Date: 20 Aug 92 07:01:42 GMT
From: osborn@socs.uts.edu.au (Tom Osborn)
Newsgroups: aus.culture.ultimo
Subject: News NOT received at UTS


It would appear that a number of miscreants have been posting vaguely worded
flames about my comments on Newtown Cafes. Unfortunately, this news has been
systematically ignored by anything loosely considered to be a computer at UTS.

Thus I have been kept in the dark... ...well, until the last few minutes...

gabrielh@tplrd.tpl.oz.au  appears to think I consider Cafe Troppo to be a cafe.
It is in fact an offshoot of a minor disaster area from Surry Hills (now
defunct) and frightfully pathetic. Troppo is NOT ALONE is failing to reach
a standard of desirability, but let's not dwell on the exceptions:

There are many fine Cafes in Glebe which do not rip off humans. Of course
they have to deal with Sydney Uni U/grads and the flock of happy-dolphins
and Rudolph Steiner pretenders and envy driven dorks and dork-ettes, but
that, my dear Gabby, is a problem with the suburb, not with the Cafes.

One might try Lolita's, or Nikki's, or The Lilac Cafe, or a host of pleasant,
but not disgusting establishments in between. I find, however, that Cafe
Otto has a lot to answer for, Troppo is Floppo, and worst is probably that
wanky establishment called Badde Manors (clearly the result of a drug induced
party where someone said "I've just had this scatheingly brilliant idea to
make lots of money out of stupid pretender wannabes")...

The night I left 'Notes for the Chef' in Cafe Otto had one humorous and
desirable consequence: they changed the way they prepared food - no small
hiccup, I listed about twelve defects - ten were fixed the next time someone
took me there.


Then there was the esteemed Monsieur Grant McAuliffe, who loves Thai food
and refuses me the right to call people "wankers". He even goes so far as
to enquire "What's your problem Tom?" - which is, of course, the off-handed
beginners way of assuming the moral high-ground. 

Unfortunately, such gratuitous pomposity in the name of some kind of pseudo-
egalitarianism is not all that impressive, even in a forum which was 
specifically conceived to examine and discuss the diversity of inner-city
life. So, what about:

>>AND: Newtown cafes - over priced, dirty, poor food, ample occupancy with
>>pretenders and wannabes, HIGH DEMAND, sub-cosmopolitan. Glebe cafes are
>>200% better. And Ultimo cafes (eg, Snackattack) are incomparable.

Grant enquires (provocatively, rhetorically, self-righteously, ...):

>When did you become an arbiter of of good taste and social acceptability? 

Apart from the obvious truth of my assertions (take a look some time), I
don't see what my comments have to do with taste, or acceptability. *I*
have been known to eat in Newtown. *I* have been known to eat in Glebe,
(and Naples, and Watts, and Crystal Palace, and Lucas Heights), and the
plethora of people I find in all cafes, and restaurants normally includes
a few weird ones. Unfortunately, Newtown seems to contain more than it's
share of envy-driven pretenders with more than a fair share of loud, but
inane things to say, and less than a sagacious concern for their stomachs.

As far as Glebe Cafes being 200% better, that isn't a HIGH recommendation,
merely a less low one. 

>I think you're playing with YOURSELF a bit too much.

How much is too much?
Newsgroups: aus.culture.ultimo