterday.
Izzie asked these folks if it was the same price in their shop and where their shop was. Turns out that Izzie passes it on the bus every time she visits St Brutus. Often did see that Italian deli and says, must make an effort to get there one day. So now Iz has got just the excuse she needs especially as parmesan cheese is usually about $$17 plus a kilo and more if you insist on Italian stuff like Grana Padana. Reggiano is so damned expensive that Iz only tried it once and while liking it, did not consider it twice as good as its nearest rival.
But the newest thing today was one of the Chinese stalls with lots of Malaysian satays and stuff had added something to their collection that was not there yesterday. Mooncakes. Izzie has always wanted to try these buggers but they are rather expensive. And they are only available once a year. Last two time Iz seen them was in September but it seems that the particular moon festival concerned must be for the full moon on Monday. Iz has requested the day off work and sunny weather is forecast so it looks like we will be having our first decent moonshine picnic since April this year.
But Iz has been so busy drooling over munchies, forgot to mention how utterly drab and dreary this new building is. Some folks have described it as a hayshed and others as a slater (those curly garden bugs) To Iz it looks like some sort of oversize warehouse. But inside things just got worse. The carpets are either a muddy grey shade of purple, brown or just plain grey. The toilets all have dark grey doors and even the floors are grey. It is just so damned depressing. Looks like the work of some boring Bauhaus architect from East Berlin.
Even the painting specially commissioned for the main entrance which looked really cool when they showed it in the papers last year amidst a storm of controversy because lots of people said it was outrageous for the government to pay an artist $$180,000 for a picture of a SNAKE! - it too looked less brown, black and beige like it had in the photos and more like the Dementors had drifted by and sprayed yet more grey all over it.
We had the white elephant which was the bus station which was built about 20 years ago and it looks like a very large and bright botanical gardens greenhouse. It is very pretty but hardly anyone uses it except to transfer to other buses. It is too far from the town centre to walk to and from there. Now the grey elephant has been built right next door. Iz was thinking - all we need now is a black one but it just occured to the Iz that maybe the snakie would be perfectly suited for that job.*Slinks off to Google in search of serpentses*
