MAN ABOUT TOWN

You'll have noticed I've been lying low, blogwise, for the last week or so. Partially it's recovery from the Comedy Festival, which means A) I've not been going out much or getting up to anything really blogworthy in the last seven or so days, and B) what has been going on, such as my flatmate buying his first apartment, I've either been too tired to blog about or it just hasn't been that exciting, eg fuelling my nostalgic spirit by catching up on old episodes of Doctor Who from the Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee eras. Talk about painting the town red! On top of all that, my preoccupation with comedy and the general chaos of my life meant that last week the phone was cut off at home, as I hadn't had time to pay the bill, and consequently I also lost my internet connection. Ack! It's like losing part of your brain! I hadn't realised just how often and how useful the net was until my access to it was suddenly terminated. Hopefully when I get home fro...

How about you?

I need your help. Not in a 'please may I have one of your kidneys' kind of way. Not even in a 'could you write a letter of support to the government for me?' way. No, I just need your advice. Quite soon, on July 6, I turn 40. It's something that both delights and surprises me. Delights because quite frankly, there have been times in my life (primary school in the years when a nuclear holocaust seemed imminent; adolescence when suicide seemed like an option; as a hell-raising 20-something) that I never thought I'd make it this far. Surprised because I don't feel on the verge of 40. I know I certainly don't act 40; not by the standards of previous generations at any rate (by my age my parents already had two teenage children) or even in comparison to most of my peers, who by and large are tucked into bed and sound asleep at the times I'm still out and about and painting the town hot pink. All that's besides the point, however. What the fuck am I ...

Finished work last night and went out for a quick Vietnamese meal in the city before embarking on a brief absinthe tour of two Melbourne bars, The Toff in Town and Cookie , which helpfully are in the same building as one another. (As an aside, the links above are to Age reviews of the bars; and really, they should take their photos at night, as the daylight photos on the paper's website are utterly lacking in atmosphere). The Toff had a very limited range of brands on offer; only four, one of which was the utterly vile Green Fairy brand, which all good absintheurs should avoid like the plague. The brand I eventually chose, which I hadn't tried before, was Jacques Senaux Blue , from Spain (80% proof). Because I always drink my absinthe with sugar and water in the traditional fashion (although most places insist on setting the sugar alight, which is flamboyant, whereas actually the water should be slowly dripped onto the sugar until it dissolves - incidentally, the only plac...